Ep 134: Navigating Virtual Pride

Hey what's up hello! This week we discuss pride month and what it might look like in the time of Coronavirus. Sarah also gives two (2) manifestos! You don't wanna miss it.   

Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/navigating-virtual-pride   

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Transcript

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[00:00:00]

SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay a podcast where an aro-ace girl. I'm Sarah. That's me 

KAYLA: And a demi straight girl that's me Kayla

SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love relationships sexuality and pretty much anything else we just don't understand 

KAYLA: On today's episode virtual pride 

BOTH: Sounds Fake But Okay 

[Intro Music]

KAYLA: Oh, Shoot, Patreon… Oh no. Oh no, discord told me… Was it m’ex 

SARAH: I don't know 

KAYLA: Discord had told me days ago which one should be the next one and I think it was something like m’ex but I think I'm wrong and uncle Kevin is going to be mad at me 

SARAH: Okay. For a second, I thought that like something had like just happened on the discord that you had just seen and were like, oh my God, we need to stop. 

KAYLA: I'm sure something is currently happening on the discord. But… 

SARAH: Oh my God. Okay 

KAYLA: Wait, maybe I can search for it you go ahead. 

SARAH: Oh

KAYLA: Yes. 

SARAH: Okay. What are we talking about this week? Is… you have to talk next? 

KAYLA: No, what… you tell me what we're talking… you tell me? 

SARAH: Well God. All right, so guess what Kayla? 

KAYLA: What? hold on 

SARAH: Guess what is soon/now depending on when you're listening to this

KAYLA: I don’t know 

SARAH: Slash maybe in the past who knows? it's pride month kids and it is a weird time to be having pride month because you know Corona y'all know what's happening. Okay, I don't need to explain it to you, except maybe people in the future who are listening to this in like 20 years and are like, “I was a baby” but if you're still listening to this podcast 20 years from now, wow the dedication anyway

KAYLA: Yeah, that's… I mean maybe don't you know? 

SARAH: Yeah, who knows? But Pride month is still happening Coronavirus or not. So, we're going to talk about pride in the time of Corona 

KAYLA: Wait, I found a thing when I was… says, “I will do my best to remember.” 

SARAH: Oh my God 

KAYLA: What was I… sport jump… 

SARAH: Kayla 

KAYLA: M’ex. I got it, right 

SARAH: M’ex?

KAYLA: M’ex 

SARAH: What is that? 

KAYLA: Dean was… what was Dean doing? Dean was doing something that was… oh It… I was taking a nap the other day and Dean came up to my room and like jumped on me and scared me, really bad and I told the discord and they said to divorce him and that… then I should do an episode about living with your ex and then they were like the next one can be m’ex 

SARAH: Okay, do you hear the sirens behind me? That's how I feel about what you're saying right now 

KAYLA: Take it up with uncle Kevin 

SARAH: M’ex that doesn't make sense. 

KAYLA: I didn't… they did, they did 

SARAH: Well, Kevin, I'm going to tell you that's not your best work 

KAYLA: Wow, okay

SARAH: My condolences to Kevin but…

KAYLA: Wow, big words. 

SARAH: All right. Well, now I'm just confused because I explained what we were talking about this week and my brain didn’t know what to do… 

KAYLA: We’re talking about Pride. I'll say it. I'll tell you again. We're talking about pride in the virtual type there, done 

SARAH: Yes, I have a small manifesto that I have written…

KAYLA: Shocking 

SARAH: That I think I should probably just start with. Um… 

KAYLA: When don't we have a short manifesto? 

SARAH: I actually have two manifestos for this podcast

KAYLA: Oh Lord, and would you guess it? I have nothing 

SARAH: One of them is my beef 

KAYLA: Yes

SARAH: And I actually told a listener about my beef already 

KAYLA: Wow, if so 

SARAH: That person is in the know 

KAYLA: Inside news 

SARAH: Okay, the reason I kind of want to specify this little manifesto here at the beginning and the reason we're doing an episode about Pride in the time of coronavirus is it's a weird time obviously 

KAYLA: It is 

SARAH: I know right and I know like a lot of… at first when like a lot of stuff was getting canceled people are like well, you're going to have to cancel pride too. And we were like, yeah, we fucking already did like this is about the safety of people 

KAYLA: Don’t worry about it. 

