Know Dumb Questions
Know Dumb Questions
KNOW DUMB QUESTIONS: FT Amanda Seales
Picture this: A renowned artist captures your attention with their raw authenticity, their work pulling at your heartstrings while also pushing your buttons. That's where our journey starts with this episode as we sit down with a truth translator whose artistry has ignited both love and hate, their unique approach connecting us to global issues and bridging impossible gaps through relatability. We explore the polarizing nature of art, the impact it can have on world views, and the artist's personal experience with this duality.
But that’s just the beginning. We then navigate the labyrinth of personal growth, societal norms, and relationships, focusing specifically on the transformation of women's existence and vibration thanks to access to resources like education and money. Honoring Amanda Seales' presence, we delve into the pressure of being a public figure and the intersection of art and activism. We also dive into the depths of self-esteem within the black community, touching on the shifting gender roles and the importance of emotional communication.
Wrapping up, we take you on a voyage through self-validation, personal growth, and the complexities of human connections. We map out the potential dangers of codependency, discuss the transformation of trauma bonds into healing bonds, and underscore the importance of mindfulness in mental and emotional health. Offering a unique perspective on societal influences on personal and collective identity, this episode is a kaleidoscope of insights, experiences, and thought-provoking discussions. Tune in and connect, learn, and challenge your perspectives with us.
There she is.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm in my car, but we are here.
Speaker 1:You are where you need to be. Can I just tell you I am just so impressed with the work you do, man, Seriously.
Speaker 2:Thank you, dr Perry, for real I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:I say that like, like your head cocked like.
Speaker 2:I think, because I consider myself an artist but I don't really get to make art like I used to. So in the world right now I'm more just like a talker, like I'm a truth translator. So when you say work, I'd be like you don't even know about the art. He's just not even talking.
Speaker 1:No, you know, it's what you know. It's really funny about that. You're right, I don't really know your art as well. My sons my sons really were trying to put me on insecure.
Speaker 2:That's my son. That's not even I mean insecure is like that's someone else. A D, Hello, D one Um, go ahead. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I apologize.
Speaker 1:We were having a conversation, so my sons were really trying to put me on to that and I didn't want to commit to a series Like it. Just, I just felt like it was maybe a commitment phobia after 23 years of marriage or something like that. Maybe that's what it is. But I just want to commit to a series. And then I you know I'd seen your comedy I was like, okay, this is cool. You know, it's like smart black funny, you know that's cool too.
Speaker 1:And then all the black women around me were like yo, you got to check out. Like it was like a, like a challenge, yeah, you got to check out a man. You got to check out a man. Like it was like a responsibility that I had. Why do you think all the sisters around me and I'm out working in schools Like so I worked with our core sisters who do real work in the real hood and so like it wasn't really a suggestion, it was more like a, an assignment, and so I had to go do research on a man to sales, so many really did you, I think, maybe because I think for a lot of sisters, like we have so much to say and we don't, we oftentimes are in positions where we don't get to say the things that need to get said.
Speaker 2:We do say the things that need to get said. We're labeled all type of bullshit and I think the, the sisters that rock with me, appreciate my dedication to saying what needs to get said, regardless of how it could. You know, paint adversely, paint me to you know the powers that be like. I'm the person who, if you got it, you know you're in a situation where you feel like everybody going to be polite and it's going to get in the way of progress. Call me.
Speaker 1:So you're the one. Who, who get, who could conjugate the f word? Who could use it as a noun, a verb, adjective?
Speaker 2:Yes, is it fuckery? Are we getting fucked?
Speaker 1:What the fuck is your problem, all forms of the language, and so they can call you for that, because the thing that blows my mind is just how passionate people are about your passion. You brought people into this Middle East conflict, as I'm going to refer to it, in a way in which I don't think people had otherwise been connected to. They didn't see their connection to it. How do you do that?
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, dr Perry, like, I mean what I say and I feel like I've been around a long enough time where my track record is really that like, whether you agree with me or not is left to be unsaid. But I think we live in such a phony world that when people like see authenticity and that's something that means something to them, like they really respect it. The same way that people are passionate about me for being authentic, they are passionate about hating that authenticity, right, right, I'm very polarizing for people Like. It's really like we love her or we hate her.
Speaker 2:And what's beautiful is when people come back later and be like you know, I ain't like you before, because I realized that you were reflecting what I'm trying to be and I wasn't really I was afraid to be that, you know. So I noticed that people have come back and said when I was younger I didn't really get it and now that I'm older, like, I start to understand you. I'm also older than I think people really understand. I'm 42. People think I'm like 22, out here just running my yet and it's like no, I've been. I've been in the screen actors guild since I was eight. I've been out here.
Speaker 1:You know, but one of the things that you do, though, is you in one hand, have nuance, and then, the other hand, you have trigger, and you juggle them so well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's. It ends up the middle. The median of that is relatability. Right, maybe it's not even the median, but like, maybe the third point of that pyramid is relatability. And so much of us just want something to include us, right, like and we. And if it doesn't include us, then it kind of doesn't make sense to us. And you know, when it comes to what's, you know, to the genocide taking place in Palestine, like, I think for a lot of people they're just like well, I don't need to care about that because it's not my business. And then when you start saying like it actually is your business, you know, then you get the people who are like damn, I don't want anything else to be my business.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a, there's a persona that you have, that I think so many of my girls, my kids, who I think even glean something from you because there's a declaration of smart and black and funny I don't think that it for you is just a combination like for you, that is a, that's a that's a shouting of I am yes, I am black and I am funny.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it is. It is very declarative is the right word. I identify myself in those ways and and that's not by accident, and I feel like it's imperative to define who you are before they define you?
Speaker 1:Can you talk about that? Because one of the things that happens is sometimes my kids watch the work that I do and if you could teach them a middle school class, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Oh, if I could teach a middle school class, it would be black popular culture, okay. But this is why because the kids need to be interested, right like you got to get them Okay. And I think one of my gifts is being able to synthesize. You know what we need through what we want. So it's like people want to laugh but they need the facts. So it's like how you know it's a spoonful of sugar.
Speaker 2:You know method, and black popular culture, unlike many other forms of pop culture, is born out of its best cases, out of truths that black people are experiencing that need to get synthesized beyond, just like the cursory surface level, right. So when you look at the Cosby show, like it's really easy to be like, oh, it's a show about a black family and it's like, no, it is. So we can talk about the Gordon Garth trial episode and the other thing that we need to out, we need to outline, like why was a show like this so successful? Why was it like in the context, and now we have a history lesson what was the context? Because the other part of it is that I feel like that what we're experiencing right now is a gap in scholarship, like we like many of us, like many of us experienced with the reconstruction.
Speaker 2:Many of us were not really fully taught about the reconstruction, so there's a gap in scholarship. It was essentially like there was the Civil War and then and there was a civil rights movement All this black history in here. A lot of us really got just like a skimming over it, and so that's really what is limiting a lot of us from understanding the true, comprehensive issues that we are facing and how we need to deal with them. I think the similar thing is happening right now, where it's like civil rights movement and then that's it like it's like no, we're in 2023. There is so much history that has taken place after the civil rights movement that deal to black folks and we, the young people, are not being taught that as history because we're still, like many of us are alive and we live through it.
Speaker 2:But right now the crack era. Is history like that needs?
Speaker 1:to be addressed. One of the things that I think that's so important about you, though, as a historical figure in our present, is that you open up yourself. We present sisters like Angela Davis, as she should be, people like so many others who are seeing as these bastions as if they weren't people also you you at times vomit your personhood.
Speaker 2:Because we have social media, though. I mean when people ask me, like what is the difference between, like what is the biggest difference between, like now and the 80s, or now in the civil rights movement, I'm like we have this, this right here, like social media. Like when people ask why are people not talking about the Congo as much as Palestine? Like there's a myriad of reasons.
Speaker 1:What are they? I don't think because I think a lot of people here you talking about the Palestinian issue and I don't think that they also hear the depth of critique in the for the issues in the Congo. Why aren't they paying attention?
Speaker 2:I don't have it yet.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's so hard to get information about it.
