Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Smarter in Seconds: with Blair Imani

Transcript

Smarter in Seconds: with Blair Imani · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
0:13
Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart Blair and Moani wants to help
0:21
Speaker 1: you get smarter. Blair is a best selling author, historian,
0:27
Speaker 1: and educator whose Instagram video series Smarter and Seconds has
0:32
Speaker 1: received millions of views. When I say millions, I mean
0:36
Speaker 1: like millions each video.
0:38
Speaker 2: They're dubbed micro learning, which I love.
0:40
Speaker 1: It's like bite sized pieces of information to expand our
0:44
Speaker 1: hearts and minds. She's trying to make the world more informed,
0:47
Speaker 1: inclusive place, covering topics ranging from critical race theory to
0:52
Speaker 1: mental health. I actually found her when she did a
0:56
Speaker 1: video about anti Semitism this last summer. She also has
1:01
Speaker 1: so much insight when it comes to personal identity. Blair
1:05
Speaker 1: grew up Christian but converted to Islam in twenty fifteen.
1:08
Speaker 1: She's black and a member of the LGBTQ plus community.
1:13
Speaker 1: Her life dramatically changed when she accidentally came out live
1:17
Speaker 1: on Tucker Carlson just a few years ago. Yeah, we
1:21
Speaker 1: get into that and her efforts to enrich and inform
1:24
Speaker 1: have been influenced by her own journey, so today I.
1:27
Speaker 2: Want to talk to her about it.
1:29
Speaker 1: We get into a lot She taught me about how
1:31
Speaker 1: Elmo helped her deal with social media haters, how Angela
1:35
Speaker 1: Davis convinced her to drop out of law school, why
1:38
Speaker 1: she hopes her Instagram and Smarter in sixty second series
1:42
Speaker 1: helps us all learn to ask more questions.
1:44
Speaker 2: No, I loved that one.
1:46
Speaker 1: And the problem she sees with capitalism. We sort of
1:49
Speaker 1: debated on that unexpectedly too, which I loved. She touches
1:53
Speaker 1: on what period of history we should all spend more
1:55
Speaker 1: time learning about, and why she believes we will all
1:59
Speaker 1: change somebody's life even if we aren't changing legislation. Our
2:06
Speaker 1: community is called pretty smart, and you have your community
2:09
Speaker 1: of smarties, So I feel like we're right here.
2:11
Speaker 3: We're right in the line, definitely, And I think, you know,
2:14
Speaker 3: it's just all about making it accessible and approachable. That
2:17
Speaker 3: smartness isn't something that like you need to pass a
2:19
Speaker 3: bunch of standardized tests to get to. It's not something
2:21
Speaker 3: that is exclusive to men. That anybody can be smart,
2:23
Speaker 3: anybody can be intelligent, and just moving that forward, So
2:26
Speaker 3: definitely a line.
2:28
Speaker 2: Why is being smart important to you.
2:30
Speaker 3: It's important to me because I never really would describe
2:32
Speaker 3: myself that way. Like I think in the past month
2:35
Speaker 3: someone described me as a genius and I was like, what, like,
2:38
Speaker 3: thank you. But it was all always something that was
2:40
Speaker 3: unattainable for me. I was a B student, which I
2:42
Speaker 3: thought was pretty good, but I would have friends who
2:43
Speaker 3: would be sobbing throughout high school college who'd be like,
2:47
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I got an A minus and I
2:48
Speaker 3: was like, here, I am happy with my B minus.
2:51
Speaker 3: And so it's really just about empowering folks to understand
2:54
Speaker 3: that intelligence is not it doesn't look one way. There's
2:57
Speaker 3: so many types of intelligence, and that it's a to everyone.
3:01
Speaker 2: It's really nice.
3:02
Speaker 1: So before we dig into how smart you are, which
3:05
Speaker 1: you are, can you tell us a little bit about
3:07
Speaker 1: your background.
3:07
Speaker 3: Sure. So, I'm a black, bisexual Muslim woman. I'm from Pasadena.
3:12
Speaker 3: I'm very much like in La gal which I realized
3:14
Speaker 3: as soon as I went to school in Louisiana. I
3:16
Speaker 3: went to Louisiana State University. I've lived in DC, I've
3:19
Speaker 3: lived in New York, and I very much give that
3:21
Speaker 3: energy of like you're from La what do you mean
3:24
Speaker 3: what energy is that, uh, like excited about the world,
3:27
Speaker 3: really into juice, spiritual. I just really feel like there's
3:31
Speaker 3: a lot of archetypes that I fit into that I
3:33
Speaker 3: didn't realize really until I was in Costa Rica doing
3:36
Speaker 3: like hours of yoga, doing like a soundbath meditation, and
3:38
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, this is what people picture when
3:41
Speaker 3: they picture Californians.
3:42
Speaker 2: Really, that's funny.
3:44
Speaker 3: Other than that I'm an educator, I really wanted to
3:46
Speaker 3: work in a museum, and I did for a little
3:48
Speaker 3: while right out of college. And then I thought I
3:51
Speaker 3: was going to be a lawyer and that didn't happen.
3:54
Speaker 3: I dropped out of law school after seven weeks.
3:56
Speaker 1: So I have to interrupt you there because I read
3:59
Speaker 1: that Angela Davis gave you the confidence to drop out
4:02
Speaker 1: of law school.
4:03
Speaker 3: So that was That's definitely the case, as well as
4:05
Speaker 3: Erica Totten, who goes by to live unchanged on Instagram
4:09
Speaker 3: and is all about like rest and just really redefining
4:11
Speaker 3: what it means to be a person in the world
4:13
Speaker 3: and how our productivity isn't tied to our worth, even
4:16
Speaker 3: though capitalism tells us otherwise and hustle culture tells us otherwise.
4:20
Speaker 3: And so I was at an event with both of
4:22
Speaker 3: them there, and I was like, I was kind of like, okay,
4:24
Speaker 3: I need to drop out. I can't do this anymore.
4:26
Speaker 3: But then when it opened for Q and A, I
4:28
Speaker 3: like low key crawled to the front of the line,
4:30
Speaker 3: grabbed the mic from the MC and was like hey.
4:34
Speaker 3: And so that was twenty fifteen, and that definitely gave
4:36
Speaker 3: me the confidence because when my family or like any
4:39
Speaker 3: relatives or friends were like, where why did you drop out?
4:41
Speaker 3: And like, actually, Angela Davis said it was also a
4:43
Speaker 3: good idea. So you can't argue with that.
4:47
Speaker 1: That's really funny. I thought you were gonna say, like
4:48
Speaker 1: you read some of her work.
4:50
Speaker 3: Oh no, Like I asked her directly at Busboys and
4:52
Speaker 3: Poets in DC, and she she told me that you
4:55
Speaker 3: don't need an institution in order to create change. And
4:58
Speaker 3: I was like, awesome, and I don't want to be
5:01
Speaker 3: miserable for the next, you know, three years of my life.
5:03
Speaker 3: And by the time folks were graduating from law school
5:06
Speaker 3: that were in my same class, I had come out
5:08
Speaker 3: with a book and so I was feeling like, Okay,
5:10
Speaker 3: my path looks different, but success looks different for everybody,
5:13
Speaker 3: and that's okay.
5:14
Speaker 2: Was that your goal to make to create change.
5:17
Speaker 3: I think that was my Yeah. I mean, I didn't
5:21
Speaker 3: know how it was going to look, but I always knew,
5:23
Speaker 3: like growing up with different like mental health situations, whether
5:25
Speaker 3: it was depression or anxiety, that I'm here at least
5:28
Speaker 3: to leave a mark and to do good. And I
5:30
Speaker 3: also was influenced by folks like doctor Terrence Roberts, who
5:33
Speaker 3: was one of the people who integrated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.
