Shows / The General's Briefing
The General's Briefing
A podcast where Black feminist analysis meets cultural commentary. This is your command center for understanding the systems that shape Black life, Black love, and Black survival. Each episode is a strategic briefing on the forces we're up against and the tools we need to fight back. From the "Sacrificial Bargain" that polices Black women's bodies and choices, to the "Faustian Bargain" that questions Black men's authenticity, we're breaking down the vernacular theories that govern how we judge…
Episodes
- The General's Briefing
Love Don't Cost A Thing
This week, I went under contract on my first home. And I was $1,000 short on my earnest money. I reached out to the men in my life, the ones who want access to…
- The General's Briefing
Root to Flower: The Crooked Room and Why I'm Choosing Blackness Over Proximity
In 1998, Nas looked into a camera and said seven words: "I'm moving to Africa, word." In 2026, I am standing at the same crossroads. This episode connects four…
- The General's Briefing
Still: Tink, Jay-Z, and What Happens When You're Waiting on a Man to Reach His 4:44 Moment
He said "I love you too." And I knew he meant it. But I also know he hasn't shown up yet. Not the way I need him to. This episode is about the specific pain of…
- The General's Briefing
The Queen of No: Unearned Authority, The Ruff Ryders Era, and Why I Had the Audacity to Show Up
In 1999, a 20-year-old woman with bleach-blonde hair and paw print tattoos walked into the center of the most testosterone-saturated collective in hip-hop and…
- The General's Briefing
Moment of Clarity: What Happens When Black Women Build Without A Co-Sign
Jay-Z said it plainly on The Black Album in 2003: "I dumbed down for my audience and doubled my dollars." That is the Faustian Bargain named out loud by the…
- The General's Briefing
THE DISPOSABILITY DOCTRINE — EPISODE 3 OF 3: Another Building: The Architecture of Survival and What We Do When the State Fails Us
This is the finale. And today we answer the question the first two episodes created. If the State has always operated on the assumption that Black and…
- The General's Briefing
THE DISPOSABILITY DOCTRINE — EPISODE 2 OF 3: 99 and a Half Won't Do
My great-grandmother had a saying she repeated her entire life. 99 and a half won't do. She said it about effort. About commitment. About refusing to give less…
- The General's Briefing
THE DISPOSABILITY DOCTRINE SERIES: EP 1- There's a Leak in This Old Building.
My great-grandmother hated when I called myself Black. Not because she was ashamed of my Blackness. Not because she was running from anything. But because she…
- The General's Briefing
Dear John: How the Community Holds Black Women Accountable for Black Men's Lies
In this episode of The General's Briefing, The Griot introduces three new theoretical concepts that she has never taught before, and grounds every single one…
- The General's Briefing
The National Sacrificial Bargain: 60 Years in Two Months, History Repeating, and Why We Have to Build Our Own
In this episode of The General's Briefing, The Griot gets personal. Hilerie Lind, PhD candidate, program manager, mother of two boys with disabilities, and…
- The General's Briefing
The Griot Speaks: From the Nephilim, to the Jezebel, and Claressa Shields
In this episode of The General's Briefing, The Griot, GREE-YOT, sits down for a deep discussion that goes all the way back to before the flood. Most people…
- The General's Briefing
Where I'm From...
In this episode, I break down the Earn Your Leisure / Invest Fest controversy, and I do it in a way that differs from everyone else's. I do not take sides…
- The General's Briefing
I Used to Love Her: Our Beloved HBCUs and Respectability Politics
In 1994, Common wrote a love letter to hip-hop. He called her H.E.R. He described a woman who was pure, rooted, and real, until the mainstream got hold of her…
- The General's Briefing
Ms. Fat Booty
In 1999, Mos Def released "Ms. Fat Booty", a song about a man who encountered a woman who was already whole, already moving, already complete. He pursued her…
- The General's Briefing
A Soft Place to Land, Welcome to the Grey
"We need a feminism that admits we have messy, complicated, and sometimes contradictory desires." - Joan Morgan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost (1999)…
- The General's Briefing
ain't I american?
