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Elaine Welteroth On 'The Conversations Project', Maternal Mortality Crisis + More · The Breakfast Club

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Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
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Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy Charlamagne the guy. We are the
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Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building
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Speaker 2: this morning. Yes, indeed we have Miss Elaine well to
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Speaker 2: Roth Welcome, Hi guys this morning.
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Speaker 3: I'm good.
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Speaker 4: How are you good?
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Speaker 1: Goods Black and Holly favorite.
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Speaker 3: I love it.
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Speaker 5: I'm just really taking in this whole chair, the throne
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Speaker 5: that you're sitting, that the two of you are sitting on.
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Speaker 3: Met I didn't get a throne. Where's my throne?
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Speaker 1: We got it.
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Speaker 6: We're thinking of something for the guests in twenty twenty
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Speaker 6: four to make them because we're all regal, right, but
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Speaker 6: this is really just for television, right ron.
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Speaker 1: BT and for the Internet and stuff like that.
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Speaker 6: And then when we add the new third person, they'll
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Speaker 6: have a thron So we're gonna have a whole watch
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Speaker 6: the Throne campaign.
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Speaker 2: Okay, but we have to figure it out because the
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Speaker 2: thrones will be too high to block the cameras, which
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Speaker 2: you didn't think about beforehand, so it's gonna be a
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Speaker 2: cluster f You're gonna figure it out.
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Speaker 1: Get came.
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Speaker 4: So now you're here for a conversation project.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Stations Project.
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Speaker 4: Yep, Now what is the Conversation Project?
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Speaker 5: So the Conversations Project, which is on Hulu is basically
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Speaker 5: so it's inspired by the Harlem Renaissance Salon. It's like,
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Speaker 5: you know, think back to the era when you know,
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Speaker 5: black intellectuals, academics, entertainers would rub shoulders and break bread
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Speaker 5: and and share ideas in a safe space. And we
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Speaker 5: wanted to recreate that on television. And it's it's really incredible.
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Speaker 5: It's it's bringing together some of the greatest minds in
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Speaker 5: our culture from every corner of the world. So you
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Speaker 5: have you have artists, you have entertainers, you have we
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Speaker 5: had a black astronaut all coming together to really exchange ideas,
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Speaker 5: and you know, you don't have anything like this on television,
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Speaker 5: which is kind of crazy when you really think about it,
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Speaker 5: It's like, how has it taken this long for a
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Speaker 5: show like this to come about?
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Speaker 3: But I'm so glad that it did.
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Speaker 5: And we just talk about everything under the sun that
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Speaker 5: affects our community, and we talk about it through a
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Speaker 5: black lens, and we debate, we laugh, we you know,
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Speaker 5: we agree, we challenge each other, and it's really intergenerational.
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Speaker 5: It's just a really positive, nuanced place to have conversations
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Speaker 5: that matter in our culture.
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Speaker 1: I feel like it's very all of it. I'm sorry.
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Speaker 6: I feel like it's very hard for us to have
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Speaker 6: conversations nowadays. I feel like we're all talking at each
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Speaker 6: other instead of tune with each other that part.
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Speaker 5: And that's why I think a show like this is
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Speaker 5: so important, because it's modeling how to have productive, constructive dialogue,
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Speaker 5: how to listen, how to not react, you know, defensively.
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Speaker 5: It's really important, I think, especially in these times that
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Speaker 5: are so divided, it's so divisive, to really give people
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Speaker 5: an example of how you can articulate your point of
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Speaker 5: view and also appreciate and listen to somebody else's point
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Speaker 5: of view and maybe even evolve, you know, maybe even
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Speaker 5: maybe your maybe your perspective might evolve in the process.
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Speaker 5: So I think a show like this is so important.
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Speaker 5: And for me, I always, whether I'm writing books or
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Speaker 5: on television, I want to create what I think the
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Speaker 5: world needs more of. And I think the world needs
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Speaker 5: more of hard converse examples of hard conversations that are
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Speaker 5: being tackled in a really constructive way.
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Speaker 6: I love that because I feel like, you know, over
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Speaker 6: the last several years, we've seen all of these, you know,
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Speaker 6: topics that we never discussed come to the forefront, but
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Speaker 6: we're still not having nuanced conversations about them.
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Speaker 1: We're not peeling back layers.
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Speaker 6: We're just telling you your trash if you believe this,
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Speaker 6: your trash if you don't think like this.
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Speaker 1: But it's just like, yo, where's the exchange of ideas?
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Speaker 6: So those people that you may not like the way
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Speaker 6: they think about a certain thing, they might evolve on
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Speaker 6: the subject if you just have a conversation.
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Speaker 3: Exactly and you might evolve.
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Speaker 5: I think that's the that's the thing, is to come
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Speaker 5: to the table with an open mind and be willing
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Speaker 5: to listen. I learned my mind was open, you know.
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Speaker 5: I came with an open mind and open heart. I
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Speaker 5: think everybody did. And you know what helped. I forgot
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Speaker 5: to mention this. I can't believe I forgot to mention this.
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Speaker 5: It's a dinner party. So you have like Michelin Star,
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Speaker 5: you know, a Michelin Star chef who is giving us
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Speaker 5: incredible food and black owned wines, and we are just
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Speaker 5: like so I feel like everybody came in like maybe
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Speaker 5: a little.
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Speaker 3: Nervous, like was about to happen at the table. They
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Speaker 3: gonna there's.
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Speaker 5: Gonna be there, gonna be some gotcha questions, and then
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Speaker 5: everyone just realized this is actually a safe space. Sip
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Speaker 5: some wine, you know, you relax your nerves, you know,
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Speaker 5: settle a little. And we really we came to the table,
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Speaker 5: many of us strangers, and we walked away feeling like
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Speaker 5: we had extended community. We like like a family, honestly.
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Speaker 5: So it was it was beautiful, and I hope, I
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Speaker 5: honestly hope that it inspires people to have some of
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Speaker 5: these conversations at their own dinner table with their own friends,
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Speaker 5: at their work, at their church, Like whatever the community
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Speaker 5: is that you are a part of, this is how
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Speaker 5: you can have these conversations and also invite people over
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Speaker 5: to your house. Again, Like we've all been in isolation
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Speaker 5: for so long, and we thrive in community, you know,
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Speaker 5: but it takes somebody to be intentional about curating the
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Speaker 5: right group, about sending that invitation, bringing people to creating
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Speaker 5: a safe space and really guiding the conversation. So I
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Speaker 5: really hope that like this is like the return of
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Speaker 5: the dinner party.
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Speaker 2: You know, who are some of the people that are
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Speaker 2: I know, every episode is a different cast. Who are
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Speaker 2: some of the people that are at the table.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, we had a whole wide range of people, like
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Speaker 5: I said, from black astronauts to entertainers to authors, athletes.
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Speaker 5: So we had a couple of people we had that
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Speaker 5: I really love Phoebe Robinson, She's hilarious, Shine Jim Jones,
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Speaker 5: Ali Love roy Wood, Junior Tory Notton, Torri Notton, she
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Speaker 5: was amazing. Yes, Lena Bloom And so the hosts were
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Speaker 5: the three hosts. One is the chef, David Lawrence. He
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Speaker 5: has a restaurant in the Bay Area, but he's originally
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Speaker 5: from the UK and he's a.
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Speaker 3: Little bit older. I call him uncle.