5:37
Speaker 3: And I interviewed him when I was twelve and he
5:39
Speaker 3: told me that he volunteered with doctor Martin Luther King
5:41
Speaker 3: at fifteen to change history. And like the competitive part
5:44
Speaker 3: of me was like cool, So I'm twelve, So like
5:45
Speaker 3: what am I doing where by the time I'm fifteen,
5:48
Speaker 3: I need to be doing something too. And I just
5:50
Speaker 3: think that's why everybody's here, whether it's to just pursue
5:53
Speaker 3: your purpose, You're going to change somebody's life. It might
5:55
Speaker 3: not be literally changing legislation, it might not be winning
5:58
Speaker 3: court cases, but you are here to create a change
6:01
Speaker 3: in whatever that looks like, that's why we're here and
6:03
Speaker 3: that's why we're alive. And that kind of motivates me
6:06
Speaker 3: every day.
6:07
Speaker 1: So after that, you went to work in government relations
6:11
Speaker 1: and for planned parenthood. Where did the idea for your
6:14
Speaker 1: Instagram presence come from?
6:16
Speaker 3: So the funny thing is I was looking through my
6:18
Speaker 3: hard drive, like from college, and I forgot that I
6:20
Speaker 3: was taking all these classes on communications and social media
6:23
Speaker 3: communications and that one of my huge projects was about
6:27
Speaker 3: how a good social media presence is built. So like
6:30
Speaker 3: in the four resources of my mind, I had that
6:33
Speaker 3: skill set, but like I was so burnt out during college,
6:36
Speaker 3: Like I wasn't aware of it consciously. But while I
6:37
Speaker 3: was in college, I started a nonprofit called Equality for
6:40
Speaker 3: Her and we made these I say we because I
6:43
Speaker 3: was so used to saying that there was more than me,
6:45
Speaker 3: but it was literally just me. So I made these
6:47
Speaker 3: infographics and the first month we did it, the first
6:50
Speaker 3: Women's History month, Tumblr featured us, and so I was
6:53
Speaker 3: like me, I keep saying us and we, but like,
6:56
Speaker 3: literally it was just me during that time during twenty fourteen,
6:58
Speaker 3: and I just knew that memes were popular and that
7:02
Speaker 3: you know, quick factoid information like the Snapple bottle caps
7:05
Speaker 3: like those were popular, So how do we force more
7:08
Speaker 3: information into those things? At the same time, I was
7:10
Speaker 3: working at the Greater New Orleans Fat Fair Housing Coalition
7:14
Speaker 3: making infographics out of their like white paper studies on
7:16
Speaker 3: housing discrimination. So making like big info into like little
7:20
Speaker 3: approachable info was my whole thing. And it wasn't until
7:24
Speaker 3: August twenty twenty, like all those years later that when
7:26
Speaker 3: Reels was coming out, I was like, Okay, I missed
7:28
Speaker 3: my opportunity to be a buying star and I really
7:30
Speaker 3: feel like that would have been my niche. But now
7:32
Speaker 3: is my time, and so I took it really seriously.
7:35
Speaker 3: And if there's one thing I can do, it's talk
7:36
Speaker 3: really fast, which is also an LA thing, and get
7:39
Speaker 3: you know, information across in a short period of time.
7:42
Speaker 3: And so I think it came from a lot of
7:43
Speaker 3: the background I had and just the right opportunity and tools.
7:46
Speaker 1: For someone who hasn't seen your Instagram yet, how do
7:49
Speaker 1: you describe the content that you create?
7:51
Speaker 3: Colorful for sure, sometimes shady, but always with the approach
7:55
Speaker 3: that wanting to educate folks. I try to tell it
7:58
Speaker 3: like it is without making people feel bad for not
7:59
Speaker 3: knowing something already, because we need more of that. Just
8:03
Speaker 3: being frustrated at somebody for not knowing everything that you
8:06
Speaker 3: know is like really like egotistical, but It happens so
8:09
Speaker 3: often because once you know something, you're like, why doesn't
8:11
Speaker 3: everybody else know this? Like even if it's like related
8:14
Speaker 3: to literally anything like fashion, whether it's related to like yoga,
8:19
Speaker 3: high k Like, we get so caught up in our
8:21
Speaker 3: ways of like, well I know this so clearly everyone
8:23
Speaker 3: else does, right, and then people are afraid to ask questions.
8:26
Speaker 3: And when that happens as it relates to social justice,
8:29
Speaker 3: then we're not going to get anywhere. So it just
8:31
Speaker 3: needs to be like a, hey, come and learn with me.
8:33
Speaker 3: And they're also great for winning arguments. My series Smarter
8:35
Speaker 3: and Seconds, I find that most folks send those two
8:38
Speaker 3: people to win arguments, and I love that because it's
8:40
Speaker 3: all like you know, researched. It takes a toll off
8:43
Speaker 3: of them, and it just helps folks to get their
8:45
Speaker 3: their point across in a way that they might not
8:48
Speaker 3: know how to do. So I'm happy to be there
8:49
Speaker 3: for them.
8:50
Speaker 1: So you said questions questions are my love language. You
8:54
Speaker 1: say that the point of teaching isn't to give people answers,
8:57
Speaker 1: it's to show people how to ask better questions. When
9:00
Speaker 1: I read that, I was like, I love blairmat I
9:03
Speaker 1: appreciate that because I agree, I created this card deck
9:07
Speaker 1: that we use at the end of every interview, and
9:09
Speaker 1: that is the.
9:10
Speaker 2: Point of the card deck. It's all about the power
9:12
Speaker 2: of questions.
9:13
Speaker 1: So where did you learn that, Like, how did you
9:15
Speaker 1: experience the power of questions in your own life?
9:17
Speaker 3: Well, when I was a kid, I was the one
9:20
Speaker 3: that always had on the report card like asks lots
9:23
Speaker 3: of questions, and it was kind of a little bit
9:25
Speaker 3: of tongue in cheek shade from the teacher where it
9:26
Speaker 3: was just like your daughter won't be quiet, exact. And
9:30
Speaker 3: I was at the mindset that if you were coming
9:32
Speaker 3: to class every day, it did not matter that there
9:33
Speaker 3: were thirty other people in class. I had to ask
9:35
Speaker 3: a question every day. And that was the added pressure
9:37
Speaker 3: of being the only black girl in class, where I
9:39
Speaker 3: felt like I had to be the representative for all
9:41
Speaker 3: of like black people in this class. Even in math class,
9:44
Speaker 3: I'm like, well what about this, or just contributing to
9:46
Speaker 3: the conversation. I was a very active learner, and I
9:49
Speaker 3: also experienced some teachers who were not used to being
9:53
Speaker 3: questioned or like challenge or just like okay, you've given
9:57
Speaker 3: me your answer, but I don't understand it. Still and
9:59
Speaker 3: some teachers in and everybody might take that as like, oh,
10:02
Speaker 3: this is a challenge to my authority, instead of it
10:04
Speaker 3: just being like no, I trust to you. I feel
10:07
Speaker 3: I can be vulnerable in this situation. Can I ask
10:09
Speaker 3: another question? It's usually like how dare you confront me,
10:11
Speaker 3: especially if the person has bagage for something else. So
10:14
Speaker 3: I had substitute teachers sometimes where I would ask a
10:16
Speaker 3: question and then I would get in trouble for asking
10:18
Speaker 3: that question, and my parents basically point blank told me.
10:21
Speaker 3: My mom in particular, was like Blair. Sometimes adults feel
10:24
Speaker 3: threatened when younger people, particularly children, ask them questions that
10:27
Speaker 3: they don't know the answer to. So you need to
10:29
Speaker 3: just forget about that. A really intelligent person would say
10:32
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I'm going to get back to you
10:33
Speaker 3: on that, and we can have a discussion later and
10:35
Speaker 3: not be vulnerable or scared to not say that they
10:37
Speaker 3: know something. So I had like the rules. I had
10:40
Speaker 3: like the cheek codes to life. Like as a kid,
10:42
Speaker 3: I was like cool, So if a teacher's ever mad
10:44
Speaker 3: at me for asking something, it's because they don't know.