I charge you with the crime of rape, murder, and assault. For suppressing and punishing my people. I charge you with robbery for robbing me of my history."…
- The General's Briefing
We Gon Be Alright, Part 2: Five Periods of Black Overcoming and Why History Is the Only Antidote to Despair
"We gon' be alright." Kendrick Lamar wrote those words in 2015. In the middle of Ferguson. In the middle of Black Lives Matter. In the middle of a moment when…
- The General's Briefing
Spend Dat
It's the Fourth of July. A holiday that has never fully belonged to Black people. And while America wraps itself in a flag, the conversation taking over Black…
- The General's Briefing
Adam and Eve Were Black
I was sitting on my couch watching a documentary. Notes in my lap. Phone in my hand. Feeling like Webbie, doing what I do, what I do, what I do. Because this…
- The General's Briefing
From 'Pop That Coochie' to Congress
In 1990, the Broward County Sheriff's Department arrested Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell on obscenity charges. Not for a crime. Not for violence. Not for theft…
- The General's Briefing
Still Nigga, Part 2
When I first saw the headlines about Jay-Z and Target, I felt it. That thing in your chest when someone whose work has shaped the way you think disappoints…
- The General's Briefing
Still Nigga
Today, I saw an ad. John Legend. His family. Target. And I scrolled to the comments. And somebody wrote: "House slave." I understood the frustration. The…
- The General's Briefing
The Price of Admission
Early voting is underway in Georgia. June 16th is coming. And The General has a briefing you need to hear before you walk into that voting booth. This week…
- The General's Briefing
The Sex Tape and the Architecture of Disbelief
On May 31, 2026, a tape from Diddy's federal sex trafficking trial became public. It featured Daphne Joy, a woman believed to have anonymously testified…
- The General's Briefing
Madame Queen: The Philosophy of Refusal in a Fur Coat.
In 1935, a gangster named Dutch Schultz lay dying in a hospital in Newark, New Jersey. He had spent years trying to take over the Harlem numbers empire built…
- The General's Briefing
Heaux Tales
This episode is about the body. Who owns it. Who controls it. Who profits from it when we can't say no. And what it sounds like when Black women finally…
- The General's Briefing
Chopped and Screwed: Kevin Hart, Cheyenne Bryant, Karrine Steffans, and the Bargains That Broke the Culture
Chopped and screwed music was born in Houston, Texas. DJ Screw took records that everyone already knew, songs they'd heard a hundred times, and he slowed them…
- The General's Briefing
Four Women
"My skin is black / My arms are long / My hair is woolly / My back is strong / Strong enough to take the pain / Inflicted again and again / What do they call…
- The General's Briefing
A Conversation with Rep. Derrick Jackson on Integrity, Black Maternal Health, and the Fight for Georgia
The day before the Georgia Democratic primary. And I'm sitting down with State Representative Derrick Jackson, the man I've been fighting for, the man I…
- The General's Briefing
The Signs as Bodies
It's Monday, May 18, 2026. The day before the Georgia Democratic primary. And I just got back from driving around DeKalb County, placing signs for State…
- The General's Briefing
COSPLAYING AS A PHD: WHY CHEYENNE BRYANT'S REFUSAL TO SHOW PROOF HARMS EVERY BLACK WOMAN SCHOLAR
I need to talk about Cheyenne Bryant. And I need to be very clear about why I'm talking about her. This is not about jealousy. This is not about tearing down…
- The General's Briefing
I Am the Ancestor
The world is burning. And I still yearn for love." I know that sounds ridiculous. I know that sounds naive. I know that sounds like I'm not paying attention to…
- The General's Briefing
Protect Me: The Prayer of a Black Woman Who Is Tired of Pouring into Cups That Secretly Resent Her
In this episode, I teach you about the two-fold Sacrificial Bargain, the impossible choice that Black women have been forced to make for generations: OPTION 1…
- The General's Briefing
The Antidote: Why Black Self-Love Is the Refusal of the Sacrificial Bargain
On May 4, 2026, the Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling that devastated Black political power across the South. The Court struck down Louisiana's…
- The General's Briefing
The Loneliness Epidemic: Why Black Women Are Building Empires and Going to Bed Alone (My Eyes Are Green)
Yesterday, I recorded three episodes. And I was sitting there wanting to record a fourth one. Not because I had something urgent to say. But because I didn't…
- The General's Briefing
Follow the Money: The Systematic Erasure of Black Political Power in the Georgia Gubernatorial Primary
I am Hilerie Lind. And I am unbought and unbossed. In this episode, I teach you about the Crooked Room, the disorienting psychological and structural space…
- The General's Briefing
Black Cotton: Live Free or Die
A few weeks ago, Kip Carr called me "the Harriet Tubman of this century." And when he said it, I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know if I was worthy…
- The General's Briefing
THE HARRIET TUBMAN OF THIS CENTURY
In this episode, I connect my personal life to Georgia politics to show you how the Sacrificial Bargain operates everywhere, in our relationships, in our…
- The General's Briefing
Which Voice Will You Believe? Congresswoman Beatty vs. Stephen A. Smith
On Sunday, April 26, 2026, I executed one of the most successful political events of my career. Over 200 people attended. The execution was flawless. And…
- The General's Briefing
THE PARADOX: AL SHARPTON, EAZY-E, AND THE WHITE HOUSE
In 1991, Eric "Eazy-E" Wright—the founder of N.W.A., the man who rapped "Fuck tha Police", attended a Republican fundraiser at the White House and met…
- The General's Briefing
C. Delores Tucker and the Generational Divide: Was She Wrong, or Was She Just Asking the Question Nobody Wanted to Answer?