Speaker 2:So I genuinely don't have the same depth of knowledge about the Congo situation that I have about Palestine and Israel, and there's literally like entire forms of academia that have been created around this settler colonialism, whereas by design you know, what's going on in the Congo and what's going on in Sudan is very it's very murky and there isn't a lot of reporting and the people themselves don't have access to sharing their own stories in the same way.
Speaker 2:Right, and that we have always learned is the key Like during the civil rights movement, during the apartheid move, the anti apartheid movement in South Africa, it was known we have to get the media to see us because people are not getting to hear our stories. And so when you see Palestine, it's like the fact that they have found a way to say, ok, we're going to use these phones to like get our story out there. It's the number one reason why I feel like that story. It's also just like what's happening there, so like immediate, like we're literally watching it in immediacy with our money in a very like one plus one situation. It's not even like you've never heard Biden say the Congo in his life Like I've never heard him.
Speaker 1:I haven't.
Speaker 2:You know, I've never heard any of these people even mention it, whereas, like every day, they're essentially telling us like, yeah, this is fine, what's happening is real and Palestine is fine. So, like, being lied to like every day about something will make you be like.
Speaker 1:But even today though, but even today, I saw you mention a new, I guess, house Rules the House Resolution. Yeah, house Resolution. Why don't you talk about that? Because I, because you talk about some people who are your people, some people who are, in a manner we trust, like people who you like are your people.
Speaker 2:They're not my people.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's fair, I gave them to you. I gave them to you, you all of these politicians.
Speaker 2:They, not my people.
Speaker 1:Okay, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:And that is important because there has to be a level of activity reserved, fair. It's not to say I am not fans of work that they've done. It's not to say I don't appreciate them. You know, being a part of an Amanda we trust. It's not to say that I don't think that I mean. I think their contribution to my documentary was, was incredible. However, as public servants, I still reserve the right to be like Call bullshit.
Speaker 2:Right, and in order for me to call you my people, like that's like us, and I don't want to make that. I don't want it to seem like I'm being.
Speaker 1:No, I don't hear you going over the top, you just saying that you don't. You're not. You don't work, that's a strong word for me, and that was me that said that. I said they were your people. You know, I just want you know people like the twist.
Speaker 2:My people is just a very strong word for me, like I really like my people, okay so, but I say all that to say that the House Resolution 888 that was passed today by something like 427 members of the House, and there's only 435 members- of the House, pretty much the whole gang.
Speaker 1:That's the whole gang.
Speaker 2:That is a. That is a bipartisan passing, and I know that Rashida Klaib was present but did not vote, and Corey Bush was not present. But ultimately, house Resolution 888 says that to to challenge the right of Israel to exist is anti Semitic. It says that Israel is a indigenous land for all Jewish people, regardless of their birth. It says that I don't think.
Speaker 1:I don't understand that, because one of the things that you've done for many of us is you explain that this is real. Conversation is far more nuanced than on we've been led to believe. I think that there are many people feel like Israel has always been and there is a group called Hamas and they are Palestinians and and thus and so, but that's not the case at all. It's just not the facts of the matter that it was a. It was a political settlement, due in large part to an attempt to address some of the bad things that had happened to Jewish people throughout history, and I don't think people truly understand that. To say that it is an indigenous, that they are indigenous to the land, is not entirely accurate.
Speaker 2:It's just simply not accurate. I mean, even within Judaism there are ethnicities of Jewish people, you know, and it you know that would be like saying that the aboriginals, the aboriginal people of Australia, by nature of being indigenous people, are thus indigenous to everywhere. But they're not indigenous means you are of that place, like that's what it means. So you know there are, there are. You know Palestine as a land had people who are indigenous to Palestine and of different faiths. You know it's not, you're not indigenous by faith, you're indigenous by personhood, by, like, your actual bloodline, and so that's the part that gets the convolutedness and and so many folks are easily led, but then other folks are, just they're not informed yet Some folks are lazy, and then some folks are maniacal, right, but so they will push the disinformation, but ultimately, ultimately, then, the nuance is that HR 888 as a resolution, it's not legislation, it's not anything that goes to the Senate, it's not something that you know has expansive powers beyond the space of the house.
Speaker 2:However, it is concerning when our governing body chooses to support language that is a historical and that is racist, because the existence of Israel, that has the existence of Israel as a Zionist country, that is the language that they use in HR 888 and the existence of Israel as a Zionist country asserts that its existence is contingent upon the the occupation of Palestine which has been the root of much of what you pushed to make sure that people understood is that there is an occupation.
Speaker 1:When you're talking about apartheid, you're talking about what. What does that mean for people who are new to this conversation?
Speaker 2:apartheid is Jim Crow for folks who don't know. I mean, that's just the easiest way to put it they are exactly the same in terms of their efforts. It means that a group of people do not have the same rights as another group of people, that there is a hierarchy based on your race or your gender or your class. You know, in this case it can be all of the above. You know there are streets in Palestine that Jewish people can walk on, that Palestinian people cannot walk on. That, by nature, is an example of apartheid, and to challenge that is not challenging the religion of Judaism, but what it is challenging is the political practice of Zionism.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the haters, and they come for you. How do you contend with them?
Speaker 2:I don't at this point, oh, I just don't have.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's like you can't be all you lot younger than I am. That makes me really old.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying like I mean, at a certain point you're just like whatever bro, like if this is what y'all on you know. I see people in your comments, I see some people in here just running a app and it's just like if you're going to be out here speaking publicly, there will always be somebody unhappy with something you said or something you didn't say, or how you, you know, looked in a picture, I mean when I was on the real, like I would literally just be listening and they'd be like you see her face.
Speaker 1:That is funny, because your face.
Speaker 2:I would literally be like I'm going to have a straight face, but you know your face. Come on, there would be time. I'm literally like this. I would literally just be like this, listening, and they'd be like you see her eyebrows, but you see your face. I know my face when I'm making a face, but I also know when I'm not making a face it doesn't matter. Like, at the end of the day, it's like I have a resting bitch face to some people, whatever.
Speaker 1:I think you have a. I think, as faces go, I think you have a face that is one that's telling a story, that's a thoughtful person, smart, funny and black, yeah, and so, in that same face in space, what I see you do also is you pivot like Barry Sanders, like I mean. You just plant your foot and you go from one topic to the other. It is, I mean, yikes. I watch you move from the personal, like the very personal relationship conversations to some of the most global esoteric topics. How is it that you make the two available to the entire world as you do?
Speaker 2:I Think early on I just kind of realized that my life was for the world.
Speaker 1:Really that doesn't scare you, though it should, I think so.
Speaker 2:It's something that I kind of just resigned to. Like I remember being 11 and I remember being 11. I remember literally having the thought in my head of like you need to start writing what you do every day in your calendar, because at some point, people are gonna want to know how you got here.
Speaker 1:So what is something you wrote when you were 11?
Speaker 2:It was just that I would make sure that every day I would write in my calendar like what I did, because in my mind it was like someday people are gonna care about like what you were doing. You know, in 1992, on June 7th, they're gonna want to know. But it's just the consciousness of like I always knew I would be public, like I somehow always knew that I would be a Part of the world. I've always known that I was here before. So that's all that's. I've always known that, like I've never felt like this was my first go-round, like the first 30 years of life were so irritating because it just felt like I was like, it was like repetitive, it was just like, oh, we've already done this when the wrong people say that you have, you were also.
Speaker 1:That's.
Speaker 2:I Listen. I remember showing my god sister, who was eight years older than me. I showed her a picture of us when I was like seven, with like three other teenagers and she was like, just for the record, those were your friends. She's like I'm there, but those are your friends like you were hanging out with 15 and 16 year olds like and holding your own, I'm like, literally, I'm literally holding a doll and like talking to them.
Speaker 1:Oh, so, so, so, as this old soul Also to to embrace your youth, though Very aware that you are still growing and and seem to be open to even criticism, I've seen you own critiques of yourself in a very public way.
Speaker 2:That takes real courage, you know I'm a trained actor and the only way to be an effective actor is to be able to receive direction Okay and to be an incredible listener, like that is. That is really at the core of being an an actor, because you have to Listen to the other person, the other people, as if it's the first time you hear on the shit. They said okay, so that is my like training. You know, some people have age back as they're training like I'm a trained Well, that's what I do for social work.