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Speaker 5: And then we have Mark Spears who is at ESPN
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Speaker 5: and Landscape. He's a Hall of Fame sports writer. And
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Speaker 5: they conceived of this show, they pitched it, they got
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Speaker 5: it sold, which is a miracle to me in this landscape,
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Speaker 5: especially for a black show, bringing together black folks to
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Speaker 5: have black conversations that are you know, smart, intellectual and
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Speaker 5: not trash, Like We're not sitting there trying to trash
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Speaker 5: each other, which is usually what you see get sold.
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Speaker 3: And then they brought me on.
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Speaker 5: They wanted to have a woman's perspective at the table,
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Speaker 5: someone who could help bridge the generations. And I immediately,
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Speaker 5: I mean, once I understood the concept of the show,
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Speaker 5: the spirit of the show, the intention of the show
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Speaker 5: is like, sign me up, this is a dinner party.
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Speaker 5: I feel like anybody would want to be invited to.
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Speaker 5: So it was an honor to be a part of it.
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Speaker 6: How did you pick the people you wanted to have
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Speaker 6: a conversation because you know, when you talk about curating
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Speaker 6: right people, even when you say let's bring back the
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Speaker 6: dinner party, I'm just not letting nobody in my house.
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Speaker 1: Your energy gotta be right.
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Speaker 5: Your energy got to be right. That's the part I think.
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Speaker 5: I think we all just kind of agreed. We we
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Speaker 5: all brought our lists, and we all kind of thought,
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Speaker 5: we want to make sure every single table is really intergenerational.
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Speaker 3: So that was a really important piece.
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Speaker 5: We wanted to make sure that it was co ed,
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Speaker 5: so there was a nice mix of you know, men
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Speaker 5: and women, and that everyone was represented, so trans folks,
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Speaker 5: queer folks.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 5: I think the beauty of this show is that it
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Speaker 5: showcases the spectrum of blackness, right, Like we talk about
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Speaker 5: what it means to be black and queer black and
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Speaker 5: trans to what it's like to we talk about the
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Speaker 5: biracial experience and everything in between. We got, you know,
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Speaker 5: old elders in the room, we got the young folks
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Speaker 5: in the room, we got the millennials. And what you
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Speaker 5: see is that which it just reminds you that blackness
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Speaker 5: is not a monolith. We come from all different places
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Speaker 5: all over the world with different personspectives, and it really
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Speaker 5: it shapes our worldview. But when we break bread with
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Speaker 5: each other, when we break down these conversations together, we
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Speaker 5: realize how much more we have in common then than
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Speaker 5: what divides us.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, what about the titles of the show, like, like
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Speaker 6: those are the conversation starters within themselves?
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Speaker 1: Like what it's called We Him is one episode called.
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Speaker 3: I Didn't Name, I Didn't Name? Did you guys? Have
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Speaker 3: you guys seen any of them?
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Speaker 5: If you have not seen them, it's a six episode series.
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Speaker 5: It's totally bingeable. You once you watch one episode, you
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Speaker 5: will naturally want to just keep going. And I've gotten
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Speaker 5: such great feedback from everyone that you know, they're excited
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Speaker 5: to see black folks coming together to have these rich conversations,
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Speaker 5: these intergenerational conversations. Especially in a time like this, Like, honestly, guys,
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Speaker 5: it's dark times out there, absolutely, and we need something
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Speaker 5: that is feel good, that makes us think, that opens
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Speaker 5: our mind. And I think this show is exactly that.
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Speaker 5: And I hope we get to do it again and again,
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Speaker 5: and I hope we can bring y'all to the table
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Speaker 5: next season.
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Speaker 2: What's one conversation that stood out the most to you
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Speaker 2: that that you remember. That's something that she was like, Wow,
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Speaker 2: this is going to spark a lot of conversation and
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Speaker 2: interest when this episode's released, So when people see this episode.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So two come to mind.
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Speaker 5: One is a conversation with Brett Gray, who's this gen
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Speaker 5: Z actor, and he brought such an incredible energy to
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Speaker 5: the table, and he got into a kind of a
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Speaker 5: contentious conversation with the older gentleman at the table, who
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Speaker 5: we were calling them ogs, so David Lawrence, Mark Spears.
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Speaker 3: They were talking.
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Speaker 5: About sort of how this older generation we're talking about
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Speaker 5: black manhood and and toxic masculinity, and how the older
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Speaker 5: generation of black men in us, with the intention of
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Speaker 5: trying to protect and guide the next generation of black men,
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Speaker 5: sometimes their way can crush the spirit of this younger generation.
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Speaker 5: That aren't as oppressed, that aren't as you know, they aren't,
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Speaker 5: they aren't facing they're living in a completely different world.
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Speaker 5: And and so how can you prepare the next generation
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Speaker 5: of black men to navigate the world as black men
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Speaker 5: when they're in a completely different world than you came from.
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Speaker 5: And so he's sitting there with his like fly like
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Speaker 5: denim jacket on. It's sparkly, he's got sequins, and he's like,
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Speaker 5: to be honest, I think that when you don't want
10:38
Speaker 5: us to sparkle, when we sparkle, it makes you uncomfortable.
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Speaker 5: You put us in such a rigid box of what
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Speaker 5: it means to be a black man. And and and frankly,
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Speaker 5: I don't identify with that. I'm more than that. I
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Speaker 5: want to be more than that, but you put me
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Speaker 5: in the box and you actually make me feel more
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Speaker 5: oppressed than than than the world. And so it was
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Speaker 5: like this really intense moment where you just know, like
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Speaker 5: this is a moment that is so powerful that people
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Speaker 5: need to see. And I hope that it really sparks
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Speaker 5: some debate. Not some debate, but I really hope it
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Speaker 5: sparks kind of introspective conversations between black men of different generations,
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Speaker 5: and you know, it was beautiful. Is I feel like
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Speaker 5: there's a lot of conversation about women, which is important.
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Speaker 5: We've made a lot of you know that that's been
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Speaker 5: very intentional on media to focus more on the women's gaze,
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Speaker 5: but there's so much ground that we don't cover when
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Speaker 5: it comes to black malehood manhood.
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Speaker 3: And so it felt.
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Speaker 5: Nice for a moment to just sit back and know that, like,
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Speaker 5: this is not for me to participate in.
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Speaker 3: This is for me to listen and.
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Speaker 5: Learn and and appreciate the way these black men are
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Speaker 5: navigating this conversation. And you could see the ogs, you know,
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Speaker 5: they're not they came from a different generations where generation
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Speaker 5: where young people you know, you're supposed to stay in
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Speaker 5: your place to speak when you're spoken to, you respect
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Speaker 5: your authority and your your elders, and you don't take
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Speaker 5: a certain tone. And and Brett was coming in there
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Speaker 5: just speaking his mind. He was very strong with it,
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Speaker 5: and you could tell the ogs were getting a little
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Speaker 5: like okay, now, young brother, okay, like you don't have
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Speaker 5: to you.
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Speaker 3: Know, like but they they really they they I was.
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Speaker 5: So proud of them in that moment because they listened
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Speaker 5: and they there was a breakthrough I think for everybody
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Speaker 5: in that room, and they made it clear, like listen,
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Speaker 5: they apologize on behalf of kind of like this generation
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Speaker 5: of black men for breaking their spirit and and and
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Speaker 5: clarified that our intention is to protect you and to
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Speaker 5: help you navigate this world in ways that we didn't
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Speaker 5: We didn't have male guidance in this way. And so
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Speaker 5: while our way might not be perfect, know that it
12:53
Speaker 5: comes from love. And I just felt like it was
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Speaker 5: a really kind of beautiful, heartwarming moment and.
