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