Speaker 1:So when I was in social work school, that's what they did. Part One of the classes we had to take was a human sexuality course and it was really intense, like it was really intense, and it was taught by assistant professor Gloria Gay and she was like hardcore, like Like this is. She was like you know the thing. And so part of what our job was is to learn how not to react when someone says I put this thing here and you're like You'd why? Why, you can't do that, you cannot. There's not a thing that you could say to somebody who's you can't.
Speaker 2:When they tell you that gerbils went up the booty hole, you just gotta be like, is that right? You say, okay, what was it about that experience? That?
Speaker 1:What was it about the gerbil?
Speaker 2:No, I'm gonna listen. I um, you asked about the pivoting, but I also, so I'm a comic, so like that's part of being a stand-up. Also is like being able to take people on a journey and um.
Speaker 1:How could someone be your partner, though, like for real? They because this guy.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm single, because they can't. So I don't know. You think that's why, really, um, I'm gonna make people a set. But basically, what I think is and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this is I think that we are at a very. We are at a like a genuine, a general, this like great shift In the world. Right, this is like in the future they'll look back and be like oh, this was like one of the big shifts, and One of the things that has happened is that women in general, in general women have had access to things that they did not have access to For a for like our whole existence on this earth. Right, like we have had access to our own money. We have had access to education in the west. We have had access to money.
Speaker 2:But even like political Right, like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've had access in ways that we have never had before. The other part of that is we have also had access to wellness. We have also had access to self-care. We have also had access to mental health, like exploration, etc. Etc. Things that we did not have access to. My mother who's one generation ahead of me and say, like, my mother did not have access to those things?
Speaker 2:So there's a certain level of just healing that we have had that changes our existence in the world, it changes our vibration, and there has not been the same awakening for brothers and it's not I'm not even trying to say it as a judgment, but literally by nature of the fact that, like men in a patriarchal society have had access to power before women, they have had access to money before women they have had, they've had access to things that they haven't had to, they haven't had to kind of adjust to, and so there's a complacency there and for a lot of men, when they look at women doing this, they see it as like, oh, you're trying to, you're trying to outdo us, and it's like, well, no, it's just that I'm trying to be my best, me Right and my best me is not based on the standard that's already there.
Speaker 2:So if you're someone like myself who just got out of a three-year relationship and over the course of that three-year relationship I was wholly dedicated to becoming a better partner, to becoming a better woman, right to like becoming a better person I was reading the books, I'm doing the therapy, I'm going to.
Speaker 2:I heard about the kagels we kagelin, I'm going to rakey and I'm doing self exploration. I'm like, okay, I'm like how are you toxic, like what are like? What are you? What are you doing? That's bringing things that you don't want your relationship. I'm doing all of that and of course, it's a consistent work, but if the other person isn't doing that work, then you know, it's like we both on bikes and I'm the only one peddling. I'm going to pass you.
Speaker 1:So, if, if I can, so I think, let me acknowledge what I think I hear you saying, which is that Women will stay with black women for a moment. Black women have had access to All the things that you mentioned and if we had a longer conversation we could add even more. Not all black women have, but, yes, fair, fair, but some you, let's start with you, okay, and and as you have, there's an enlightenment. You know, beyonce called it a renaissance. It's, it's easy to to let that go by, but it is a renaissance Especially for, for certain black women. Um, many historical black colleges are three to one women to men, um, and so there's a, there is a renaissance among african american women. So I do think that there I can agree with that and I can also agree with the global part of it, that black men have had some more access than black women to, to power and some of the other things.
Speaker 1:Initially, what I will say is this what I will offer just as black men, there has been a push, brothers like our brother charlemagne's push for mental health and other people who've been pushing for mental health and awareness in those areas. But To be a black man very often means to be less human, meaning less able to express our emotions. Many are the women who say that they want a sensitive brother, but they really what? What they really will often say is that I want a brother who can protect me. It's like we'll protect you from what. Like what are you doing? That somebody needs to be able to lay hands on. Something Like what is what did you do? That complicates people's lives, that that needs to be there.
Speaker 1:So I think that there is a, there's a shifting among men and women that's occurring, where the gender roles are continuing to develop, where I think Many a woman will say that they want a man to be of a particular type A treat and call it traditional, meaning, call it my breadwinner or whatever that looks like, and once say, and not so traditional that they don't feel like their point is valued. And so if you are a person with a point and you have a man who is not necessarily confident in his game Like he isn't necessarily, he doesn't have high self-esteem he could feel easily overrun by a person who is confident in herself. And so I don't know how much that has to do with access. I think it has More to do with something really basic, something very pedestrian, which is self-esteem.
Speaker 2:A brother with low self-esteem Will seek to pull anyone around him down To that level but I think that what what I'm talking about Is related to the fact that so many Brothers and just men in general, particularly heterosexual men, base their self-esteem on what they have access to. We're great Um, which is patriarchy. Right, because it doesn't empower self-esteem based on your self-awareness. It doesn't empower self-esteem based on your your ability to tap into compassion, like it. Doesn't empower self-esteem based on selflessness. It empowers like it. Within this western society, self-esteem for a lot of men is defined by your ability to have physical strength, monetary Fortitude and dominance over women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think you find any reasonable person who would disagree. I think that that, in many cases, is the way that many people feel. I think that many women would say that they.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're in the same patriarchy. So the the women, though, who have the women and the men that I know, who have leveled up outside of that and can look at it and see like, oh, that whole thing is created to uphold some other shit, that's not even created to uphold us not at all.
Speaker 2:Like that's created to uphold some other shit. The men and the women I know who have moved outside of that Live differently, you know, and the men that I know who have moved outside of that their partnerships are very different Than the ones I know that haven't.
Speaker 1:I think it also has to do with being honest. As you know, to ball from Shakespeare to find out what's self. Be true, know who you are and what your knees are.
Speaker 1:Else, Don't forget that part above all else Right to dine on self be true, exactly, and and what happens for a lot of men Is that they're not comfortable with the things that they're not comfortable with and, as a result, try to compensate for them in such a way that they they go to the, the lowest common denominator, which is smash, crush, crush, kill like it's like, instead of allowing themselves to feel vulnerable, which is a sign of weakness for so many men. What ends up happening is a man has to raise up and he has to show himself, and again, it is not something that is uncommon. I mean, how many times have I spoken to a group of young women, very bright young women, who talk about I want an intelligent hoodlum, what like a jumbo shrimp?
Speaker 2:You know what that is hilarious, you know what that is? The intelligent hoodlum is that. A lot of times, because we're in a society that doesn't teach men how to handle their emotions, it's like you get brother, you get like these extremes, like you either get the brother that's like very in his emotions but like doesn't know how to Watch his spider-man we talk like let's talk about it, or you get the cats who are just like, like I mean I did. I dated a dude who Literally said to me I cannot be with you Because you make me have feelings and I can't have feelings, I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to like, handle that like. And he he's saying this while he's crying.
Speaker 1:He's saying you that picture you just painted.
Speaker 2:Right, there was kind of and, if you knew it, some of y'all know the niggas.
Speaker 1:You ain't right, see, but what you're doing right now, what you're doing right now, a lot of men would feel like, see that that would make me feel like I can't be vulnerable. That's how many men would feel like. So dashi gonna blast me on being vulnerable.
Speaker 2:So what does a man do? I'm not. I'm not blasting you, I'm being vulnerable. I'm blasting you on kills thing to Not grow out of fear, of vulnerability. Like you're literally crying and I am supporting you right, like I'm not like why you crying?
Speaker 1:You gotta go there. You have to do that. No, I think you've done that before and your head was was your, was your face saying?
Speaker 2:that, though Many times I have ever done. That was on a date with a dude who was in the car at the end of the date and we're talking and I just hear whimpering and I was like, are you crying? And he was like you know, I just love my mom so much and I was like I gotta go.
Speaker 1:Wait, what wait. What emotional breakdown Lane are you picking guys up in?
Speaker 2:You know what it is. It's not that I'm a big like, I'm a force of nature, you know, if you think of it, about a tornado, like you just picking up shit, you know. And also I'm a work in progress. Like I have my own trauma. Like my father was not a present figure in the way that he needed to be, like he was present, but he was toxic and his he was, his, his presence was toxic, was toxic.
