Latest / The Breakfast Club / Trauma: The Adversary of Love: A conversation with Frederick Joseph

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Trauma: The Adversary of Love: A conversation with Frederick Joseph · The Breakfast Club

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Speaker 1: Hey, my name is Kevis and I was really scared
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Speaker 1: I'm glad I do, and press playing on What's next.
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Speaker 1: Learn more at nom status dot com. Sometimes life can
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Speaker 1: be complicated and messy, and inner society made up of
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Speaker 1: so many rules and expectations, Being yourself can be seen
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Speaker 1: as an act of rebellion or bravery. Hi, I'm Zach
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Speaker 1: Stafford and this is in the deep stories that shape us.
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Speaker 1: Join me as our guests black and Latin X men
0:52
Speaker 1: unravel the complexities and struggles they face in a place
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Speaker 1: that doesn't always see them, all of them for who
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Speaker 1: they really are. I sit down with the people, the athletes, community,
1:01
Speaker 1: and thought leaders that have struggled with the traditional ideals
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Speaker 1: of masculinity, religion, and family the society often imposes upon them.
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Speaker 1: Each episode, we explore the fears that make up the
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Speaker 1: Black and Latin X male psyche understanding the effects of
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Speaker 1: stigma and masculinity on self identity. We'll talk about how
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Speaker 1: these common themes of discrimination, culture, and economics factor into
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Speaker 1: the struggle, and yet how these hardships aren't enough to
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Speaker 1: stop these men on the road to health and healing.
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Speaker 1: I want to start off our very first episode by
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Speaker 1: talking about something I'm incredibly passionate about. Stories. Stories we
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Speaker 1: are told by family members, stories we tell ourselves to
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Speaker 1: make sense of the world around us, and even the
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Speaker 1: stories we tell ourselves to stay alive. I'm so passionate
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Speaker 1: about storytelling, not just because of my background as a journalist,
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Speaker 1: but because I always say that the one thing we
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Speaker 1: all do besides eat and drink each day is tell
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Speaker 1: each other stories. It's how we all communicate. But what
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Speaker 1: we rarely talk about is how these stories shape our
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Speaker 1: entire lives, maybe more than anything else, especially when it
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Speaker 1: comes to understanding the good and the bad that happens
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Speaker 1: to each of us. Today's guest, Frederick Joseph, is special
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Speaker 1: because he teaches us how to take our own stories
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Speaker 1: and swap trauma for love in a really beautiful and
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Speaker 1: expansive way. He's a New York Times bestselling author, activists,
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Speaker 1: and philanthropists. Who isn't a stranger to heartbreak? And I
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Speaker 1: think his own stories of love and loss are something
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Speaker 1: we can all relate to, especially when some of his
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Speaker 1: own stories weren't always the truth as he now knows it.
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Speaker 1: But before we get to the heavier stuff, I want
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Speaker 1: to hear from Frederick where did his story begin? Frederick,
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Speaker 1: it's so great to have you today, and I'd love
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Speaker 1: to begin our conversation for the listeners just to locate
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Speaker 1: who you are and where you come from. So tell
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Speaker 1: us where did you grow up? What was your family?
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Speaker 1: Like all those good details about your past. Yeah, so
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Speaker 1: I grew up in Yas in New York. And for
3:01
Speaker 1: those who aren't familiar with Yonkers, all of us like
3:03
Speaker 1: to say, well, that's where like Mary J. Blodge is from,
3:05
Speaker 1: and that's where DMX is from. So Yonkers is interesting.
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Speaker 1: And I, you know, frankly, I grew up in the
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Speaker 1: projects right, raised by a single black mother, and I
3:15
Speaker 1: had a ton of family in two places which also
3:17
Speaker 1: helped shape me, in Philadelphia and in Columbia, South Carolina.
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Speaker 1: So I spent weeks at a time in South Carolina
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Speaker 1: every few months, and then just kind of zipping the
3:30
Speaker 1: Philly and things like that. So those all are just
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Speaker 1: ingrained in my DNA. You could say, yeah, and I
3:36
Speaker 1: had a like the inverse of that. I grew up
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Speaker 1: in Tennessee, but would go to the north, to Baltimore,
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Speaker 1: to Iowa, to Chicago to see family. And you know,
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Speaker 1: people don't like to think of us as black men,
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Speaker 1: as particularly mobile people in the world that we have
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Speaker 1: families all around. But it's a big part about being
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Speaker 1: black in America because dude, of the great migration, our
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Speaker 1: families are all over. What was it like for you
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Speaker 1: to go back and forth between these two places that
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Speaker 1: I know personally blackness masculinity animates itself very differently in
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Speaker 1: these places sometimes, you know, I think that's an excellent
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Speaker 1: way of putting it. The manifestations of patriarchy, quite frankly,
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Speaker 1: are different in all places. So like in New York,
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Speaker 1: you know, there's this culture of art. I would say,
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Speaker 1: men and boys, especially black men and black boys, can
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Speaker 1: practice art, but specific types of art. If you're going
4:23
Speaker 1: to be in music, it had to be hip hop
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Speaker 1: or rap or maybe like extremely you know, for lack
4:30
Speaker 1: of better term, like swagged out R and B or whatever. Right.
