How interracial relationships are our power interview

[Music]

so i want to

i want to talk about um identities and i

didn’t share this with you initially but

this is also a personal act of mine

uh so i have a daughter who’s 20 uh aka

olivia okay the sugar bear

she’s a quarter romanian a quarter

russian ethiopian and african-american

with

jewish buddhist coptic and southern

baptist roots

and we should have gotten her a

therapist uh when she was born

yes we’ve given her a lot to work with

and yet uh when i think about you

perhaps we haven’t so may i read some of

your identities

sure um activist

the adopted kid afro brazilian brazilian

um latina latinx black artist

therapist child of hip-hop party

promoter transracial adoptee

performer futurist upon traveling back

to

brazil you were like oh snap i’m

actually american

[Laughter]

so i say i haven’t given the sugar bear

a lot to work with but of all those

identities

which of those that have really kind of

shaped who you are

as a woman as a scholar as an activist

you know which of those identities

no one identity um so i can’t see all of

you

it’s weird but i’m gonna keep looking

and hopefully it looks okay

um because i know you’re out there um

no one identity has shaped who i am and

i think that that

is the goal of my work

and my life um is to prove that um to

everybody

that there is no one part of ourselves

um there’s just

a lot of pieces of ourselves yeah um can

i ask perhaps

um to say what has been like um a

transracial adoptee or can you say more

about what that is

yeah um so

i didn’t want to give this particular

person like play when

this interview was going on and my my

partner and i joked that we would call

it

dolazalian but if you remember who that

dolezalian person is who was using the

word transracial

um it upset a lot of adoptees because

that’s

like our word that we’ve been using for

a very long time

to talk about being raised in families

where

uh your your parents are a different

race than you are

um and so that’s really what it means

um you know i’ve been really interested

in the idea of space

and i used to be terrified by it also

and um and then i realized this planet

is in space

and yeah it was like

i was like oh we’re space travelers yeah

we are um

and we want to put things on mars and on

other planets and yet we haven’t gotten

the space between us right and so

when you think about embodying an

interracial relationship

just within you um can you say more

about

the space between all kinds of people

and what’s the work that

you do needs to be done

everything that i like to think about is

centered on relationship because

in our bodies you know there’s a lot

happening right

because we are stardust and clay as

lucille clifton would put it

and because of that

when i first you know sort of thought

about my own identity

you know you think about it in

relationship to everybody you’re around

your family

your friends when you’re a child you

know all of those kinds of things

but you know when i really had to sit

and name myself and really think about

that

you know there’s so that battle exists

very much within our own bodies

as well and i think that for people who

are part of trans-racial families

people who are multiracial biracial um

you know and you know arguably that’s a

lot more than care to admit

and i think that that matters greatly

because you know we have been

you know very much our stories have been

really avoided

and from all sides and i think that

they’re avoided because we really do

embody that conflict and that fear

of what it means to truly be in

relationship

with all the complexities of ourselves

and all the complexities of those around

us

and so when people see people who they

can’t identify

quickly you know and i’m sure people in

the audience can relate to you know what

are you

um you know just very personal very

vulnerable questions very quickly

um and that’s because people are afraid

you know and we elicit that in people

and uh experiencing that identity is

complicated to say the least yeah well

what kind of wisdom is afforded to you

to be

in in the midst of whiteness and

blackness and

latino is and all the the things right

like what you must hold a place of

wisdom about

identity and how that works right

because you’re seeing it from many

different perspectives and

um and maybe a better offering is um

how you think about love so

sort of to the first point i think that

i see the world first as a black woman i

think

and i think that that has it has been my

salvation that part of me

and those people black women

um and anybody who identifies

uh as a black femme

has influenced me the most greatly

because that’s what has challenged me

and the people who have challenged me to

be my most authentic self

and my whole self and so

i think that that needs you know uh

recognized so thank you

all the black women all over the world

thank you very much yes

um all of you should be thanking black

women all over the world

we should probably get a bigger applause

than that i think

um yeah and i mean that i mean that very

sincerely um but it is the intersections

of that and

and being aware of those intersections

that has allowed me to move throughout

the world

in different ways and i think that the

the question is sort of split in two in

a lot of ways because you are

expected to um you know sort of pick

sides and we’ve heard these kinds of

ideas which of course are

are toxic for so many reasons and um you

know but we

are you know intersections you know of

lots of things

um and i you know i have

you know kimberly crenshaw who talked

about intersectionality to thank for

helping me to understand that and i have

plenty of other incredible

uh people to thank for helping me to

understand

all of those complexities that exist but

but the challenging part is really to

own it and i think that that’s where

the love part comes in because i’m not

sure

how we can fully learn to love ourselves

if we’re not asking these kinds of

challenging questions

you know when we think about who’s

othered

and right now i mean i’m up here because

i’m othered i’m up here because i’m

complicated and and that’s why i’ve been

invited here

and that’s why i do everything that i do

but

i think that it’s really important that

we challenge these ideas of otherness

and think about

how we are helping people to belong and

not belong from a place

you know in in our industry we call it

like trauma porn not like

not from a place where we’re like wow

look at all the things these people have

gone through

and you know where they are but really

thinking about it as

every single one of us every single

person here every single person that

we’ll interact with for the rest of our

lives

is complicated too and if we’re going to

think about belonging and who’s

belonging we need to think about

who’s othering and when that

question about love pops up for me and i

can’t remember

the particular quote so forgive me but

there is something that bell hook said

years ago in a book

um that she wrote all about love that

talked about

you know love saving you love can only

be your salvation if you want

saved if you want it and so i

i think that that for me personally has

really been