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Speaker 6: That's something I learned it therapy or like, you know,
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Speaker 6: I think that our father, or at least my father, I
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Speaker 6: can't generalize, but my father, I think he was raising
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Speaker 6: me out of fear, not necessarily love, because he was
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Speaker 6: just afraid for me in this world as a black man.
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Speaker 6: He didn't want me to make the same mistakes that
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Speaker 6: he made as a man. But all he did was
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Speaker 6: still that same fear exactly inside of me. So it
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Speaker 6: kept a generational trauma going, you know, exactly.
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Speaker 2: But he also raised you from the side of the
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Speaker 2: Times were different, you know, I mean, I mean, racism
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Speaker 2: is still big now, but it was ten times worse
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Speaker 2: back then, where my dad tells me stories where he
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Speaker 2: couldn't go to certain bathrooms, he couldn't drink out of
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Speaker 2: certain water fountains, where he looks at white people a
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Speaker 2: lot different than we do because when he was a kid,
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Speaker 2: he could never trust him because it was always them versus.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how my dad kind of raised me. But
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Speaker 4: for us, my dad.
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Speaker 6: Was my dad was afraid that I was gonna turn
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Speaker 6: out like him in a lot of ways, even though
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Speaker 6: you know, he had his good side, you know, but
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Speaker 6: he had battled substance abuse, and he was in the
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Speaker 6: street and stuff like that. But I think he was
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Speaker 6: more afraid of how if I went on that path.
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Speaker 6: He knew the white man had a plan for me,
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Speaker 6: which is frizy. So I think that's what that's what,
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Speaker 6: That's what it was. I remember my first breakthrough in
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Speaker 6: therapy was realizing, like, damn, my dad. My dad used
14:13
Speaker 6: to punish me for things he never taught me. So
14:16
Speaker 6: he would discipline me for things that you never even
14:18
Speaker 6: taught me. You told me to follow your lead in
14:19
Speaker 6: a lot of ways, and then when I did, I
14:21
Speaker 6: would get.
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Speaker 1: Punished for it.
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Speaker 5: And you know, I think part of part of this
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Speaker 5: conversation is how does a generation of black men who
14:32
Speaker 5: didn't have black fathers in the household, or whose fathers
14:35
Speaker 5: were really challenged by outside factors related to racism, you know,
14:43
Speaker 5: and and so that that debilitated their ability to be
14:47
Speaker 5: a good dad, Like, how does that generation of fatherless
14:52
Speaker 5: black men turn around and figure out how to be
14:55
Speaker 5: great dads to the next generation when they didn't have
14:57
Speaker 5: a model for that, And so of course they're going
14:59
Speaker 5: to make mistakes. And I think the important thing is
15:02
Speaker 5: now to have dialogue about, you know, how the next
15:06
Speaker 5: generation can do it differently and what they can learn
15:09
Speaker 5: in the process. And and even like Chef David, you know,
15:12
Speaker 5: he's he has a son, a grown child, and he
15:16
Speaker 5: kind of he had some reflective moments where he said
15:18
Speaker 5: he could have done some things differently. And I think
15:22
Speaker 5: that it might have led to some offline conversations that
15:26
Speaker 5: that were really healthy and really necessary. And I really
15:29
Speaker 5: hope that that's the that's the result of this show,
15:33
Speaker 5: And for viewers who are watching, you know what I mean,
15:36
Speaker 5: I hope it. I hope it triggers some conversations that
15:39
Speaker 5: are maybe overdue in our community.
15:41
Speaker 6: And you know what else too, It's like it's not
15:43
Speaker 6: even about what we what we uh, it's about what
15:46
Speaker 6: we learned, but what we got to unlearned as we
15:48
Speaker 6: get older, because you know, I'll be the first to
15:50
Speaker 6: admit we were a whole generation that was raised wrong.
15:53
Speaker 1: You know. I mean I'm raised wrong in a lot
15:56
Speaker 1: of ways, you know. So it's like, yeah, it's about
15:59
Speaker 1: what you have to and learnt.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, I'm a new mom. I just
16:03
Speaker 5: had a baby seventeen months ago, thank you. So I
16:07
Speaker 5: felt like I was there listening more than I talk
16:12
Speaker 5: on topics around parenthood. And you know, Roxane Chante came on,
16:16
Speaker 5: and you know, she was one of the sort of
16:19
Speaker 5: our elders.
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Speaker 3: We respect her.
16:20
Speaker 5: And she was talking about, you know, parenting as a
16:26
Speaker 5: black mom, especially a single black mom, how parenting a
16:30
Speaker 5: young black man is different from parenting a young woman.
16:34
Speaker 5: And I really leaned in because I was like, because
16:36
Speaker 5: I'm a boy mom.
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Speaker 3: And she talked about how.
16:40
Speaker 5: There is this tendency in our culture for black moms
16:43
Speaker 5: to kind of overly caddle black men, which is again
16:47
Speaker 5: coming from a spirit of love and protection because they
16:51
Speaker 5: know how harsh this world is on black men. But
16:54
Speaker 5: in the end, sometimes the outcome is that these men
16:58
Speaker 5: are not they're not getting the tools that they need
17:01
Speaker 5: to be men in the world, and they're being coddled
17:04
Speaker 5: to the point of you know, they're they're not standing
17:07
Speaker 5: on their own two feet, and so you so there
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Speaker 5: was this conversation about this generation, this generation of black
17:12
Speaker 5: men who were raised by mothers that were coddling them
17:15
Speaker 5: a little too much, and what is that impact on
17:19
Speaker 5: families black, the black family in this generation. So that's
17:23
Speaker 5: something I hadn't really thought a lot about, and so
17:25
Speaker 5: I feel like I learned a lot. You know, normally
17:27
Speaker 5: you come into conversations, you feel like you have your
17:29
Speaker 5: talking pointspecially as a journalist like I. I listened and
17:32
Speaker 5: I learned. And another another really standout moment for me
17:35
Speaker 5: was Lena Bloom came on. She's a beautiful transactivist and model,
17:43
Speaker 5: so eloquent. I really encourage you guys to listen to
17:46
Speaker 5: to watch that episode.
17:47
Speaker 3: But she sort of.
17:49
Speaker 5: Challenged the room. She looked around and she said, how
17:51
Speaker 5: many trans people have you ever invited to dinner or
17:57
Speaker 5: into your home? And the whole table went silent, and
18:02
Speaker 5: she really made a compelling case for why we as
18:06
Speaker 5: a culture, as a community, really need to open our
18:11
Speaker 5: minds and open our hearts, and and you know, even
18:15
Speaker 5: if you do not understand the trans experience, it it
18:18
Speaker 5: is your job to protect and to love your your
18:23
Speaker 5: sister and your brother, your sisters and your brothers in
18:25
Speaker 5: the trans community, and that we failed them essentially. And
18:30
Speaker 5: I was really again, I was really proud of the
18:32
Speaker 5: room for holding space for that difficult conversation.
18:38
Speaker 3: And I think we really hurt her. We really hurt her.
18:40
Speaker 5: And and I hope that especially for the older heads,
18:44
Speaker 5: this is a conversation that's a little bit new. It's
18:46
Speaker 5: newer for the older heads in the space. I think
18:49
Speaker 5: it changed some of their perspectives.
18:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had your child at home?
18:54
Speaker 5: Right?
18:54
Speaker 1: I think I read that I did.
18:56
Speaker 5: Ye, I had a home I had a home birth
18:58
Speaker 5: with a with a midwife.
19:00
Speaker 6: Is it because of all the things that are going
19:01
Speaker 6: on in the hospitals and the way the black maternal
19:03
Speaker 6: death rate is you just didn't trust it.
19:05
Speaker 4: It's also during the pandemic COVID right seventeen months ago? Right?
19:08
Speaker 1: No? No, wasn't it.
19:11
Speaker 3: I mean, are we still dependent? I don't know.
19:12
Speaker 5: I don't know what stage we are, but I mean, well, listen,
19:16
Speaker 5: I got married at home, am I stooped during the
19:18
Speaker 5: pandemic and I had my baby at home. I don't
19:21
Speaker 5: know what stage of the pandemic it was, but yes,
19:23
Speaker 5: it was because you know, I went into pregnancy thinking
19:28
Speaker 5: that I was going to have a hospital birth, just
19:29
Speaker 5: like you know, my mother did and my grandmother did.
19:33
Speaker 3: That's the norm in our country. But and I sort
19:37
Speaker 3: of knew.
19:38
Speaker 5: About the maternal mortality crisis, and the black maternal mortality crisis,
19:41
Speaker 5: like in a peripheral sense, like it's something that happens
19:44
Speaker 5: out there in the world, but maybe not as much here.
19:50
Speaker 5: I think I bought into this myth that it also,
19:53
Speaker 5: you know, tends to happen only in impoverished communities, and
19:56
Speaker 5: so here I am as this, you know, as as
20:02
Speaker 5: black women go in this country, I am.
20:04
Speaker 3: I have all the privileges you could have.
20:07
Speaker 5: So I thought I wouldn't have a problem having my
20:09
Speaker 5: baby in the hospital, finding a great doctor, finding great care.
20:11
Speaker 5: And I was so shocked to learn how difficult it
20:15
Speaker 5: is to find a healthcare provider in our current medical
20:20
Speaker 5: system that makes you feel safe, that makes you feel
20:25
Speaker 5: listened to, that makes you feel like you know they
20:29
Speaker 5: there's a compassionate person that's going to make sure that
20:35
Speaker 5: you have the.
20:36
Speaker 3: Birth that you want.
20:38
Speaker 5: I'm based out of LA and so I went through
20:41
Speaker 5: from doctor to doctor to doctor, and this is me.
20:44
Speaker 3: I am, like, you know, I'm I'm pretty well connected.
20:47
Speaker 5: I got resources, I could go to the best of
20:49
Speaker 5: the best, and I had bad experience after bad experience
20:54
Speaker 5: after bad experience. It was so incredibly humbling, and it
21:00
Speaker 5: it was the first time where I had to really
21:02
Speaker 5: confront the fear that I could very well become another
21:07
Speaker 5: statistic And what I learned as I went through this
21:11
Speaker 5: journey is that this issue is so complex. It is
21:18
Speaker 5: this crisis, this maternal mortality crisis that you know that
21:23
Speaker 5: overly impacts black women, is very real, and unfortunately, the
21:30
Speaker 5: rates of death are actually surging. It's really scary, and
21:36
Speaker 5: I think when you talk about it with folks, I
21:38
Speaker 5: think people still have there's this concept, this misconception that
21:41
Speaker 5: this isn't happening in this country, that this isn't happening
21:44
Speaker 5: to people who look like me or come from where
21:47
Speaker 5: I come from. You know, it's not happening to well
21:49
Speaker 5: educated black women of means.
21:52
Speaker 3: It absolutely is.
21:53
Speaker 5: And as I've gotten deeper into this work and into
21:56
Speaker 5: the stats, I realized that black women, black wealthy women
22:03
Speaker 5: are dying at higher rates than poor white women in
22:06
Speaker 5: this country during and after childbirth. So when you understand
22:12
Speaker 5: like truly, where where, what the picture is, how how
22:17
Speaker 5: prevalent this issue is in our country and the richest
22:20
Speaker 5: country in the world, you start to you start to
22:24
Speaker 5: think about what informs your your point of view on
22:28
Speaker 5: what a safe where a safe birth happens, and and
22:31
Speaker 5: who's delivering your baby and why these messages are what
22:34
Speaker 5: you believe, you know, And so I thought, you know,
22:37
Speaker 5: I always thought like, oh, to be safe, I should
22:39
Speaker 5: have you know, I've heard of.
22:41
Speaker 3: Home births, I've heard of midwives.
22:43
Speaker 5: Sounds beautiful, God bless but to be safe air quotes,
22:47
Speaker 5: I'm going to have my baby in a hospital. But
22:50
Speaker 5: is it truly safer to have your baby in a
22:51
Speaker 5: hospital when you're a black woman in America? You have
22:53
Speaker 5: to really, you have to unpack that. And so I
22:56
Speaker 5: decided to have my baby outside of the hospital. Really
23:03
Speaker 5: because it was the place that I found the best care.
23:06
Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
23:07
Speaker 5: I am so lucky that I found black midwives, Kimberly
23:13
Speaker 5: Dirden and a Lager Hill. They owned the only black
23:17
Speaker 5: owned birthing center in all of southern California, which is wild.
23:19
Speaker 5: Wouldn't you think that there would be plenty of birthing
23:22
Speaker 5: centers and black midwives there, But it's still it's you know,
23:25
Speaker 5: it's a bit of a desert as it relates to
23:28
Speaker 5: this kind of maternal care. But these women were like angels.
23:33
Speaker 5: They were truly like they're unsung midwives and doulas are
23:39
Speaker 5: unsung heroes in our communities. And they came in and
23:44
Speaker 5: completely changed the trajectory of my pregnancy and really opened
23:47
Speaker 5: my mind, opened my eyes to this crisis. And and
23:52
Speaker 5: I feel compelled now to do something about it. And
23:55
Speaker 5: I will say I think we I had a beautiful birth,
23:58
Speaker 5: I had a sacred birth. I felt so safe and
24:03
Speaker 5: cared for. And I feel like we need to share
24:07
Speaker 5: more positive birthing stories with black women, from black women.
24:11
Speaker 4: Explaining the process.
24:11
Speaker 2: Because we've had Thomas time me and my wife several times.
24:17
Speaker 4: Thomas is your wife pregnant?
24:19
Speaker 1: Well, we had our last two. Latham was our dula
24:21
Speaker 1: for our last two.
24:22
Speaker 5: She what Latham is incredible. Latham is like also another
24:26
Speaker 5: unsung hero.
24:27
Speaker 2: Oh man, She's She's several times so explain the process,
24:30
Speaker 2: because I think what most women think when when you
24:32
Speaker 2: think of home, you think of pain, right, And I
24:34
Speaker 2: think a lot of people go to the hospital for
24:36
Speaker 2: that epidoro. They go to the hospital make sure that
24:38
Speaker 2: if there's any complications, especially with the baby, that.
24:41
Speaker 4: The doctor can can take care. So just you know, explain.
24:44
Speaker 2: I have six but all out of hospital, all hospital,
24:46
Speaker 2: all hospital, and my wife who all hospital. But break
24:48
Speaker 2: down the process of the experience so women listening don't
24:52
Speaker 2: get frightened, because if I'm listening, I would get frighten. Now,
24:54
Speaker 2: all I'm thinking about is pain, I'm thinking about what happens,
24:56
Speaker 2: I'm thinking blind, I'm thinking a whole lot.