SARAH: Oh, but here's what I'm going to say, No one is under any obligation to do anything for pride, post anything for pride, anything, a lot of people are quarantined in unsafe situations right now. They're minors. Maybe they're not minors, but they need the financial support of their family to survive in this time. No one has the right to judge anyone on how they're reacting to this. We're all three-dimensional people, respect each other blah blah. That said, I think for those of us for whom openly celebrating pride in a digital manner is possible. I think it's important that we do. There are some people out there who are making the claim like with everything going on like now is not the time to focus on fill-in-the-blank issue like queer issues, it's not the time to celebrate pride and like I just think that's patently untrue. My thoughts on this run parallel to the stance we have on this podcast about gatekeeping in queer communities which is that just because you deem that the oppression or the struggles a certain group is facing, just because you deem them as lesser than that which another group might be facing, that doesn't mean that their struggles shouldn't be addressed. That doesn't mean they're not valid. And yes, Coronavirus is hurting everyone right now, some more than others, but that's not the only thing we need to fight for in this time. Big issues like racism and classism and issues that we care deeply about on this podcast in addition to I just mentioned like aphobia and transphobia, those don't just go away when a virus shows up. In fact, in many cases a pandemic may exacerbate some of those issues. Additionally, all the news is just like COVID, economic crisis, people dying, Trump telling people that they should inject sunlight into their asses and bro sometimes you just need a break. Pride is a great place for that. It can act not necessarily as a distraction but as an escape from all this buffoonery and Pride is a time to celebrate the community, to remind the world that we exist and that we matter, and just because we're being safe and not holding parades and festivals doesn't mean that we can't make ourselves seen in this time. Because I mean a big part of pride is remembering and honoring those who came before us, you know we can… you know we can… we can take this time to remember and honor those people who fought for us so that those parades and festivals were possible, be they in person or online and honor their memory. You got Marsha P Johnson, you got Larry Kramer who just died this week, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Rivera, Keith Haring, Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin. I could keep going but I'm going to stop. My point is that no matter what else is happening in the world this still matters and being seen still matters and fighting for our brothers, our sisters our non-binary siblings, it all still matters and we are so lucky to have fought for and been subsequently you know… given is not even the right word, but we've paved the way to have this platform of pride month, so we better fucking use it regardless of what else is going on in the world. And on that note I shall step off my soapbox. Thank you.

KAYLA: Wow, what a manifesto you gave. 

SARAH: Thank you. But that's why talking about this shit matters 

KAYLA: Yeah, I mean I think especially like now more than ever I think it's very important and I do want to put the disclaimer of like if you do not want to celebrate Pride as an aro or ace person…

SARAH: You don’t have to

KAYLA: Because like you feel excluded from the community and any of that like that's completely fine. We're not saying that you like have to celebrate pride no matter what, I think the point that Sarah is trying to make that I agree with is that like you shouldn't let Coronavirus and everything that's happening stop you from doing what you normally would have done before if you're able to because I think you're right like now that the news is all Coronavirus like economy blah blah whatever like it's even harder for anything else to break through like, you know civil rights stuff or class stuff or sexuality stuff like that already doesn't get a lot of news time in the first place 

SARAH: Especially aspec specific stuff. 

KAYLA: Yeah, I think it's definitely usually like kind of fluff pieces of like, okay we're this news organization. We need to be diverse. We have an open spot. Let's throw it to this Identity and like cover whoever…

SARAH: Let's put a rainbow flag in 

KAYLA: Yeah, and like that's not going to happen right now because you know, the 24-hour news cycle is very full right now so I think it's even more important to like show that you're visible and also like you said like there's other things that we can focus on and we need to like it's not healthy for everyone to focus on coronavirus 100% of the time like you just need to read about something else or… and do something else at all 

SARAH: Yeah. And fighting for the rights of queer people, celebrating queer people is a great way to do that 

KAYLA: True 

[00:10:00]

SARAH: Uh, so I mean… I guess then the question is what does that look like? I know for pride this year a lot of like places that used to have major pride events or that usually have major pride events are doing online like stuff of different sorts. I honestly don't even know that much about a lot of them because again there has been so much shit going on that I haven't been like let me look into all of this. You have, how much do you know about the ones that like are going up in a digital manner? 

KAYLA: I read recently… hold on. I'm trying to find it. I'm trying to look it up. I think it's like World Pride is doing a virtual thing and I read…

SARAH: Is that the one that Dan Levy is the Grand Marshal of? 

