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Holding Steady When The World Tilts

• Adrian Franks • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Sirens in the headlines, snow in the streets, and that low-grade hum of anxiety—yet we still have to make breakfast, answer emails, and figure out who we want to be. We open up about a week shaped by national strikes, immigration fear, and the relentless churn of news, and we ask a simple but urgent question: how do we keep living creatively when the ground won’t stop moving?

We start with the anchors that hold: music before media, incense before inbox, water before coffee, a Sunday outfit ritual that gifts back time on Monday. From there, we trace how creative practice becomes witness. Adrian shares the lineage of political design—from early propaganda to Emory Douglas and beyond—and how posters, zines, and printed matter can slow time and preserve truth when feeds erase context by noon. Nicole talks about weaving the moment into her reporting and cookbook work, acknowledging the world inside a single sentence so professionalism doesn’t feel like denial.

Community care takes the mic. We talk calling friends instead of texting, sharing voice notes that carry tone and tenderness, and checking on immigrant-owned restaurants navigating fear and strikes. We also map boundaries: how to respond when people dismiss identity, excuse cruelty, or pretend not to notice what’s burning. Education shows up as praxis—teaching kids what a strike is, pairing words with museum visits and books, and turning facts into stories that stick.

Action scales from the kitchen table to City Hall: voting every time, knowing your local reps, and asking your workplace to act like people work there. And yes, we make a case for joy without guilt—dance floors and acupuncture, haircuts and Alice Coltrane, the small restorations that keep us in the fight. If you need a blueprint for steadiness, a nudge toward courage, and a reminder that creativity can be both shelter and signal, press play.

If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs grounding, and leave a review so more folks can find us. Your voice helps this community grow.

You've been tuned in to Graphite Radio, where creativity meets culture. Part of the Kaffeine Audio Network and proudly distributed by Pepper Labs. Thanks for joining us on this journey of ideas, art, and innovation. Be sure to subscribe and stay connected for more stories that shape the world we create. Until next time, keep sketching your vision into reality.

SPEAKER_01:

What does it mean to live creatively? Not just in what you make, but how you move and how you dress and how you build your world?

SPEAKER_03:

What does it mean to feel at home in your space, in your skin, in your purpose?

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Maroon Life. Our lives in full color. A podcast where we explore the art of creative living from the way we style our homes to the stories we wear on our backs.

SPEAKER_03:

We're your co-host, Adrian Franks, Nicole A. Taylor. Two lifelong creators, curators, and culture seekers on a mission to make space for freedom, joy, and design that speaks.

SPEAKER_01:

We tap into soulful conversations about joy, design, self-expression, home renovation, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_03:

We're recording. So we can just talk natural, then we just move in. You know, uh, I know today has been one of those kind of crazy days, and uh, we here on a Friday. Um, how you doing, Nicole?

SPEAKER_01:

It's really cold outside.

SPEAKER_03:

Very cold, very cold.

SPEAKER_01:

And I gotta be honest, it's been just like a cloud of like weird energy floating throughout New York City for the last week plus, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_03:

I don't think it's a New York problem. I think that's a that's a universal problem, apparently. Uh, because the world seems to be at a weird inflection point.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's been almost a week since um the strikes in Minnesota, really in Minneapolis, excuse me. Well, you've had strikes really all over the US, and on top of like this crazy storm, snowstorm has blanketed much of the US. So just for me, just like looking at the news, I did not consume a lot of social media. Actually, I'm coming off a 20-day social media fast.

SPEAKER_03:

You're talking about on the platform, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, fast.

SPEAKER_03:

How was that fast? Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Fast was I would say it gives you clarity. Um, it just shows you when you pop back on how much noise. I feel like my brain wasn't bouncing all around. Um so it felt good to be off of I took social media off of my phone.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I could only access and I did check from time to time for my computer, which is checking social media from your computer. Instagram is like it's the clunkiest thing. So um it was good, but I will say though, I feel like I've been in like kind of this weird um days of thinking about what I do and how I move in my home and outside of the my home and what's happening with ICE and the current um current presidential um I don't even know what I can't even say presidential situation.

SPEAKER_03:

With the politics around our music.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't even say presidential situation because it ain't even presidential with the current political climate that we have. So I mean, listen, I know that we we we had been talking about coming back during this uh episode. Our next episode was gonna be all about like how the whole stay filling the blank.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's been kind of a little blank, right? Yeah, I was like, I text you and I was like it lacks empathy to a certain degree.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I text you and I was like, yo, we gotta talk. We need to talk about what's happening now and how our lives and the lives that we've built both mentally and physically, like what does that mean? What does that mean in our home and what does that mean in our mind and our in our larger community?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, yeah, uh if you're you know listening, obviously you know what's going on out in the world and things are real, and I mean everything from like, you know, uh economic unrest or uncertainty to markets being a little weird, you know, the social, political environment is obviously red hot fire to know a lot of things that happen internationally, but you know, it is it's okay if you're not feeling um, you know, cool about this, even if it's not directly happening to you, it's definitely happening all around you. So, you know, I think the goal of this episode really to just kind of let people know that it's okay to feel not okay. And let's talk about how do you work through those things. I think that's more or less what we want to do here because we know that, you know, people right now everywhere is feeling this is almost kind of like either you either it's really bothering you really, really bad, or you're kind of like an ostress in the sand and you're just trying to like completely ignore it, or you're somewhere in between. But either way, it is affecting you whether you want to believe this or not. And I think the conversation that, you know, me and you have all the time, Nicole, uh, that's kind of natural. But I do think, you know, this conversation that we're gonna have, hopefully can bring a little resolve for people and give them like some kind of blueprint to move forward because yeah, it is it's a little rough.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I would say two things. Today is we're recording this on January 30th, 2026, and there is a national strike that's happening um where people are closed, restaurants are closed, businesses are closed, in some cases, schools are closed, um, in solidarity with the people um in Minneapolis, in solidarity with lists all of ICE being um vicious and nasty. Um, and I want to just say this other thing is that you know, we're working this out in real time too. So some of the things that we're saying, um, it's things that Adrian and I talk about all the time, like for years. And there's also some things that we've been working through the past week. Um, so you can take this podcast as a meditation, you could take it as something that we can share with somebody else if you hear a good point, and you can take it as, hey, we working through our own thoughts. Um, but we radical. I'm just gonna start with that too. You know, we are we are a household, um we're not obvious whole tips.

SPEAKER_03:

No, we're not obvious hoteps. I mean, if that's what y'all would be calling, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

But we are um we are bout it, bout it. I mean, listen, you gotta talk about too, like you have produced a lot of political artwork.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I don't consider it political artwork, I consider it is a moment in time. I'm an artist, and it's feelings that I have, right? That has a political lens to it. Because I do study a lot of political designs, right? Where you're talking about like uh some of the posters from like the whole uh propaganda design movement back in the early 1900s to even some of the things you would see in like Dada to like even the things you would see that like an Emory Douglas produced for the Panthers. But you know, a lot of my aesthetic kind of naturally matches that. But me as an artist and a designer, I try to combine both of those worlds to tell a message, to tell a story, to actually remind people of what's going on, especially in today's world of digital and just social, it's very easy to forget because things change so much. I often tell you that the best knowledge is things that are either printed with a certain type of intent or created with a certain kind of intent, like a book or a poster or a zine, because those things take some time to think about and you have to craft it. But in today's world, things move so fast, so you kind of got to be able to move with it. So I produce, I produce a lot of uh different, you know, you would say political art. Um, that's fine. I try not to say that because there are political artists who live this every single day, and I don't want to marginalize their work. That said, um, there have been bodies of work I created from everything around the freedom writers to things pertaining to police brutality as it pertained to uh specifically black people, and now some of the work I've been working on is definitely speaking broader to the current tone, and some of those works has been highlighted in traveling shows, reading rooms, and even printed things like books, because we love books in this household. So, yes, I have been working through those types of designs.

SPEAKER_01:

And I should tell people too, you know, um, that we've done intros and we have a little intro at the top of this.

SPEAKER_03:

Like just Google us.

SPEAKER_01:

But you know, one of the things I don't think is out there in Google land, I started my professional career as an organizer, as a trained organizer.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you study uh community health.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I my degree from Clark Atlanta University is in community health education. I always thought that I would have a master's in public health and um and would be doing a bunch of community work, and I did. So, you know, I worked for EMRI, um community outreach and partnership center, and more specifically, when I came to Brooklyn, the first the first jobs I had in Brooklyn were actually in environmental and food justice work. So um when I speak and how I move and how I live and who we both are is rooted in like the foundation of of justice, of power to black people, um, power to not only black people, all people, to all people.

SPEAKER_03:

So let's just kind of talk. What does it mean to live well when things just keep changing, when there's this uncertain times or what they call a market uncertainty going on?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it means that you lean into routines and rituals that ground you, right? Um, leaning into things that you do every day that give you peace or moments of peace, or either figuring out what those things are and start implementing it. For me, I probably said this a million times, but I have to say it again. Uh, our whole entire house, we begin the morning with music.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I'm sure our neighbors don't like it. No podcasts, no Instagrams, music. We start our morning with music.

SPEAKER_03:

Garvey loves Bad Bunny.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Garvey likes to start. Sometimes he'll pick the pick the music, but um, I even when you guys have music on up here, when I'm in the bathroom getting ready, I always play Alice Coltrane.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

