The Napkin In Between
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The Napkin In Between
Challenging Misconceptions: Building Inclusive Advocacy and Addressing Systemic Injustice
Waking up with an inexplicable burst of joy is a rare blessing that sets the tone for a meaningful exploration of topics often shrouded in misunderstanding. Join me, Daijné Jones, as we unpack the misconceptions surrounding pro-black ideologies, emphasizing that being passionately against white supremacy does not equate to being anti-white. This journey takes us through my personal reflections on building friendships that transcend race, built on mutual respect and understanding. It's a call to focus on the character of individuals rather than historical baggage and systemic barriers.
We then pivot to the grim reality of systemic failures within the prison system, spotlighting the tragic death of Robert Brooks and the broader implications of economic exploitation and dehumanization. This episode doesn't shy away from challenging topics, including the complexities of consent in the entertainment industry, where we discuss a high-profile case to underscore the importance of listening to and supporting victims. This is more than just a conversation; it's a call to action for change, urging us to rethink entrenched systems and foster relationships that uplift and empower us all.
Is this thing on? Hello, hello, uh-oh, another yapper with a mic. Hello everyone, welcome back to The Napkin In Between Podcast. I am your host, Daijné Jones.
Daijné:And, girl, I woke up in the best mood today, like, do you ever have those mornings where you wake up and you're just like you know what? Hell, yeah, like, hell, yeah, I. Nothing even happened. There's nothing that's happened that would produce this good mood. I literally just woke up. I woke up on the right side of the bed today and it was. It's just great. I love it.
Daijné:I wish that there was something that could explain it because, like I'm a very logical thinker, I think things need to make sense for me for me to be like okay, yeah, that thing makes sense, but sometimes things don't make sense. This is one of those times, like, I'm just in a good mood, but, yeah, I hope everyone woke up the same way that I did today, except for that orange drink lady, of course. Okay, cousins, come, come, come, sit right here next to me. I wish all of you could just come and sit next to me. We need to have a little conversation because I feel like the reception of my content ebbs and flows a little bit, and right now I'm not gonna yie, uh, it's getting a little weird. So we need to have a little conversation and I've had this conversation before, but I have no problem having it again and having it as many times as I need to have it, because I think it's important and I think, uh, it needs to a conversation that needs to be had of what my content is all about. So I posted on Instagram the other day and I don't really ever post on Instagram, I usually just do like monthly dumps of like what I did in that month and so I did that same thing for the end of 2024 and I had a variety of different photos of just like my travels and my dog and my friends and things that I did, the things that stood out to me for 2024. And I got this comment and someone said, hey, cousin, can you highlight your black friends? And I thought, like it's giving, you can always paint the roses red, like what an odd thing to say.
Daijné:I have a huge variety of friends. I have friends from all cultures, ethnicities. I have black friends, I have white friends, I have Asian friends, I have British friends. I have so many different types of friends and I think that because the content that I focus on is like calling out racism and homophobia and white supremacy and different things like that. It can kind of get confused with me not liking white people, and this is not the first time this has happened.
Daijné:I've had comments and DMs of people being like why do you hang out with white people, why are you friends with white people? And I'm friends with white people because I don't hate white people, I hate white supremacy, I hate bigotry, I hate the systems and this is not to, you know, make anyone feel bad or call anyone out, because I can understand the hesitation, especially from black people to white people. I view the hesitation from black people to white people the same way I view hesitation from women to men right, until you fully meet and understand a person and know that person, if you're a black person, I don't think that there's anything really wrong with being cautious towards white people, given the history and the world that we live in, and white supremacy and different things like that. So I'm not in any way trying to shame anyone or, you know, make anyone feel bad or or whatever, because I get it, totally get it. But I'm really at a place in my life, where every single one of my friendships and every single one of my relationships in general, honestly, are healthy relationships. They are the most peaceful things. There's not an ounce of toxicity. Why did I say there's like that? There's? There's not an ounce of toxicity, it is just all peace. And all of my relationships are quality relationships. Like I see them, they see me, we understand each other, we know each other, and that's what relationships are about. That is what you should want in your relationships People who see you and know you and just love you for who you are. And that's what I look for in my relationships. I don't form relationships based off of outward appearance for anyone, because I, at the end of the day, the people that I want around me are the people who respect me and love me and view me as a quality person. That's what I'm looking for, and if that is white people, then that's white people. It's all types of people.
