Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Mara Brock Akil Talks 'The Revelation of Dionne Daphne,' 'Forever' S2' Protecting Your Energy, Healing From Trauma, Parenthood + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Mara Brock Akil Talks 'The Revelation of Dionne Daphne,' 'Forever' S2' Protecting Your Energy, Healing From Trauma, Parenthood + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day a week ago, clicks up the Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You don't finish for y'all done morning.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy we
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: are the Breakfast Club. Laura Roast is here as well.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We got a special guest in.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The building, the legendary that's right, Marra Broca Kill.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome back.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Oh I love being here with you guys. Thanks for
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: having me back. How you feeling amazing?
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  Speaker 4: Feeling amazing?
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  Speaker 1: I'm feeling amazing. I have another story out in the
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  Speaker 1: world in a new way.
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  Speaker 3: The revelation of Dion Daphney.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I get to the book allowed me to have
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  Speaker 5: a bigger canvas, to go deeper, to go take up
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  Speaker 5: more territory, to paint portraits. You know, That's what I've
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  Speaker 5: been doing my whole career, and just to you know,
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  Speaker 5: to have it this way. I'm really excited and and
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  Speaker 5: I've been on this is them. I'm sort of wrapping up.
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  Speaker 5: I have one more stop on my book tour. I'm
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  Speaker 5: headed home today. In fact, I'm in the middle of
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: production of season two Forever.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: They shout out.
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: Shout out to the team, the collaborators. They have been
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: holding it down so that I can prioritize this amazing
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  Speaker 5: moment in my life, a debut novel, you know. And
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  Speaker 5: but yeah, so I have this, you know, I've been
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  Speaker 5: telling making portraits in that medium, and this is my
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  Speaker 5: first portrait on the page. And I'm thrilled, I mean
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  Speaker 5: literally just waiting to come in here. I'm seeing the
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  Speaker 5: book out in the world, people posting about it. Read
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  Speaker 5: it in twenty four hours. It's a page turner, this
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  Speaker 5: is a plane read. It is the summer read, it's
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: the summer discussion. A lot to talk about. So the
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  Speaker 5: reception I'm enjoying receiving all of I think the love
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  Speaker 5: that I poured into the pen onto the page is
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  Speaker 5: coming back to me.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm amazing.
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  Speaker 2: Inspiration, Like you don't never get tied? How does it
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  Speaker 2: come to you? Because you know, people have writer's block,
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  Speaker 2: they can't think about things, but it seems like you
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  Speaker 2: never have it, as I feel like you always get inspired.
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  Speaker 4: I'm tapped in.
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  Speaker 1: I'm really clear on my life.
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  Speaker 5: I really believe in people, place and purpose, and I've
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  Speaker 5: locked in.
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  Speaker 1: I've locked in and so in.
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  Speaker 5: Fact, one of my challenges is that I have so
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  Speaker 5: many stories I want to tell and I'm trying to
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  Speaker 5: figure out with the pace of life and how do
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  Speaker 5: I do it all? And also the challenges of business.
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  Speaker 5: Sometimes you're writing something, but am I writing something that
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  Speaker 5: I'm going to be.
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  Speaker 1: Able to get into the marketplace? So there's two things.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm still in the business of storytelling, so I
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  Speaker 5: have to think strategically about where do I go next,
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  Speaker 5: how much time it takes me to get the story
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  Speaker 5: out and a book. I really wasn't thinking about it
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  Speaker 5: at the time that I and started engaging with the book.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, it was my body of work that shout
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  Speaker 5: out to Chelsea John's my editor who reached out to
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  Speaker 5: me during COVID and said, Hey, I'm such a fan
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  Speaker 5: of the work you do, such complex city with black characters,
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: human characters, specifically women. Would you consider writing a book.
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  Speaker 5: I think your voice would translate beautifully to the page.
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  Speaker 5: And I think sometimes you just need somebody to want you,
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  Speaker 5: somebody who's like, I don't have to I don't have
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  Speaker 5: to spend my energy on the proving of my searching.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't have time for that.
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  Speaker 5: I gotta So that was that was lovely to experience
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  Speaker 5: and so okay, so this is what I want to do.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, this story I have I wanted. I thought
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  Speaker 5: about the story right after I got staffed on Moesha
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  Speaker 5: back in ninety five. This Yeah, it's Lizzy, but I
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  Speaker 5: put it on the shelf and you can see the
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  Speaker 5: subjects in some of my other I've touched on it
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  Speaker 5: a little bit, but it wasn't enough room to talk
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  Speaker 5: about what I really want.
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  Speaker 1: To talk about. And the book's alignment was that.
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  Speaker 5: And I also think, going back to your question about
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  Speaker 5: the stories, I found a new outlet to get these
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  Speaker 5: stories that are literally being in me. It's almost like
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  Speaker 5: I getting this. I feel like I've birthed a baby.
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  Speaker 5: Now I got another, Like I've got more babies in
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  Speaker 5: there that I've got to incubate and get out in
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  Speaker 5: the world.
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  Speaker 1: And so I do have.
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  Speaker 5: A lot of stories in me, and I'm just looking
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  Speaker 5: for I feel like, you know, running out of time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I'm writing like I'm running out of time because we
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  Speaker 5: are We're not promised, we're not promised.
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  Speaker 1: But we made it here. So what are we doing
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  Speaker 1: with our life? What are we? What are we doing?
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  Speaker 5: And I'm excited about telling the story because I think
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  Speaker 5: even for me, I'm the when you heal, when you
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  Speaker 5: actually when you talk a lot about this, when you heal,
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  Speaker 5: you create more capacity for who.
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  Speaker 1: You really are. And I think, why are we here?