10:45
Speaker 3: I'm not the problem. So it gave me this like
10:49
Speaker 3: weird gravado as a kid where I was like, there's
10:51
Speaker 3: so much to learn and anybody who's afraid of information
10:56
Speaker 3: is really missing out. And it took me a while
10:59
Speaker 3: to get to a place of humility with that. I'm
11:01
Speaker 3: gonna be honest, But now that I'm kind of like
11:04
Speaker 3: I have a better, more mature understanding, it's just the
11:07
Speaker 3: door to open. Because if you can ask a good
11:08
Speaker 3: question about something, then you show an understanding of it,
11:12
Speaker 3: and you show what you don't know about it, which
11:14
Speaker 3: shows that you can envision what there is to know
11:18
Speaker 3: and what step can you take to get there, which
11:19
Speaker 3: I think is a lot more interesting and deep than
11:22
Speaker 3: just being like, oh, I've memorized the stuff, let me
11:24
Speaker 3: spit it back out.
11:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm curious as to how you decide the topics
11:29
Speaker 1: that you're gonna cover, because I mean, you could cover
11:31
Speaker 1: so much.
11:32
Speaker 2: I found you. I think this summer.
11:36
Speaker 1: For the first time when there was a lot of
11:38
Speaker 1: anti Semitism that sparked, and you did of like a
11:43
Speaker 1: co video way. Yeah.
11:45
Speaker 3: I did a lesson on the Jewish American Heritage Month
11:47
Speaker 3: back in May, and then I recently did one with
11:50
Speaker 3: Madison Werner on anti Semitism and a bunch of other folks.
11:54
Speaker 1: And I was curious, how you choose the videos that
11:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna talk about.
11:59
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's kind of like a complex process because
12:02
Speaker 3: what I think is interesting isn't always what my audience
12:04
Speaker 3: thinks is interesting. And so I had two interns last summer,
12:07
Speaker 3: Zada Jakil Zada and Maggie Giles, and they were like,
12:10
Speaker 3: you should just do a census, like the way that
12:12
Speaker 3: you know. That's how it's the best way to get information,
12:15
Speaker 3: not just to assume and to guess, but to ask
12:17
Speaker 3: your followers, like, hey, community, what do you want to
12:20
Speaker 3: learn about from me? And it doesn't mean I'm just
12:22
Speaker 3: gonna do exactly what they say, because it's still my page.
12:25
Speaker 3: It's still I still have to be interested and passionate
12:27
Speaker 3: and excited by it. But at least I can have
12:28
Speaker 3: some orientation. And I also do a lot of polling
12:32
Speaker 3: on Patreon. I was gonna spend so much time learning
12:34
Speaker 3: computer science so I could do a lesson on algorithms,
12:36
Speaker 3: and then I was like, hey, community, do y'all want
12:38
Speaker 3: to learn about algorithms? And they were like nah, And
12:40
Speaker 3: I was like, great, I'm glad I didn't spend any
12:42
Speaker 3: more time on that then I needed to. I'm still
12:44
Speaker 3: trying to get like the order of things correct, but
12:47
Speaker 3: I try to capture what is going undiscussed or what
12:49
Speaker 3: a lot of folks have just missing gaps of information on.
12:53
Speaker 3: And it's hard to do it in a way that's
12:55
Speaker 3: timely because I don't want to have to drop everything
12:57
Speaker 3: and like go out and get the stuff together, but
12:59
Speaker 3: still being mindful enough to be like, Okay, well, this
13:02
Speaker 3: month is you know, Black History months, so I'm going
13:04
Speaker 3: to focus more on Black history. It's Pride, so I'm
13:06
Speaker 3: going to focus on what Pride Month is and how
13:08
Speaker 3: to watch out for rainbow washing. During Earth Day, I
13:11
Speaker 3: did a lesson on greenwashing and what it looks like
13:12
Speaker 3: when companies are just like, oh, we love the planet,
13:15
Speaker 3: and it's like, no, you use a ton of like
13:17
Speaker 3: single use plastics. They're just greed and so we're supposed
13:20
Speaker 3: to think, like, you know, you're not fooling us. And
13:22
Speaker 3: then when I did recently do one that kind of
13:24
Speaker 3: touched very briefly on a pop culture moment, but I
13:28
Speaker 3: made sure not to like name the celebrity that like
13:29
Speaker 3: said the faux pas, because I don't want to turn
13:32
Speaker 3: the conversation into you know, pop culture commentary. I want
13:36
Speaker 3: to like bring it back to the material, di engage
13:38
Speaker 3: somebody and be like, hey, remember that, Yeah that was weird.
13:40
Speaker 3: Here's why it was weird. Let's learn and grow instead
13:42
Speaker 3: of it being like, let's shit on the celebrity, because
13:45
Speaker 3: that's not what my classroom's about.
13:47
Speaker 2: It's interesting, you know.
13:48
Speaker 1: So for a while I did a lot of entertainment reporting,
13:51
Speaker 1: and people would ask me because I was a political
13:53
Speaker 1: science major, and they would be like, well, why are
13:55
Speaker 1: you doing like entertainment stuff? And I always felt like
13:58
Speaker 1: pop culture held a mirror up to where we are
14:01
Speaker 1: and where we're going, and gave us such a great
14:04
Speaker 1: sort of water cooler way of talking about complicated issues
14:08
Speaker 1: and bringing them into a SoundBite that everybody heard about,
14:13
Speaker 1: understood and then could pick apart exactly.
14:16
Speaker 3: And it's just so much more approachable. And I think
14:18
Speaker 3: when folks say that, I think, particularly again being from
14:21
Speaker 3: LA having such a connection to like you would see
14:24
Speaker 3: some celebrities all the time, Like every time we went
14:26
Speaker 3: to the mall, we'd see somebody, not every time, but
14:27
Speaker 3: like often that if we all can view somebody in
14:31
Speaker 3: our pop culture like context as important, like I recently
14:34
Speaker 3: met Lil Nazex, Like, for fifteen seconds, I felt very
14:37
Speaker 3: compelled to tell Little Nazex in those fifteen seconds what
14:39
Speaker 3: he meant to queer young people and that if he
14:41
Speaker 3: ever feels like the criticism is too much, that he
14:43
Speaker 3: literally helps people feel like they can exist and that's
14:46
Speaker 3: so important and that's beautiful. And then he's like whoa,
14:48
Speaker 3: And then I was like, can we take a selfie?
14:49
Speaker 3: And then we did. But that's really, in a nutshell,
14:52
Speaker 3: what it is when people don't don't feel as though
14:57
Speaker 3: they can be themselves because they've been so oppressed, they've
14:59
Speaker 3: been so harmed, and then they see somebody being successful,
15:01
Speaker 3: being loud, being praised for being themselves, then that person,
15:04
Speaker 3: wherever they might be, be able to hit through another day.
15:08
Speaker 3: And that's huge. And when we reduce pop culture to
15:10
Speaker 3: like something that's not deeper doesn't matter, Like, Okay, those
15:13
Speaker 3: same folks might think that the periodic table is like
15:14
Speaker 3: super important, but like, is that really like interfering with
15:17
Speaker 3: people's daily lives. Are they really thinking about like helium
15:19
Speaker 3: and oxygen in the same way. Yes, they're dealing with
15:21
Speaker 3: helium and oxygen because they're breathing or at least the oxygen,
15:24
Speaker 3: but like what connects to different people is so varied.