Daijné:And here's the thing I'm very pro-black. I think that that shines in my content, which I love, and I can understand the confusion with being pro-black. But pro-black does not mean anti-white people and I think it can get confusing because a lot of the time when we see pro-white groups. Pro-white does mean anti-black or anti-minority. We see that with, like the KKK, neo-nazis, different things like that. So I can understand, you know, the translation of being pro-black, being anti-white. But being pro-black is not anti-white people, it's anti-white supremacy, it's anti-racism, it's anti-homophobia. So I just wanted to put it out there and I've put this out there before and I'll put it out there again if, if needed, if things get a little weird again.
Daijné:Yes, I have white friends. Yes, I have dated white men in the past. I will keep my white friends and in the future, if a man comes along and he is a good person and happens to be white, then it is what it is. I'm not. I don't right people off just because of their skin color. Again, I can understand being hesitant. That makes total sense to me, in the same way that it makes sense for me as a woman to be hesitant towards men. I get it, it makes total sense. But at the end of the day, my goal for my relationships are just to be around people who are quality people and who view me as a quality person and respect me, and we have that mutual respect thing going on. I think that's the most important thing in any sort of relationship and I know that sometimes, like people can create this persona online that is not the real them in person.
Daijné:But if any of the people in my life did any of the things that I spend so much time trying to call out and dismantle, they would not be in my life, regardless of skin color, because I I don't like racism, I don't like white supremacy, I don't like homophobia, I don't like anything that is a form of oppression. So if anyone in my life did those things, they would not be in my life. They would be cut off immediately, period, point blank. So I just wanted to have that conversation to remind you all what my content is and what it stands for and what I'm trying to do with my content. I'm not Anti-white, I'm anti white supremacy. So what are we gonna talk about today speaking of being anti-systems and white supremacy.
Daijné:I want to talk about Robert Brooks. If you are unfamiliar with the story of Robert Brooks, he was incarcerated at the Marcy Correction Facility. He had actually been transferred there only hours before several corrections officers at the prison beat him to death. There is body cam footage which captured this beating. If you have the stomach for it, I encourage you to watch it, and if you don't have the stomach for it, I'm still going to encourage you to watch it. It is an extremely difficult watch, but it's important that we see it.
Daijné:I think that sometimes we can turn a blind eye to different situations because they're hard to watch and, um, I think that that kind of can sometimes help the systems to be upheld, because we're not really seeing how terrible they actually are. So in the footage you can see Robert Brooks is handcuffed during the entire, the entire beating, and several corrections officers are, you know, punching him and picking him up by his neck and stuffing this white cloth in his mouth and just just being extremely inhumane and extremely disgusting it gets to the point where they beat him so much that he ends up dying. None of the officers' names at this point are being released. They were all fired, but no criminal charges have been pressed as of now, and it's really disturbing because we know that within the prison system these types of things happen a lot, but at this facility specifically, there have been multiple situations of abuse towards inmates. I want to read some of them to you.
Daijné:So one of the inmates his name was Adam Bauer. He was incarcerated at Marcy for a nonviolent drug offense and had less than a year left on his sentence when four officers attacked him in the bathroom in February of 2020. Bauer was thrown to the ground, punched in the head and kicked repeatedly in the side. His lawsuit says one of the sergeants present hit Bauer over the head with a clipboard so hard that the metal clasp of the clipboard left a v-shaped gash in his forehead, the lawsuit states. His attorney, Katherine Rosenfeld, told CNN that he was later taken to the same infirmary where Brooks was beaten to death. He had never experienced anything like this in his life. He was just savagely and randomly beaten. She said he was alone in the bathroom with a bunch of correction officers kicking and punching him to the ground, and he thought he was going to be killed.