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  Speaker 5: And I think that's when we get in harmony with
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  Speaker 5: alignment and with ourselves and with each other, and we
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  Speaker 5: need a new frequency. You guys, I just shout out
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  Speaker 5: in New York. First of all, you know, I'm by coastal,
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  Speaker 5: so I'm partially you know. But I was here for
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  Speaker 5: Game one, And first of all, I brought the weather
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  Speaker 5: that day because it was not supposed to be cute
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  Speaker 5: on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I came in on Tuesday,
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  Speaker 5: so it became very cute.
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  Speaker 1: And just I wanted to I remember, I want to
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  Speaker 1: be there for game one and was it.
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  Speaker 5: I didn't go physically, I just was. I ended up
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  Speaker 5: at I was. I ended up in Brooklyn with all
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  Speaker 5: these beautiful black people watching the game again, and then
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  Speaker 5: to go back to LA and watch you guys be
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  Speaker 5: outside that heartbeat. That frequency is what we need, and
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  Speaker 5: I feel like it's removing in that direction. And I
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  Speaker 5: feel I hope that the book how I'm entering the
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  Speaker 5: chat about releasing and not getting, not running, not dealing
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  Speaker 5: with it later, not pushing it to the side.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, face your stuff, deal with.
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  Speaker 5: It and let it go, and then be curious about yourself.
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  Speaker 5: Where where your energy now can go? Because we spend
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  Speaker 5: so much energy, like Dion. I know we're going to
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  Speaker 5: get and talk about the book, but like Dion, who
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  Speaker 5: looks like she's got it all together, spending all her
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  Speaker 5: energy managing the lids that she's trying to keep on
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  Speaker 5: her life.
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the book.
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  Speaker 3: A little bit. The setting is nineteen nineties New Yes.
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  Speaker 3: The plot beauty editor Dion. Her life gets turned upside down.
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  Speaker 3: Her X rides with life threatening news because he has
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  Speaker 3: a potential HIV diagnosed.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, so she goes.
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  Speaker 3: On a road trip to confront a childhood secret she's
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  Speaker 3: buried for decades.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Well, she just she's that is exactly she's.
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  Speaker 5: We're meeting her like a lot of us, dealing with
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  Speaker 5: the hits on her life, her recent hit.
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  Speaker 1: She's really doing really well.
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  Speaker 5: She's up for job promotion at essence, you know, she's
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  Speaker 5: the it was the mecha of where you wanted to
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  Speaker 5: work if you were a black girl and want to
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  Speaker 5: be in publishing, magazine publishing. And she's just getting over
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  Speaker 5: a guy who five years of her life and she
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: wanted to thought she was going to get married. And
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: so when that knock on the door, you don't ever
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  Speaker 5: think back in the nineties, we did not think that
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  Speaker 5: disease was even about us until it really took a
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  Speaker 5: lot of us down because for a minute, you know,
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  Speaker 5: in the late eighties it was still a gay, white
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  Speaker 5: man's disease, but that disease was taking a lot of
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  Speaker 5: us out. More specifically, our neighborhoods, our communities are womeneres.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, wait a minute, Wait a minute.
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  Speaker 5: And so if you think it was just so she
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  Speaker 5: was living her best life, this knock comes on the door.
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  Speaker 5: And in back then when we had to take the
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  Speaker 5: HIV test, it was a two week wait. Could you
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  Speaker 5: imagine waiting on you first, your your heart is beating,
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  Speaker 5: You think, I may this could be my life be
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  Speaker 5: over with this result. Well, that level of pause and
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  Speaker 5: reflection is what Dion goes through, and she has to
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  Speaker 5: because the homework you have to do during the test
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  Speaker 5: is to write down all your sexual partners. And when
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  Speaker 5: you make a list like that, you have to be
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  Speaker 5: also you're confronting yourself and the choices that you have
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  Speaker 5: made things that you've been complicit in and maybe those
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  Speaker 5: that you haven't. And that's a lot to face. And
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  Speaker 5: how did I get here? I'm cute and trying to
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  Speaker 5: put this. You know, she's a beauty editor, so she's
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  Speaker 5: just trying to tell you what the cutest makeup is
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  Speaker 5: and not and just running away from all these things
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  Speaker 5: that you think just because I moved away from home
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  Speaker 5: and got some money in my pocket.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so crazy.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you're talking about something that happened that was
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  Speaker 2: big in the eighties and nineties and I just wanted
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to google. But it's still affecting so many people now.
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  Speaker 2: They're saying, like Atlanta has one of the highest rates
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  Speaker 2: in the country, which is just very scary for people
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  Speaker 2: out there now because I just remember how me growing
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  Speaker 2: up in New York, and I know it might be
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: different for everybody, but I felt like it hit New
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  Speaker 2: York so heavy. Right in the late eighties, it was big,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: and like you said, it was a men's it was
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  Speaker 2: a gay, white men's disease. In the eighties the nineties,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: it was a crack disease, right, disease, people shooting themselves up,
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  Speaker 2: sharing needles, and just remember seeing it and people affected
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  Speaker 2: by it.
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  Speaker 4: So I just remember how it was and the.
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  Speaker 2: Fact that it's still we still don't have a cure.
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  Speaker 2: We can kind of well, I don't even know we
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  Speaker 2: have a cure because it's more manageable, more manageable, but
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  Speaker 2: it's not in well system anymore.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting they're talking about PREP. They're taking PREP,
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  Speaker 5: and so then people our behavior around sexual our sexual health.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: People are not wearing the condom anymore, so that if
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: I get it, then it's okay because I have PREP.
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  Speaker 5: But why do we want to use our energy that way?
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  Speaker 5: Why do we want to use our resources that way?
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  Speaker 5: Why do we want to And I think that's what
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  Speaker 5: I'd like us to because I just want us to
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  Speaker 5: consider how we are using our energy and collectively as
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: people in general under oppressive regimes, because that's like what's happening.
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  Speaker 5: But we've been managing generation by generation. But I think
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: we're at a beautiful just watching you and we watch
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  Speaker 5: your daughter dance, what you and your wife and your
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: family have able to do for her and the protection
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  Speaker 5: of her, We're at a very critical, beautiful place of
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  Speaker 5: protecting our future by really dealing with dealing with the
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: stuff we don't want to deal with.
