The Award For Professionalism Goes to Black People.

A five-hour wait in A&E with my toddler stripped away any illusions I had about emergency care. Corridor beds, exhausted staff, and a doctor arguing for babies to be seen before a sixty-year-old with a rash this is the UK’s reality, where private healthcare won’t fast-track an emergency and winter air feels like a petri dish. I share what we saw, what it did to me as a mum, and the blunt lesson it pressed into my bones: invest in your health before the system makes choices for you.

From there we move to power, strategy and public backlash. Eni Aluko’s criticism of men fronting women’s football raises a valid point, but targeting Ian Wright the sport’s most visible ally torpedoed the message. We unpack what went wrong and extract career-proof lessons: name systems, not saviours; choose timing and venue with intent; and remember that you can be right and still lose if you sound reactive. Brand is strategy in public protect it, or the audience closes the door you’re trying to open.

Then the BAFTAs aired the N-word at two Black presenters, unbleeped, while other phrases were censored. Tourette’s explains involuntary tics; broadcasters still owe safeguarding to their audience and guests. Representation without protection is not inclusion. We break down accountability, why “they handled it professionally” is a trap, and how institutions reveal their values in what they choose to edit or not.

Finally, a listener faces major fibroid surgery while debating resignation. I make the case for recovery first, decisions second. Use protected sick leave, keep your legal and financial footing, and plan your next move from a healed place, not a depleted one. If you’re navigating A&E chaos, media noise, or workplace dilemmas, this episode offers clarity, strategy and a steady hand.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a clear plan, and leave a review so others can find us. Your messages shape future episodes send dilemmas to hello@toytalks.com and let’s keep building from a place of strength.

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Music (Intro and Outro) Written and created by Nomadic Star

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Transcript

Opening And Personal Update

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh yeah, out of the face, off with a face, put yet nice, no yet, put in the face. I'm gonna let stuff you speak. This let just couldn't stop this dog. Let's just stop the game which joke. Every sister how to own their throat. Let me show you how to Not forget to deliver what we do.

A&E Ordeal And Corridor Care

Privatise The NHS Debate

Staff Strikes And Unsafe Conditions

Daughter’s Diagnosis And Discharge

GP Access And AI Triage Barriers

High Earners, Taxes And Priority Rage

Cost Of Living And British Dream Myth

Private Healthcare Limits Explained

Eni Aluko, Ian Wright And Strategy

Brand, Backlash And Lessons For Work

BAFTAs, BBC And The N-Word On Air

Safeguarding, Accountability And Apologies

Media Distractions And Power Shifts

Reform UK Risks And Voting Strategy

Workplace Microaggressions And Exhaustion

Listener Dilemma: Surgery Or Resign

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Black Queen Energy Girl. Hey everyone, how are we all doing? I'm so glad to be sitting here delivering this episode to you. Last week I did not release an episode and I had planned to, but um my daughter had suspected pneumonia. So we went private. But because of the emergency um requirement for her to be seen in person, we were sent to the NHS and the story began from there. I've kind of mentioned things on my um Instagram page, but a long story short, I was traumatized by our NHS visit because it was so confronting of where we are in the UK in terms of our healthcare system. I've previously spoken about healthcare and um being felled by the healthcare system, but I think something that's important to also discuss as part of that is how broken the NHS actually is when you are seeing beds like rows and rows of beds lined up in the corridor and it it goes past the pediatrics unit. When my daughter and I are witnessing a woman coming out of her corridor bed and weing in the middle of the floor because she's so frustrated at her constant requests for help and no one is hearing her because she's clearly being um, you know, she's being cared for in a corridor, not in a hospital room, but in a corridor. The idea that she has a bed, so oh yeah, we've we're we're partly there in delivering care, it's just not acceptable. When you are watching a doctor advocate for children, um, my daughter included, um, babies, a two-year-old, um, to be seen ahead of um a 60-year-old. So now we're we're arguing or we're seeing medical professions argue over who should be cared for first. You can have private health care all you like. I have private health care. I believe my company did not go cheap on that private health care. Like we've got a good one. But if you're in an emergency situation, you're gonna have to use DNHS, and by virtue of emergency, you would have to go into AE. And believe me when I tell you, they don't give a damn if you're on private health care. Y'all gonna wait, you're gonna catch COVID in that corridor, you're gonna catch something in that waiting area, and just to see how bad it is, and the worst part is you'll have people in this country talk about Africa being the third world. Well, if Africa is a third world, I need to know what the UK is because from that hospital that I saw, that is a different world. Come like the fifth world, it was it was weird, it was just weird that it was almost accepted that this is kind of what's happening, and then it makes you think about things like privatization. Like, are we in a a situation where the NHS needs to be privatized? I've previously said this before, and I think it does need to, because the system is completely broken, and if it continues like this, it will buckle. And when I say buckle, I'm surprised, and I'll be uh I don't believe that winter time hasn't seen the NHS buckle. I think that the narrative is it's on its knees. But when you are having people seen in corridors, and I know for a fact that they can't be keeping up with um accuracy from a patient perspective if people are just lined up on a corridor. What you're gonna go around to every hand and look at the wristbands. That's if they have wristbands, you know. Do you know what I mean? Like we talk about in the media that they will demonize doctors and nurses for striking, but they're not just striking for more pay, they're also striking because of the conditions they need to work in, and then on top of that, you want to charge them for parking their car in a hospital car park so they can come in, serve the public, and do their jobs. This system is fucked, and I'm gonna say say this to you very clearly. I'm not sitting here as a I'm not a health advocate at all. I can do better, okay, at many things when it comes to my health. But something that was very clear to me is that you need to make it a priority to be as healthy as you can. And I know that's limited to resources, but once you go into that healthcare system, once you go into the hospital, it's up. It really is. Because also we're talking about overworked staff who not are just not who are not just tired, but that but that joy for the job isn't there for a lot of them, and you can't blame them. So when you see them striking, it's not just more money. The narrative is it is it's money because the the media want to um galvanize emotion and they want to demonize those who are on the front line of healthcare. But the conditions in which um these doctors and their shifts are not nine to five, they are working long hard hours. And if it wasn't for the laws, laws and legislation in this country that limits how many hours somebody can work in a day or even a week, these people would be begging to have a break, begging to eat. And we are calling these healthcare professionals who are just walking angels saving lives every day in conditions that are not great, mental health being traded for um politics, and fundamentally it boils down to money. A lot of these hospitals as a building are dilapidated, a lot of the facilities they have within the hospital are aged, they don't get like something has to break down beyond repair to be replaced. But yet the UK are so arrogant in the way it projects itself to the world as being like frontline and the the leaders. I didn't see that in the hospital, and I live in a relatively reasonable area, like I'm not saying it's affluent, yeah. I'm not saying like it's you know, I'm not saying any of that, but it's uh I live in a nice area, okay? And the hospital is I don't I don't know how you would rate that area, but what I will say is it shouldn't even be based on that. But the hospital and taking my daughter there, having to advocate for her, having to take myself out of character to buck them for them to realise, don't play with me and do not play with my daughter, was exhausting. But what was crushing for me is the doctor having to explain to a nurse why a two-year-old needs to be seen as soon as possible because she may or may not have pneumonia versus a 60-year-old that's walked in with a rash. This doctor, um, who is also a GP, yeah, they have GP in hospitals. Don't get me started, don't get me started. This doctor then walks us back to pediatrics, so through the crowd, through the the the holding area where me and my daughter were exiled to from pediatrics. He walks us back into pediatrics, he says, I need you to fulfill this medication. Um, he diagnosed her and he says, Listen, if you'd come here two weeks later, she would have had pneumonia 100%. So we're gonna give you medication that covers her, not just for um, because she had croup, um, not just for croup, but we're gonna give you a strong enough antibiotics that we would give if if a child came in with pneumonia, just so we can make sure they did not give her an x-ray of her lungs. He he listened to her lungs though, but on observation, he he you know he diagnosed her with croup. But he said, you know, if you'd come in two weeks' time, she she would have 100% had pneumonia, so you've come at the right time, which is interesting in itself, but I'm not gonna get into all of that. My daughter is recovering well. Um and once we had gotten the medication, he'd already signed us out. Um, but he has to use his influence to make sure that we got our medication and we were we got it and we were out. Um, you can't get a GP appointment here in the UK. So, all my international listeners, let me be clear to you. You cannot get a GP appointment by simply calling out, it doesn't work like that. Um, you have to go online for most GP services, and if you don't have this at your GP, they're gonna be rolling it out, so maybe ask them. Um and you have to go online, it's called Anima, our one's called Anima, and basically asks you a series of questions in order for that for an AI assistant to diagnose you, at which point, if they think that you're ill enough or your symptoms warrant a triage, the they will triage you and a GP will call you back. Yeah. So they're relying on people who have no medical, unless people are medically trained, but typically people who have no medical training to diagnose themselves, assess severity, be able to use uh AI-assisted technology within a computer, and that's if people have computers, and answer a series of questions in what you could deem as an emergency, and you could be told actually go to a local pharmacist, or you could be told uh go to hospital, or you could be told a GP will call you. This is the system that we're currently in at the moment. So for all of us in that top 5%, or is it top 1% of high earners? I'm just telling you now, it doesn't actually mean anything. You don't get access to anything more than anything else. I um at the end of the financial year, HMRC will tell you on their online portal where your taxes have gone towards. God forbid you try and access those services that you've paid for at source. And I'm gonna say something quite controversial, and I don't actually give a shit how it lands. I'm gonna say it because it's the fucking truth. I didn't, I came from nothing, okay. My parents, you know, they came to this country, they had nothing, you know, and even now, like we're as their children, we're working hard. It's not like we we got any kind of generational wealth or anything like that. Ground up, we are children of first-generation immigrants, so we understand the hustle and the struggle. There's no privilege that operates around here. This country punishes you for earning above what they believe is a reasonable threshold. I say reasonable because in this country they're trying to create a two-tier system of rich and poor with no middle class in between. That's a different topic for another day, and I've touched on that previously. But I want to be clear to you about something. For the taxes we pay, I'm I if the taxes I pay, I think they need to start triaging NHS emergency health care as in AE services based on how much tax you've paid in the last two years. And I think those who are higher earners need to be prioritized. That's what I think. As controversial as that could sound to people hearing it, when you are paying taxes that are at an eye-watering rate, but you don't get anything back from the system you're paying into, it's like a continuous slap in the face. A continuous slap in the face. I was in the hospital with people that don't pay taxes, they don't pay any taxes, have never paid, and they will happily tell you that in the corridor that they don't pay taxes. So it's not like I'm just saying this. So when I spoke to the doctor um at the hospital, he said to me, he goes, I can tell who pays taxes. You pay taxes, you probably pay a lot of taxes, because somebody like you will only ever come here as an emergency. It's not your first port of call. You will try every opportunity to not come to the hospital. You'll go through a GP, you might even go see a pharmacist, right? Because half of those people out there, this is their first bus stop, this is their first point of call because they don't understand the value of making money, paying into a system. They think it's their right to access what you and I pay for. And I agree with him. I agree. What is it worth? What does it mean to be a high earner in this country? What does it actually mean? It means you're gonna pay more taxes, and that's about it. That disposable income you talk about. Do you know how much you have to earn to be able to have a reasonable enough disposable income to do all the things? I went into Lidl the other day, I had 12 items in my basket. 12 items, one of them was minced meat. Oh my god. 12 items came to£75. No matter how much you earn, a£75 12 item shop in Liddle is expensive. The reason I say all of this is I want to make something clear. I don't believe in that um, you know, our parents came to this country and they had a vision, they believed in that British dream. It's a fucking nightmare. I don't believe in it, and to be quite honest with you, I'm I'm really not happy here in the UK, and it's something that I have battled with and toiled with, but I can conclude I am no longer happy here. Not for any other reason than the fact that I pay into a system and have been paying into a system for years as a high-rate tax uh high earner that pays a higher rate of tax, I get no benefits and no reward for paying into the system. What I am doing is paying for other people to abuse the system, utilize the system, and leave me with crumbs when I have no choice but to use the system. My daughter shouldn't have to wait five hours to be seen. Not when her mum is a high earner, not when her dad is a high earner, paying a lot of tax. She shouldn't have to wait. And this is before I've even spoken about her being two years old and not being seen as an emergency, even though she may or may not have pneumonia. They didn't know that. I'm sorry. But if you're going to create a two-tier system, then you need to create a system that benefits those who pay more into the system. That's the truth. Don't get me started on those of us who like I say two years, you know, those who have paid in the system for two years, but actually between two to five years because the common unemployment rates are disgraceful. It's the highest rates of unemployment in the last five years. People are taking between 12 and 18 months to get new jobs. So what does this country have to offer? Absolutely nothing. This country offers nothing. So we talk about rich people who do not pay enough taxes leaving the country, but the reality is the people who are actually paying the price for the high taxes are not those rich corporations who avoid taxes by fleeing to tax havens. It's people, the everyday people like you and I that are paying into assistance and getting nothing out of it. Absolutely, we get nothing. Tell me, and let me be honest with you. If we want to start talking about privilege, if you're a high tax earner, you you pay a higher rate of tax to your high earner, what privilege do you get for that? Tell me you earn over a hundred thousand a year, you're fucked. But if you earn over a hundred thousand, let's just say your take home is a hundred thousand, let's call it a ballpoint figure, right? Your take home is between 60 and 70k a year after tax. And I'm being generous if you're just one pound over, so you're earning 101 pound a year, you're fucked. I spoke to a young lady not too long ago who had been offered uh 105,000 a year. She basically had to go to them and say, Can you offer me between 80 to 90,000 a year and the rest, can you put it towards a call um company car? So you can already see what's happening in our society, and people who are earning more are not celebrated, it's almost discouraged, it's not tax-sufficient to earn over 100k. And the worst part of it is when you're in desperate need of the system you're paying into or any system that you pay into, you either won't get the service, you'll get below average service, the service would be broken, and there is no advantage of being a high earner because access to that service is at the same level as somebody who doesn't pay any taxes. And I, for one, am sick and tired of paying for people who do not pay into the system. I work way too hard, I do way too much to pay for you to sit on your arse all day and claim benefits. Sorry, but it's true. If you're claiming benefits because you genuinely need to, disability and things like that, I'm not directing this at you. But why do you think that you get to abuse a system that I'm also trying to access and can't, but I pay into it? Why why is it that you feel entitled to that more than me? So those who that offends, I actually don't give a fuck. I don't give a toss. Because I was confronted with the reality of my mortality. If I have to use a system that is well beyond broken, and now I'm going to have to every time I need to access any type of healthcare on behalf of my child, I have to gear up for a fight. That's fucking exhausting. I have to gear up for an argument. How many of you have to go into AE if if when and don't get me wrong, it's not an it's not a trick we do often, by the way. But any access to the healthcare in person, I have to take a box of neurofen with me because I know I'm gonna get a headache from waiting, a headache from arguing with them, and a headache from bucking them is fucking exhausting. But that's the reason why I didn't record last week because I was just traumatized visually what I saw, mentally exhausted, and then obviously nursing my daughter back to health. But before then, she just being really unwell and being worried, and you know, first time mum trying to figure it out, knowing I can't rely on the system, going private to be told it's an emergency, go to AE and knowing that this is gonna be a ball ache, this is gonna be a problem. So, what does private health care actually mean? Well, it means that you're able to access private hospitals if there are like routine operations or routine things. So, like I suffer from migraines, um, and it's gotten worse over the last few years. I have Aura, so I've gone through my private healthcare, they've booked me into a private hospital to get some brain scans, to get some bloods and stuff, and as I go through the process of them trying to kind of decipher certain things, my private healthcare pays for it. Any medication that I would need, um, I could get through private healthcare. But again, if I have to go to the pharmacy and get um some of that's prescribed, I'm gonna have to pay. Yeah, on top of paying for private health care. So private healthcare is good, but I just want you all to know that you're still accessing the same NHS doctors and nurses to access whatever you need in terms of care from a medical perspective. Um, in in the circumstances which you access a private hospital, if if like what you're going for is really serious and your healthcare uh is able to cover it, great. But even from organizations that they cheap, they go on the cheap for the private healthcare, they'll get the lowest package. So anything below above a certain threshold, albeit financially or medically, they'll send you back into the NHS. So if it's like a cold or you know, chicken pots or whatever, yep, it's great for that. The routine things, it's great for that. If it's complicated, you're going back into the system that you've been trying to escape through your private healthcare policy, just letting you know. Anyway, let's move on. Last week, um, there was a lot of media coverage on any a Luco, and I had shared some stuff on my private Instagram page, I'd spoken a lot on the DMs, people had messaged me, but I never really went into any detail because I thought last week I would have recorded a podcast for us to discuss it here. That didn't happen. However, things seem to have come. Calm down. And I always say to you, I never want to kind of do things in the forore of you know the spotlight of what's happening. Sometimes you know it happens and I'm able to deliver it. But actually, now that things have settled down, I hope that we can all have like a deep breath and step back and look at the situation and be able to discuss it and take some learnings into the world of work. So, Enya Luco, she is a former England international uh football player, and she was actually quite good. She got a few, I think they call them caps, but she's quite decorated. Um, she is also a pundit, and she recently criticized the prominence of male pundits, specifically naming Ian Wright in women's football coverage, and there lies the issue. Her comments were so significant that she created a backlash online. Um, Ian Wright has been one of the biggest male allies of women's football. Um, her criticism of him and his position, and effectively saying that he's taking all the jobs that, well, he's taking the roles and the punditing, don't know if that's a word, that should be offered to football pundits like herself. So effectively, he is standing in the way of opportunities and it's still not centering women in its entirety, is effectively what she's saying. Um, her criticism of Ian Wright, it was quite personal, it did feel quite personal, rather than um a systemic issue about um female presence in female football punditry. Um, and her delivery really overshadowed her underlying issue. And if I'm being completely honest, I get the point she's making, but she didn't make it in an effective way. And she she called out Ian Wright, who was being like the spokesperson advocate for women's football, it just didn't it there was no strategy, there was no thought behind it, it felt very reactive um and very entitled, is a word that was very much used to describe her as this continued on um Twitter, online, various interviews that she had done. Um, and it wasn't just about what she said, it was about how she said it. Um Ian Wright is quite a neutral figure, and he is really widely respected across all generations. He's an Arsenal legend. I've got Arsenal supporters in my family, and they will never hear a bad word spoken about Ian Wright. Ian Wright is from a working class background and he's been really vocal in his support of women's football long before it was popular, so he hasn't jumped on a bandwagon even when it wasn't as popular, he was always like a really loud, excuse me, advocate advocate for women's football. Um, and he seems he is quite authentic in his approach, or at least that's how he comes across. But when you name someone the public loves, you need to be almost like surgically precise, or you're gonna lose the room, and that's exactly what happened with any of Luko. Um, she didn't frame it as an issue from a perspective of the lack of pathways for female pundits or structural hiring patterns or gatekeeping in sports media. It came across as oh, why is he as in Ian Wright being chosen to do this punditry on women's football instead of us? And like the perspective of the audience, like you could see the shift online when I say shift, as in how people were receiving this, is oh, any Aluko is jealous, she's entitled, she has a big ego, it's really an emotional reaction, and it invalidated what the message that she was actually trying to communicate. Um, I think that key lesson here, I think for all of us, is that you can be right and still lose if you sound reactive instead of strategic. And I think we can all agree that any Luko had no strategy. I have my own opinions about Ian right, but I don't think you can really criticize him in spotlighting women's football and him being a man because you're trying to utilize his um credentials, his masculinity, his um his credentials as a former Arsenal player, and you're trying to leverage that to bring more attention, more spotlight, more brands, more awareness to women's football. You need him. You do need him. But Enia Luko kind of how it came across in a lot of her interviews is almost quite personal in that she expected him to allow her to jump on his shoulders to be able to have access to certain rooms. And even if she thought that, even if she wanted that, her trying to do that in a public way will never get her the reaction she wants. I would have had more respect for her if she had a conversation with him away from the cameras. Because I don't think it's far-fetched to have a conversation and ask somebody, listen, can you mentor me? There's that word again, but you know hey ho. But for the purposes of this mentor her and her align herself with him so that she can, even if she he won't open the doors, she can see the doors that need to be opened, no strategy whatsoever. Um, I guess from a social media perspective, it did come across as her really digging at Ian Wright. Why is Ian Wright doing this job? Um, and it just I think the problem with her is that she just didn't know when to stop. It was like a train without a driver, and she was wrecking and crashing into everything. There was no pause for thought, there was no consideration of the environment how the audience were receiving her, and she was discredited a lot, she was humiliated. It was literally like a humiliation tour that she refused to get to get off. She was on and she was in those um studios, she was in the even there was one meeting and one interview that she did with this white guy, I can't remember his name, and he's not very nice. Whenever he talks, he turns red. And in my head, I was like, Why would you set yourself up like this? Why would you why would you allow yourself to be public hum publicly humiliated over and over and over again? When she went on um the 90s baby show, I don't think I I don't know whether she thought that that would have an impact because it's within our community, um, the audience is heavily within our community, but it didn't make her look any better than the um other outlets interviews that she was doing. In fact, it made it even more targeted, like it felt like she thought she genuinely thought that she was going to make a difference enough to secure her punditry career here in the UK, and she would use Ian Wright as collateral, and she's basically ended her punditry career here in the UK. She has no career, no one's gonna want to work with her, no one's gonna want to sit with her in terms of like punditry. People don't even rate her skills as a pundit. I know I can't speak to that because I don't really like football, so I can't assess whether she's a good pundit. I definitely know that she's not good at um strategy, she's not good as a brand, she doesn't know how to manage herself as a brand when she's sitting in front of these people and she's being time and time and time again discredited and humiliated. She has since apologised to Ian, right? And you said that he doesn't accept her apology, and then within our community, we're seeing a wave of people saying, Okay, well, why don't you just you don't have to necessarily accept her apology, but why can't you acknowledge that she's listening let me tell you something here? If any of Luco had hit the way she wanted to hit, in terms of where she wanted this to go, and how she could have used Ian Wright as collateral as part of her pathway to get where she wants. If she had succeeded, she could have ruined this man's legacy to a degree. Because I think, but legacy, insofar as he's a gatekeeper, he's keeping me out. This is brand, she could have never broken his brand. I don't believe that. But he obviously has another career as a pundit, as a face, and as a he's kind of um rebranded, you know, and it's it the rebrand in includes the fact that he's a retired footballer, so it's what footballers do after their retirement, it's so it's such an important conversation. But Ian Wright has managed to not just be a household brand because of you know his time at Arsenal, but he's redefined himself as well as like Uncle Ian Wright, you know, sports commentator, all of this, all of this, and then he is like almost like not I don't want to call him the mascot, but he's almost like the face of that's probably better, of women's football, pushing women's football. He is the face of pushing women's football, and he she could have destroyed that, and you're looking at a black woman who, as we all as black women, um the black women that like as us as black women, we understand that when you are in male-dominated industries, you have to move with strategy. If you're in white male-dominated industries, we have to move with strategy times 10. But you're now going up against a black man who is in a male-dominated space, his proximity to white people is there. He he he you know, they they you don't they don't some of them don't even like him, they respect him, and this is someone you're going up against: emotive, egotistical. These are all the attributes that Enya Luca was displaying when she was literally attacking him for pushing forward female sports because he is getting opportunities that he's not putting her on, and he doesn't owe you that. No one owes you anything, and I do think there is a slight delusion with Enya Luco. I do think that she is delusional in thinking that this was ever gonna be any any more than what it was in terms of the car crash of her image and her punditry career, even her colleagues within the punditry, you know, they weren't sticking up for her. It wasn't like they were coming to her defense either. It was very much silent, and people can argue, well, maybe that's because people are that's their strategy, they're moving with strategy, they don't want to go on this moving train going to nowhere. Maybe, but people could have spoken to how good she is as a pundit, and no one actually did. And what is sad about this is maybe she can go international, I don't know how it works, but here in the UK, that's it, and also I do want to provide some context to any Aluko. She's also qualified. Um, I don't know if she's fully qualified, but I I know that she works in law, she's she was she's a lawyer. Um, let me go on her Instagram page because I did see it on there. Maybe I don't know if she would have updated it because boy, she's done in terms of punditry here in the UK anyway. Right, so she's ex Chelsea FW, S CW and England lionesses. Yeah, she's a UK lawyer and investor. She has she has herself as the ambassador for Ali Dasin U E F A. It's just sad, man. That's it, she's done. She's gone quiet, and in my head, I was like, babes, you should have been quiet from before. Who is her management? Who's around her? Does she have friends outside of the industry that could have spoken to her? Because nobody would have told her this was a good idea. Um, so yeah, I just think as black women, we do ourselves a disservice by not having strategy, especially in the world of work. No one wants to be a car crash of emotions that loses sight of the actual objective of what we're presenting, and it is exhausting. I'm not gonna sit here and lie, it's tiring. I often ask myself, like, I sit there and I'm like, it can't be this hard for non-black women, like if I take our white counterparts, a white woman, it it can't be this difficult for you all. It can't. Being a black woman is so fully loaded from how we speak, how we come across, you know, policing our expressions, policing every and then knowing all of this and being in spaces where you don't see a lot of yourself, and then an enluca going full throttle is wild to me. And I think I was a bit disappointed in her to be honest. I was, I was disappointed because I thought, babe, this train is headed nowhere, and you're not reading the very many rooms that you're in repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again, and what solidified it is Ian Wright, he says, um, I don't want her apology because obviously the significance of what was done is very clear, but it also further showed that if Ian isn't gonna go down that whole reconciliation route with you, the public won't, because they would take his lead. Now, some have argued, well, why couldn't he protect her? You know, by kind of accepting apology. I did read something online about that, and I was like, well, she's not his responsibility, and she's not protecting herself. Because had she I had to, you know what, I would have had more respect if she said what she said, Ian said what he said, and she just stopped. Then she came back and she said, Listen, I had a th I had to think about what I said, and I have to I have to confess I spoke out of fear, da da da and that level of vulnerability, although I understand and I accept that vulnerability in black women is not always received in the in the softness that it should, but that softness would have been endearing enough for her to at least stand a chance at rebuilding her brand. She has no chance now, she's done here in the UK. I don't see it. You know, at one point I was gonna send her a message and I was gonna be like, Listen, you don't know who I am, but as a fellow black woman, we see ourselves, let's not do this. Like, look, but then I realized who am I? I mean I'm just like a little toad in the big pond, and her ego was very confrontingly big. So for her, I'm just a little person that don't know who what I'm talking about, but yeah, that's any good in a nutshell. That's kind of I I just wanted to kind of touch on it and just let us all know as well. Like, we what it what was uncomfortable is there's very many of us who have either been in similar situations or watched other fellow black women in those situations, or women, irrespective of race. And if this was a lesson on what not to do and how you should do better and strategy, case on point. Let's switch gears, the BAFTA Awards. Um delivered by the BBC, which is a public funded organization, and at the BAFTAs, which is broadcast by the BBC, by the way. Um actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan, who are both black Americans, were presenting an award, were getting ready to present an award. And um, John Davidson has Tourette's. Now, Tourette's syndrome, I'm not gonna get into all the detail, it's a neurological, I believe it's neurological, it's involuntary acts. Okay, so we all know what Tourette's are is, and if you don't please do the research because me, I'm not a medical professional here. Um, and um John Davidson, he was nominated for an award, he was in the audience, and um as um Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were you know speaking, uh John Davidson shouts the N-word with a hard R. And it aired live. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were visibly shocked on stage. It was you could hear the awkwardness, the silence in the awkwardness was loud. There was no immediate intervention, no removal from the broadcaster. And this occurred despite the BBC having um the technical capability to censor language in real time. So I believe there is a delay and they could have censored it out. And we know this because um Akinola Davis Jr. said free Palestine in his acceptance speech for an award that he won, and this was bleeped out. So by the time we watched it, we we didn't see it because it that was edited out. The BBC are not just a broadcaster, they're publicly funded through TV licenses. Um, they frame themselves as a national institution, they're bound by editorial and safeguarding standards and are responsible to diverse audiences. When you're publicly funded by the public, you're accountable to the public, including the communities most harmed by what you broadcast. The issue isn't Tourette's syndrome. Um as I mentioned, Tourette's syndrome, it's it's I don't want to say it's rare because it's not rare, it is a condition, and it's it's rare if you're not exposed to it if you don't know many people that have Tourette's, but there are people that are really suffering. Um and if you understand the condition of Tourette, it's not like um this racial slur that was used, the N-word, it's not um intentional hate speech. Um Tourette is involuntary. But disability does not remove institutional responsibility, and broadcasters still control what goes out to millions of people. And I really want to be clear so that there's no misunderstanding in what I'm saying. Understanding Tourette's syndrome as a condition does not mean that you abandon safeguards, and I think that's really important because if you read a lot of and see the wave of the way this is being reported, it's almost like, oh, listen, it wasn't intentional, it was involuntary, it's got a disability, get over it. The reason why it is being propelled to the forefront, and you can feel the emotional disrespect from the black community is because Del Ray Lindo and Michael B. Jordan are black Americans, and don't let it go past your head. This is Black History Month in the US as well, so it compounds it slightly, and what it compounds is like history. The we know where the N-word comes from, it's a historical, violent, racist slur. In this situation, it was directed at two black male individuals in a prestigious setting, and there was no kind of editing out, there was no safeguarding. In fact, the words used to describe Michael B. Jordan and Delro Lindo is that they were very professional, and this is a pro problem, the word professional in this context. Any other reaction would have also been okay. Because you cannot police people's reaction to racial slurs in that setting by saying, Well, they act professional as if not being professional. And not react and reacting would have been unprofessional, given that basically you're being racially abused. God forbid you get angry or show any upset. God forbid your facial expressions change and they're not stoic enough to be perceived as professional to digest your race, that racist slur. For black audiences, the word isn't just language, it carries history, violence, humiliation, and trauma. In a setting like that at the BAFTAs, the silence that I that we saw that we felt, the shock that we felt, um, I speak as obviously a black woman, the shock that I felt, it was the realization of the power imbalance. The not the realization, the reconfirmation of the power imbalance, um, the fear of escalating, the lack of protocol, um and the optics. Because Michael B. Jordan and Del Rolindo didn't know, like in that moment, they didn't know what was going on. Shock has you operating in shock. Do you get what I'm saying? Where was the safeguarding for them? My question is would a black person who has to rets make a racial slur to any other demographic culture, race, whatever, would they be given the same grace as John Davidson? Why is it that I'm not even gonna get into why is it the racial slow? Like, I know it's involuntary, but where does that come from? Where does it come from? Like, where where does that come from? Because he didn't say free Palestine, he didn't say anything about any other race, it's the N-word, and he's saying it to black people. I mean, for me, inquiring minds will want to know, maybe I need to educate myself more in Tourette. I'm open to that too, but I'm questioning that element of it. But when I look at who is culpable, who is responsible, it's the BBC. Let me be really clear about something. Like prestigious institutions, so awards ceremonies, the BBC in this context, they will often celebrate diversity. It's very symbolic. But when harm occurs, when when harm occurs on any level, whether it's televised or not, the protections aren't equal. Representation without protection is not inclusion. So when we talk about culpability, I'm gonna say this. The problem we have as a community is we don't know how to professionally protest. What do I mean by that? Why do we keep going to these white events? They don't want to see us there. Every 12 to 18 months, they'll be criticized for not having our representation. But when we go there, we're abused. We're not safeguarded, we're not protected. They could have bleeped that out, but they didn't. That maximum impact, they wanted to do it. It felt premeditated. It was a choice to leave that in. That was a choice. The same choice to remove um Akinola's speech where he said free Palestine. That was a conscious choice that the BBC made to bleep that out. But what when we look at it and take a step back, why did they leave the N-word? And let me tell you this it's because that's what they think of us. That's how they think. That wasn't a mistake to leave it in, that was deliberate. And I think as a community, we really need to start being honest with ourselves. You're going somewhere where they don't celebrate us, but you expect them to safeguard us. We're always looking for their approval. Oh, we why have you not acknowledged us and given us this award? What does the award really mean if the institution itself is is racist? I don't understand. It's like when these people they will go to Buckingham Palace for an M B E O B E O C E I F G E E D L M N O P. When you're going there to kneel before that you're King Charles, you're going there to be acknowledged, but they don't want to acknowledge slavery, the impact of slavery, their hand in it, colonization, they don't want to acknowledge it, but you want them to you want to go there and get a knighthood. This doesn't make sense. Black people, my fellow community members, that doesn't make sense. There's not enough money you could pay me come to tell me, oh Toyo, you're being awarded with an OBE. Me, no thanks. Why don't you reward me by lowering my taxes? I'll be okay with that. I could take that because reparations and all that. Why do we keep looking for approval in these award ceremonies where they don't want to see us? They haven't got no choice but to acknowledge us because we we are impactful enough into uh impactful enough from a cinematic creative perspective. But the reality is even if they include us, they won't safeguard us. That's not inclusion, that's abuse. And it's not about demonizing someone for Tourette's, and I've I've I've hopefully I've separated it so you can understand where I'm coming from. It's about questioning why the system didn't protect everybody involved. Access to elite spaces doesn't guarantee emotional safety. And this is what we need to remember when we're going into these spaces, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't go into them, I'm just saying when you go in, this is what you're gonna, this is how we're gonna be treated. This is what you should expect. The BBC have had so many controversies that personally for me, I want no association. You ain't getting my TV license, you can suck my bum hole. So I'm gonna pay you to be institutionally racist and abusive. You must be out of your fucking mind. But what I do wanna do is John Davidson, I want to read his um, I want to read his apology, what he's deeming as an apology, right? So here's John Davidson's statement. I wanted to thank BAFTA and everyone involved in the awards last night for their support and understanding and inviting me to attend the broadcast. I appreciated the announcement to the auditorium in advance of the recording, warning everyone that my ticks are involuntary and are not a reflection of my personal beliefs. I was heartened by the rounds of applause that followed this announcement and felt welcomed and understood in an environment that would normally be impossible for me. In addition to the announcement by Alan Cumming, the BBC and BAFTA, I can only add that I am and always have been deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary ticks to be intentional or to carry any meaning. I was in attendance to celebrate the film of my life, I swear, which more than any film or TV documentary explains the origins, condition, traits, and manifestations of Tourette's syndrome. I've spent my life trying to support and empower the Tourette's community and to teach empathy, kindness, and understanding from others, and I will continue to do to do so. I choose to leave the auditorium I chose to leave the auditorium early into the ceremony as I was aware of the distress my ticks were causing. So bearing in mind, accountability is the BBC's, and I understand this involuntary um disability. I get it. But I I want to ask a separate question. Why is it so hard to apologize to black people and the black community? Why? This statement is incomplete as far as I'm concerned, and I'll tell you why. You've used this statement to talk about how you were accommodated and received. You've used this statement to talk about the measures that were put in place to safeguard you. Yeah? And to an extent, safeguard those who were in attendance, to an extent, right? But what you haven't done is apologize to, and that's maybe you did face to face, and that's fine, but you this is a statement, this is a public statement. You didn't apologize to the two actors, the two black African-American actors that were stood on stage. You didn't apologize to the black community present and who listened or who have seen the broadcast. You didn't criticize that being left in by the BBC, which could have further safeguarded everybody involved. But you've you carried more weight in thanking them for accommodating you. But the point here has to also be how we're safeguarding black our black community, the black people who were around you when this happened, who basically this was to. You understand? And even in that moment, he had an opportunity or they had an opportunity to apologize, and they just didn't. They would rather leave the organization that happened um during COVID. Do you remember? Where the guy would rather leave than apologize, or he'll he wrote an uh an email and everything but an apology was there. I don't understand why. I mean, there's one thing that I think that there's a big thing about apologizing to black women, but as a community, it's almost like they feel like if they apologize, they're also apologizing for slavery, and that means they're acknowledging their hands in slavery or their ancestors' hands in slavery. I don't I really don't understand it. I feel like it's not even what I feel. It just doesn't make sense to me how we can acknowledge and receive and have empathy towards a disability that's involuntary, but there's no empathy and there's no receipt of understanding of the impact of that racial slur, in as far as you need to be able to say, in my humble opinion, I sincerely apologise to the black male actors, Delray Linden and Michael B. Jordan, who were on stage when my involuntary um racial slur was said, and those around me who I who the involuntary um slur was said more than once that was not audible. I also apologize to the black community, and I I acknowledge it's also being celebrated in the US, Black History Month, and I want to say that I thoroughly respect the hist the black history and the impact of that racial slur. That's all you would have had to say. But even in that statement, we're not acknowledging and safeguarding and recognizing the impact from the black lens. That's the truth. So, in as much as I thoroughly empathize and I understand, I understand Tourette's to an extent, obviously, I'm still researching. But when when do we actually get to a point of just saying I'm sorry to the black, I just don't get it, I just don't understand. But that that's my view. He's not responsible. I don't hold him in uh responsible at all. It is the BBC. But if you're gonna write a statement like that, where you're going to actually table this as a statement, then you have to also accept that your statement is missing quite a few paragraphs. That is my constructive analysis of your statement. Because if you made a public statement, then you have you expect a public response. That's that's it. And anyone who thinks that statement is good enough is clearly not affected by that racial slur. That's it. Hey everyone, so listen, I'm gonna leave it there, and I'll tell you why. I have scoped out some other um segments for this episode, but I just find the episode really heavy, like these topics are quite heavy. I just do you know what it is? I'm just I think I'm just at a point where I'm just tired. I'm tired, and I know a lot of us are feeling this way. Like, if it's not the Epstein files, it's flipping Donald Trump, the orange man, doing something mad. If it's not that it's the BBC, if it's not that it's flipping the government doing something crazy, it's Reform UK talking about removing, getting rid of, dissolving the Equality Act. If it's not that, then it's how the way in the way justice is distributed in this country is wild to me. And let us not keep distracted, by the way, because in as much as they keep calling him Andrew Mountbatten, he is a prince, he is the brother of the reigning king of England, who is Charles. Andrew has been arrested, and he, I believe he um he's been released. Um uh, what they call it, something in a public office. I can't remember what they call it. Peter Mandelson, we spoke about him in the last episode. He has been uh arrested and um they're investigating misconduct in a public office with him as well, all related to the Epstein files. Let's not be too distracted, we need to pay attention because I like no one's talking about Venezuela and Donald Trump, like no one's talking about Donald Trump's involvement in these Epstein file releases. No one's talking about that. No one is talking about um the assassination of uh Gaddafi's son. That that was a like a a burst of information, and that's not like I feel like there's so much going on and there's so many distractions, we need to pay attention to what's happening in the media. We need to pay attention to what's happening outside of what the media is trying to push down our throats. Reform UK are building a lot of traction. Um, early polls indicate um, I say polls, but early like they do like temperature testing. Is that if there was a um a vote today, Reform UK could take the majority and could possibly win. That is really scary times. All the defections that are happening into Reform UK are seemingly what Reform UK will call ethnic minorities who are now defected into Reform UK, and he they are allowing themselves to be used to push narratives like the Removal of the Equality Um Act. And let me just be clear for some of you that don't know, the removal of the Equality Act doesn't just affect black people or people of colour as we are often referred to, it affects everybody, um, it affects everybody. Full stop, new paragraph. It also affects those who have any type of um it affects anybody who relies on equal opportunities to create fairness and equality in a system that doesn't naturally do that, so you can imagine the removal of the Equality Act, it's gonna be mad, but no one wants a hear word. Whatever you do in terms of voting, you cannot allow Reform UK to win. You have to vote with your feet, go to the polling station. I would painfully vote Labour to ensure that Reform UK doesn't come in, and that's telling you something. We have to be strategic how we vote, and we need to listen. When when that time comes, me, I'm gonna be on this podcast every day, every day, every day. I've got social media everyday, every day every day. Because honestly, a world where reform UK they're talking about reform UK, it's alleged. Reform UK are talking about using i ice style operative to remove illegal immigrants. You're gonna have to be walking around with your passport, literally, it's going to be hell on wheels. If you see what's happening in America, if you see what's happening in America, here in the UK will be worse because we've got buffoons who actually are egotistical racist maniacs thinking they can run a country. So these ones that are loyal to the Trump regime that are trying to mimic it over here, wahala de if that happens. This country is becoming intolerable to live in, honestly. Well, where to where to go to? Where this racial undertone of this need for black women to perform for the male gays is really fucking draining. Imagine joining a meeting and someone saying, Oh, you're not gonna smile. What is it about the resting face of black women that continues to trouble? And it's particularly non-black men. Imagine being asked that and I was like, Yeah, I've got nothing to smile about. What would you like me to do? Perform for you. And then suddenly they start shuffling and being uncomfortable. Do you not think it's uncomfortable to spotlight a woman for not appeasing you because you feel uncomfortable with her resting phase? This continuous requirement to educate is actually quite exhausting. God forbid you have a human reaction, you're then considered non-professional. Anyway, I recently received a um a dilemma. I received a few dilemmas. Some are ongoing, um, but one in particular that I wanted to kind of bring on the podcast. Um, so I recently received a dilemma within the inbox, hello at toytalks.com, and it's about um a woman who's facing um something that all of us as women we we you know we go through like health issues, not everyone, but some of us have health issues relating to you know periods. Um I've shared that I have fibroids um and I have PCOS as well. But this particular woman um uh has some serious um health issues, so she's scheduled. I say serious, but fibroid surgery is serious. Um and if it's not dealt with, it can be quite harmful. So she's scheduled for fibroid surgery in the coming months, and she has multiple large fibroids, um, and at the same time, she's also considering leaving her job. So her question was essentially: should she hand in her notice first and then go on sick leave or have the surgery and then deal with um her job afterwards in terms of leaving? So, I guess firstly, I just really want to say and make it clear that major surgery is not um a minor life event. Fibroid surgery, especially when multiple fibroids are involved, is it's physically significant, emotionally taxing, and recovery can take weeks and often months, depending. Depending on the procedure, um, and sometimes you have to have follow-ups because they can only get rid of some fibroids and not others. Obviously, they decide on the day so they can tell you what they plan to do, but it it depends on actually what happens on the day. Um, this is not the time I feel, in terms of like the socio-economic climate at the at the moment, to destabilize her life, um, if she doesn't absolutely have to in terms of her job. So, from a UK employment perspective, she's entitled to take sick leave for necessary medical treatment. Employees have a duty of care under the health and safety legislation to support employees who are unwell and depending on their circumstances and conditions like fibroids, can also fall within the protections of relating to disabilities if symptoms are severe or it's long term. So, more importantly, um, she doesn't have to resign in order to have the surgery, and I think that's really important. Um, her job is not a prerequisite for accessing healthcare, and her healthcare should not be sacrificed for her job. Um, there's no rule that says you can't submit your notice while you're actually on sick leave, and legally, um, notice periods can run during your sickness absence. So, whilst you're off on sick leave, you can have your notice period. So, in this case, it's her sick leave notice is three months, so she can have that um commencing while she's actually on signed off on sick leave. I guess the real question is not can she, it's should she. Um, and in most cases, my advice would be have the surgery first, recover properly, and then make career decisions from a place of strength and not survival. Um, surgery recovery is typically very unpredictable and she may need more time than expected to recover. Um, she may experience fatigue, pain, hormonal changes, or emotional um adjustments. If she resigns before the actual surgery, she does risk losing income, stability, workplace protections, and that psychological safety net that I think employment provides during recovery. And given kind of the job market at the moment, I don't know if she has anything lined up. I don't think she does, just based on what she said to me. I just would advise her to maybe consider um handing in her notice once she is recovered, i.e., gone through her sick leave, and therefore is able to assess if she needs more sick leave and therefore has has that um dependency of has that um consistency of money rather than going on sick leave, then she may have to apply for like sickness benefit. I don't know how that would work, it just is very complicated and admin heavy. And I guess from a wellness perspective, healing is not just physical, your nervous system, your energy levels, your sleep, your mental health or all these things that need space to recover as well as the physical recovery. Um, I guess this is where many of us women struggle because we're conditioned to push through pain to minimize our needs, to not be inconvenient to our workplaces, our organizations that we work for, but your body is not an inconvenience, and the more most important thing is health. And I always speak about this that real wealth comes from your health. If you're in a role and you plan to leave anyway, one strategic um option is to use your entitled sick leave as protected time to focus on recovery first and then quietly plan your next move when you are able to. That might include reflecting on what you actually want updating your CV or exploring opportunities at your own pace in your own time alongside recovery, but of course, not from your hospital bed. I guess the bottom line is you don't um you don't get extra credit for suffering. Um, when you have surgery, you have to ex, you know, you have to be able to afford yourself the ability to heal without considering work. So, in this instance, if uh what she's asking for is my advice, and my advice would be to take the sick leave, what you're entitled to, not have to think about financially kind of you know, all of that admin stuff, you don't have to think about it, and then when you're fully recovered, if you then decide actually, or during the recovery, if you're recovering really well and you decide actually I want to hand in my notice, at least you're doing it from a position of strength, you don't know how you're gonna react to the surgery. So doing it now seems a little bit premature. I guess for me, like something that I kind of took um from reading this dilemma in terms of the messaging that I wanted to share on here and the learning that I want us to take from this is we have to build our future from a healed place, not from a depleted one. And that our bodies are not a side project, it's our life, and we need to prioritize that um and think of ourselves first before we have to deal with the admin of life. Anyway, I hope that helps. Um and I have replied to her um privately. I am gonna direct her to the episode so she can have a listen um and hopefully you know she shares with us what decision she's actually made. Um it has been a slightly heavier episode. I am gonna put like a bit of a warning in the beginning that it's emotionally heavy. I feel like whenever we have to talk about things like the mistreatment of corporations such as the BBC or or having um having to where society is forcing us to ignore the safeguarding of our how we feel and our mental health, it is always really taxing. And I'm still recovering from what happened at the hospital as well. Like I think you can hear it in my voice, I can hear it in my voice. So I do want to kind of the next episode, um, as well as being informative, I just want it to be from a better space because I personally don't feel like I'm in a good space, and with everything happening in the world, it it can be quite exhausting. However, we're coming out of winter here in the UK, spring is almost upon us, it's getting a little bit lighter for a little bit longer. So hopefully that should kind of add to you know, just our ability to go out more, be out more. I'm a homebody, so me, I'm trying my best. Anyway, I'm gonna leave this here, and I just want to thank each and every one of you for your love, your support, your DMs, your comments that you leave on your on wherever you listen to the podcast. Um, I read all of your comments, and more importantly, I'm just really relieved and glad and feel fulfilled in knowing that you learn from the episodes because for me that's what it's about. It's about delivering that knowledge, giving a different school of thought, having a safe um space for us to kind of exist as women, um, for us to exist um in the full knowledge that our womanhood um doesn't need to be um doesn't need to be like our womanhood doesn't need to be um used as a a tool of a weapon by society and being a black woman and the intersectionality of that I hope that this podcast platform allows us to have that frank conversation or an encourages conversation past the podcast. That's what I hope for. Um you will know that I have a stationary company called Sister Scribble, so we're on online sisterscribble.com. I've got a new collection dropping um fingers crossed by end of March, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm really excited to share that with you all. Um, I do want to share a couple of dilemmas next week, um, so in two weeks' time, because we we upload bi-weekly. Um, a lot of you are going through a lot in your workplaces, and some of these workplaces are moving crazy. Like there's no law that governs how you treat your employees. It's actually really wild. There's one in particular that it's running its course and it's just getting wilder and wilder and wilder. Um, but I'll be able to share it with you. And it felt really good just reminding this young lady you need to take notes. And if you need a notebook, you need to go and sisterscribble.com. That felt good. Um, just knowing that there's tools that I'm providing to aid us as we take notes and build that burn folder. Anyway, if you want to send through your life, uh career, work-related dilemmas, hello at toytalks.com. In the subject box, just right there. It's a dilemma. Um, if you want to follow me on social media, Toy Washington. If you want to follow me on TikTok, it's Toy Washington. And I'll see you all again in two weeks' time for a brand new episode. A bit more uplifting and a bit more um a bit less um weighing.

Recovery First, Career Moves Second

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

Let me show you how to get level. That's what we do. Just really sliding.