Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 3: moving toward ugliness Ft. Mia Mingus

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3: moving toward ugliness Ft. Mia Mingus · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

• 0:00
  and welcome to the reframe podcast where we reframe, rethink and reimagine everything all in the name of love and liberation.
• 0:10
  I simply cannot wait to introduce you to our guest today. She is beyond words.
• 0:15
  When I first read her work, the earth literally stood still and I cannot wait for you to hear her voice and what she has to say.
• 0:23
  So her name is Mia Mingus and she is a writer, educator and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice.
• 0:32
  She is a queer, physically disabled Korean transnational adoptee race in the Caribbean.
• 0:38
  She works for community, interdependence and home for all of us, not just some of us and longs for a world where disabled children can live, free of violence with dignity and love.
• 0:51
  As her work for liberation evolves and deepens, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence.
• 0:58
  Mia is beyond this world and of it, I'm obsessed with her work, her voice and everything that she is and I cannot wait for you to meet her.
• 1:08
  So without further ado, here is my conversation with Mia Mingus.
• 1:11
  The Sun shines out of you and into me. Hello, Sun shines and welcome to reimagining with I understood a podcast where we reframe, rethink and reimagine everything, standing in the way of love and liberation.
• 1:33
  I'm your host, Ayenda and I am delighted, enchanted, ecstatic, overjoyed to have a slice of your precious time today.
• 1:42
  So thank you so, so much Mia for being here, I will read your official intro from leaving evidence your amazing blog and also point people to all your work, but I would love to just start with an introduction in your own words, who are you in your own words and thank you so much for being here.
• 2:04
  Thank you so much for having me, so I guess an introduction in my own words be that I am a queer disabled woman of color.
• 2:14
  I am Korean American, I'm a Korean adoptee as well. I was raised in the Caribbean on a US territory in the US Virgin Islands and I've done a ton of work in disability justice work.
• 2:29
  I was actually lucky enough to be part of the creation of that framework with a handful of other folks and now it's amazing because it's just grown and grown, which is so exciting and I love.
• 2:44
  I love that there's many more other people who can talk about disability justice and who are doing it in lots and lots of different and creative, wonderful ways and finding new things about it and creating their own stuff, I love it.
• 2:57
  Their own language, everything, that's the way it's supposed to be and then I've done a ton of work in transformative justice as well, I've been doing that for about 20 years and I, it feels like forever sometimes.
• 3:11
  But I love that work and I feel like it's such a key part of abolition work that we absolutely need because it's not enough just to like shut down the prisons or like have no more police like we also have to be building well then what are we going to have like not to replace them, but like what then is our creative revolutionary imaginations for our liberated world.
• 3:36
  Then like how do we want to handle harm, how do we want to handle conflict, how do we want to handle trauma, violence, if it were to happen, what you know in this liberated future, but obviously along the way, how do we want to do that and how do we want to disinvest in punishment and revenge and all of the criminalization.
• 3:56
  So that work has been really life giving in a lot of ways, I know that people think it's like, I mean, it is it's very heavy work, it's trauma filled oftentimes and bull and I think it's also some of the most life giving work and there's a lot of joy in it, which I know can sound counter intuitive, but yeah.
• 4:15
  I love that I love that I think that's so amazing that that you have found and cultivated joy and love and community in this work and that you send to that and everything that you write as well and share with us and I also love how throughout your writing you do balance that theme of.
• 4:30
  You never simply critique you also reimagine like what are we really moving towards and pushing people to ask what world would we be being if it weren't for this one and it's not simply enough to to deconstruct we also need to reconstruct and I guess through that lens what world do you dream of what.
• 4:47
  So many pieces i'm like how long do you have I always say that if I hadn't gone into disability justice and transformative justice work, I would have done.
• 4:59
  Food justice or like I mean well and now also climate justice because I mean you can't do food justice with that also it's a part of climate justice before, but I would have done something around food sovereignty and food justice because I just believe in feeding people and I believe in.
• 5:15
  Having a say in an ownership over our food production and and I think that it's killing us the food industry, the mainstream food industry that we have nowadays and so that definitely when I like that's the first thing I always think of and then i'm also a big composer so I love.
• 5:35
  I love the idea to because it's taking something that is deemed as like waste or whatever and turning it into this process of this alchemy this natural process that's organic into something that can nourish and I can.
• 5:52
  Take care for folks and in a lot of ways I joke oftentimes that I feel like that's what I do with TJ and that I feel like a garbage cluster oftentimes you know like.
• 6:02
  Taking things that are in situations or people communities whatever that folks have thrown away or dean does not useful it's never going to be anything that is that person is always going to be a terrible person and trying to support them to be something that can be useful nourishing supportive.
• 6:23
  I love a member of the community again or even of any community, even if they don't return to that same.
• 6:29
  Yes, I love that imagery it also reminds me so much of the concept of moving toward ugliness it's really finding the what is nourishing and life giving in generative in something that we've been taught to.
• 6:41
  To think of as something we should be fleeing from and disposing of but that's so much of our humanity of our growth potential of our like life force lies in what we discard and I think that's very powerful how that kind of is a theme in your work which you know that's really amazing I love that and to that point of composting what in your life brings you joy what brings you pleasure what makes your face light up consistently.
• 7:03
  All besides composting and growing food listen my dog where we so much joy.
• 7:11
  I don't even describe so definitely my dogs which are to both of them are still kind of in the puppy stage and then my partner is a huge one I'm lucky I feel so lucky all the time and grateful that I have a partner who I am completely still smitten and 100% love with after like we're almost at 12 years this year wow yeah that's incredible.
• 7:37
  Especially as the you know as a person of color with another person of color as an Asian person with another Asian person as a person with another person like you know as queer Koreans I think that yeah I just think there's something really powerful about queer people of color loving each other absolutely.
• 7:55
  And especially like it's not always the case but like when it happens within your same like culture or race I think it's just so special and then as a disabled person especially because so many that's one of the things that oftentimes disabled folks aren't allowed access to is love and relationships and intimacy and connection and so much of that is because of ableism and.
• 8:19
  So yeah and then also like listen don't laugh at me but.
• 8:25
  But like adjust the silly little videos that people are content creators are creating.
• 8:33
  We're not love so funny and so funny and ridiculous but they're saving me like so much.
• 8:40
  I love that oh my gosh wait I have so many questions but I'll just on the second one like what types of videos consistently like make you laugh is there a genre is it just like so many things I mean but I just saw a video I don't know why viral so I'm sure a lot of people have seen it but like the video of that little mouse puppet in like chain mail singing that song that is just it's like somebody just made up lyrics to this.
• 9:07
  I think it's a Kate Bush song I never listened to Kate Bush so I don't know but it's like so ridiculous and like it's about like it's about like asking God if he wants to have a cuddle or something.
• 9:20
  Oh my gosh and I love so hard at that.
• 9:24
  Wait I love that that's excellent I mean well that's beautiful join all forms and then I'm so excited to hear about your part your relationship your partner I think it's incredible what you said not only that you've been together 12 years but you're still smitten how have you cultivated such a long lasting.
• 9:41
  Beautiful joyful relationship I think you know I for example get to eight months and I'm like well.
• 9:49
  It's a skill it's not it's not I mean I'm just always curious I think it's such a beautiful thing and I love one of your pieces you write like if we're to liberate ourselves we need to be able to form long lasting deep close bonds and not just throw each other away at the first sign of conflict and so I just love that but I would love to learn more about that and also what's your favorite thing about them.