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Speaker 1: But then in the South it was very sports and
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Speaker 1: labor intensive. I would go down to South Carolina and
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Speaker 1: that's actually where I learned to play football, you know,
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Speaker 1: just like yeah, like I learned to play football in
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Speaker 1: the South, which is kind of like why I did
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Speaker 1: so well in the normal. So I think that the
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Speaker 1: way masculinity and then patriarchy kind of manifests in the
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Speaker 1: South for me were just like why are you doing
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Speaker 1: anything pertaining in music? Why do you care about anything
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Speaker 1: pertaining to art? Why are you not more physical? Why
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Speaker 1: you not you know, kind of like more aggressive. It
5:02
Speaker 1: was very, very interesting how that played out. You know,
5:05
Speaker 1: A word that would come up really easily for us
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Speaker 1: to say is code switching, you know, cut switching, the
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Speaker 1: very academic word where we usually refer to that in
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Speaker 1: like white versus Black spaces, Like you go to your
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Speaker 1: corporate job as a black man and you act certain ways.
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Speaker 1: You go back to your community, you act one way,
5:18
Speaker 1: but we never talk about an intra community about how
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Speaker 1: our masculinity is changing. Do you relate to that? Did
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Speaker 1: you find yourself changing between black communities? I was a
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Speaker 1: surrogate for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign in twenty twenty and
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Speaker 1: I would get sent to the South all the time
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Speaker 1: to meet with black people in various spaces, whether that
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Speaker 1: was barbershops or hair salons or churches. There's like these
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Speaker 1: recordings which my fiance laugh sack. She's like, oh, whenever
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Speaker 1: you go to the South, you become a Baptist preacher,
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Speaker 1: whenever you're speaking publicly. And I'm just like, yeah, you know,
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Speaker 1: because I do code switch down there. Down there, I
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Speaker 1: get very I get very Jesus five. In the North,
5:57
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, hey, you the restaurant, I'm like, hey,
5:59
Speaker 1: do you have any kale and grilled chicken down there?
6:01
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you've got you know, you've been Yeah,
6:06
Speaker 1: you know, make sure them greens, they got so much
6:08
Speaker 1: vinegar in them. Yeah, so they know exactly what you Yes,
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Speaker 1: there is definitely this cold switching within blackness, and I
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Speaker 1: think that that speaks to the dynamism of the black community,
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Speaker 1: which is oftentimes a race through the white lens that
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Speaker 1: is the media, the white lens that is entertainment and
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Speaker 1: publishing in all these different spaces, as if we're a monolith.
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Speaker 1: But it's far from the truth. Much of what Frederick
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Speaker 1: talks about reminds me of this idea I've heard before,
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Speaker 1: that a stereotype is just a chapter in a book
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Speaker 1: you haven't fully read. And as a black man myself,
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Speaker 1: I know the realities that come with so many stereotypes
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Speaker 1: constantly thrust upon us. So I wanted to hear from
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Speaker 1: Frederick what was that moment, that aha moment that made
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Speaker 1: him realize that blackness wasn't a one size fits all.
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Speaker 1: I had the privilege of going to performing our elementary
7:00
Speaker 1: school in Yonkers, and you know, I went to my
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Speaker 1: first Broadway show when I was about eight years old.
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Speaker 1: I saw a Phantom of the Opera I'll Never forget.
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Speaker 1: My grandmother and I went, and I had to be
7:11
Speaker 1: quite frank. I don't even think I had ever been
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Speaker 1: to Manhattan, let alone to a Broadway show. I see
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Speaker 1: this play and I'm just like, awe struck. I'm like,
7:18
Speaker 1: oh my God, like, what is this right? Because the
7:20
Speaker 1: world that I come from, it's just completely different. So
7:24
Speaker 1: what ends up taking place is I'm walking out and
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Speaker 1: there was this other play happening at the exact same time.
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Speaker 1: It was Aida and Aida at the time was the
7:34
Speaker 1: star of Aida was Heather Headley, phenomenal phenomenal actress. And
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Speaker 1: I had just came from seeing this like brilliant show,
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Speaker 1: like starring a cast of full white people or whatever.
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Speaker 1: But I'm like, there's a black show. Black people don't
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Speaker 1: have shows like like this, right, So that moment switched
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Speaker 1: something in me because one, I didn't know that this
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Speaker 1: world existed, and I didn't know that black people, if
7:55
Speaker 1: this world exists, were allowed to exist within that world
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Speaker 1: that I didn't know existed, Right, So when I went home,
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Speaker 1: it made me question all of the constructs of blackness
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Speaker 1: that were imposed upon me everywhere I looked. Right, it
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Speaker 1: was like, oh, black people have to perform this, or
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Speaker 1: have to sing this, or have to sing that, or
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Speaker 1: have to only get to do these certain things. I'm like, well,
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Speaker 1: what about Heather Heavily? What about Heather? Yeah? What about Heather?