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  Speaker 1: Now we might as well.
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  Speaker 5: There's so much happening in the world, why not clean
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  Speaker 5: out our closets? Just going and clean out our closets
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  Speaker 5: right now? To me like Dion, because sometimes life is
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  Speaker 5: just going to take the rug from underneath you. And
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: so when we meet Dion, the rug is taking up
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  Speaker 5: from underneath her and she's got to go back and
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  Speaker 5: face this idea of herself and how did I get here?
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  Speaker 5: And I'm really hopeful that she will be sort of
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  Speaker 5: a champion character for encouragement to go on and bear
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  Speaker 5: your shame.
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  Speaker 6: Can we talk a little bit about compartmentalizing, because I
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  Speaker 6: feel like Dion does a really good job, and girls
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  Speaker 6: like Dion who are like I have the career and
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  Speaker 6: I'm successful. You can compartmentalize a lot of things that
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  Speaker 6: trauma or whatever that get you to that point. When
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: does Dion, or even for you personally, when do you
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: realize that compartmentalizing doesn't help you even though you're successful
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: in real life?
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  Speaker 1: That's such yes, really great question. One.
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  Speaker 5: I think two things can be true, and we are
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: learning how to do that better and better, especially even
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: with the onset of social media, we know how to
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: present many different avatars of ourselves by hiding a lot
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: times that origin story. And sometimes the origin story is
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: the fuel to get you to a certain place because
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: you're trying to prove to yourself I'm not the thing
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  Speaker 5: that happened to me, or or or the choices I made.
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: I can wash myself clean with what we deem success. Right,
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  Speaker 5: So it's easy to distract ourselves about success.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: You know about success?
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  Speaker 5: I mean, think about how much time we make content
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  Speaker 5: for the ground versus actually living the life.
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  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Yes.
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  Speaker 1: But your life is still over here.
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  Speaker 5: So we're carrying two things at once. And that is
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: in of itself compartment compartmentalization.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: So we have a skill.
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  Speaker 5: And it's not to say that that's a bad thing
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  Speaker 5: all the time, you know it's but but that is
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: what we're doing. I am saying that is energy. And
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: you were saying what what for Dion or for me?
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  Speaker 5: When you say it's just too much? When you are
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  Speaker 5: when we are taking energy from our bodies and we
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: don't feel good, we don't look good, we're starting to
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: get sick. You're it's going to show up in your
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: body because you still are carrying it, whether you want
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: to pretend it's there or not, or you know it's
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: there and you want to ignore it, or you know what,
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: Let me drink this drink real quick to put it
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: to put it back to sleep. And every time you
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: drink that drink, you are adding more.
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  Speaker 1: This is an energy gain people. You I'm saying, like,
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  Speaker 1: how what you eat, what you drink, who you hang with.
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  Speaker 1: So imagine if you're constantly holding on to the trauma
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that you never dealt with, that you even lie to
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  Speaker 1: your therapist like you know, but you're.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: Pretending I go to church, I'm dealing with it, but
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  Speaker 5: you're not really dealing with it. And I think it's
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: when it shows up in the body for me when
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: and I was just like, okay, why where's my energy?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Why why is it hard?
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: And it's not just age, not we And I think
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: that's another thing that I think is a part of
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: a capitalist thing that oh it's your age. No, No,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: if you take care of yourself, your body will take
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: care of you.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: But how and we can talk.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: We're talking about a lot of the external things, like
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of growth and a lot of investment
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: in like the wellness spas great, but what are we
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: doing on the inside? And that is a messy job.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: And Dion has a messy, messy, messy two weeks and
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: she and she literally puts it. She stepped by step. Funny,
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: that's been my walkout music, step by step. But anyway,
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: bring Whitney to the party.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And I think that's what we do.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: Stop running from the storms, turn around, face the storms,
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: go through it. Have you guys ever been in the
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: storm like it's and then you get on the other side.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I was in Florida once.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: I thought I was going to die inside this storm,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: and I didn't even know what to do anymore.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: But it I couldn't go back, I couldn't go forward.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I was just going slow, so slow. And then I'm literally.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: Praying, white knuckling the steering wheel, just praying to God,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: like I don't even know what to do. And then
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: suddenly I was on the other side and it was
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: like paradise.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: It was like it was almost like what happened? Did
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I go through a portal? And that is true.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: We will go through a portal And then for me,
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: me going through my own portal, my lemons are now
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: technically my lemonade. Sure, you know it's technically the lemonade.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: And I think what I think I'm really gifted at
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: is talking about now talking about the truth through fiction
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: so that sometimes there's just a little bit of a
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: distance from it, so that we can just there is
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: a bit of an entertainment, you know, to the storytelling
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: is entertainment.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Let me hold your attention to give you a fable
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: can Yeah.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: How does it affect your mental right? Cause you're talking
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: about trauma, sexual abused, generational pain healing, So how does
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: it affect you when you do it? Because you have
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: to open up some of your wounds.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it is funny. And then how we get vaccines? You?
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  Speaker 5: Yes, so you got to open it up. And I
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: think it's okay.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You know. Uh.
