Mini-Episode: Shock + Innocence

In this week’s mini-episode, Prentis reflects on their time in Minneapolis, what the Epstein files are revealing to us about shame and patriarchy, and how the performance of shock is tied to our own need to be innocent.

Join us over on Patreon to watch the full episode and come explore these themes and topics together -  @Prentishemphill

Transcript

00:07 - 00:14
Hey everybody, welcome to Becoming the People. I'm Prentis Hemphill. This is this week's mini episode. I'm really grateful to be with you all.

00:14 - 00:55
Happy Black History Month. First of all, happy Black History Month for those who observe. A controversial statement from me. is that I actually do not do anything different in Black History Month, though I do, you know, I have appreciation for the holiday, for the month of celebration, of recognition, but I personally don't do much different for Black History Month because I think it boils down to, because

00:55 - 01:36
for me, it's like, when would you not be reading Black history? Would you just not be reading it otherwise? I mean, I get the importance of it because are especially public education and I think educational system at large has intentionally excluded so much black history that people are undereducated and don't know it. People are essentially ignorant around the contributions of black people and don't know it and believe that they have been educated.

01:38 - 02:01
So I understand obviously why it needs to exist and why it's important to infuse, but it's in my own life, in my day-to-day life, it feels odd to me. I don't even, it's not even that it feels odd. I actually do not understand in my own life how to put more of an emphasis on Black history when it gets to be February. I struggle with that.

02:01 - 02:21
I'm like, how do I do it more? Because I'm going to read about Black history, Black futures. I'm going to read Black writers. I'm going to listen to Black music.

02:22 - 02:48
I'm going to hang out with Black people. I'm going to do that in February and March and April and May and also June. And it's going to keep going because that's how my life is organized. And I've never once felt like I'm going to get to the bottom of black history.

02:49 - 03:08
I can stop reading now because I got it all. I got all the messages and all the learning. I've never not once felt like, that's enough. Or like a month could contain that.

03:10 - 03:35
Yeah, so I'm always a little puzzled at what to do with this month. I actually remember when I was in high school, my friend Janine, I think she was writing for the high school newspaper. Janine, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but Janine was writing for the high school newspaper. I remember she sat me down in the cafeteria and asked me, why Black History Month was important to me or what I did.

03:35 - 04:00
I mean, she asked me this question essentially. And I think I gave the exact answer that I just gave right now when I was 15 or 16. And I was like, I think it's important. for people that are just entering into the realm of understanding black contribution are people that are just starting to peel back the layers.

04:01 - 04:14
But for me, it's all the time. It's a lifestyle, if one will. It's a way of being in the world. So I think I said that in the school paper.

04:14 - 04:30
I wish I could find that. I don't think I ever saw the published article. Janine, if you're listening, maybe you can help me out with that. But yeah, this has sort of been a consistent refrain for me, but I do want to say happy Black History Month.

04:30 - 05:06
Happy Black History Month. And if this is the moment, I don't care what race you are, you could be a black person. If this is the month, if this is the opening, if this is the invitation for you to take black history and black contribution more seriously, by all means do, by all means do, by all means celebrate, by all means shed whatever has kept you from really integrating all the gifts that are in black, a part of black history.

05:06 - 05:24
Let this be an invitation to you. Let this month kick off a lifetime, a lifetime of learning. Cause you'll, you'll never stop. I've never been like, I'm out of black geniuses to talk to, to discover.

05:24 - 05:42
I've never had that feeling at all. So yeah, happy Black History Month to everybody who celebrates. I hope that this holiday continues to do its work in the world. And it's on us to really do this work.

05:44 - 06:11
It's really been a hell of a, couple weeks, I think, in the world, and it's been a hell of a couple weeks in my own life. I'm not even sure how yet to talk about this, so I probably won't get too deep into it. I kind of want to bring on somebody to have this conversation with me, but I did spend a little bit of time in Minneapolis. And when I say a little bit, I mean like two and a half days, if that, in Minneapolis.

06:11 - 06:55
And I'm honestly still processing. I'm still processing. what that experience was, what it taught me, what I witnessed, the questions I have, the curiosities I have. I spent time with a friend who is organizing out there and doing response work, care response work, who's also a psychologist and a sweet friend of mine, and a new friend who I made and we We went to an action at the Whipple building where people are currently

06:55 - 07:43
being detained. And it was a Native-led prayer circle rally outside of the building. And I think the thing that I'm processing right now is feeling the continuity in a way, or letting myself feel the continuity of particular kinds of violence, like to hear the stories of Native people, Native men in particular, who were held in that same place and were tried and some executed.

