The Napkin In Between

What "Radicalized" Me?

• Daijné Jones • Season 1 • Episode 11

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What happens when the affirmations you give to a child become the mirror that transforms how you see yourself? In this deeply personal episode, I unpack my journey from internalized racism to radical self-love, sparked by an unexpected source – a 19-month-old girl named Callie who I nannied.

Growing up in predominantly white Meadville, Pennsylvania, I never experienced outright racism, but something perhaps more insidious: the absence of celebration for my natural features. By my early twenties, I was getting hair relaxers every six weeks, chemically altering my appearance until my beautician finally refused to continue damaging my hair further. Still, I resisted fully embracing my natural self, hiding behind protective styles and clip-ins.

The transformation began when I started nannying Callie after moving to Atlanta. As I poured affirmations into this little girl – telling her how beautiful her natural hair and features were – something profound clicked: if these truths were undeniable for her, why couldn't they be true for me too? This realization coincided with facing racist comments on my early social media content, forced me to confront both external prejudice and my own internalized biases.

Through this journey, I discovered that what we often call "radicalization" is simply the recognition of our inherent worthiness. The standards that made me question my beauty weren't my burden to bear but society's problem to fix. There's nothing wrong with kinky, coily hair, wide noses, full lips – these are our natural gifts, not flaws to overcome.

What parts of yourself are you still hiding? What beauty within you is waiting to be affirmed? I hope my story inspires you to embrace every natural aspect of who you are.

Daijné:

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. Let's take a moment of silence because black history month is over. Okay, now let's get loud, because now it's women's history month. Happy women's history month to my bad bitches and my bad bitches only jlo. That does not include you. I don't know who decided the order of the months, but whoever decided to go from black history month straight into women's history month, give them a raise.

Daijné:

Two of my favorite things in the entire world is being black and being a woman, and I celebrate those things 365, all year round. Right, but the fact that there is a month dedicated first to black history and then to women's history, like, oh, I just love that so much. And then, mind you, my roommate told me that april is black women's history month. They said I got the cheese, you got the jerky, put it all together and we got cheese jerky. Say what? Say what Cheese jerky? Do you guys remember that that was a bop? I just unlocked a core memory. I forgot about that until just now, but that that song's a bop. But I just love being black, I love being a woman and I love making both of those things my entire personality. So I love that there are months that celebrate all of those things. And then they want to talk about some.

Daijné:

When is white history month? When is men's history month? Nobody cares about that shit. Please, please, go somewhere, because the fucking world revolves around straight white men. Like can we get something? Y'all get literally everything, y'all get privilege, y'all get opportunities, y'all get the ability to do half the work and get twice as much. Everything is easier for straight white men and they're upset that we get a fucking month. Like, please, go somewhere, because you're about to piss me off.

Daijné:

Like y'all created racism, y'all created misogyny, y'all created homophobia, y'all created transphobia, y'all created all the oppression. And then when we're like you know what, let's create a little bit of time to celebrate these oppressed or marginalized groups, they're like okay, but what about us, bitch? We wouldn't have to celebrate the marginalized groups or the minorities if y'all hadn't created the shit. Like, please, you're about to piss me off. Like y'all were insecure and jealous of other people and that's why y'all created this shit. You can't convince me that the beginning of oppression, some of it, was rooted in jealousy. Like obviously I understand bigotry and just some people genuinely do think that they are just better than other people. But I'm saying, like, at its core, the origination of race and gender and the categorization and the grouping of people to say like, oh, these people are superior, these people are inferior, like some of that had to be projection and jealousy Because, like, when you really think about it, the group of people straight white men who are viewed as superior, genuinely nothing about them is superior.

Daijné:

First and foremost, let's take physical attributes right. Women literally birth humans out of their vaginas. Every single person who has ever lived came from a woman's body. Women are the crafters of life. We all know about the birds and the bees. It takes nine months to form a baby and then, after the baby is formed, a woman has to either push it out, get it cut out of their body like the craziest fucking shit, and women have to endure that pain. If I go up to a man and I kick him in the balls, he is out for at least five minutes, immobile, bent over, keeling over with pain because I kicked him in the balls, and you're telling me that's superior. Be serious, be fucking serious. Like it doesn't make sense, like when you genuinely think about it, also, white being the superior race. If you put a white person out in the sun for too long, they're turning into a fucking lobster, burned by the fucking sun. And I'm not saying that it doesn't happen to black people too. Black people can obviously be sunburned, but black skin was created to be in the sun. And you want to tell me that the white race is superior when mother nature herself looked at them and said absolutely fucking, not like, please, be fucking serious. And I feel like deep down, whoever started racism, which we're gonna do a whole episode about that, because I did a little bit of a deep dive because I was curious.