• 10:12
  Oh my gosh okay first of all.
• 10:14
  If you really want to do deep dive we can do a whole other episode on it because it's so big you know like what are all the things.
• 10:21
  Yes definitely.
• 10:22
  I do think though that one of the I mean one of the things is moving towards the ugly stuff which I know we're going to talk about for sure.
• 10:29
  I'm finding people which is hard to do frankly like I mean in practice not just theory because in theory people are like oh yes moving towards the ugly oh that's what you do and then they're like nobody got to look exactly exactly you know yes yes yes.
• 10:46
  But I think like also just in general like one of the big things that both of us do and they just happen organically is gratitude like we just appreciate each other all the time and not in like put it in our calendar and now we will say what we're thankful for about each other like it just pours out of us and you know thank you for doing the dishes like even little things that are not like grand gestures.
• 11:10
  Thank you for making dinner or being the one who like pops the popcorn while we're still watching movie together.
• 11:16
  I think that that really is a key thing and my favorite one of my favorite things about her definitely is I think that she's one of the funniest people I would probably be funniest person I've ever met so like she is not like nobody else.
• 11:30
  Oh that's incredible I mean gratitude and laughter like what more could anyone ask for and you say there's a whole there's so much more we could talk about but I love those things I think that's so important and I am obsessed with gratitude and abundance thinking and I'm so happy that you've cultivated that and we can the rest of us can only dream but we're very happy for you.
• 11:49
  And so it seems like no one is more deserving although we're all deserving of love so I'm trying to work work away from that mindset but thank you for sharing that I would love to actually go there you've mentioned part of it is the moving toward the ugliness stuff I would love to hear in your own words what does it mean to move towards ugliness.
• 12:07
  I think what it means to move towards ugliness is to really will one embrace and not be afraid of your own ugliness meaning and that's beyond looks obviously looks to but like the places inside of you that scare you or the parts of yourself that you regularly pun it because we punish ourselves.
• 12:31
  You know that you regularly punish or exile or criminalized inside of yourself right a name that that's bad where you have tons of shame about but I also think a big part of moving towards the ugly.
• 12:43
  Has to include our looks like in our aesthetics as well because because it's a real thing like you know it's not a coincidence that so many successful people also happen to be attractive or conventionally and traditionally attractive for example like it's not a coincidence that.
• 13:04
  So many of us we deconstruct how white supremacy or ableism or capital some place out in beauty standards and things like that and desirability but then when it comes to to who we want to date.
• 13:18
  We list all those same thing literally that was so you know and it's like for people will be online talking about how terrible fat phobia is but every single one of their partners everybody they've ever dated is thin like.
• 13:32
  And the same with disability the same with ways to say you know it's like it's the same with colors like all.
• 13:38
  Everything is so I think that moving towards the ugly is really about like really interrogating why are we so afraid and especially also why are you why am I so afraid meeting on a collective level but also on an individual level not being afraid to interrogate those things and.
• 13:58
  And risking what it would mean to be ugly and that is different for everybody because everybody is in different kind of locations in their life they've different experiences so i'm not saying for people to put themselves in unsafe situations because let's be real being.
• 14:15
  What this society deems as ugly opens yourself up her violence and targeted for harassment targeted for all kinds of whether it's verbal harassment physical harass whatever it may be so i'm also noting that of course I want folks to be safe in doing that and both and.
• 14:34
  I also want people to understand that for so many people it's not a choice they don't get to choose exactly the reality of fear harassment feared violence whatever it is fear to abuse every single day absolutely I just absolutely love this because I think it's so everything is so often framed in.
• 14:54
  Expanding who can be seen as beautiful desirability politics diversity and inclusion and it's like what are we being being included in and how violent is it actually it's extremely violent and it's always going to be necessarily exclusionary and it's not even trying to be truly inclusive if you look at who gets included.
• 15:12
  And that logic that it's using to include to select okay you can be in you can be in the Netflix show you can't or you can be seen as desirable and you can't is still a deep logic of white supremacy a deep logic of ableism a deep logic of all these things I think that even the imagery of moving toward ugliness is so powerful and important and I think this tension you've laid out between like.
• 15:35
  Our politics in theory and then who we date or who we surround even our friends everything is so critical and it's a discomfort that we each like that people really need to sit with that I need to sit with that everyone that everyone needs to sit with like I consider myself against fat phobia similar to what you just said everyone I've dated has been thin and so there is a there's a dishonesty there's a lack of integrity when we're not willing to.
• 15:58
  When we just want to say we're something but we're not actually living the fullness of it and so I just absolutely love that i'm curious how did you come to this language or this the speech that you wrote.
• 16:08
  How do ideas form for you is it something that I mean you've mentioned you've been thinking about this since you were a young child but I wonder for a specific moment so experiences that.
• 16:17
  That led you to this frame of thinking because it's extremely powerful and unique absolutely there are so many but I think like one of the main kind of ongoing experiences in my childhood was I had so.
• 16:31
  My disability also had polio when I was before I was six months old which by the way like when i'm going to talk about it but like the fact that polio is back and it's like a mind like whoa what's going what is this the world we're living in.
• 16:46
  So I polio when I was a baby and then I because of that I was in and out of hospitals and surgeries doctors physical therapist brace makers I wore a brace on my leg since the time I was.
• 17:01
  I think I was one and a half or two till the time that I was like 21 and so.
• 17:07
  It was really my experience in the medical industrial complex but also outside having as somebody who had a visible disability and especially as a girl as a girl of color as Asian girl.
• 17:21
  Having a physical disability that impacted the way that I walked and so I walked with a very pronounced limp and then I also have this figure meant because of my disability and so.
• 17:37
  It was all of those things together and just like wearing a we're being disabled in a way where it is.
• 17:44
  unmistakably you know like whether you're in a wheelchair whether you're using a walker or crutches or in my case have a brace or some kind of other you know maybe you're an amputee who uses a prosthetic or you know et cetera et cetera like.
• 18:00
  I think when you have when you have a disability you have something that is so visible like that and they so visibly signaling to people.
• 18:09
  otherness undesirability kind of this like pity and sad thing I think that that those things were some of the most formative experiences in my life that that really.
• 18:23
  You know it's it's so interesting because when you are if you are a sign female at birth and you as a girl like you're expected to right as a cis girl you're expected to.
• 18:37
  Be all of these things that are all about desire ability in ways that that folks who are signed male at birth aren't necessarily that's not put on them in the same way there's definitely standards and like you know unhealthy things that you know boys are expected to live up to for sure like being masculine or playing sports and whatever.
• 19:00
  But I think though the specific experience of experiencing like all of these expectations about desire ability and beauty and that that as a girl really or I mean as a woman like we're told that that is actually the soul.
• 19:17
  work part of our value of what makes us valuable in this male supremacist patriarchal misogynist world that we live in like that's really up the crux of what your value is you know in an oppressive system so that was definitely formative and like really.
• 19:35
  Understanding myself to be as you know and as the young person I like as a child I didn't really think that there was anything wrong with me like inherently but I knew that other people did I got that very clearly explicitly and like overtly and covertly a lot of doctors and
• 19:54
  race makers with and physical therapists all them would say things like oh well you know it's not important to get married don't worry you can still have a good life if or nobody will want you because of your leg like literally explicitly or you can hide this brace under your pants so that nobody will know they were always talking about boys because it's always assumed but like you know you can hide your brace this brace under your clothes.