KAYLA: I don't know

SARAH: I just know only… exclusively Dan Levy news is all I know 

KAYLA: I know, it's true. Okay, Global Pride 2020, it's… so you can I guess like so interesting okay, so they're using LGBTI+, that's an interesting acronym 

SARAH: That is a very interesting acronym actually. Why… I don't want to say like I get why you're leaving out the A, but like people leave out the A all the time but to include the I but not include the Q. 

KAYLA: Yeah, the Q is the most surprise…

SARAH: That doesn't make sense 

KAYLA: Everyone always does the Q now, anyway. So, they're doing something where you can like submit video content either like spoken word or like a video of like a short speech or like a performance or something, what I find interesting and like kind of worry some about this is I feel like a big thing about going to like a pride parade or something like in person is that even if you're not one of the people that gets to be on the floats or you know doing one of the performances that's happening you still get to like actively participate and be there whereas this it's like, you know you get to submit it but it says right on here like not all of the submissions are going to be included in whatever the thing is that they're making, which like I get, obviously you can't like do like show everyone but I worry that they're just going to take people that are like very like popular or well-known like there's even a thing here of like if you're a significant public figure email this one, email this place, rather than doing the regular submission. So, it just seems… 

SARAH: Like who gets to decide who's a significant public figure and who is not 

KAYLA: It says such as a leading politician, which I don't know what that means. But… so it's just like and obviously people are throwing this stuff together, I don't want to criticize this stuff too much for like certain planning things because I know this is not what they were planning but it just like the thing about virtual prides in general that makes me sad is that people don't get to participate like normal. Like people who watch these videos that are submitted aren't going to feel like they're participating in the same way as they would have if they actually went to a physical parade and got to show their face, you know what I mean? 

SARAH: Yeah, I also feel like… Just like my experience having gone to the one pride that I've gone to, which was San Francisco pride of all the prides, is that like I've talked about this on the pod before but you know, I was kind of nervous to go because I was like, I don't know I'm aro-ace I don't know how aroace-friendly this place is going to be. But the reality is once you get there it's like, it's not like you have to walk around with a label on your face that says like this is what my identity is 

KAYLA: Yeah 

SARAH: You know, some people just attend pride because it's like… it's a party and they're there to show their support. Or like a lot of people like bring their kids even if they're a heterosexual couple with kids like they bring their kids to be like hey, look like this is good and normal like and I think that's great. But I think if it's online if you're going to participate online it almost feels like you're at more risk of like… just like you're kind of forcing yourself to be outed like if you just show up at pride like I don't want to say there's plausible deniability, but that's kind of like the best phrase, like you know if you are in… if you end up in an unsafe situation with… someone is like well, you were you know at pride you could just be like “well I was going with my friends” like if you're concerned for your safety, and you don't want to out yourself. Like I almost feel like there's an easier off-ramp for going to pride in-person rather than like posting like you know something on the internet like for pride. And I mean obviously that's no one's fault. But I do think that like although doing digital stuff for pride I think is going to be and can be a really cool thing, I'm worried that it might exclude some people who might otherwise want to participate. But on the other hand it might include people who wouldn't otherwise be able to come to pride events 

KAYLA: Yeah, I was just going to say that as I think, I don't know, kind of like a devil's advocate for your point or whatever is like my initial thought was that it would be easier for people who are closeted to participate not by like creating anything or posting anything, but just watching whatever content people put out or like, you know if there's like videos or like big live stream events or whatever that it's easier to kind of like secretly watch something on your phone in your room than to like… be like “hey, mom can I…” 

SARAH: Yeah, especially for… 

KAYLA: “I borrow the car here I go to the city on the same day that pride is it's fine. Don't worry about it.” 

SARAH: Yeah, I think especially for young people, for minors. That's a very good point where it's like you… they may not be able to participate if they're not out in the same way as everyone else but at least they get to watch it more in a digital space 

KAYLA: Yeah. And I'm hoping that- I know like the one small pride that I went to like later in the day after the parade there was like a drag show like performances and like poetry readings and other stuff and I mean I think the one thing I will say about like Coronavirus and things going virtual is I think a lot of things have become like free. I feel like a lot of people are doing like concerts or live shows or whatever for free online and so people that wouldn't have been able to afford to see that kind of thing can see it now. So I'm hoping that you know, if there's you know, virtual events and live events that maybe people will be able to see like a speaker do something or like a drag show or you know a round table or something like that that they wouldn't have been able to actually like buy tickets for 

SARAH: Yeah, it definitely it definitely improves accessibility and the people who are still lacking accessibility because of you know lacking in or not a broadband or whatever those are probably not super near places where pride parades would have been anyway 