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  Speaker 5: Even in fact, when I was writing this book, though,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: there's like this last little the last like real effort
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: to know is this really a book? Because I literally guys,
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: I was like, if if this ain't good, I'm just
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: gonna give them their check back because I'm not gonna
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: do it, come out with a book and be like, oh,
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  Speaker 5: just fail. I had to know that I loved it,
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: and in that last push, I was here in New York.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: I love to write here in New York, and I
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: have a whole writing ritual. And the last last week,
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: I literally fasted so that I can stay completely focused,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: called on God, called on my Angel. I just sort
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: of wrapped myself in this cocoon of creativity expectation for
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: God to show up in the creative process. And and
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: so what happens is when you do have to open
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: it up, but it's it's almost like you're baptizing your
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: wounds and that. And it was the fasting, I mean
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: it was I don't know if you've ever fasted, especially
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: for like Ramadan. You you it's all of that toxicity
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: comes up, but then it free then it just leaves
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: your body. It's like a birthing of it, excuse me,
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: just sort of letting it out. You can almost physically
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: feel it come off of your body. So that that
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: was my That's what happened for me. So it's also
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: a sign that this is this can go out into
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: the world. And and so that has been empowering. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: I do believe I loved it, just like when when
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: I wept in Forever the Last I loved it that
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: I can rock with that I know how to I
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: know how to fight for, protect, provide, promote, defend that
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: body of work and so.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And I think and that was that. That was the last.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: You know, I think I'm a great writer because I
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: was afraid to talk, like.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I really envy people get y'all are here every day
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: just flowing, trusting your voice.
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: Is it because you were a journalist prior to soul No, I.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: Became a journalist because I learned how my voice got
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: trapped in order to survive certain things.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: You silence is how you move for a second.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Right, because this book does deal with secrets, and you
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: think secrets protect us are to your point.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: In prison us? Oh absolutely, imprison us.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: But sometimes when you're you know, certain situations, you can't
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: say anything at that point because then you likely can
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: be harmed further than you're already being harmed. So I
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: silence was my protector until it becomes your oppressor when
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: you don't even know how to use your voice. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: going back to writing, I think that voice was in me.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But I found it through the pen.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: Whereas in writing, which is why I think I'm a
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: pretty pretty good writer, is I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite,
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: re write, rewrite, judge it before I'm happy with it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: When you.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: Off the cuff, your intuition, your feeling of the moment.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: I never trusted that. And that's when it started to
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: feel like my oppressor, that I have things to say
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: and I'm not even like I've been on I've been
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: on your show, and I thank you for always having me.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: But I feel better and better each time because the nervousness.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Of being.
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: If I say the wrong thing and back when you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: you know, okay, If I say the wrong I don't
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: know where I'm going to be.
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: And I.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Almost broke into tears watching you watch your daughter.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: I was her age when things were happening to me
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: instead of my father somewhere providing for my ability to
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: express myself as beautifully and artistically. The amount of time
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: and effort you and your wife and your family have
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: put into that child, and you have more than one child,
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: that child, and see the greatness in her at nine
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: years old, because she is loved and provided and protected.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: Imagine if we were all that way. Yeah, And so
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: when I look at.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That, I'm like, I didn't have that. I didn't have that.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: Do you still long for it sometimes?
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: Like that feeling of protection?
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: Well, this is what I wanted. One of the revelations
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: I had in writing this book. But I love I
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: loved all the storylines, but one of the storylines is
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: the friendship storyline between Dion and Farah.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And what that storyline?
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: Every time I do something, I do expect something back,
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: but I don't never know when the revelation of it
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: hits me. But I had to edit the copy editing
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: of a book. I see you with your book, Jess,
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: congratulations girl, But that copy editing part is arduous.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to pull my hair out. And I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: was being.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: Kind of fussy in a bad energy space, and I said,
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: let me get my let me get my situation together,
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: let me this is the blessing.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Let me reread.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: And the chapter that I reread was when Parah and
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: towards the end of the book, where the arc of
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: that friendship is there. And what I realized so much
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: about the fringe, what really girlfriends are? Why girlfriends resonates
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: to this day is I now understand the power deeper
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: girlfriends or friends, guy friends, we represent surrogate parents and
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: they will hold us until we are strong enough so
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: that can repairent ourselves. That's why I wanted to get
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: to It's about reparenting ourselves. So when you ask me
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: about the longing, I need to long because when I do,
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: I then go do something for Mara. I've then become
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: the father that didn't I become the mother that couldn't
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: whatever for myself.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And then what that does is I can look.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: At my parents and I can put them in the
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: context of their history, of their life and of the world,
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: and I can then have empathy and compassion for them.
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: And they've stopped becoming mom and dad and they become
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: their names, and I get to know them and I
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: get to love them, and then I get to know
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: better my name, and then I know better my purpose
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: and I understand, No, I don't that the things that
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: have happened to me were supposed to happen to me, because.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I am in my light right now.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: I'm my best when I'm a storyteller, and so I'm
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: here and even my guilt sometimes about parenting my career.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: I don't always get to tuck my kids in, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: I don't get to make the right snacks, and I
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: don't always get to carpool my kids, so again a blessing.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: But then I told them who I am as opposed
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: to the kind of mother. I think I'm supposed to be.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. Yes,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: when you have a conversation with your parent and realize
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: that person had a life for they were your parents.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, Oh it's so free.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: And then and knowing that your kids love you just
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: as much as you love them, and they make But
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: there is.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: This when you free yourself of guilt.
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: I have all this energy back to think of more
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: creative ways that I can be uniquely their mother, not
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: the way the picture says I'm supposed to do it,
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: or the way Jess does it, or the way that
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying, or the way.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: That Envy's wife does it. I don't have to be
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: like her. I can be like me. And because these
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: kids chose us.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: And they came to get something from us, But I
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: want to ask what are we giving them?
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Are we giving our children.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: The best of who we are or do they are
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: still managing our unhealed pain.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: I think it depends where you are as a parent,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: right because you know when you're a parent and you
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: come up shortened parent, Yes, like you can see it
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: and you can see when you do something that impacts
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: your child in a negative way. Are you willing to apologize?
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I do that me too, you know, and.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: The conversation that can open up between you and a
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: seven year.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Old, yes, are life changing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: My daughter's seven, right. Yeah, So it's just like just
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: apologizing and having that you just feel like you're talking
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: to a thirty something.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Yes, they have such wisdom, that's right, and dook, It's
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: just that's what I'm saying.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: That's what I want to protect.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: And you talk a lot about healing, and I think
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: you know the impact on your life.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Look at word, I mean listen. I mean just recently
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: where you guys have achieved together?