Daijné:

Arthur de Gobineau, I think, is how you say his last name. He's a french man who is like the first person who wrote about one group of people being superior to another. And then he went around France and was trying to like, preach this to the French people and, interestingly enough, it was poorly received by people in France. But guess the group of people who were like you know what? Yeah, let's really adopt this. Americans, white Americans. It was white Americans. The answer is white Americans. But, mind you, Arthur wrote a bunch about how Americans themselves were inferior because of race mixing. They cut that part out of his book. When they translated his book from French to English, they cut that part out. They was like, ok, okay, like, hide this part, but the part where it says white people are are superior, let's keep that part. Don't worry, we'll do a deep dive.

Daijné:

I'm gonna do a whole episode about the start of racism, but you can't convince me that the start of racism there was some projection and jealousy in there, like they felt inferior and so they had to convince the entire fucking world that they were in fact superior to other races or genders or you know whatever. But anyway, I don't know why I just went on that crazy tangent. I was just trying to say happy women's history month, like that was crazy. Happy women's history month to my bad bitches and my bad bitches only speaking of women and them just being all around, perfect and amazing and iconic and the best people you will ever know. Tate McRae, who is one of my favorite artists released a new album a couple weeks ago, at this point actually, but the peak of my week has been being able to connect with it in a way that I didn't originally feel like I did.

Daijné:

I've been a fan of Tate McRae since 2020. She's been in my top artists on Spotify. I really resonate with her music and I feel like one of the things I really resonate with with her is the sad girl bit personally. For me, the sad girl bit will never be boring. I love sad girl music. I love music that makes me feel all of my emotions, because I feel like sometimes I smother my emotions, probably because I was bullied as a child for being sensitive don't worry, we'll get into that topic a little bit later actually but I just love music that makes me feel my feelings because I feel like sometimes I really struggle with that, and so the reason for Tate McRae being one of my favorite artists is because she makes sad girl music. Like some of my favorite songs from her, I still say good night. Boy x, chaotic, messier, you broke me first, like I, I love the sad girl bit. The sad girl bit will never be boring.

Daijné:

But I felt like with this new album, like my girl is in love and I love that for her. I love that she is happy and in love, and I personally was like where are my sad girl songs? Like where are my slow songs? Where are my piano, violin, ballad, simple songs with no beat? Like I just wanted some slower, simple, sad songs, and so it took me a minute. I had to like let the album marinate because it's like bop after bop, like catchy, upbeat, funky pop songs, right, like it's still a great album, don't get me wrong. But I had to listen to the album a couple of times and when I really started to listen to the words and break down the lyrics, it's interesting because the lyrics are sad on some of the songs but the beat is catchy. So I feel like sometimes, at least for me personally, I'll feel the beat more than I feel the lyrics, and I have to really sit with the lyrics to really understand the meaning behind some of the songs. And so once I was able to really like understand the lyrics, I was like okay, like yeah, these my sad girl is still in there a little bit, like she's. She's upbeat, but she's still in there a little bit.

Daijné:

For example, one of my favorite songs from the album is means I care, and it's about, you know, feeling yourself, falling in love and being afraid of those feelings. So before you let yourself get too close to the person, you cut them off, but like, you really only do that when you start to like, really like the person. You know what I mean. And it's like, girl, you forgot to hold my hand before you called me out, like that is. So me, there has been a time or 20 when I felt like, okay, I like you a little bit too much, I'm going to cut you off now. And it's like, sometimes I don't even want to do that. I just am like afraid of men because they can be a little manipulative. And when I say a little, I mean a lot. And there's a line in the song and she says it's not what I want, it's just all I know. And I'm just like that's so fucking real because, like, sometimes I genuinely am like okay, like let's see where this goes, you know what I mean. And then I get to in my head I start to think too much and I'm like, yeah, actually I don't want this, I don't want wanna talk to you, but like, living like that is sometimes kind of sad, and not even just with like romantic relationships, but like friendships as well. I feel like sometimes it's hard for me to open up to people, and so it does get a little bit lonely sometimes and it's like you know you wanna put yourself out there, you wanna trust people, but at the same time it's like you're afraid to, I don't know. This is getting like strangely deep. I need to go talk to that lady. I don't want to like trauma dump on the podcast, but I say all that to say.