15:28
Speaker 3: And however, we can get people from point A to
15:31
Speaker 3: point B, which is like you know, interest to understanding
15:34
Speaker 3: the better and whatever method it takes us to get
15:36
Speaker 3: folks through that is a good one. And entertainment is
15:39
Speaker 3: such an approchonal one to do it through.
15:41
Speaker 1: What's an overlook chapter or event in history that you
15:45
Speaker 1: think people could learn a lot from.
15:46
Speaker 3: I think Reconstruction, And I say that immediately because it
15:49
Speaker 3: was the time period where the United States government was like, okay,
15:53
Speaker 3: chattle slavery, no more of that, or at least in
15:55
Speaker 3: a different way, because they're still slavery in the context
15:58
Speaker 3: of prison, but it's definitely different because people aren't being bought, sold, inherited,
16:02
Speaker 3: and traded like property in the same way that was
16:04
Speaker 3: happening prior to eighteen sixty five. And why I think
16:07
Speaker 3: it's so important is because there was this moment where
16:11
Speaker 3: life could have gone so many different ways. Speaking of
16:14
Speaker 3: pop culture, like if you look at the multiverse and
16:16
Speaker 3: all those things with like Spider Man and Marvel, like
16:18
Speaker 3: the way that they're like, oh, this timeline could go
16:20
Speaker 3: this way and that way, like Okay, cool, but like
16:22
Speaker 3: apply that to historical context. We literally could have had
16:25
Speaker 3: a country where all of the different plantations were redistributed
16:28
Speaker 3: to the people who had made those plantations possible. The
16:30
Speaker 3: enslaved people, provided reparations, provided literacy programs, and what ended
16:35
Speaker 3: up happening was a bunch of private efforts to do
16:38
Speaker 3: those things. But imagine if the United States government said, like, hey,
16:41
Speaker 3: let's be accountable to the harms that we've perpetuated against
16:43
Speaker 3: not only enslaved Black Americans, but against displaced indigenous Americans.
16:48
Speaker 3: We would be living in a different country. We'd have
16:50
Speaker 3: different values. And so many folks want to look at
16:53
Speaker 3: the civil rights movement, but that's very studied, but the
16:56
Speaker 3: way that we got there was through this longer history.
16:59
Speaker 3: So I'm obsessed with reconstruction and it just shows you
17:03
Speaker 3: how progress can be stifled. And I think it's an
17:06
Speaker 3: important lesson, particularly as we're seeing anti trans bills, as
17:09
Speaker 3: we're seeing you know, don't say gay laws, and it's
17:12
Speaker 3: just really like, how did we get from point A
17:14
Speaker 3: to point B? And how do we not do that again?
17:16
Speaker 3: But if we don't look at the possibilities and the
17:18
Speaker 3: ways it's gone wrong, then we'll never strategize to get
17:21
Speaker 3: to a better outcome.
17:23
Speaker 1: Interesting when you mentioned reparations, for a while, I was like,
17:28
Speaker 1: I wonder if we did that in our country, if
17:31
Speaker 1: if it would almost backfire? And then as I thought
17:35
Speaker 1: it through, I was like, if we bring it down
17:37
Speaker 1: to a one on one level, if I do something
17:40
Speaker 1: wrong and I don't apologize to you, how are you
17:42
Speaker 1: ever going to be in conversation with me again? And
17:46
Speaker 1: so even if it's a symbol, I think we have
17:49
Speaker 1: to apologize, definitely, reparations have to.
17:52
Speaker 3: And President Barack Obama did apologize for slavery, but I
17:54
Speaker 3: felt a little bit weird that our first ye black
17:56
Speaker 3: American president is the one apologizing what. But the thing
18:01
Speaker 3: is about reparations is that I think sometimes folks think
18:03
Speaker 3: it's going to be like a stimulus chech situation, and
18:05
Speaker 3: then like, well, how will we track folks down. Ancestry
18:08
Speaker 3: dot Com could right now decide to do micro reparations
18:10
Speaker 3: where if you can track oh my ancestors enslaved your ancestors,
18:13
Speaker 3: I'm going to pay for your ancestry dot com membership.
18:16
Speaker 3: It could look like that. It could look like a
18:18
Speaker 3: state level. I mean, that's more like a mutual aid situation.
18:20
Speaker 3: Reparations institutionally might look like, oh, hey, this neighborhood because
18:24
Speaker 3: of redlighting, didn't have grocery stores, and now it's getting gentrified.
18:27
Speaker 3: What we're going to do is make sure that we
18:29
Speaker 3: give financial education to the folks who have lived there,
18:32
Speaker 3: make sure that grocery stores start popping up there before
18:35
Speaker 3: it gets turned into a demographic and putting laws in
18:38
Speaker 3: place to shift the school to prison pipeline. It would
18:42
Speaker 3: just be like, hey, we're going to fund better futures
18:44
Speaker 3: for black folks, not right after somebody gets killed by
18:46
Speaker 3: police and people suddenly care, but because of this context
18:50
Speaker 3: of institutional racism.
18:51
Speaker 1: From the state and community level, I'm so with you,
18:54
Speaker 1: and national government. From a private enterprise level, I've never
18:58
Speaker 1: heard that argument. So you're saying that private company, Oh
19:02
Speaker 1: totally could it?
19:04
Speaker 2: Can you expand on that?
19:05
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I mean, like with ancestry dot Com. I
19:07
Speaker 3: keep I've had this idea forever. So this is the
19:09
Speaker 3: first time talking about it publicly. Okay, But so there's
19:12
Speaker 3: these things called slave schedules, and it's like this horrible
19:14
Speaker 3: Excel sheet from like the eighteen hundreds, and it's one
19:16
Speaker 3: of the only ways to find out where your ancestors,
19:18
Speaker 3: if they were enslaved, were located, where they went, and
19:21
Speaker 3: all of those well a lot of them were burned,
19:23
Speaker 3: but a lot of them were kept and put into
19:24
Speaker 3: these different databases. In the United States, it's extremely difficult
19:28
Speaker 3: to access those databases without paying for a subscription service
19:30
Speaker 3: like ancestry dot com. So it's like cool. So if
19:33
Speaker 3: you feel like, as a company you get to have
19:35
Speaker 3: any type of monopoly over somebody's like lineage or history,
19:38
Speaker 3: what if you decided to be radical with it and
19:40
Speaker 3: really connect people and do meaningful things. During twenty twenty,
19:43
Speaker 3: when so many folks were like really awakened to the
19:45
Speaker 3: issues of enslavement and racism and violence against anti black violence,
19:50
Speaker 3: I had a lot of people who were like my distant, distant, distant,
19:53
Speaker 3: seven times removed cousins who were white folks reaching out
19:56
Speaker 3: to me being like, according to ancestry DNA were related. Okay, Well,
20:00
Speaker 3: what if ancestry gave the opportunity to be like, hey,
20:02
Speaker 3: you have relatives that your ancestors enslaved. What if you
20:05
Speaker 3: paid for their memberships. It's not something that's mandatory, it's
20:08
Speaker 3: not something that's required, but It's something that I think
20:10
Speaker 3: reconnects and rehumanizes what these things look like. There's also
20:13
Speaker 3: a lot of movement happening within indigenous communities which I
20:15
Speaker 3: can't speak on authoritatively, called land back. What does it
20:19
Speaker 3: look like for you to reside on land that was
20:22
Speaker 3: not given by the indigenous community that was there to
20:25
Speaker 3: like pay rent to support their communities, which are often
20:28
Speaker 3: likes like the res communities, the reservations and indigenous communities
20:32
Speaker 3: are like sometimes the paving of the road goes right
20:35
Speaker 3: up to the reservation, like they's so underfunded, and so
20:38
Speaker 3: there's like material, small ways that we can do it.