07:45 - 08:26
and to be standing out there while there were currently men. some I'm sure native, certainly all brown, locked up in the same place. That point was made several times. I think the continuity of the violence against indigenous people, the story we're telling now, the violence against migrants, but I don't think it's necessarily or fully maybe a different story than the violence against Native people and the continuation of that.

08:26 - 09:07
So that really struck me. And I'm honestly still letting that settle into my tissues because it was, you know, sometimes you have to face something that feels so hard, like the reality of, the persistence of the story of the attempt to erase, to kill, you have to face that. And that feels really hard. It's not the only story that's happening, but you have to be willing to, I think, sit with the reality of that story.

09:09 - 09:44
So that's really still moving in me. And again, I want to bring somebody into conversation on this podcast that can speak more concretely to the history and more concretely to what's happening in Minneapolis. But I also visited the vigils, really, and also the places where Alex Pretty, Renee Good, and also George Floyd were murdered. And I haven't been back to the city since George Floyd was murdered.

09:44 - 10:19
I hadn't been back there in years. One is just really moving to see how much space the city insists that their lives take up in the story of what Minneapolis is, like the vigils for all of them are pouring out into the street. George Floyd has George Floyd Square, which is like, you know, it's a community memorial to George Floyd. I mean, the community has reshaped the communal space around what happened.

10:20 - 10:33
And, you know, it feels like a kind of portal. It's like a portal opened up here and something tragic happened. Someone was taken here. And you feel that way when you go to the other sites, too.

10:36 - 11:46
Yeah, and I actually don't know what to say about those moments, but I'm just grateful that I got to visit and also at each of those places, you know, I just said a prayer about, that's a prayer in honor of what their last acts meant, what they were about, what they were infused with, what they were embodying, and just a prayer that that not, that that be spread across all of us now, that it be shared across all of us, so. And I also went to Renee Good's public memorial, and wow, I mean, overall, I think what I just wanna say is, There are lessons for all of us in Minneapolis in how the community has responded, how the community has cared for each other because you see people patrolling the streets looking out for each other.

11:46 - 12:22
There are lessons to learn there and Yeah, I just have deep respect for the people who are actively building, that are actively trying to build things in response to what community needs. I just have deep, deep honor. There's so much to learn about how people are doing that. The infrastructure that people built, but also the relational navigation, how they're doing it, who's getting taken care of, all of that.

12:24 - 12:48
There's so much to learn. So just my deep honor and shout out to everybody in Minneapolis who's doing their part, who's doing their part and who's teaching us something and have been teaching us things over the years. So that has been big. And of course, you know, we had last week's episode was with Tarana Burke.

12:49 - 13:09
And We talked about the Epstein files. We talked about the epidemic of childhood sexual abuse. And, you know, we recorded that two months ago. And, you know, this is yet a new day in this case where more files are being released.

13:09 - 13:22
I think videos are being released now. There's a congressional hearing happening now. There's so much going on around the case and so much momentum. And I think the thing that we were talking about is how does this unlock survivor power?

13:22 - 13:49
How does the spell of shame break? for all of us who are survivors of this kind of violence. How do we break out of that and actually understand our deep connection and our deep power to shift what's happening in the world, our deep knowledge of what the world is built on and how we can change it, how we can end this type of abuse. So that conversation is just, if you haven't checked it out, please listen to it.

13:49 - 14:00
Tarana is absolutely brilliant. I think understands a path forward here in a way that a lot of us don't. A lot of us are really activated reading these files. It makes so much sense.

14:00 - 14:06
A lot of us are really activated. We're maybe confronting our own stories for the first time. Things are emerging. Memories are coming forward.

14:07 - 14:19
It reminds us of something else that happened to us. And of course it does, because we are realizing that the entire culture is built on this. So all of these echoes are happening. All of these memories are coming up.

14:19 - 14:49
It's all here. and instead of us practicing what we've been trained to practice. which is to suppress what it is that we feel around this, suppress it for the sake of stability, quote unquote, or those in power, quote unquote, whatever it might be. But this is actually an opportunity to start to flip it on its head, to tell our stories as connectors to each other, as clarifying for how this world actually works.