Daijné:

Top three songs on the album for me are definitely Signs, Means I Care and Revolving Door, honorable Mentions to Dear God and Blood on my Hands, specifically Flo Milli's verse. I love Flo Milli, I love her so much. But that has been the peak of my week. I don't know if I said that at the beginning. Anyway, if you have not listened to the album, you should give it a listen. It's called So Close to What by Tate McRae and also listen to some of her old songs. I feel like, being a fan of her for so long, she's finally getting the popularity that I feel like she's always deserved. But definitely because personally I'm still on I used to think I could fly like. I love that album. So definitely check out some of her other music as well.

Daijné:

So what are you guys talking about today? So there was a trend going on on tiktok recently um, or maybe it was a couple months ago, I don't know, I have no perception of time but basically the trend was talking about like what radicalized you and I always get comments or DMs of people telling me like I appreciate how pro-black you are like what brought you to this point of you know, talking about racial inequality and social injustice and hardships and situations that black people are constantly put in, and I wanted to do a story time on what got me here, because up until about four years ago, I was still dealing with a lot of internalized racism and self-hate and the thing that was able to really break me out of that was this little girl that I was nannying named Callie. So I want to start from the very beginning.

Daijné:

I was born and raised in a town called Meadvielle, Pennsylvania. It's a small, hick, predominantly white country town in the middle of bumblefuck Pennsylvania, and so, growing up outside of you know my family or my church family, the majority of the people that I was surrounded with were white and as a child I was bullied a little bit, but I feel like the majority of the bullying that I faced was because I was sensitive not so much for the color of my skin. There was probably, you know, some colorism mixed in there as well, but I think that the majority of the bullying was because people knew that you could say one little thing to me and it was gonna make me cry and so I was picked on a lot or called a crybaby, called too sensitive, different things like that. But even though most of my bullying wasn't because of me being dark skinned, I feel like I still developed a lot of self-hate because it wasn't so much that my natural features were demeaned, but they were also never praised Like.

Daijné:

I can't remember a lot of the time where my natural hair was celebrated or I even wore my natural hair period. Like a lot of the times as a child into my early 20s, I was wearing braids or um sew-ins, protective styles. "Protective styles I say in quotes for the audio listeners we'll get into that in a little bit but it was just that my natural features were never really praised, like whenever I had gotten my hair done in braids or whatever. It was always oh, you look cute, you like. You know, um, we like that hairstyle. You know what I mean like and obviously before I, you know, internalize my self confidence and made my self confidence come from myself.

Daijné:

My self confidence would come from other people, and so, when I'm only ever hearing praise when I'm wearing braids or anything like that, that's what I valued, and so I would keep my hair and I say hair for me, me personally, because a lot of my self-hate came from my hair. I would only ever feel confident if my hair was either braided up or straight. And I don't say this to like say that I'm upset with the adults who were around me as I was growing up, because I I don't blame them for that, you know, it's not their fault, it's society's fault right, like they were going off of what they knew. And so I I don't want this to come off as like me blaming or shaming any of the adults because they never praised my natural hair, but I'm just trying to walk through, as I've unpacked and done a lot of work internally, like where my internalized racism and self-hatred came from because, like I said, no one really was demeaning my natural hair, like every once in a while, if I like, after taking out a protective style or braids or whatever. Yeah, my natural hair was called like nappy or you know whatever, which is I don't want to say whatever like that's not anything that should be overlooked, like obviously there's still negative connotations with that kind of verbiage in terms of describing your natural hair. I'm just saying, like I understand that it could have been worse. I understand that some people are extremely ridiculed and dragged through the mud simply for their natural features. Like it still is not great, but I still feel grateful that I didn't have it as bad as I could have.