Speaker 1:What does that mean, though? Because we hear the trump toxicity and we talk about the you know, you said, I've heard you say that you're poison the space when you get in the space.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's toxicity. When you come into space, the shit fucks up. We was just killing, and then you came through and now we like everybody, everybody gets asked like you like man, that's what I mean. You know, like that, that type of shit. And you know, my mother never, ever, ever spoke ill about my father. She wanted me to be able to experience him within my own point of view, like she trusted me to have my own point of view, like my mother never, ever heard of a discipline, though on her part what a million percent.
Speaker 2:I mean, she sent me to go visit this man, like, because that's what, that's what the court said, but she knew that I was like, and then, eventually, I was like we don't gotta do that no more. Like we, we, we, good, but I just say all of that. To say, though, that the language that's lacking is is in the black community around. Emotions is a generic thing, like that's not just for black women or men, that's not binary. Like we, as a community, are still learning the language of our emotions, like we're still learning language beyond happy, sad and it is the hardest to teach children.
Speaker 1:It is actually harder than calculus. You know you because a number of men now let me give the other side this a number of brothers have been put into the friend zone. Listen, they're they're the dude who they're on. You know it's sitting on the phone, it's like 1130 and they're hardest physics. And this sister is talking about how they did it to me again and hide it, and he's saying well, you know, he's always me. She's like no, I see you like a brother. That's not the friend zone.
Speaker 2:Okay, tell me what that is. It's actually duplicitous. Okay, because you're really pretending to be something that you actually not do. You want to highlight shorty, the highlight shorty, but you playing friend. You playing friend so that if she slips up, the children lay on your day.
Speaker 1:That's not the friend zone, that's but, but he but, but that's what she put him. No, she put him.
Speaker 2:No, no, no one can put you nowhere. Okay, like, if I don't want to be in the friend zone, I tell a nigga, listen, I don't want to be in the friend zone, I like you. Or I have told, I have told man before like I like you more than a friend and they have been like I don't. It is on me to stay on me tell me how you do live for that.
Speaker 1:How do you deliver that message at that level, at that volume?
Speaker 2:like that. I can name three different times where I have said to someone who I am close with, like I would like to explore a relationship beyond just being friends. And one of the times the person was like I feel the same way, but I think we shouldn't. Oh my, no two actually. Two of the times. Two of the times they were like I feel the same way, I just think we shouldn't. And I said why.
Speaker 2:And they were like because I am going to hurt you you got to respect that they said I'm going to hurt you and I know myself and our friendship is more important to me. And then I've had someone else who was just like you're a great gal no, he did ba bump bump yes, and sent me like a handshake emoji shut is like you're bringing door and no say yeah.
Speaker 1:So do you think that's part of your attraction, man? Is it the ones at a harder to get?
Speaker 2:no, I mean, that's just some of the people that I think I don't. I'm sure me attraction is very basic. I'm like are you funny? That's the start. Can you make me laugh? But the problem is that a lot of times, you know, people make you laugh for a number of reasons, and the funniest people are the darkest ones.
Speaker 1:You know that. And really smart though Really funny people are typically really smart. The kid who's acting up in class, that's funny.
Speaker 2:But he's also dealing with some fuck shit.
Speaker 1:Okay, talk about that, take me through that. What's that mean?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just kind of like one of the tenants of being a comic, like your humor is just is partially like how you have dealt with trauma. It's just a matter of what was the trauma. Okay, you know, in a way, that's different than like an athlete having athletic ability, like there's a. You can have athletic ability and have no trauma. You just was born with a certain level of body shit that got you there.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I don't know any funny people that don't got darkness that it came from and it's levels, right, it's levels Like even me, like I feel like I've had a fairly like my trauma is trauma, but it's not on the same spectrum as like other people that I know, you know, who have dealt with like really, really terrible things.
Speaker 1:Well, trauma is trauma and it is only measured by the person who has it Exactly. It is dangerous to measure trauma because the same thing inside someone else's life can be framed wholly different. A person could have gone through rape as a child and for them it becomes a rallying cry, whereas another person may have been shouted at by their dad and that may be debilitating to them. So each person gets to define that in their own. So yours is yours as it is.
Speaker 2:Right, Thank you for that, Because that's really how I feel. Like. I feel like I'm somebody who I just got yelled at my whole life. I just got fucking yelled at my whole life. I have just been yelled at forever and expected to be flawless, Like that was my existence. So you know, that shapes you and then you get old enough to be like okay, let me explore what shaped me and let me work on shaping myself, Because so many I feel like we're just molded by the world until we decide to mold ourselves. And I'm at an age now where I am actively molding myself, and it's less. I'm at a phase in this process that is more exciting than it is excruciating. In the beginning it can feel excruciating.
Speaker 1:Like, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, there's so much about me that I don't like, and I feel like for a lot of brothers that I have met in my course of life, like they're just not willing to go through that process. So to circle all the way back to you being like, why can't you be with somebody? It's like, it's not that I can't be with somebody, it's just that I know what I am willing to do to be my best self. And if you're not doing that, not only will we not be in alignment, but you will always feel like a certain sense of oh, she's trying to outdo me.
Speaker 1:You know, I was feeling that, yeah, I would never say why can't you be with somebody? Because it is clear that you can. It is clear that you have a lot that you are working on and that in and of itself is attractive to people who respect the journey. So that's in and of itself.
Speaker 2:You know when you're something else, dr Perry, that I picked up. I saw this interview with this system and I need to find out what her name was, because it's really wack that I can't reference her actual name, but she said this and it has stuck with me. She said you know, we're born, let's say, as our purple self, you know like actually she's the word lavender, which I like because it's more pastel, it's kind of like your bow tie.
Speaker 1:Listen, I tell you what you do colors really well. That green wallpaper I don't know what it is in your house. I was like, okay, thank you.
Speaker 2:Swinging for the fence. I see. Thank you very much, Lavender. Yeah, the minute this man moved out, I really just did my shit the way I wanted to.
Speaker 1:No, you really, really, really, really, your pattern game. I could have your pattern game. That's the next one. Don't think that I don't recognize it. No, for real. Don't think that I don't know why people are not calling you honestly to just decorate the house.
Speaker 2:It's as if a 70s hippie met a Well, I'm a visual artist, like I'm a painter, and I haven't gotten to. I didn't know that Because I haven't really pulled it out in years, and I'm about to. I will do an art show next year. Yeah, you're A lot of the paintings that you see in my house are my paintings, Like when you see stuff in the background.
Speaker 1:A lot of that is my painting, but I paint as well, but yes, I hear you Nice.
Speaker 2:So the lavender thing was Lavender yeah, she was like A lot of us are born as our lavender selves right, that's our most organic version of ourselves.
Speaker 2:But then we go through life and throughout the course of our life, like there are efforts and situations that attempt to harm our lavender-ness. So we create protections around our lavender self, but those protections become a different version of ourselves and so now it's our red self that people see. And she was like so for a lot of us, we're not attracting with our lavender self, we're attracting with our red self, and that was something that was really eye-opening to me, because so many men are attracted to me based on what they see me as as a public figure, which I feel like is more my red self versus in my safe space. I am my lavender self and I don't wanna have discourse every night at dinner, like the last dude that was trying to talk to me was like oh, I really liked we were on a panel together and he was like I just really liked the way you challenged me on the panel and it's like Right, that's our stage, not what we wanna do for dinner.
Speaker 1:So that's a question, though, for real, because I don't think that people, as I see you, walk through your house in your life. One of the things that I'm fascinated by is what feels like an extreme dichotomy. What I imagine is when that phone goes off.
Speaker 2:I get it. I mean I'm in a house by myself, so I mean I'm quiet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see you. No, I can see you talking to yourself. I can see you being your best. I talk to myself.
Speaker 2:I have five animals. Just for the record, it's a nigga that made me a cat lady. Okay, just so we're clear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hilarious.
Speaker 2:That man brought home two cats and then left two months later. So now I had already had two cats, so now he added two cats. So now I got four cats and a dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cats are anything. You don't wanna be a cat lady. That's not the direction you wanna go in.
