Native Lamme Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.

Well Come, well come, well come, well come, come, Welcome.

Welcome home, guys, it is time for our first mini pod with our new co hosts Bacari Sellers and So if you listen to this week's episode, we got into something.

Bacari, you were making the point that black men find it hard to breathe amidst Black girl magic.

I don't want to misquote you.

I'm gonna give you a chance.

I want to give you a chance.

But we want to hit that topic because I do want to offer you the chance for some clarity and have a quick discussion.

But we're also going to get to another topic that touches on black conferences, black businesses and how we judge them, perhaps unfairly.

But before we get into that conversation, I did want to revisit this idea that black men can't breathe.

I think it's a you know, we were having a conversation about stephen A.

Smith and the transition and how that relates to like the thought, and you know, one of the things we were saying is that, you know, we haven't had folesome wholesome conversations around black men from a policy perspective that requires listening to them.

And the other thing is and something I hear often which I you know, in the spaces that I'm in, is in this era of black girl magic, is their space for black men to breathe and lead.

And there is this theory that is pervasive.

I think that and I know my friend Andrew probably will say it ain't rooted in nothing, and that also may have some validity.

I just don't want to discount the thought that during this period where we've seen this attention and most of it is earned attention on black women, their success, their educational achievement, entrepreneurial success, etc.

Black men are trying to figure out their place in our communities and once what once was a place of leading your household and leading your communities and being able to be that voice and be able to speak out.

There are many people wondering if that role is still there or if their voice has to shrink during this era of uplift.

Now.

I know the quick response that people will say is, oh, well, they can coexist like there's no there's nobody pushing you out.

And you know, I think that I think that the response would be that sometimes sometimes that it is so loud, not not literally loud, but it's so loud as we praise as we should that many times we feel as if our accomplishments, our successes, or even more importantly, our trials and tribulations go unnoticed, and that pushes us further in the back of our homes and further in the back of our communities.

And I think that's reflective of some of the things you see.

What what does it being noticed look like?

Like?

What is the thing that we should do?

Because I think a lot of us celebrate each other.

Angela says often we've all kind of adopted it, but I think you were the first to say, like we all we got.

Sometimes that means she definitely thinks I didn't agree that.

Okay, Well I gave her.

I gave that's like a bath, that's like a team thing, you know.

Okay, in the context of this conversation, I gave Angela credit for it, but it was a popular saying.

But I think in the context that we've said it, sometimes it's amongst our you know, girl group of machetes.

We all we got, And I've asked other people like, but we ain't all you got, like you have a wonderful, doting husband or wonderful partner.

And the feedback I've gotten from women is yeah, but it's not like the love I experience with you guys, Like, yes, my husband is amazing, I love him.

But if I step out with you all, y'all notice my shoes, my fit, my earrings, like from head to toe.

The love we give each other is not a diss to black men, but it is something beautiful that we experience.

I wonder why in that space would black men feel crowded out and and take that as though we don't need very much our counterparts, very much, our companions to be leaders, to be at our side and to help confront everything that we're going through.

Now, people naturally ask the question, is that neat there?

I mean we're still having Yes, I mean, but that mean I hear you and I respect that.

That's why we're friends, right, we value that need, we hear those things.

But I also think that it's just it's about we're still I mean, we really, we really are trying to have conversations and particularly much black men about defining masculinity.

We're trying to make sure that we can define masculinity without one being toxic or two ushering a new era of patriarchy.

Right.

I mean that is a that's a real delicate, delicate interesting because you want to you want to say that, Look, I'm the head of my household, right, I lead my household.

I am I want to be an example for my wife and my children in my household.

But I'm also like, I'm not I'm not confined to these pre existing, antiquated you know, uh gender.

Yeah, you want to answer examples of that.

You all talked about doing drop off and pick up.

With your kids, and right exactly, and I brush air real well, and so so uh you know, I think, but we're redefining those roles.