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: Hm, I mean, come on, generational wealth, there's this we've got.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: We can unload this.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: And have moments of parenting like that where we have
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: really created more of a garden box for our children
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: to grow and not just you know, and you can
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: you know, use honesty and authenticity as the fertilizer for
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: that and that then that to me is like saying, hey,
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: what I what I'm trying to tell you is true.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The way I said it was a little fucked up.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: Oh sorry, And and but what I'm trying to tell you,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: I'm telling you this is how I think. I'm I
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: think you might need this for your protection or for
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: your this, or for your that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Like even I tell my sons all the time, you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: have to understand.
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: Every thought I have is for the I want for
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: you to be great and what it then create?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, but mom, I have an idea. Okay, Well, then
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: tell me.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Communicate, just tell me it because I'm gonna overthink it
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: to death.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: Oh God, yeah, was mom? That's what you do?
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: And then I'm nagging you. Yeah, I don't mean to
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: This is my love. This is love, and I'm frustrated
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: you won't listen to me.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: But oh, you have an idea? Okay, Well what's your idea?
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: And how old?
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: How old was your kid before they came to you
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: and told you that though? Because I feel like with
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: my son, he's fourteen right, and when he was younger.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: I wasn't healed. I was unhealed. I was operating out
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: of toxicity. I was dysfunctional.
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: But now I have my one year old, she's on
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: a way to be in two, and I feel like
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: I'm a total different mom. Well, I am a total
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: different mom than I was back then. This was fourteen, thirteen,
• 26:50
  Speaker 7: twelve years ago, you know what I mean. And I
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: have that parental guilt because I wasn't this mom for
• 26:57
  Speaker 7: my son at this age.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Have you ever talked to him about.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I have after writing my book.
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: See, my book is a cool parenting mask where I've
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: reflect on all the things and.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: See, that's what I love about writing.
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: If the writing's gonna make you pause, you've got to You've.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Got to figure some things out.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: And in that thing, let's say you never listener and
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: you never publish a book, you never literally even put
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: it out. But that process is the reflection and the
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: healing that you even already had. Your son, you're saying,
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: at fourteen has already received an apology or a understanding
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: of how hey, I wasn't her, But you still have him.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: First of all, that's gonna feel good, whether he understands
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: it in the moment or not. The seed is already there,
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: and he also is. He loves you the most. His
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: eyes are on you all.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: So he already sees your change.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: But now you're almost saying to him. I'm sorry I
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: couldn't be that for you, but I'm here now, so
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: fourteen on boo boo, it's me you're here. That is
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: empowering and I feel like that that I think that
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: is just as healing. And you have him in your
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: under your roof for another at least four years for sure,
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: you know, just putting it out there, but they're gonna,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: they're gonna eventually, You're right. Different times, I think of
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: our housing situation is gonna change because of the nature
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: of the future and jobs. But to your point, but
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: there's gonna be a day he's gonna want his own
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: because he wants to. He needs to know, because he's
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: so loved by you and the whole family that he
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: wants to flex and show he wants you. He wants
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: to experience the highest version of himself. And that's what
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: healing does all around. And I think that I think
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: that on the guilt part, I still think that I
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: would say, you have to pause and repair on yourself
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: in every moment that that comes up and ask yourself,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: am I doing my best?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And if you're not, what can you do in the moment?
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: Like I'm still like I have my assistant helping me
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: about feeding them, like that's one of the biggest ones.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I don't cook.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: I'm never in even home hault all the time, but
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: even like trying to just not even have them think
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: about cooking. At least I'm the one who thought about
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: what a postmate. And I'm trying to be better about
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: that because they can do it themselves, but I'm trying
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: to do like, no, it's still my, It's still under
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: my jurisdiction and responsibility for you to eat.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And this is what I like for you to eat.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And here it is true.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Is writing this more vulnerable and writing television because there's
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: no way to hide like you know nothing.
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: You well to your point what's going to hold a reader?
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: And so I think a deeper truth is what holds
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: a reader in television, though I think I do, really
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: I dig deep. Can I can mix it with other
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: storytelling ads like music, the cinematography, the tone, the vibe,
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: the interiors, the exteriors.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: The clothing, the setting. I'm holding you with all of.
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: That information, whereas with the reader you have to imagine
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: the world. You're building the world with me. When I
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: say the color green, I'm assuming the four of you
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: have four different shades. When I say you know she cried,
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: you guys have four different ways that she cried. And
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: we get to build the world together. And that's what
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: makes it so intimate.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Did I did?
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: I give you enough for you to feel and stay
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: connected to me as I tell you the story?
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: What's easier writing and filmmaking?
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Neither I don't want, I don't, I don't. They're both
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: joyful for me.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: And joyful does include some hard, some challenging nights, yeah,
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: I And it also includes some my mom loves this word,
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: some horibulations I have. You're almost herripulations are almost like
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: like like no, it's all It's like it's like enthusiasm
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: on on a thousand you know what I'm saying, he says,
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: goosebumps and just like and you and that those moments, guys,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: when I'm having horribulations, you.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Know, gods in the room.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: You know it's not really coming. You're not thinking, so
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: something's coming through you.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: You're being fed, and.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: So you're just like, ah, let me just try, okay,
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: hold on, hold on and you and you can.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It's like riding.
