If you just tuned in a civic cipher. I am your host Ramsey's job. Big shout out to my man c Ward, who is out of the country again because he's out there changing the world for the better. But have no fear. It is business as usual around here. I am joined in the studio by a very special guest.
My good friend Maya is here with us, discussing her, he him, they them pronouns, and how important it is to be acknowledged in the light that you choose for yourself, and how we can be better siblings to our siblings who are trans or identify as something other than what
they were born as. And I'm learning in real time along with you, and so fortunately, I feel like this is a great opportunity for all of us to gain some insight into these other marginalized communities and hopefully find more commonality, as is always the expectation and hope around here. All Right, it is time for a b A becoming a better Allied BABA, and today's BABBA is sponsored by
Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for the free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact
with your spending again. That's fotmglobal dot com. Today's reading comes from Black Enterprise and according to an October eleventh post by Flickshop, Arlington County Detention Center is bringing a transformational entrepreneurship program to its inmates, providing them the tools to rewrite their personal narratives and inspire hope for a
brighter future. This initiative, led by a flick Shop School of Business, aims to expose individuals in detention to stories of reinvention and success, shedding light on the possibility of a fruitful life beyond incarceration. The FSB program was sparked by Marcus Bullock, the CEO of flick Shop, who shared
his vision and the Aspen Ideals festival years ago. In a recent workshop, instructors from flick Shop School of Business introduce residents to the residence in the substance abuse treatment program to the strategies Marcus leverage to build this professional brand as an impact CEO and motivational speaker. The entrepreneurship program empowered inmates with the tools to learn, grow, and reshape their narratives. Bullock explained, when I sat in Fairfax
County Detention Center. I wanted to believe that I still had value, but more importantly, I wanted to ensure that there was a community that would not ostracize me because of my mistakes. Response from the program participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Aubrey Graham, one of the instructors, noted that the guys were ecstatic and that they continued to receive
rave reviews. And we thought this was important because a lot of times people that end up in the criminal justice system are people who were poor and did not have access or ideal circumstances, not necessarily bad people, and so with a little bit of instruction and some alignment,
they can actually do well. Okay, So where we left off was you were describing how trans a trans identity and a trans narrative, the trans conversations, the ripple effect of those conversations, and and that narrative is that other people are coming to terms with different parts of their own personalities and identities and so forth. And I want you to mention the author one more time, just in case there are people want to do more research. Can we spell that just a l okay.
V A I D and then M E N O n they're phenomenal. Uh yeah, and they're on Instagram. You guys find them.
Yeah. Okay, So, so here's what I wouldn't be doing doing my job as a journalist if I didn't bring up some of the things that other people are saying. Some of these things I've heard personally. Okay, this is not meant to amplify ignorance or hatred, but these are things that exist in the world, and this is the forum where we talk about these things. So I appreciate you allowing me to do this. You know, I love you with my whole heart. And I mean so, I
still want to be as kind as I can. I don't know how to not be him, So let's try it this way. They them typically refers to more than one person. People are being forced to use awkward language, or if they forget or don't want to accommodate that be labeled as a bigot. Is that fear to them?
H It's a good question. I think that. Well. First of all, I think there's a huge difference between forgetting and intentionally not using that language. Okay, because one is one is human. It could also be that you change your name and sometimes you forget you know when my friends change pronouns, I have slip ups accidentally. I'm human and even though they them is in my lexicon, if I have a friend who starts using a pronoun that I'm not familiar with, it's gonna take me a little
bit to adjust to that. And that's okay. I love them with my whole heart. I show up for them. People that I love in my life don't use they them all the time and accidentally use she or just really struggling with it.
And that's what I.
Know. You love me. I know where your heart is. It'd be different if you to be like I refuse to call you that. I think that. Then. I was having a conversation with a friend about this recently as well. I think the noun this is I'm going to try to lay this out as much as makes sense. I think the noun bigot is difficult because people can change.
I do believe that. I do think that. Also, that doesn't mean we don't take accountability for our Like if you are saying things that are bigoted, if you are saying things that are transphobic, I still think that's true. However, I do think that I don't want to necessarily condemn people for being like that. It's necessarily like that forever. One of my dearest dearest friends, when I first met him, told him I used say them. He's like, I, I
don't like, I don't really get down with that. And then over time, as we've talked, because he's someone who really wants to grow, it's like, okay, let's talk about it.
I love you.