Daijné:There was also an incident in 2022 when the family of Lonnie Hamilton, when the family of Lonnie Hamilton, a former inmate at Marcy Prison, was awarded $1.5 million in damages after a court found the state failed to meet its duty of care to prevent Hamilton's suicide. Hamilton's family was not notified of his death or that the staff had buried him on prison grounds. This man killed himself in prison. They buried him on prison grounds and did not notify his family for months absolutely disgusting. And then in that same year, two former inmates filed separate lawsuits against correction officers at Marcy for alleged attacks they said they experienced while incarcerated. So this facility has had several allegations of abuse against the prisoners there.
Daijné:So what's the solution? Right? The governor, Kathy Hochul, said that she is going to provide more cameras body cameras and just cameras throughout the facility to help prevent situations like this in the future. And my thing is, girl, there's already cameras. That's how we got the body cam footage of this beating of Robert Brooks. And even though we have these cameras and we have this footage, still no criminal charges have been filed on anyone involved in this fatal beating. Cameras, more cameras, are not going to do anything.
Daijné:What we truly need is an abolition of our current prison system, because I feel like, in theory, prison is not a bad idea. Right? I view it as like time out for adults like you did something that you shouldn't have done, go sit in time out, we'll talk about it while you're in time out and then, once you're out of time out, you won't do these things again. That's a very simplified outlook on prisons. It obviously needs way more nuance than what I just said, but like that's like should be the steps of our prison system of trying to rehabilitate those incarcerated so that they can be "upstanding citizens. I say in quotes, but that will never happen with our current prison system, because the system that we know today was not created for rehabilitation purposes. It was an economic purpose.
Daijné:If you have never seen the documentary "13th it's on Netflix I encourage you to go watch it. It talks about this in depth. But the prison system that we know today was created after the abolishment, in quotes, of slavery with the 13th amendment. So the 13th amendment was the amendment that abolished I say in quotes slavery and it says that slavery and involuntary servitude in the united states is prohibited, except for punishment for a crime, and with that little loophole put into the 13th amendment of you know, except for the punishment of a crime that was immediately exploited after the slaves were free and black men who were previously slaved were arrested for petty crimes like loitering and different stupid things like that, so that they could essentially be slaves again. You have to think about the south. At the time slavery had their economy booming and now that slavery is illegal, you have all this work that needs to be done, but you don't have anybody to do it. So, with that loophole, they immediately had, you know, workers again, because it was for the punishment of a crime.
Daijné:So that, coupled with this new image that they were putting out of black men being these animalistic, dangerous criminals that's the prison system that we know today you have to also think about the way that slaves were viewed. They weren't even viewed as humans, right, they were viewed as three-fifths of a person, not even a full person, and we see that translate into the way that people look at inmates and the way that they're treated. They're treated like they're nothing and it's just like a complete disregard for humans and for life. The whole system needs to be thrown the fuck out because it's it's not something that was truly created for rehabilitation or to reform people. It was created as an economic thing and it's still used as an economic thing. So when you take all this into account of like why the prison system that we know today was created, and how people who are incarcerated are viewed by not only correction officers but also society, no matter how much you try to reform it, it'll, it's not gonna work because it wasn't created to work.
Daijné:Even myself, when I first saw or heard of this incident with Robert Brooks, I was like, oh my god, our prison system is so broken. It's not broken, it's working exactly how it was created to work. And until we truly abolish it and rebuild it from the ground up, it's never going to get better. But then also, I have to force myself to be realistic and it's like do they even really want to abolish it and start over and make it an actual good thing? No, I don't think so, because, again, it's how they can get essentially free labor from people to support the economy.