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Speaker 1: You know, hearing that story makes me better understand more
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Speaker 1: than I did before. Why you have a book coming
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Speaker 1: out called Patriarchy Blues, which explores as us a masculinity
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Speaker 1: patriarchy from both a personal and cultural standpoint. So why
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Speaker 1: did you decide to put this book out now? And
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Speaker 1: how are your own personal stories like the one you
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Speaker 1: should before influencing that book right now. So Patriarchy Blues
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Speaker 1: is interesting because when my personality is very much that
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Speaker 1: like my grandmother kind of built in me this idea
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Speaker 1: of as long as you have the ability to use
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Speaker 1: your hands for good work, then use your hands for
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Speaker 1: good work, right. And patriarch specifically is like aimed at
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Speaker 1: myself to a certain extent, right, I think that a
9:04
Speaker 1: lot of people do the easy thing of like pointing
9:08
Speaker 1: the finger and wagging the finger at people and telling
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Speaker 1: them how they're wrong. But it takes something really special
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Speaker 1: to be vulnerable and courageous and calling yourself out about
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Speaker 1: how you've been wrong, right. And I think that that's
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Speaker 1: the actual work that people need to get to. So
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Speaker 1: Patriarchy Blues is me saying like, hey, you know, I
9:24
Speaker 1: was molested by my babysitter from eight to ten years old,
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Speaker 1: and that put a chasm in my heart and actually
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Speaker 1: made me develop this anger towards women, and that anger
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Speaker 1: ended up evolving into becoming a womanizer in my teens
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Speaker 1: and in my twenties. That juxtaposed with living in this heteronormative,
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Speaker 1: patriarchal society, right, I was just like oh yeah, like,
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Speaker 1: oh I'm doing the right thing, not only am I
9:51
Speaker 1: justified in my pain? But I'm doing the right thing.
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Speaker 1: Society is telling me that. But what does it look
9:55
Speaker 1: like to be in your thirties and actually say, like, hey,
9:58
Speaker 1: I've spent the last decade plus unpacking and trying to
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Speaker 1: be better than this. But I don't think that this
10:04
Speaker 1: is just my work. This is our work, right, Like,
10:08
Speaker 1: this is our work as a community. Then I have
10:11
Speaker 1: to ask you, you know, as like a fellow, a
10:13
Speaker 1: person that has moved to the world pretty similarly in identity,
10:16
Speaker 1: where did you find this bravery to do that work?
10:19
Speaker 1: What I have is my story, right, I was like,
10:22
Speaker 1: if I have nothing else, I have my story, my
10:24
Speaker 1: story of pain, my story of joy, my story of agony,
10:28
Speaker 1: my story of desperation. And if I can, in my words,
10:33
Speaker 1: use my pen to be vulnerable, combined with my understanding
10:36
Speaker 1: of kind of how to market and tell stories from
10:38
Speaker 1: that lens, then I think that, you know, my theory
10:41
Speaker 1: of change is like people will grow. What lives might
10:45
Speaker 1: that save? If I'm willing to do that, right, what
10:47
Speaker 1: courage might that bring? And I think it just like
10:50
Speaker 1: honestly came from you know, when I was about twenty four,
10:54
Speaker 1: I found out that I have multiple scrossis, and you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: a lot of things changed at that moment where I
11:00
Speaker 1: I didn't spend all of my late twenties drinking and partying.
11:03
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of my late twenties trying to
11:05
Speaker 1: develop the wisdom of a man in his seventies. Right, Like,
11:08
Speaker 1: if I was to look back on my life, if
11:09
Speaker 1: I was to believe this earth tomorrow, what do you
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Speaker 1: want your legacy to be? And I want mine to
11:14
Speaker 1: be a legacy of progress in healing. This road to
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Speaker 1: healing reminds me a lot about the power of truth. Often,
11:22
Speaker 1: the stories that are told to us are just as
11:24
Speaker 1: important to the shaping of our lives as the stories
11:27
Speaker 1: we create ourselves. I relate to this idea of truth
11:29
Speaker 1: and stories because, like Frederick, I've had an uncle pass
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Speaker 1: from complications due to HIV and was told it was cancer.
11:35
Speaker 1: I was curious how that shaped his story, his community work,
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Speaker 1: and what his uncle represented in his life. Man, that
11:43
Speaker 1: is that's a nuanced story. So to tell that I
11:46
Speaker 1: have to first, you know, kind of talk about the
11:48
Speaker 1: matriarch of my family, who was my grandmother. Film of Forward.
11:51
Speaker 1: She passed of breast cancer when I was eighteen, and
11:55
Speaker 1: it was her second bout with breast cancer. The first
11:57
Speaker 1: time she didn't tell anybody. The second time she said
12:00
Speaker 1: she had a cold until she couldn't leave the hospital. Right,
12:03
Speaker 1: there's this aspect, I think, especially of certain generations of
12:06
Speaker 1: black people, as she was from you know, once again,
12:08
Speaker 1: she was from South Carolina, came up to the North.