• 20:23
  So boys won't know and just all of these messages like how my body was was not okay it was not okay and that that I wasn't going to live a life where I ever had like romantic or sexual love you know where it's just like oh having friends is great and of course there is nothing wrong with not being partnered at all but it's like right the both and of the ways in which that kind of undesirability those kind of undesirability.
• 20:53
  Politics get laid on to disable people all the time children and but then I have to say though a huge part of it also was when I when I started to come into my queerness and like come out and being in queer community and being in like queer POC community predominantly but also queer community out large.
• 21:17
  The ways in which the queer community just across the board is obsessed being hot and desirable and like gorgeous and sexy and like and getting laid and of course like there's nothing wrong with any of these things.
• 21:35
  It just happens to be though that the ways in which we understand what sexy is have all are all made out of the systems of oppression that we live in and so and like that those unhealthy standards and they exist within social justice communities as well right they exist.
• 21:53
  Across the board so those are some of the main pieces and I think also being queer and like having a construction of them right and like being fam or like what fam is.
• 22:07
  And having some of my most like able as experiences in the community have come from self identified that it's like this bulls and right of like.
• 22:16
  But I thought we were trying to create more liberatory genders and gender expressions and more I thought that being queer was about really pushing back against the status quo and it wasn't about saying we're just like you so we deserve the same things as you was about saying.
• 22:35
  We're different than you and that's okay and that's still we're still like human beings who deserve you know it's not about being a simulator it's about queerness to me was about really saying like difference is good actually and we like it that we are we don't want to be just like you.
• 22:54
  So I think all of those things really shaped moving towards the ugly and it's so funny because they shaped it so intensely that when I finally got the chance to write it and it's kind of like if anybody out there's ever written a book or an essay like.
• 23:10
  Oftentimes these things are rattling around in your head for years sometimes decades and then when you finally get the chance to it just it was writing moving towards the ugly was one of those experiences that where you just are in the zone you know like the creative process where you get in the zone it's so seamless it's like a straight connection between you and just divide creation.
• 23:33
  Wow yes and that it was it is truly a divine creation.
• 23:36
  I think what you mentioned about because what you would hope is you know you felt the sense of exclusion you find community with your people and then you feel at home but that is not it's regularly for people with multiple marginalized identities that's not the story and I think the deep pain of.
• 23:53
  You being other marginalized like I think the story you share about wanting to wear sneakers in that essay i'll read it on the podcast but it's just so powerful of.
• 24:03
  You basically saying like oh and solidarity with me can you wear flats and not wear heels this fam of color saying no but like you totally should wear sneakers like that's totally fine but it's like okay but you won't do it with me.
• 24:13
  And the deep pain that so many of us carry from our own communities I think is so often linked to and like rooted in beauty and needing to be beautiful above needing to be I love the way that you frame magnificence and I can't wait to hear like how you define it but radically human and in love with each other which is not conditional and it doesn't require you to.
• 24:34
  To fit into this beauty standard that was literally constructed to justify killing us and like harming us and oppressing us and so it's so sad to see this pattern like replicated of.
• 24:46
  I love how you frame it like wanting to be hard wanting to be desirable and being so much more welcomed when you are those things like when you are.
• 24:54
  perceived to be desirable and what that's really rooted in and I think also just the idea that like it's so sad that it's even named beauty because it just obfuscates so much of the violence that's really packed into that how much bullying how much.
• 25:08
  hatefulness how much people being made to feel like their lives are unworthy is rooted in this thing that we allow to be called beauty and I think it's also such a.
• 25:18
  A sad thing how much exploitation of global South women, especially global South people happens under this umbrella term of beauty.
• 25:26
  And so I love the concept of moving away from it but specifically naming what we can move towards instead and that that is so much more generative that ugliness is the thing that we're actually what we actually want but we might not even know or recognize it if we haven't done that work so i'm just grateful that you've given us language and that you're a part of a community of voices trying to name.
• 25:48
  And theorize on this issue because it's very trivialized but it's fully like not trivial at all yeah.
• 25:54
  So I guess as you kind of move you define moving towards ugliness you mentioned this thing that you called magnificence and I think that is just so.
• 26:03
  chillingly beautiful it's such a powerful and grand description and word and choice of word and so i'd love to hear in your words like what is magnificence why did you choose that word and what would it mean to embrace each other's magnificence.
• 26:19
  You know, I think with the point that you were making just before that saying talking about like it's a shame that it's all beauty because it.
• 26:26
  obfuscates all the violence so to me magnificence is something we're you know beauty and I say in the essay like I don't think we can reclaim beauty and I think a lot of folks out there are like.
• 26:40
  Especially oppressed communities I just want to say preferences by saying I understand why we do this you know like it is scary to be ugly and it is also so deeply painful and the shame.
• 26:55
  That comes with being ugly right that the society puts on you I understand the impulse to try to reach and move towards.
• 27:03
  Desire ability as a way to feel freedom or good or what have you like so I get it and I know that it comes from a very valid place and both and to me it's like.
• 27:18
  Beauty has always been something that the ways not like of course we can talk about like deep sacred beauty like when you when you look at a tree growing in nature or a waterfall like that is a totally different conversation so when I talk about beauty i'm talking about the ways in which beauty gets used on people primarily.
• 27:40
  Not only people like because sometimes it happens with animals to like it's so intense it is that it's like you know like anyways not to and there's so many things there's so many things yeah no I absolutely you.
• 27:53
  But to me magnificence is right it's a distinctly different thing from beauty and it is something that is ineliable it is something that is.
• 28:03
  deeply a part of just who we are at our core and that no one can take away from you nobody can shame that about you it is yours and to me it's part of.
• 28:16
  The what it means to be human that the sacred most organic pieces of us and to me magnificence is like a mixture of like our own strength and power but also our vulnerability and our softness like all of the things that.
• 28:37
  Make up love in many many ways right love is so many different things love can include anger it can include sorrow it can include longing at all of that it can include heartbreak but magnificence is.
• 28:54
  To me the closest I can get to have like it's not even like there's no other word that can encapsulate it because yes it's courage but it's not only courage yes it's vulnerability but it's not only vulnerability.
• 29:07
  So to me magnificence is really about what it means to be who you are without beauty without your skin so to speak right and I don't just mean your literal skin I mean the skin that this world forces you to wear as well right like who are you without what people think about you.
• 29:30
  Who are you without your makeup or your fancy clothes or trendy fashion styles who are you without oppression without trauma like that to me is what magnificence is and obviously it's very hard to get to that because we live under all the things that I just named.
• 29:51
  But I think though that part of what it means to embrace our magnificence and to embrace other people's magnificence is to well one I think moving towards the ugly is a critical part of that that we can't shy away from truth we can't shy away from hard conversations or the things that we're told we're not supposed to talk about we have to address those things so whether we're talking about.
• 30:17
  White supremacy whether we're talking about shame and our own fears and securities whether we're talking about harmful institutions whatever it may be but I also think a huge part of that conversation both and is also embracing our joy and embracing our growth and our transformation our silliness and our laughter all of those things and it would also mean that we practice things like grace with each other it's like repair when things get hard.
• 30:46
  And not turning away from each other and saying oh well you know I'm not going to talk to you for the next year and a half about this day like turning towards each other and addressing things it also means that we practice a radical kindness and unconditional love with each other and I don't mean kindness and like you know the white middle class lady kind of niceness way that's not what I mean.