Daijné:

So growing up and into my early adulthood, my early 20s, I never wore my natural hair because I just never felt confident enough in wearing my natural hair because, again, keep in mind my value and who I thought I was as a person came strictly from outside perspective. And so when I was only ever being praised when my hair was straight, or when my hair was embraced or when I was wearing a sew-in or whatever, that's what I wore, that's the only thing that I would do, because that's where my confidence came from. And so in my adulthood, when I started wearing my "natural hair, I say in quotes I would only wear my hair if it was relaxed. I was getting relaxers at one point every six weeks. Crazy, right, I know I know so fucking insane, but I was going to a beautician every six weeks. Crazy right, I know I know so fucking insane, but I was going to a beautician every six weeks to get a relaxer because I wanted to wear my quote-unquote natural hair. I didn't want to wear braids or anything like that, but it's still. I mean, it wasn't my natural hair, it was chemically straightened and so, because I was going every six weeks, my hair was so, so damaged. And it got to the point where my beautician was like, yeah, I'm not giving you any more relaxers, like you're, you're frying your hair, literally frying your hair. And so she recommended that I do a big chop and I said absolutely not. To the women who are able to do big chops I commend you.

Daijné:

I never got to that part of my natural hair journey where I felt comfortable enough to do a big chop. Like that is another level of confidence. And I still, every so often, I'm like I wanna shave my head bald because I feel like that'll just open another door to confidence. Like I'm already very confident in myself and my confidence now comes from me, but I just know that that is like the next step in developing my confidence, and so one day I feel like I really want to do it, but I'm just not there yet. I've said most what times like I'm gonna shave my head, I'm gonna shave my head. I've even said this online, like I'm gonna shave my head, and then I just don't do it because I just, I just I'm not there yet and I, I pray for the day that I am there because I again, I just know that that is so freeing. I'm just not there yet. But for the girls who are there, you are the baddest of the baddest. I'm trying to be like you, like you know what I mean.

Daijné:

But anyway, she, she recommends a big chop. I say no. So she's like okay, well, let's just cut off as much as we can for right now, and then every six weeks you'll come back. I'm not gonna give you any more relaxers, but we do trims, and so my hair was growing out as I was getting trims, and so at this point I'm trying to get in touch with my natural hair and my natural features and be confident in those things.

Daijné:

But it was still extremely hard for me, because my hair was the shortest it had ever been in my entire life, because I fried it off and I just didn't feel confident in my natural hair and so I was wearing like clip ins or I would get so wins or anything just to hide my natural hair. Like I was trying to be natural because my beautician told me, like your hair needs a break, but I didn't want to give it a full break because I was still wasn't very confident in my natural hair. And so at this point I don't know if I said this, I don't think I did, but at this point I was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had moved from Meadville, went to college. In college I was still wearing braids or so a lot of the time. And then I moved to Pittsburgh, and in Pittsburgh is where my natural hair journey started. For me it was 2019. So it had started barely because I was still not wearing my natural hair fully, I was wearing the clip-ins or whatever.

Daijné:

And so after Pittsburgh, I moved to Atlanta and, as some of you may know, I have a master's in social work. I used to work as a therapist and when I moved to Atlanta, my mental health was struggling. I was going through a lot of things just in my personal life, like I had left a relationship and you know, trying to deal with building up my own self-confidence and things like that. And so I felt like, because of the place that I was in mentally, I could not be there for someone else and be their therapist. Like I can't pour into your cup if my cup is empty. You know what I mean.

Daijné:

I was a children's therapist and I've always loved working with kids, and so I was like I still want to work with kids but I don't really want to be a therapist right now because my own mental health is struggling. But I still want to do something where I can kind of incorporate working with mental health and different things like that, but it's not like the focus of my work. And so that's when I got into nannying, because I felt like I could help kids, you know, with emotional regulation and different things like that, which is still all the things that I learned in therapy. But it wasn't the main focus, like as a nanny I was doing other things, like taking them to their activities or different things like that. And so I started nannying and I started working with this family and that I was nannying this little girl named Callie. She was 19 months old at the time that I was nannying her and Callie some of you know a little bit about because I've talked about her a little bit on my page. As I said, she was 19 months old when I started working with her.

Daijné:

At the time that I started working with Callie was around the time a little bit after I started posting on social media, because social media is also something that I've always wanted to do, and so I started posting regularly on social media and I was just posting vlogs or jumping on trending sounds of just different things like that, and every single thing that I would post, no matter what it was, was someone would be in the comments being racist towards me, saying something about my skin, saying something about my nose, about my natural features, about my hair because I was wearing my natural hair and I'm not gonna lie when I first started posting on social media and I would get comments like that. They hurt, I'm not gonna lie they. They affected me at first because it was just like all I'm doing is posting Like, why, why are you bothering me? Like, leave me alone. I, at this point I wasn't even posting like my political content or like my content about race issues or different things like that. Like it was literally just like vlogs trending sounds like basic content and people would be in the comments just being racist and I'm just like, let me live like it, like just being racist, and I'm just like let me live like it like god forbid a bitch have fucking hobbies. You know what I mean.