I have an Alice Coltrane mix. The other thing that I do every day is I burn an incense. It's it's like the fire, the smell is a beautiful way to like set an intention. Um, so I start the day with that. And if I'm working from home and I'm starting to feel stressed, um, even now we have an incense going because I'm like, you know what? I need to just kind of steady the room. Um, so yeah, that's that's two things. I actually I said two things, two actual things that I do, but the broader thing is rituals and routines. What what what is a ritual or routine that you do every day that kind of um um helps you when the world is unsteady, like like right now?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I wake up every day and I meditate. Some people say it's praying. I say meditate, because it's the same thing. I have to do that, right? Water. It's very important. Uh I think a lot of us, especially of a certain age, we forget to drink our water. Water is water is the most important element on the planet. Without that, as we know, you don't really have life as we know it, right? Water is important, and I try to drink um, you know, a good two or two cups before I drink coffee. Coffee is big for me, right? Like, you know, on the weekends, everything revolves around coffee, whether it's a French press or something with like a well, every day we have to get our coffee. Yeah, you know, well, I drink it here, mostly here, or anywhere else. I do. That's kind of like my routine. And but um, yeah, the music, big part of that. And um, yeah, really just thinking about like what kind of hat I'm gonna wear. Because you know, I don't have hair, but the hat is pretty important because it kind of matches my fit.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, that's funny about rituals and routines when you say hat. Um, I can tell you one of the things that I haven't done um since we moved um back to New York City is for years, I mean 15 plus years, I picked out my clothes for the week. Yeah, I've never done that, but I thought it was so I picked out my clothes for the week. So I would have like five to seven outfits ready to lay out. I think it's a space thing now, but I pick out my clothes because I don't I that means I don't have to worry about that. So um that always kept me steady, right? It gave me more time, but it it it was a ritual and a routine that I did, and I always did it on Sundays. Um, so maybe maybe I need to get back to that.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you think, okay, and that's great, and you know, I think establishing overall rituals are kind of great, but what do you think your rituals now have kind of shifted because of what's going on in society? Because you know, sometimes you go to bed thinking about things you saw on Instagram or the news. Um, does that kind of interrupt with your morning routine or whatever that routine may be, like the politics of the day or the news cycles or just even some of the things you may be getting from the community? Like you talked about a lot about the chefs and some of the things they've been dealing with their restaurants. Does that kind of change up your routine a little bit?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think one of the things that I've been doing this week, and actually today, is some of my dearest friends who own restaurants who so happen to be immigrants themselves, and most of them employ, you know, um undocumented folks or and or immigrants, I check on them. Literally just say, hey, just checking on you with a heart. And I'm not expecting a long text message back, like, oh, it's been a rough day, but just just send in a person. I I'm checking on you. Um text can be really good. Uh, another thing, I have probably like less than five friends that we literally exchange gospel songs or just music, or and or every single day I pick a quote. I have like a stack of quote meditation cards. Um, we pull them. The three of us, me, you, and Garvey pull them, but I'll share them with a few friends um when the spirit moves me. So I I think that um that's something I've been doubling down on, just trying to remember to check in on people.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think that is vitally important. Um, me and you talked about this a while ago, it was just even on offline as well. Checking on people, especially right now, I think is even more important. I think it's even bigger to just pick up the phone and call people. Yeah. Because, you know, sometimes these text messages can kind of be taken out of context, and you know, the the communication around it can just not be fully understood by everybody because everybody reads things differently, they interpret things differently. But I've been in the habit of actually calling people. Now, some people, when you call them, the first thing they think it must be something wrong. Because why are you calling me, right? When you picked up the phone back in the days, you called just for any random thing. So I do think calling people has been something that I've been incorporated as like a ritual. May not necessarily be my morning ritual, but it's a ritual I try to do uh, you know, weekly. Like I try to make sure I call my uh my family, my nucleus family that I started from, right? All my siblings and my mom. And then I try to think about the remaining aunts. Then, okay, the next tier would be friends that lifelong friends that are more like family members. And then you got colleagues. But overall, I think calling people versus sending a text or jumping in the group chat, because everybody got a group chat, right? It's it's a human thing to do. Sometimes text messages can't communicate when you hear somebody's voice. Hearing a person's voice can say a lot without saying a lot. You can almost understand something going on with this person, and they're not saying anything. It leads you to start asking certain questions. So I think that's that's huge.

SPEAKER_01:

So you think you've been doing that more since in the last well month? I mean, listen, we've been dealing with a lot of political unrest and uneasiness and uncertainty for the last year at this point. But do you be do you think the whole month of January you've been doing that a bit more?

SPEAKER_03:

I actually been doing it more now, probably since October.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Probably around about my birthday, right? Um just because I just think I purposely decided like I just want to be more human. And it's something about the the sound of a human voice is a little bit more uh rewarding than just somebody sending them random text. And like I said, text can be a little, I don't know, um a little too ambiguous. I mean, I know a lot of people may send voice notes, which I actually thought are kind of cool, right? Voice notes are things that you can just.

SPEAKER_01:

How is it that we're from like the the voice note queen, the person that I have the the a back and forth voice note conversation with every day is Osai Indalen. Um literally, that's how we communicate. We don't save them, we don't keep them. I notice when I send you voice notes though, you keep them.

SPEAKER_03:

I got all my voice notes safe.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, she and I go back and forth every single day with voice notes. Um, and I think it's super important that you you have friends that you can voice note because I mean hearing someone's voice, you can hear, you can, you can sometimes hear the anxiety or the happiness or the relief in a person's voice. But there are friends that um I straight up talk to on the phone. Like I don't text, like my dearest friend Reginald Reginald. If I text him, he's gonna pick up the phone. If I text him and say, Hey, you in DC, you in Atlanta, he's not gonna respond um saying yay or nay, he's gonna call me back to say yeah. So I think it's sir is really important, and the friends that you haven't talked to in a long time that like to talk on the phone, pick up the phone, or the friend that you text all the time, call, maybe switch it up and call them.

SPEAKER_03:

Or send him a voice note.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I like that.