14:49 - 15:37
Let's turn that on its head as more of this comes out. I think, you know, it's, I wanna talk, I actually wanted to talk about shock today in a way. It kind of connects to this thing that I've been talking about some here of how do we actually turn what we feel into action. You know, when big feelings arise, whatever they might be, we have to understand the social mechanism, the social shaping that shame is, the cap that shame puts on us, the disconnection that shame creates between us and other people.

15:38 - 16:14
That's what it intends to do. And I was talking to my partner about, these Epstein files today, and she was saying, you know, what's wild is that somewhere inside of patriarchy, it really knows this. It knows that in order to function, there's a usefulness in this kind of abuse. In the silencing, in the kind of violent deference it installs inside of us, there's a utility to this kind of abuse to uphold a system like patriarchy.

16:16 - 16:43
And maybe there are some people who consciously understand that. And there's a lot of people that maybe unconsciously understand that. And we talk about power and this being a way of power over. It's like, how does this particular kind of abuse create bit by bit a culture where we will prop up people?

16:43 - 17:05
We might prop up men. We might lie to ourselves about the merits of these particular men, about the superiority of men in particular. We might lie to ourselves because of all these other lies we've had to tell. All these other tricks we've had to play on ourselves.

17:08 - 17:21
And we're starting to understand that it's not a bug, it's a feature. It's not a bug, it's a feature. It is locked in there. It is part of the logic of the whole system.

17:22 - 17:37
And so what do we do when we start to come alive to that, when we start to understand that? Well, first, we're gonna have to contend with this shame. First, we're gonna have to contend with our habit of locking things down. First, we're gonna have to contend with that.

17:38 - 18:04
And we can contend with that by reaching out to each other, by telling these stories, by connecting the dots. And some of us are gonna need help to connect the dots. You know, I know when, and I think maybe I've told Tarana this and maybe on this podcast, but when Me Too first began, I think like a lot of people, for me, I started to look at some stories in my own past a little differently. I started to look at things that had happened just a little bit differently.

18:07 - 18:34
And I started to look at the things that I learned about those incidents or those moments, the way that it kind of shaped me relationally. I started to look at those a little bit differently. Wow, that's where I picked up that habit. That's where I had this kind of misconstrued understanding of my own guilt or boundaries, where I blamed myself, where I felt like accountability wasn't possible, all these other things.

18:35 - 19:01
And I think that's just, that's true for a lot of us. We have to reconfigure, I think as Tarana says in the episode, a lot of us don't even know who we are. So we're gonna have to reconfigure actually who we are based on our understanding. of our own experiences of abuse, but the rampant nature of abuse in this world and the kind of silent acceptance of this abuse.

19:01 - 19:16
You know, we talk about, for example, capitalism has to have poverty embedded in it. It's sort of like patriarchy has to have this kind of abuse. It doesn't work without it. It doesn't make sense without it.

19:16 - 19:36
It doesn't make sense without this kind of shame or pain. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. We're not going to be able to believe in the inherent badness of ourselves.

19:39 - 20:06
As femme people, as women, as queer people, as children, whoever we're talking about is experiencing this abuse, you sort of have to believe in your inherent badness and wrongness. And I think that comes through a lot with the way this abuse happens. Anyways, listen to the episode. I wasn't even going to go off on that today, but it's still obviously very much with me and I want to keep talking about it, y'all.

20:08 - 20:24
I want to keep this conversation going. There's such a numbing, a subduing, obviously a silencing that goes with it. And we've got to keep this open. We've got to keep the conversation going.

20:24 - 20:34
We've got to keep the work happening because this is about all of us. It's about power. It's about all of us. It's about the structure of things.

20:34 - 20:44
It's about the logic that underpins how we build society. So we got to keep talking about it. We have to, we have to keep talking about it. And I commit to that.

20:45 - 21:19
Please join us in the conversation, but I think this is an incredibly, incredibly important thing for us to really start to wake up to and understand. So the other thing I want to talk about this week that's been on my mind is I don't want to get into the images of the Obamas so much. but we can just have that as kind of a reference point. I'm gonna use that story as an example to talk about something that I see us doing a lot.

21:20 - 21:42
And not everyone, obviously, if it ain't you, I ain't talking to you. But this thing around shock and the performance of shock. And I haven't been shocked in a long time. And in a way, I wish I could still be shocked.