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Speaker 1: She left the South because her first husband had been
12:12
Speaker 1: lynched by the clan that's the father of my uncle
12:16
Speaker 1: who actually died of HIV. So just for some context,
12:19
Speaker 1: real quick, she grew up in this hard, hard way,
12:23
Speaker 1: like she came up hard. Right. So the way that
12:26
Speaker 1: she has viewed not just masculinity, but the way she
12:29
Speaker 1: has viewed blackness is that it has to be as
12:33
Speaker 1: tough as steel, or else it will be bent, broken,
12:37
Speaker 1: melted down, you know, and then turned into bulletsty would
12:39
Speaker 1: probably be aimed at up other black people. Right. Yeah,
12:42
Speaker 1: So she was a lovely person who also didn't spend
12:46
Speaker 1: any time with the privilege that I have of navigating
12:50
Speaker 1: what it means to just be and not navigating what
12:53
Speaker 1: it just means to be. She of course to navigate
12:55
Speaker 1: other people's realities, such as homosexuality. Right, And it was
13:00
Speaker 1: just the propaganda of homosexuality, which she surface level was like, okay,
13:05
Speaker 1: surface level, this is what I know, this is what
13:07
Speaker 1: I understand, and this is what I don't want because
13:09
Speaker 1: she's equating homosexuality. I'd imagine with all the things that
13:14
Speaker 1: were the opposite of what a black person needs to survive. Right.
13:18
Speaker 1: So again, when you have in the seventies, eighties, nineties,
13:25
Speaker 1: these things that are happening in the community, from the
13:28
Speaker 1: epidemic of drugs, the epidemic of violence, so on and
13:32
Speaker 1: so forth, you get a major usage of heroin. So
13:38
Speaker 1: my uncle he was a heroin user and ultimately passed
13:43
Speaker 1: by contracting HIV from a needle. But with the propaganda,
13:49
Speaker 1: HIV can't be contracted with a needle from drug use, right,
13:53
Speaker 1: of course not, because HIV can only be contracted during
13:57
Speaker 1: that time and even now, I'm not gonna even just
14:00
Speaker 1: it on a time even now, Problematically, the view is
14:02
Speaker 1: that HIV is solely contracted through same sex acts. So ultimately,
14:08
Speaker 1: when he did have HIV, my grandmother refused to tell
14:11
Speaker 1: people that, right, And it wasn't just about homosexuality, it
14:16
Speaker 1: was about everything that came along with it, I'm sure, right, Like, oh,
14:20
Speaker 1: my uncle's name was Butch. This is Butch Junior. Butch
14:25
Speaker 1: Senior was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan fighting back
14:29
Speaker 1: being a revolutionary in South Carolina in the sixties. There
14:34
Speaker 1: is no way that Butch Senior's son is anything but hard,
14:39
Speaker 1: anything but tough. Anything. But you know the only thing
14:42
Speaker 1: that could put him down is cancer. Because cancer, everybody
14:46
Speaker 1: understands that. So I was lied to and everybody was
14:50
Speaker 1: lied to it. And I found out actually because I
14:53
Speaker 1: have three uncles. My uncle Butch died when I was
14:56
Speaker 1: a preteen. My uncle Randall died during COVID. He passed
15:01
Speaker 1: of complications with COVID. So my last uncle Mark, he
15:06
Speaker 1: and I were going up state to collect his brother's things,
15:10
Speaker 1: and I said to him, I was like, you know,
15:13
Speaker 1: why is it that you know these things happened to
15:15
Speaker 1: our family? You know, COVID cancer. He's like, oh, who
15:18
Speaker 1: passed of cancer? Like Butch? Right? Like like Butch passed
15:22
Speaker 1: of cancer? And he's like, he didn't pass up cancer,
15:24
Speaker 1: he had HIV. Who told you that? Wow? Right, So
15:27
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with having just lost an uncle a few
15:30
Speaker 1: days before being in COVID, and now not only do
15:32
Speaker 1: I have a reckoning of this lie in my family.