Speaker 2:Well, baby, it is what it is Okay, but because people are like why he didn't take the cats, I'm like he might have taken care of himself. How you gonna take the cats? So I took the cat. So, not that I didn't take the cats, but when you are alone, though, but when you are alone, so when I am alone, though, yeah, like I mean I don't think it's necessarily a Honestly, that's a period. I wouldn't call it a dichotomy, as much as it's just. Like anybody else, I have a range of my existence, you know, and so it's weird to me when people expect like the one minute video that they saw me on to be how I exist 24 hours in a day, and a lot of times I mean I laugh it off because it's just like it's so nonsensical. I mean, when I meet people and they're like, oh, you're like chill, I'm like Because I'm not.
Speaker 1:Imagine when you go to speak or when you go to perform, somebody picks you up there expecting like blah, which is God, like I'm not on stage, like when I go to Grenada without fail, because I always put for occupation on the immigration form, I always put comedian without fail.
Speaker 2:Tell me a joke, tell me a joke, you have funny, you have funny, tell me a joke. And my answer is always the same I'm off the clock.
Speaker 1:But I would imagine for you the pressure must be there, right, because when you land you get somewhere. You're at University of Dis or that right, or at this venue.
Speaker 2:You get there and they're like man I love you, yes, and sometimes you're just like I just got off a flight, right, I'm in and I'm a cancer, so like I'll just be in my shell, we could be at dinner, dr Perry, we will be at dinner and I will just shut down. I'll come back now, but I have a limit to how much.
Speaker 1:So do you think that there's someone who you need to be with, who the person who you'd be with would need to be the kind of person who could deal with the? What I'm referring to is the dichotomy, so you don't have to own that. But the difference is between the onstage persona, which is on 11. And then the pen.
Speaker 2:On 11,. I have a job.
Speaker 1:Fair.
Speaker 2:Like I mean I have a job, Like in the same way that, like you know, my friend is an OBGYN, she is not conducting herself the same at dinner as she is in the OR.
Speaker 1:That makes for a very interesting dinner for all of us.
Speaker 2:You know like she's not like fork Nice.
Speaker 1:You know like I mean I think the fork and knife just go differently when you say the OBGYN just Like, it makes it a whole different aesthetic Like it's just.
Speaker 2:I think there's a very. The person for me is somebody who is solid in them. It's not even about me.
Speaker 1:That's fair.
Speaker 2:It's not even about me. It's like they know who they are, they're solid in who they are and they just fucking like what I am, Like they're big, which is really fun right To be.
Speaker 1:You know it's always If you ever want to be around somebody who You're gonna enjoy as somebody who truly is comfortable with who. They are right.
Speaker 2:And let me tell you, when you're in spaces where you are comfortable with who you are and people are not comfortable with who they are, it is un-fucking comfortable.
Speaker 1:It is very, very Because.
Speaker 2:I'm in Hollywood and this is a land of people who are not comfortable with who they are. They feel far more comfortable in the skin of another character.
Speaker 1:You must be like Tyrannosaurus Rex out there. I mean people. They must not know what to do with you in this space. In fact that's what one of my son, mason, who put me on to you initially, he said. I said you know I'm gonna talk to Amanda tonight. You know we have a question for her. He said how does she put her art and her activism together?
Speaker 2:They exist together. Okay, you know, they are not two different hemispheres, they are one and the same. And I grew up in a house where I was just heard Bob Marley all day long, which is a very solid example of art as activism, right, like, and as a Grenadian, grenada is a very we are a very political people. We are, you know, revolutionaries. And so, just like, within my DNA is just like an awareness about justice and social justice, like I truly believe that. So for me, like, those two things are just intertwined. The art isn't even like If it doesn't have any activism behind it. It feels silly to me, you know, like, like that's why you don't see me on shows, y'all, you don't see me on shit, because so much of the stuff that's being made is so frivolous that I'm just not that interested, you know.
Speaker 1:And you know Barbie for you. You're not gonna be in Barbie too.
Speaker 2:Barbie was not frivolous at all.
Speaker 1:I didn't see it.
Speaker 2:Barbie was absolutely not frivolous, which is why it was a valuable piece of art.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because, exactly because you could, because it had every opportunity to be that and Greta Gerwig did not let it be that. Okay so maybe Barbie too for you, maybe, you know. I just feel like there is art that doesn't need to be activism, but that's just not what I make.
Speaker 1:So for you, you're making a choice. You're making a choice like many of us had to make. You could make a lot more bread if you made those people who are in charge comfortable If you weren't talking about Palestine. To what point I agree?
Speaker 2:Like the bread at this point. It's like I broke even for the last three years. I didn't make more, I didn't make less, I broke even for the past three years and that I feel like is incredible, like because I do not aspire to wealth. I really don't Like it's. You know, a young man from Brooklyn once said Moe, money, moe problems.
Speaker 1:So I've heard, so I've heard.
Speaker 2:So for me, like making more money is not enough of an incentive to go against what's natural for me, like it's honestly unnatural for me to do just silly shit. I tried, I tried. I remember Grandmaster Flash telling me Amanda, this is when I was doing music, amanda, why don't you just make you know some bullshit song that you can buy your mama a house? And I was like because then I was going to be in that house like and I was like I'm gonna do some bullshit that got this out.
Speaker 2:And eventually, and eventually I did buy my mom's house, and I bought it with money that I earned doing shit that I stand on.
Speaker 1:Then you don't have to live through the telltale heart of it all. Now you can.
Speaker 2:Some people don't have that, you know. But I know who I was raised by and I know how I live and I am not even trying to virtue signal to nobody but like just, it's just for me, like I haven't ever felt like it was worth it, like the money was worth it, and of course I think that's also a testament to how blessed I've been right, like I have been protected by a higher power that's all I can blame it on to consistently be able to navigate through like these shark-infested waters. But I think a lot of that has been because I'm also like innately aware that it is my responsibility to self-check myself and my responsibility to be in control of how I exist and not blame, like I've had people on this internet call me a narcissist all the time and I'm like that's so bonkers, because the amount it's not, you're not.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't even I know where you were going to go with that and I have to stop because I don't want to give anyone who would say such a thing the opportunity to get a response, just because you are. You said something earlier that moved me and I didn't stay on it for too long because it's the public space and I don't want to do that to you. But when you talk about being yelled at as a child and sometimes children who are yelled at find themselves yelling and just respond to the volume, the emotional volume and to the untrained and uncaring and unempathetic eye it is easy to see somebody who's trying to level up just to be heard, speaking loudly and not understanding that the room from which I come, the space from which I was born, is so loud, so loud.
Speaker 2:Like I had to tell my last partner like and we both have this issue, we both have this issue but essentially I was like, if I don't feel heard, my natural instinct is to get loud. So the way, and if you, if your trigger is volume, then we can work together here. And what we can work together on is like just hear me, just hear me, right. Like if you dismiss me, that's my trigger. And then now I trigger, yo trigger. And so it's like how do we like do this dance in a way that's more effective to heal each other? And even as a leader, it is a constant effort for me to not bring that into the space. You know it's a constant effort and I know that it can be toxic to the space. So I'm constantly like how do you get the messaging across in an effective way? Right, because you still can't be a bitch ass with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, it's a dance, but I mean I um.
Speaker 1:But your first language. What people, what a person who is not trying to see you but trying to project on to you can do? Is they can take their stuff and put it on you. Oh Well, that's how you, and tag you with that mess.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I mean. Like if you're with a partner who or you're working with it doesn't have to be romantic, like if you're just interacting with people who are not seeking self-awareness, that is the go to. I mean, that is the projection, like, that is just what it is. We're also like America as itself is a culture of narcissism, like the actual way that we, we, the way that we even address American history, and like the actual American ideology is in a narcissistic fashion. But I just say that, to say that, um, I move through the world, constantly checking myself and, to some people's surprise, it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1:It actually it actually doesn't. You know, we talked a little bit about comedians being smart people and, you know, as you said, dealing with some fuckery. But I would go even deeper. I was young. There was a boy who I worked with in Philly. His name is Gerald, and Gerald got sent to me because he um, he was in Spanish class and Spanish teacher said to him said to the class, come with your partner and do this presentation as if you don't speak Spanish. And so Gerald went up there and his partner said something to him and Gerald said I don't speak Spanish. And he sat down and he got sent out of class. For that it was. His answer is correct. He didn't speak Spanish and so there would be no conversation. And that was Gerald. I thought it was a brilliant answer. She didn't. She didn't get the joke.