Daijné:

But it was when I had very first started my content creation journey and so it did affect me a little bit and it made me feel upset because, again, I was still struggling with my own self-hate and people were being racist towards me and so it was just like amplifying it. Obviously, now I realize that, like people who leave racist comments, you're just a fucking loser and it's like you could have just kept scrolling. But you are dealing with your own personal insecurities and you're miserable and misery loves company, and so coming to that realization of it's just like your own insecurity. It's like now I have mean things to say and it's all your fault, and so that's when I would start clapping back at people and and reading them different things like that. But I'm nannying this little girl and as a nanny, one of your biggest priorities is just making sure the children are safe, obviously, like making sure physically they're not putting themselves in danger or there's no danger, or anything like that.

Daijné:

But for me, I also really wanted her to know that in all of her natural features she was beautiful, with her natural hair, with her natural features, with everything. I wanted her to know that she was beautiful, even at 19 months old. I would just tell her like, oh, your hair is so pretty, or, you know, just make sure she knew that, all in all of her natural features, that she was beautiful. And so I'm, you know, trying to pour into her and make sure that she is confident and she knows that her natural features are beautiful and different things like that. And I really can't pinpoint where exactly or what event happened that shifted my thinking. But I just started to think, like, if it's true for her and if I am doing this for her and believing this of her, which I 1000% did, I 1000% believe that all of her naturalness was beautiful.

Daijné:

Something clicked in me that if it was true for her, then it was also true for me. And once that clicked in my brain that, like the statements that I was saying to her and the affirmations that I was giving to her were true for her, that they were also true for me. Like it just clicked, and I wish that I knew exactly what was happening or what made it click, but I don't. I just think that I was saying it so much to her and affirming her so much that it it ended up being true for me also, and so, as she's growing up and you know, I'm continuing to work with her and pouring into her it made me, you know, do my own research and check my own internalized racism and my own personal biases that I had for myself, and I think that, mixed with the racist and hate comments that I was getting online of people just talking about, like my natural hair or whatever, it just clicked for me that, like, what you're talking about is the way that my hair grows out of my head naturally and it's like this is how my hair grows out of my head.

Daijné:

Why do you have a problem with that? And that's what I would ask people. I would simply just say this is my natural hair. What's wrong with it? Why do you have a problem with it? Like, ho are you cool. Essentially, just turning it on them like this is not a me problem, this is a you problem, because this is my natural hair.

Daijné:

And with any other ethnicity, with any other race, y'all do not police their hair as much as you police black women in their hair. It's genuinely like no matter what a black woman does with her hair, someone will have a problem with it. If she's wearing her natural hair, it's unruly, it's it's nappy, it's unprofessional. If she's wearing a sew-in, oh, you must hate your hair, you must want to be a white girl, mind you. Nobody is getting the fucking lice lace front. Like the wigs and the sew-ins that we wear are not made from white hair. Like be so fucking, so, fucking for real. But it's like we can't do anything with our hair without somebody having a comment or something to say about it. Like can we fucking live? You know what I mean.

Daijné:

And so, coming to this realization and being able to to realize that it led me to unpacking, you know, my own internalized biases and my own internalized racism, and not only unpack that that, but also be able to call it out in other people. And so, where I am today and just being confident in myself and my natural features and different things like that truly started with nannying this little girl and being able to realize that the things that I was saying to her, if they're true for her, they're true for every other little black girl and they're true for myself as well. And so working with her truly helped me heal myself and understand that you know the the weight that I was carrying and the internalized racism and the self hate. It was literally just society's problem. It was not my problem, it was not anything that I was doing that was wrong, because it was just naturally me. Like there's, there can't be anything wrong with my natural features, like it's my natural features, like what? Like this is what I was born with. And it's crazy because people will be like oh my god, there's so much plastic, there's so much people are altering and these unrealistic beauty standards. But then when someone doesn't fit that beauty standard because they are themselves naturally, that's still a problem too.