15:36
Speaker 1: But now I have to reckon with homophobia and my
15:38
Speaker 1: family and unpacking it and just a devastating impact that
15:41
Speaker 1: had generationally on my family, and how not navigating those
15:45
Speaker 1: waters built systemic cultural, generational homophobia in my family that
15:51
Speaker 1: has led you know, me and many instances to separate
15:54
Speaker 1: from members of my family. To this day, I relate
15:57
Speaker 1: to this so so much, and that you know, the
15:59
Speaker 1: stories are family tell to protect us from each other
16:02
Speaker 1: and from the world. Really, that we have to sell
16:04
Speaker 1: these certain versions of truth to better rationalize why something
16:08
Speaker 1: happened to someone or how they aren't in the world
16:10
Speaker 1: and why they aren't in the world. And what I
16:12
Speaker 1: really want to ask you about is like this idea
16:13
Speaker 1: of lying. You know, I carried with me for many
16:15
Speaker 1: years as a black gay guy that my family lied
16:18
Speaker 1: to me by not telling me that my uncle died
16:20
Speaker 1: from HIV he was gay, and I had a lot
16:22
Speaker 1: of resentment, But lately I don't because I understand why,
16:25
Speaker 1: being in like a more rural southern place, why they
16:27
Speaker 1: couldn't say that word. So do you in your own story,
16:30
Speaker 1: in your own family, is calling it a lie even
16:33
Speaker 1: useful to say? Because it sounds like they were just
16:35
Speaker 1: trying to survive in this world. I think that calling
16:38
Speaker 1: it a lie is useful because I believe in what
16:40
Speaker 1: I call radical accountability. Right. But I'm also a restorative
16:44
Speaker 1: justice type of person. But you can't have restorative justice
16:46
Speaker 1: without radical accountability. And radical accountability doesn't have to be punitive, right,
16:51
Speaker 1: Radical accountability can simply be stepping towards healing for both
16:56
Speaker 1: victims and abusers at times. Right. So we don't come
17:00
Speaker 1: from a people you me black people globally, Brown people globally,
17:05
Speaker 1: We don't come from cultures before colonialism that were ingrained
17:12
Speaker 1: with such staunch homophobia or transphobia. History shows that, right,
17:16
Speaker 1: Actual research shows that it was capitalism and white patriarchal
17:21
Speaker 1: constructs that did this. That's not lost to me, but
17:23
Speaker 1: you have to call it out. And the reality is
17:27
Speaker 1: as a sist head black man, what I also dealt
17:30
Speaker 1: with as a kid, which played in part, I think
17:32
Speaker 1: into this lie, was because I was molested. I was
17:36
Speaker 1: never the kid who was like I really like girls,
17:39
Speaker 1: I'm really into girls. That wasn't me. I was very
17:42
Speaker 1: like inwardly focused or I just wanted to hang out
17:45
Speaker 1: with boys, and I was afraid of girls. So they
17:47
Speaker 1: were like in my family until I was probably sixteen,
17:51
Speaker 1: there were rumors, oh, he must be gay. So I
17:53
Speaker 1: think that they did everything in their power to quote
17:56
Speaker 1: unquote make sure I wasn't gay, and then problem medically,
18:00
Speaker 1: in toxically, I counteracted that by being you know, if
18:04
Speaker 1: heteronormativity exists on a spectrum of positive and toxic, I
18:08
Speaker 1: went as toxic as possible, because that's typically equated with being, like,
18:12
Speaker 1: you know, in our society, as manly as possible. Right,
18:15
Speaker 1: So I went that direction, and you're like, Okay, he's
18:18
Speaker 1: a womanizer. No, he's good, right, Like so yeah, so
18:22
Speaker 1: that lie actually built the castle of all of my
18:26
Speaker 1: pain and trauma and the traumas in pain that I
18:28
Speaker 1: inflicted on a ton of other people. I love that
18:33
Speaker 1: you're talking about, Like, I love this kind of complicated
18:35
Speaker 1: conversation about misogyny. For instance, that you know, due to
18:38
Speaker 1: the own pain and violence you felt in your own life,
18:40
Speaker 1: you overcompensate it by hurting other people. It's I think,
18:43
Speaker 1: you know, my angel LUs says, hurt people, hurt people,
18:45
Speaker 1: and that's like the truest thing in the world, which
18:48
Speaker 1: makes me think a lot about I think about that
18:51
Speaker 1: and then this idea of radical accountability, and it makes
18:53
Speaker 1: me think about little Boosey and the baby and little
18:56
Speaker 1: nos X. So let's use that as an example for folks.
18:59
Speaker 1: How does radical acountability operate there? And how are you
19:01
Speaker 1: seeing her people hurting people in that situation? Because that's
19:04
Speaker 1: what I see? Who boy, you know, I have psychoanalyze
19:09
Speaker 1: these men so many times to myself or in my household, right, like,
19:13
Speaker 1: like what happened to them in their lives that might
19:17
Speaker 1: have been similar. There's certain things that happened to me
19:19
Speaker 1: potentially that they did not have the privilege of overcoming
19:25
Speaker 1: or navigating, right, or maybe nothing happened. They were just
19:28
Speaker 1: black men in the South, and you know, capitalism rewards
19:32
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity and misogyny. But you know, with the three
19:35
Speaker 1: of them, I've been hurt. And I'm going to also
19:38
Speaker 1: add Dave Chappelle to that because I have been hurt
19:41
Speaker 1: by the things that I've seen from them as a
19:43
Speaker 1: fellow black man. Because what they don't realize, especially in
19:47
Speaker 1: them saying that they want to protect children and be
19:49
Speaker 1: pro black, is that what they're doing is actually anything.
19:52
Speaker 1: But they're actually harming children and they are further degradating
19:57
Speaker 1: the black community, right, So it not only breaks my
19:59
Speaker 1: heart art, but it is the complete contradiction of all
20:02
Speaker 1: the work that I'm trying to do. And then because
20:04
Speaker 1: of their platforms versus let's say, my platform, it makes
20:08
Speaker 1: that work that much harder. Yeah, I'm gonna be really
20:10
Speaker 1: honest with you, Zach. I wrote about Dave Chappelle years ago,
20:14
Speaker 1: So to see him doubling down, I actually started crying.