And because we like to do drop off and pick up, and because I like the I like to say I do the really good shopping for my kids at H and M and you know, baby gap and all of that stuff.

I like, I like sayy to look fly, and I you know, I don't want the mayor mismatch athletic brands and stuff like.

I think that's like redefining masculinity.

But we're having those serious discussions and I think that there are there are times, particularly over the past decade, where we've been so consumed with and I think Black girl Magic is cheapening it, but we've been so consumed with having conversations about a specific gender and their success in a particular arena that many times, many men, for whatever reason that may be, feel left out of that conversation.

And I'm just saying, I'm saying it's there.

I feel frustrated by that, and it's it's not because I don't think it's valid.

I'm frustrated that it is a valid right, and I'm frustrated about the wedge issue it has become for our people.

And so I actually don't feel like it's like it's a fake thing.

It's not real.

I've heard it so much, and I would say arguably it's not even just over the last decade, because I can.

I can.

I know like most of the men that I've dated have said that I'm intimidating, and it's like, what is intimidating about me?

Or I've been told even by Andrew's best friend, that I was emasculating in some way, And for me, I grew up in the house.

I don't want to numbers.

Matt, but I feel like it's the thing I mean, not Andrew updated Andrew's best friend back in the day.

But I think that the thing that is frustrating is I grew up in a space my dad is more feminist than me, So I grew up in a space where I was constantly celebrated, where I was urged to share my opinion.

Tiff has heard how we talk in some ways has some discomfort with the way that I'll talk to my dad like a here now I get chin checked too.

Sometimes he's like, I'm the father, okay, but I've never changed my tone to speak to a man.

Maybe that wasn't the best teaching, but that is my truth.

I have never thought that my thriving means that you have to suffer or that you can't win.

I reject the scarcity mindset for the whole of our community, and I just am so frustrated that we can't all do that together.

And I think that that is the biggest point that you've made, because I think the I think the sun is bright enough, and I think that I would never want any woman in my life to dim their lights by any stretch.

I mean We've worked too hard to help uplift, to get it to this point, to brighten it, to shine it.

Please God, never say to dim your life.

I also think that there are certain men in our community who have been toiling in the vineyards.

Who are the city workers, who are the drive the trucks, who you know, help our lives go.

Who are the pas, who are the dental assistants, who are the teachers assistants.

Even a young man right now at Claflin or FAM who are in call me mister or Clemson, you know who are toiling in this vineyard, or the engineers at FAM or North Carolina ante, whatever it may be.

That while we're saying don't dim your light, we're also saying that there must be a concerted effort.

There has to be a concerted effort to at least listen or uplift black men as well.

Well.

Good contribution.

I think this conversation is ongoing because I definitely think there's a lot of men who are feeling pain right now, and sometimes their pain comes off as hatred towards us as black women.

And I find that hurtful, and I find it in ways that it has crossed over into our politics.

Yeah, it's like I'm gonna penalize all of us because I'm mad at you and we don't even know what where the anger is stemming.

Yeah, Like you know, Andrew, I hate that you're silent in this conversation because it is.

I could direct listeners back to episodes we've had it.

Well, I knew here, so you should have it.

So so I think people have turned.

Was.

I hate that you're silent in this conversation because I think that people could end up watching this back and saying, see, this is exactly what I mean.

There's a conversation about how black men fill in the ethos, and a black man was silenced on a platform and that I just want to be clear that that's not.

It's the conversation is.

I think it's exhausting, and I also think it is self fulfilling.

You said that, so transparency for our viewers.

Andrew did not want to talk about this.

Yeah, I don't mind that's talking.

Yeah, but the three of us like proceeded with the conversation.

But I didn't understand what you were saying.

When you were saying self fulfilling, what that means.

I think for some reason it is said enough from black women.

Some that.

Either out of jealousy or that a man is reacting the way he's reacting in response to the black woman, And sometimes a man is reacting the way he's acting with no consideration for the black women, and that their feelings can be justified, can be real, can be hard come by without them being in contrast to your celebration.