21:43 - 22:19
But I'm not shocked at how cruel people can be. I'm not shocked at the existence of people's myths of supremacy or superiority. I'm not shocked that those things exist. I'm not shocked that people would cruelly mock other people for their own gain.

22:24 - 22:39
I don't know how to be shocked by that. And again, we're talking about Black History Month. I don't know how to be shocked by that. I don't know how to be shocked by cruelty when there are multiple genocides happening as I'm talking.

22:41 - 23:05
right now. And we find ways to justify or try to make some sense of that. I don't feel shocked when, you know, you look at the congressional hearings that are happening today. I don't know how to feel shock exactly.

23:05 - 23:34
But I know I have engaged with people and I see people online say, I can't believe this is happening. Or people, my favorite one is like, this is 2026, y'all. I really like when people say this is whatever year it is, as a way of expressing their absolute disbelief that something is happening. Because what does that have to do with anything?

23:35 - 23:43
This is 2026. This is 2025. This is 2013. You know what I'm saying?

23:44 - 23:53
This is 1963. This is 1950. This is 1925. This is 1933.

23:54 - 24:03
This is 1945. This is 1876. This is 1820. Who cares?

24:08 - 24:29
Who cares when it is? It's always now. It's always now. It's always a time when people can use whatever, whatever story they want to tell to create divisiveness, to create human hierarchies in order to gain.

24:31 - 24:44
It's always that time. It's never not been that time. And until we learn that lesson, it will still be that time. And I bet even after we learn the lesson, it's still gonna try to pop up again.

24:48 - 25:04
It's, yeah. People say, it's 2026. We don't do that. It always reminds me, you know, growing up and I would say, you know, I'm having this experience or this thing is happening and people would say, Oh, well, I've never knew that person to do that.

25:05 - 25:36
I've never heard them say that. Oh, that can't be true. They have a good heart. It's like this kind of performative shock, this performance of being shocked or appalled or whatever that might be, the clutching my pearls, that emotiveness, that performance, whatever that might be, is so perplexing to me.

25:37 - 26:12
It seems to be what happens when there's an uncomfortable disruption to how people perceive themselves in the world, but there's a lack of commitment to understand it or do anything about it. The shock that performance is a little bit of a stand in. It's like, oh, I care, but I'm definitely not going to do anything about it. Ooh, I want you to think I'm a good person, but I'm not invested deeply in this.

26:13 - 26:29
Or ooh, I'm going to minimize this so I can maintain my sense or reassert my own authority here. I don't have that perception. And I refuse to interrogate the perception I have. I refuse to consider your perception.

26:29 - 27:01
There's a little bit of a dismissal in there. And I, you know, I'm at this point where I'm like, we can't actually afford to keep up these kinds of stunts. We can't actually afford these kinds of performances. This fake shit.

27:05 - 27:27
And people can say, look, I'm uncomfortable by this and I don't know what to do. Or this feels like a step too far for me. And then we'd have to engage of why is this a step too far? Why is this example a step too far for you?

27:27 - 27:53
And, you know, we've known. We've known, there's no mystery to the, I mean, there's a whole white nationalist motif at the top of this country. And maybe people find it distasteful. I think it has a little bit of that like, You know, we don't do that in here.

27:53 - 28:03
We want it done. We want those things. We want the benefits of a racist system. We believe these things, but we have decorum.

28:06 - 28:33
We don't share images like this. We don't do things like this, but we want the same end result. I think a lot of this boils down to innocence. And in a way, I think there's probably a really smart way to tie this all to the childhood sexual abuse that we're seeing throughout our country, throughout our society, throughout the halls of so-called power.

28:35 - 29:08
But this innocence that we seem to be obsessed with, at least in this society, and I'm sure in other places too, but this sense of purity The sense that we can be good, good people, nice people. I am deeply untrusting of people who are habitually nice. I always say I'm not nice. I am not nice.

29:09 - 29:46
I'm kind. And sometimes I'm not that. I try to be kind, I try to be warm, I try to be generous, but I'm a human being. And a lot of us can't stomach that we don't get to go through this life being all good, that we are not good, that we're not good or bad, that we are complex, we're full of contradictions.

29:47 - 30:16
We're full of histories, things that we've tried, things that we've done, mistakes that we've made, things that we're hiding from ourselves, unconscious material, things that we're conscious and aware of, apologies that we haven't given, ways that we've not been in our integrity and ways that we absolutely are in our integrity, ways that we are congruent and easeful with something, a lesson we've learned. We are all those things at once. And a lot of us want to be good.