20:16
Speaker 1: I was in the shower just like tearing up because
20:19
Speaker 1: I looked up to him growing up, like he was
20:21
Speaker 1: actually like a hero of mine, because I always said
20:23
Speaker 1: that he was punching up against white supremacy and classism
20:26
Speaker 1: in many ways. So then he's started becoming more famous
20:30
Speaker 1: and more wealthy, started punching laterally, and now he's just
20:33
Speaker 1: punching down at the most like oppressed community in the world, right,
20:36
Speaker 1: black and brown trans people and specifically black and brown
20:40
Speaker 1: trans women. So with that being said, the thing that
20:43
Speaker 1: hurt the most though, is that there are these moments
20:45
Speaker 1: of potential reclamation, as you said, or radical accountability where
20:49
Speaker 1: people have not said, hey, we want to cancel you, Dave. Literally,
20:51
Speaker 1: I have watched trans activists, trans organizations say hey, can
20:55
Speaker 1: we sit down and like explain to you what you
20:59
Speaker 1: were doing because you're such a powerful voice, and we
21:02
Speaker 1: know that you are such an intelligent, brilliant, brilliant person
21:06
Speaker 1: when it comes to storytelling, when it comes to getting
21:09
Speaker 1: into hearts and minds of people, and you would be
21:12
Speaker 1: a monstrous, devastatingly powerful being to be on the right
21:17
Speaker 1: side of things. And Dave, instead of leaning into that,
21:22
Speaker 1: has leaned completely out of it. And that hurts. Yeah,
21:27
Speaker 1: And when you see people doing the wrong thing and
21:29
Speaker 1: they don't have to, it hurts so so much because
21:32
Speaker 1: you're like, wait, you don't have to do this. You
21:34
Speaker 1: don't have to make that decision at all. And that's
21:36
Speaker 1: what's so frustrating with like the Dave Chappelle's and the baby.
21:39
Speaker 1: But I want to bring it back to you because
21:41
Speaker 1: I think you have an example in your life right
21:43
Speaker 1: now where maybe people are doing the right thing. And
21:45
Speaker 1: that's with the cousin of yours, correct who is HIV positive.
21:49
Speaker 1: Talk to me about this person and kind of how
21:51
Speaker 1: his experience may be very different than what your uncle
21:53
Speaker 1: went through. So I actually have two cousins who are
21:56
Speaker 1: HIV positive and their experiences are completely different as a
22:01
Speaker 1: matter of fact. So one of my cousins opened up
22:04
Speaker 1: to the family that she's HIV positive in the early
22:08
Speaker 1: two thousands, and there was still this moment of pure ignorance.
22:15
Speaker 1: But I think that at times where people don't realize
22:17
Speaker 1: is that a lot of black people all we have
22:20
Speaker 1: is our family. And I don't mean that hyperbolically. I
22:22
Speaker 1: mean like, quite literally, for a lot of black people,
22:25
Speaker 1: we have is our family, and in that family we
22:26
Speaker 1: find hope. So in spite of all of the viatrol
22:29
Speaker 1: she was receiving for having HIV, you know, she just
22:32
Speaker 1: kind of took it. Versus my cousin, who is a
22:36
Speaker 1: bit younger than me, he is just a brilliant, brilliant
22:42
Speaker 1: young man. He's just like, you know what, you can't
22:45
Speaker 1: possibly love me in the ways in which I need
22:48
Speaker 1: to be loved. So I'm going to step away from
22:51
Speaker 1: all of you and only talk to those of you
22:53
Speaker 1: who can love me for me and like the things
22:55
Speaker 1: I'm going through. He's like, in spite of what happened
22:59
Speaker 1: for uncle, I'm gay and I did get HIV practicing sex.
23:03
Speaker 1: He's like, and that's not your business, right, that is
23:06
Speaker 1: my business. You're either going to support me or you're not.
23:09
Speaker 1: And what that forced our family to do was this
23:12
Speaker 1: moment of radical accountability. Do you lose your cousin, do
23:16
Speaker 1: you lose your nephew, do you lose your son? Or
23:19
Speaker 1: do you love them enough to break the walls down
23:24
Speaker 1: of your ignorance? You have to choose did you ever
23:26
Speaker 1: truly love this person or was it all a facade
23:29
Speaker 1: within the constructs of what makes you comfortable? Yeah? Wow,
23:34
Speaker 1: wow wow wow? Did you ever pose that to them?