Speaker 2:She thought he was being a smart ass.
Speaker 1:She certainly did, she certainly did, she certainly did, and, and so, to that end, what I see when I see you in your space, I see a person who's feeling her way through life, trying to touch the walls and taking the brilliant colors and hear the sounds, and I see a person who is living out loud and full speed, and I don't see you as putting yourself in a position to be above anyone, but really just in the hunt for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I feel like, if I feel like the people who are doing the same, like they get it, and so then we see each other.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I feel like what's been really beautiful has been I mean, it's a silver lining, but the pandemic did that for a lot of people. The pandemic allowed a lot of people or forced a lot of people to stop and just be with themselves. And what's been great is to see a lot of people stick with that even after we've come back outside right and see that as a, as a necessary part of their livelihood, right of like how they exist in the world. And I've seen a shift since this pandemic of how people receive me. Like I've seen way more. I've, yeah, like there's just way more love, is way more love. There seems to be way more understanding.
Speaker 2:I mean I was in Belize at the beginning of the pandemic because I had just went through a nervous breakdown and I was like having suicidal ideations and was like well, you got to deal with this. And like spent like two months working with my therapist to she's not my therapist anymore, but I will always love her. But she was like I know this seems real crazy for you right now, but just to be clear, this is just your. Your confidence got booted out. We just got to reboot your confidence. She was like I know it feels like this is an insurmountable, bottomless pit, and she was like it's not, like. I've worked with you for years now and I know what this is. And she was 100% right because my confidence had been built on a foundation of outside validation and what we needed to do was reboot my confidence based on internal validation. And you know, just to keep up with this computer analogy, create an iOS of self.
Speaker 1:So you know, share even, even your courage, and acknowledging that there was a point at which, in a not so distant past, you thought that life was not going to continue for you, is one of the things that I think that I was a certain person and I had reached a point where I felt like I never.
Speaker 2:Then people don't like me and this is who I am, so I'm never going to be happy. So what's the fucking point? That was the math. That was the math, and so that's why the internal love of self was necessary. Because it was like, well, you know, you gotta love you. Like fuck, if they like you like, let's start with you. Do you like you? And it was like, yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Well, when you, when you enjoy your company, you are always with your favorite person.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean. I heard of someone say the other day the love of your life is the love of your life.
Speaker 1:That was like before a lot of.
Speaker 2:I even have, I have like tools now, you know, because sometimes what are some of the tools? Affirmations work really well for me. I'm a language person. You know, I'm an auditory learner too, so language works really well, and if I am in a, if I'm in a dark place, I can talk myself into a better place, and that was something I didn't know I could do.
Speaker 1:Who's your kitchen cabinet? Who do you go to? What's your squad look like?
Speaker 2:My squad looks like I mean, I have, I have really good friends. I have really good friends who, like, really know me, and it took a long time to like, have that, like, and it's not that they just know me, but they trust me, we trust each other and so that took a long time to really develop. But to anyone who's watching, like, who feels like I don't really have good friends, like I will say that I feel like I had to be diligent about friendship.
Speaker 1:How so.
Speaker 2:I don't know if maybe it's because I'm an only child that I didn't just have like the natural, like skills of interaction, like with like someone like in close quarters, or I didn't have like that protect. I didn't have like a built-in friendships, like you know a lot of us who are brothers and sisters it's like you come into world with your best friend. Like you know, I didn't have that. So in the diligence, what I mean is that I had to be intentional, like like I had to create opportunities for us to know each other and get to know each other like as an adult. You have to do that, like it's not just going to happen because you go to school every day.
Speaker 1:You're an instance creative.
Speaker 2:I'm also, yeah, I'm also intense, yes, and creative. Yeah, so you know, you, you, you, you create spaces to gravitate and I think a lot of us don't realize how like you really got to do that. Like you got to, like, make an intentional choice about who you're around and who you're with, and sometimes we are in the wrong space. Sometimes you got to move. Sometimes you got to move. You might not have been born at the right longitude and latitude for you.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So when you, when you are in these spaces, I'm sure that there are certain people you call for certain purposes. I'm sure you there's your rah rah person who's like yo, you got this. And then there's the person who you can, who?
Speaker 2:So my mom my mom is always going to cheer you on, which is why you got to be very selective, because you know you want some bullshit. Do not call her because she got to you on and you know you want some bullshit. So I have my homegirl, kiki, and we have an ongoing thing called am I tripping. It's so ongoing that I started it as a segment on my radio show. Am I?
Speaker 1:tripping. If you have a homegirl and she's not named Kiki, she actually can't be a homegirl like. I actually think that she is disqualified by name alone or qualified by name alone. Kiki wins the prize for homegirl. So am I tripping? So give me an example of a real, am I tripping? Call to Kiki.
Speaker 2:Okay, let me think of one that's recent. I had a friend who we were supposed to go on a trip and it was like a very extreme location and I had agreed to it at one point and then later realized like I don't know where I really want to go, but I'm still committed, because I said I was going to do the shit, we're going to do the shit. But there started to be like things that kept popping up. Like the company we were going with like they like changed the route and now it wasn't going to be what we had signed up for. And then she found another company but we were losing, we were going to have to lose money on our deposit, and but I still was like, okay, you know, and then we went to the new company. And then we went to the new company like they then changed their route and then it was going to change the dates, and that's a period we believe in.
Speaker 2:So at a certain point, when it's too much force, I'm like, okay, this ain't for us. And when I said, you know, I would actually like to read, I would like us to reimagine the trip, my friend was like she, she got very upset, feeling like I was canceling and I was like I mean, they literally canceled the trip, like it wasn't even me, like the company canceled the trip, so it's not me. And so I had called Kiki to be like am I tripping? Like you know, does it seem like I canceled the trip? If they canceled the trip and I just don't want to reschedule with a new company and I'm taking it as a sign.
Speaker 1:And what did Kiki say?
Speaker 2:No, you're not tripping.
Speaker 1:But what did the friend say?
Speaker 2:So this was this is what I mean about intentional. I had to, and this is what having friendship is right, like sometimes you got not, sometimes like grace is a real thing and sometimes people abuse grace okay, but I think you can't go wrong leading with it with people that love you and that you love in a real way. Right, and so I had to. And the grace in this situation was me saying okay, amanda, let's take a pause. Is she really mad about you canceling or is there something else driving this? You know this person. So instead of me continuing to go forth in like defending myself, I shifted the conversation to let's talk about what's really happening here.
Speaker 1:And what did she say? I mean, I just want to go on a trip, so did you give her another trip? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's just like because I had to get over myself if I had sat there and continued to defend myself. You know, I was really lucky to have a friend that I could, another friend that I could like. You know that's why, like you can't have the fuck them niggas friends like that's not helpful if you because if because that friend ain't never gonna help you figure out what the hell is wrong, because I think a lot of people go with that and that's the same person who doesn't do that in their own life.
Speaker 2:It's the factory. Yeah, like I mean, you know, I think we've all had that or we've been that where it's just like, no matter what they come up to you with you like they fuck that nigga man, fuck these niggas man, fuck those niggas man.
Speaker 1:And you know, sometimes that's accurate, but there's other times where it's just like wheeeee and then you go check, and then you go check the receipts and you're like does that not work in your house?
Speaker 2:because that advice. So I will say this. So I will say this Hold on, the boys is coming. Hold on you, buddy.
Speaker 1:You gonna have witnesses at least.
Speaker 2:So in this whole time, someplace, that the master Mhm. So what is that? Yeah, you're six. Six. Then Can you see the Instagram. But it's important to me to not just assume, like Amanda, like you're processing through a lens of, like bad relationships and a father issues, so like do yourself and you know you're really not going to get a good. You know, get another perspective beyond just your own. And so I'm lucky that I have friends who they never at any point said, man, fuck that nigga. What they said was okay. So how does that make you feel?
Speaker 1:Back to the emotionally developed people.