24:59
Speaker 4: So break gone a process.
25:00
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm so glad you asked this, because we need
25:04
Speaker 5: to reframe pain for birthing people. I too, was so
25:11
Speaker 5: incredibly scared of not having access to an epidural. Like
25:15
Speaker 5: even when I found my midwife, I fell in love
25:17
Speaker 5: with her. I was like, I would love for you
25:19
Speaker 5: to birth my baby.
25:21
Speaker 3: But can we just have an epidural just in case?
25:23
Speaker 3: Could it just be there? And She's like, kind of
25:25
Speaker 3: like the whole thing.
25:26
Speaker 5: You can't have an epidural for a home birth, and
25:29
Speaker 5: that was the thing that made it. It was like
25:31
Speaker 5: the hardest part for me to overcome is like what
25:34
Speaker 5: if I can't handle the pain correct? And I actually
25:40
Speaker 5: did not decide to have a home birth until thirty six,
25:44
Speaker 5: thirty six or thirty seven weeks. It was like go time,
25:47
Speaker 5: and I still was like, you know, dating doctors and
25:51
Speaker 5: tiptoeing like that line. And ultimately I made the call
25:55
Speaker 5: because I was able to shift my mindset around pain,
26:02
Speaker 5: and I did that with the support and the guidance
26:05
Speaker 5: of my midwife. She talks about pain, the pain of
26:09
Speaker 5: childbirth as purposeful as directional, and she doesn't even use
26:15
Speaker 5: the word pain. She used the word She uses the
26:17
Speaker 5: word waves. She uses the word words like intensity. And
26:21
Speaker 5: she made it clear to me that your body has
26:24
Speaker 5: been preparing for this since the day you started your period.
26:27
Speaker 5: Those cramps that you feel, that discomfort that you feel,
26:31
Speaker 5: is the exact pain that you will feel as labor starts.
26:35
Speaker 5: So it's not an unfamiliar pain like I thought I
26:37
Speaker 5: was going to be, like, like it's gonna feel.
26:39
Speaker 3: Like knives in my Please make it seem like it is.
26:45
Speaker 5: Absolutely horror horrifying, like the movies and everything we've ever
26:50
Speaker 5: seen about birth is all inspiring fear. None of it
26:55
Speaker 5: is inspiring self trust and what a midwife does and
26:59
Speaker 5: what my wife did is completely she gave my power
27:02
Speaker 5: back to me. I feel like we have been trained
27:04
Speaker 5: as a culture, conditioned as a culture to give our
27:07
Speaker 5: power away as women, as black women, as birthing people.
27:11
Speaker 5: We give our power away to these authorities in white
27:14
Speaker 5: lab coats that often undermine our intelligence, that often gaslight us,
27:19
Speaker 5: that take advantage of the power that we give away.
27:23
Speaker 5: We're not taught about our bodies. We're not taught about
27:26
Speaker 5: what we were built to do. We're not taught about
27:29
Speaker 5: how babies have been getting here since the beginning of time,
27:32
Speaker 5: which was not in a hospital, right. We're not taught
27:35
Speaker 5: about how the obe opstroenetics came about and that it
27:39
Speaker 5: was set up to as a business that prioritizes profit
27:42
Speaker 5: over patients. We're not taught this. Once you learn just
27:48
Speaker 5: how systemic and complex this issue is, you start to
27:52
Speaker 5: realize that, like you need to, there's a lot of
27:54
Speaker 5: unlearning that we have to do. And I was so
27:57
Speaker 5: grateful that like this woman, this midwife, the way she
28:00
Speaker 5: talked about birth was like pleasurable and I was like, Oh,
28:03
Speaker 5: iing this. I know she's crazy. She's crazy. Is she
28:05
Speaker 5: talking about birth like it's a pleasurable experience? But y'all,
28:09
Speaker 5: when I tell you, and God as my witness, my
28:12
Speaker 5: husband as my witness, my midwife as my witness, delivering
28:17
Speaker 5: my child at home in an unmedicated birth was the
28:22
Speaker 5: single most empowering experience of my life.
28:25
Speaker 3: It was.
28:27
Speaker 5: It was transformative. It was oh my gosh, I'm getting emotional.
28:32
Speaker 5: It was spiritual. It was beautiful, like the pain was
28:38
Speaker 5: so secondary to the downloads that I got spiritually, to
28:43
Speaker 5: the access to my power that was unlocked for me.
28:49
Speaker 5: It was absolutely beautiful. And I just wish that more
28:52
Speaker 5: women were told, you were built for this. You can
28:55
Speaker 5: more than handle this. You will. You will not just survive,
28:58
Speaker 5: you can thrive through your birth. And so this is
29:01
Speaker 5: not to demonize you know, the epidural. Listen girl, if
29:04
Speaker 5: you want to go epidural, get the epidural, press the button,
29:07
Speaker 5: go for If you want to have a hospital, girl,
29:09
Speaker 5: do that. But make sure that you feel comfortable and
29:12
Speaker 5: safe and seen by your healthcare provider, because too many
29:16
Speaker 5: of us are dying in the hospital system. And if
29:19
Speaker 5: you are not finding the healthcare that you deserve that
29:22
Speaker 5: you need. Look outside, look into alternatives, look into other options.
29:27
Speaker 5: Other options are available, and you can have a beautiful,
29:31
Speaker 5: safe birth experience outside of the hospital system.
29:34
Speaker 4: Let me ask you one more question, right, you said, well.
29:36
Speaker 3: You guys got me emotional. I didn't expect to go
29:38
Speaker 3: there today.
29:38
Speaker 2: It was real conversation because there's a lot of women
29:40
Speaker 2: out there that need this information. Now, you said it
29:43
Speaker 2: thirty six weeks that you will still quote unquote dating doctors.
29:47
Speaker 1: Right.
29:49
Speaker 2: I could be wrong, but I thought your gynacologist is
29:53
Speaker 2: the one that usually delivers your doctor, and that gynecologe
29:56
Speaker 2: is somebody that you've been with for a long time
29:58
Speaker 2: and trust.
29:59
Speaker 4: Is that not the because I have six kids?
30:01
Speaker 1: Right?
30:01
Speaker 4: So the first the first delivery, Madison effed up gynecologists.
30:06
Speaker 4: It was like a dating the doctor type of thing.
30:08
Speaker 4: My wife went to somebody was horrible, bad experience. My
30:13
Speaker 4: wife almost passed. She had one hundred and four temperature
30:16
Speaker 4: for three or four days. It was very, very bad.
30:19
Speaker 2: We moved to Jersey and she got a gynecologist, minority
30:22
Speaker 2: woman that we trusted. Delivered out other five babies no problems,
30:26
Speaker 2: but that woman was somebody that we trusted. If my
30:29
Speaker 2: wife said there was a problem, she dropped what she
30:31
Speaker 2: did to get to that hospital she believed she trusted.
30:35
Speaker 2: So when you said data doctors don't most people use
30:37
Speaker 2: their gynecologists to deliver their baby. So with somebody that
30:40
Speaker 2: they see that knows them, that they trust or is
30:43
Speaker 2: that not true?
30:43
Speaker 6: No?