23:35
Speaker 1: Did you ever say those words to them? So I
23:37
Speaker 1: said all those words. I literally like convened everybody at
23:41
Speaker 1: my house and I was like, this is it. And
23:42
Speaker 1: if he feels like he has to walk away, I'm
23:44
Speaker 1: walking away because what we don't want to do, Like
23:47
Speaker 1: I very much preach from the book of accomplices and
23:50
Speaker 1: co conspirators versus allies. Right, an allies somebody who wants
23:53
Speaker 1: the world to better, or an accomplice and conspirator, they're
23:55
Speaker 1: in the trenches. So if I want the world to
23:57
Speaker 1: be better for the LGBTQ plus community, I gotta make
23:59
Speaker 1: myself uncomfortable, right, And that for me means like, oh, hey, Darren,
24:03
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that this has happened. No, no, forget that.
24:06
Speaker 1: If Darren steps away, I'm stepping away. This Darren's not
24:10
Speaker 1: by himself. So that's exactly what happened. I want to
24:14
Speaker 1: talk to you about all this work you do to
24:15
Speaker 1: give back, and like, something I read about recently was
24:18
Speaker 1: you sending a lot of kids? I think Sissy Black Panther, Yeah,
24:21
Speaker 1: a few years ago. So like, tell me about that story,
24:24
Speaker 1: and like, why is it that like love and joy
24:26
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it seems to be
24:28
Speaker 1: your driving kind of motive here. I actually have the
24:30
Speaker 1: word love tattooed on my back. And that's a funny story.
24:33
Speaker 1: When my grandmother was passing, she told my cousins and
24:36
Speaker 1: I like all of us, what, like the one thing
24:38
Speaker 1: we need to focus on was when she was going,
24:40
Speaker 1: when she was in hospice, and for me, it was love.
24:42
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what do you mean. She's like, you know,
24:45
Speaker 1: you give a lot of love, but you'll really be
24:48
Speaker 1: able to love when you let people love you. And
24:53
Speaker 1: in all my pain, you're talking about being a black
24:56
Speaker 1: kid in the eighties nineties, without a father, growing up
25:00
Speaker 1: up in poverty. My family's decimated by the crack epidemic,
25:04
Speaker 1: decimated by the heroine epidemic. My mother had me at eighteen.
25:08
Speaker 1: I've been molested by my babysitter. I've watched you know
25:11
Speaker 1: how life works in an over police neighborhood. I didn't
25:14
Speaker 1: have a lot of trust in being loved, right, And
25:18
Speaker 1: when I started receiving love, allowing myself to receive love,
25:20
Speaker 1: I'm like, Oh, this change is everything. And what I
25:24
Speaker 1: want for people is for people who I don't even
25:27
Speaker 1: know to receive love. Right, If a stranger can do
25:29
Speaker 1: something for you, it doesn't just have to be like, Hey,
25:33
Speaker 1: if a kid lives in poverty, let's give them pencils
25:35
Speaker 1: and book bags and stuff to have the baseline fundamental things.
25:39
Speaker 1: If I can also say, like I want you to
25:40
Speaker 1: enjoy your life, that could be a game changer. Right,
25:44
Speaker 1: Like this person I didn't know at all wanted me
25:47
Speaker 1: to enjoy my life and loved me despite not even
25:51
Speaker 1: knowing me. And that's kind of like where all my
25:53
Speaker 1: philanthropy comes from. Loving people radically even if you don't
25:57
Speaker 1: know them, right, Just having a love for society and mankind,
26:02
Speaker 1: loving people enough to love themselves. How has that changed
26:05
Speaker 1: how you move through the world. Having that radical love
26:07
Speaker 1: for just strangers. Do you see yourself walking down the
26:09
Speaker 1: street differently these days? You know, it's interesting because I
26:12
Speaker 1: think that like both things are juxtaposed, right, the radical
26:15
Speaker 1: love and the radical accountability. You know, So if you
26:18
Speaker 1: do something, for example, that's like oppressive, racist, homophobic, whatever
26:24
Speaker 1: it is, I'm gonna hold you accountable. And it's through
26:28
Speaker 1: that accountability, like in my opinion, like you know where
26:31
Speaker 1: I grew up. You know, people just get punched in
26:33
Speaker 1: your face with some nonsense, right, So yes, so if
26:38
Speaker 1: I hold you accountable through like systems of being like, hey,
26:41
Speaker 1: like you did this wrong, here's the consequence for doing
26:44
Speaker 1: this wrong. Now, Also, you're still here, right, You're still
26:48
Speaker 1: with us, And a lot of black people, a lot
26:51
Speaker 1: of people who are trans especially don't get the privilege
26:54
Speaker 1: of growth because they're not still here with us. So
26:56
Speaker 1: you still being here is even a privilege within our system.
27:00
Speaker 1: So now that you are still here, you've been held accountable.
27:03
Speaker 1: Now how are you going to grow? And what are
27:05
Speaker 1: you going to do with the rest of your time?
27:06
Speaker 1: So that period is where the radical love comes in.
27:09
Speaker 1: I can bonk you on your head with the accountability,
27:11
Speaker 1: and then I can like hand you the olive branch
27:13
Speaker 1: of love and be like you know, these two things
27:15
Speaker 1: combined will help you change the world. I love that.
