Media. So I saw this thing on the internet. How many things in our life start like that? A video of some sorority sisters doing their black sorority linestepping dance thing that if you are familiar with black fraternity and sororities, no big deal. But I kind of didn't know how I felt about this because these sisters were not black. Were some sort of persons of color, but they definitely weren't black. Just kind of left me a little a little unsure of how I felt about it.
So let's unpack some stuff here, all right. So this has been a week.
I am in a different location, so if it sounds different, it's because I'm sitting at my kitchen table because there was a incredible happening inside our studio, which is just the back room of my house. I'm like, either I am in complete misalignment, just completely of the will of God, or I'm finna get blessings rained down on me because got Dog finished the Bastard barbecue shot out Scratch Bastard, probably one of the greatest DJs I've ever met in my life, and he let me rock there.
It was a great thing.
And then I noticed that the carpet in the studio up under my desk where the sound space is is sopping wet, and apparently the little copper pipes decided to break right at the foundation line. So I've been spending the last few days breaking concrete. I learned a lot. Nevertheless, he persisted, it has been fixed. I'd like to thank my Lord it saving Jesus Christ for leading me to marry into a Mexican family so that I could ask
my brother in Lauchino shout out daxon journey. You know what I'm saying, for showing up with the journey, showed up with the tools. I'd ask Dak's questions here and there. You know what I'm saying, Simmer Simon from East of the River. It helps, which leads me to the topic I wanted to cover today, which is about just really I think, ultimately something called cultural competence tapping in with me.
So y'all may remember during Black History Month, I told y'all I was not gonna spend any time this Black History Month educating anyone on blackness. There has been books written, there's documentaries, there's movies.
You have the resources. If you want to know, you can know.
I'm just going to enjoy my blackness and ask questions of black people, like when are we gonna let go of this speakerphone thing. It's stuff black people do, but that's in house. It's none of your business, speaking to none of your business. There are a few things that I feel like black people have made into an art form, which is what makes this next thing something that seems so intuitive to me. It doesn't seem like something that
you would need to explain. But I think I've examined why I feel this way, and I've only come up with a couple answers.
That I don't know.
They're kind of anecdotes, but one of which is maybe there's something about the unique experience that I specifically had by like growing up in such a multicultural space, not so much like a lot of people grow up in melting pots or whatever, or diverse areas, but you don't really interact with those other cultures.
They're just your neighbors.
I truly lived tri culturally and shout out rad Mattic like he was making fun of me for knowing what the province was bamboo. All these fools have been like, damn, you might be more Filipino than we are. It's just because I be in y'all circle. You guys all know all of the latinos, specifically the Mexican American references the area I grew up in because I literally have been with y'all and I'm actually black as hell, And then you have to we all have to know dominant culture stuff.
Anyway.
Some of that might just be my curiosity, but then I think there's an element of knowing how to act when you're in somebody else's house, one of which is knowing what is my business and is not my business, and that, my friend, is essential to growing up black.
You got to know.
There are so many ways for us to tell you to mind your business. And something is not my business. Y'all remember the episode about the Supreme Court. Y'all don't sign my check nor marinate my chicken, then what you're doing is not my business. I don't know if that's I don't know what about our culture values that so much. But when I tell you stat of grown folks, bis, when I tell you how your parents drill in you, some stuff is just not your business.
I feel like you grow up being able.
To recognize when certain things are When I was up in Vancouver earlier this year in February, at this like artists retreat for like faith, art and mental health.
The lady that was running it gave us this motif.
She was like, Yo, there's being welcomed, there's being invited in, and then there's belonging. To me. A good way to say that is like if I have you over my house.
Yeah, you're you're You're welcome. You're welcome here.