20:40
Speaker 3: And I think it's just about using things like pop
20:43
Speaker 3: culture honestly and like sci fi to imagine a more
20:46
Speaker 3: like just a better future than what we have right
20:48
Speaker 3: now and breaking through that idea of like, oh, it
20:50
Speaker 3: couldn't work and instead of being like, well, what are
20:52
Speaker 3: the ways it could?
20:53
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to sit with that.
20:56
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anything like that, and my first kind
21:02
Speaker 1: of thought is like, well, how far back do we go?
21:06
Speaker 2: Right?
21:07
Speaker 1: Like, if we do that, we could go for centuries
21:10
Speaker 1: and centuries and then.
21:11
Speaker 3: Well, racism and race and racism were created in the
21:14
Speaker 3: fourteen hundreds. So there's only so far we can go
21:17
Speaker 3: back to a certain like you know, for the system of.
21:19
Speaker 1: Race, So that is edig there's indigenous groups in every
21:23
Speaker 1: country now, yes, and so I mean it dates back
21:26
Speaker 1: to the beginning of.
21:26
Speaker 3: Time, yeah, but when it will. So there's indigenaity and colonization,
21:30
Speaker 3: and then there's indigenaiting and colonization and then the use
21:33
Speaker 3: of a system called race to racialize those people and
21:36
Speaker 3: say and you're less than. You're not just from another place,
21:39
Speaker 3: but you are less than because of you're your skin color,
21:42
Speaker 3: you're a hair texture, and these things being evolved and created.
21:44
Speaker 3: I talk about that more in chapter five of my book.
21:47
Speaker 3: But I think it's like looking at the consequences. If
21:49
Speaker 3: we wanted to do something that was just in the
21:51
Speaker 3: past hundred years, it'd be giving reparations to veterans who
21:54
Speaker 3: weren't able to access the GI bill because of redlining.
21:57
Speaker 3: And that's something that the Black Veterans Project is working
22:00
Speaker 3: on with Richard Brickshire. So there is some work happening.
22:02
Speaker 3: It's exciting, but I think it's like the old adage
22:06
Speaker 3: of like the sins of the father, right, But looking
22:08
Speaker 3: at it critically and being like, Okay, well, if the
22:10
Speaker 3: sins of that father are still affecting this father's sons,
22:13
Speaker 3: and what do we do to better those situations in
22:16
Speaker 3: ways that make people's futures better right now instead of
22:20
Speaker 3: like far off in the future.
22:21
Speaker 1: I really like hearing about things like solutions I haven't
22:24
Speaker 1: heard about before, so thanks for sharing that with us.
22:30
Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by Betterhelp. Do you ever feel fatigued,
22:35
Speaker 1: lack of motivation, overwhelm, helpless, or even trapped? It could
22:41
Speaker 1: be burnout. Many people are burned out without even knowing it.
22:45
Speaker 1: For me, burnout sneaks up slowly and then all at once.
22:50
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is I don't realize it's
22:52
Speaker 1: happening until I'm really over the edge. And while we
22:56
Speaker 1: associate burnout with work, that's not the only cause. Any
23:00
Speaker 1: of our roles in life can lead us to feel it.
23:02
Speaker 1: Mine is actually often not associated with work at all,
23:06
Speaker 1: and Better Help Online Therapy wants to remind you to
23:09
Speaker 1: prioritize yourself. Talking with someone can help you figure out
23:13
Speaker 1: what's causing stress in your life. I'll tell you about
23:16
Speaker 1: my personal experience by talking it through with my therapist,
23:20
Speaker 1: I realized my burnout was about saying yes when I
23:24
Speaker 1: really wanted to say no, but identifying that stressor can.
23:29
Speaker 2: Be the hardest part.
23:30
Speaker 1: Over the last three years, I've been working with a
23:32
Speaker 1: therapist who practices Gestalt therapy, which is an approach that
23:36
Speaker 1: centered on increasing a person's awareness, freedom, and self direction.
23:41
Speaker 1: It's a form of therapy that focuses on the present
23:43
Speaker 1: moment rather than past experiences. And in Gestalt therapy, you
23:48
Speaker 1: are always in relationship to something, to another person, to ourselves.
23:53
Speaker 1: Even the environment to be in relationship allows us to
23:57
Speaker 1: know our own experience in a deeper way. For me,
24:02
Speaker 1: to be in relationship with a therapist regularly helps me
24:06
Speaker 1: understand my feelings, helps me be in control of what
24:10
Speaker 1: I'm feeling and my response is to people. Betterhelp is
24:15
Speaker 1: customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live
24:19
Speaker 1: chat sessions with your therapist so you don't have to
24:22
Speaker 1: see anyone on camera if you don't want to, and
24:24
Speaker 1: it's much more affordable than in person therapy, and you
24:27
Speaker 1: can be matched with a therapist in one hundred forty
24:30
Speaker 1: eight hours. Pretty Smart listeners get ten percent off their
24:33
Speaker 1: first month at betterhelp dot com slash pretty Smart. That's
24:37
Speaker 1: better h lp dot com slash pretty smart. If you
24:42
Speaker 1: don't know where to start, better help is a great place. Okay,
24:49
Speaker 1: you've told me about your Instagram page being brightly colored.
24:52
Speaker 1: It's very welcoming too, which I love when I go
24:55
Speaker 1: to it. I feel like it denotes all are welcome.
24:59
Speaker 1: When you set out to create your page. What are
25:01
Speaker 1: some of the big decisions you made in terms of
25:03
Speaker 1: how you were approaching content? I know you mentioned college.
25:06
Speaker 1: What are some of those best practices that you think
25:08
Speaker 1: about now?
25:09
Speaker 3: I think there's a big shift when I became an influencer, because,
25:14
Speaker 3: you know, shifting from being an activist or like you know,
25:16
Speaker 3: publicly calling myself an activist and being an organizer and
25:18
Speaker 3: having been arrested at protests. Like then shifting to being
25:22
Speaker 3: a historian and like consulting on different things and being
25:24
Speaker 3: more of a communicator and then becoming an influencer was interesting.
25:28
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of folks who are like Blair,
25:30
Speaker 3: how are you going to talk about capitalism and still
25:32
Speaker 3: sell stuff on you know, Instagram, which I'm gonna be
25:34
Speaker 3: doing like a lesson about soon.
25:36
Speaker 2: That is an interesting question, is yeah, But.
25:38
Speaker 3: It's also like the I think what it comes down
25:40
Speaker 3: to is that we don't have a lot of class education.
25:42
Speaker 3: And so sometimes folks think, like, oh, if you're a capitalist,
25:45
Speaker 3: then you're buying and selling stuff. But buying and selling
25:47
Speaker 3: is like it goes way before capitalism, and it also
25:50
Speaker 3: is this idea that if you're buying and selling stuff,
25:52
Speaker 3: you're doing it exclusively with exploitation. So the way that
25:55
Speaker 3: I make sure that I'm not like selling out is
25:57
Speaker 3: to like look at the qualifications of a company, Like
26:00
Speaker 3: I never want to work with a company for pride
26:01
Speaker 3: that doesn't have a policy for like equal family leave
26:04
Speaker 3: for a queer couple versus a straight couple, And I
26:07
Speaker 3: need to make sure, which means I have to like
26:09
Speaker 3: spend sometimes hours of research, but I don't want to
26:11
Speaker 3: put my name on anything that I can't stand by.
26:13
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean that I'm like perfect or fool proof, but
26:15
Speaker 3: my intention is there, my standards are there. And that's
26:19
Speaker 3: kind of what was a big shift, Like what is
26:20
Speaker 3: my threshold I'm not going to work with a company
26:22
Speaker 3: if they don't do this, or like maybe I can
26:23
Speaker 3: start that conversation, maybe I can ask questions that they
26:26
Speaker 3: literally don't have time to think about because they're trying
26:28
Speaker 3: to like, you know, make profits. You know, like they
26:31
Speaker 3: might not have time to think about these things.