I don't experience that.

I just personally do not experience a rejection of any black woman in my life because of her success.

The men in my life don't measure whether or not they're worth anything by whether or not their woman is exalted more mm hmmm.

I think it is more complex and more nuanced.

And although it may make them feel good to believe that there's an army of men who are organized exclusively against black women, I don't.

I don't find that to be the case.

What am I so?

I don't.

I mean, I don't want to offend men, and I.

Don't know we're saying the same thing.

In some ways.

In some ways you are.

But I do think there is a slither of black men who are the opposite of you, Andrew, and.

There's going to be that.

I mean We're not a monolith, so there is going to be that in the infant But I think, piggybacking on Andrew's point slightly, I think that that when sometimes the response that we have two black women is not because of black women, and I think that I think that one of the things that you said, Tiffany was I think that, you know, black men take it out on us because of and I think what Andrew and I are saying is that sometimes it's just hard and maybe we're maybe we're not equipped enough at that particular moment to manage expectation, emotion, all of those things, and the brunt of that is taken out on our partner we live in highly segregated communities or the people we interact with on a daily basis, however.

Which is probably true in white households, we might conclude, and the story emanating from that isn't that white men hate white women, correct or that they respond this way because they're jealous of their white wives.

Correct.

But any reaction that we might have that is not the one that is expected by the black woman on the opposing on the opposite you, literally opposite you, is that we're that way because they're winning.

Yeah, And that's my point is that I don't.

I don't, I don't care not, I don't care.

I uplift your winning.

I appreciate your winning, but I also there also has to be space for me.

There does have to be space for you.

And by the way that you would, you would expect there to be space for you even if she wasn't uplifted and in celebration moment, just as she would expect that business be space for her.

I was running for governor, I was being mayor, I was you know, I.

Did not mean me individually.

What you're saying.

Is is that I'm doing all of those things and I'm not coming home with the expectation that you're going to lift me up on every leaning side and make me feel like I'm the star and I hung it too.

Relationships are complex, There's a lot that goes into them.

People as individuals are complex, and I just wish that we could respect the complexity, the complexity of the individual without making it a monolith for the community.

Remember that, yeah, and that we can be set in those expectations because we're human.

As a human being, I want to be lifted up as a human being.

I want to be the thing that my children aspire towards.

I want I want them to think I hung the sun in the moment, but I want them to think they're Mama hung it too.

Yeah that's so good, Andrew.

I'm really happy that you gave that context because I think the people I'm focusing on maybe don't even deserve this level of attention we're giving them because what you're saying is no, like, my existence is not in response to you.

It's I just I fully.

Get also acknowledgement of a human need.

Yes, that is very individual.

Yeah, but we understand it as the collective.

To those people that you're talking about, we don't need to give breath to or space to.

I mean, I hear them, but they have an audience because we haven't listened to the people that Andrew and I maybe imperfectly are trying to describe.

Yeah.

I also think that there's something in there in terms of accountability for black women, because part of what I heard from Andrew is why does it even have to be set up that way that it's a versus right that I'm because you are being celebrated in your winning, it doesn't mean that I'm hating on you because I'm at a low point or because I have some human needs, you know.

So I also think there is some accountability for us to in denying the existence of the story, not amplifying the story, not amplifying like that's not what it is, industry.

Self fulfilling.

Keep putting that out there.

There are gonna be women who experience toxic men in their lives and may choose this as a cheap way to explain their behavior.

It's an off ramp, and I just think it's more complicated than that.

It requires more of us than that, And I almost feel victimized by it.

Not victimized, but I feel like we're the ire of the folks who who want that narrative to be the most pejorative narrative within our community.

They want the whole last election with Kamala Harris as our nominee.

We know that they have these China and foreign agents, have Russian agents.

They are studying us, They are looking at us.

They want to know what creates ciphers within our community.

And I'm not saying, please know, I'm not saying it's being generated by them and that it doesn't exist.

