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Madame Speaker Says
Madame Speaker Says is the podcast for women of colour ready to own the mic, drop that book and get paid like a legend.
Join Magogodi oaMphela Makhene - author, speaker and coach - for real talk, shortcuts and receipts to help you lead with confidence — on stage, on the page and way beyond the 9–5. No caucacity, no crusty old school leadership.
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Madame Speaker Says
Building Authority No One Can Take | Djamila Ribeiro on Power & Speaking Unapologetically
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What does it cost to keep waiting for the world to confirm what you already know about yourself?
Djamila Ribeiro's answer will stop you: "People didn't give the opportunity to me, so I created the opportunity — because I knew my value."
Djamila Ribeiro is one of the most important philosophers at work in the world right now. She coined a concept that gave Brazil new language for power. When the publishing industry couldn't hold her work, she built a publishing house. When 90% of books in her country had been written by white people for fifty years, she launched a collective that published 80 Black authors. When the United Nations needed someone to speak on the International Day of Recognizing the Victims of Slavery, they called her — the first Brazilian civilian ever invited to that stage. She gave herself three words before she walked up: speak unapologetically.
This is a masterclass in what happens when you stop waiting for permission and start building from what you already know.
In this episode, Djamila breaks down:
- Why the moment she read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye at 19 didn't just change her — it issued her a demand, and what she did with it
- What it actually means to know your value before the academy, the industry, or the institution confirms it — and how that self-knowledge becomes the foundation everything else is built on
- How she diagnosed a market that wasn't built for her work and built an alternative market instead of waiting for it to change
- What happened the day she found out a stranger had built a community library by hand in a poor neighborhood and named it after her work — and what it teaches you about building something that outlasts you
- The one concrete move she gives her students before she sees them again — not over the course of the semester, but before next time
- The three words she gave herself before walking onto the floor of the UN General Assembly — and why they are the only preparation that mattered
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction — Djamila Ribeiro
02:30 Toni Morrison at 19 — What Recognition Demands of You
08:00 Brazil's Racial Landscape — The Last Country to End Slavery in 1888👀
13:30 University at 27 — Self-Knowledge Before the Degree
19:00 Lugar de Fala & the Feminismos Plurais Publishing Collective
27:30 The Library in Campinas — When the Work Leaves Its Creator
33:00 What Brazil Can Teach the Rest of the World
37:30 Take the Floor — Rapid Fire
44:30 The UN General Assembly — Speak Unapologetically
48:00 The Whole Damn Talk — Work with Magogodi
Resources Mentioned
📚 The Bluest Eye — Toni Morrison
📚 Where We Stand — Djamila Ribeiro (Yale University Press, 2024)
📚 Letters to My Grandmother — Djamila Ribeiro
Connect with Djamila
🔗 djamilaribeiro.com.br
📱 Instagram: @djamilaribeiro1
📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.
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