26:32
Speaker 1: Oh right, but profits that like it's a hard circle, right,
26:36
Speaker 1: it's profits that you're benefiting from. So, like capitalist you're
26:40
Speaker 1: buying into capitalism still, which is fine. But I like capitalism,
26:44
Speaker 1: but like.
26:44
Speaker 3: So the way that I like run smarter and seconds
26:46
Speaker 3: for example, or like when I work with a different company,
26:49
Speaker 3: I think so when it comes to capitalism, the idea
26:51
Speaker 3: is to pay everybody you're working with the least amount
26:53
Speaker 3: of money for the most amount of work. And if
26:55
Speaker 3: you're deciding to like actually invest in people, like hey,
26:58
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure that I'm coming back.
27:00
Speaker 2: So that's not the definition of.
27:02
Speaker 3: Capitalism though, No, the definition well, like.
27:05
Speaker 2: You're saying that's your opinion on capitalism.
27:08
Speaker 3: Historically, the best capitalists have paid people the least amount
27:12
Speaker 3: of money for the most amount of work.
27:14
Speaker 2: That's why we have pushed back on that.
27:16
Speaker 3: Well, that's why we have minimum wage, because we have
27:18
Speaker 3: to legislate people literally getting paid the least amount of
27:21
Speaker 3: money that we've decided as a society or that Congress
27:23
Speaker 3: decides is acceptable right for the most amount of work.
27:26
Speaker 1: I think minimum wage needs to be increased. I believe
27:29
Speaker 1: in conscious and compassionate capitalism, so I don't think we're
27:32
Speaker 1: so far apart. But it's interesting to hear that you
27:35
Speaker 1: think capitalism is paying people the.
27:39
Speaker 2: Least amount of money for the most amount of work,
27:41
Speaker 2: because I'm not sure. I mean, I don't do that.
27:43
Speaker 2: When I like.
27:44
Speaker 3: So, then you wouldn't be operating as an exploitative of
27:46
Speaker 3: capitalist You might be adding elements of socialism.
27:49
Speaker 2: But exploitive capitalism is different than capitalism.
27:52
Speaker 3: I mean some a lot of people would argue that
27:54
Speaker 3: they're like one in one because capitalism and it's perfected
27:57
Speaker 3: form of slavery where it's the complete benefit to the
27:59
Speaker 3: owner to zero benefit of the worker.
28:01
Speaker 2: I've never heard that definition. That's interesting.
28:04
Speaker 3: Then we have racial capitalism, which is what we see
28:06
Speaker 3: in the United States, which is why we have stuff
28:07
Speaker 3: like prison labor, where people right now are making a
28:10
Speaker 3: maximum of one dollar fifteen per hour for the same
28:13
Speaker 3: work that they can't get hired for. That's because they
28:16
Speaker 3: are formerly incarcerated. Horrible. Yeah, but it's all like this,
28:20
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's uncomfortable, but it's real. And I
28:24
Speaker 3: think that being an influencer in that context means like, Okay,
28:28
Speaker 3: well I'm going to pay somebody more than the industry
28:30
Speaker 3: standard because I recognize their work, I recognize the effort
28:33
Speaker 3: they're putting into things. I'm going to make sure that
28:35
Speaker 3: I'm advocating for them. It's interesting, like it's good business
28:38
Speaker 3: to like invest in your employees, but what we see
28:40
Speaker 3: in Silicon Valley is having all of these amenities where
28:43
Speaker 3: folks spend more time at work doing more things, and like, awesome,
28:46
Speaker 3: there's a treadmill at work. But now I'm getting to
28:48
Speaker 3: work this much time earlier, so I can work this
28:50
Speaker 3: much more time. So it's good for employee retention. But
28:52
Speaker 3: it is kind of all of this kind of icky system.
28:54
Speaker 3: And so the shift, going back to your question that
28:57
Speaker 3: I've tried to make was being really conscious about what
28:59
Speaker 3: I'm part with, who I'm working with, so that way
29:02
Speaker 3: I feel like I can sleep at night.
29:04
Speaker 2: That's all that matters if you can look at it.
29:06
Speaker 1: My mom always said, if you can look in the
29:08
Speaker 1: mirror and like the person looking back at you, it's
29:11
Speaker 1: all that matters. So I heard that you have a
29:13
Speaker 1: special tactic for dealing with haters.
29:17
Speaker 3: As you have done such amazing research.
29:20
Speaker 2: Yes, I do and it involves Elmo.
29:23
Speaker 3: Yes it does, and it's actually there's a whole thing.
29:26
Speaker 3: But Elmo is so pure and there's so many like
29:30
Speaker 3: TikTok trends that have to do with Elmo and like rock,
29:32
Speaker 3: oh how he has this rock? But I get such
29:34
Speaker 3: out of the box questions, And like I was talking
29:36
Speaker 3: about earlier about like when people are challenged, like they
29:38
Speaker 3: feel threatened, Like for me, it's like being challenged on
29:42
Speaker 3: stuff like I mean, we had a great discussion about capitalism,
29:45
Speaker 3: which was fantastic, but like.
29:46
Speaker 1: I love sparring with you, by the way, ye know
29:48
Speaker 1: I never get to do this, then I.
29:50
Speaker 3: Love it too. And I think that trying to be
29:52
Speaker 3: somebody who can be present in every situation and like
29:54
Speaker 3: not have the baggage of the day or like my
29:56
Speaker 3: life come into those interactions looks like having to like
30:00
Speaker 3: myself outside of my body when I like see things
30:01
Speaker 3: that are just like how the heck are you gay?
30:03
Speaker 3: And Muslim? And if it's like if I'm reading it
30:06
Speaker 3: like that, I'm gonna read it like hmm, it's gonna
30:07
Speaker 3: be a bad interaction. But if it's like Hi, Blair,
30:10
Speaker 3: Elma wants to know why are you gay? And Muslim
30:15
Speaker 3: thank you. You know, then I can be like, oh, elma,
30:17
Speaker 3: you just weren't clear that that was a real Okay,
30:20
Speaker 3: no problem. You can go to blairinmoney dot Com, forward
30:22
Speaker 3: slash faq and you can see my whole explanation that
30:25
Speaker 3: I've already pre written.
30:26
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, So do you know Brene Brown?
30:30
Speaker 1: So she has this great thing where she tells people
30:33
Speaker 1: that like, when something upsets you, you think the story
30:35
Speaker 1: I'm telling myself is because you've just personalized it and
30:39
Speaker 1: used your own frame. I love that you totally reframed
30:41
Speaker 1: it and took the anger out of those comments.
30:45
Speaker 2: It's a great tactic.
30:46
Speaker 3: Because it's also like they don't know who I am.
30:48
Speaker 3: They might have literally just been like gay must what like?
30:51
Speaker 3: That's usually what they reaction is immediately. And I see that,
30:54
Speaker 3: whether it's somebody who's like pants because they want to
30:56
Speaker 3: know where my pants are from. But instead of being like, hi, Blair,
30:59
Speaker 3: you don't know who I am? This is who I am?
31:00
Speaker 3: Where are your pants from? They're just like pants? And
31:02
Speaker 3: I'm like cool, and so I have to take a
31:05
Speaker 3: step back. And that is exactly right, Like what are
31:07
Speaker 3: you assuming about this interaction? And it's been just so
31:10
Speaker 3: healthy throughout my life. My mom is like she's trained
31:13
Speaker 3: to be a social worker, so she's very much like,
31:15
Speaker 3: what is the context of the person you're interacting with
31:18
Speaker 3: and what are you taking on that might not even
31:20
Speaker 3: be there? And it's really hard to do. But when
31:23
Speaker 3: you add like Elmo to it, it's just like, oh,
31:24
Speaker 3: clearly this person, it's just Elmo. Elmo just wants to.