In 1996, Tupac Shakur released a song called "How Do U Want It." It was a hit. It went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was played on every radio station, in…
- The General's Briefing
Pop That Coochie: Uncle Luke, 2 Live Crew, and the Supreme Court Battle That Changed Hip-Hop Forever
In 1990, a federal judge in Florida declared an album legally obscene for the first time in U.S. history. The album was As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live…
- The General's Briefing
Cranes in the Sky: Why Black Women Fill Their Plates to Avoid Feeling the Pain of Loneliness
I woke up this morning feeling blah. I looked at my phone. And it was dry. Again. And it hurt. Then I thought about Monty—my first love, the man who introduced…
- The General's Briefing
BROWN SUGAR, PART 2: A CONVERSATION WITH MONTY
Thirty years ago, I was 11 years old when I saw a boy on a talent show tape, rapping on stage. I was immediately captured. A few weeks later, he rode down my…
- The General's Briefing
How's It Going Down? The Hip-Hop Songs That Taught Me to Accept Crumbs—And the Women Who Are Teaching Me to Refuse
It's Sunday morning, April 19, 2026. I'm 41 years old, four months shy of my 42nd birthday. And I just woke up with a realization: I deserve to be valued. Not…
- The General's Briefing
Sharks in the Water: Why Niggas Never Leave (And Why They Always Come Back When You're Vulnerable)
I always tell my friends, "Don't ever sweat a man when he disappears. Because niggas NEVER leave. Sooner or later, he will be back around." And I was right…
- The General's Briefing
Godmother's Price, How Zora Neale Hurston Taught Me About the Sacrificial Bargain
A few weeks ago, I received an email that changed everything. The subject line read: "Oxford Handbook of the Harlem Renaissance - Chapter Acceptance." I had to…
- The General's Briefing
From 'Song Cry' to '4:44': The Maturation Gap and Why Black Women Are Expected to Mature Faster
I want to tell you about three songs that changed the way I understand love, maturation, and the impossible standards Black women are held to. These three…
- The General's Briefing
No Scrubs, But MAGA? How Chilli from TLC Betrayed the Soundtrack of My Childhood
I was in the fourth grade when I bought my first TLC album. Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip. I had the tape. I played it until it broke. I memorized every word. I…
- The General's Briefing
Everyone Has a Price: The Heartbreak of Realizing Most People Will Sell Their Souls
I woke up this morning exhausted. Not the kind of tired that sleep can fix. But the kind of tired that comes from disappointment. The kind of tired that comes…
- The General's Briefing
From 'Girls, Girls, Girls' to 'Song Cry': How Hip-Hop Taught Me About Love
I became aware of hip-hop in the late 1990s. And the artist who shaped my understanding of love was Jay-Z. I was a teenager when The Blueprint came out in…
- The General's Briefing
Brown Sugar: When I Fell in Love with Hip-Hop
In this bonus episode, I tell the story of when I fell in love with hip-hop. I was 11 years old when I saw Monty on a talent show tape, rapping on stage. I was…
- The General's Briefing
Why Black Culture Shaped Me and Why I Refuse to Shrink
An hour ago, someone sent me a message on Instagram. They said, "That 8Ball & MJG song 'Don't Make' reminds me of you." And they're right. If you know that…
- The General's Briefing
The Sacrificial Bargain of Success: Why Black Women Are the Most Educated and the Most Alone
I have 5 businesses. I'm a PhD candidate. I'm a federal program manager. I'm a campaign manager. I'm a community organizer. I'm a mother of two autistic boys…
- The General's Briefing
From Savannah to Me: Why We're Still Waiting 30 Years Later
In 1995, Terry McMillan gave us Waiting to Exhale—four Black women waiting for Black men to get it together. Waiting for them to commit. Waiting for them to…
- The General's Briefing
The Sacrificial Bargain: Why I Protected My Rapist for 20 Years
Twenty years ago, I was raped by a man named Jino Vitale. I went to the hospital. I had a rape kit done. I told the man I loved. And nothing happened. No…
- The General's Briefing
The Perilous Environments—Before the Bargain, There's the Battle
In 1991, John Singleton released Boyz n the Hood with a devastating statistic: "One out of every twenty-one Black American males will be murdered in their…
- The General's Briefing
Becky with the Good Hair and the Burden of Forgiveness
In 2016, Beyoncé released Lemonade and sang, "He better call Becky with the good hair." The internet exploded. And then, the most predictable thing happened…
- The General's Briefing
From Hustle to Business: Jay-Z, Kanye, and the Price of Evolution
In 2001, Jay-Z released The Blueprint and rapped about the hustle—the streets, survival, and staying real. By 2009, on The Blueprint 3, he declared, "I'm not a…
- The General's Briefing
The Crooked Room, Part 2—Cassie, Diddy, and the Community's Complicity
In November 2023, Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, alleging years of physical abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking. The lawsuit…