Speaker 2:How does that make you feel so? And I just remember that we had went on a trip and he was really just not kind and when we came back from the trip it was we had reached a kind of like a new Venus, you know of like where are we going with this? And my two of my really best friends they held me accountable, like they were like okay, so now that you have established these things, and now that you have identified these things, what is your next step? Where is your bar? When is it time to go? And I will forever thank them for that, because I think, because of my codependency and my own self esteem stuff, like I'll stick with something way longer than I need to, just because I don't want to be the bad guy. It may be codependency.
Speaker 1:It could also be the fact that you believe in people.
Speaker 2:It's very easy. I mean, sir, sir, I am the client and play a president of the. I see your light, but I'd learn and I would be like, oh, my God, I see you. I see you, and so you know, once I see it, it's hard for me to convince myself that it ain't going materialized.
Speaker 1:But it don't be. When you have a lot of confidence in yourself, you also have a lot of confidence in your judgment, and so you feel like you know I'm right and I know I'm right, and so I'm going to show that this is right. I believe in this person and I am now going to. We are going to be tattered and torn, but watch when we stand up. We're going to look good together, arm in arm. We might look toe up for the floor, but watch and see. We're going to win this Tough Mudder. We're going to be muddy and bruised Tough Mudder. We're going to go through the electric shock. We're going to come out and be a mess, but I'll tell you what we're going to get the headband and win.
Speaker 2:And that, to me, is what a beautiful, healthy relationship is. It's two people who feel that way about each other, right, like I know that if I told you some of the people I've been with you'd be like sis, okay, let's set up a session. But they saw me in ways that I needed to be seen, particularly at the time, right, so that becomes kind of like a trauma bond thing. But like I like that's something that I, they saw a light in me, you know, at like times when, and then I saw the light in them. But when you see a light in me, you, you, you talking to somebody who's going to be like oh, you see a light, right, see that light too, and you know, so that's something that I feel like a lot of times is not really. It's like it's not reciprocated. You know, like I feel like they may like that in the beginning, but then if somebody sees a light in you, eventually you're going to have to like be that, and that's the part.
Speaker 2:That's the part it's like oh she want me to actually like be the thing that she sees in me.
Speaker 1:There is a real time.
Speaker 2:And that's. You know, that's a thing for a lot of people, like they just don't, they don't want that, and I am, I'm, I'm, I'm like inspired by that, like that makes me excited, like you see something in me. I want to see that in me. What do I got to do to to get there? That's exciting to me.
Speaker 1:What that makes you human, though I just want you to understand.
Speaker 2:I'm trying please.
Speaker 1:That makes you human, because everyone, male or female, wants to be seen. Even when you look at group therapy, a reason why a young man joins a gang is not because somebody beats them up, is because they tell them they love them and they do anything for them. And so that little boy will go through a ass kicking, he will leave behind everything that you would think reason and would dictate he would go towards, because somebody said to him I love you, little brother, and I'll do whatever I can for you. And if it's just a pair of sneakers, that he gets them like that right there means like so you you think I'm valuable? Yeah, I think you're valuable. Okay, if you think I'm valuable, then then I'll do what you need me to do.
Speaker 2:So someone in here said trauma bonds can become healing bonds. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 1:People are going to heal through multiple strategies and I'm never going to tell someone how how they singularly heal. I don't. One of the great things about humans is when not binary, and so if that works for her, then I'm not going to tell it that it didn't work for her. Do I suggest it? No, I would suggest that it's like when people meet in rehab. The couples that come out of rehab met in rehab and one might think that they couldn't be there for one another, but it's often the case when they leave rehab.
Speaker 1:I used to run a homeless shelter and a lot of people would be under those conditions. They would be with each other during those conditions, but at some level it set them at a certain point where they saw each other in that space and they, they struggled to grow beyond that space. So they saw themselves as indigent and homeless, so they saw themselves as deeply substance abusive, and so the codependency existed in the context of as long as you need me to do the bad thing that you do to yourself, then I am valuable, so I am invested. The currency that we trade between us is you are living in jacked up existence and I am part of the solution. I keep feeding it to you. So I think that there's an inherent danger in, in, in ever, in any type of relationship. Unhealthy people are unhealthy and unless you, if you want to help an unhealthy person, then be their therapist, be their counselor, be their doctor, but don't be unhealthy.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yes.
Speaker 1:Because there's a danger.
Speaker 2:I think you know, I think for the most part, like it's a it's just always a dance of trying to just make sense of a world that doesn't make sense. And you know, we're all trying to kind of do that in our own way. For some people that's religion, you know. For some people that's looking for. For some people it's religion. For some people that's, um, you know, the gym. Like I feel, like you know everyone, like you know, for some people it's it's, it's they're able to put their energy into a healthy space. But I know, for me it's just a constant effort of like mindfulness, really just trying to elevate and be in a space of mindfulness, whether it's in my work or like right now. Like right now I feel really kind of discombobulated because the world is so drastically disconcerting that I feel like I am this off-teaster and I'm having to be sorry. I'm having to be like really practiced about taking care of my mental health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would strongly encourage you, presumptuously, to keep in mind that no one can figure the world out when we're just trying to figure out our day, and so we're all trying to figure ourselves out minute by minute, and it it becomes akin to trying to ingest the ocean. It's just not possible.
Speaker 2:Say that, okay, say that again.
Speaker 1:So, when you are trying to figure out the world as opposed to trying to figure out you, you are taking on a task that simply cannot be done, and so there is no win in that. Set yourself up for defeat, and what you can do is what you've said, you've done, which I you know. You mentioned what the perfect partner is, and one of the cool things about your knowledge of being the personal partner I mean what the perfect partner is is. You know what it is, that you aspire to be for yourself and that, as you said, somebody who's comfortable in themselves, comfortable with themselves, and so being comfortable with yourself means acknowledging there are things that you can control and impact, and then there are things that you simply cannot.
Speaker 1:It is a classic challenge that we're all faced with, but you, as you said, a public persona, can very easily take on the responsibility, because people feel like you are, like so many people in here have said that you are their best friend, and I don't think that they're. I think they're joking a little bit. I think they're joking a little bit. I don't think that they're being, I think that they're being cheeky, but I think that they're also being somewhat honest, and I think that you and they get something from this experience in a really cool way and it's meaningful and to the extent that it can be. But, as you said, in your real personal life, you meticulously and methodically built your kitchen cabinet and each of the components serves a very clear purpose. You see, somebody said we're not joking, you really are their best friend, and so I'm going to, you know, I'm going to step in between y'all and say no, no, no, you guys get something from one another, but Amanda has best friends and you have best friends, and you can love her.
Speaker 2:The parasocial relationship is like some other, like weird shit right. Like that really is like something that I feel like as a world, like we're still just like adjusting to you know this whole. Like we're connected but we're not connected. Like we have access but we don't have access, kind of thing. Like it's like a, it's a dimension that we didn't really have. But I will say that you know that interaction like this has this space and the ability to kind of get like an exchange with people is especially as an independent. So like sometimes I don't want to have to go on stage and perform in order to have like a human exchange, and this allows for there to be like a space between ahead of that, where I don't have to do a full on show. Just for the record, I will be doing show.
Speaker 1:So that's really want to get to you and I could talk.
Speaker 2:I was blacklisted all year, so which?
Speaker 1:again. You keep in social work. They call that a doorknob admission, like it's right. At the end you say something like oh damn, I don't want to end the conversation but like stop being so good. So you and I are going to do this again many times because I there's so much to uncover in your presentation and you represent a, I believe, a new persona. You say you were canceled. I've watched your numbers grow.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I didn't say I was cancel, I said it was blacklisted.
Speaker 1:My bad, my bad, thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I was like I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2:Can I do that? Yeah, fair Um From comedy clubs, oh yeah, and uh, you know when that happens, you know you, it is kind of what it is. I didn't know that. That's what it was until like.
Speaker 1:I started trying to do shit and it was just like God, why is this so hard to do shit? You know you, you know you use. You did an event my sons were very serious about, like I see your sons. So I have a 21 year old and I have an 18 year old.
Speaker 2:Really, that's an interesting demographic to know about me Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, they were. Yeah, yeah, they did your stuff Cool, um, yeah right, so um, but you had, um, you had done an event for free, I know.
Speaker 2:You're taking me back.
Speaker 1:I know I learned a lesson, though we did. Welcome to my world.
Speaker 2:Why is that your world?