31:27
Speaker 1: Know Elmo to the haters. So I was really excited
31:31
Speaker 1: to hear about this. You're developing a show with the
31:33
Speaker 1: Jim Henson Company, So for anybody who doesn't know, Jim
31:36
Speaker 1: Henson created the Muppets, which is I think dear to
31:40
Speaker 1: a lot of people's hearts.
31:41
Speaker 2: So that's really cool. How are you going to use.
31:43
Speaker 1: What you've learned in the creator space online and bring
31:47
Speaker 1: it elsewhere?
31:48
Speaker 3: So this is really exciting. I think one of the
31:49
Speaker 3: things about like being in la is that I've been
31:52
Speaker 3: so cautious to be as excited as I want to
31:54
Speaker 3: be about the Jim Henson opportunity, because.
31:57
Speaker 2: Girl yet excited.
31:58
Speaker 3: You know, like there's a part of me that like,
31:59
Speaker 3: WHOA the other part of me that's like, but what
32:01
Speaker 3: if it doesn't like what if, like it doesn't get
32:03
Speaker 3: purchased by a network, you know, like in all those fears,
32:05
Speaker 3: and I think I'm just trying to be like very
32:06
Speaker 3: grounded in it.
32:07
Speaker 1: But regardless window for a second, because Jim Henson and
32:11
Speaker 1: the muff It's are a big deal, So like, tell
32:13
Speaker 1: me what is it gonna be about?
32:14
Speaker 2: What did you envision?
32:15
Speaker 3: So I don't think I can talk about what it's
32:17
Speaker 3: gonna be about, but I do want to shout out
32:18
Speaker 3: my producers. I have three awesome women producers. Lisa Henson
32:21
Speaker 3: who's Jim Henson's daughter, Sidney Clifton who's Lucille Clifton's daughter,
32:25
Speaker 3: and then Hallie Stanford. I don't know what her parents did,
32:27
Speaker 3: but she's amazing and it's just been so amazing to
32:29
Speaker 3: like come into this space, work with my assistant Kat
32:32
Speaker 3: Wheeler as well, and like just id eight and think
32:34
Speaker 3: about how things translate and really wanting to talk. So
32:37
Speaker 3: it's gonna be like probably eight to ten year old.
32:40
Speaker 3: So that's what we do know. It's gonna be some
32:41
Speaker 3: type of educational thing. It's probably gonna add comedy to it,
32:44
Speaker 3: but basically what I'm doing with social media and like
32:48
Speaker 3: what you're literally doing right now is like producing materials
32:51
Speaker 3: and whether it's airing through a podcast, whether it's going
32:53
Speaker 3: on YouTube, whether it's going on like Good Morning America,
32:55
Speaker 3: like it all takes the same components and parts, and
32:58
Speaker 3: I think that's been really validating for me. It also
33:00
Speaker 3: makes me want to like level up a little bit,
33:01
Speaker 3: Like when I'm going on set and I'm filming Smarter
33:03
Speaker 3: in seconds, even though it's like a thirty second you know,
33:06
Speaker 3: educational video. It's the same mechanics, you know, just like
33:10
Speaker 3: with a different budget, a really different budget. But I
33:13
Speaker 3: think that the key point is figuring out or just
33:17
Speaker 3: being humble in the fact that your information is only
33:19
Speaker 3: as good as you can make it interesting to engage with,
33:22
Speaker 3: and then, particularly as it relates to young people, like
33:26
Speaker 3: also not dumbing things down, like you can make things
33:28
Speaker 3: short and sweet and informative without oversimplifying it to the
33:31
Speaker 3: point where people feel like, come on, I'm not Ilmo.
33:34
Speaker 1: You know. So you were born Blair Elizabeth. Why was
33:40
Speaker 1: it important for you to change your name to Blair
33:42
Speaker 1: and Moani?
33:43
Speaker 3: Well, so I loved the name of Moni since high
33:45
Speaker 3: school and Imani means faith or my faith. It's also
33:49
Speaker 3: a day of Kwanza where it's like, you know, coming
33:51
Speaker 3: together around faith. Converting to Islam was a very important
33:57
Speaker 3: point in my life where my dad I was like
34:00
Speaker 3: totally cool, like convert to Isla. I'm a lot of
34:01
Speaker 3: my friends did in the seventies whatever. My mom was
34:04
Speaker 3: kind of like this is a complete what you know,
34:06
Speaker 3: Like she's very like we went to a Prince concert
34:09
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, or like I was eight,
34:11
Speaker 3: I was just eighteen, and my mom was like, you
34:12
Speaker 3: should wear this corset that you're aunt Cynthia wore when
34:15
Speaker 3: we went to Prince and I was like, so I did.
34:17
Speaker 3: But I was like so uncomfortable. I've not always been
34:19
Speaker 3: somebody who's the most comfortable like showing a lot of skin,
34:21
Speaker 3: and so it was just different from my mom because
34:24
Speaker 3: she's very much like body positivity, sex positivity to the
34:27
Speaker 3: point where I was like, oh my gosh, just stop,
34:28
Speaker 3: like what are you doing. But like most people's dream mom,
34:31
Speaker 3: like my mom was the cool mom, like you need
34:32
Speaker 3: the sex talk, you know where to get condoms, you
34:34
Speaker 3: need plan B. She got you, you know, like she was
34:36
Speaker 3: gonna take care of folks and just get folks what
34:37
Speaker 3: they needed. And I was just kind of like, oh
34:39
Speaker 3: my goodness, the scandal of it all. And so when
34:42
Speaker 3: with me renaming myself, it was like reclaiming parts of me,
34:46
Speaker 3: understanding myself in a different way. But I always liked
34:48
Speaker 3: the name of Moni, and I was like, I well
34:50
Speaker 3: name my child in Moani. And then I was like, Okay,
34:51
Speaker 3: I'm not actually gonna wait for me to have a kid.
34:54
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna give myself that name and then really
34:56
Speaker 3: embody that rebirth. I think also I didn't really relate
34:59
Speaker 3: to Blair Elizabeth, which was It's funny because I meet
35:02
Speaker 3: so many people whose middle name is Elizabeth. It's like
35:04
Speaker 3: a very common thing. But I never connected to it.
35:06
Speaker 3: And I think it's because there's so many different assumptions
35:09
Speaker 3: that comes with people's names. Whether it's like your gender,
35:12
Speaker 3: whether it's your race, your class depending on spelling, your
35:15
Speaker 3: culture of origin, your language of origin.
35:17
Speaker 1: I just watched a Freakonomics documentary about this. It's if
35:21
Speaker 1: anybody's interested. It's on Amazon Private.
35:23
Speaker 3: It's so interesting, there's so much that goes into it.
35:25
Speaker 3: I also have a thirty second version on Smarter Seconds
35:28
Speaker 3: about names and bias. But there's so many things that
35:30
Speaker 3: go into it. There's also a great documentary The Name
35:31
Speaker 3: Escapes Me. But people who have like names that are
35:33
Speaker 3: like like this last this woman's last name was Coburn,
35:36
Speaker 3: but it's spelled like cockburn, and like what it meant
35:38
Speaker 3: for her, like as a young woman to have a
35:40
Speaker 3: name that like had the word cock in it, and like, yeah,
35:42
Speaker 3: those types of things, and it can really shape you.
35:44
Speaker 3: And I'm of the opinion that if you don't like
35:46
Speaker 3: your name.
35:46
Speaker 2: Change it. It's you.
35:48
Speaker 3: You have to be this person all the time, Like,
35:50
Speaker 3: if you don't love that, then totally change it. Interesting.
35:54
Speaker 2: Okay, So this was so wild.