We're getting to know each other. And we met in a context where if i'd met, you know, maybe if we had met each other just on the street, I probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends. But we had this friendship develop and over time and now he almost only uses say them, almost never slips up, and it's really like, I want to understand you, and I want to like understand what this means for you. Right, So I think that there's like I just want to name that.
I guess that I think people aren't necessarily fixed. I do think so I'm not necessarily gonna, I guess maybe use the noun bigot, But I do believe that people should also be accountable for their actions in the same way that like, if you're doing something like there's been a lot of like people don't want to be called racist, right, but if you're doing things that are enacting white supremacy, if you're doing things that are racist, you also need
to be accountable for your actions and for the impact of that.
Can I add something right here? Go for it. Yeah, So I'm glad you said that, because I was having a conversation with with a dear friend of mine. This was the pandemic was still going on. Yeah, so this was a couple of years back.
But he.
Was very, very opposed to switching up the pronoun game, Like, why do I need to switch up my pronoun game too, you know, accommodate this new blah blah blah. Yeah. Now, this friend of mine, just because it's important to the story, because it identified it helps you to identify potentially what his blind spots might have been. He's a white man. I love him my whole heart. I'm as black as a asspades. So he and his family, if they were ever going to be racist or bigoted or anything like that,
it would have stopped when they met me. And I'm known this whole family for decades, plural, very very close, very good people, good good people. I want to make sure I say that these are good people him in particular, he says this to me, I don't want to switch up my pronoun game, blah blah blah. And I'm like, oh, how could you say this? Oh goutted. So we had a back and forth again. I want you to see his blind spots. You know what I mean, I says
to him. You know, once upon a time, my dear friend, black people, we didn't want to be called certain things, and we needed to affirm who we were, and we needed to make it very clear who we were not. We needed everybody to understand that, and it's challenging to
do that. I was not alive during the time that I was envisioning in this story I was telling him, But I know the people that were alive, A lot of them their last few moments was hanging in a tree, burning or getting beat or you know, the last moments of their life were lived in horror, hearing the language that they didn't want to be called any affirming their
humanity and fighting for their dignity. That's heavy, right. So to this man that I love, and in this conversation that I had with him, I learned, and he learned a very significant parallel because I'm gonna I'm gonna say this, I mean no disrespect to all of my trans brothers and sisters. When the language is taught to me, that is more sufficient than that I will use it. But to my trans brothers and sisters and my l g B, t q I A plus brothers and sisters, I will
say siblings. There we go. I like that. Okay that, and again I mean no disrespect. But I want to say this, Once upon a time it was fashionable to be bigoted against black people. It's not fashionable to be that anymore. Despite what we've seen in the past couple of years, I know that in society, like advanced society, you still got to got to get your racism off and hush whispers in the corners still very powerful, has a very significant impact on outcomes and shapes what we
how far people like me can go. Not every time, but if we look at the numbers, you can see it clear as day. Absolutely. But I say that to say that nowadays, I think it is perhaps more or fashionable to be bigoted out loud to my trans siblings. And in that conversation with my dear friend, that parallel certainly helps to illuminate the similarities. There's obviously more black people, there's more terror that has lasted for longer time in this country in the way that we would describe it.
But I don't think that we as a country changed how we dealt with black people because we all of a sudden started liking black people. I think that we changed as a country how we don't black people because it was the right thing to do, and if we're committed to doing the right thing, then those parallels translate and transfer quite easily to our trans siblings. The last time we talked about this, I asked if we could
have this conversation, and you said not right now. I don't know if there was something there that requires maybe a degree of you know, you have to be calculated, or if it's just a lot you know, if I don't know what life is like as a transfers. I just learned that you were trans in this conversation, right, I always know you were, Maya. That's the main thing about you, and that's the thing that I've chosen to love.
And I don't even think I chose. I think that it just kind of was going to happen either way. But yeah, it hasn't changed. Yeah, of course not, of course not. But I want to ask maybe why conversations like this could be scary or overwhelming, because what I don't want to have happen is we have a great conversation today and then everybody's like, Okay, I remember that one guy that went to high school with Hey, what's up man? So you're trans, so let's talk about it.
You know what I'm saying. And I approached you in
that way where I was like, oh, it's type. Now you got pronouns, let's turn the micro on, let's get let's get something recorded, and you know it, just I saw an approach that I saw you heed the gravity of the conversation I was asking you to have, and I would like for you to walk us through your thought process as an emotion, so that when we're on the streets, or maybe when we're as we're learning on our own journeys and as we're blossoming those of us
who don't identify as trans or don't use separate pronouns, but we are committed to respecting and loving the human beings with whom we share this planet, regardless of regardless. I'd like for you to give us a little bit of that thought process and that emotional space so that we have insight into how the best approach. Yeah.
Thanks, Well, I think I'm going to answer the question a little bit more broadly in than reagent, just in that it's not, I guess, all relevant to how to have conversation with other people or for that purpose, but I think that well, one, I want to be intentional because I can never speak I'm not speaking for all non binary trans people by any means, can't do that.
But I want to be really intentional about like what I do say because I also understand that like that that still has well, I guess whatever impact it has, right, And then it's a conversation. That's it's intimate, it's vulnerable.
I didn't want to be on a mic because I didn't want to have to worry about being rambly or about I think there's nothing wrong with crying, but I didn't want to have to worry about being rambly or crying or whatever it is, because I just wanted to be real with you, you know, and be present with you. And you are someone who I love and who I know is invested in understanding me, and I want to
understand me, just as I want to understand you. And I'm also someone who is like I'm generally I'm down to talk about this, especially with all of the people I love, Like I'm always I'm always open to whatever questions there are because I know I know the hearts that they come from. I know it's I love you, I want to get to know you better. Why don't
understand these things? So when I know that I'm down to have the conversation, I'm not interested in having this conversation with people who aren't interested in understanding, because I don't want to have to defend my humanity to you, and like I don't if you're not gonna see me as valid, or if you just don't think that I should be how I am and that's not going to change, then I'm I don't have the energy to have that
conversation most of the time. I do think though, for folks who do want to understand, it's all you know it would be. I also know that I am a lot more open to having conversations about this with people who I know way less than a lot of folks. I think that, like, because everyone's different, right, some people are down to have. Some people are down to have those conversations, and you know, I've had people where we don't know each other very well but are like, hey,
you know, do you mind if I ask you? Can you explain why you use them? Because I know a lot of people use it, and I haven't really been down with it, but I just want to understand. And a lot of times, if it's the heart that's coming with it's like, yeah, sure, I'm totally happy to talk about it, you know, or talk about it with anyways. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. I do think also part of that, I honestly think part of that comes from the fact that I don't have to do that
for a lot of other parts of my identity. I'm white. I don't have to walk around explaining different things about white people to different folks. A lot of my friends who are black and non binary, or black and queer, black and trans, et cetera don't want to be doing that work, which I understand because people come up with all sorts of other questions about other parts of their identities,
and that's fair. I don't think that, like, we'd also be fine if I didn't want to have conversations like this with other people other than the people who I deeply love and care about, and I lo love and care about me, So it's kind of like, I'm down to talk about this. This is something that I'm more
than willing to do and happy to do. And also because sometimes it's they're just like questions that you can't find on the internet, right, Sure, And I do think the internet's a really helpful resource and tool, and there are plenty of people.
It can be, ye, can be, can be well, yeah, let me say this before we're done. If I'm in for people that want to have these conversations, it sounds like the right thing to do is to approach it with the right intentions, wanting to learn more. Intentionality, I think translates quite a bit. It's not a freak show, it's not a sideshow anything crazy like that. I love how you say humanity. I think that that dignifies every conversation that people might want to have if they center
the humanity. The other part of it is that I think that anybody who approaches this conversation as though they somehow are going to be the ones and enduring a hardship by accommodating a pronoun. They've completely missed the fact that other people are living in a hardship as defined by them, and I think that's more than enough, and that's going to do it for us here today on
Civic Cipher. Once again, I am your host Rams' JA and trust and believe that Cubboard will be back soon enough to provide his insightful commentary and hopefully he's bringing back some really cool experiences as well to share with us. In the meantime, do us a favor. Be sure to check us out on all social media. You can follow us on all platforms at Rams's JA, and if you're doing that, please be sure to engage with us. That's
very important for us. Also, you can download this in any previous episode from our website at Civiccipher dot com. That is also the place where you can submit any topics you want us to cover, make a donation, and download of course this in any previous episodes that you can keep and review at your leisure. I'd like to thank Maya for stopping in today. It was a fantastic conversation. I certainly learned a lot and I hope that you did too, and I think we'll leave it right there
until next week. Y'all, peace,