30:17 - 30:36
We want to be innocent. We want somebody to see us and see no flaws. I don't think you can trust somebody that doesn't have any flaws. Because that person is working overtime to hide everything.

30:40 - 30:58
They're working overtime to hide it all. And I know we all struggle with this. I struggle with this myself. Like, how do I reveal my flaws and what I don't understand and where I contradict myself, where I'm unsure, where I don't know, where I'm still developing.

31:01 - 31:26
But this desire to be innocent and this desire for innocence to exist, is a real tricky one. And a lot of us will do a lot of things. We'll lie to ourselves, we'll lie to each other to come closer to this idea of innocence. To come closer to being clean or absolved, absolved of things that we have to look at.

31:27 - 31:50
Things that we've done. I've written about this before and it's one of the pieces that people speak to me about most often. I've written about guilt and innocence Because I think it's one of the myths we have to really let go of. We have to really let go of innocence so that we can actually meet ourselves, meet each other.

31:51 - 32:05
We have to let go of these binaries of good and bad so we can actually struggle and grow with and love each other. It's keeping us from actually knowing each other. I'm good, you're bad. You're bad, you're badder.

32:07 - 32:18
or this person is all good. Maybe that's that celebrity worship. I make this person all good. So I can be bad or not good enough or let off the hook for the stuff that I need to do.

32:20 - 32:28
And then we start to see their flaws. We see them from a different perspective. We reveal their contradictions and it all comes crashing down. Well, some of that you colluded with.

32:31 - 32:49
Some of that you co-built to absolve yourself from your own interrogation. All of these are ways that we trick ourselves. The ways that we work around our dissonance and refuse to be with our contradictions. All of these are workarounds.

32:51 - 33:04
But innocence and guilt is one of the great lies that we tell. And we transpose all kinds of things on it. Race, gender, class, ability, everything. We put it on top.

33:04 - 33:21
These are the innocence. These are the goods. James Baldwin writes about that, the innocents, the people who believe themselves to be innocent and the people who believe themselves to be white is what he talks about, how those two things get really conflated. and then poured into us through media.

33:21 - 33:40
I mean, I have to tell you, we know this as black people, other folks in the world who are not white. You know this growing up, you are indoctrinated with this and you get this idea that whiteness somehow has some pristine quality. There's some cleanliness to whiteness. That's what you get trained in through the movies.

33:42 - 34:12
through how storylines go, through how people look, you get trained into this. And you start to slowly, slowly, slowly put these things together. Innocence, whiteness, innocence, and it gets attached to what we value in society. And we let certain people, it doesn't matter what they actually do, They can't be soiled because we've already decided certain aspects of their identity are innocent.

34:14 - 34:29
So the legal system gets corrupted by all of those myths that we hold. Who's innocent? Who's guilty? Who's more guilty?

34:29 - 34:44
Who's less guilty? Who can be Whose actions can be explained away? Whose actions cannot be explained away? What are you willing to do to be seen as innocent?

34:47 - 35:19
What are you willing to turn away from to be seen as innocent? As good? Can you sit with, and this has been my practice, Can you sit with yourself as a complex being? I don't think me, Prentiss Hemphill, I'm not going to, at the end of my life, get an award for being good.

35:20 - 35:46
Sometimes people mistake being good with being still, being quiet. And again, it wraps up all into the shame stuff, how it gets gendered, all of that. Do you become good if you don't rock the boat, if you don't say anything, if you don't make anybody mad? I'm not going to get to the end of my life and have clean hands.

35:48 - 36:07
I'm not going to get to the end of my life and have not made a mistake. I'm not going to get to the end of my life and have not hurt anybody. I'm not going to get to the end of my life and not have been self-centered sometimes. I'm not going to get to the end of my life and not have inadvertently or sometimes consciously colluded with systems that I don't believe in.

36:07 - 36:36
I'm not going to get to the end of my life with clean hands. I don't have clean hands now. And that may make me an untrustworthy narrator of these moments, but I want to invite you into the kind of maturity I think it takes to be honest with yourself. You don't get to be all good.

36:40 - 37:03
You don't even get to be all bad. We are a mess of things. We're a whole lot of things. And I think sometimes our inability to really hold that keeps us from facing what's actually going on.