Daijné:I think I see so many people who are like, oh my god, like this slave work and all these other countries and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's happening right here in the US too. The same things that people are so upset about, about these third world countries, are also happening right here in the United States. Let me hold your hand with a napkin in between while I tell you this. Something truly needs to change because this like it. It just happens so often, probably more often than we even know, and it's just like they want to put these band-aids on bullet wounds. A band-aid is not going to do anything more cameras isn't going to do anything. Every single officer who was involved needs to be charged criminally charged and tear down the entire system and start completely over. I hope that justice will be served for Robert Brooks. I hate saying like I'm praying for his family, because oftentimes that's where it starts and stops is just people being like thoughts and prayers, but something truly needs to happen.
Daijné:I also want to talk more about this Blake Lively Justin Baldoni situation. This is kind of where it's like a double-edged sword of being a one-woman team, because, with it just being me who does everything, from filming to editing, to all of it, I have control over everything and I, you know, every decision. I don't have to consult with anyone, it's just me. But at the same time, because it's just me, I have to give myself time between filming and publishing to put the episode together essentially. And so in the time between filming and publishing, so much can happen, because things change every single day.
Daijné:And so when I had filmed last week's episode and I was talking about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, he hadn't come out with his lawsuit against the New York Times, and so I didn't talk about it, or I didn't address it in the last episode and I kind of thought about cutting that entire thing out of last week's episode. But at the same time that kind of felt disingenuous because I was speaking with the information that I had and so I didn't want to just cut it all out, because I still think it's a very important conversation to have. But now that we have have more information, let's expand on it a little bit. So before we get into it, I do want to correct myself, because I said in last week's episode that um Blake Lively was suing Justin Baldoni and his studios and that is is not completely accurate. So she filed a complaint. She did not file a lawsuit. So I just want to clear that up. But since then Justin Baldoni has filed a lawsuit against the New York Times because he's saying that they kind of cherry picked text messages to make it look like you know he had orchestrated this smear campaign to destroy her reputation.
Daijné:First and foremost, I never really believed that a smear campaign was orchestrated or even needed to be orchestrated Because, again, I don't think Blake Lively is a good person. Her reputation already is not stellar. So it's like you don't like what good reputation was smeared. Your shit was already all over the fucking walls. You know it was already smeared everywhere. Personally, I feel like when you get married on a plantation and you promote this antebellum bullshit, like your reputation is in the fucking trash. For me I don't care so with the whole smear campaign. I fully believe that he did not orchestrate any sort of smear campaign. He didn't need to. Her reputation was already fucking trash. And so, because I feel that way, for me when I'm talking about this whole situation, my focus is not the smear campaign of it all, and I feel like so many people are only focusing on the smear campaign part and not so much of the sexual harassment part of it, and in my opinion, that to me, is more concerning than this whole smear campaign shit. I don't care about the smear campaign and I'm I'm confused as to why, when I like look into all of this, there's so little focus on the sexual harassment part. But for me, like that's what I want to focus on.
Daijné:So Blake Lively alleged that there was sexual harassment on set with the filming of the movie and I saw that in Justin Baldoni's lawsuit, he had submitted text messages that show. She had said like oh, you can come to my trailer to run lines. I'm just pumping and I'm seeing people use this text message where she's inviting him to her trailer while she's pumping as a way to kind of disregard all of the sexual harassment that she's claiming. And I would just like to remind everyone that consent is not a blanket. It is a case-by-case situation. So even if she had invited him to her trailer to run lines while she was pumping and she was comfortable with that, that doesn't mean that he did not enter her trailer while she was in another situation where she wasn't completely dressed and it made her uncomfortable. I don't like that people are trying to use this singular situation as a way to throw out all of the sexual harassment. Two things can be true at once. She could have invited him to her trailer while she was pumping at one point because she felt comfortable, and then something happened and then she didn't feel comfortable around him anymore when she wasn't completely dressed and he entered her trailer or whatever.