If I've invited you in, you get refrigerator rights, Like you can get up and go into the refrigerator. Like that's you know, you're you're, I'm inviting you in, I am giving you permission. Belonging is like you ain't even got a knock. This experience would not be the same without you, Like something is missing if you are not here. That's belonging. You're supposed to be here and hopefully that's
like should be the goal of humanity anyway. Now, as Juneteenth approaches, the question I get every year, generally from white people, but sometimes there's variations, is how should you celebrate June teen? Sometimes I give suggestions, But in light of this video, let me fall back and talk about a bigger thing now, there's questions around the N word that you ask ten different Black people, you gonna get
ten different answers. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this, and it's important, especially in light of these white South Africans that just got here apparently being oppressed, and their oppression is different than everybody else's oppression. There is an acceptable oppression in relation to our president. Molly has done an amazing I don't know, twenty part series on Weird Little Guys about this white South African genocide, which is
a spoiler alert, not actually happening. But let's just say you're a non black person, white person, you grew up in black neighborhoods, grew up with black families, and maybe among the homies, they have no problem with you using the N word. Now, the cultural competency is to know the difference between welcoming and belonging. If you truly knew who we were and understood what we went through, you would understand that even with that pass, that the past
is non transferable. To me, that seems like a no brainer. There's a relation. You have to earn that with every new group of black people, because you truly understand what it means to be one of us. That is a cultural competency to me. So I don't know those ladies or the connection they may have to a black sorority. They might be a chapter of one. I don't know that. That's why I said I don't know how I feel about it. I'd have to do some more investigation. They
are not the point of this discussion. The point of this discussion is asked answering your question about how you should participate in Juneteenth and in any other cultural celebrations. I live five to ten minutes from Monterey Park. Is the northern part of East Los Angeles, which is I don't know. I would venture to say one hundred percent Asian, specifically Chinese. I would venture to say that is probably the largest population. I'm not checking any of this information.
That is the center of the Chinese American community in Los Angeles. It's like their Boyle Heights. Every year they do a Chinese New Year celebration. Now, when I used to work in Diamond Bar, this is a very la statement. It's also a large Asian population. You know, parents would like bring the little red envelope with twenty dollars. You know, they would dress up, they would do their thing, and and it was great. I appreciated them inviting me into the experience, but I kind of knew what was my
business and not my business. I will go to the Chinese New Year celebration. Sure, I'm gonna bring my kids. We'll watch the dragons walk by. It'll be a great time. We'll eat dumplings. But the thought has never crossed my mind to put on an outfit and get up under that dragon, because that's not my business.
That's y'all's business.
Now, if you particularly say, hey, I want you to handle this, if you walk up to me specifically at hand me a sparkle and say, okay, way a bit like this, that is because you specifically right now invited me in. But I still understand there are certain things that are none of my business. While I feel very connected to many cultures, I just understand there are certain
conversations that are just not mine to have. There's some cultural expressions that are ancestral you, that are sacred to that community, and some stuff is meant to be shared. But either way, it's not my position to make them share things that they may find sacred. Some things come out of joy, some things come out of oppression, and some things are just that.
Family.
The point is, I'm cognizant enough to understand that there are some things that are just off limits for me because I don't have the sweat hour. I feel the same thing about being black. There are certain things that no one on this earth will understand if they did not walk, if they don't walk through this world in a black body, especially in America, there are certain things that we have created out of our need for survival. You know why there are HBCUs, it's because colleges were segregated.
We had to do that.
Why the parts of the pig that we eat is because that's all y'all would give us. Why our neighborhoods look the way they look, redlining y'all made us be over here. These were things that came out of our oppression of Sure, we made treasure out of our trash. Sure we made beauty out of chaos. And there are certain things that we just give and freely and invite y'all into a lot of that is our music. We invite you into our music. Please enjoy, sit down, sit a spell.
Have fun.
There are things about our music that I've said many times about being black. It's truly a meritocracy. If you can sang, you can sang. I have a homegirl that wrote a poem about she saw this white lady singing wade in the water and her The reframe in the poem was what water? What water are you waiting in? You have to understand where that song came from. This is about I mean, wade in the water. God's going to trouble the water. There's a lot of things happening here.
There's a reference to Jesus performing a miracle. There's us traveling among river lines to get to cross the Mason Dixon through the underground railroad. There's the waters of us crossing the Atlantic Ocean and actually surviving. You know some of our ancestors who decided they would take the ocean over slavery. When we talk about wading in the water, there's a depth of pain to this, and if you truly love us, you would know that you didn't experience this.
So my encouragement this year is just pull back and say where am I welcomed? What am I invited to? And where do I be long walking into any cultural situation. That's all I ask. So listen, put your Jim Bay drums away, take off that damn daishiki. You look ridiculous and had us played a barbecue, enjoyed this catfish and listen to the speeches and dance awkwardly when the DJ starts. You're welcome. I don't know those sorority sisters. I don't
know their history. They're not the point. All I'm saying is, have some antendants tap in with me