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: That's why I know now I understand surfers sometimes you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: living on the West Coast, you drive, you know, pH
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: You're like, they're just.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Sitting in the water, They're not doing anything.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: But when you catch a wave on writing, you will
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: sit in that water. And sometimes you only ride a
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: little wave, a little wave, but when you want to
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: catch those big ones. And that's what I've been doing
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: my whole career. I've been catching the big ones and
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: that's where the horripulations are. But a lot of days
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: you were just sitting in the water. But that's a
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: part of it too. You got to be in the
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: water to catch the wave. You got to sit in
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: the chair and expect and work with it and try
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: to ride the dragon of trying to figure out how
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: to tell you a story that keeps your attention long
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: enough for us to have maybe deeper conversations and about healing.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: Who sometimes you see the talk about healing, nobody wants
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: to talk about it. But when you get in somebody's business,
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: because this book, you all up in Dion's business and
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: you get to walk with her as her life gets
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: pulled from underneath her and her pilled herself right back up.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And I feel like those triumphs are worth.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: The the hard parts. I'm trying not to use the
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: word hard. I think that's what you see me stuttering.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: It's around this. It's not hard when you choose it.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: It's a commitment and to that commitment. There are so
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: many joys in it, and there are so many days
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: that are challenging, challenging.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: It's like the gym.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the gym.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how long did you have to sit in the
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: water for forever? Season two?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: Well, it was interesting because at the while we were filmed.
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: Right toward the end of filming season one, I knew
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: what season two was. However, Netflix and I had a
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: conversation about uh, because and it was designed this way.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Justin and Keisha were are our COVID babies.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: They're they're they're the part of the generation who's some
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: of the biggest rights of passage timing, and.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Their life is affected because COVID.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: But a lot of statistics and a lot of algorithms
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: and a lot of data saying that audiences will tune
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: out if people have masks on their face. They just
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: cannot deal with that, And so they were just we
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: just had a real conversation and back and forth about
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: whether or not.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: You know, we'll do the COVID years, and but I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: already knew what it was.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: I knew what that season was, and I knew that
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: that was going to be a challenge. And I had
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: all these ideas about what I wanted to do, but
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: I prayed on it and I said, Okay, let's take
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: the leap. And so when you asked me, how long
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: I sit in the water with that? This is where
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: collaboration and team work. The first person I said to Netflix,
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: I said, where is Erica Harrison Gez, executive producer on
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: the Film's on the film?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Excuse me?
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: It feels like a film that we write it an
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: eight hour film. But Erica is my right hand in
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: the writer's room. And we sat down. We love the show,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: It's in our DNA. We sat down for three days
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: and we pitched the We understood, we understood the vision
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: of where we were going. We went in and pitched
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: it to our partners at Netflix. They were lovely. They
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: heard it, they got it, they understood it, and we
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: then hired an amazing writing staff from there, brought back
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: as many of our players, our other collaborators you know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: in production that we could That's one of the challenges
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: about not keeping production going. You could lose some of
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: the people that you do it with, but it then
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: makes space for new people. And so that's where we
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: are now.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: We are.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: Moe Marble is directing this block right now in Los
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: Angeles and he's incredible to work with.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: We're midway through production, so.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: You're skipping COVID, you're skipping the COVID years.
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: But we're not skipping. So what was challenging and what
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: was fun? This is what it's the kind of the
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: work you do for a book. What is the backstory
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: to a moment? So what we had to do is
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: we had to build their backstory in COVID to understand
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: how we drop you into the summer of twenty twenty three,
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: got and so, but so we had to know all
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: of what happened, and so we have to build that.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: And that's what you do to do a book.
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: Only I get to put it on the page, whereas
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: in the show, we had to build it so that
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: writers understood where the characters were when we were talking
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: about and how we reveal what happened during COVID too.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: So that's it's a fun it's a fun way to write.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Now I realized, oh, just playing around with my writing
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: style in two different forms, constantly revealing the.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: COVID years were difficult years, shudo, because you know, I
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: have six kids. So O, my daughter, who she graduated
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: high school COVID years, started her freshman year in college
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: and she lost both of those because high school she
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: had to close out and one another yes. And then
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: her first year in college she had the do line.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: So now her second year where they move off campus,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: she doesn't have any friends because the first year.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Was just she didn't have any of those bonds.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So I've seen how it affected kids without having that, Like,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: those were bad times.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: And we need to I think, you know, that's something
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: that we should be looking for in our you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: in our state funding. How are we giving children? Like
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: to think about this. One thing I love about writing
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: about the nineties though there was the shadow of HIV,
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: but it was all the promise of the future our
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: black culture was we were monetizing black culture in the nineties,
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: we were getting we were coming up in the nineties.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: There was I mean, Dion represents a woman, is a
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: pioneer of the first time that we can consider careers
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: that our mothers and grandmothers could not even dream of,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: so we were. It was full of a future. To
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: your point about the is now, how do you dream
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: though they're doing? Are we checking in on them in
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: a way, But a lot of times we can't check
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: in on them because we ain't dealt with us. We
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: can't even see that they're We might need to give
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: some attention to them. We're taking up our issues, undealt issues.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: We're taking up too much space in our lives that
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: we cannot see what needs to be handled right now.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: In fact, I'm so happy to be here with you
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: guys on the book tour. Shout out to my book tour.
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: Black women show up and show out all the time.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: We are the backbone of this country point bank period
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: where I am excited and I'm really hopeful to also
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: have this conversation, especially being girl dads. I think the
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: allies to this book need to be girl dads because
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: knowingly and unknowingly when Dion had to make that list,
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: there are some guys on there.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Who probably in.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: They probably knew that they could manipulate and that's still
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: happening today. And I would love for fathers to give
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: their daughters some game now to say that you're not
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: but really being focused about what's going on out there.
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: One to protect them and their body so that they
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: are not being robbed of their body autonomy, that they
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: have a relationship with their body that is purely theirs,
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: and they can grow into understanding who they are. And
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: by the way, our children's brains do not develop until
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna say twenty seven. They say twenty five, but
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: I said twenty seven because I've just decided.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I've decided it's twenty seven.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: So daddy's mommies we got to be protecting these babies
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: until then and reminding them and finding creative ways to
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: get to them, to protect them, but also to our sons,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: fathers telling the sons how to treat hey. You know what,
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: there are gonna be some young ladies out there.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: And by the way, boys too.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: We don't even talk about what's happened to boys that
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: they don't even feel at all they.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Can talk about what happened to them.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: So anyway, I just would love to in this as
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: I build and get the word out about the book,
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: and I really just want us to have conversations for healing.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I mean.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: The book is just really me entering the chat to
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: talk about a lot of my portrait works are let's
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: look at us for real, y'all, from the good to
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: the bad and.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: The in between.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: It's like a protest on shame.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Come on, can I have that for my protest on shame? Yes,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: it really is.