Speaker 1:Because in my real life, like I really work with people, you just think, look, I'm, I'm, this is something I'm giving to you. Like I'm not, like I really don't get like this, no thing that I get, like I don't get a thing from. I know that you think, cause I'm standing on a platform or because I'm in a position or I have a suit on, cause that's what I want to work, like I guess a thing that you somehow did to make my life better, which you know in the most esoteric sense. Yeah, I feel better because you're better, but it's not the exchange that you think it is, and and so, doing that it was one of the first times I can say I connected with you, because I was like welcome to the jungle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm over here like this is for people. I know I'm a different people. The people was familiar, like that's cute, but we're going to be right here.
Speaker 1:We'll get there. When we get there, what time does it start? Seven, oh well, I'm gonna start getting ready around seven 30.
Speaker 2:That was so wild. That was a wild experience. But I learned in that the same way that you were saying earlier. You were like, well, there are women that hold up patriarchal ideals. It's like, yes, the same way that there are my fans who also hold up capitalist ideals, and we don't even be known. We don't we don't even be knowing, like my, my Documentary in Amanda, we trust which is fantastic, by the way thank you.
Speaker 2:I was going to give it away for $5 and my shout out to the people around me because one of the people that works with me was like $5. She was like I'm not, that is absolutely ridiculous. And I was like, well, you know. But for the people she was like stop the people that already told you that they want to pay $4,000 for Beyonce ticket. The people have spoken loudly.
Speaker 2:So she was like you have to understand like, unfortunately, majority of people taste value on what you place value on. If you say it's only West, by dollars and they like well, then it's not be that that valuable.
Speaker 1:I'll give you something much more pedestrian, and then I know I got to. Let you go, we, we. I want to do this again sometime and change information, if you're available for that. But one of the reasons we don't give kids uniforms give kids uniforms is because they'll lose them, so we give them to them. But if I say, okay, if you want this uniform, then you got to, and then you, and then I Right.
Speaker 1:Now you now. Now you feel like you worked for that uniform or the shoes or the belt, then you treat it like it matters and there's something in that for life.
Speaker 2:It's the same relationships, by the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, by a lot.
Speaker 2:That's, that's. That's probably my biggest flaw, my biggest error.
Speaker 2:I won't say Well, I think we need to do this Really, though unfortunately that's not the society we're in, like. That's just not Like. I'm at a point now where someone wants to date me. We're not talking on the phone. We're not talking on the phone. We're not doing the texting thing. Set a time, set a place. I'll be there, I'll be there. You want a day, we can even do a whole day. If you earn it, we can do a whole day. But I have learned that I be given all of this energy because I'm energy. I'm giving all of this energy, and they just don't see how valuable that is. And then, next thing, I know they don't suppose it.
Speaker 2:So, now I just need to have. It needs to be action first.
Speaker 1:Well, it is because you are spending dollars and they're spending pesos. If you're not in the same economy, then the value doesn't translate. So you have to get somebody who travels in the same emotional country that you do.
Speaker 2:But I think that they don't need a passport. But it's like I know for a lot of the women on here who date cisgendered heterosexual men, they can relate to the fact that you have to create systems to determine what passport they have you do. That's one of the systems I've realized that I have to put in place Because clearly my current passport reader is not effective.
Speaker 1:Well, your TSA staff is not really doing the full package. They're not on the job.
Speaker 2:They're not on the job. So I got to create a bigger boundary for me, and that was me having to be real with me. Like you doing this, people will only do to you what you let them do to you. You doing this, there's only victims and volunteers, and you currently are a volunteer. Close the gate. So you know that's the realness. But do you have a closing question?
Speaker 1:My closing question Is it something that makes you happy Candy?
Speaker 2:I love candy, so much it's candy, dr Perry, I really do it's candy, I love candy, I love candy.
Speaker 1:I love candy. I love candy. Give me some sour candy Give me some sour past kids. No, I'll be serious, I'll be serious, no, no, no. You can be listen, it can be candy. If it's candy, there's a number of things that make me happy.
Speaker 2:There's a number of things that make me happy, because you seem to vacation by yourself. You said what Vacation by yourself. I have felt it very healing to not be alone, but to be in solitude. Different. You know what I'm saying? It's a different mindset.
Speaker 1:You are preaching to the sisters right now. They can't get enough hearts and fists going. I don't even know how they type so fast. You have that many hearts and fists going Like you have a.
Speaker 2:It's because it's really, it's something that I feel like a lot of us were not given permission to do. Like you feel like you weren't given permission to be somewhere alone Because you being somewhere alone is somehow an indicator of your unworthiness as a partner. Like that really is a thing for so many of us women. And it's like you can't be at the movies alone, because if you were at the movies alone, then there wasn't a nigga to take you there, right. Like you can't go to dinner alone, because then there must not have been a nigga that wanted to take you to dinner. And we still live in a world that's just so based on. Like your value is whether a nigga want to. And it's like, listen, cut it out, but I love the water. Like water makes me happy. Like the beach, the pool, the river, the lagoon, like. In a way, it's like and it's a I don't even know if happy is the word it's like it gives me serenity, it's like a blissful happy, you know.
Speaker 1:Stacious balance.
Speaker 2:Yes, animals make me happy. I really really love animals, like really. And I would say the last thing that makes me happy is just, you know, being in spaces with folks that I'm not. So you know, on stage as a performer, you have your monitors right, so it might be the speakers in front of you, it might be in your inner ear. It's basically like saying you back to you. I love being in spaces where I don't have a monitor. Where I'm not, I don't have to say me back to me to make sure that I'm not gonna disrupt the space, which we all need to do in certain spaces, like there's something very you know, there's accountability and maturity in that. But it is also nice to be in spaces where Y'all think I know what it is.
Speaker 1:That right. There is how they close. Y'all think I know how to do it. You are fantastic, I see. I don't often tell my son thank you so much. I don't have to tell my sons that they're right, so let's let tonight be their night. This is a holiday for them. They're gonna mark their calendars. They were right. They win tonight. They win tonight.
Speaker 2:I'm glad I could get them a W. They got a.
Speaker 1:W. They got a W. Don't worry, it'll change soon, but they won't put it. They won't put it evening. It's all jokes aside. You are fantastic and I deeply appreciate what you mean to us as a community. You matter in a way in which you make so many other people matter, and that, to me, is the most powerful thing. I believe that the smartest person in the room is not the one with the best answers, but the one with the best questions, and so you seem to be asking yourself questions all the time and trying to be the smartest person in the room. So keep doing your thing, sis. I look forward to connecting with you again, for real Same.
Speaker 2:Where are you based?
Speaker 1:I am physically now in Connecticut, but between Connecticut and New York we have schools in Connecticut and New York we're Connecticut West Haven. In fact, if it were light outside, I could show you the ocean, I could show you the Long Island Sound. It's right there, like it's literally yeah, it's brick, though I ain't gonna walk out there. I'm gonna put some clothes on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just before we go, can you reiterate for me one time when you, if you remember, you said trying to understand the world when you're trying to understand yourself is like trying to ingest the ocean.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, so you are taking on a task that is bigger than your tools.
Speaker 2:So we should not ever so. You don't feel like we should be trying to understand the world?
Speaker 1:I don't think the world is ours. I think those people believe in higher power. Leave that to the higher power. I think what we can do is see our role in it right. If you play basketball, your job is not to play all five positions. Okay, you play your position, one position. If you sing, it's one position. Even if you're in a mass choir, even if you're the conductor, you're the conductor. You're not singing all the parts unless you're Jackson or Prince. So you play your position better than anybody. Right, and do it as only you can, and then you never have to follow you because you'll always be you. So ingesting the ocean is simply a task that just is beyond us. It is, it seems like it's possible. Once you take, you know like you start, and then, as soon as you start, it just doesn't the goal, the task doesn't produce a reward. It's only futile. It is sysophician.
Speaker 2:What Did you say? Sysophician? Yeah, 10 points for Gryffindor. That is amazing.
Speaker 1:I'd be going to school, you know.
Speaker 2:All right now. Well, expecto patronum. You have a great evening, Shout out to all of y'all on the live.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:This conversation went a lot of beautiful dope places and I appreciate y'all sticking around while I literally drove myself illegally back to my home while staying on the live so.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you. All right, sis, take care. Thank you.