SPEAKER_03:

So thinking about um what's going on with you know immigration, custom enforcement. We live here in New York. This is an immigrant town. Um, how are you feeling about what's going on? And you know, you coping with all of these things. Because, you know, we have a lot of different immigrant friends. We have, you know, people who come by and serve as our home are immigrants. We got friends who run businesses that are immigrants. We got, well, people who may not be immigrants, they probably look like they're not quote unquote from America, but they are technically citizens of the United States. And for me, I don't care about anyone those labels because it's about humanity. How do you feeling about all of these different things going on?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I can just I can just run through like my literally personal friend, business circle, people I have to interact with from my cleaning lady to um husbands of friends, babysitters. I know so many people in my circle who are immigrants, and I'm not just talking about um people who are from Mexico or um people I'm talking about Caribbean, I'm talking about Asian, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Um Africa as a continent.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm talking about people who have been here for 20, 30 years who have a green card. Um, I'm talking about people who are naturalized or people who are undocumented. So um how I feel is fearful for them. Like fearful for them. Because all these people that I'm thinking about in my mind, they're people that I admire. They're people who without them, I wouldn't be able to do the things that I need to do. They are people who work really hard for their families, right? Um they're people who are sacrificed for other people um and their own families to live their dreams. So when I think about it, um it affects me. I am definitely not gonna be like, ain't my problem. It is my problem. Because I mean, it could easily what we see in Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it it has happened and it will happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it could come to our back doors just like that. I that that is not lost on me. So how it makes me feel, it makes me feel uneasy. I mean, listen, I have a son who he definitely can tell you who Ice is. He he said they're not good guys. He can tell you who Trump is. Um, he can tell you what a strike is, he can tell you what a protest is. So um when I see all these things happening around me, uh I know that it's not good, not only for America, it ain't good for my personal community and the larger community.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I I look at myself, you know, when I go through these types of things, I just produce art because as a creative and an artist, that's how I express myself, right? It's one thing to get on and have a you know a whole thesis, you know, written up, uh kind of like point of view on it. But for me, it's it's about coming up with like ideas, visual ideas. And, you know, I can't express enough that me as a designer artist, I think it is important that if you have that talent, that you should use that to talk about what's going on. It documents the time. Most artists don't have that, and I understand that that's not their job to do that, but for those who have that, um, yeah, it makes me feel a Certain way, you know, to your point, we have friends, we have relatives, we have a lot of people that are close family who are all getting affected by this. The children uh sometimes feel like they can't go to school. We got, you know, even like the nanny, uh just babysitters. I mean, you gotta think about it. Well, if they're out with your kid one day and they get rolled up on with the Department of Homeland Security ice, basically messing with them, right? You got to think about all these different things. And beyond that, you all you are seeing things in the news cycle that are affecting humans. Because that's the one thing I don't want to get lost here. That, you know, we're affecting humans and we're treating humans as if they're not humans. You know, to rip families apart, to rip communities apart, to rip uh friendships apart is is not a cool thing. And it affects me in that way. And I always try to figure out like, how do I cope? Uh, I talk about it with people and I create art.

SPEAKER_01:

And I would say professionally, how it's affected me is I was in the I'm in the middle literally of finishing up a story, a chef profile, and um, it's a very high-profile chef who um was dropping some hints during the interview that he wanted to talk about it and I didn't explore it. And then um my editor sent me an article that uh he's being interviewed talking about the um the effects of strikes on restaurant culture forever. Uh and I think what he said, honestly, I think it was spot on. So I kind of had to like pause and start to rewrite some graphs um and kind of not say change the tone of the story, but make sure that his voice on that on that matter um shines through. And I'm working on in two days, I am supposed to turn in my manuscript for my my cookbook and the you know, as you know, cookbook that's tentatively titled the Maroon House Cookbook. And it is hard to switch from uh thinking and writing about uh ice or just the political environment in general, and the political environment and going from going to you know editing recipes. Uh yeah, my brain doesn't work like that. I'm I am an empath, I know that for sure. So it's hard to switch. So all of this has affected, you know, my workflow.

SPEAKER_03:

While I am not an empath, doesn't mean I don't understand empathy and this idea of humanity. I can truly say uh working, and you know, you guys don't need to know I work at that's between me and Nicole and everybody that knows me. But even my you know professional job with other creatives. Um, the group of guys I work with, we do talk about this. I must say that I got a uh a creative manager that's a pretty cool guy. Um he he he does acknowledge what's going on. He and he thanked us from still showing up and doing the work, but he said it wouldn't be um it wouldn't be above him to like not talk about what's going on. Like it's just a human thing to do, you know, to get on Zoom calls all day and not acknowledge what's going on. That'd be kind of wrong. So I give him credit for that. I do see a trend in a lot of corporations, companies across the board that are you know eerily silent of what's going on. But more so, it's not so much as they gotta make these political statements. If nothing else, give assurance to the your workers, the people that work for you who are showing up every day and producing either products or services that you sell to the larger public and assure them that, hey, you know, we're listening, we're making sure that you guys are okay and things of that nature. And I noticed that's been kind of lacking from you know corporate culture. And I do think that's been playing out a lot, not even, you know, even beyond the um, you know, the walls of any company, that um, you know, a lot of companies are just eerily silent. But it would be great though that you know these companies look at their employees as not just assets, but you know, real humans and check on them every so often.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm curious if you are listening and you work in corporate America, um ping us, let us know. Has your company um talked specifically about um what is happening politically? Have they, you know, said if you need to take a if you need to take a mental health day, do that. I'm just curious because I do know that during COVID and when there were uprisings, people did that. Yeah, but people are a little quiet now. Um, I know I ran into another mom from um our school today who is a creative, and uh we were talking about creative people at this time, and everybody's been saying this to me. I did this Instagram post basically saying I'm tired. I'm sick, I'm I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And in the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, but I also said I keep going. And posting that affirm what I already was doing is that I have to keep going because that is what black Americans have done for generation after generation, and that is to keep going and to keep producing art.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you're right. We do got to keep going because that's what our grandparents did, that's what our parents have done, that's what uh our you know ancestors have always done. He just kept it going. Looking for creative inspiration? Graphite Pro Radio explores the intersection of design, culture, and innovation. One conversation at a time. Join us for deep dives into the creative process and game-changing ideas. Start listening today. How do you feel like your friend circles right now with everything that's going on in the world? And I know you're part of some chat chat groups, meaning you're part of a few together. I know you're part of something that is separate. I feel like one, but maybe it's one. Whatever the case may be. Like it has to be chat groups, but just, you know, how has like, you know, your friend circles been in terms of like, you know, politics? Have y'all been discussing politics? Yeah. I've been discussing like how to get through all of this stuff, how to cope, you know, exchanging ideas. Like, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, some of my friend circles, um, you know, I have what I call food friends, yeah. People who um who are my friends, meaning I've I've broken bread with them uh several times. They've been at my house or I've been to their house. Like, people are not just colleagues that I see at events, but I would say with my food friends, we 100% have talked about it. There are a lot of restaurants now that participated in the strikes today, um, and some who didn't. So a lot of my conversations have been around what do we think? Should is this is this gonna work? Should people be doing that? But also our conversations have been like this economy is shitty, yeah, and food media, media period has imploded, and it is hard to get jobs now. Um it is really slow, it's dry as a bone out here, and we still have to promote the work that we have online while people are talking about ice rates. We still have to figure out a way to email colleagues or pitch pitch people via email um or apply for jobs. You have to do all of this in the midst of the stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

You still gotta work, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think um, like one of the things, one of my friends who actually was a mom, I put her in mom friend category. I said, Yeah, I have this email that I've come up with, one sentence in my email where I've been telling people, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I don't say that, oh my gosh, like thank you so much for your time, you know, with so much going on with the current political administration. I know it's often tough to respond to emails or to take time out of your day to whatever. I'm acknowledging what's happening in like one sentence instead of viewing out a bunch of emails without acknowledging anything. And I think people probably I hope people appreciate that because it feels crazy a bit sometimes to get professional and or personal correspondence with people like, hi, you like, yeah, yeah, the world is burning. Like, we ain't gonna say nothing about it. Yeah, but I would say my friend circle, we talked about it. Like, like, you know, one of my dearest friends, she came to town in New York. We caught up and talked about everything from her dating life, but then shoot, we had a whole conversation about um immigration.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and you know, a lot of these topics can get kind of saucy. You know, for some people, politics is a it's a deal killer, they don't talk about it. Sometimes it's really oh yeah, you gotta understand.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't have any friends with it. I don't know, they don't talk politics.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm just talking about friends too. You know, this can be colleagues, sure, friends, yes. Um, but you know, there are some friends that won't talk about politics. I got friends like that, and you know, it's just what it is. And, you know, they won't talk about it publicly, they won't talk about it even privately. It's just it's just kind of a thing they either don't believe in or they just don't want to talk about it. Hey, for some people, topics like this is a deal killer. It can easily break up friendships. I can see it. It can cause you to leave um certain groups, uh, it can break up dinner parties. Like, this is a real thing. And and go, what's going on right now? We have to be very mindful that uh, you know, certain topics around politics can be very polarizing for people.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you remember the time during Trump's first administration? We were we were vacationing and the per person's house we were vacationing at at dinner. They were like, either they said we only get one chance to talk about Trump or we couldn't talk about Trump at the table.

SPEAKER_03:

And you gotta remind me of that truth.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. They were like, oh, nope, nope, I don't want to talk. Like, we couldn't talk about it. And it was like, we can't say nothing about it. I get it.

SPEAKER_03:

People don't want to- That was 2016, huh? 2017.

SPEAKER_01:

I I can't remember the year.

SPEAKER_03:

I can't remember that.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't remember the year, but it felt like it sounds familiar. I was like, ooh, we can't talk about it. But I mean, you know, the dinner party went on, but I mean, I thought I was around pretty progressive black people. It was all black people there, I think. And I'm like, we we can't have any conversation about it. I do think that adults who socialize a lot know how to pivot the conversation, of course, where the conversation doesn't take over.

SPEAKER_03:

But can you stay friends with people who don't agree with you politically? Um because I got I got relatives who I don't agree with politically. But that's where the conversation has to be had, right? Because if you think about what's happened thus so far, there are people that we know, and you all know them, who did not have these conversations back in 2016, and we are where we are now, right? Because they love their family members, but they never challenge them politically. So the question is, well, can you stay friends with people who don't agree with you politically, especially around very hot political topics? How do you work through that? How do you live through that?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sure there are plenty of people that I am friends or friendly with who are or in my circle in some ways that we don't have the same beliefs on certain things. I'm almost positive about that. And I'm still friends with them. I don't know if I can um, I don't know if this is somebody I want to spend a lot of time with.

SPEAKER_03:

I agree.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I don't know if this is somebody I necessarily want to continuously have in my personal space when they are spewing things that are homophobic or transphobic or um xenophobic. Xenophobic, um misogynist, all of the all of the things, all of the isms. I don't want, I don't know how much time I want to spend with a person like that. I don't know how much time I want to spend with a person who can get behind what is happening in this country now with Trump and his goons. Um can I love them? Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

So that the short answer to your question is if somebody, particularly if you know me, I don't think nobody is bold enough to come up in my personal space and start talking that shit to me. Um, and if they did, I I just did, I would I would nip it in the bud immediately. Like, hey.

SPEAKER_03:

Is that the right way to do that, though?

SPEAKER_01:

I I wouldn't put them out, but I would nip it in the bud, be like, listen, you're you're it's totally fair for you to have those views. But in here, I can't I can't allow you to say those transphobic things, I can't allow you to say the fill-in-the-blank things. I think I've said that to people before, right? Um, in a very nice way, and then they kind of like who what have you. But I I honestly, I think most of the times they haven't been people andor family or friends that I'm around all the time.

SPEAKER_03:

So if somebody walk up to you and says something uh in the vein of slavery was a choice, yeah. I know what I'm talking about. Like, is that a deal killer?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I would you said walk up to me or we are.

SPEAKER_03:

When you're friends with this person, and he could say something like that. Is that a deal killer?

SPEAKER_01:

I think my immediate reaction would be like, what you just say?

SPEAKER_03:

Or if they said something that was very uh anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, right? Like something that's really foul. Not that it's just kind of like cheechi, but something that's really, really foul. Well, I ain't- Okay, how about this? How about that, you know, where do they show up wearing the MAGA hat? Or they show up wearing um, you know, some kind of Nazi paraphernalia. Or they show up so on the case.

SPEAKER_01:

If you're doing some extremes then.

SPEAKER_03:

But these, but these are extreme times.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, okay, okay, okay. Those are that's bad. That's where we at, though. Now, I have there are people who are in my close circle who um I would say have not done the work or read enough about um LBGT, LBGTQ, or people's um uh um being gay, lesbian, being um non-binary. So let me just say that again. The thing that I get all the time for a lot of people, they don't get the non-binary thing. I will tell you that that comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_03:

It does. Um, and I've had to it comes up in the creative community, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I've had to push back on that, I wouldn't even say push back and be like, say straight up, like, why do you care what somebody calls themselves?

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I'll do it in a way that's kind of not like calling them out. Um, but I would say, like, I don't give a damn if somebody wants to be called, whatever they want to call, just like tell me what you want to be called, and I'm gonna call you that. Because it that doesn't affect me, right? It doesn't affect me if someone decides to be non-binary and they want me to call them they. So um, so when someone has this prolonged conversation about it, I'm like, that's really bothering you, you know, and I just kind of nip it in the bud and say for me, like, I wonder why that's bothering me, because it really doesn't bother me because it doesn't affect me, you know, it doesn't affect me. And I usually have like a one-liner about it and I move on. But if it continuously happens, I've said to someone, I've noticed, you know, you're always like, you're bothered by this. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

But it's dialogue.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we need to talk about that. So I have had that conversation with a handful of people, and from that point on, they'll just say, Oh, that person is non-binary, or they want to go by they. Because I think a lot of times people never get called out. Now, so that is a little bit different to me. That's about someone That's still political, though. It is political, but I also think it's about someone who just hasn't thought, hasn't been in a situation where they've had to think about it, or someone has challenged them. Now, if somebody came up with my friends, I saw them in a MAGA hat.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, yeah, I mean, again, because that is real. That can happen. I've seen that happen over the last six years. People who you never would thought would wear that, and they have, people who will wear paraphernalia that was very polarizing, like certain kinds of symbols that are from a certain era that was very effed up, and they have. I've seen people wear Confederate flags that are so-called conscious. Um, I know for me, when I've run across people that that are either close to me, family members, or somewhere in the between, and we have these like, I guess, uh polarizing points of views on certain topics. It could be as political, as politics, all the way down to some culture around one's gender, to like, you know, whatever in between. I try to like, you know, understand why they're thinking that way, have a conversation, and refer them to books.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because no, ignorance, ignorance is that thing that usually comes from a place of people just not being educated about something.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03:

But ignorance also can come from an intentional choice that people just want to be dickheads, and it's just gonna be that way. Now, at that point, you have to ask yourself, is this a relationship that you want to continue? Because if you stay in that relationship, then unfortunately you may be complicit in spreading their overall.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the dickheads, I don't know. Ooh, that word sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_03:

I can say that though. Because you know what that means.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know if I want to continue to be in a relationship with them. I mean, like, in friendship with them. Like, if I am, there's a friend or someone that's a colleague or someone that I'm getting to know, and we are having a conversation about Minneapolis. Um, and I I've had a few conversations where people claim they don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, they know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like, oh yeah, I haven't really been paying attention to the news. What happened?

SPEAKER_03:

They know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm just kind of like, huh?

SPEAKER_03:

They know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

You don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_03:

But it goes back to what I said earlier. People are just kind of putting their head in the sand and willingly just purposely just kind of checking out.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm just like, huh? You don't know what's going on? That that to me, I'm just like, okay, how can I say this? No judgment, but I don't think anyone in my friend circle that starts to say that. I really start sign-on you like, you ain't paying attention to what happened, especially here in New York City. You ain't you ain't paying attention to what's happening on the news. You don't know that Don Lemmon got arrested today. Like, okay, what world have you been in? You don't know that a journalist, like four journalists were arrested by four black journalists. Four black journalists were arrested by the feds because Trump mad.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

If you don't know that and you don't have an opinion about that, not even an opinion. If you if you don't know that and you know that that is straight up some fascist BS, um, and we friends, ooh, well, I'm sorry. I gotta, I gotta, the heat starts going through me then.

SPEAKER_03:

And then you gotta ask That concerns me. It goes back to what I was saying. At some point, you gotta ask yourself then. And this is something my father often taught me, like, you know, if you're gonna be that so-called real person, just be prepared to be real by yourself. Because a lot of times, brave people are typically by themselves, and what you may call a coward can potentially get you killed. And not killed, actually, but metaphorically speaking. And I would just say, overall, um, if you're gonna run across these type of scenarios, just consider it. It's okay to kind of like, hey, I don't need as big of a circle as I thought I did.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, maybe redefine what it means to have friends. I often tell you, hey, certain kinds of friends are good for certain kinds of things. You may just need a friend that can just make you laugh, even through times like this. Maybe you need a friend that can sit down and just want to listen to you just rant because sometimes you just want people to hear you. You right? You may say a bunch of things that maybe not so coherent. You just want somebody just they can just hear you out for a second, versus you just talking to yourself at a wall, right? And maybe you just gotta redefine what it means to be close to certain people. But I do think that is a great way to like work through these times around these type of subjects.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. I mean, listen, we've talked a lot about um just do it, invite new people over and have friends. I still 100 invite new people in your world, invite them to dinner. I'm still with that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um conversation is good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But it is also okay to to re-examine what category this person goes into into your life. And essentially, that's what you just said, right? Or to shake up to shake up the circle, like, you know what? I want more fun friends that we can have a conversation about what's going on.

SPEAKER_03:

If nothing else, you can make fun of the situation because sometimes comedy allows you to work through some shit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I want someone where we can we can talk about what's going on, there's empathy, they know what's going on, and like, girl, now let's order a bottle. Let's uh let's order a bottle and have something to drink. You know what I'm saying? It's always good to have friends like that. And I want to talk about two things. Or we're gonna talk about two things finding joy without guilt, and what can you do? Like literally, what can you do to move the needle? Cause we all gotta do a little something to move the the needle forward.

SPEAKER_02:

You do.

SPEAKER_01:

Um And what can you do to find joy? Those are two things that we can do. As you say, it's it's it's a yes and. It's a yes and it's a yes and. So, um, yeah, what are kind of the social activism things that that we we we naturally do all the time in the maroon house and outside of the maroon house?

SPEAKER_03:

So again, for me, it's producing art, but it's the intent behind it. I like to educate people with facts. Because facts can be boring, right? Facts are boring, let's be very honest. Wikipedia, it's a very boring place. But if you can take facts and turn them into like nuggets of storytelling and kind of hit people with like narrative, animation, design, you know, just overall, just cool storytelling. I think that's a way that I personally like to uh get involved is educating people about the facts because there's so much misinformation everywhere. The facts are 100% important.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, do we have to say voting? Because I mean, we already know that you need to be voted. Okay. All right, so just say it like I just got one little quick little antidote to say. Do you remember the time we were at a dinner party and a guy told me why do you even vote in New York? Because like you already know, you already know it's a bunch of, you know, what the city's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but he was a cis he's a he was a cisgender white male that can just kind of not vote and don't affect him. And I wasn't understanding. I said, he understands the fact that you was a southern.

SPEAKER_01:

But let me just finish saying it. I said, are you is suggesting I don't vote? He was like, Yeah, wow, who cares? I was like, dude, I am from the American South. My mother didn't grab did not vote until her senior year high school in 1972, and her own mother never voted. Like, are you serious? So, yeah, people need to be voting on the on a every election, locally, statewide, every you you you need to vote. Period point blank, and you need to have be in communication with your elected officials.

SPEAKER_03:

I think the idea of voting in general is is becoming a little almost going away of the dinosaur if we're not too careful.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I agree.

SPEAKER_03:

What's happening right now is that we got an administration that's actually telling people that it's not that important to vote. And they're making it's funny because we've always had these arguments with people, like, well, you know, vote is not that important. If voting was that important, then why do people spend so much time raiding um voting offices or ballot offices, or spending a lot of money making sure that you don't vote, whatever you vote for. But I do think voting is a big important thing, and giving context as to who you should vote for and why, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I went with this. I'm sorry, you know, we we're going a little long. We've tried to keep the podcast short, but we gotta go long. Yeah, some of my friends were like, some of my friends I love were like, You're voting for Kamala? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, I'm voting for Kamala. They were like, How, how dare you? You know, all the reasons, such as, you know, her stance on Israel and Palestine, um, so many things. She said, Oh, she, you know, she locked up so many brothers. Um, I mean, all the things that listen, I'm okay with having a conversation that she wasn't perfect. But I'm like, I'm not voting on third party. Like, yo, we gonna we're gonna mess around and Trump gonna be president again.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, boom.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I I'm voting for the for the greater good of the country. I would have loved to have voted for um anybody else. I'm not gonna say anybody else because I actually thought that Kamala was overqualified and qualified to do the job, but there wasn't a third-party candidate, excuse me, Jill Stein, that I um felt like, or anybody I could write in at the moment. So, yes, I think voting is still an effective tool. At this point, I don't know what it's gonna be in the next three years, but I think it's um on a local level here in New York City. We just got a brand new mayor. That right there gives me hope that on a local level that things are possible.

SPEAKER_03:

What about teaching your kids?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, super important. I I'm proud that I have a video of Garvey in the Uber. He said, Kamala Harris, she's the black lady that ran for president, she's running for president. I was like, I didn't tell him that. Um kids listen, they pick up on things at be it good or bad, and it's our job to take it even further. I'm so lucky that Garvey attends a New York City public school that had a conversation with them today about the definition of a strike. They didn't go deep into talking about ice and what was going on, but he understands a strike. He asked, could we go to the strike? Could we what is a protest? And it's super important that in your home that kids have visuals, um, either books, either artwork, um, zings, to these words that you've introduced to them, these these um things around activism that they actually get to see and read them and take them to stuff. Uh yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we've taken the Garvey to take them to things.

SPEAKER_03:

You also gotta show them cool content on YouTube because that's where they live. But I do like the the take a kid somewhere and learn. That's how I learn.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they get to see it in the flesh. You know, I took Garvey to see Ruth Osha, who um is a beautiful artist who Japanese artist who spent time in an internment camp. And um Garve got a book about it. They talk about the internment camps. We went the moment and saw it. Now, I don't do I think he fully understands what an internment camp is. No, but but he has a book that talks about it, and hopefully five or six years from now, he's gonna be like, Oh, internment camp. Okay, this is similar to, or wow, this happened in America, that he'll be appalled. So you gotta expose your kids to the word activism, and they gotta see it in the flesh, they gotta read about it, and they gotta connect it um in their home and outside of their home.

SPEAKER_03:

I remember being a young homie in Atlanta, and I think I've said this before to on previous pods, or even with few. Um, my family, they'd be, you know, you're talking like anywhere from six to eight people at any given time. We would go to the BCN, or you know, the BCN bookstore in the West End of Atlanta.

SPEAKER_01:

You gotta say what the BCN is.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, the black Christian and nationalist uh church group, right? My dad was a member at one point in time. Long story short, that bookstore was just infamous for like all these beautiful books and writers that were coming through. We've seen a lot of the Shrine of the Black Madonna. The Shrine of the Black Madonna, we would go to the bookstore and we see a lot of black writers come and, you know, talk about their books. But one particular writer I saw as a young kid was Alice Walker. Now, you're talking, I had it been like maybe 10, maybe nine. Seeing Alice Walker was definitely one of those things, uh, aha moment, because I still remember that moment.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I do think when you take kids to go see things in real life, that's that's always gonna be much more enriching and just life-changing for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Activism, there's so many ways to to be an activist or to in your own way, right? Right. And I also say this: you you've heard me say this many times. The true activists don't never say, I'm an activist.

SPEAKER_02:

Nah.

SPEAKER_01:

They just out there doing the work. They're just doing the work. Anybody who introduced themselves as an activist, I side out them because your activism, your personal activism, in my opinion, it should just be a part of who you are in your daily life. And you don't have to talk about it. It is what it is. Right. Um, but finding joy, you know, how do you find joy when you've done all the things that we should be doing to push the needle of equality and justice? How do we be like, oh Lord, you've done all the things? Uh, and you're like, whoo, I gotta do something for myself. I want to unwind. What, Adrian, is the one thing, the one thing you plan on doing in the next few weeks to bring a little joy without feeling guilty, knowing that this this upside down world probably will still be around. What's the one thing that um you're gonna do for yourself? I'm gonna feel guilty about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Probably gonna go to a concert or a dance party.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so my one thing, Adrian, what's the one thing I plan on doing? I wanna find more time to do acupuncture. So that's the one thing. I'm gonna lean into self-care on my body. Haircuts, acupuncture, petty manny. That's what I'm gonna do. So, guys, I just want to say this. Take care.

SPEAKER_03:

Take care, be easy, stay well, people. And you know, till next time, we'll catch up and hope you guys are, you know, just working through this the best way you can.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for tuning in to the Maroon Life, where creativity meets culture and joy. Part of the Caffeine Media Network. Follow us on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen.