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SMNTY Interviews: Monique (AKA Blackbeltbabe) · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I wrote with stuff when never told your protection to
0:08
Speaker 2: Buyheart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 3: And once again I have wielded my podcast powers to
0:23
Speaker 3: interview face to face with someone that I only know
0:26
Speaker 3: through social media and I have followed for a while now,
0:30
Speaker 3: so it feels like I'm meeting a celebrity whenever I'm like, i've.
0:34
Speaker 1: Seen you recently as in today.
0:36
Speaker 3: But with that, I'm so excited to have on Monique,
0:39
Speaker 3: who is also known as black Belt Babe on social media.
0:43
Speaker 1: Monique, welcome, thank you.
0:44
Speaker 4: I'm so happy to be here, y'all. Definitely happy to
0:47
Speaker 4: be sharing a space with you.
0:49
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie.
0:49
Speaker 3: When I tried to find you and I was like
0:52
Speaker 3: producer Christina, we need to find this person because I
0:55
Speaker 3: need her on the show.
0:56
Speaker 1: She's like, I can't get to anything. We don't see anything.
0:59
Speaker 3: Only she's so good at keeping her social media life
1:02
Speaker 3: and personal life separate.
1:03
Speaker 1: That's a magic trake. I want you to know that.
1:06
Speaker 4: Thank you. It truly is, and it's something I'm always
1:08
Speaker 4: very intentional about, you know, and I call it the
1:11
Speaker 4: grass touching world. But I'm a wife, I'm a mom,
1:13
Speaker 4: and my husband is a relatively private person. And then
1:16
Speaker 4: my daughter, of course, we keep her off of social media,
1:19
Speaker 4: so it's really important for me to maintain some sort
1:22
Speaker 4: of privacy. But I do meet people sometime in person.
1:24
Speaker 4: They're like, I think I know you, and I'm like,
1:26
Speaker 4: it's probably TikTok.
1:29
Speaker 3: And yes, I think I know you in the social media,
1:32
Speaker 3: of course, but all of that now that you've corrupt in.
1:35
Speaker 3: Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
1:38
Speaker 4: Absolutely so, Hi, y'all. My name is Monique, also known
1:41
Speaker 4: as black Belt Babe. I'm a community organizer. I am
1:44
Speaker 4: a public sector worker and a proud union member. I'm
1:47
Speaker 4: also somebody that gives views and views from the people struggle.
1:51
Speaker 2: And how would you describe your contents because you do
1:57
Speaker 2: a lot. What is the best way you think to
2:00
Speaker 2: describe your country?
2:01
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. I never had a niche until actually a
2:04
Speaker 4: couple months ago. I used to just talk about anything
2:06
Speaker 4: and everything. But recently what I started to do is
2:09
Speaker 4: what I call news and Views from the Struggle. I
2:11
Speaker 4: actually got that from the community organization that I organized
2:14
Speaker 4: with the Jacksuville Community Action Committee. At our meetings, we
2:16
Speaker 4: actually have one the CD we do a segment literally
2:19
Speaker 4: called News and Views from the people's struggle, and we
2:22
Speaker 4: go over what's happened in our city, what's happened all
2:24
Speaker 4: over the nation. And I was like, you know what,
2:26
Speaker 4: I'm going to put this on TikTok. So what I
2:28
Speaker 4: started to do is just exactly what it sounds like,
2:31
Speaker 4: news and views from the people's struggle. So, as a
2:32
Speaker 4: community organizer, somebody that is very deeply engrossed and involved
2:35
Speaker 4: in my community, it was really important for me to
2:38
Speaker 4: essentially give my viewers news from somebody that is out
2:42
Speaker 4: there and seeing what is happening in the world and
2:44
Speaker 4: fighting back against what is currently happening in the world.
2:47
Speaker 4: It was really important for me to give content that
2:49
Speaker 4: was easy to read because we know that in America
2:51
Speaker 4: the literacy level is extremely low. So what I do
2:54
Speaker 4: is I try my best to have my content on
2:56
Speaker 4: a seventh grade reading level or an eighth grade reading level,
2:59
Speaker 4: so it's easy for people to understand and it's easy
3:01
Speaker 4: for people to digest. But I give news as somebody
3:03
Speaker 4: that is a community organizer, as somebody that is a
3:06
Speaker 4: black woman living in the South, as somebody that is
3:08
Speaker 4: a public sector union worker, just so people can see
3:10
Speaker 4: what's happening from the perspective of a regular working class person, right.
3:15
Speaker 3: And yes, I would definitely say your content is very
3:17
Speaker 3: accessible and it is something that is both digestible but like.
3:23
Speaker 1: Still hard to take.
3:26
Speaker 3: That seems like the realm of the world today is
3:28
Speaker 3: like I need the news, but I gotta get it
3:30
Speaker 3: in a way that doesn't feel like I have to
3:34
Speaker 3: burn my phone after after getting that news. And I
3:39
Speaker 3: found it interesting because you talked about in part of
3:43
Speaker 3: your growth how you decided to use your platform, why
3:46
Speaker 3: you decided to use this and can you talk about
3:50
Speaker 3: why this type of content, why you chose this type
3:53
Speaker 3: of content instead of going a different route.
3:56
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. When I first started on TikTok, it was
3:59
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty. It was the summer of the rebellion,
4:01
Speaker 4: and I was covering the rebellion and actions that were
4:03
Speaker 4: happening all over the world and all over the country.
4:05
Speaker 4: It was an uprising. I mean, I don't want to
4:07
Speaker 4: characterize it as anything different than a worldwide uprising, and
4:11
Speaker 4: people were having a hard time finding events in their
4:13
Speaker 4: cities and protests in their cities. So it was extremely
4:16
Speaker 4: important for me because I was like, oh, I'm gonna
4:17
Speaker 4: get on TikTok I'm home quarantine. Everybody's home quarantine. That
4:21
Speaker 4: people want to go protest. Okay, let's let me get
4:23
Speaker 4: these safe protests together. And then a couple of years later,
4:26
Speaker 4: of course, the rebellion started to die down and we
4:29
Speaker 4: started to get some of the backlash elements of it.
4:31
Speaker 4: I was still organizing, so started to still post the
4:33
Speaker 4: protests and what we were doing, especially here in Florida. Yeah,
4:38
Speaker 4: that's the conversation for another day. But recently I started
4:43
Speaker 4: to do entertainment, and then I started to do what
4:45
Speaker 4: I call Wendy Williams talk, where I was essentially talking
4:47
Speaker 4: about other people, and I didn't like it. It felt
4:49
Speaker 4: fake to me. It was very outside of the realm
4:52
Speaker 4: of my personality and which I'm talking about people that
4:56
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know what I mean. So for
4:58
Speaker 4: me pivoting to this content, it was because I was
5:00
Speaker 4: getting so burnt out doing the entertainment Wendy Williams talk,
5:04
Speaker 4: always trying to look for an outreage cycle, and it
5:06
Speaker 4: was so juxtaposed to my personality and who I am
5:09
Speaker 4: in the grass touching world. I said, I'm going back
5:11
Speaker 4: to the basics. I'm going back to where and what
5:14
Speaker 4: I started on TikTok, which was essentially what was happening
5:17
Speaker 4: during the rebellion. We are in an era of where
5:20
Speaker 4: we are seeing things happen so quickly, and people don't
5:24
Speaker 4: know what to think. They don't know where to find
5:26
Speaker 4: reliable news, they don't know how to find news that's
5:28
Speaker 4: easy to understand and where somebody's going to sit and
5:31
Speaker 4: explain it to them. And so I saw a gap there.
5:34
Speaker 4: And also there wasn't a lot of news where it
5:36
Speaker 4: was just regular working class people that were actually community organizers,
5:40
Speaker 4: actually part of unions, actually living here in the South
5:43
Speaker 4: where a lot of these attacks happened. And so I
5:46
Speaker 4: found that gap and I said, you know what, I'm
5:48
Speaker 4: done with entertainment talk. It's nice, it's cute. I'm so
5:52
Speaker 4: burnt out from it, though. I'm moving on to news
5:54
Speaker 4: and views from the struggle. And I really appreciate my
5:56
Speaker 4: spouse because he would send me these stories and he'd
5:59
Speaker 4: be like, you need to talk about this. And at
6:00
Speaker 4: first it started as a once a week's segment where
6:02
Speaker 4: I said, here's everything that's happening, blah blah blah blah blah, headlines, headlines,
6:06
Speaker 4: and then my followers and my viewers were like, girl,
6:09
Speaker 4: hold on, you need to explain.
6:10
Speaker 1: This to us.
6:12
Speaker 4: It's crazy. Essentially, they're like, they were like, you can't
6:16
Speaker 4: just give us the headline and then not go over
6:18
Speaker 4: what's happening. And so from once a week it went
6:21
Speaker 4: to Okay, here's a story every day, and then I
6:24
Speaker 4: essentially pivoted out of entertainment news full time to do
6:27
Speaker 4: news and views from the struggle. And it has gotten me.
6:31
Speaker 4: So it's curated a community that is very healthy and
6:34
Speaker 4: very positive. Now the news is horrible, right, I mean
6:37
Speaker 4: the news is terrible, right, like sitting in a therapist
6:40
Speaker 4: chair every two weeks and terrible. I mean it's so bad.
6:45
Speaker 4: It truly is like I feel like I wake up
6:47
Speaker 4: and I'm like writing these stories up and I remember
6:50
Speaker 4: my segment this morning. It was so bad everything that
6:53
Speaker 4: I was talking about, and I said it straight up.
6:54
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, I don't have anything positive for you today,
6:58
Speaker 4: So here's what's happening. So to answer your question, I
7:03
Speaker 4: kind of got into this concept full time because I
7:06
Speaker 4: saw that there was a gap. I didn't see a
7:08
Speaker 4: lot of people that were looking like me. I didn't
7:10
Speaker 4: see a lot of people that were part of the
7:12
Speaker 4: working class part of the community organizer type of deal
7:16
Speaker 4: that I have going on, and I just I wanted
7:18
Speaker 4: to fill that gap for somebody else that was probably
7:20
Speaker 4: looking for.
7:20
Speaker 3: That type of content, right, And I think you also
7:23
Speaker 3: add for me when I was looking for like news content.
7:27
Speaker 3: And I've noticed this trend more and more because I'm
7:29
Speaker 3: seeing younger generations. All y'all, you're younger, But I love
7:32
Speaker 3: this because of bringing the news in a different way
7:35
Speaker 3: very fast, very quickly, hopefully very fast.
7:36
Speaker 1: I tried to find like time stamps. But also you
7:39
Speaker 1: do it on all the points.
7:41
Speaker 3: Like I've noticed some of the people that are trusted
7:43
Speaker 3: on TikTok specifically leave out some things because of the
7:47
Speaker 3: real and that's alarming. That's alarming that if you're willing
7:50
Speaker 3: to like edit this part out, but you're not going
7:53
Speaker 3: to talk about the whole it's it's yeah.
7:56
Speaker 1: It becomes and trustworthy, Like that's just be really on us.
8:00
Speaker 3: And not only do you have a perspective in which
8:02
Speaker 3: you do bring out all the things as an organizer,
8:05
Speaker 3: as an advocate, which is something huge on our show.
8:08
Speaker 3: Activism is something that has always been a part of
8:10
Speaker 3: my life, being a part of social work growing up
8:12
Speaker 3: and trying to be someone who works advocating for those
8:16
Speaker 3: who can't advocate for themselves. That was kind of like
8:19
Speaker 3: if I had a tagline that was it when I
8:21
Speaker 3: was in social work trying to figure.
8:22
Speaker 1: That part out.
8:23
Speaker 3: But then like seeing this in a perspective that you're
8:25
Speaker 3: also from a red state, a very red state with
8:27
Speaker 3: a lot of corruption, and we say that that's a
8:35
Speaker 3: different perspective too, But we have to come in and
8:37
Speaker 3: have this argument of like, not all voters, most of
8:41
Speaker 3: the voters as in fact from these areas are very
8:43
Speaker 3: against these policies, but after Jerry Mannering and after all
8:47
Speaker 3: of the voter suppression and issues such as that, that
8:50
Speaker 3: those rights have been taken away from us. So you
8:52
Speaker 3: having this platform means even more to people like us
8:56
Speaker 3: who are in the red states, like no, please, we
8:59
Speaker 3: can't stop fight. You can't be like let's just cut
9:02
Speaker 3: Florida off. That's not how this was. People are suffering.
9:05
Speaker 3: Your people, meaning those who are voting to fight against
9:09
Speaker 3: this type of corruption, need a platform.
9:13
Speaker 4: And I don't think people understand that that's such a
9:15
Speaker 4: great point that you brought up, especially living in a
9:17
Speaker 4: red state, living in the belly of the beast like
9:19
Speaker 4: in the Southern States, our electoral maps and our electoral
9:24
Speaker 4: districts have been so jerry mander that our voices are
9:28
Speaker 4: so devoted. In Florida, they literally got rid of a
9:31
Speaker 4: majority black voting districts and they were allowed to do it.
9:34
Speaker 4: And we and we fought, and we fought it. We
9:36
Speaker 4: thought and we fought it. We fought and we won
9:38
Speaker 4: in court that we lost in court. But that takes
9:40
Speaker 4: time and that takes money. So oftentimes I hear or
9:44
Speaker 4: I see this news where people are talking about the
9:47
Speaker 4: things that are happening in our states. We deserve because
9:50
Speaker 4: this is what we voted for. I didn't vote for that.
9:52
Speaker 4: I didn't go into the voting booth in November and
9:54
Speaker 4: vote for Donald Trump. I didn't. I did what I
9:57
Speaker 4: was supposed to do because as a community organizer, we
9:59
Speaker 4: look at voting as a tool. It's not the end
10:01
Speaker 4: all be all, but it is a tool in our toolbox,
10:03
Speaker 4: and it is a civil right that our ancestors fought
10:07
Speaker 4: or So I'm going to go vote and I did
10:08
Speaker 4: my job and I voted against Trump. And then I'm
10:11
Speaker 4: going on social media after the election and seeing all
10:13
Speaker 4: these people blamed Florida, Blame Georgia, blame all these different
10:17
Speaker 4: bred states, and I'm like, dude, we're so jerrymander that
10:19
Speaker 4: our votes don't even matter. They literally went into these
10:22
Speaker 4: legislative sessions and they redrew these political maps to give
10:26
Speaker 4: Republicans more power, and somehow it's our fault for doing
10:29
Speaker 4: what we were supposed to do. It's so frustrating. And
10:31
Speaker 4: I live in Jacksonville where the last election it was
10:34
Speaker 4: twenty yeah, the twenty twenty election, and we went blue
10:37
Speaker 4: for the first time. I mean, it was a really
10:39
Speaker 4: big deal. It was the first time in a very
10:40
Speaker 4: long time. We went blue for our president's election this
10:43
Speaker 4: time around. And we are a majority black city. But
10:46
Speaker 4: because of consolidation and voter suppression, all that horrible stuff
10:51
Speaker 4: this election this time around that they read through the maps,
10:54
Speaker 4: they did a lot of voter suppression. We didn't go
10:58
Speaker 4: blue like a couple votes. It was absolutely insane. And
11:01
Speaker 4: somehow people like me and people like y'all that did
11:05
Speaker 4: not vote for Donald Trump in this election did not
11:07
Speaker 4: want Donald Trump's running since I was in college. I'm
11:09
Speaker 4: sorare of this man, right, We didn't vote for this,
11:12
Speaker 4: but somehow we deserve the things that we're going to see,
11:15
Speaker 4: and that's just that can be. That's just so far
11:17
Speaker 4: from the truth and the things that they're talking about. Oh,
11:19
Speaker 4: this is going to happen. It's already happening in our states.
11:21
Speaker 4: Voter suppression is already happening in our states. Police brutality
11:24
Speaker 4: is already happening in our states. Hateful legislation against immigrants
11:28
Speaker 4: has already been happening in our states. Now the entire
11:31
Speaker 4: United States is going to be Georgia in Florida, right,
11:34
Speaker 4: you hear what I'm saying. So that was crazy.
11:38
Speaker 3: And that's the thing is like when having someone like you,
11:40
Speaker 3: who has almost eight hundred and twenty thousand congratulations followers
11:45
Speaker 3: on TikTok, it's amazing to see people understanding this background
11:49
Speaker 3: of like the war that's happening, because I guarantee most
11:51
Speaker 3: of the people did not realize Jacksonville was mainly a
11:55
Speaker 3: large black population and you're.
11:57
Speaker 1: Like, wait, wait, wait.
11:58
Speaker 3: What yeah, okay, and that there are groups of people
12:01
Speaker 3: who are working to do this, And so having you
12:04
Speaker 3: being a part of the news information, social media influence
12:08
Speaker 3: is amazing again because I don't see enough people of color,
12:12
Speaker 3: black women, specifically being highlighted in this type of conversation.
12:16
Speaker 1: So I love this part. This is why I think
12:18
Speaker 1: I got so excited.
12:19
Speaker 3: I'm like, I must have her on the show because
12:21
Speaker 3: we must highlight what is happening because the work is amazing.
12:24
Speaker 3: I will say I was trying to remember, like what
12:28
Speaker 3: which video it was that got me to be like,
12:30
Speaker 3: oh is this follow and then because I couldn't quite remember,
12:35
Speaker 3: it definitely was one of those this is what happened
12:37
Speaker 3: this week type of thing.
12:39
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was that. But then the thing
12:41
Speaker 1: that I loved the most, I don't know what it was.
12:43
Speaker 3: I mean, the big key one, but the personality that
12:47
Speaker 3: I fell in love with was when you were like,
12:48
Speaker 3: for the love of God, calmed down by the TikTok band.
12:51
Speaker 3: Supreme Card did not say this, I need you all
12:53
Speaker 3: to calm down, and I was like, you know what,
12:56
Speaker 3: after all the craziness that has happened on TikTok with
12:59
Speaker 3: everybody go it's gonna be bad, You're like, all right,
13:02
Speaker 3: First of all, this is misinformation on both parts, So
13:05
Speaker 3: I was like, this is very like unbiased view of
13:07
Speaker 3: like everybody needs calm down. So I love that delivery.
13:10
Speaker 3: First and foremost it did make me calm down. It
13:13
Speaker 3: was it was like you had a mama speak of
13:15
Speaker 3: like condos, and that's.
13:18
Speaker 4: The goal too. And the TikTok fan was so frustrating
13:21
Speaker 4: because in my household, you know, we we don't get
13:24
Speaker 4: like crazy money or anything from TikTok. But some of
13:26
Speaker 4: my videos, not the videos on Pali side, which that's
13:29
Speaker 4: a whole different conversation for another day how those are,
13:32
Speaker 4: but sometimes some of my videos they do bring in
13:35
Speaker 4: a little bit of income and that's been very helpful.
13:37
Speaker 4: So I remember talking to my husband about it and
13:39
Speaker 4: he was like, Babe, we're gonna be fine. I was like,
13:42
Speaker 4: you know what, And I ended up doing that video
13:45
Speaker 4: and then funny thing, just a random point. The reason
13:48
Speaker 4: I started doing those morning segments and afternoons segments is
13:51
Speaker 4: because I don't necessarily work on TikTok while at work
13:56
Speaker 4: unless it's during my duty free lunch. And so I'd
13:58
Speaker 4: come home and I'd have to record all these segments
14:00
Speaker 4: and I'd had to edit all this stuff, and I
14:02
Speaker 4: would be working until seven thirty. So I wasn't spending
14:04
Speaker 4: enough time, I thought, with my husband and with my daughter.
14:07
Speaker 4: And she's only two so she's at an age, right,
14:09
Speaker 4: I want to spend you know, any age, but I
14:11
Speaker 4: want to spend as much time with her as possible.
14:13
Speaker 4: And my husband, he didn't complain about it, but I
14:15
Speaker 4: could tell he's, you know, missing me a little bit
14:18
Speaker 4: in the evening because you know, we get home at
14:19
Speaker 4: around the same time. And so what I started to
14:22
Speaker 4: do is wake up an hour earlier to do the
14:23
Speaker 4: morning segments so I can have more time with my
14:25
Speaker 4: name in the afternoon. So I remember pitching those morning
14:30
Speaker 4: segments to my mom and my sister who kind of
14:32
Speaker 4: and my husband, who kind of act as QUASEI managers,
14:35
Speaker 4: and they said, yeah, I do it. If it's going
14:37
Speaker 4: to need you spend more time with Mike, who's my husband,
14:40
Speaker 4: and then my daughter a Tala, then you absolutely should
14:43
Speaker 4: be doing these segments. So I started waking up an
14:44
Speaker 4: hour early to do these morning segments. But they're so
14:47
Speaker 4: necessary and people like them, so I'm going to keep
14:49
Speaker 4: waking up an hour earlier.
14:51
Speaker 1: So that's a lot of work. So thank you for
14:55
Speaker 1: that for me.
14:56
Speaker 3: But also just because of the way the news changes,
14:59
Speaker 3: I'm sure order to be updated, it kind of has
15:01
Speaker 3: to be that way.
15:02
Speaker 1: Like we have a.
15:03
Speaker 3: Problem where we record things and even if it's going
15:06
Speaker 3: to be published that day or the next day, it's
15:09
Speaker 3: still is outdated because we new information comes in, we're like,
15:12
Speaker 3: son of yeah, we were so closed. But yeah, so
15:16
Speaker 3: I'm sure that's part. Like it's an amazing way of
15:18
Speaker 3: doing it. It's such an organized way to do it too,
15:20
Speaker 3: So again, thank you for that. So a few research
15:33
Speaker 3: had come out in September about the fact that TikTok
15:36
Speaker 3: has been a main source for a chunk of people
15:38
Speaker 3: for their news sources.
15:39
Speaker 1: So here's a quote. They said.
15:41
Speaker 3: News consumption is also trending upward when looking at TikTok users. Specifically,
15:45
Speaker 3: around half of TikTok users fifty two percent now say
15:48
Speaker 3: they regularly get news there from forty three percent last
15:51
Speaker 3: year and just twenty two percent and twenty twenty. The
15:53
Speaker 3: TikTok users are more likely to get news from TikTok
15:57
Speaker 3: than Facebook users are to get news from Facebook.
16:00
Speaker 1: Also know that that's not news, but you know whatever.
16:02
Speaker 3: Still, TikTok users are less likely than users of X
16:05
Speaker 3: formally Twitter to get news on the site, which is
16:08
Speaker 3: a little concerning, but the fact that this has grown,
16:11
Speaker 3: that this kind of content has grown, and I'm not
16:14
Speaker 3: gonna lie. It's so fantastic because we get to see
16:17
Speaker 3: an international look instead of a very like curated state
16:22
Speaker 3: or local look. And I think that's important. Why do
16:24
Speaker 3: you think this type of content is growing in popularity?
16:27
Speaker 4: Absolutely and that I did see that Pey research, and
16:32
Speaker 4: I saw it because there was a legacy media site.
16:35
Speaker 4: I'm not going to say the name, but they were
16:37
Speaker 4: on TikTok making fun of people that are getting their
16:39
Speaker 4: news from TikTok. I really think that it is displaying
16:43
Speaker 4: because a lot of these news sites, legacy media specifically,
16:47
Speaker 4: like you were saying, well, I'm just gonna say this,
16:49
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna hopefully I don't get draged for this.
16:51
Speaker 4: We get one viewpoint, and that's the viewpoint of the
16:54
Speaker 4: US Empire. That's the viewpoint that they want us to see.
16:57
Speaker 4: And when you have independents or aspiring independent journalists or
17:02
Speaker 4: people that are just reporting, you get all of these
17:05
Speaker 4: different viewpoints. I look at it and what happened with
17:08
Speaker 4: Palestine people, and I'm trying to be very careful with
17:12
Speaker 4: what I say. After October twenty twenty three, I go
17:15
Speaker 4: on legacy media side, and I'm looking like they're saying
17:17
Speaker 4: this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. Wait,
17:20
Speaker 4: hold on, my Palestinian homegirl, she has family in the
17:23
Speaker 4: West Bank and she was telling us, no, this is happening. No,
17:25
Speaker 4: this is happening. No, wait, this has happening. Hold on, no,
17:28
Speaker 4: that's not how it happened. I said, you know what
17:29
Speaker 4: this is. This is crazy because this site is telling
17:32
Speaker 4: us one thing, but somebody that's directly affected and has
17:36
Speaker 4: family living in the West Bank and knows people in
17:38
Speaker 4: Gaza telling us another thing, which one is the truth?
17:42
Speaker 4: And then obviously we realize like this is the truth
17:44
Speaker 4: what my Palaestinian homegirl was telling me, and I'm just like, no,
17:47
Speaker 4: this is this is crazy, And I think TikTok because
17:50
Speaker 4: there's people that are getting into this news and us content.
17:53
Speaker 4: They're giving us different perspective. They're doing this research, they're
17:56
Speaker 4: talking to people. I get tips all of the time
17:59
Speaker 4: for people now and my dms that are like, you
18:01
Speaker 4: need to check this out. Here's what's happening. And with
18:05
Speaker 4: legacy media that's just not the case. They give you
18:07
Speaker 4: one viewpoint, it's the viewpoint that they want you to see,
18:10
Speaker 4: it's the viewpoint that has been rubber stamped by the
18:13
Speaker 4: government for us to view and for us to essentially digest.
18:17
Speaker 4: And that's also kind of why the TikTok band came
18:20
Speaker 4: into information in the first place, because TikTok is such
18:22
Speaker 4: an easy way to spread information so so quickly. I
18:25
Speaker 4: saw with their rebellion in twenty twenty, you had people
18:28
Speaker 4: popping up that process. They were like, hey, I saw
18:30
Speaker 4: this process on your page. Now, this is when I
18:31
Speaker 4: had ten thousand followers. So the information spreads so so quickly.
18:36
Speaker 4: And the way that I do it too, I try
18:37
Speaker 4: to speak as fast as I can. I have a
18:39
Speaker 4: lot of followers who are neurodivergent and they say, like
18:42
Speaker 4: that way of speech. I'm also neurodivergent, so sometimes I
18:45
Speaker 4: have pressured speech and I can't help talking fast. But
18:48
Speaker 4: TikTok is just an easy way to get out as
18:50
Speaker 4: much information, as much news as possible without there being
18:53
Speaker 4: a bias that legacy media sometimes has.
18:56
Speaker 3: Yes, that's heavy, Yeah, no, No, I just think about
18:59
Speaker 3: all of the things that you were saying with the Palestinian.
19:02
Speaker 1: Like it really changed.
19:04
Speaker 3: I feel like that became a focal point where it
19:06
Speaker 3: changed the way we perceived what is being fed to us.
19:10
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and I it's very frustrating for me specifically with
19:16
Speaker 4: that I've been engaging in that type of work since
19:20
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen. I have a friend, sodom A Mood. She
19:24
Speaker 4: runs the Jacksonville Palastine Solidarity Network and she has been
19:27
Speaker 4: engaging in this work. Her entire life is Palestinian. And
19:32
Speaker 4: seeing this news spread and more people join the movement
19:37
Speaker 4: or passing in liberation, it was crazy, I mean, and
19:41
Speaker 4: it seemed like it happened over night. But then she,
19:43
Speaker 4: you know, she's been working for forever. She's like, this
19:45
Speaker 4: didn't happen over night, and this is the result of
19:47
Speaker 4: us doing the work, you know, during the downtime and
19:49
Speaker 4: when there's an upswing, us just being prepared. But that
19:52
Speaker 4: really did change that for me as a news abuse person.
19:56
Speaker 4: That changed everything for me because it built a since
20:00
Speaker 4: distrust in legacy media that I may not have had before. Now,
20:03
Speaker 4: legacy media is important, and press is important, and there
20:06
Speaker 4: should be a variety of different media sites. You know,
20:09
Speaker 4: CNN is helpful for some people that may not have
20:12
Speaker 4: access to a television and they can go to seeinn
20:15
Speaker 4: dot com. They can get breaking news alerts like that.
20:17
Speaker 4: But it's really important when looking at these legacy media
20:20
Speaker 4: sites to understand that sometimes you're only getting one viewpoint,
20:23
Speaker 4: and you should, you know, behind the headline, you should
20:27
Speaker 4: research other things because there's other perspectives that may not
20:30
Speaker 4: be shared on these legacy media sites. And I'm very
20:32
Speaker 4: thankful for my homegirl for being patient and talking to
20:37
Speaker 4: me about this, because before twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, I
20:40
Speaker 4: had I really didn't have an idea of what was
20:43
Speaker 4: what was going on, if that makes sense. I it
20:45
Speaker 4: was kind of it seemed like a distant problem and
20:47
Speaker 4: a distant world that had nothing to do with me.
20:49
Speaker 4: And then she really sat me down in a bunch
20:51
Speaker 4: of other people and explained the interconnectedness of that, and
20:54
Speaker 4: I was like, oh wait, so this these are the
20:56
Speaker 4: people on Twitter if that were giving us tips well,
20:59
Speaker 4: you know, being tear gas during the rebellion for Mike
21:02
Speaker 4: Brown and Freddie Gray. Oh okay, this makes sense, and
21:05
Speaker 4: so the interconnectiveness of it is beautiful, and I truly
21:09
Speaker 4: am grateful for her and anybody else. But that did
21:11
Speaker 4: kind of that changed a lot in news reporting, and
21:15
Speaker 4: just it built so much distrust for me myself and
21:18
Speaker 4: just realizing that I'm going to look at this article
21:21
Speaker 4: of legacy media and I'm gonna eat the meat, spit
21:24
Speaker 4: out the bones, and go and do my own research.
21:27
Speaker 2: Yes, which is so so so important. And speaking of changes,
21:32
Speaker 2: that is one one you've talked about, But are there
21:34
Speaker 2: any other changes you've seen since you started to where
21:38
Speaker 2: you are now when it comes to news coverage and
21:41
Speaker 2: current affairs?
21:44
Speaker 4: Absolutely so, do you mean in terms of what I'm
21:47
Speaker 4: covering or just changes.
21:50
Speaker 2: In content both, any what changes you've seen witnessed?
21:55
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. It's interesting because I'll sometimes on my fo
21:59
Speaker 4: you page see another person cover something I covered, but
22:02
Speaker 4: they'll cover it in a different in a different way.
22:06
Speaker 4: I'll bring up Khalil or excuse me in my mood Khalil,
22:09
Speaker 4: for example, I covered it in a way where I said,
22:11
Speaker 4: this is an attack on free speech, like straight up,
22:13
Speaker 4: I was a college activist most of my entire college career.
22:18
Speaker 4: This is an escalation, this is crazy. And then another
22:20
Speaker 4: person on my for you page I saw cover it
22:22
Speaker 4: that was like, oh, well he said this and he
22:24
Speaker 4: said that, and essentially to me, it gave this is
22:28
Speaker 4: why he should be deported. And that was that was
22:31
Speaker 4: kind of awkward to me. I was like, ehh, So
22:33
Speaker 4: I started to see people kind of I don't want
22:36
Speaker 4: to use the word propaganda because maybe that's that's too
22:38
Speaker 4: much of a hot butt word. What changes I've seen
22:40
Speaker 4: is usually people would never cover anything in Palace side,
22:44
Speaker 4: anything international, anything about Africa kicking out French troops, they
22:49
Speaker 4: would cover any of it. It would literally just be America focused. Now,
22:52
Speaker 4: as I'm getting more followers and growing and growing and growing,
22:55
Speaker 4: I'm seeing a lot more international news coverage come down
22:58
Speaker 4: my for you page from other content creators who are
23:00
Speaker 4: primarily in the news and news world. Now is it
23:04
Speaker 4: what I would like to watch? No, because I feel
23:06
Speaker 4: that it doesn't give an accurate viewpoint as somebody that's
23:10
Speaker 4: a work glass person like I don't feel like it does.
23:13
Speaker 4: But I am glad they're covering international issues now, but
23:15
Speaker 4: before they weren't. And then in terms of my content
23:19
Speaker 4: things that I've changed. I used to kind of read
23:21
Speaker 4: off a paper. I'm a teleprompter now, so that's very
23:24
Speaker 4: helpful to kind of just look. Another thing that has
23:27
Speaker 4: been quite a change are a welcome change, is I
23:31
Speaker 4: have been kind of looking at my comments a lot
23:33
Speaker 4: more responding to the comments that people have questions that
23:36
Speaker 4: kind of write it in my notes, and then I
23:38
Speaker 4: go with research and answer the question. The other day,
23:40
Speaker 4: a lot of my followers had questions of why the
23:42
Speaker 4: Trump administration is sending so many undocumented people to these
23:45
Speaker 4: detention centers in Louisiana, and I found out it was
23:47
Speaker 4: because of the judges they have friendly pro Trump and
23:50
Speaker 4: there are mostly Trump appointees, hardline immigration judges that are
23:54
Speaker 4: going to essentially deport all these people. But that's kind
23:58
Speaker 4: of the changes I've seen people go from not covering
24:00
Speaker 4: anything in Palace side at all, now they're starting to
24:02
Speaker 4: say stuff. It is a little biased, in my opinion,
24:05
Speaker 4: but at least they're talking about it now, right.
24:07
Speaker 3: I find that interesting with the detention centers because I
24:09
Speaker 3: did see that pop up in your response, because we
24:12
Speaker 3: also know that there's been a lot of privatization when
24:15
Speaker 3: it comes to detention centers, and the South has big,
24:18
Speaker 3: big contracts. I say this, I worked in the Department
24:21
Speaker 3: of Juvenal Justice, so we during my time they closed
24:24
Speaker 3: down private detention centers. They're trying to reopen them, and
24:29
Speaker 3: I find this very alarm alarming. With the same along
24:32
Speaker 3: the lines of what's coming on with the deportations and
24:35
Speaker 3: immigration and refugee issues and who's making the most amount
24:38
Speaker 3: of money. That's a whole other side, Monique, you and
24:41
Speaker 3: I you to talk, that's the whole other side.
24:45
Speaker 1: But it is interesting.
24:46
Speaker 3: And you were talking also because I am also on
24:50
Speaker 3: your spam account. Yes, I'm that deep in with you,
24:53
Speaker 3: whether you want me to be or not. You're talking
24:56
Speaker 3: about like in both the good players and the bad
24:59
Speaker 3: players when it comes to like comments and people coming in,
25:04
Speaker 3: and you know, there are a lot of good people
25:06
Speaker 3: out there, but again sure also some bad players. We've
25:10
Speaker 3: all we've ran into view ourselves. What are some things
25:13
Speaker 3: that we should be wary of when it comes to
25:14
Speaker 3: Carnivent's content, like not only in your comments to try
25:19
Speaker 3: to miss like spread misinformation there because that's what they do,
25:22
Speaker 3: but just also in other contents. What should be we
25:25
Speaker 3: be wary of when it comes to stuff like that?
25:27
Speaker 4: Absolutely, so that's fan page I'm about to test. But
25:32
Speaker 4: those motherfuckers stressed out and in that comments section, I
25:38
Speaker 4: was like, you know what, I'm gonna go over there
25:40
Speaker 4: talk about it. But I love it my most important thing, honestly,
25:44
Speaker 4: And it may sound really crazy. For me, it is
25:47
Speaker 4: class basis, and it's also like ethnicity. Is this person
25:52
Speaker 4: a regular working person? Is this person just trying to
25:55
Speaker 4: make it? Like? Is this person just fighting to survive?
25:58
Speaker 4: Is this person on TikTok as like a side hustle
26:01
Speaker 4: to you know, go with their nine to five? Like?
26:04
Speaker 4: Is this a regular person? And that sounds weird? And
26:07
Speaker 4: then for me, I love like if I see people,
26:10
Speaker 4: especially black women, that are giving news content, I'm like,
26:12
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, this person looks like me. This person
26:15
Speaker 4: is the working class person. Okay, so they're going to
26:18
Speaker 4: share my same views because at the bare bones of it,
26:21
Speaker 4: as workers, we we kind of are fighting the same battle.
26:25
Speaker 4: I mean, it sucks, we're fighting to survive under capitalism.
26:29
Speaker 4: So because we have that basis of knowledge and that
26:34
Speaker 4: basis of experience, the way you report news is going
26:38
Speaker 4: to be as somebody that is affected by it. The
26:41
Speaker 4: way that I report news is somebody that is that
26:43
Speaker 4: is affected by it, you know what I mean, Like
26:45
Speaker 4: somebody that is affected by the election, someone that's affected
26:48
Speaker 4: by Jerry Mandarin, somebody that is affected by all the
26:51
Speaker 4: hateful rhetoric against immigration. My mother in laws Filipino my
26:55
Speaker 4: husband have Filipino, and she came to the country when
26:57
Speaker 4: she was in her thirties. She's worked haward her life.
27:01
Speaker 4: She's still working to this day when she does not
27:04
Speaker 4: have to. And to see some of the things that
27:06
Speaker 4: people say about immigrants, people that come to this country
27:09
Speaker 4: in search of a better world, it makes me angry.
27:12
Speaker 4: But it makes me angry one because I'm a person
27:14
Speaker 4: with a conscience, but also because I have that base
27:17
Speaker 4: of experience. And because I have that base of experience,
27:20
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be reporting news about the Trump
27:22
Speaker 4: administration deporting people in a monotone voice. No that I'm
27:26
Speaker 4: not going to be reporting it in that way, because
27:29
Speaker 4: I like, I don't think it's right, you know. So
27:32
Speaker 4: that's an extremely important thing to look at. Its just
27:35
Speaker 4: does this person have the same values that I have?
27:38
Speaker 4: Is this person? Does this person have the same life
27:41
Speaker 4: experience that I have? Is this person someone that is
27:44
Speaker 4: participating in harmful systems? Or is this person somebody that
27:47
Speaker 4: is not necessarily a victim, but somebody that is affected
27:51
Speaker 4: by these harmful systems. When I realize that we have
27:54
Speaker 4: that same basis, I'm like, oh, I can follow them,
27:56
Speaker 4: because the news is not going to be biased. The
27:57
Speaker 4: news is not going to be in a place where
28:00
Speaker 4: they're kind of like monotone talking about like the most
28:02
Speaker 4: formal thing in the entire world. Now, I do give
28:05
Speaker 4: unbiased news. My news is not biased at all whatsoever.
28:07
Speaker 4: I kind of just put it out there. But at
28:10
Speaker 4: the end of the day, if someone is a white surpermaces,
28:12
Speaker 4: I'm gonna call them white services. I always say, I
28:13
Speaker 4: tell the truth, like, and that makes me unbiased because
28:16
Speaker 4: I am telling you the truth. Now you may not
28:18
Speaker 4: like to hear it, but that's just what it is.
28:21
Speaker 4: So that's what I would look out for. Just somebody
28:23
Speaker 4: that shares the same you know, basis of knowledge and
28:26
Speaker 4: experience them in life and you'll you'll be just fine. Right.
28:30
Speaker 3: I think I figured out something too during the election stuff.
28:33
Speaker 3: When people idolize a candidate instead of seeing them as
28:37
Speaker 3: a choice, that's that's like a big warning sign to
28:40
Speaker 3: me that I'm like, you're a way too, Like they're human. Eventually,
28:44
Speaker 3: something they do you're going to disagree with, and that's okay,
28:47
Speaker 3: and we should be able to call that out. But
28:49
Speaker 3: if in the overall this is the best interest for
28:52
Speaker 3: the people in humanity, then okay.
28:54
Speaker 1: But like that was something that I would like really
28:56
Speaker 1: quickly was like.
28:57
Speaker 3: Oh, this is given a little a little idolizing of
29:04
Speaker 3: people who sometimes care.
29:06
Speaker 1: I don't know, they questioned me ugly.
29:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that election time for me, especially somebody
29:13
Speaker 4: that's doing news and views, because I really was trying
29:17
Speaker 4: to report it. I was really trying to report it
29:21
Speaker 4: in the most fair way possible because first of all,
29:23
Speaker 4: Trump supporters don't even follow me. They know I wasn't
29:25
Speaker 4: voting for Trump. That was not really even an option.
29:28
Speaker 4: So I was trying to report it in a very
29:30
Speaker 4: honest way. There was a lot of things at stake,
29:33
Speaker 4: but there was also a lot of issues that needed
29:36
Speaker 4: to be needed to be down within that election. But
29:39
Speaker 4: my viewpoint about the election, especially somebody that did get
29:42
Speaker 4: out to vote events, somebody that would to vote, somebody
29:45
Speaker 4: that was actually in the community organizing, because I didn't
29:47
Speaker 4: want to go through Trump again that organized under him
29:50
Speaker 4: for almost the entire time news in office. Obviously I
29:53
Speaker 4: didn't want him in again. Right, my motto now unite
29:57
Speaker 4: and fight against Trump. I'm not talking about what happened
30:00
Speaker 4: last year during the election. It's done. The results are in,
30:03
Speaker 4: the results are tabulated, it's looking over and I've been
30:06
Speaker 4: trying to say it like that in a way that
30:08
Speaker 4: helps people kind of understand. I'm not talking about Kamala
30:11
Speaker 4: Harrison more. I'm not even going to talk about Joe
30:13
Speaker 4: Biden anymore. They're not in office. Who's in office. Trump
30:17
Speaker 4: Advance are in office, and these are the people that
30:20
Speaker 4: are going to be sending down these policies to mess
30:22
Speaker 4: up our lives. Why are we talking about what happened
30:25
Speaker 4: in October and November? Still it's not going to help
30:28
Speaker 4: us to unite, invite. So yeah, with that, people are
30:31
Speaker 4: still kind of beating the dead horse with the election talk,
30:34
Speaker 4: and they can do that all they want. But for me,
30:37
Speaker 4: I'm not pointing fingers at anybody except for the people
30:40
Speaker 4: that voted for that man a third time. You voted
30:43
Speaker 4: for him a third time. That's who I'm pointing fingers at.
30:47
Speaker 4: But everybody else, if I even then, I'm not even
30:49
Speaker 4: pointing fingers at them. I'm just saying, hey, you know,
30:52
Speaker 4: do what you do, when you do it, how you
30:53
Speaker 4: do it. I'm going to do what I do when
30:54
Speaker 4: I need to do it. But for me, my model
30:56
Speaker 4: right now, especially the London Trump Again, Unite and I
31:01
Speaker 4: will unitify with anybody if we have the same basis,
31:04
Speaker 4: we have practice, and we have the same ideas, like
31:08
Speaker 4: similar and goal, let's go, let's do it.
31:11
Speaker 3: It got ugly, yeah for us in Georgia. Is us
31:14
Speaker 3: yelling at also and warnock be like do better, keep better?
31:18
Speaker 3: Actually fight for us?
31:19
Speaker 1: Yes, that's been our new thing.
31:21
Speaker 3: But anyway, again, I'm somewhat familiar with do TikTok content,
31:35
Speaker 3: as I keep mentioning, because you know, I have to
31:37
Speaker 3: tell you I'm a superfan. Obviously, your work has also
31:40
Speaker 3: been based around justice and advocacy, which is I think
31:42
Speaker 3: again a while I was like, yes, this is my
31:44
Speaker 3: this is my person, this is my person that I
31:45
Speaker 3: need to talk to. Can you talk about how this
31:47
Speaker 3: type of work of advocacy and your content and social
31:51
Speaker 3: media intersect.
31:53
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's community organizing shapes my entire life. I met
31:58
Speaker 4: my husband at an anti trunk. We got married that
32:01
Speaker 4: same year. I mean, literally, this beautiful man at this process.
32:06
Speaker 4: Who is that? It shaped my entire adult life. As
32:10
Speaker 4: in college I was an organizer with students for Democratic Society.
32:14
Speaker 4: We chased Nazis off our campus, literal Nazis. I'm not
32:17
Speaker 4: just calling him that he said, he did an interview
32:18
Speaker 4: he said, Hey, I'm Kim Parker and I'm a Nazi.
32:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:22
Speaker 4: And then when I graduated from college, I started to
32:24
Speaker 4: organize more with the group that I co found at
32:26
Speaker 4: the Jacksville Community Actual Committee. We led the historic March
32:29
Speaker 4: of the Streets thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
32:32
Speaker 4: We fought against these horrible bills that the SANTIS has
32:35
Speaker 4: passed down from anti union bills to HB one, which
32:39
Speaker 4: was a bill that essentially would make it legal for
32:41
Speaker 4: people to run us over with a car while protesting.
32:43
Speaker 4: They struck that, but then they had other horrible stuff
32:46
Speaker 4: that was in there. Even now, we're fighting against a
32:50
Speaker 4: billion dollars jail project that they're trying to build here
32:52
Speaker 4: in our city. It shaped so much of my content
32:55
Speaker 4: because it's so much of my everyday life. On any
32:57
Speaker 4: given day, we are doing some sort of organization for
33:00
Speaker 4: the Jesua Community Action Committee. We have a meeting tonight
33:03
Speaker 4: where we're going to go and talk with community about
33:05
Speaker 4: doing an educational event about the new jail and why
33:08
Speaker 4: we don't need a billion dollar jail. So when I
33:11
Speaker 4: do my content, I always talk about my advocacy because
33:14
Speaker 4: It's always something that I'm doing right, you know, I
33:17
Speaker 4: can't leave it out because it's a daily thing for
33:20
Speaker 4: me to be organizing in some fashion. The immigrant rights
33:26
Speaker 4: work here. We are the jcc's helping kind of start
33:29
Speaker 4: that up with gr the Jenexicville Immigrant Rights Alliance, and
33:33
Speaker 4: that has been something that has been taken up a
33:35
Speaker 4: lot in my time. So we've been posted about that.
33:38
Speaker 4: So posting about the stuff that's happening with immigration it
33:41
Speaker 4: helps our community organizations here because they're like, Okay, we're
33:43
Speaker 4: getting the word out. Were getting the word out. We're
33:45
Speaker 4: getting the word out. There's an event that we're having
33:47
Speaker 4: this Saturday because of the things that are currently happening
33:50
Speaker 4: in Gaza. And I'm talking about what's happening in Gaza.
33:53
Speaker 4: But at the same time talking about what's happening in Gaza,
33:55
Speaker 4: I'm telling people what they can do to fight back.
33:57
Speaker 4: What you can do to fight back. You can go
33:58
Speaker 4: to an event in your city, you can support Palestinian
34:02
Speaker 4: organizing groups in your city. Here's a fire, this, that,
34:06
Speaker 4: and that. So I feel as if if I'm talking
34:09
Speaker 4: about an issue I never wanted to ever be a
34:11
Speaker 4: person that was just a talker. If I'm telling you
34:14
Speaker 4: all these horrible things. I can't leave you hanging with
34:17
Speaker 4: just listening to all these horrible things. I have to
34:19
Speaker 4: tell you how you can fighte that. Now, whether you
34:21
Speaker 4: choose to go and organize and protest, that's up to you.
34:24
Speaker 4: But I'm at least going to give you that option
34:25
Speaker 4: to kind of get some of that frustration out and
34:29
Speaker 4: not feel so helpless and be surrounded by community. So
34:32
Speaker 4: my community organizing and my active as a work shapes
34:36
Speaker 4: percent of my content, ninety nine percent of it because
34:39
Speaker 4: I'm telling you all the horrible things that are happening
34:41
Speaker 4: in the world. But I'm also telling you the ways
34:42
Speaker 4: of which you can resist invite back.
34:44
Speaker 1: Right, So we need to change your name and think
34:47
Speaker 1: about using views and use.
34:48
Speaker 4: It that seriously. Seriously.
34:55
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm sorry to all the people who hated that,
35:01
Speaker 3: And do you just that felt insulting?
35:02
Speaker 1: After that I said that, I was like, but no,
35:04
Speaker 1: but there needs to be one more tagline to this.
35:06
Speaker 3: Yes, coming back to specifically about your social media path
35:13
Speaker 3: and all of that. Which video or content was the
35:16
Speaker 3: one that propelled your social media career?
35:19
Speaker 4: Hmmm, I'd have to go back to the beginning. It
35:23
Speaker 4: was a post about a mod arbery that entire that
35:30
Speaker 4: entire segment of life was very frustrating for me because
35:33
Speaker 4: we had Breonna Taylor, a mod Arbury, George Floyd. It
35:36
Speaker 4: was kind of a powder keg that that led to
35:38
Speaker 4: the rebellion. It wasn't just George Floyd dying, it was
35:41
Speaker 4: George Floyd dying after Breonna Taylor had been killed, after
35:45
Speaker 4: a mod Arbury had been run down by these white
35:49
Speaker 4: supremacists and shot like he was a dog. And uploading
35:53
Speaker 4: those videos for me was a way to kind of
35:57
Speaker 4: one get the word out about what we were doing
35:59
Speaker 4: because we protested all this stuff. I mean, we were
36:01
Speaker 4: out in the streets, out of the streets, out of the streets.
36:03
Speaker 4: That was kind of a way for me to get
36:05
Speaker 4: out what the Jay Stacy was doing, what sts was doing,
36:09
Speaker 4: how we were fighting back. But it was also a
36:10
Speaker 4: way for me to vent these frustrations that I had
36:14
Speaker 4: seeing these people be murdered. I mean, that's that's what
36:18
Speaker 4: it was. I was so disturbed by vamade archery video.
36:21
Speaker 4: I was so disturbed that Breonna Taylor could be shot
36:23
Speaker 4: in her bed while she slept. I was so I
36:26
Speaker 4: remember having to go to an emergency therapy appointment after
36:29
Speaker 4: George Floyd's death, and I tear up even thinking about it. Now.
36:32
Speaker 4: I was so disturbed at a full video. And that's
36:35
Speaker 4: the beautiful part about technology. On TikTok, I'm seeing clips
36:39
Speaker 4: of this video, this man screaming, I can't read. I
36:42
Speaker 4: was just so disturbed. So posting those videos, sharing my
36:46
Speaker 4: thoughts and sharing my opinions about what was happening and
36:49
Speaker 4: how I felt about it, it just took. It just
36:51
Speaker 4: made me go viral because people were like, Oh, this
36:54
Speaker 4: is a this is a black woman. She's also an activist.
36:57
Speaker 4: She's also talking about how she feels. She's also talking
36:59
Speaker 4: about how I can get involved locally. Oh, I like
37:02
Speaker 4: her follow follow fallow follow follow, and it seemed like
37:04
Speaker 4: I went from like it seemed like I went from
37:06
Speaker 4: a couple of thousand followers to one hundred thousand over night,
37:09
Speaker 4: and then two hundred thousand, three hundred and now I'm
37:11
Speaker 4: at eight hundred thousand. Honestly, y'all, it doesn't even feel
37:14
Speaker 4: real like this, none of this. I mean, my husband
37:18
Speaker 4: looked the other day, he said, you know, you're at
37:19
Speaker 4: eight hundred thousand followers. I'm like, yeah, babe, and all
37:22
Speaker 4: of it still seems surreal. But those videos kind of
37:26
Speaker 4: talking about what was happening in the world, that really
37:28
Speaker 4: kind of made me take off.
37:30
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, So your honesty and just yes, your love,
37:35
Speaker 3: Like that's what it comes down to that you had.
37:38
Speaker 1: There's such a like bittersweet about that. It's that, like
37:41
Speaker 1: you deserve the recognition for your work, but the fact
37:45
Speaker 1: that you had to do.
37:46
Speaker 3: That in the name of justice, like it's just and
37:48
Speaker 3: even today, like I know they're still talking about the
37:51
Speaker 3: Breonna Taylor case, as they should because she has not
37:54
Speaker 3: gotten her justice, as well as the fact that they
37:56
Speaker 3: still try to paint the entire situation in such an
37:58
Speaker 3: ugly matter where sill talking about the George Floyd case
38:01
Speaker 3: because I know there was a conversation about an appeal,
38:03
Speaker 3: which is that and then we know a mod operate
38:08
Speaker 3: that it won't be long. I bet there's going to
38:11
Speaker 3: be a conversation about that. And that was one of
38:13
Speaker 3: the most blatant cases and a reminder for a lot
38:16
Speaker 3: of everyone. But as great as Atlanta is, George is
38:20
Speaker 3: not the same, you know, Like and even in Atlanta,
38:23
Speaker 3: like it's not safe and it's a bittersweet moment to
38:26
Speaker 3: know that that's what pushed you. Because I'm glad to
38:30
Speaker 3: be following you, but I hate the circumstances that and.
38:34
Speaker 1: The fact that you have to put in that work.
38:36
Speaker 1: You should be recognized, but you shouldn't have to do all.
38:38
Speaker 3: This work, like there's so many there's so many layers
38:42
Speaker 3: that are like flip a table.
38:43
Speaker 1: There's nothing good.
38:44
Speaker 4: I'm just kidding, I know, but that's what it feels like.
38:47
Speaker 4: Every moment feels like a flip the table moment. And
38:49
Speaker 4: there will be some times where I have to stop
38:52
Speaker 4: recording the segments to scream. And this sounds really dramatic,
38:56
Speaker 4: but I have been a community organizer for seven years.
39:01
Speaker 4: It is like running through hell where every once in
39:05
Speaker 4: a while you might get a water station. This is
39:08
Speaker 4: hard work. So to do that and then have to
39:12
Speaker 4: also not have to but choose to give out this news.
39:15
Speaker 4: It's rough, and that's why I'm in a therapist chair
39:18
Speaker 4: twice a week and working on myself. But yeah, it is.
39:23
Speaker 4: Circumstances aren't great, but it needs to be done.
39:26
Speaker 2: It needs to be done, yes, and we appreciate it
39:29
Speaker 2: so much. Is there something that you wish you had
39:35
Speaker 2: known when you started started this work at the beginning,
39:41
Speaker 2: I wish I.
39:42
Speaker 4: Would have known that coming into activism and coming into
39:46
Speaker 4: community organizing, or even coming into news and use content,
39:50
Speaker 4: you need to make sure that you take time to
39:52
Speaker 4: recharge your mental health. You cannot just be out in
39:55
Speaker 4: this world raw dogging it and like thinking you're not
39:59
Speaker 4: going to be affected. I have bipolar disorderer. I've been
40:02
Speaker 4: bipolar my entire life, but just got diagnosed seven years ago.
40:06
Speaker 4: So it is imperative, especially for someone like me, to
40:09
Speaker 4: ensure that my mental health is good. And I wish
40:12
Speaker 4: and I'm grateful for my husband again because he got
40:14
Speaker 4: me into therapy, but I wish when I started active
40:17
Speaker 4: organizing and I started news abuse content on TikTok, I
40:20
Speaker 4: wish I would have taken my mental health a little
40:22
Speaker 4: bit more seriously. I do now, and I have for
40:25
Speaker 4: the last couple of years, But even in twenty twenty,
40:28
Speaker 4: that entire year affected me in ways that I didn't
40:30
Speaker 4: know that I could be affected, and I realized I
40:32
Speaker 4: needed to do a little bit more work. But to
40:35
Speaker 4: anybody that is even thinking about getting into content creation
40:37
Speaker 4: or thinking about getting into activism, if you're going to
40:40
Speaker 4: be doing news and views, you need to make sure
40:42
Speaker 4: that you sit your button a therapist chair at least
40:44
Speaker 4: once a month. It does help.
40:47
Speaker 1: Hey man, we love therapy here.
40:49
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
40:55
Speaker 3: And you know now that you're giving advice, let's to
40:57
Speaker 3: just keep going with this. What's some advice you would
40:59
Speaker 3: give others, especially black women, because we want more black
41:02
Speaker 3: women to be a part of this conversation to get money,
41:06
Speaker 3: to get platformed. We need them and we want to
41:08
Speaker 3: see more of more of them grow. What is some
41:12
Speaker 3: advice you would give? What is like when it comes
41:14
Speaker 3: to creating this type of content and starting down the
41:17
Speaker 3: road to a social media popularity fame.
41:22
Speaker 4: I would say to make sure that you are prioritizing
41:25
Speaker 4: yourself and prioritizing and having kind of a goal of
41:29
Speaker 4: where you want this to go. When I was a
41:31
Speaker 4: five hundred thousand dollars I sat down and talked with
41:34
Speaker 4: my husband and I said, I think I want to
41:36
Speaker 4: do this, and I want to do this in a
41:38
Speaker 4: way that is intense, and I want to do this
41:40
Speaker 4: in a way that is maximum effort. Because be and bipolary,
41:43
Speaker 4: I either have to do it or I'm not. And
41:46
Speaker 4: that's just what it is. And so I remember telling
41:49
Speaker 4: him this. And to any Black women that are thinking
41:51
Speaker 4: about getting into content creation, stay the course, be consistent,
41:56
Speaker 4: but please take time to prioritize your mental health. People
42:00
Speaker 4: are really nasty. That's why I filter my comments and
42:03
Speaker 4: I love a good block button. Get acquainted with that
42:05
Speaker 4: block button. Get acquainted with those filtered comments, because people
42:08
Speaker 4: are going to call you everything but a child of
42:10
Speaker 4: God for just simply living your life fully and living
42:14
Speaker 4: your life out loud. The people filter those comments, block
42:18
Speaker 4: those people, focus on the positive, and prioritize your mental
42:22
Speaker 4: health and your well being.
42:24
Speaker 1: I love that.
42:25
Speaker 3: Obviously, your work is very tiring and never ending, never ending, repeat,
42:33
Speaker 3: But how do you choose what type of information to
42:36
Speaker 3: speak on and what not to speak on?
42:38
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So I really look at things that affect black,
42:41
Speaker 4: working class people, working class people in general, and I
42:45
Speaker 4: talk about those things. So let's say there's like a
42:47
Speaker 4: financial crisis that's happening. That's important for people to know.
42:51
Speaker 4: You need to know what's going to happen, when it's
42:53
Speaker 4: going to happen, and what's going on. Let's say there's
42:55
Speaker 4: an instance where there's a new law that makes it
42:58
Speaker 4: to where police have immunity to do whatever they want X, Y,
43:01
Speaker 4: and z, that's important for us to know because that's
43:03
Speaker 4: going to be affecting our communities. Let's say there's something
43:07
Speaker 4: with Social Security or something with Medicare and Medicaid, that's
43:10
Speaker 4: important for us to know. A lot of working class
43:12
Speaker 4: people use these programs. One, Social Security is our right,
43:15
Speaker 4: we pay into it. Medicare and Medicaid. This is the
43:18
Speaker 4: closest we have to universal health care, and it's still
43:20
Speaker 4: most of the time not good enough. So if you
43:22
Speaker 4: if there's cuts that are happening that's going to affect
43:25
Speaker 4: tens and tens of millions of people, they need to know.
43:27
Speaker 4: So I try to do my best to focus on
43:29
Speaker 4: news that affects working class people. Now, news I do
43:32
Speaker 4: not cover. If something is like salacious where I know
43:35
Speaker 4: it's going to upset people, not in a way that's
43:38
Speaker 4: productive where people want to actually do stuff about it,
43:41
Speaker 4: but in a way that is only going to cause
43:42
Speaker 4: hate and division. I'm not going to cover it. I mean,
43:45
Speaker 4: and it sounds and there's that's very Those stories are
43:48
Speaker 4: very few and far between, so I try to do
43:51
Speaker 4: my best, you know, not to cover them. But thankfully
43:52
Speaker 4: there's a few and far between. But anything that is
43:55
Speaker 4: going to cause my viewers to feel harmed. I just
44:02
Speaker 4: try not to cover that. Again, you far between, But
44:04
Speaker 4: I really focus on news that affects black, working class people,
44:07
Speaker 4: working class people. Now I've been covering news that affects
44:10
Speaker 4: the immigrant population as well. This is extremely important to
44:13
Speaker 4: being my mother in law. I love her so much.
44:15
Speaker 4: She's from the Philippines. She came here in her thirties.
44:17
Speaker 4: People say horrible things about just anybody that's come here,
44:21
Speaker 4: whether they're coming here legally, which no human being is illegal,
44:25
Speaker 4: or they're coming here in a different former fashion. It
44:27
Speaker 4: doesn't matter to these people. They're still going to demonize immigrants,
44:30
Speaker 4: and we just can't deal with guys stand for that.
44:33
Speaker 4: So I've been covering that as well. But a lot
44:35
Speaker 4: of stuff I cover it affects working class people. In workers,
44:38
Speaker 4: I'm in a union, so I love to cover anything
44:41
Speaker 4: that has to do with public sector unions, even private
44:43
Speaker 4: sector unions as well, So I try to do that too.
44:46
Speaker 2: Hell yes, well, speaking of I guess negative reactions. Have
44:54
Speaker 2: you had much pushback or negative reactions to your content?
44:58
Speaker 4: Oh? Absolutely. During the EE I told people, Hey, you
45:01
Speaker 4: should not be going to this. One famous coffee company
45:04
Speaker 4: and this one famous fast food restaurant to spike Palestidians
45:07
Speaker 4: and third party voters because even with those votes, VP
45:12
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris won't want anyway. They dragged me for forty
45:15
Speaker 4: days and forty nights over it. They were threatening to
45:18
Speaker 4: call my job, they were calling me everything by the
45:20
Speaker 4: Child of God, they were reporting my page, they were
45:23
Speaker 4: making hate videos telling me to shut up. And I'm like,
45:26
Speaker 4: I just told you not to support places that use
45:30
Speaker 4: incarcerated people for labor, that us slaved labor, that kicked
45:34
Speaker 4: out their employees because they were wearing Black Lives Matter pins,
45:36
Speaker 4: that kicked out black men from their coffee shop because
45:40
Speaker 4: they didn't want them lawyer in there and called the police.
45:42
Speaker 4: And then I'm just telling you how this affects us
45:44
Speaker 4: as black people, you know, And that's all I'm saying.
45:48
Speaker 4: You can do what you want to do, but that's
45:49
Speaker 4: all I'm saying. And they, I mean, it was nasty,
45:52
Speaker 4: and it was so nasty, and the sad thing is
45:54
Speaker 4: a lot of it was coming from people that were white,
45:56
Speaker 4: and I was just like, listen, I get that we're
45:59
Speaker 4: all upset about the election and all the work that
46:02
Speaker 4: some of us are going to have to do because
46:04
Speaker 4: if we're being honest, a lot of these people that
46:05
Speaker 4: were going back to the coffee shop and going back
46:07
Speaker 4: to the fast food restaurant and saying they're not going
46:09
Speaker 4: to be doing this, not going to be doing that,
46:11
Speaker 4: they weren't doing anything before the election. They just went
46:13
Speaker 4: to the booth and clicked the buttons and boo boo,
46:16
Speaker 4: which is fine, which just fine, but I mean it ugly.
46:21
Speaker 4: I'm another thing that happens too. I'll cover stuff that's
46:26
Speaker 4: happening internationally, So I'll cover sepal palsied all the time,
46:28
Speaker 4: because why whatn't I right? This is something that's happening.
46:32
Speaker 4: Those filter comments sometimes I'll click it and I'll believe,
46:34
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna hear it. I mean,
46:37
Speaker 4: the racial tropes are nasty, people threatening me, people threatening
46:41
Speaker 4: my family. And I'll report all the stuff too to TikTok,
46:44
Speaker 4: and unfortunately it's not taken down. But these comments can
46:47
Speaker 4: get so nasty. And that's why I do have to
46:48
Speaker 4: filter comment options because I don't I don't want to
46:50
Speaker 4: see what's going down in there. I only want to
46:52
Speaker 4: curate positive positivity. Ninety five percent of my comments are positive,
46:56
Speaker 4: five percent are nasty, hateful, gut or snite, disgusting. I
47:00
Speaker 4: just gonna stay in the filter comments.
47:02
Speaker 1: That's a smart play. Yeah, yes, don't have a look
47:05
Speaker 1: at the filter.
47:10
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of have you, we've kind of heard some
47:15
Speaker 2: snippets of this throughout our conversation, But have you gotten
47:18
Speaker 2: to the point of balancing this work with your your
47:22
Speaker 2: regular job and your everyday life.
47:25
Speaker 4: I would say it's balanced. I would say I balanced
47:28
Speaker 4: them fine. I would say I balance the TikTok world
47:31
Speaker 4: and the community organizing my job being a mom. I
47:34
Speaker 4: would say I balanced that fine. My husband says that
47:36
Speaker 4: I sometimes I run around like a chicken with my
47:38
Speaker 4: head cut off, and that's fine. I mean it's I
47:40
Speaker 4: always tell them, like, Babe, I'm blipolar. There's no balance.
47:43
Speaker 4: I will say, I'm very blessed in my biopolar journeys
47:45
Speaker 4: to be medicative, so I really just get the highs
47:49
Speaker 4: and know the highs. I'm like putting out ten stories
47:52
Speaker 4: a day, doing this, doing this, doing this, and then
47:54
Speaker 4: my loves are just like a regular feeling. So I'm
47:56
Speaker 4: still able to put out my stories. But balance, no tolerable.
48:01
Speaker 1: Yes, I would say that I like that answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
48:09
Speaker 1: I'm existing.
48:10
Speaker 4: Yes, i'ming. That's it.
48:14
Speaker 1: That's just the.
48:14
Speaker 3: Theme for the Linux four years, right, I'm existing. That's
48:18
Speaker 3: that's a gift.
48:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm alive. I'm here. My daughter's happy and healthy,
48:24
Speaker 4: my husband's happy and healthy. I'm happy and healthy.
48:28
Speaker 1: I didn't like him snubbing in for you when you
48:30
Speaker 1: were sick.
48:31
Speaker 4: Yes, he did a good He was so nervous. He's like,
48:34
Speaker 4: great this. I'm like, I have the flu. You could
48:37
Speaker 4: hear I don't know if you heard of it in
48:38
Speaker 4: the background of the video. I'm not coughinge my go
48:42
Speaker 4: requords a video. But yeah, he's he's as I love
48:47
Speaker 4: him so much.
48:47
Speaker 2: He did a great job.
48:48
Speaker 1: He did a great job.
48:49
Speaker 4: I'll tell so.
49:02
Speaker 3: And you kind of talked about this before, but I'm
49:03
Speaker 3: going to make it personal. With all the things that
49:07
Speaker 3: you've done and all the things that you continue to do,
49:11
Speaker 3: how do you disconnect from the doom's day feels of
49:13
Speaker 3: everyday life, Like what do you do to recharge so
49:16
Speaker 3: you can continue to deliver up to date information, and
49:19
Speaker 3: how do you take a break for yourself. This is
49:21
Speaker 3: such something that we have to ask all of our guests,
49:23
Speaker 3: especially those who put in work like this, so tell
49:26
Speaker 3: us how do you do this?
49:28
Speaker 4: Absolutely? So community organizing is the outlet that I need
49:31
Speaker 4: to get that frustration out. And because I'm in a community,
49:34
Speaker 4: and because we're organizing and we're having protests and we're
49:37
Speaker 4: having sit ins, and we're having educational events and movie
49:39
Speaker 4: screenings and fulling meet us, I don't feel so low.
49:43
Speaker 4: And that's what I'd be trying to sell people. I'm like,
49:46
Speaker 4: They're like, why don't you feel doom and glow? Because
49:48
Speaker 4: I community organize because I'm actively fighting against this problem, right,
49:52
Speaker 4: And because I'm actively fighting against this problem, I don't
49:54
Speaker 4: feel so bad, Like, yes, things are horrible, but because
49:58
Speaker 4: I'm with the this group of people, because I'm with
50:02
Speaker 4: sometimes hundreds of people, thousands of people sometimes and sometimes
50:05
Speaker 4: it's only a handful of people, and we all feel
50:08
Speaker 4: the same way, and we're able to talk about it
50:10
Speaker 4: and we're able to brainstorm solutions about it, it does
50:13
Speaker 4: not feel that bad. That's why we're telling people you
50:15
Speaker 4: need to join an organization. If you feel like because
50:18
Speaker 4: of all the stuff that's happening, join an organization. It's
50:21
Speaker 4: still going to feel like eh, but you won't feel
50:23
Speaker 4: so weigh it down. Another thing that I do. I
50:26
Speaker 4: on Saturdays have been doing less videos, so I really
50:29
Speaker 4: do take that time to recharge, spend time with my family,
50:33
Speaker 4: spend time especially with my daughter and my husband. We
50:36
Speaker 4: go and do an activity where I'm not really on
50:38
Speaker 4: my phone a lot. So I try to do that
50:40
Speaker 4: for myself as well, and then I have to bring
50:42
Speaker 4: it up again therapy every two weeks. Shout out to
50:45
Speaker 4: Verrika Greyson. I sit in that chair and I sit
50:49
Speaker 4: there for fifty minutes, and it's just I feel bad
50:53
Speaker 4: for her because I mean it's fifty minutes every two
50:55
Speaker 4: weeks where I'm going and I'm working on myself and
50:58
Speaker 4: then I get massages too. That's nice.
51:00
Speaker 1: Oh that's smart.
51:02
Speaker 3: I swear you're the second person this week. That's like
51:05
Speaker 3: what when I asked the question, how do you reachart
51:07
Speaker 3: to like I do more work?
51:08
Speaker 4: Like what?
51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I love it.
51:17
Speaker 3: I love it, but I'm just like, man, that was
51:19
Speaker 3: that was the opposite of what I was doing when
51:21
Speaker 3: I was sleeping.
51:21
Speaker 1: I'm like, I quit in a position of a sleep.
51:27
Speaker 4: But yeah, but it is it makes me feel better.
51:31
Speaker 3: You gotta do what you gotta do, as Okay, and
51:34
Speaker 3: I have to ask this. This is for me personally.
51:37
Speaker 3: This is for me just in case TikTok, because I
51:39
Speaker 3: know we're under a thread again about it being bought out,
51:41
Speaker 3: being banned, whatever whatnot. If it does go into the abyss,
51:45
Speaker 3: where can we find you so we can keep supporting
51:47
Speaker 3: your work outside of TikTok.
51:49
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I'm on YouTube as well. I post like all
51:52
Speaker 4: of my segments on YouTube on my podcast too, like
51:55
Speaker 4: so sometimes I'll post my segments on Spotify, which is
51:58
Speaker 4: really nice because some people don't want to be on
52:00
Speaker 4: TikTok and I respect that. So I do podcast daily
52:03
Speaker 4: Monday through Thursday ish, sometimes on Friday if there's something
52:07
Speaker 4: super important. But that's where you can find me. Now.
52:10
Speaker 4: Do I think TikTok is going to be banned? No?
52:13
Speaker 4: And I did do a story on how the trop
52:15
Speaker 4: administration said they're going to keep extending it, kicking the
52:17
Speaker 4: can down the road, kick that can, but keep TikTok
52:20
Speaker 4: and the app stars and keep it. You know, he
52:24
Speaker 4: wanted to band it in the first place.
52:25
Speaker 1: So that's a story for right, that's yeah, Oh my god.
52:28
Speaker 1: Some of all these problems were like this started in twenty.
52:31
Speaker 4: Sixteen, literally like, come on now, but you're just having
52:34
Speaker 4: people on memories.
52:37
Speaker 2: Right, I'm tired thinking about it. Well, this has been
52:45
Speaker 2: such a delightful conversation. Obviously we were thrilled to have
52:47
Speaker 2: you and your welcome back anytime. But outside of those outlets,
52:52
Speaker 2: is there anywhere else the good listeners can find you
52:55
Speaker 2: and support you.
52:56
Speaker 4: No, just TikTok and then those other outlets, and you know,
53:00
Speaker 4: those other outlets go down. I'm going to go back
53:01
Speaker 4: to the grass question world.
53:04
Speaker 1: So it's everything under a black belt, babe.
53:07
Speaker 4: Yes, everything's under black belt babe.
53:09
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, listeners go check out all of that content.
53:14
Speaker 2: So important, and thank you, thank you, thank you so
53:17
Speaker 2: much for being here. This was such a delight.
53:20
Speaker 4: Thank you all so much for having me. I really
53:21
Speaker 4: appreciate it.
53:22
Speaker 2: Listeners. If you would like to contact us, you can.
53:25
Speaker 2: You can email us at Hello at stuff Onenever Told
53:27
Speaker 2: You dot com. You can find us on Blue Sky
53:30
Speaker 2: at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at
53:32
Speaker 2: stuff I Never Told You, or also on YouTube. We
53:35
Speaker 2: have a team public store, and we have a book
53:36
Speaker 2: you can get where you get your books. Thanks as
53:38
Speaker 2: always to a super producer pre Senior Executive producer, my
53:40
Speaker 2: indercontributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening
53:43
Speaker 2: stuff Never told you. Protection of My Heart Radio. For
53:45
Speaker 2: more podcast from My Heart Radio, you can check out
53:46
Speaker 2: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
53:48
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.