35:56
Speaker 1: I watched the clip you came out as bisexual on
35:58
Speaker 1: TV during an appearance on Carls.
36:02
Speaker 2: You know, you not Fox, and it's something you talk
36:07
Speaker 2: about in your Ted talk. So when you look back
36:09
Speaker 2: at that moment.
36:11
Speaker 1: I mean, in the moment I think I could tell
36:13
Speaker 1: you just kind of like blurted it out.
36:15
Speaker 3: It was completely on an accident. It was a definite scorpio
36:17
Speaker 3: moment where I was like, well, actually.
36:19
Speaker 1: Right, because he was kind of questioning the audacity you
36:22
Speaker 1: had to talk on certain issues and you were like, actually,
36:24
Speaker 1: I'm a member of all I met all.
36:27
Speaker 2: Of these identities.
36:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what did you learn from that experience and
36:31
Speaker 1: looking back, how do you perceive it now?
36:33
Speaker 3: One thing I learned is that my gosh, like coming
36:38
Speaker 3: out this intense first of all this like that it's
36:40
Speaker 3: I still get flustered thinking about it, like putting myself
36:42
Speaker 3: back in that moment, because after I came out, I
36:44
Speaker 3: still to get through the rest of the interview. And
36:46
Speaker 3: I'm also like getting a bunch of notifications with my
36:48
Speaker 3: phone in my back pocket, being like, oh my gosh,
36:50
Speaker 3: Grandma's gonna want to know what queered me. It's like,
36:52
Speaker 3: what is this? And I'm really grateful for Glad with
36:55
Speaker 3: Sarah Kate Ellis, who like immediately reached out and was like, hey,
36:57
Speaker 3: I saw the clips. She sent me a DM on Twitter.
37:00
Speaker 2: She was she was a president of GLAD.
37:01
Speaker 3: It was yeah, yeah, and so I think she might
37:02
Speaker 3: still be. But she basically like open arms, was just
37:05
Speaker 3: like hey, I got you, Like GLAD has your back.
37:08
Speaker 3: It was also weird because the show wanted to have
37:10
Speaker 3: me back on and I was like, no, I've gotten
37:12
Speaker 3: like the most death threats of my life, Like I
37:14
Speaker 3: literally had to move my apartment. It was such good.
37:16
Speaker 3: So it was really mm Hm. It was amad to
37:18
Speaker 3: move apartments because I was just getting so many threats,
37:20
Speaker 3: Like I might not have had to, but like at
37:23
Speaker 3: a certain point, you're like, uh, I feel like this
37:24
Speaker 3: is nervous the same like safe thing to go. But
37:27
Speaker 3: I'm honestly really grateful for the experience because while I
37:31
Speaker 3: got like disinvited from a lot of things, I had
37:33
Speaker 3: only been Muslim for two years. And I'm really grateful
37:36
Speaker 3: that people who had like wanted me around and wanted
37:38
Speaker 3: to invite me to stuff and then learn something about
37:40
Speaker 3: me that was always true that they didn't know they
37:42
Speaker 3: decided to act differently around me. I'm glad that they're
37:45
Speaker 3: out of my life and that they decided to, you know, leave.
37:48
Speaker 3: And I also think that I really didn't feel good
37:51
Speaker 3: about the experience until I was in Iowa, I think.
37:55
Speaker 3: And there was this girl during this like early morning
37:58
Speaker 3: keynote I was giving, and she just raised her hand
38:00
Speaker 3: and started talking about what it was like for her
38:02
Speaker 3: to see that while she was on vacation with her
38:04
Speaker 3: homophobic family, yeah and feel like, oh I'm not alone,
38:08
Speaker 3: and like she cried, I cried, We hugged, but I
38:10
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, at least one person's life was made
38:13
Speaker 3: better by that very very intense moment of my life.
38:15
Speaker 3: And also I sold my book a lot faster with
38:18
Speaker 3: the increase in visibility. So for what it was, it
38:22
Speaker 3: was it was interesting. But I also came correct. I
38:24
Speaker 3: knew I wasn't going to change his mind. I knew
38:25
Speaker 3: I was there to try to raise my visibility so
38:27
Speaker 3: that way I could, like, you know, sell my book.
38:29
Speaker 3: And then I also knew that if I wore pink
38:32
Speaker 3: and like very feminine colors, that it would look like
38:34
Speaker 3: he was yelling at like a very feminine entity and
38:36
Speaker 3: look like even more of a jerk. And that was
38:38
Speaker 3: also effective.
38:39
Speaker 1: I like that you're so transparent about that. Okay, I
38:42
Speaker 1: do a rapid fire at the end. Must follow account
38:47
Speaker 1: on Instagram.
38:49
Speaker 3: Hmm, okay, this is gonna sound weird, but most Sari
38:52
Speaker 3: Adam Asari's account. He's like the head of Instagram. You know,
38:54
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, he created Instagram. He gives I don't
38:56
Speaker 3: know if he did, but he's ahead of it. He's
38:58
Speaker 3: like the guy that he You could just ask him questions,
39:01
Speaker 3: I'll answer honestly, and it just funny. Removes a lot
39:05
Speaker 3: of ambiguity.
39:05
Speaker 1: So him if you could meet any historical figure, who
39:08
Speaker 1: would it be?
39:08
Speaker 3: I to b Wells for sure, Oh, my goodness, she's
39:10
Speaker 3: such a storyteller. Also, Zora near Hearston. Since we're traveling
39:14
Speaker 3: back in time.
39:15
Speaker 2: If your phone is on three percent battery, who are you.
39:17
Speaker 3: Calling my mom to tell her not to call me?
39:19
Speaker 3: A bunch of times I think I'm dead.
39:21
Speaker 2: One thing you'd like to tell young Blair.
39:23
Speaker 3: My goodness with like, hmm, I don't think I could
39:26
Speaker 3: tell myself anything. I was one of those kids that like,
39:28
Speaker 3: you couldn't tell anything too, but like in those lonely moments,
39:32
Speaker 3: I would definitely say, like, it's okay that you don't
39:34
Speaker 3: have a lot of friends right now, because you're learning
39:36
Speaker 3: to be your own friends and a lot of people
39:37
Speaker 3: don't know how to do that.
39:38
Speaker 2: A lot of people have to learn that later in life.
39:41
Speaker 2: It's nice to learn it when you're young.
39:43
Speaker 1: One book that changed your life that you think everybody
39:46
Speaker 1: should read.
39:47
Speaker 3: Black Sexual Politics, Definitely.
39:50
Speaker 1: The pretty smart question is because you're an LA girl,
39:54
Speaker 1: this was perfect for you. What's the weirdest thing you've
39:55
Speaker 1: ever done in your car?
39:57
Speaker 3: H Some of those questions are not PG raided, but
40:01
Speaker 3: I completely changed my output that I had just bought
40:04
Speaker 3: at Crossroads Trading Company so that I could go to
40:08
Speaker 3: a pop up event for Who was it for? I
40:10
Speaker 3: think it was a little Kim. Yeah, I'm just like
40:13
Speaker 3: a residential road in the daylight.
40:16
Speaker 1: Little Kim is actually such an interesting study in pop
40:20
Speaker 1: culture and politics. Okay, the smartest decision you've ever.
40:24
Speaker 3: Made asking for help in general, but like specifically with business,
40:29
Speaker 3: like realizing I can't do everything and being okay with
40:32
Speaker 3: like taking less money home if you can hire somebody
40:34
Speaker 3: to do it better so you have just more time
40:36
Speaker 3: to be present.
40:38
Speaker 1: Awesome, Blair, thank you for your honesty, your candor, your vulnerability.
40:44
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing online and I'm excited to
40:47
Speaker 1: support you.
40:48
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
41:16
Speaker 1: All right, Today is a good day. To have a
41:18
Speaker 1: good day. I'll see you next week.