• 31:07
  I mean like a true sacred generosity of spirit and love for each other but yeah I think that if we were to honor each other's magnificence then it would be impossible to criminalize somebody.
• 31:21
  Mm mm whether by law or by culture you know or in a social way like I think about things like rape I think about things like torture I think about things like domestic violence I think about things like police brutality and murders like it would be impossible to do that if we embrace each other's magnificence it would be impossible to bully somebody or to shame somebody like then instead it would radically change how we treat each other and it would also mean that we don't judge or not invest it in.
• 31:51
  Aesthetics as the only ways that we desire people because desirability in and of itself is not a bad thing just like we talked about beauty with the waterfall or treat there's like it's not like beauty doesn't exist not like desirability doesn't exist it does and it's not a bad thing in and of itself it's the ways in which we have used exactly that problem my heart literally just like opened I think that is so powerful for what world magnificence would.
• 32:21
  Create for us as idea that there's an inherent magnificence in each sentient life I think is just wow like it's it's so inspiring I think there's no way to make that consistent with the way that we have beauty defined today the way that we've used it to exclude and include to commit violence and also we've defined it in a way that's so far from magnificence so I mean there's a world in which we could have defined beauty as an open heart and sacred energy that makes people feel safe and a different world we would have defined.
• 32:51
  Beauty constitutionally differently obviously it's not we it's been defined by a colonialism capitalism white supremacy ableism and so redefining it reconstructing it moving away from what we have now and towards ugliness and magnificence I think is is the only way and I think it centers the very same people who are only ever going to be marginalized under the framework of beauty as it's defined by these structures so I just thank you because I think that has set my brain in many directions and it's just a little bit more important.
• 33:21
  It reminds me of I'm not sure if you've heard of a red day show now Harrison's book barely of the beast it's phenomenal and they speak about it from the lens of fat black trance people and bodies and things like the way that police brutality has if we look at the cases that we know of against black men specifically are fat or larger black men and how that is also such a part of the way like in all these different institutions we see desirability politics have extreme consequences or how people
• 33:51
  are able to navigate society we know this I'm so excited that there are so many people lending their minds and sharing their work and their analysis on this issue and also giving us frameworks to actually change and move so I think that's exciting to me I'm curious are there any voices or people who have inspired you who have expanded your thinking I'm just curious who you lean on when you're feeling lost.
• 34:13
  Oh my gosh well can I go back to being easy I just can't do anything. Oh no okay I just thank you I love I'm like I'm like I'm like I'm like I want you to come on my pocket if I did I love that because I think that you know when you were talking about the shine and you were talking about the critiques and terms of like it's been mostly like larger black men it's been mostly like more dark skin black men we whatever it makes
• 34:43
  maybe right like I think that's so real and I feel like that's like absolutely one two I think for people to acknowledge that painting I think desirability and I know you've said this a couple of times like it gets painted like this thing that's the use the word frivolous which is true like it gets painted as though it's like oh my gosh you're trying to let that that insignificant thing when a reality like there's a reason why
• 35:13
  black communities disabled communities trans communities fat people like there isn't reason why all of these communities as poor community I mean we could go on and on and on right down the list get painted and got painted as completely undesirable and as freaks right and as ugly in particular like there is a reason why it's not like that just happened and it's just like oh we're just going to say that white people are beautiful and that anybody who's not white
• 35:43
  is not beautiful you know and then of course along the spectrum within that like colorism shadism all that stuff one it's very profitable but two when you have saturated the culture right in the society with these ideas of beauty standards and with these ideas of desirability it makes it easier to treat people less than human and when you have set up a society where your value as a human is based on how you look and what your aesthetics are and that includes
• 36:13
  how you behave or how you speak how you like it includes how you adorn yourself all of it when you do that then it makes it easier for people to treat you as though you're in human and not only that for anybody else who's looking at that or observing that to be like oh that makes sense that they would treat that kind of person that way because they're bad people right they're ugly they're undesirable they're criminal they're etcetera
• 36:43
  etcetera etcetera and so I feel like sometimes when I talk about moving towards the ugly it's only in this kind of like yeah we're just pushing back against body positivity which is true but it's not all that we're doing exactly it's so much deeper than that to me because we're talking about generations of violence and oppression and genocide and imperialism and colonization like and gender based violence you know like all of these things that are different
• 37:13
  are so deeply rooted that I feel like they're swimming in it it's like you know we're like a fish and water trying to like point out the water and that is how deep it is inside of us so when we think about what it will take to actually start to upload these things it's going to be a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time and people will be very resistant to it I mean when I talk about this it's such an interesting paradox right
• 37:43
  it's like a duality because people will say oh it's frivolous if not important or that's not me but then at the same time the other side of that coin is that every single person feels ugly and undesirable
• 37:59
  like there are actual people who actually are living that experience when they move through the world walk down the street whatever they get treated as though they are ugly they get treated as though they are freak they get treated as though they are undesirable and both and because we live in a society like I was just talking about where that's such a core concept everybody feels undesirable themselves like they everybody feels like oh
• 38:29
  to this I'm to that I'm not enough I'm not smart enough I'm not whatever enough and so it's this weird paradox because in many ways when I vote about moving towards the ugly I couldn't believe how that resonated with people I mean people still send me emails and reach out to me today to talk about it and it's across the board it's folks of every kind of demographic every kind of identity and at the same time it's really interesting the ways
• 38:59
  that folks who have the lived experience as ugly like like formally ugly I don't know how else to say it and whatever that may be right that for some people that might be their face maybe they have burn scars or like terrible acne whatever it may be right maybe for some people it's like a part of their body or for some people it's their stomach that they try to hide all the time it doesn't matter what it is right like it's so many different things the way that ugly
• 39:28
  manifests itself and so like it's just this I'm constantly amazed by how we all feel incredibly ugly and undesirable and not enough and yet that is then how we end up go out in the world and treat people even though we feel that way and to me right that's the connection right if we embrace our own
• 39:50
  ugliness and if we embrace our own magnificence then it means that then we won't replicate those cycles and those exact dynamics onto other people as well and which then as it ripples out right might mean that we don't justify violence against someone or a people by their
• 40:13
  desirability or by like oh well they're freaks or they're there's savages anyways so they're not civilized so you know it was okay to do that to them there's so much other you know than us that it's okay to do that to them that if we can understand
• 40:31
  and embrace and be gentle with our own places of where we feel inadequate where we feel like maybe you're like my breasts aren't big enough or my thighs are too big or I feel shame about that thing that I did when I was a kid and I never talked about with anybody like
• 40:48
  if we invest in our healing if we invest in being gentle with ourselves and each other I think that that helps to pave the way for us to embrace our magnificence so then
• 40:59
  so that then maybe that might have an impact in generational cycles of violence for example
• 41:05
  wow that was beautiful I love love love that and I think I'm going to map where you went I think in the first part of how it's so not frivolous and there's a reason why
• 41:16
  the people of marginalized identities have been equated with being undesirable to justify that
• 41:21
  marginalization it's so interesting it's like I feel like I one people the question like who needs beauty as it's been defined to exist
• 41:28
  like whose work is it doing and who benefits from who you then whose pain you then turn away from turn towards
• 41:36
  and I think it's interesting because how we think about one thing just tracks to so many things I think
• 41:41
  moving towards ugliness is also recognizing and being truthful about the state of our world about
• 41:47
  Palestine about prisons about all these things and so it's interesting how once you have accepted that we
• 41:53
  should only speak about beautiful people that means we should speak about beautiful people who have been
• 41:57
  codified as beautiful we should then only care about and speak about things that are beautiful anything
• 42:02
  uncomfortable we should flee from and we see that just affecting so many aspects of way we interrelate to
• 42:08
  each other the way we relate to social change and so it's hugely important and I think the work that these
• 42:15
  colonizers and abusive entities have done is not only equate whiteness with beauty that's only one
• 42:22
  thing it's then equating beauty with worth and we have the imaginative capacity to actually undo that
• 42:28
  part and I think that's what is really exciting to me about this conversation is I actually really
• 42:33
  believe that we can overhaul this way of thinking because as you said we all have the emotive capacity
• 42:40
  to relate to what ugliness feels like and that's something really interesting right like it's
• 42:44
  there's not many forms of oppression or systems where like as you said like every person in a way
• 42:51
  of course to hugely varying to extent so I definitely don't want to minimize that and be like oh
• 42:55
  all in this together we're fully not and it's also something that it's real imaginative work I mean
• 43:00
  it always but I think we really can remove the need that people feel over time to feel beautiful but
• 43:07
  we kind of have to role model that for each other and in our communities and that can be really
• 43:11
  hard because as you said even as we say it in theory we then okay I have something to do later I'm
• 43:16
  going to put on a facade of myself and I'm going to pretend I don't have diarrhea and I'm going
• 43:21
  to do all these things and I'm going to go out into the world and like be that version of myself
• 43:26
  and it's so much more far-reaching than that so I think that's so interesting and then the paradox
• 43:31
  you mentioned it also seems so related to the harm work because it's almost like throughout
• 43:37
  society like including the student debt conversation like there is this mentality that if I
• 43:42
  suffered other people must suffer and it shouldn't be about me trying to listen people suffering it
• 43:47
  should be me justifying that suffering is okay because I've suffered and I think the fact that
• 43:52
  we felt ugly should be an invitation to do everything we can as you write about to make sure
• 43:57
  that no one else feels ugly but it's almost as if it becomes a mutually like justifying and like
• 44:03
  just based on suffering force that I really dislike and I think because people may feel ugly in
• 44:09
  some ways they then think it's okay to drag people for example for being ugly and others and I
• 44:13
  think there's something there's something related there about the way that we think about harm and
• 44:18
  the way that we can like act more to reduce it instead of to fuel the fire of it but then again
• 44:25
  I love what you keep emphasizing that it's really hard in reality put the performance or the
• 44:30
  beauty work like keeps people alive in some ways but the issue is that's so horrible like
• 44:35
  this shouldn't and some people there's no amount of work they can perform or can't afford like
• 44:41
  there's so many cans and that like physically financially so many ways that it's just so inherently
• 44:46
  exclusive and I'm really energized by the concept of just demanding each other to be human and not
• 44:52
  to be any certain version and what I find really interesting is the last thing I'll say I'm also going
• 44:57
  just very energizing excited but is the specific ways we spoke about the specific ways that
• 45:03
  oppressed people are then likened to being undesirable and then it's helped justified but then
• 45:08
  the specific ways that within these communities we've internalized internalized such an understanding that
• 45:14
  the thing that will set us free is to be beautiful and so the pinnacle like the people we celebrate
• 45:19
  in each of our communities it's always the people who have reached this like society sees them as
• 45:25
  beautiful and society celebrates them as such and if they can be then like we can be
• 45:29
  and in that we flee from our own humanity because the reason why that people find them beautiful
• 45:34
  is rooted in something that is designed to kill and other and alienate them so I think that's also
• 45:40
  just another paradox of this whole thing is that even when we're included it's in a way that
• 45:45
  actually so intends to exclude us so I think that's so unfortunate as well because it's more
• 45:50
  insidious also by the way I love everything you said so please don't apologize it was great I love
• 45:56
  no thank you you too but I wanted to sorry I know this is going to sound funny but it's not it's really
• 46:02
  real like I wanted to pick up on the the diarrhea mention that you made because because I think the
• 46:09
  other piece of it is not only do we feel ugly like everybody feels ugly obviously in different
• 46:15
  degrees like we're talking about but also the fact that like life is ugly they're ugly parts of
• 46:22
  life and bodies are weird they're not just beautiful they're also weird and bizarre and kind of
• 46:30
  gross the times you know all of that can exist they're funny there's you like all of that can
• 46:37
  exist and I don't know why we are so I don't understand why we are always so intent on like
• 46:44
  breaking everything down into like the positive or the good the beautiful when why do we limit
• 46:50
  ourselves when in reality like I would bet most people have had diarrhea at some point most people
• 46:57
  have had food poisoning right at some point or like a stomach flu like or just a regular flu in a
• 47:03
  cold where it's pretty disgusting what's going on inside your body but it's like to me I'm like
• 47:11
  that is part of embracing the ugliness and moving towards the ugly as well is also acknowledging
• 47:19
  that life is messy and ugly there are many times in our lives where we are ugly and messy and like
• 47:26
  where things are not beautiful or positive or wonderful you know and of course like I'm talking
• 47:33
  about sickness we can talk about all cut whether you experience violence whether you're
• 47:37
  you mean there's so many other pieces the other examples we could talk about and like I think
• 47:44
  that I vote about moving towards the ugly from a disability perspective but it's in no way
• 47:49
  shape or form limited to disability but I do think that or I should say and I do also think that
• 47:56
  there is something about disability to me that is about just like what it like body minds like
• 48:04
  you know meaning that's the term we use in the disability community so meaning instead of just
• 48:09
  saying body and mind separate like combine them to understand that actually they're very deeply
• 48:15
  connected to each other and it's hard to separate them I'm not saying you can't use the word body
• 48:19
  alone or mind alone I'm just explaining this one term thank you you know I think that especially
• 48:27
  thinking about disability there are so many disability in many ways is so intensely feared
• 48:35
  even by categories of folks who are also considered deeply ugly they feel fear disability like it's
• 48:43
  like a disability in fat phobia I think are so deeply connected and then like sometimes I'm like how
• 48:49
  do we even pull them apart like we talk about ableism in fat phobia and like they are so deeply
• 48:55
  intertwined with each other and of course they're distinct onto themselves and both and like
• 49:01
  sometimes I can't pull them apart when I think about them but like there's something to me about
• 49:08
  kind of what I'm talking about the ugliness and the messiness and the weird strangeness about like
• 49:15
  bodies and body minds that I think is part of what running from the ugly is about
• 49:23
  hmm like I think that I mean it's obviously running from the ugly is about just not wanting to be
• 49:28
  undesirable period right but I think though what's inside of that disability is always inside of that
• 49:35
  because as are many other things too but like I think about how so many folks are like I'd rather be
• 49:42
  dead than being a wheelchair that is a very common very just like socially accepted thing to say
• 49:49
  and a concept to think about and this pandemic is a great example right like people want to
• 49:58
  run from discomfort or anything that are unpleasant for them as well and so when we talk about
• 50:07
  moving towards the ugly to me a big part of it is also interrogating systems of oppression like
• 50:14
  deeply interrogating your ableism interrogating your racism or what have you and I don't know I
• 50:20
  I'm hoping that I'm making sense and I talk about this because I think that there are parts of
• 50:26
  disability that of course people in theory can be like oh yes disability justice yes ableism is
• 50:32
  bad oh disabled people are great but there's parts of disability that I think really expose and
• 50:39
  don't allow people to turn away from or I should maybe say like reflects back to people in a very
• 50:46
  cute way their own body like what it means for their own bodies to be human and can be messy ugly
• 50:57
  sometimes smelly sometimes you know like all of these things that we find completely undesirable
• 51:03
  there are ways of disability really like shines a light on that and won't let you turn away from it
• 51:10
  and disability also I think forces people to contend with mortality in a way that
• 51:16
  most non-disabled people don't want to think about and they don't want to contemplate what
• 51:22
  their life would be like as a person with a disability and or like thinking about oh I do have
• 51:29
  limits right because part of able supremacy is this idea that you are limitless you can do whatever
• 51:35
  you want to do and you have no limits when we know that that's not true that's not true of
• 51:39
  anybody period and so I mean I actually feel like able supremacy coupled with colonialism
• 51:47
  coupled with capitalism is part of how we got deeply into this climate crisis catastrophe
• 51:55
  because we want to think that we have no limits we want to think that we can just do all these
• 52:02
  things and they don't have any impact right and we don't want to embrace our interdependence
• 52:07
  anyways so I just wanted to name that because I feel like I feel like you know when you were talking
• 52:11
  about like how so many folks are like yeah beauty will set us free it's it's an effort to me with
• 52:19
  the way I understand it to run away from and turn away from right and you try to pretend away
• 52:26
  messiness, ugliness, shame all these disability all these things that we don't want to deal with
• 52:31
  and it's like it's not only disability I'm just using it as a comedy it's all you know it's so
• 52:36
  many other things absolutely yes and I think it's like the conceptual role that ugliness plays like
• 52:45
  and the work it's doing it can't be separated from ableism it can't be separated from
• 52:50
  the things that we've mentioned but I think naming that is super important and I think the irony
• 52:54
  in what you said about how all of these things have been led to the climate crisis I love how
• 52:59
  your work emphasized the urgency of this in and of itself but also as we think of how many more people
• 53:04
  the climate crisis will bring into the disability movement and bring into disability and so all
• 53:10
  the work is now like this this conversation becomes that much more urgent because people are
• 53:15
  going to find them like you know it's it's interesting how those two things relate and how also
• 53:20
  I think the idea there's so many angles where I think the amazing work that disability justice
• 53:25
  activists and writers is so critical to this conversation when we think of like the social model
• 53:30
  of disability that it's the society that disables and I think similarly like ugliness if someone
• 53:35
  looks in the mirror and feels ugly it's not them that's ugly it's a value system it's a culture
• 53:39
  it's a colony it's everything that we're in that is the true ugliness and so that is the true
• 53:45
  root of the thing is not in the individual it's in this how the society reacts to the messiness
• 53:50
  of human life and to the many the spectrum that we all exist in so those are such two threads I
• 53:55
  wanted to jump on because I absolutely just love everything you're saying and it's just so
• 54:00
  interesting I think people want to flee from that as well that our future collectively is disabled
• 54:05
  and that it's so critical to you know it's magnificence and you should be fighting for a world
• 54:10
  where it can be it will and it must be both because that's yeah that's the moment we're in
• 54:16
  I love it I was like I was like are you talking I was like yes yes but they're like right we're
• 54:20
  in a pod cap and you know quiet no you do not need to be quiet no no no there are no rules
• 54:26
  but you know what I ended like one thing that's been really interesting is I mean like the difference
• 54:33
  between COVID and monkey pox and how monkey pox it's something that which by the way anybody can get
• 54:40
  I know it's been framed yes terribly homophobicly as like it's gay disease and it's not it's absolutely
• 54:47
  not just want to be clear but monkey pox is something that impacts your appearance and whereas COVID
• 54:54
  does not necessarily unless you're like definitely you know that's your very
• 54:59
  and you have like you're sneezing and coughing and stuff but like it is interesting that I think
• 55:06
  more people are gonna want to get a lockdown and monkey pox because they don't want to
• 55:12
  experience how it alters their appearance yes definitely I think it's just so intense right yeah
• 55:19
  it's so intense to think about that exactly it's so true only it's only now when and for example
• 55:24
  I was listening to my mutuals podcast sip and politic and they were speaking about how this guy
• 55:29
  like went to McDonald's and he had monkey pox and he tweeted about it because like he needed food or
• 55:33
  something he should have stayed home but people were so much more enraged whereas the culture of
• 55:38
  you and they should be we should be protecting people and staying home but the culture of people
• 55:42
  going out and like being in public with COVID was not as people didn't care as much even though
• 55:48
  that was deeply deeply such an ableist thing to do and I love what you speak about in terms of
• 55:52
  like keeping each other safe and the interdependence and how a lot of abled
• 55:56
  body people which I am one but like in COVID just treated it with such they didn't care about
• 56:02
  disabled lives and that was such an interesting example like oh now you care about collective safety
• 56:08
  because it's about something that affects your appearance which is then how you're treated and so
• 56:13
  that's all connected as always well I haven't heard about that story I'll look it up though
• 56:20
  about that guy going to McDonald's and everything yeah I think it was like some you know there's
• 56:24
  always things happening on the internet so I'm curious as we think about moving toward
• 56:29
  ugliness embracing magnificence if you have specific moments in your life or even things that
• 56:34
  you've been able to witness in your communities or in others where you're like wow they did this
• 56:39
  this is the world that they move towards ugliness they embraced magnificence or I'm doing that I'm
• 56:44
  always like in the theory and I love that but tactically like do you know of examples of what this looks
• 56:49
  like to you yes oh my gosh I mean listen somebody on the internet if we're talking on the internet
• 56:56
  like I actually feel like a loke is doing I love a loke just in there like existence you know
• 57:02
  and like posting photos of themselves and I think like right the intense backlash and like
• 57:09
  folks sending them all kinds of terrible messages and comments which you know I love how they
• 57:15
  post to like various ones and they talk about it and this is the thing when we talk about moving
• 57:20
  towards the ugly it's never about one system of oppression or anything like that it's like in
• 57:26
  a mountain of all of so many things so like it's obviously transphobia it you know it's like
• 57:33
  there's so many things happening right and it's also broadly to me about moving towards the ugly
• 57:39
  and I think that's a huge like right like all the things inside of that that we can unpack around
• 57:46
  like you know wisdom or transphobia or masculinity in like because you know so many men in particular
• 57:55
  as if men yeah so like I think about a loke I also feel like there are I love you know I really love
• 58:06
  I really have problems with a lot of the like selfie world sometimes because I feel like people
• 58:12
  are posting photos and you can see them like kind of angling or like pulling in their cheeks or like
• 58:17
  doing it from really high up so they look thinner they look more desirable all the things
• 58:22
  but I love the kind of section inside of the selfie world of folks who are not doing that who are
• 58:30
  not sucking in or not like they're just they're just documenting their lives and I think there's
• 58:36
  something so powerful when it's just everyday people it's not like big beams or anything like that
• 58:42
  who are just posting and saying like this is who I am and and I'm not even saying that they're like
• 58:49
  I don't know they maybe they haven't like totally embraced themselves you don't have to mean
• 58:54
  perfect to do it but they're not trying to change right and like kind of shrink themselves into
• 59:03
  this box that's been created for what it is beautiful what is desirable so those are some I mean
• 59:09
  but there's so many folks who I feel like are I really love ugly people meaning like I love
• 59:19
  people who receive the experience of being ugly in the world because there's like something really
• 59:24
  intense about that and and I can relate to it and then within that right there's those of us who
• 59:30
  have hidden bodies for example right and then there's those of us who have bodies that are like on
• 59:35
  the outside and like and all of that is part of the all the different facets in terms of like
• 59:42
  ugliness and undesirability but like even if we talk about the internet or social media like
• 59:49
  I am paying attention to you know how people that are following look and I really appreciate and
• 59:57
  like I'm probably more geared towards following folks who are don't fall into or don't meet like
• 1:00:04
  normative standards of meaning ability yes yes I love that yeah exactly and I think we can at
• 1:00:10
  least there's many negatives of social media but choose what we want to see to some extent by
• 1:00:14
  following people and by trying to at least train the algorithm to represent like what we want to see
• 1:00:20
  and I think when you brought up a look it really reminded me of how with this fleeing from ugliness
• 1:00:25
  point a lot of people would respond and be like how dare you say a look is beautiful there I mean
• 1:00:30
  it's ugly they're beautiful and it's like this constant like oh you can only be validating a person
• 1:00:35
  if you're calling them beautiful there's no other way to validate a human life how dare you
• 1:00:40
  and that will often be a phenomenon on TikTok where people will be sharing I'm ugly I'm
• 1:00:45
  conventionally not attractive they'll say it and people will be like no no no you're beautiful
• 1:00:49
  and that person is sharing themselves sharing their experience sharing what's been also done to them
• 1:00:55
  and you're not allowing them you're forcing them to flee from something that they've worked on
• 1:00:59
  claiming and I think that's also upsetting as well that it's almost like people haven't been
• 1:01:05
  exposed to other ways to compliment people or to see them as valid and that's it's really
• 1:01:10
  upsetting as well and so I think things that I see as moving toward ugliness is when people name
• 1:01:15
  their experience of I think when we hear people's experiences of being made to feel ugly or shame
• 1:01:21
  there's an incredible TikTok creator called lipgloss who does this all the time who claims like
• 1:01:26
  she's a dark skinned black girl who as speaks about her natural hair journey and just like how
• 1:01:30
  she's made to feel ugly but like you can call me ugly like that doesn't have power over me because
• 1:01:36
  I know who I am and like cool I'm ugly like that's great like she's really moved towards it reclaiming
• 1:01:41
  and the magnificence of that and I think she's such a powerful following and community because of
• 1:01:46
  of her doing that and so I'm excited by the voices that I'm seeing doing it and I'm also excited
• 1:01:52
  by all the conversations that are increasingly being had and I'm just I'm hopeful and that I think
• 1:01:59
  we also need to learn how to like celebrate ugliness in each other and kind of queer that like oh your
• 1:02:04
  nails are done like oh your nails look terrible that's great like that's awesome that's a very small
• 1:02:09
  example but just how can we find ways to really show that this is a safe space to be ugly that's
• 1:02:16
  so important to have and I mean I'm among it's so interesting like among our closest friends like
• 1:02:21
  that's where they come over and you look as you normally look which is comfortable comfort is key
• 1:02:26
  oh isn't it also so interesting how comfort and beauty are put as like oppositional and it's also just
• 1:02:32
  yeah no go ahead I was just I was so emphatic I was like yeah yeah I know they're putting
• 1:02:40
  opposition right and like it really sends this message that you can be beautiful but it won't
• 1:02:46
  be comfortable exactly that's the way that it should be like right okay there's so many things
• 1:02:51
  that when you're talking that it brought up in me I'm excited that this podcast episode is going to
• 1:02:56
  be like four hours long so I hope everybody else is excited about that I feel like I could talk to
• 1:03:01
  you forever but when you were talking about how like oh that there's only like one way to compliment
• 1:03:09
  somebody and that people will instead of saying like oh somebody's ugly right they'll immediately
• 1:03:15
  be like oh no you're not ugly like oh you're beautiful you're beautiful it really reminds me of
• 1:03:20
  the ways in which like people don't like when I claim my disability and they'll be like no you're
• 1:03:29
  not disabled you're just me or you're definitely able right we all have different abilities but
• 1:03:36
  sure I'm like that's such bullshit like you have able privilege like come on we're not the same
• 1:03:44
  but it's this deep sense right that like disabled is a bad word or that somebody you know when
• 1:03:50
  you're talking about tell me the the handle again lip gloss yes yeah when you're talking about
• 1:03:56
  lip gloss right that that content creator her accepting like who she is and how she looks and
• 1:04:02
  like her own aesthetic I feel like there is something so deep about that that people won't let you
• 1:04:10
  hmm they won't let you even define yourself or yourself and so even if you're like I think about
• 1:04:18
  fat activists right fat liberation activists who are like we claiming the word fat I think about
• 1:04:23
  queer folks who mean playing the word queer like people don't want to use it right and one how
• 1:04:28
  powerful that is right because it's saying to the society like I was talking about before like I
• 1:04:34
  know that I'm not like you and I don't want to be like you and I love who I am yeah and so like
• 1:04:39
  claiming this and claiming it in a way that those terms they signal right that you understand that
• 1:04:47
  the world is not okay with it but you are yes from time to time historically been used against you
• 1:04:55
  but also like when we're doing that when we're saying to somebody because it's such a ubiquitous
• 1:05:02
  experience like everybody probably has experienced this on both sides when you're saying to somebody
• 1:05:08
  like oh no you're beautiful you're not oh don't know you're a good person in whatever like form
• 1:05:12
  that takes right but yeah oh no you're not fat you're not whatever what you're saying though
• 1:05:19
  inherently is like it's this both and right you're also rectifying that we enforce that inside
• 1:05:26
  of yourself because that's what you have like you know that's what you will be but that's not
• 1:05:32
  true then it also like disorganizes your entire sense of your own self as well and so like
• 1:05:39
  reinforcing that to somebody else is it's not it I wouldn't say it's a trauma response but like
• 1:05:45
  it's almost as deep as that though right that you're reinforcing for that and because what it would
• 1:05:50
  mean for you to accept that it's so like other to your own existence and your own reality it would
• 1:05:56
  shatter your personality your current reality and so like there's that right and I think about like
• 1:06:03
  the kind of I think about this is so deep so when I do in my transformative justice work a lot of
• 1:06:11
  our work obviously deals with trauma and so we are dealing with shame very deeply all the time right
• 1:06:17
  and so what is so fascinating about shame to me and shame is again one of those things that we
• 1:06:23
  consider completely ugly and like we all have shame we hide it I'm sure everybody here listens to
• 1:06:29
  Renee Brown probably but like the antidote to shame is to share about it like to shed light on it
• 1:06:36
  to take it out of the darkness to take it out of the hiddenness of wherever you've like pushed it
• 1:06:41
  away and the silence around it and how when people do that around beauty right and are just like
• 1:06:49
  oh no no reminds me of when people do that around shame right and somebody will talk about right like
• 1:06:56
  I do this thing or I'm really ashamed about it or you know whatever people will oh no no no you're
• 1:07:01
  a good person oh I don't feel bad about that right when you're the person who's sharing about
• 1:07:05
  something you've done maybe you need the space to share about that again it just brings us back to
• 1:07:12
  ugliness messiness undesirability those things are okay and they're part of what make us human and