30:44
Speaker 5: Absolutely, that's the ideal scenario, right. But you have to
30:48
Speaker 5: understand we were, first of all, in a pandemic.
30:52
Speaker 3: I had just moved to a new state. In a pandemic.
30:55
Speaker 5: I didn't have a general doctor, you know, I didn't
30:58
Speaker 5: have a regular physician, let alone an obgyn. I hadn't
31:01
Speaker 5: gone to the doctor since the beginning of the pandemic.
31:04
Speaker 5: I'm generally healthy, and so I wasn't thinking about seeking
31:10
Speaker 5: out a doctor or an obg yn until I got pregnant.
31:14
Speaker 5: So once I got pregnant, I thought, Okay, how hard
31:16
Speaker 5: is it to find a good doctor? Can't be hard.
31:18
Speaker 5: I live in the mecca of you know, I live.
31:21
Speaker 5: I live in La So I got referrals. I did
31:24
Speaker 5: all the things you're supposed to do. I got referrals.
31:27
Speaker 5: I checked, you know, I checked everyone at all these
31:29
Speaker 5: doctors out on Google. I went in prepared with questions,
31:33
Speaker 5: and what I found is that I was met with
31:37
Speaker 5: what is the word, I was met with resistance. I
31:41
Speaker 5: would say, at best, it's like the most polite way
31:44
Speaker 5: I was. I was met with resistance when I came
31:47
Speaker 5: in with questions, when I came in sort of informed,
31:51
Speaker 5: and when I had the audacity to, you know, just
31:58
Speaker 5: ask what I thought, we're basic questions about how this
32:00
Speaker 5: would go to and also just try to when I
32:02
Speaker 5: tried to just form some sort of you know, connection
32:06
Speaker 5: to this person, it was like I was rushed the
32:10
Speaker 5: in and out girl.
32:11
Speaker 3: I was literally told.
32:12
Speaker 4: Like a fast food service, I'm not fast.
32:14
Speaker 5: Food service, I'm I'm I don't think people understand that
32:17
Speaker 5: when you when you are pregnant, you are in your
32:20
Speaker 5: most vulnerable state, right. I didn't even know to expect that,
32:25
Speaker 5: And I was very emotional, and I came in and
32:28
Speaker 5: I was rushed people. These doctors would not look at
32:31
Speaker 5: me in my face. They just kind of toss medication
32:34
Speaker 5: my way without even asking me. I mean, it was
32:36
Speaker 5: just it was so inhumane. I had I had vials
32:40
Speaker 5: of blood, six vials of my blood taken on accident
32:44
Speaker 5: without apology. They tried to excuse it and act like
32:46
Speaker 5: it didn't happen, like so many things happen.
32:48
Speaker 3: I was like, I now see how this happens.
32:52
Speaker 4: I just don't like how they don't allow you to film.
32:56
Speaker 2: Right, you pay for service. You're paying for that. It's
32:58
Speaker 2: not free, right, you're paying for that. But they won't
33:00
Speaker 2: allow you to film your birth in most hospitals, and
33:03
Speaker 2: they say it is to protect them, so if they
33:05
Speaker 2: do something wrong, you can't protect yourself. I just never understood.
33:08
Speaker 5: That there's so much you can't do that I didn't
33:11
Speaker 5: know in most cases. In many cases, I should say,
33:14
Speaker 5: you can't eat in the hospital. Once you're in labor.
33:18
Speaker 5: You have to have an IV in your system, which
33:20
Speaker 5: means you can't move around freely. Yes, sure, you most
33:24
Speaker 5: of the time have to deliver on your back or
33:27
Speaker 5: in the bed, which let's just think about this for
33:29
Speaker 5: one moment. This completely changed my outlook on birth. When
33:32
Speaker 5: one of my girlfriends was like, she had a home birth,
33:34
Speaker 5: and she said, think about how gravity works. Right, if
33:39
Speaker 5: you had to push a bowling ball outside out of
33:43
Speaker 5: your body.
33:43
Speaker 1: You'd stand up a squat.
33:45
Speaker 5: Right, does it make sense to lay on your back
33:48
Speaker 5: to push a bowling one? Out of your body, or
33:50
Speaker 5: does it make sense to be upright to use gravity.
33:53
Speaker 5: When somebody said that, I was like, Yo, that is
33:55
Speaker 5: the most basic thing. And how come we why have
34:00
Speaker 5: we been trained to think that this is the only
34:02
Speaker 5: way birth should happen on your back with a doctor
34:05
Speaker 5: seated at the that's for the doctor's convenience. And I'm
34:08
Speaker 5: not saying this in all cases. For some cases you
34:10
Speaker 5: must be on your back.
34:11
Speaker 3: It's the safest thing.
34:13
Speaker 5: In some cases you need medical interventions. In some cases
34:16
Speaker 5: you need a see section Like, I am not anti
34:18
Speaker 5: doctor and I'm not anti hospital, but what I am
34:21
Speaker 5: is pro woman and pro baby, and what makes that
34:27
Speaker 5: and I think that are our needs and our desires
34:33
Speaker 5: and our wishes should be honored, you know. And I've
34:35
Speaker 5: had a doctor literally in the middle of asking questions,
34:40
Speaker 5: stand up and walk out of the room and say,
34:44
Speaker 5: you have exceeded your two to three question Max. I am,
34:48
Speaker 5: and I've given you some grace, but I need to.
34:50
Speaker 4: Go two to three question Max.
34:52
Speaker 3: I'm like, I am in.
34:53
Speaker 5: My most vulnerable state and I am coming to you
34:55
Speaker 5: with legitimate questions with a polite attitude. I'm friendly, and
35:01
Speaker 5: you are just shutting me down. And walking out on me,
35:04
Speaker 5: and it just made me feel so small and even
35:07
Speaker 5: as some And I think it's important for someone like
35:09
Speaker 5: me to talk openly about this because I think that
35:12
Speaker 5: people would assume that someone this couldn't happen to someone
35:15
Speaker 5: like me, Like, no way. You know, I'm outspoken, I'm
35:18
Speaker 5: a journalist, I'm informed, I'm confident. But the experiences that
35:24
Speaker 5: I had with these doctors, you guys broke me down. Wow,
35:27
Speaker 5: it made me question myself. It silenced it silenced me.
35:31
Speaker 3: It made me. I cried after every appointment.
35:33
Speaker 5: I started thinking something's maybe wrong with me, Like do
35:36
Speaker 5: I need to smile more? What can I do to
35:39
Speaker 5: make myself seem worthy of good care in the presence
35:42
Speaker 5: of these doctors? That is not the way it should be.
35:44
Speaker 5: I'm paying for the service I'm paying into.
35:47
Speaker 3: So the whole.
35:49
Speaker 5: Medical industrial complex is poisoned, and there's so much change
35:56
Speaker 5: that needs to happen. There's so much reform that we
35:58
Speaker 5: need on every level level within the hospital system, with
36:02
Speaker 5: the insurance system, you know, at the legislative level, we
36:07
Speaker 5: need to figure out how to create pipelines for more midwives,
36:12
Speaker 5: more doulas. We have to figure out how to create
36:14
Speaker 5: more access so that underserved communities can have access to
36:18
Speaker 5: midwives and doulas if that's what they need. And by
36:21
Speaker 5: the way, the other thing that I learned which made
36:24
Speaker 5: me feel energized around this topic because this topic is
36:27
Speaker 5: depressing to a lot of people and they.
36:28
Speaker 3: Kind of like lean back.
36:30
Speaker 5: They're like, Ooh, I don't really want to talk about that.
36:32
Speaker 5: That's I'm just going to hope for the best with
36:34
Speaker 5: my with my birth. But I think we have to
36:36
Speaker 5: lean in to this conversation. What helped me lean in
36:40
Speaker 5: was understanding that this is solvable, Like there are solutions,
36:44
Speaker 5: and there's a stat that was really staggering.
36:46
Speaker 6: To me.
36:48
Speaker 5: That basically, if if you have a midwife or a doula,
36:54
Speaker 5: seventy percent of these deaths could be prevented. Seventy percent
36:59
Speaker 5: of these materi ternal health, black maternal health that could
37:02
Speaker 5: be prevented with the intervention of a midwife and a doula.
37:07
Speaker 3: That gives me hope.
37:08
Speaker 5: That's like, Okay, well, if that's the way to solve this,
37:11
Speaker 5: let's figure out how we can create a pipeline of
37:15
Speaker 5: more midwives, more doulas. Let's figure out how we can
37:17
Speaker 5: create a system that's more of a hybrid model where doctors, doulas,
37:21
Speaker 5: and midwives can all coexist peacefully, can work well together.
37:27
Speaker 5: And so that's as you can see. I'm just very
37:29
Speaker 5: fired up about this particular issue because I just think
37:31
Speaker 5: there's nothing more important than keeping mothers alive to raise
37:35
Speaker 5: these children that we are bringing into the world, especially
37:38
Speaker 5: at a time like this where more women are being
37:42
Speaker 5: forced into motherhood before they're ready. If we have the
37:45
Speaker 5: audacity as a country, if our government has the audacity
37:49
Speaker 5: to force women into parenthood before they are ready, we
37:54
Speaker 5: need to create systems that will keep them alive to
37:57
Speaker 5: raise those children. It is as simple as that. So
38:00
Speaker 5: I hope next season I don't bring it back to
38:02
Speaker 5: the show.
38:02
Speaker 3: I hope next season this is something we can talk
38:04
Speaker 3: about and unpack.
38:06
Speaker 1: Definitely a conversation.
38:07
Speaker 3: Can I just tell you this is the first time
38:09
Speaker 3: I had this conversation with two men.
38:11
Speaker 1: Oh listen, I swear by duelers.
38:13
Speaker 3: You know, chills right now just.
38:15
Speaker 6: Because of the experiences that me and my wife have
38:18
Speaker 6: had in the hospital, you know, whether it was emergency
38:21
Speaker 6: se sections. She had to be rushed for our second child,
38:23
Speaker 6: and when Latham came in for our third childh My
38:25
Speaker 6: wife was dreading having another sea section. Lath was like,
38:28
Speaker 6: you don't have to have one, but the doctor was
38:30
Speaker 6: telling her they had to have one. And what you
38:32
Speaker 6: realize is it's easy for the doctor, and it's more
38:35
Speaker 6: money because it's a surgery. So the doctor can schedule
38:37
Speaker 6: with day to come in, cut her open, take the
38:41
Speaker 6: baby out, thaw her back up.
38:43
Speaker 1: It's more money.
38:43
Speaker 6: But think about how much pain that calls us for
38:46
Speaker 6: the women. But they're not thinking about that. They're thinking
38:49
Speaker 6: about them.
38:51
Speaker 3: And surgeries go left, can go wrong.
38:53
Speaker 5: And I also feel like I need to say, you know,
38:57
Speaker 5: things can go wrong in a home birth, absolutely, but
39:00
Speaker 5: but I think the problem is we've inflated, like there's
39:02
Speaker 5: an inflated sense that home births are more dangerous than
39:06
Speaker 5: hospital births, and if you actually look at the stats.
39:08
Speaker 3: That's not true.
39:09
Speaker 5: And I feel like I need to also share that, like,
39:12
Speaker 5: while I had this beautiful birth that truly changed my
39:17
Speaker 5: life and my perspective on literally everything, I did have
39:21
Speaker 5: a complication after I delivered my baby, and I won't
39:25
Speaker 5: get into the details about it, but what I will
39:27
Speaker 5: say is that I had.
39:31
Speaker 3: The most competent.
39:33
Speaker 5: Medical professionals in my home, who took the best care
39:40
Speaker 5: of me, and they were so Not only did they
39:43
Speaker 5: take the best care of me and solve the problem
39:46
Speaker 5: in a speedy manner, but they protected my mental and
39:51
Speaker 5: my spiritual and my emotional state such that I did
39:56
Speaker 5: not even know I was having an emergency. I did
39:59
Speaker 5: not until the next day. They So when I think
40:03
Speaker 5: about my birth, I don't have birth trauma. I don't
40:06
Speaker 5: think about birth trauma. I don't think about this complication.
40:09
Speaker 5: I think about the incredible experience that I had. And
40:13
Speaker 5: that's because they prioritized my mental health and my peace
40:18
Speaker 5: and my sanity and my well being in a.
40:21
Speaker 3: Three sixty way.
40:22
Speaker 5: If I asked them if I was in a hospital
40:24
Speaker 5: and this exact same thing happened, like, what would that
40:27
Speaker 5: have What would have happened? They were like, well, they
40:32
Speaker 5: would have rushed in a number of nurses and doctors
40:36
Speaker 5: probably would have come in. You probably would have been
40:38
Speaker 5: you would have been separated from your child, You would
40:40
Speaker 5: have been rushed into a different room. You might have
40:42
Speaker 5: been given blood transfusion. You like, it would have been like,
40:50
Speaker 5: I mean, alarms would have been going off. In the
40:54
Speaker 5: safety of my home, I was taken care of. I
40:58
Speaker 5: didn't know anything was going wrong. They swiftly handled me,
41:02
Speaker 5: and they were very prepared to call the ambulance if
41:05
Speaker 5: they needed to. And I think that's really important for
41:08
Speaker 5: people to know. People think that, like there aren't mechanisms
41:11
Speaker 5: in place to navigate when something goes wrong, and they're
41:16
Speaker 5: they're midwives. Their actual job is to identify the point
41:20
Speaker 5: when and if you need medical intervention, if you need
41:24
Speaker 5: to call the ambulance, you need to get to someone,
41:26
Speaker 5: to a hospital, there's already a plan in place. I
41:29
Speaker 5: had four backup hospitals. I spoke to doctors that every
41:31
Speaker 5: single one of them, spoke to nurses at every single
41:34
Speaker 5: one of them, because as a black woman, I did
41:36
Speaker 5: not want the first time. I didn't want them to
41:39
Speaker 5: meet me for the first time, and in my most
41:41
Speaker 5: vulnerable state, in an emergency state, I wanted them to
41:44
Speaker 5: know my name.
41:45
Speaker 3: I wanted them to see my face.
41:46
Speaker 5: And honestly, who has time to go to from hospital
41:49
Speaker 5: to hospital to do that kind of thing. I made
41:51
Speaker 5: the time because I knew it was a matter of
41:53
Speaker 5: life or death. And so I share that with whoever
41:55
Speaker 5: is listening, Like, you know, there's so much fear mongering
41:58
Speaker 5: around motherhood and childbirth in this country, and you know
42:02
Speaker 5: it's for a good reason. These stats are really staggering.
42:05
Speaker 3: They're real there. It's very scary.