Daijné:It's concerning to me that I feel like people are forgetting maybe because it's Blake Lively that consent is not a blanket. Like I said before, two things can and often are true at once. I don't think Blake Lively is a good person. I also don't think that she should be sexually harassed, and I think for me it's more than just Blake Lively. For me I'm viewing this from the lens of like the system and the overall response to women when they say that they've been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. Even a woman with what can be a quote-unquote stellar reputation, you know she could be sexually harassed and people will still try to poke holes in her story too. I just don't like that.
Daijné:So many people, I feel like, are completely disregarding the sexual harassment and only focusing on the smear campaign of it all. Can we get more information on the sexual harassment? In my opinion, I think both of them are pretty messy. I think, like I don't I again, I don't think that he orchestrated this smear campaign.
Daijné:I think that maybe she's not being on completely honest and and forthcoming there, but I also like I just can't in good conscience completely disregard what she's saying and be like I'm team Justin, because I just have to believe that people would not make up claims of sexual harassment if they weren't true. I don't know, and I feel like I'm being gaslit. I feel like people are like because she's not a likable person, they're just like throwing that away and I'm like why? Why are we? Why are we doing that? I and I think it's just harmful for women as a whole. Not even just focusing on Blake Lively. That is so harmful for women as a whole and it can make it harder for them to want to share their stories or even to want to come forward with their stories, because I won't be believed. So I personally cannot take a side in this whole thing. I'm I'm not team Justin. I'm not team Blake, I am team what the fuck happened Like?
Daijné:I need more information from both parties before I can fully make a decision on how I truly feel about it. But at the end of the day, I am always going to advocate for hearing and listening to a person's story when they say that they have experienced sexual harassment, even if I also feel like that person is problematic or has a problematic past. I still feel like it's important to listen to and hear out their stories, because it's not about that person. It's about the system and how not hearing this person's story can affect everyone as a whole. Maybe I'm crazy for that. I don't know, but imma stand on it because that's that's how I feel. I don't know, that's just how I feel.
Daijné:I would like to see more people focus on that rather than the smear campaign, because, again, she didn't have a good reputation anyway. So it's like I and I I can say that I fully believe that he did not orchestrate a smear campaign, because one didn't need to be orchestrated. She already doesn't have a good reputation. So I did see that. His lawyer said that they plan to release every single text message. So I am looking forward to that. But even in like releasing every single correspondence that they had, there are still situations where you know they were in person and there was no written correspondence that can be released.
Daijné:So I don't know, this is messy, it's real messy and it's oh, it just makes me sad for victims, true victims, who will not be believed or this will make it harder for them to come forward because of how all this is playing out. So I still would love to encourage everyone to listen to victims and believe them when they say that they have experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault. That's my final answer. That's what I'm sticking to. Ugh, all of this is making my brain hurt. So, okay, I'm at the point again where I feel like I'm done talking and I don't. I really need to figure out how to like wrap up episodes, because I'm just like, okay, I'm done now. Now That that sounds crazy, but that's just. I don't know how else to say it. So I'm going to say I'm done talking. Um, I'd like to remind everyone that I do have a merch available. If you'd like to shop my merch, it is at shopdaijnebrielle. com shopdajanabrielcom. We have sweatshirts, hoodies, a whole. Just go look, you'll see what all we have all available on shopdaijnebrielle. com shopdejaneabrielcom.
Daijné:I also would love to start to do the wwdd segment of the podcast. So that stands for what would Daijné do. It's a segment where you guys send me your stories, your situations, your whatever, and I give you advice on what I would do in that situation. So you can email those stories to the napkin in between podcast@ gmail. com. If would like to remain anonymous, please state that somewhere in the email and I will leave your name out of it. Thank you for tuning in. I hope everyone is having a great day, except for JLo, and I will talk to y'all in the next episode. Peace and love, talk to you later The Napkin In Between, hosted by Daijné Jones, produced by Daijné Jones, post-production by Daijné Jones, music by Sam Champagne and graphics by Isma Vidal. Don't forget to like and subscribe. See you next episode.