No, what they take is what's real and exacerbate, They magnify it, they make it, they make it the experience of all of us, even if it's ten percent of us or so.

I'm not to say there are toxic people out there.

I believe Steven, if it's one of them, I believe he probably has an abject rejection of white black women's being being successful, being raised as successful.

I don't know the man.

I can only read what I can read from him, which is why you got so much heat for us?

And I don't ever see you have heat for any But.

Why is the weird part about that is I don't see you anywhere.

I don't see you in I don't see you trying to trying to meet the need of people that you are very quick to.

Castigate, vilified, whatever that is.

Like, you ain't in the streets, right and you.

Don't have to be in the streets to do it.

You could be just just loving God, Daddy, this, this, that and a third or another, or just be you know what, proud to see us represented.

I think that what I was attempting to say to kind of put a pin in it is that I think that for a long period of time.

There are a lot of needs of black men that go unspoken because we're taught and condition to not speak them.

And for better or worse, those needs go unspoken, they're not communicated, whether that directly or indirectly, and those things manifest and they permeate a trauma where they display a trauma, and that trauma's met with the stiff response, and nobody really ever asked the question what's wrong, A.

Stiff response that oftentimes I think gets curated by this narrative and logic communities like oh you mad at me because I thought about that thing or whatever about it's that, you know what, We used to have connection when I came home, and if you could read that something was off, you kind of followed up.

To figure it out.

And I did the same because I know you that well.

And now my need for your follow up is interpreted as my rejection of your good day, yes, rather than that's the fact that I'm some play.

This is on a whole other plane and we used to be connected in that way, and so and.

That's a community.

Now, that's a community analysis, even as much as it could be.

I mean it to be, yes, harbinger for what's happening.

More broadly, how do we fix it?

Yeah, stop perpetuating a negative, a narrative that doesn't represent all of us, and maybe interrogate the narrative more deeply.

It's at a humor, at a more human level that I think in reflect.

I think, I think the conversations that we're having amongst each other are okay, But the conversations you all have amongst yourselves and we have amongst us are even more important and more valuable.

Agreed, which also means we have to throw off the yoke of some of that stuff.

And we try.

I mean, we have them, but their surface or they're quick, or they're non existent.

Yeah, but we have to be willing to do that, just as much as you all have to be willing to go.

And I believe that, by the way, I believe the narrative is as proliferative with black men as it is with black women.

I think it's intended to be that way.

I think there are factors in motion to keep that going, so that we decide where each other enemies.

And if you were, if you were our opponents, what I wouldn't think of a better place to.

Go than there to attack our loves.

I could do a better place.

Yeah, y'all, yes, I was going to ask you or do we want to say we should stop this one and go to another one?

If okay, well let's I do want to quickly get to this because this is something Angela brought up.

So do you want to frame this?

We let's close this one.

Oh never mind, then guys, yeah, we're going to close this out.

But before we closed it out, I do just want to say thank you to Andrew and Bakari for your openness vulnerability.

It was learning for me and humbling for both.

The things goes both ways, right.

The appreciation is that y'all can bring yourselves fully to the conversation through your own lived experience.

You can even in the moment say you know what, I might be measuring this by a couple of bad experiences that might inflate the size of that.

And we can also be honest enough to say, you ain't making it up.

This exists.

Let's just check how we think, how proliferated we think this.

And also don't The compliment I have for you all is allowing me to make a comment like that, that's a big comment about a discussion that's not had often and allowing the space for it to breathe sure, and the new one A lot of people with the news because a lot of people like man and then you start fighting back at each other's which is where people want us to be.

This show.

Welcome home, y'all.

Thank you guys for tuning in, and remember you can catch our mini pods every Friday.

Main episodes drop every Thursday.

If you like what you thought, please share it, like, subscribe and tell it, tell a friend.

I also would love to hear from our viewers to hear their thoughts on this conversation.

You know what you learned, what your experiences are, and I'm sure there is something that will revisit in the future.

So Welcome Home.

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