37:06 - 37:17
You may not solve it. I don't know that we get out of this life having solved it. You may not solve it, but can you face it? are the things you can just hold and say, this is happening and I don't know what to do.

37:19 - 37:26
I'm a part of this and I don't know what to do about that. I'm going to try to figure it out. I'm going to listen. I'm going to learn.

37:26 - 38:00
It's Black History Month. I got a lot of things to learn. But I don't imagine that the goal is to be pure in this life. The goal is to be a real person who's learning, who's trying, who's making mistakes, who's repairing as best as they can, who's being in their integrity as much as they can, who knows that they will fail and will extend compassion to themselves and others.

38:02 - 38:39
What else is there to do? And some of the things we think are bad are only bad because somebody who has power over us told us they were. And I'm not going all the way down the relativity line, but I'm just to say, complicate your sense of who you are. And I think complicating your sense of who you are will allow you to step outside of being so shocked and overwhelmed by what's happening.

38:45 - 38:58
Because you know what other people are capable of. You don't afford yourself any delusion. You don't have to run away from the reality of anything. Just is.

38:58 - 39:21
I feel like I'm leaving everybody with the message, you're not good. It's a tricky one. I may be accidentally bumping up on some stories of your own worthiness, but I'm not, I'm not, you know, it's not that you're not good. You are capable of beauty and goodness, sweetness and warmth.

39:24 - 39:49
But, but it's okay to be a human being. It's okay to be complex, actually be what you are so that you can actually grow rather than covering ourselves up in shame and denial. So that, I hope that's what you can take from this. And, you know, I would love to, we are moving forward on the Patreon.

39:50 - 40:04
We have more folks joining every day. Please join us over there on the Patreon. We'd love to have you. And if there are things that you, again, have questions about that you want to talk about, that is a good place to drop us a line, to drop me a line.

40:04 - 40:28
I check the Patreon. send me a message and let me know what's on your mind, what's your response to the episodes, what you want to talk about here. We'd love to hear from you, our growing community of people who are not innocent, not necessarily just good, but complex people. Come join us over on the Patreon.

40:31 - 40:45
My team that I work with knows that, you know, You just have to be trying for me. And that may not be true for everywhere you go, but I want to hang out with people who are trying. And by that, I mean who are continuing to grow and to develop. That's it.

40:45 - 41:03
That's all I'm really looking for. So yeah, come join us. Come hang out with us over on the Patreon and subscribe to the podcast if you haven't. And honestly, share the podcast with people that you know will resonate with the message, that want to be in the conversation, please share it.

41:03 - 41:35
The way that we get these episodes out to you is through the generosity of people on Patreon and through my personal bank account. That's the combination that makes these podcasts happen along with our team of folks that are working to produce these episodes. So please share, let it spread, let it grow. If this is something that you are feeling that feels helpful for you, please help us spread the message and help the podcast grow.

41:35 - 41:55
That's it. We have an exciting episode coming up next week, so please tune in for that. I don't want to give it away, but it's an episode that I felt very, very inspired by and buzzing about for days afterwards, so please, please look out for that. And there will be more of these.

41:56 - 42:15
I am sending so much love and fortification to everybody out there. Who knows what will be going on by the time this comes out, even in the next few days. But sending so, so, so much love to you all. Prayers for community.

42:15 - 42:35
And knowing that it is terrible, There are so many terrible things happening and probably right in front of you is something beautiful. Probably right in front of you is something worth taking a moment to pay attention to. There are green sprouts coming out of my ground right now. I see buds on the trees.

42:35 - 42:49
There are children in my life that I know and love. There are elders in my life that I know and love. I got a funny text from my friend. There's just little moments of beauty, and I want to encourage you to just stop and appreciate them when you can.

42:50 - 43:04
And hopefully, this is one of them. Take good care. Becoming the People is produced by Devin Delania with special production support this season by Jasmine Stein. It's sound engineered and edited by Michael Main.

43:04 - 43:25
Our theme song was created by Mayada. If you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe, rate, and especially, especially leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you listen. And if you haven't already, please join us over at the Patreon. Prentis and Phil, we're having a great time over there building community, learning together.

43:26 - 43:46
Come join us. And as always, thank you for listening to Becoming a People. A world that is finally We're becoming the people. The people, the people, the people, the people.

43:46 - 44:02
We're becoming the people. We're becoming the people. The people, the people, the people, the people. We're becoming the people.

44:02 - 44:08
Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom.

44:18 - 44:25
Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum