Show Notes
Many of our fellow left-leaning folks have been shouting phrases like, “Black women will save us” and “Listen to Black women.” In today’s show, we dig in and discuss some of the many issues of these well-intended phrases. We also talk about the unique way in which we aim to disrupt self-help in a way that can connect activism to the self-help space.
Mentioned on the show:
- Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World Without a Bullhorn by Omkari L. Williams
- “Burnout is Not Your Fault” via EEDA Pod
- Postcards to Swing States
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
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Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
[Music]
Patricia: Hey there, you shining stars! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I’m your partner for synchronized podcasting. Nicole Elzie-Tuttle, and we’re recording the show on July 29th, 2024.
Patricia: This is our 20th episode.
Nicole: Number 20?
Patricia: Yeah.
I am very proud of us.
Nicole: Well, yeah, good job.
Patricia: Like, we’ve done this consistently. It’s been every other week.
Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.
As we’re entering the end of summer, as we approach Autumn time, we’re quickly approaching our one year anniversary.
Patricia: Yeah, that’s pretty exciting.
Nicole: Yeah, we’ll have to celebrate.
Patricia: We’ll do something.
Nicole: We will do something.
Patricia: So, I can’t let another moment go by without talking about our current obsession, which is the Olympics.
Nicole: The summer games in Paris.
Patricia: I grew up in a sports loving household, I was a little jock when I was a kid. I ran track, I played flag football, I was on the basketball team, I kind of went away from sports for a while, I think.
But we always watched the Olympics when I was growing up. It was just, if it was Olympic season, it was, it was what was on the TV, Olympics or news, which was just Olympics highlights.
Nicole: Yeah. I, shocking no one was not a sports kid. I did try to play roller hockey for a season, my team was completely defeated. We never won a game.
Patricia: [Laughing]
Nicole: Sports was not a big thing growing up so much. My stepdad was into ice hockey, but like, I wasn’t super into any of it. We did watch some Olympics when they came around. I do enjoy both the summer and the winter games. I think for me, the one that like stands out in my memory of watching with like family and stuff was the Atlanta games, which was, was that ’96?
Patricia: ’96, yeah.
Nicole: Look at me remembering a thing from the ’90s.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: But, I just saw a meme cross my Instagram feed that was like, if I was a judge for the Olympics, and it’s just someone holding up a cardboard sign, it just says hot.
Patricia: Oh my gosh.
Nicole: Because, oh my god, these athletes, y’all.
Patricia: The rugby ladies. Oh my god, I’m trying to keep this an all ages show, but.
As my mother would have said, great googly moogly.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: I’m just, I am here for all of the very fit people doing very amazing things.
Patricia: Just phenomenal.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Actual close to superhero stuff. Like how are people even doing these
Nicole: Did you see someone…
Patricia: things as gymnasts?
Nicole: Someone broke, like, a 40 year old women’s high jump record?
Patricia: [Gasp] Really?
Nicole: Like the world record.
Patricia: We’re gonna have to watch that?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Oh my gosh.
Anyway, this is not
Nicole: This is not the Olympics episode?
Patricia: Well, I mean, it kind of is the Olympics episode, but this is not Olympics radio, so.
Nicole: [Laughing] Of us just gushing, like, oh my god, did you see this? Did you see that?
Patricia: But I think we might keep our streaming subscription. And even when the Olympics are over, like, I kind of just want to watch a little bit of everything.
We watched fencing yesterday, which was intense.
Nicole: I want to see the archery.
Patricia: I want to see the archery.
Nicole: Of course I’m really excited still for the surfing in Tahiti.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah.
But I’m like, oh, we’re, we’re going to keep watching the Olympics through Christmas. I don’t care.
Nicole: Yeah. No, we’re going to be watching this for ages.
Ooh! Shout out to one of our listeners, Tulipsmurf on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for the five-star rating and written review. With that, you have given us twenty five-star reviews for our twentieth episode.
Patricia: I love it. I love it.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s great. Also, shout out to our listeners on Spotify. We know there’s at least seven of you out there giving us five-star ratings, and we love and appreciate you too.
And if we could get your names and shout you out as well, we totally would. But Spotify doesn’t, I don’t know if they do
Patricia: No.
Nicole: Written ratings.
Patricia: I don’t think they do written ratings.
Nicole: They just do stars.
Patricia: That’s fine.
Nicole: We love our Spotify listeners too.
Patricia: Don’t forget, we have a Patreon and we are trying to garner support there because we like having this show without ads.
And I also recognize every time I tell someone, like, yeah, we’re doing a podcast and we’re trying to do it without ads and they’re just like, it is an entire ecosystem built on ads. What are you doing? And I’m just like, we’re trying to do something different. We’re trying to do something different. So Patreon has two levels, has a $3 level, an $8 level.
We have some perks for paid subscribers. Go check it out. It’s going to be linked in the show notes.
[Music]
Nicole: So as I mentioned, we’re recording this On Monday, July 29th, which in terms of U.S. political news, this is before the Democratic Party has officially nominated a presidential candidate for those listening sometime in the future. This is after current President Joe Biden has dropped out of the Democratic presidential race and a lot of people are currently throwing their weight behind our current Vice President Kamala Harris.
This episode we are expecting to publish on August 7th, which is when the presumed presidential candidate for the Democratic Party will likely announce their running mate. However, they do have until August 19th. So that is where we are currently at in our knowledge of what is happening in U.S. politics and how that is affecting us in our day to day life right now.
Patricia: Yeah, well, and also recognizing our show comes out every two weeks, and so the news cycle is moving so fast right now.
Nicole: It’s moving incredibly fast, and like, our show’s coming out every two weeks, and like, we are effectively recording that like,
Both: a week and a half beforehand.
Nicole: So, there’s likely a lot gonna happen between recording and releasing, but…
Patricia: but we want to offer you that context.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And speaking of context, I want to say how weird it is. Like, I understand the using of the coconut iconography for Kamala Harris. She had made a speech where she talks about, like, where she mentions, like, you didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. You exist in the context of all that came before you and all the blah, blah, blah.
But, I also want to say no one consulted any Black or South Asian or Southeast Asian folks before using coconut as a supportive emoji and like word and, and like I said, iconography for Kamala Harris. For me, it’s really jarring in some ways, like I, I understand why people are doing it. And also for those of you who don’t know, like for me, a person who is Black and Southeast Asian, and sometimes other Brown people, especially in our youth, it is an insult hurled at us because a coconut is brown on the outside and white on the inside.
Nicole: Yikes.
Patricia: And so I think people don’t recognize the layers between using that, and it’s, it’s festive. It’s festive.
Nicole: [Long Sigh]
Patricia: Yeah. And also, for any of you who aren’t close to any Black people, I need you to know that many of us, especially Black women and femmes, are bracing ourselves for the onslaught of vitriol that has already started.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s really moving quick.
Patricia: I’m trying to be really deliberate about my time online and what I am consuming.
We have said forever that this country hates Black women, and I think more people are going to start to understand what we mean when we say that.
Nicole: Along those lines, I am really, as a white lady, bracing myself, not just for seeing this onslaught of vitriol and hatred, but also particularly bracing myself to get comfortable with being uncomfortable specifically in telling other white people that the things they say are unacceptable. Especially in this context.
Some white people really tend to say some terrible things when there are only other white people around and think it is safe to say those terrible things. And this is really my time to step in and say like, that ain’t it. I have to say something. Because if I don’t, then they’ll think it’s, one, okay. But also, I’m okay with that and think like them.
And that’s not okay with me. And this is where, like, it’s not enough to say, like, well, those just aren’t my kinds of white people. Like…
Patricia: That’s not actually helpful.
Nicole: It’s not.
Patricia: When you try to distance yourself, when you could actually be helping, right?
Nicole: And that’s the thing. I need to be helping right now, in particular, as these things are being said.
I know I said like saying that ain’t it is like, in my head, but really, like, I don’t want, I, I’m trying really hard to bite my tongue because I just want to use some very terrible language that will get us an explicit tag on the show hearing that, but that’s not helpful either. One of the ways we’re seeing from some other friends that is really useful in combating some of this in particular is making them explain.
Just questioning, what do you mean by that? Oh, it’s just a joke? I don’t, can you explain the joke to me? I don’t get it. Why is that funny?
Patricia: Yeah. I have a friend who also just has practice saying, that’s a weird thing to say.
Nicole: I like that. Especially as we’re going with the weird narrative.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. I think, and calling it out and not, letting it slide.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: The time for letting things slide has passed.
Nicole: Oh, it’s long gone.
Patricia: It’s long gone.
Nicole: It left in, oh, I want to say
Patricia: Eight years ago.
Nicole: Yeah.
[Laughing]
About eight years ago. Yeah. [Sigh]
Patricia: You would think that the hatred of Black women couldn’t be more obvious than the juxtaposition of Sonia Massey being murdered by a cop in her own home with the expectation that Black women will save this country from fascism.
Nicole: Ugh.
And here we are hearing all these cries of listen to Black women and let Black women lead. Black women will save us. And when you look at things like what happened to Sonya Massey, which is really just a spotlight on a much bigger problem that most of the time doesn’t ever get even airtime on the news. This country does not deserve Black women and their amazingness, nor to be saved by them.
We see this also in this concept of, of what’s called a glass cliff, as opposed to the glass ceiling. Where a woman from a marginalized group will get pulled or hired into a leadership position at a failing company or organization, some kind of time of crisis there, and the hope is that she will save the company or the org, but this company is often beyond saving, and she is not set up to succeed, and really set up to fail, and then catches the blame for that failure, too.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: The other thing to remember in this time is that Black women are not a monolith. This is really important. There is a, a vast, vast difference listening to, say, Candace Owens on one end, and someone radically different like Angela Davis.
You cannot claim that just because they are both Black women that, well, just pick one and they’ll save us.
Patricia: Yeah, any old Black woman. Just, just listen to them. So everyone, give me your credit card number.
Nicole: Ooh.
Patricia: [Chuckling]
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: I think there’s a blatant misunderstanding underlying the Black Women Will Save Us rhetoric.
First of all, it is blatant tokenism. I’m sure many of us aren’t actually out here saying, follow me, I’m going to save all these people who only acknowledge me in the context of what I can do for them. Again, it’s outsourcing labor to Black women, and most of us aren’t consenting to that. This country has hundreds of years of history of outsourcing labor to Black women, and this is just another way of doing it.
Black women are saving ourselves and our loved ones and what happens when we put Black women first, and I want to note, especially queer and trans Black women and femmes and disabled Black women and femmes, is that we are putting the most marginalized people first. That is what, you know, I’m trying to do.
That’s also what I do with, I’m not some huge philanthropist, but I give money and I focus my money in those places.
Nicole: And this is really important kind of philosophy to understand that when you do that, when you put the most marginalized people forward and do what you can to improve their lives, you end up helping everyone else along the way.
This is the concept behind the phrase, a rising tide lifts all ships.
Patricia: Yeah. If you are focusing on disabled trans Black women, say, you are also helping all disabled people. You’re helping all trans people. You’re helping all Black people. You’re helping all women. And, like, you’re also helping the people on the other ends of that you’re by helping disabled people, you end up also helping people who aren’t disabled, right?
Like everyone benefits.
Nicole: Everyone benefits.
Patricia: Kind of related. I want to zoom out a little bit and discuss why we’re even talking about this on a show that is categorized as, like, self-help and self-improvement.
Nicole: It’s not just because this is our show and we can do whatever we want?
Patricia: I mean, true, we can do what we want. We’re the bosses.
Nicole: Hey!
Patricia: I want to acknowledge, though, that I agree with many other BIPOC folks when they say that activism and allyship is not self-help or self-improvement for white people, especially if you are working with that stereotypical historic concept of self help.
Nicole: I think that even circles back to like episode one.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Some things we talked about there.
By that, we mean that historically, the concept of self-help focuses on the individual and things that the individual can do to address symptoms of systemic things like burnout and how to deal with burnout and, you know, just, you know, you need to take that good yoga-mental health-retreat-soundbath to help deal with your burnout, when really like burnout is often caused by much greater systemic things like capitalism.
Patricia: Yeah, we have a whole entire episode on that too. And if you’ve been reading the Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter and listening to this show, The EEDAPOD, then you know that we’re really trying to disrupt that idea of self-help.
In what we’re doing here, we are working from the knowledge that my liberation is inextricably linked to the liberation of anyone else, or rather everyone else. So yes, when I help myself and my loved ones, I help others outside my circle, and that’s why we’re connecting it to self-help.
Nicole: And that’s also why a lot of people are starting to lean away from the term ally, which you’ve heard us describe previously as a thing you do, not a thing you are.
But people are starting to lean into this concept of calling themselves an accomplice.
Patricia: Right.
So, if you are, perhaps this is the first episode you’re listening to or something, and you’re looking for that hustle, grind, girl-boss self-help, or that cisgender white lady viral video self-help, or even that prosperity gospel flavor self-help, this is not the place.
Nicole: It’s not?
Patricia: No.
Nicole: Well then, um, I guess, like and subscribe.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: But really, like, self help doesn’t have to be these things. It doesn’t have to focus purely on these individual efforts of, individual self-improvement, it can be so much bigger, and this is what we’re getting at here.
Patricia: Okay, so now that we’ve covered that, I want to get back to talking a bit about the political climate and voting.
I believe in a free Palestine, and I also recognize that there will never be a perfectly progressive candidate in the system we have now in the United States. As Audre Lorde said, “for the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
I understand this, and I also know which candidate I would rather be organizing under.
Nicole: Right. One of the candidates winning will result in immediate harm for trans folks, and really anyone else who isn’t a wealthy, cis-het white man.
Patricia: We have to remember, abortion bans, book bans, anti-trans legislation, absolutely horrible pandemic responses, multiple genocides, are all happening right now under the current administration.
Nicole: Yeah. That’s true, and so this is where it’s important to recognize some people think that participation in politics just means voting once every four years if they like one of the candidates.
Patricia: Yeah.
We need to continue to invest in our communities and organize and build relationships regardless of who wins this year’s election.
It’s just going to probably be easier under Kamala Harris than the other candidate.
Nicole: As we’re seeing with the current elections in Venezuela, it is so much harder to remove an autocratic fascist dictator from power than to never have given them the power in the first place. I would much rather be working to push for broader change than to have to fight for even the basic rights, like my ability to appear in public.
Some people think that politics is a thing we just do every couple of years, when in actuality, it affects every aspect of your life. It affects the ability to have clean water, the price of electricity, the cost of your home, whether or not there are even jobs available for you to work, and what kinds. It affects my ability to appear in public or use a restroom. It affects our ability to continue to receive the benefits of marriage. It affects your ability to even travel between states and in and out of the country. It affects every single aspect of your life. And if you want things to get better, which I couldn’t even understand if you want them to get worse,
Patricia: [Chuckle]
Nicole: because they’re kind of not the best right now.
But if you want them to get better, you have to engage. And that means doing more than just voting.
Patricia: I remember seeing something going around, I think it was, you know, probably a tweet at one point, and someone said, like, it doesn’t matter if you don’t do politics, politics is gonna do you regardless.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s real.
Patricia: All this being said, I recognize that voting isn’t something everyone is going to do, and like I mentioned, it’s far from the only thing. Activism doesn’t work by trying to dismantle something all at once from a single direction. You need many people working at a thing from multiple different angles.
A really great source for this is one I mentioned in an earlier episode, and I’m going to say it again and I’ll link it again in the show notes. It’s a book, surprise, surprise. It’s a short book. It’s called Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World Without a Bullhorn by Omkari L.
Williams.
Nicole: [Sigh] I just, we all need to do so much more. There’s so much that needs to be done.
Patricia: Yeah, and I think there are a lot of people out there doing a lot, and there are, there are a lot of people who are overwhelmed by what there is to do, but even little things help.
Nicole: You gotta, you gotta pick something.
Patricia: Yeah, chip away at it.
Nicole: Chip away at it.
As we mentioned in a previous episode also, start building some community. It goes a long way.
Patricia, okay, we said a lot.
Patricia: [Chuckle]
Nicole: What do you really want to be the key takeaway for our listeners today?
Patricia: Mine’s twofold.
First of all, if you are not Black and you know a Black woman or a femme, don’t ask them for anything right now.
If you yourself are a Black woman or femme, we need to lean into our joy and protect our peace. We are needing to do everything that we have in our toolboxes. Do not put pressure on yourself to save the world. External forces do that enough.
You know, Nicole and I are doing some free labor here with this podcast. I offer a lot of resources in my newsletter. Point people our way, right? Like, point people to, I don’t know, Google, something, but you don’t have to do everything.
Nicole, what’s your takeaway from today?
Nicole: I’m gonna, I’m gonna be real, kind of direct here, talking to my fellow white people. Y’all. Y’all, we need to step it up and engage more than just voting every couple of years.
Your help is really needed and work toward building community with other white folks especially starting to have those hard conversations with friends and family who either are not voting or even worse, those that are voting for the weird old guy. It’s going to start making some moves and putting pressure and making more of the changes we all want to see in this country.
But we can’t just sit quietly and sit out the difficult conversations. We need to use our privilege, especially to disrupt the spaces that we have easier access to. We, historically, are not the heroes of this story, but we don’t all have to be the villains.
[Music]
Patricia: So I do want to offer up one resource today. And it is, you know, related to what we were talking about. I’m going to link it in the show notes. It’s called Postcards to Swing States. Because, you know, Nicole and I are still very COVID conscious, we’re not going out to actions in person, being around a lot of people.
But Postcards to Swing States will send you a bunch of postcards, 200 is the minimum, and what you do is they will give you a list of registered Democratic voters, and they will be in the swing state of your choosing depending on what’s available in their list. And they will also give you a paper of like three different short messages to choose from to write on the postcards, just to get people out to vote.
You’re not even telling people who to vote for. You’re just saying like, Hey, don’t forget to check your voter registration, or I really hope you vote this year or whatever. It has been proven that voter turnout improves when people get handwritten postcards. So we actually got our bunch of postcards.
What you are supplying, like what I’m supplying, is I do have to pay for the postage. So I bought a couple of rolls of postcard stamps. So know that. And I have to do the labor of writing and addressing the cards.
Nicole: So does this mean we’re breaking out those fun gel pens?
Patricia: Heck yeah. I might even break out the stickers. I don’t know. But gel pens, stickers, we might have, you know, turn on the air filters and open the windows. Maybe we’ll have a couple people over for a postcard writing party. And yeah, have some snacks. And do that little bit knowing that it has proven to help people out.
So you can Google Postcards to Swing States. I will also put that link in the show notes.
Nicole: So I know things are, as we say in this house, wild right now. But I want to know, Patricia, what, what is going on that has been filling your cup?
Patricia: Aside from the Olympics?
Nicole: Yes. Aside from the Olympics and the rugby ladies.
Patricia: [Laughing] Okay, so they aren’t paying us for this advertisement at all, but a while ago a friend had gotten me a gift card for Gold Belly, where you can order food from all over the place and have it shipped to you.
And I finally decided what I wanted shipped to us. And so I ordered gelato from Italy to be shipped to us. One of them did arrive totally melted, but the dry ice kept the other two pretty good. It’s like these giant things of gelato, like our freezer’s half full of gelato right now. And I am, it is better than I thought it would be.
It is really good. And I think what is filling my cup specifically about this is, I think I had underestimated how good pistachio gelato is. It is my new favorite thing. I’m mildly obsessed. And it’s filling my cup.
Nicole: Two things. One, I’m shocked at how close the strawberry tasted to our homemade strawberry.
Patricia: Oh, yeah, when we made, yeah, when we made gelato?
Nicole: Yes, but also what was the chocolate chip one called?
Patricia: Oh, stracciatella.
Nicole: Yeah, that one. Oh my gosh. Uh, you say you’re obsessed with this pistachio? Like, this chocolate chip situation is, oh.
Patricia: Magic.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Nicole, what’s filling your cup right now?
Nicole: In true ADHD fashion, I have a new special interest that I am working on right now. Umm…
Patricia: Your face is glowing. You’re like, I have a new special interest.
Nicole: I am currently hunting for and collecting records, like vinyl records. Specifically vinyl records recorded by trans artists who had been in transition or ostensibly completed their transition at the time of recording. And so I’m particularly, like, I’ve gotten now, like, you bought me for Christmas last year two records from Wendy Carlos, and just this last weekend we went out and found two more,
Patricia: mm hmm
Nicole: which I’m very excited to listen to.
But I’m also hunting for others from artists like Jackie Shane or Billy Tipton, who, like, at the time, people may not have even known they were trans. But subsequently, later in life, we found out. And I think that’s particularly the case for Billy Tipton. Like, nobody knew he was trans, but then towards the end of his life, we found out.
And now looking back, there’s like, this trans masc lounge singer out there that I’m really excited and hopeful to find someday. So that’s what I’ve been doing, which means also we’ve been listening to some records, also finding some by other queer artists and stuff.
Patricia: Yeah, it’s been nice to sit and listen to records and not look at screens.
Nicole: Yeah, with records in particular, it really forces you to kind of just sit down and listen and like pay attention to the music a little more than just having it as a background.
Patricia: Yeah.
Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E E D A P O D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and BlueSky at eedapod and email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: Additionally, we would appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings. It really does go far in helping other people find us. And again, special thanks to Apple Podcast user TulipSmurf for their written review in Apple Podcasts.
Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep the show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water, and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: I know you said don’t ask Black women for anything,
Patricia: mm hmm
Nicole: but, can I have some smooches?
Patricia: This is an all ages show.