KAYLA: Yeah, I mean that's definitely still an issue 

SARAH: Still an issue, but I mean 

KAYLA: Not something that this is obviously able to solve 

SARAH: Right, exactly. So, I mean there is definitely the increased like accessibility and I do think that like I mean obviously in a post-corona world, everything is going to change a lot. We're going to change the way we live our lives, but I think after this people are going to be more willing to like just do more stuff digitally like more events digitally not just like tweeting but like, you know, like, you know doing like little like shows like live streams, whatever. Like I feel like they're going to become more mainstream and hopefully they can be integrated into future in-person prides so that you know the people who might be gaining accessibility this time around will also be able to access it in the future even if they can't go in person 

KAYLA: Yeah, definitely. What do you think… Do you think this will be like good, bad or neutral for like aspec and arospec people? 

SARAH: To be honest, it's… I expect most things to be neutral for aspec communities. When it comes to like pride because I mean it's just… I don't know how a lot of these prides are going to work in terms of like… because previously you would have like Parades where like different groups or like different whatever would be there and like representing certain identities and you know, you would see people walking around with certain flags and that sort of thing. Obviously, that's not quite the same with a digital event. And so I mean I just kind of think that… I mean this isn't necessarily like a super optimistic thing but I kind of assume that aspec entities will kind of run under the radar a little bit as they tend to do 

KAYLA: Yeah, it's kind of… like some prides I've definitely seen like aspec groups walking in prides and like having their own like float or like group that walks with like a banner or something 

[00:20:00]

SARAH: Mm-hmm 

KAYLA: But I feel like now that… I don't know it's hard because I think it'll really be on the organizations that are putting together the pride 

SARAH: Yeah

KAYLA: To like include the identity like when you… 

SARAH: Like actively invite? 

KAYLA: Yeah, because they'll be the ones having to like put you know pictures of the flags on their website or like write out the identities that they're doing whatever for like it's not going to be like a parade where anyone can walk in with whatever T-shirt you want and that might be the ace pride like the ace representation you get which that sucks too and it is… I don't know, it's like it already was on the organizations in large part for like reaching out to the groups they want to be in the parade and like already writing on their websites and whatever the different identities, but I think it's going to be even more so now that it's harder for people to participate on their own and I feel like it's going to be more like information and content coming from whoever's running the pride directly.

SARAH: Yeah, I think for individuals to participate in pride, it’s definitely going to be a more invitation-based thing, so like it's super weird because on one hand it's way more accessible on the other hand it's… makes it a lot harder, the conundrum of the internet kids. 

KAYLA: Truly 

SARAH: So, I mean it's going to be hard. But I think I mean this is sort of thing where aces, you know we should… I mean don't should, but I'd like it if we you know kind of asserted ourselves and just kind of made it so that like hey, we're here too, let's see, what's up

KAYLA: Yeah, and like I said, I think it's hard like I think on like ace awareness week or aro awareness week people are really jazzed about like posting on the internet and getting involved but like I said earlier, I think a lot of people have kind of difficult relationship with the queer community in general and so might not be as willing and so I think that's hard to… 

SARAH: During Pride week you mean? Or during Pride month? 

KAYLA: Yeah, what did I say?

SARAH: You just didn't say when, I had to specify  

KAYLA: Yeah, during like general Pride events because… I feel like it's this like kind of endless circle of like well this Pride organization isn't inviting us, so I'm not going to do anything, but then when they do invite us, I'm like you know, you still don't feel welcome or you do participate anyway, and it's like you know, it's kind of this endless just like not working out situation 

SARAH: Yeah, I mean if for those of us that want to be welcomed into the queer community you know, we have to be active in asserting ourselves in that community. Obviously it is on other people in the community to be like, hey maybe we should not be dicks towards this entire identity and this identity umbrella but I mean… so for those of us who want to be welcomed into the queer community, which I know I am a part of that group, I believe Kayla you are too, then you know, we have to kind of stick our foot in the door and be like hey let us in. And you know Pride Month is a prime time to do that because eyes are on queer communities and we can take that time to be like hey, we're a part of this too and a lot of wonderful people are welcoming and other people are less so and we need to explain to them why they're wrong and get in there anyway 

KAYLA: Yeah, true. I do also wonder as the constant pessimist if… because like I think during every like awareness week or day or whatever for asexuality or aromanticism like aphobes really come out and decide that's the time that they're like especially going to be terrible and I feel like… 

SARAH: Yeah. They're like we're aware of you. We're going to be fucking pissed 

KAYLA: Yeah. But I feel like it happens during pride month too is there kind of like is a spike and I know like… 

SARAH: It's when people remember we exist. 

KAYLA: Yeah, and on the internet recently I feel like it has gotten even worse with like Twitter harassment and just like terrible things happening. I feel like over the past year especially it has gotten like worse and worse so I'm almost wondering like now that everything is going to be virtual if it's going to be like even worse or if it's going to be like people have other things to do online with pride, so maybe they'll just like ignore us. 

SARAH: I mean, it's possible that it could run the risk of being worse just because you know when you're on the internet, you can hide behind a veil of animinity. When you are physically at a pride parade, you can't do that

KAYLA: Well, yeah, and I think like someone at a physical pride parade I think is much less likely to come up to your face and be like I fucking hate you just because that's how humans work. Whereas like on the internet behind your computer screen? You're like willing to say whatever you want, so.

SARAH: Right, so yeah and so my point there is that you know if everything is converted to being on the internet, if all of the events are now, you know people are able to hide behind that veil of anonimity, I can't… it's a word I struggle with, anonimity and whatever, you know, then that could increase the aphobia or the aphobic action and hate that we see coming from people. 

KAYLA: Yeah, I hope not 

SARAH: I also hope not. 

KAYLA: Maybe we'll get like our first real aphobic comment 

SARAH: Why are you hoping for this? 

KAYLA: I'm not, I'm just wondering because we've been very very lucky to like not really get anything especially compared to like people like Yasmin who people just like bother her constantly 

SARAH: Mm-hmm. 

KAYLA: Maybe it'll finally happen 

SARAH: Stop making it sound like you want it to happen. 

KAYLA: I don't want it to happen 

SARAH: You keep making it sound like you do 

KAYLA: But the more I sound… make it sound like I do the aphobes will be like well I can't give her what she wants because she hates me. I'm doing reverse psychology with the aphobes that definitely listen to this podcast 

SARAH: Okay, and you do have a degree in psych, so you must know 

KAYLA: I am a psychologist, so 

SARAH: I don't know that having a degree in psych and being a psychologist is the same thing 

KAYLA: Well, how would you know? Did you study psychology? 

SARAH: No 

KAYLA: Exactly. Maybe they taught about it…

SARAH: I took a psych class in high school. 

KAYLA: Oh, well. 

SARAH: Yeah, I mean speaking though of just pride and ace visibility I know Daniel @sliceoface is doing a little video thing 

KAYLA: Yeah, I've retweeted it today. 

SARAH: Yeah, Kayla did retweet it from the pod account on Twitter, so 

KAYLA: We'll retweet it again when this comes out. 

SARAH: Yeah. For those of you who are comfortable with being you know openly ace on the internet and showing your face, I think it's a great idea to submit a video to that I will be. This is me just saying it out loud to make sure that someone makes me do it 

KAYLA: I will also, now we have to make each other do it. 

SARAH: Okay, cool. 

KAYLA: Perfect 

SARAH: But yeah, I mean there are places you know where we can you know let ourselves be seen and I think that looking to a lot of the fellow ace activists and just kind of banding together at this time is a great kind of first step 

KAYLA: Yeah, and I feel like you don't even have to just look to like activists or like creators or whatever like it's very easy especially now that it's online like I think we've been talking a lot about like whether this makes barriers lower or higher but one way I think that it makes things easier is that like before, getting yourself in a pride parade was kind of hard. You have to be like a reputable organization or a company or whatever but now it's kind of like well anyone can like make a video or a Twitter thread or like write an essay or kind of like do whatever. So, it's not like you have to like… like you should be participating in these projects if you're comfortable I think because I think they're great and they're going to turn out really well. But also, you can like totally just start your own like 

SARAH: Yeah

KAYLA: Like I said like do your own project post about things like if you're part of your like local… What are they called like GSA Club or if like your local like Pride Center is doing something like you can easily like do stuff on your own if like you're able to and you know comfortable doing it

SARAH: You know what it takes to be an activist? 

KAYLA: Apparently fuck nothing because here we are 

SARAH: Well, it… to be an activist you have to do activism, like that's the only requirement 

KAYLA: I guess also like not much 

SARAH: Like you don't have to have a degree in activism 

[00:30:00]

KAYLA: Very true. 

SARAH: Are we activists? I guess we are 

KAYLA: Hence you have to be active. Very true. we're in a group chat. 

SARAH: That's true 

KAYLA: So 

SARAH: Yeah, I mean sometimes it can be weird to think of yourself as an activist if you feel like, you know this podcast is something I do it is not my entire identity but like that doesn't mean that I can't be an activist in this space just like I may be an activist in other spaces and you don't have to be like the front-running activist to be an activist you can just share stuff with… on your social media like 

KAYLA: Yeah, you don't need like a million Twitter or Instagram followers or anything like yeah it's just like being active like just spreading the word or doing something somehow even if it's like very small and just for like you and a select number of people that you're out to like that's also enough 

SARAH: Yeah, yeah, or if you have a platform and you have an audience use it, I've been putting more political shit on my Instagram story because that's the social media where I have the most number of followers 

KAYLA: Wow, we Stan 

SARAH: Tea. So, you know do what you can, don't do what you can't, it all okay

KAYLA: Uh, Sarah

SARAH: Yeah

KAYLA: I feel like… I’ve even talked to you about it, or see someone tweet about it, or you tweet about it, or something, but… 

SARAH: Or maybe I liked a tweet about it and it showed up on your timeline

KAYLA: Or maybe you liked a tweet about it, who's to say, really? but what do you think like companies and corporate involvement is going to be in pride this year because I know we've talked about it in previous episodes of like companies just like cashing in on pride to like sell t-shirts and say that they're inclusive 

SARAH: Yeah 

KAYLA: But… thoughts 

SARAH: My thoughts are I don't know and I'm not going to put my faith in any company or corporation unless or until they prove to me that they've earned it 

KAYLA: That's fair, apparently…

SARAH: I'm feeling pretty savage today 

KAYLA: You are, apparently… wait, no, let me look at it, continue

SARAH: What? 

KAYLA: Target is apparently selling ace-flavored colored things at their stores. 

SARAH: Well, also Target also helps fund the Minneapolis police department, so 

KAYLA: Well true. I don't know, I still feel the same way I felt about it before as like it's very exciting to see representation but it's also like does this company actually care or do they know that asexual people and aromantic people are so underrepresented? That if they put out a t-shirt or a flag that they'll just make a ton of money and people will think they're great 

SARAH: Yeah, like prove you mean it, be allies all the time, not just in June 

KAYLA: Fair, yes 

SARAH: That's what I… that's what I have to say on that topic 

KAYLA: Very spicy 

SARAH: Um, but you know if companies want to help with ace visibility, be my guest 

KAYLA: Yeah

SARAH: So, it's a… it's a weird fine line but everything is a weird fine line these days, what are you going to do? 

KAYLA: What are you going to do? 

SARAH: What you going to do? Do you have anything else to add on this topic? 

KAYLA: Not really 

SARAH: Okay. Well, I think we can stop there because uh, I have a major beef rant. So, that'll take up some time 

KAYLA: Uh, one last thing if anyone has like ideas or requests for things to for us to do during pride month let us know if we should be doing something. 

SARAH: Yeah, we don't really have anything planned necessarily 

KAYLA: We really like did our big event, you know

SARAH: Yeah. Probably pride definitely snuck up on us like it's fucking June. What the hell? 

KAYLA: Yeah, but if anyone like has anything that you'd like to see or anything. 

SARAH: Yeah, by all means 

KAYLA: Let us know 

SARAH: Yeah. Uh, cool. So, what's our poll for this week? 

KAYLA: Oh, will you be participating in a virtual pride? 

SARAH: Sure

KAYLA: Hold on. That might be a poll that someone else has already done and I just retweeted and that's why I thought of it. Dear god, I’m just kidding. Yeah, Gentle Giant Ace already did that 

SARAH: Already did that 

KAYLA: And I retweeted it the other day and that's why 

SARAH: So, let's not do that. 

KAYLA: So, you can already see that poll on our twitter or @gentlegiantace’s poll 

SARAH: Support Gentle Giant 

KAYLA: Uh, well 

SARAH: Well 

KAYLA: Well, um, we could just ask like… 

SARAH: How are you celebrating pride? 

KAYLA: Yeah, how are you going to celebrate pride? 

SARAH: Yeah, and that way people can maybe expose other listeners to uh events and things they might not have known about 

KAYLA: Yeah

SARAH: So, hit up the replies. So, for beef and juice this week, I'm going to go first 

KAYLA: Uh, okay

SARAH: Because I don't want to end on a really negative note 

KAYLA: That's fair 

SARAH: Okay. Here's the deal. Here's my beef. Last week's episode. I literally said last week that my beef, I believe it was last week, was systemic and ingrained racism in the united states, maybe it's two weeks ago, whatever. Guess what? 

KAYLA: I have no idea 

SARAH: I have to say it again, I need all of our white listeners specifically white American listeners, but really any white people, any people to understand that regardless of what other minorities you are a part of whether that's gender or sexual orientation or class white people all still have an advantage. We have privilege because we are white. Regardless of what other minorities we're a part of, so we need to shut our fucking mouths and listen to black people, black activists, black voices, the people who are getting traumatized by this shit that's going on in the United States daily, listen to what they say and do what they fucking tell us to do. But while we should be listening to them, we shouldn't expect them to be doing everything for us. Racism in America isn't someone else's problem. It's our problem as white people and we need to fix it, it shouldn't take repeated videos of black men being murdered by white police officers to go viral to move the fucking needle. And I know that some white people may not know all that many black people you know depending on where you're from where you're at, but guess what? We have the internet, follow black activists, listen to their words, change your behavior accordingly, I personally learn a lot from Darae McKesson, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Akilah Hughes, Ava de Verne all sorts of people seek out the people who are using their voices to speak truth to power. People who are speaking about their own experience in America that is by no means post-racial follow them listen to them, don't ignore something because it makes you uncomfortable. Don't ignore it when people are getting killed just because they're not killing you or who you deem to be your people, that's the reason we're in this shit show to begin with because even well-meaning progressive white people have been turning the other cheek since the beginning of time. If you don't know what recent events I'm referring to there are a couple of them, please just look at the fuck up and educate yourselves. I don't want to go into specifics but if you're not familiar with them do please look up recent events to do with… I mean, I'll… George Floyd and Christian Cooper are two recent examples, but… There's a lot of them. Okay, and if you're not American that doesn't mean your country doesn't have their own similar problems, your country might not be… or your system might not be systemically anti-black but it might be systemically anti-Muslim or systemically anti-native people or you know, all of those things. I could literally list so many major indoctrinate prejudices that America and so many other place have, it doesn’t matter where you are, take a look at your privilege big or small whatever that may be, take a look at the groups around you. They're treated as less than and fucking do something about it. My juice is, I don't know, cereal 

KAYLA: Wow, what a juice to end on

SARAH: That's why I wanted to go first because I didn't really have a real joos 

KAYLA: That's fair. But yeah, I think you all know that I agreed with Sarah pretty much all the time on political and social things, please do what you can to look this up, even if you're not or don't see yourself as a racist person, you probably have some systemic or unconscious things there. Like I know I don't like to admit it, but I definitely do, it happens to the best of us, please look things up. 

SARAH: Yeah, if you are a white person in America, you benefit from white supremacy. I benefit from white supremacy, that doesn’t mean I support white supremacy but I do benefit from it, and we need to be aware of that and you know do some shit about it 

[00:40:00]

KAYLA: Yeah, and like Sarah said even if it's not affecting you personally it is affecting people around you, people in the same world as you, in the same country as you, and you know it shouldn't… just like we say about asexuality of like the… all of the burden of visibility shouldn't have to be on us, all of the burden of education shouldn't have to be on us, black people go through enough like they have enough burdens to bear, you know, they don't need like white people being confused to be added on top of that, so do as much research and learn as much as you can on your own and donate where you can as well. Sarah, and I donated today so like even if you don't have that much money even a dollar can… it can help? 

SARAH: Yeah, and if you want to know more information about you know how you can help with this sort of thing, the Internet is a wonderful place you can also ask me as long as you're open to me telling you shit and not just coming at me to be like well, I am… I voted for Hillary therefore I'm not racist. That's simply not how that works 

KAYLA: It's just nothing. 

SARAH: Not at all. So, you know you can have voted for Obama and still do racist things. Okay, y'all jot that down. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice? 

KAYLA: Well, they're very significant especially compared to yours for sure, just as important um, my beef is that my house/my parents’ house where I currently live has been infested by bugs There's a lot of ants. There's a lot of wasps. This is a first world problem, but it is a lot for me

SARAH: Catch them with your net 

KAYLA: When there's a wasp in my bedroom or next to my office desk 

SARAH: Catch it with your net, sell it the Nook children 

KAYLA: I wish I could but I mean wasps are worth 2500 bells, so 

SARAH: Is that what they’re worth? I don't know what a lot of specific things are worth. 

KAYLA: They're pretty… they're like in relation to all of the bugs, they're pretty up there. My joos is that the Chinese place that my family really likes reopened today and we're going to get it. We're going to support that local business.

SARAH: Nice 

KAYLA: And it's very cute, they know us by name because my dad used to work near the place and they like have a family and they love us and it's really cute and we're going to support them. 

SARAH: That makes me think our local Chinese place like at home. It's not even really local anymore but we used to live next door to the people who own the Chinese place and it's like my preferred Chinese food by far and now I want it but it's 3,000 miles away. Also, I'm not sure that it's open 

KAYLA: Well, oh… 

SARAH: But you enjoy your Chinese food. I hope it's… 

KAYLA: Thank you. I will 

SARAH: And while you're doing so support Hong Kong, anyway 

KAYLA: Okay 

SARAH: Anyway. Okay, you can tell us about your beef, your joos, you know all sorts of things on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod as we mentioned we have now bought a bit of Ireland 

KAYLA: Yes, the certificate is on its way to me. I don't know when it will be here because it's just like in an envelope and I can't track an envelope but…

SARAH: Floating in the mail. Yeah… Yeah, but now as we're getting new patrons that money is going to go towards having our episodes professionally transcribed, we had some lovely lovely listeners help us with transcribing some previous episodes but we can't rely on just volunteer work for everything if we want to be like fully accessible so we're going to get that done so that people who are deaf and hard of hearing can still enjoy our podcast. So, thank you to our patrons for helping to make that happen 

KAYLA: Yes

SARAH: Yes, we have a new $2 patron. Emma Friend. I would consider her a friend, I’m I right ladies? 

KAYLA: You ruined it. You ruined her whole name. She gave us her hard-earned money and you know what you did in return?

SARAH: Called this person a friend 

KAYLA: I just… 

SARAH: Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Astritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Drew Finney, Perry Fiego, Fiego? Fiego? Perry your last name is Fiego now. 

KAYLA: Oh

SARAH: Dee, Megan Rowell, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, BookMarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Simon, Jamie jack, Jessica Shea, Rio Faustino, Daniel Walker, Barefoot Backpacker, Livy, Madeline Askew, Lily funk, James, Corinne and Maddie who used to be a $2 patron but is now a five other patron. Thank you, Maddie. Our $10 patrons are Kevin and Tessa @dirtyuncleKevin @Tessa_m_k. Kevin, M’ex is not your best work because out of context, it just doesn't make sense. I'm sorry. I appreciate you Kevin, but that's just not your best work. Arcness who'd like to promote the Trevor project, Benjamin Ybarra who'd like to promote Tabletop games, anonymous who’d like to promote Halloween, Sarah McCoy who'd like to promote podcasts from a planet weird, my aunt Jennie who'd like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra who'd like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug rice who would like to promote Native by Caitlin Curtis and Maggie Capellbo who'd like to promote her dog's Instagram @minniemuffin19. Did our new $10 patron answer over the course of this pod?

KAYLA: What? 

SARAH: The person that you messaged at the beginning of this…

KAYLA: Oh, no they haven’t 

SARAH: Okay, well we have a wonderful new $10 patron, but we did not contact you about what you wanted to promote until the beginning of recording this pod and that is on us. 

KAYLA: Sorry 

SARAH: The name on their patreon just has their first name as the letter H, there was a first name in their email address, but I don't know if they want to be…  that to be said, so…

KAYLA: Thanks H. 

SARAH: Yeah. Thank you, H, I'm also not going to say your last name right now just until we make sure that we have your permission to do that, but you know who you are. Thank you. And please tell us what you would like to promote. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White, Nathanieljwhitedesigns.com, my mom Julie who’d like to promote free mom hugs from a distance, Sarah Jones who is @eternallolli everywhere, Dea Chappelle who’d like to promote the podcast The Beacon, and Dragonfly who would like to support… 

KAYLA: The Minnesota… What's it called? 

SARAH: Relief fund 

KAYLA: I don't think that's what it's called. 

SARAH: No, it's not, that's not what it's called. 

KAYLA: Hold on. Hang on 

SARAH: It's simply not 

KAYLA: It simply is not

SARAH: It's called a freedom fund 

KAYLA: Yes 

SARAH: The Minnesota freedom fund. Okay, well thank you all for listening, please go sign some petitions, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears 

KAYLA: And until then take good care of your cows

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]