• 1:07:19
  what make a full lived life like we're gonna hurt each other we're gonna get hurt we're gonna have
• 1:07:26
  hard things that we have to talk about and that's okay and so when you're doing not to somebody
• 1:07:32
  it's so intense because you're you're shutting down so many things both in yourself and in the other
• 1:07:39
  person oh when you're talking about a load right is like I remember when a load interviewed me like
• 1:07:46
  oh my gosh so many years back now I was trying to communicate that some I don't know if I did the
• 1:07:50
  best job but in my head I make a distinction maybe I should just create a new word for a new
• 1:07:57
  language I don't know but I make a distinction between just like ugly regular right meaning
• 1:08:04
  what society deals with ugly what we're currently living in but then ugly with a capital U
• 1:08:10
  yes like meaning when you have embraced your ugliness when ugly is on purpose and intentional and
• 1:08:16
  is not an accident and is claimed and embraced and like you are in your power you know what I'm
• 1:08:25
  you're not ashamed of it you're not trying to hide away you don't feel less then and I feel like
• 1:08:32
  when people do that right like a look as an example like when I was talking about the folks
• 1:08:37
  doing taking their selfies like I think about that activist right so many folks who are like
• 1:08:43
  flipping the script around like this world like this is me and I I like who I am I love who I am
• 1:08:50
  and I don't care whether I'm not supposed to show my arms or show my stomach or whatever
• 1:08:56
  I think there's something so powerful about ugly with a capital U like where it's intentional
• 1:09:04
  where it's where it's like where you're not letting somebody belittle you or undermine you
• 1:09:11
  and it's like to me reclaiming queer it's like an E saying like I am disabled right it's like
• 1:09:18
  saying feminist or you know whatever word that people have used that has been like demonized
• 1:09:25
  and I wonder too like so one we know the capitalist systems we live in are hugely invested in
• 1:09:34
  this the politics of desirability because they billion dollar industry like they profit so much
• 1:09:41
  off of it but also I think because capitalism relies on the breaking of relationships
• 1:09:48
  it also is invested in it not just primarily for profit but I think also for exactly what
• 1:09:55
  you and our talking about right like the shame that's caused the harm it does to your inner self
• 1:10:00
  the harm it does to our relationships with each other because if we can't accept our own
• 1:10:07
  quote unquote flaws or ugliness or whatever then it also limits the kind of intimacy that we can
• 1:10:15
  build with people and the kind of depth of relationships I mean I think about straight women
• 1:10:20
  which by the way are you okay straight women like that joke where it's like you should never poop
• 1:10:28
  in front of your partner in straight women like they're you know head or normative cis male partner
• 1:10:33
  but like these ideas that I'm just like are you okay what are you okay but too like that is a normal
• 1:10:41
  human function like right are you telling me that you think there's something not okay with that
• 1:10:49
  and what would it mean if we embraced that part of ourselves and then also then what kind of
• 1:10:55
  relationships could we have and by the way I have to caveat this to say I know not all straight
• 1:11:00
  women do that it's a yes definitely no 100 and 1000 percent the other thing is I think that there's
• 1:11:10
  this like balance between like celebrating the aloaks and the lip glosses and then also continuing
• 1:11:16
  to build a world where people don't have to be so brave and so other world because it's really
• 1:11:21
  hard to say like oh fuck it I don't like I'm going to reclaim this identity even though like
• 1:11:27
  society has put so much attachments on it and just be fine like that's an amazing thing we should
• 1:11:32
  continue to celebrate those people as we are trying to do like build a world where that doesn't
• 1:11:37
  take bravery it's something that we inherently accept in all beings because I know that even those
• 1:11:43
  people who are standing proud in their whatever they've reclaimed are also struggling and suffering
• 1:11:48
  and are putting I mean also with social media once you framed yourself as like brave and not
• 1:11:53
  being hurt it's very hard to be like well today I did feel hurt you know by this comment or by
• 1:11:58
  this moment and I've had a few like one-on-one conversations with creators who like they are fat
• 1:12:03
  black creators and they're the content they're creating for example is very much like I'm reclaiming
• 1:12:08
  like they're doing that work of you can't hurt me by calling me it's like Lizzo but like you can hurt
• 1:12:14
  me like I'm still a human being I still can be hurt and so I think that's that also sometimes like
• 1:12:19
  people for example will use like example of Lizzo to be like oh she can do it like but we should
• 1:12:24
  be fighting for a world where there's no vitriol it's just another singer that's another person
• 1:12:29
  who's beautiful beyond measure because of the way that she makes people feel and like what you
• 1:12:33
  say about how we want to see like there's certain images of people that you feel good seeing like
• 1:12:39
  that's beauty to me like when you feel like a bit you feel more in love with people and yourself
• 1:12:45
  when you see that person not less and I think a lot of the convention attracted people make us
• 1:12:49
  feel worse yet we feel we call them beautiful but that's kind of the opposite of beautiful so
• 1:12:55
  I've literally loved this conversation I hope that it will not be the last I'm mildly terrified
• 1:13:00
  that it didn't record but I'm confident that it did not confident but anyways that's just also me
• 1:13:06
  naming my fear thank you so much for sharing this time your space and your mind and so cool that
• 1:13:11
  we were brought together I feel like we were meant to know each other so that's an amazing thing
• 1:13:15
  I don't know if you have any final words thank you so much for having me this is literally one of
• 1:13:20
  my favorite things to talk about and I don't actually get to talk about it that much so I really
• 1:13:23
  appreciate it and I also feel like we were also meant to meet each other too yay in terms of final
• 1:13:30
  thoughts I wrote down like I had notes that you were talking because I was like oh I don't want to
• 1:13:34
  forget about um to comment on this so what I just want to say I want to say two things for final
• 1:13:40
  thoughts one is it is really hard to talk about being undesirable at your own undesirability I
• 1:13:47
  don't want to pretend like any of this is easy it's not easy and it requires and like help really
• 1:13:53
  helps if you get support right and perhaps support unity or people that you can talk to but the
• 1:13:59
  second piece is that I think for all of us to really reflect on and I think I I think I asked
• 1:14:06
  this in moving towards the ugly in the in the speech like what has ugly taught you like what has
• 1:14:12
  your ugliness taught you or what is it trying to teach you that there's so much knowledge and
• 1:14:19
  things that we can learn and like wisdom inside of and bound up with our ugliness whatever shape that
• 1:14:28
  ugliness takes for you right whether it's the shape of your nose that you think is ugly whether
• 1:14:34
  it's something you did or whether it's how you speak however it manifests for you like what is it
• 1:14:39
  trying to teach you and what can you learn from it rather than like pushing it away and kind of
• 1:14:46
  exiling it or beating it up you know in ways that you would never treat anybody else that can be
• 1:14:53
  part of the learning too right it just get I encourage people to get curious about their ugly and
• 1:14:59
  to not fear it but instead to see it as power it is a source of power that if we can learn to wield
• 1:15:08
  it well and for good it can do so much and it has the power to transform not only us but the world
• 1:15:16
  wow that was phenomenal I will be journaling about this that is so stunning I absolutely love that
• 1:15:22
  question and the nose example as well just do something for me thank you so much for being with us
• 1:15:27
  thank you for your time your energy and the space I'm so grateful okay thank you everyone bye bye
• 1:15:35
  that's it sun shines thank you so much for listening to reimagining with i understood a podcast
• 1:15:41
  where we reframe rethink and reimagine all things standing in the way of love and liberation
• 1:15:48
  please follow my work on substack at i understood dot substack.com and subscribe if you have the
• 1:15:53
  means as well as on TikTok and Instagram at i understood I would absolutely love to hear from you
• 1:15:59
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• 1:16:04
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• 1:16:10
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• 1:16:16
  and nourish each other