huge you know like in thinking about do

i want

do i want it and a lot of times i don’t

i’m scared

to death to want to love myself and to

love the people around me it’s very

scary

um and i think a lot of us are scared

which is why we don’t challenge each

other and we don’t ask the questions in

between

the lines and in between the spaces um

and we objectify

and fetishize um each other uh

particularly multiracial

uh people and you know i think that

challenging each other and asking those

questions to ourselves first

is really how we can start to

move humanity

forward and i think that humanity i mean

it’s going to stay

it’s always stayed black people are

still here so humanity has always been

here um but

you know it gets complicated from there

i suppose

um can i read a quote from our lord lord

and savior

that would be audrey lord

westing ourselves fighting the truths

between us

could you repeat that for me yeah

wasting ourselves

fighting the truths between us and you

talk about a lot of times

um this kind of holding multiple truths

yes um can you say more about that yeah

i think the greatest

lesson that i learned um is that two

things can be true at one time

it’s like the one thing that nobody

wants to um sort of own but it is so

it’s like the best thing that ever

happened to me

and i say it to myself all the time as a

reminder

you know that you know

i’m very critical of myself and i’m sure

there are people in the audience who can

relate to

to that experience um and most of us are

critical

of ourselves you know because we’ve been

traumatized or taught to

to be this way um to survive and

you know i think that we are constantly

battling these truths

within us right and and think you know

thank our

our lord lord thank you lord lord um

for for giving us this great gift of

helping us to

really see ourselves and others right as

these complicated uh

pieces most of the time when people are

fighting or arguing

or you know on a small level and also

when we’re talking about much larger

levels and even when we’re talking about

any intersections of oppression

you know patriarchy um well all about

you know white supremacist capitalist

patriarchy any of those intersections

um all of those intersections are really

there um at the same time and so none of

us are coming in contact

you know as one part of ourselves you

know at any time unless we

choose to do that you know unless we’re

making a conscious effort because

usually because somebody is oppressing

us and we’re unaware of it

to change pieces of who we are before we

we enter those spaces

and so really trying to understand that

and navigate

you know myself first and how i’m

entering places and spaces

um and what does that exist you know

what is that space between who i

am engaging with whoever it is um

that may or may be making me think about

holding pieces back about who i am

um and i think that that’s something

that everybody can relate to

you know and i think that we you know in

this in this country this is where we

are so we’ll speak

speak of that you know that’s something

that you know we’re

we’re founded on sort of this this

denial this very very great

denial and um and that when i think of

what audrey lord said there

that’s the denial piece and that’s

what’s gonna not kill me but i’ll kill

whoever’s denying so i don’t know

um well i have a question because you

talk about creativity

and what does creativity have to do with

building more compassionate

loving just worlds

so i think of creativity as the opposite

of

oppression um

creativity is what gets us

curious and oppression seeks to

stomp that space out of us

and and and i really want people to take

this idea when i’m saying these large

words

like oppression etc etc i am talking

about

you you know i’m talking about the

things that we do

together in moments face to face

where we aren’t allowing each other to

be our whole selves so please don’t you

know externalize

externalize this because i think that it

is something that sits very deep within

all of us and we all have the capability

of doing that

um hurting each other in that way and

that and that’s what makes me think of

children because often when we think of

creativity we think of children right

who gets to be creative what children

get to be creative what does that look

like

um and all of the ways that we stomp

creativity out of them

uh and then we continue to stomp that

creativity out every year that we you

know get older and then here we are

um and so i think of um allowing people

to be creative which means thinking

which means asking hard questions which

means

acknowledging that there’s two things

that are true at the same time

you know like i’m black and i’m

brazilian and i’m latina right and and

all of these things and allowing people

to come into every space

as that um is is really what

our creativity can allow us to do

but if we do not allow or believe that

we are creative

um at all then chances are we’re

probably stomping that out of others

and ourselves as well all right um

i want to um as we close out this

conversation

offer you something about time because

i’m really fascinated by time and the

fact that we

live in such small increments in

relation to the history of the universe

right which is 13.8 billion years old

and you know it took it yeah um

and the grand canyon uh it took 1.8

billion years to build it or to for it

to be created and i think i’ve tried to

do too

much with my life that’s how i feel i’m

just sitting here thinking about all the

things i didn’t say

well let me let me tell you about time

because at best

we might have thirty thousand days and i

looked at

your birthday which is uh may 9th 1984.

yeah tourist

i was a sophomore in high school uh you

currently as of today have used 12

993 days well that’s not pressure i

don’t know what it is yeah

and i currently have used 18 801.

so we can talk about time management

which i’m failing at

[Laughter]

um so perhaps you get 30

000 days how might you lead

your life to fully live those 30 the

rest of those days

and what could be the call to action to

this community

to do the work to build a more kind of

loving and compassionate

just world that sees multiple truths and

sees our complexities

well that’s the biggest question ever

but you’re living this is your this is

your life it’s the way you show up in my

life

um

i think that the most important thing

that we can do right now at this moment

is to deeply

reflect you know think about the person

sitting next to you

whether you know them or not and deeply

reflect

on how you’ve kept them safe or how you

have not kept them safe

and how you have allowed people like

them

to live full lives

and what actions have you taken

specifically

towards that vision

and i i think that the key to all of

this

is to not make it about that other

person’s

difference but to remember that you as

an individual belong

and that’s why they belong and that’s

why we need to

all fight for each other and our freedom

and justice

i love you very much did i do it

well thank you and let that be a call to

action to

fully love those near and dear

and strange to you thank you near and

dear and strange

to you indeed

[Applause]

[Music]

you