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, we unnecessarily are holding on
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: to too much of it, how much we get beat
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: upon as humans period, but more specifically black people. I
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: think I want us to collectively instead of let's let's
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: be a protest on shame. So I want the girl
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: dads to help out. I think you guys are my
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: natural next ally because the black women are holding it down.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: And I would really love girl dads to get into
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: a conversation with their daughters about why daddy is trying
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: to protect you you you know, and and what's really
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: going on out in the world, and this is what
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: is you know, this is people pleasing and and how
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: that differs from pleasure. We had to get into helping
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: her understand the difference of this and what is really
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: on the minds of you guys having real conversations and
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: you know, you can find it on Instagram, but it's
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: nothing length your daddy telling you.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's easy, but you can.
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: Still say you can, and you can, you can, you
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: can take it into trees. And also, our children are
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: made in degrees and some are gonna some are gonna
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: be right in on the conversations, some are gonna be out,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: and it's our job to figure out how to reach them.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: And if it's not you know the strategy of like, hey, auntie,
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: you may say this, and then you know the echo
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: the echo chamber of how we want to get information
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: and care and love to our children.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: I got homies having conversations with their daughters about going
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: in the birth control and you, you better than me,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: you can't do that.
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: Come on this, Wait a minute, are you telling me
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: you you can't have that conversation?
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: But my oldest just turned eighteen.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: It's have you talked to her about?
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: No?
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Really, but the first time you had sex?
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: What what age were you the first time I had sex? Yes, sir,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like seventeen eighteen maybe.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's those conversations.
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: I think you think it's difficult though, because it's like
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: that's your baby, But they're they're.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: The only ones that he saw with just his daughters
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: everybody else.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Very rough, very true.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: It's just about that particular topic.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: And and but that topic, you know we're gonna talk about.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: There's another Anna.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: Malika Tubbs has a book called Erased, and it really
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: talks about the founding of sex, procreation and all of
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: this and how it really is tied into the founding
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: of this country, but by those particular that patriarchy. My
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: point is, I believe we are healing still from that
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: level of trauma in our country, and so the mixing
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: of what we guess this is.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: The question I even had when I started the book.
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: Is is our sexual agency as women now true liberation
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: or an echo of the trauma? Because we have to
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: understand and I'm not saying yes, it is our sexual
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: agency today, ladies, our sexual agency.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: How we deal? Is it really liberation? Is it?
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: Or are they echoes of the trauma that we still
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: have not healed?
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Our bodies?
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: Women girls need to be should be not only protected,
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: but we should feel safe enough to show the beauty
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: of us and that be honored. But it's somehow, you know,
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: even we talk about misogyny that's not particular to men,
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: that is a concept that even women can adopt and
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: call it freedom. And if it is, I mean I'm there.
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: If a woman has her sexual agency through liberation, great.
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: You're talking about the feminist movement when no, I'm not
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: even talking about feminist movement. I'm talking about body autonomy.
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: Our bodies.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: Our bodies are bantied about in politics all the time
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: because if we understand the origin of this country, white
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: women's bodies are to produce a certain air. Our bodies,
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: our black bodies were to produce labor, a labor force.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: About that this morning, that is happening. So is that gone?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: How is it showing up in everyday life when I
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: can be bad all by myself.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And I can do you understand? I don't know. I'm
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: not saying and I'm not I'm not.
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: There is no So I'm just asking can we examine
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: and I think, Dion, when you've got to face a
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: the number of lovers you have or sexual partners.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: That you had, and how did I get here? How
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: do I get here?
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: And she takes you on how she got here and
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: where she is currently, and so then the question becomes
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: I'm going back to you and your conversation with your
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: daughters about why not tell her what young boys you're
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: what young boys are thinking when they see young girls,
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: why not why not say hey, what is pleasure like?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: You know? On forever all the it's.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: Intentional to to depict young girls who are sex positive.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: They're all sex positive. Keshaul went through a social challenge,
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: but she used that phone as as a lot of
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: us do, as a part of their sexual play. And
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: that is something that can be healthy if it stays contained.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: But if it doesn't, it be comes. And those are
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: the boundaries that there was not enough protection and providing
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: for and helping us to negotiate and helping our children
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: understand that choice. And even Keisha says herself, I betrayed myself.
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: I betrayed myself. And when you take ownership of yourself,
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: then you're gonna the next time you're gonna be a
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: little different. Even if you still make the same choice,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: you're making it from a different, a more informed.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Place, a more so anyway.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: I just those conversations, I think Charlemagne, it can't just
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: be mothers.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I talk to my sons about a woman's point of view.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Sometimes just giving you some just giving you something to
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: think about, just giving you something to think about that
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: sometimes some young women, you know, especially unhealed ones, a
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: little good attention might just feel like the daddy they
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: never had, and she's gonna cling different even though you
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: told her let's keep a casual Yeah, you told her that,
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: But for her to lay down, she's laying down with
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: her heart. She's laying down with a void in her
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: and it's not just casual.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And so you got to be able to detect, do you, because.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: Then you might then be partially She might ask you
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: to be responsible for something she can't deal with, yet
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: you want that, And so those are the conversations I
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: think we can get. Besides, you know how to do
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: it and how to I mean, even like you were saying,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: in the statistics of HIV and AIDS going up in
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: our black communities, that's disheartening because I would just say, dang,
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: just from a resource game, you could take that money
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: and go on vacation than having to constantly buy your medicines.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I think, just how do we shift the energy?
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Energy is resources, and we have a lot of it,
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: and it's trapped in the compartmentization of our bodies.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Most times yeah, I think about these things. You guys
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: are letting me.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: You know, I gotta ask because every time you mentioned
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: the great girlfriend, come on, that was the last question
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: rolls up every single time, and that's.