27:20
Speaker 1: I love that. So before let you go, I want
27:23
Speaker 1: to see if you'd be up forgiving, you know, the
27:25
Speaker 1: audience of advice, because I think our audience is very
27:27
Speaker 1: much people like us and people that like are in
27:29
Speaker 1: our community, but are definitely not having these conversations all
27:31
Speaker 1: the time, which is a big part of this and
27:33
Speaker 1: something you said earlier about you know, like trusting and
27:37
Speaker 1: letting other people love you is a big part of
27:39
Speaker 1: loving others. What advice you have for folks listening on
27:45
Speaker 1: the best way for them to begin that trust fall
27:47
Speaker 1: for love? M I would say that the advice is
27:52
Speaker 1: to unpack the realities of your trauma. Right I think
27:56
Speaker 1: that all of us living in these constructs, I don't
28:01
Speaker 1: really I don't care what aspect of it you live in, right, Like,
28:04
Speaker 1: whether it's ableism, capitalism, or whatever is m it is,
28:09
Speaker 1: or obia, whatever whatever it is, you are traumatized and
28:14
Speaker 1: trauma is the direct adversary of love. So as you
28:20
Speaker 1: are unpacking, unlearning, thinking about the traumas that you not
28:25
Speaker 1: only have faced, but the traumas of just being in
28:27
Speaker 1: your body when you step out of your home, or
28:29
Speaker 1: when you go on Instagram, when you go on Twitter,
28:32
Speaker 1: or when you see the news. Unpacking that and taking
28:35
Speaker 1: it out of your suitcase allows you to put love
28:38
Speaker 1: in that suitcase. You know what I'm saying. And that's
28:41
Speaker 1: been an important work for me. And that's why I
28:43
Speaker 1: tell everybody go to therapy, because that's where you do
28:46
Speaker 1: a lot of that unpacking, Like, hey, take some of
28:48
Speaker 1: this out right, like and patriarch people. That said to
28:51
Speaker 1: my babysitter who lest me, I wrote her a letter
28:53
Speaker 1: and I told her, I wrote, I'm writing this letter
28:55
Speaker 1: so that I can let my fiance in more right.
28:58
Speaker 1: I literally said that to her. I'm like this because
29:00
Speaker 1: you don't own me, so I'm releasing you of this
29:03
Speaker 1: space that you think that you occupy. I am not confined.
29:07
Speaker 1: You were not confined. We are not confined to this
29:10
Speaker 1: moment in time because I'm building other moments. But I
29:12
Speaker 1: can't build those moments unless I make room for them.
29:16
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm going to take that with me forever.
29:18
Speaker 1: I think that was like a an aha, thank you
29:21
Speaker 1: for that. And you know a lot of what you're
29:23
Speaker 1: saying right there, and what makes that possible is due
29:25
Speaker 1: to another thing you said is that we are all
29:27
Speaker 1: still here in your alife and you can make a
29:29
Speaker 1: lot of choice is moving forward. So Frederick, thank you
29:31
Speaker 1: so much for being here today. This has been an incredible,
29:34
Speaker 1: incredible pleasure. You are just brilliant. I knew it was
29:37
Speaker 1: going to be brilliant, and it was brilliant. So thank
29:38
Speaker 1: you for showing up for this. Zach, I really appreciate
29:41
Speaker 1: you taking the time and making the space. This has
29:43
Speaker 1: been phenomenal and this is it's just been something for
29:45
Speaker 1: me going into the holiday season over the next few
29:48
Speaker 1: months that I'm just gonna it's gonna make my heart full.
29:50
Speaker 1: So thank you. Our lives are collection of stories, some
29:58
Speaker 1: that we tell often, some that we still learning in,
30:01
Speaker 1: others that stay hidden for good reason. But as Frederick
30:04
Speaker 1: shows us, we are the narrator of our lives, and
30:06
Speaker 1: no matter what chapter you are on today, you still
30:09
Speaker 1: have the power to control the unwritten. All right, until
30:13
Speaker 1: next time, remember to breathe, stay hydrated. But I'm positive
30:17
Speaker 1: we can all live a healthier and happier life. This
30:23
Speaker 1: has been in the deep stories that shape us. Find
30:26
Speaker 1: this episode in others on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
30:29
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to share,
30:32
Speaker 1: rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation. The show
30:36
Speaker 1: is produced by Ivan Chien and mastered by James Foster.
30:38
Speaker 1: Our show researcher is John in Raggio and our writer
30:41
Speaker 1: is Yvette Lopez. A special shout out to our guest
30:44
Speaker 1: Fredrick Joseph. I'm your host, Zach Stafford. Hi, my name
30:57
Speaker 1: is Ramon and I was really scared to get tested
31:00
Speaker 1: for HIV, but I knew I had to do it.
31:03
Speaker 1: So I found out my status and you know what,
31:06
Speaker 1: I also learned from a doctor that HIV is not
31:09
Speaker 1: a death sentence. There are medications available to treat HIV
31:14
Speaker 1: and options to prevent it. So my advice, if you
31:17
Speaker 1: haven't done so, get tested, know your status and press
31:21
Speaker 1: play on What's next. Learn more at nomstatus dot com