42:07
Speaker 5: But at the same time, there are pathways to beautiful,
42:12
Speaker 5: safe birthing experiences, and there are things we can do
42:14
Speaker 5: to empower ourselves and to advocate for ourselves. And I
42:17
Speaker 5: think a big part of that is empowering our partners
42:20
Speaker 5: and informing our partners on how they can be advocates
42:24
Speaker 5: for us and how they can be allies. So I
42:26
Speaker 5: just really want to I really want to hold space
42:28
Speaker 5: for this just to say, like, thank you guys for
42:31
Speaker 5: even taking this much time in this interview to talk
42:34
Speaker 5: about this. And as fathers, you guys, I can tell
42:36
Speaker 5: you care, I can tell you're leaning in and literally
42:40
Speaker 5: this is the kind of conversation we're having on the
42:41
Speaker 5: Conversations project.
42:43
Speaker 3: Well, I just to come full circle. I just want
42:45
Speaker 3: to say thank you so much.
42:45
Speaker 4: For we to respond.
42:47
Speaker 2: I would say that, you know the best thing about
42:49
Speaker 2: these conversations. You know, Charlemagne has for daughters with his wife.
42:52
Speaker 2: I have six kids with mom, but more men want
42:56
Speaker 2: to know what's going on. Before it was one of
42:58
Speaker 2: those things you go to the hospital tell us when
42:59
Speaker 2: we need to be there, but we want to be
43:01
Speaker 2: a part of it. We want to know what's what
43:03
Speaker 2: affects you, what makes you cry, what hurts, what your
43:05
Speaker 2: concerns are, because now situation, we can do it together.
43:10
Speaker 2: It's not just you on your own and same thing
43:11
Speaker 2: with us with the stuff that we go through. It's
43:13
Speaker 2: not just that's on our own. And we appreciate you
43:15
Speaker 2: for sharing your what.
43:16
Speaker 6: Dudes are important too when you in those hospitals and
43:19
Speaker 6: have to communicate with those doctors and those nurses.
43:22
Speaker 1: As a father, as a husband, when you see your.
43:24
Speaker 6: Wife of one of our kids, they didn't have any epidurals.
43:32
Speaker 1: The hospital had no epidemi.
43:34
Speaker 2: The hospital had told me what the hospital and that's
43:36
Speaker 2: where my wife delivered, which is where.
43:37
Speaker 6: The hospital had no epidoros. So my wife had to
43:40
Speaker 6: deliver the baby. Like you know, they could have went
43:42
Speaker 6: and got one from another hospital, but she was already
43:44
Speaker 6: right there, so she ended up having a baby with
43:46
Speaker 6: no epidural.
43:47
Speaker 1: Like you mean, you know what I mean? Like that's
43:51
Speaker 1: how I'm talking to.
43:52
Speaker 6: The people, you know, But when you have a doula,
43:54
Speaker 6: a doula communicates in a different ways.
43:56
Speaker 5: Them always love layah, and I will say my husband
43:59
Speaker 5: was like my due by the way, like my husband,
44:02
Speaker 5: I call him my dad doulah. We were in the bathroom,
44:04
Speaker 5: we were in the shower for the majority of my labor.
44:07
Speaker 5: He sat there with me and and labored with me.
44:10
Speaker 5: It was the most it was the most beautiful experience
44:12
Speaker 5: for us as a couple. And I there was this
44:14
Speaker 5: one like triumphant, amazing moment where I got into this
44:19
Speaker 5: like deep meditative state. I was like in a trans
44:22
Speaker 5: I was literally on another planet and I was just breathing, breathing, breathing,
44:28
Speaker 5: and I got this like download where I thought, Okay,
44:32
Speaker 5: what happens if I don't react to the pain I
44:37
Speaker 5: feel the wave coming? What if I just breathe and
44:40
Speaker 5: just don't even react.
44:42
Speaker 3: Is that possible? Let's try.
44:44
Speaker 5: So I sat there and like every time I felt
44:46
Speaker 5: like like tensing up or like my my my eyebrows furrowing,
44:50
Speaker 5: or my hands, I just breathed into those areas and
44:55
Speaker 5: I just tried to just smile and stay calm. And
44:59
Speaker 5: I was a to do that through three or four contractions,
45:03
Speaker 5: and my husband sitting right in front of me in
45:05
Speaker 5: the shower, which, by the way, the shower is liquid epidural. Ladies,
45:09
Speaker 5: listen up. The shower is liquid epidural.
45:13
Speaker 3: He takes your pain.
45:14
Speaker 5: Yes, I was in the shower with the water on.
45:16
Speaker 5: It took my pain from a seven to a two.
45:18
Speaker 5: It Why don't we tell women this? Why don't we
45:21
Speaker 5: talk about this? Why do we act like epidura is
45:23
Speaker 5: the only pain relief available to us.
45:25
Speaker 3: It's not water is. It's the most natural thing.
45:28
Speaker 5: So I sat there and I'm having my water I'm
45:30
Speaker 5: having my like divine goddess, feminine, you know, divine, feminine moment.
45:34
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there feeling so powerful, so strong.
45:37
Speaker 5: And my husband's sitting at like literally kneeling in front
45:39
Speaker 5: of me, looking at me, and he's and my eyes
45:42
Speaker 5: were closed, and he taps me, and he's like, babe,
45:46
Speaker 5: do you think you're gonna have another one soon?
45:47
Speaker 3: Is everything okay? And I just went I just had three?
45:53
Speaker 3: And he was like, damn.
45:56
Speaker 5: Like I never felt like more of a bad bitch
45:58
Speaker 5: of my life, I'm telling you right now. Or if
46:00
Speaker 5: I was like, yo, I could do anything, if I
46:03
Speaker 5: can do this, and I swear to you, guys, that
46:05
Speaker 5: lesson that just was deposited to me in labor is
46:09
Speaker 5: something I think about every single day. When something happens
46:12
Speaker 5: that makes me uncomfortable, that pisses me off, something a
46:15
Speaker 5: challenge arises, I breathe into it, and I'm like, how
46:19
Speaker 5: can I not react to this? How can I rise
46:21
Speaker 5: above this? How can I ride this wave versus letting
46:24
Speaker 5: this wave take me down? These are things that these
46:28
Speaker 5: are like just gems that would not have been unlocked
46:31
Speaker 5: to me if I didn't allow myself, trust myself enough
46:33
Speaker 5: to go through this process and allow my body to
46:37
Speaker 5: do what it was meant to do. And I wish
46:39
Speaker 5: more people talked about the spiritual side of birth, of
46:42
Speaker 5: unmedicated birth.
46:44
Speaker 3: And it's not easy. I don't want to paint like
46:45
Speaker 3: an unrealistic picture. It's not easy.
46:48
Speaker 1: But we were.
46:48
Speaker 5: Built to do hard things. And by the way, my
46:50
Speaker 5: baby was nine pounds Okay, so this is a nine
46:53
Speaker 5: pounds baby, big baby, unmedicated and I live to.
46:58
Speaker 3: Tell the story. And I didn't just survive, but I
47:00
Speaker 3: thrive through it.
47:01
Speaker 1: Well.
47:01
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story.
47:03
Speaker 1: Watch the Conversation project on Hulu right now.
47:06
Speaker 4: Elaine Walterorth, thank you so much.
47:08
Speaker 3: Thank you guys.
47:09
Speaker 4: It's the Breakfast Club, good morning, wake that ass up
47:12
Speaker 4: Earth in the morning.
47:13
Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club