Daijné:

And when I was finally able to connect all of these dots, it helped me to realize that none of it was true and that it was literally just racism and the European beauty standard that I was living under. That's what radicalized me, this, this little 19 month old girl who I just wanted to make sure she knew that she was beautiful and in in pouring into her, it helped pour into me and I will forever, forever, be grateful to her family and just giving me the opportunity to to work with her, because at the time that I started nannying, I did not have a lot of experience in the field of nannying like, obviously I had my mental health background and for things like that, but I didn't really have experience in nannying, like I had been babysitting. But babysitting and nannying are two very, very different things and so I feel like it was a chance for them. But they saw something in me that made them wanna give me that chance and I will forever be grateful because not only was I able to really pour into her, but it helped me to be able to pour into myself as well and build the confidence that I needed in myself to share, you know, my knowledge and call out racial inequalities and microaggressions and all that because I feel like obviously there's some parts of racism that are very loud and they're very in your face and everyone can call it out and be like, yes, that is racism, but there are also parts of racism that are very quiet, right, and so being able to wake those things up as well and have the confidence to do that all came from nannying this little girl and I will forever be grateful for her. And, like she doesn't even realize, like the impact that she made on me and I hope that I made a fraction of the impact on her that she has made on me I am still in communication with her and her family she's five now that she has made on me I am still in communication with her and her family she's five now and like that's my little bestie. I will just forever be grateful for her and being able to work with her and we're locked in for life. Like that is, that's my little bestie and I will always have so much appreciation and love for her. And so that's what radicalized me or really made me, you know, look deeper and unpack all of my own internalized feelings about myself. And yeah, here we are today and and I hope that as I continue to post and do different things online and for things like that, like I hope that I can pay it forward and help other people start to unpack their own internalized feelings that they might have about themselves and their natural features Like your natural features are are beautiful.

Daijné:

You are beautiful just the way you are. There is nothing wrong with your kinky, coily 4C hair. There's nothing wrong with your wide nose. There's nothing wrong with your big lips. There's nothing wrong with your big forehead with anything there is nothing wrong. It is literally just people forcing their ignorant and racist stereotypes onto you and in turn you're internalizing those things. But you do not have to do that. You do not have to continue to live under the shackles of the european beauty standard and hating yourself because of other people's perceptions of you and the second. You realize that and come to terms with that and just fully understand that you are beautiful just the way you are and you do not have to live by anyone else's standards and that the most important opinion comes from yourself and no one else. That is the most freeing thing in the world.

Daijné:

That is what jumpstarted my confidence and my being able to love who I am as a dark-skinned 4c black girl, and calling out just the the stereotypes and the racism and the microaggressions and all of it, and bringing more attention to all of it and not allowing those things to affect the way that you move through life because it genuinely it does not matter. None of it matters. You are who you are and you are perfect and beautiful and amazing in all of your natural features and I just hope that everyone will continue to remember that and learn that and use that as a way to unpack anything that might be going on internally within you. So, yeah, I just I love being black and I love everything that there is about being black, like it's genuinely top tier. It truly is. We know it and they know it too, which is why they try to make us feel so inferior. But at the end of the day, you can't Like, literally look at the fucking material, look at the material Like you're going to tell me that this is some sort of inferior thing. Be so serious. Be so serious Like, wrap this shit up. You know what I mean it's. It's just call it a j-lo concert ticket bitch. No one's fucking buying it.

Daijné:

But yeah, that was my, my journey of unpacking my own internalized racism and self-hate, and I'm so, so grateful and will always be grateful for callie and for her family and for just that, helping me become who I am today. So, speaking of wrap this up, that is what helps me and what radicalized me and honestly I I low-key hate calling it radicalization because it's honestly the bare minimum. It's just me being okay with being natural and and understanding that there's nothing wrong with me being in my natural state, and so to call it radicalization, I think, is a little it's a bit like it's just like a little bit weird. No, I don't know, it just feels a little like icky to me to call it radicalization because it's, it truly should be the bare minimum. It truly should just be a normal thing to let people be them natural selves and and not have microaggressions or racism or someone in your ear trying to tell you that something about your natural body is wrong. I think we should wake that up like it's not really a radicalization. It's literally just me being okay with with me being natural, but that's a conversation for another day. We will get into that. We'll get into that also.

Daijné:

I hope that this episode was helpful and I hope, as always, that my content allows someone to know that they are beautiful in their blackness and everything that that means and everything that that encapsulates. You are beautiful and there is nothing wrong with your naturalness. Thank you for tuning in. I hope everyone is having a good day, except for that orange drink, lady and I will talk to you in the next episode. Peace and love. Talk to you later. T he 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.