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: The number this time, the first no, the first time
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: I gave a number with with you, when I was
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: promoting love Is, I gave a number and that number
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: still stands.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: What people, is there any movement? When you say there.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Is, it's funny you know there is this.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: It's interesting the last I think with the with the
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: success of Forever, I think people are, oh, shit, she's
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: not she's not gone. She still got it. Then there
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: was some reach out, but oh, but can you do
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: it for this price? It's like, guys, I know, No,
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: this is how I and this is where healthy Mara
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: comes into play.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: This is how I want to experience it.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: Just like I want my sex this way, I want
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: my tea. I would just like I want to experience.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: It this way. That's a powerful thing.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: Going back to then, Okay, whatever you want, I'm all
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: want sex more in business, whatever you want, and then
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: I may or may not get what I want out
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: of it because because I'm people pleasing I'm in a
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: place right now with girlfriends. I don't I want to
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: do it that I've made that clear, right, I want
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: to do it. The cast wants to do it. But
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: I believe there is a value on this. It is
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: and I also know what fifty million will turn over.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Is insane.
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: And so if I can't do it the way that
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: I think it deserves, why am I doing it? And
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: so and I haven't come up with yet a story
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: that I'm excited to tell in a different budget.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Because guess what that is more energy, just more thinking.
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: And I've got to I got forever to do. I
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: got a book to promote. I got kids, you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: to raise. I've got I've got a life to live
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: to I need to have I need to put rest
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: in there. I got tennis to play, you know, I
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: got you know. And so I have a story that
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: I think would be amazing. And I think and also,
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: this is another thing. What's gonna make peoples all these
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: markers like the film's got to be this to get
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: people out of the house. So I need fifty million
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: dollars to get people out of the house, and not
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: just I don't want you to watch it on a streamer.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I want to say, I want to wear Joan.
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: I want to see Joan outfits. I want to see
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: Tony outfits. I want to see Maya outfits. I want
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: to see Lynn outfits. I want to see Williams suits.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: I want to see I want to see people come
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: out and celebrate something we've been loving for twenty five years.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: And I want to have a party. I want us
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: to go out afterwards.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: You'm saying, I want us to talk about I want
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: us to show up with our friends, this.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Friend group, that friend group. Yeah, I want that. I
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: want us to I want those ladies to be at
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Canned killing the red carpet, like killing it.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: That's everything they deserve and you deserve it exactly. So
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: right now, I think fifty million is a bargain. Otherwise
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: I'll use my energy and I'll go maybe write another book,
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: or I'll go do something else, another storyline. I know
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: how i'd like to end girlfriends and how I would
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: like to experience it.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Could mar Brock and Kill be comfortable with not giving
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: girlfriends the.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: Proper yeah closure, because mar Brock and Quill gave it all.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: What about us?
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: No? No, but no, But I know, I know so
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: then okay, so then what we're gonna start off, go
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: fundme right here?
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: We can we get Can we get a million people
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: to give five dollars?
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: I think people would do that for you and girlfriends
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: so easily, especially with the new wave of like the
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: Netflix and people sitting down and rewatching it again. I
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: don't think that you think we don't know if you
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: want to do that. But I think that the.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: If I, if I can, I don't want, guys, what
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: I don't. What I can't do is go build a
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: whole campaign to go get I don't when I think
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: about my time, the amount of if you said, if
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: you guys said right now, we can go online and
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: say a million dollars for five a million people for
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: five bucks, and we have fifty million marble, go make that.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: But but if I I'm not begging, no, let me
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: show up.
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: I think when we honor our artists, our storytellers, we
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: are the people who help build culture, honor us, invest
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: in storytelling.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Invest in.
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: Support so that we can all eat. And because what's
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: here's here's here's the truth about storytelling. It's it's a
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: great asset you build girlfriends and to that in.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: The economy will shift.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: People will buy outfits, they'll buy tickets, they'll buy merch,
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: they'll buy dinner reservations, they'll go it, go, go to
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: the movie several times because they want to be Joan,
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: Tony Maya, Anlin rebirth of an era people's lives. Yes,
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: and it's right in alignment with all the fashion people
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: who are putting out ninety stuff. Right, it makes no sense.
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: So then it has to ask you why, because there's
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: a constant devaluation of black women, and as a black woman,
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: I cannot.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Participate in that devaluation. I agree with you.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: It's gonna happen.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Man's gonna happen.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: I know it's gonna happen.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: It's gonna happen.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: That's something you have been one of my biggest supporters.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: And I want to say, always say thank you to you.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Always think can ash you just so I can.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: What is it about girlfriends that you love so much?
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: Well, you know me and my wife and together. Oh,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: it'll be twenty years this year, congrat twenty.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: I don't remember.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I can't remember that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: But when she was in college, she's gonna kill them.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And I used to go and I used to go.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I used to go to her house let him come
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: back to life.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: She would always be watching it. Oh and so I
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: just started watching it, and for me, it was like
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: it was kind of like how we talk about secrets.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: It was like women, black women especially letting men in
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: on their secrets. Yeah, I'm like, these are the kind
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: of conversations y'all be having. So then it becomes a
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: conversation start between you and the women in your life.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: So it's just something that I ended up having an
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: emotional attachment to.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I love that. Well, Yeah, join us. Thank you for
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: always having you guys, always.
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: Make me feel safe, welcomed, and I really appreciate you guys,
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: and congrat again. Congrats to what you're doing and thanks
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: for me, thanks for letting me a part of your
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: journey as well.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Or brought the kill Ladies and gentlemen.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: The Revelation to Dion Daphne out right now and there's
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: an audiobook too.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, the wand ways can we shout her out?
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: She did an amazing job. Yes, yes, yes, it's the
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Good morning, hold.
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: Up every day a week ago.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Click your ass up the Breakfast Club. You'll finish the
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: y'all done,