PART 3 - Micro Aggression with Matt Okine - LIVE SHOW BONUS

Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples today.

This episode is recorded on Gadiger Land of the Aurora Nation.

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of A Life Uncut.

I'm Brittain and I'm Laura and this is a.

Little packaged up bonus episode from you. We are putting all these little pieces together from the live show with all of our guests. So this is part three, so obviously done Part one and two. Part three is Matt o'kine. Now, Mattokine is one of those amazing, super annoying people that can do everything. He's an award winning comedian, he's an actor, he does radio, he has podcasts. He literally is someone that he's just like, you're like, what can't you do?

I'd big loud welcome Matt o'kine.

Hey, why do you immediately look so much cooler thout us?

I feel very underdressed. I changed my shoelaces. That gave my shoes a whole new sprits, you know what I mean.

I did say to Matt, I was like, do you reckon you could be here at five forty five today, And he was like, nah, I've got daycare drop off?

Sorry, pick up pick up, daycare pickup.

And then my daughter wasn't She was eating spaghetti and thank you so much, and she was not picking up the spaghetti rite with her fork, and there was so many tears, like it was just and I'm twisting the fool I'm going, is it is this?

It is this?

It is just like it's not it's getting it away.

Oh but anyway, we're here, Matt.

We start all of our podcast interviews with our new guests by asking them their most embarrassing story. We like to really start lows, then we can build you back up. What is the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?

Do you know? In two the year basically I sucked my own dick. We've all been there.

Yeah, so I know that was one of those things I never thought that I would ever tell anyone else.

But or it was like something very much intentionally. Yes, it wasn't an accident. I thought it.

Wasn't like a really the plane landed badly and I was like.

Boom, boom.

It wasn't like I was fifteen at the time. So I'm sorry I have Yeah, so I had taken it was in Ghana, right, I was visiting Ghana with my dad. I don't know if that's necessary. Well, it's a very humored country, and it feels like I you know, I was in a bath and it was hot, and I feel like I was really in the bath for a long time and my back felt good and.

And then I got an erection and then I was just like looking at it and it was looking at me.

No.

Look, I'm saying, like every guy in.

This room has tried to suck their own dick, Okay, every single one of them.

I can see a few of you, a few of you. You you've tried it, you've tried it.

You fail, you fail. But but here's the thing. I was like, look, we all know how this ends.

I'm not going to reach you, but let's just see how much I don't reach you by all. And then I got closer and closer, and.

Next thing, my dick was in my mouth. It wasn't I wasn't good at it, you know what I mean.

I was like, it was just like you know what I mean, just the very top bend, just the tip did you edging? I think it's called no because it was happening. And then I was like, oh, I can't do this. This is disgusting. You thought of that after the fact. And then I was like, no, I can do this. And then I went back down. I couldn't reach. I couldn't reach the second time. The second time I couldn't reach, went back for seconds. Even if you.

Didn't want it to happened, it retracted away from you.

Yeah, it was like, I can't it's forbidden.

In all seriousness, because like I thought this was a myth. Can you did you actually make contact?

Jen?

Yeah? But look here's the thing. People are like, oh, you must have a big.

But it's not like that at all. What happened was I was fifteen and it had grown to its maximum length, but I was still had the body of a boy. Do you know what I mean, so it was like it was really just a once in a lifetime opportunity, but.

Really a once in a lifetime was it once and once only?

Yeah? And that's it and that was just that was it? And trust me, I tried.

Well, sometimes life like offers you up these opportunities.

I'm so glad you grabbed that one.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Moral of the story is never let go of a good thing.

No.

I My next question.

Was how did you know you were funny enough to be a comedian? But we can skip past that because I've got it right now.

No, how do you know?

How how do you feel like I'm funny? I'm going to make people pay you to come and see me.

Yeah, I don't know that.

I mean, look, what the actual, the actual, biggest sort of question is, at what point do you start not being embarrassed about things like that.

And just realizing that that's just who you.

Are and what you can talk about on stage, Because I mean, for a very long time, especially as a young guy, you would just be like I would. I mean, I swore to myself that I would never ever tell that particular story because that's so shameful and embarrassing and blah.

Blah blah.

But the more you get to that point as a performer or content creator or whatever, and you guys do it all the time. It's like the more you open up, the realer you are, the more you realize that people, you're not the only kid with a bathtub.

You know what I mean.

You know what I'm i saying is that he also ran out of content and had to mind.

Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly literally, So yeah.

So I mean that's that's where things started becoming more interesting for me as a performer and as a as a as a comedian and stuff like that, sort of hitting that truth level and honesty that I think people certainly now just want to or everybody appreciate it.

This well, it's not often we do have the pleasure of being in the presence of an award winning comedian. So we're really gonna utilize that tonight by talking about micro racial aggression. So I mean, go forget, We've got We've got a comedian, and we're gonna we're gonna go we.

Get to waste our time, is what we're saying. We're taking you from talking about all of your funny times in life to talking about some very.

Seriously, sure, go for it. Let's go for it.

But well, let's start with what is racial microaggression?

Oh look, it's just little things. I mean, you know, I had to pull up someone recently because they were talking about how my hair looks like pubes, right, and like, while it kind of does.

You're like, you don't get to say that, you know.

And so and people don't do it out of like most people don't do it out of spie or hate or anything like that.

They just don't know. And so the whole race conversation.

There really is a battle against you know, or there's naivity and ignorance versus wilful ignorance and purposeful hate, you know, and that and that's kind of where where where the sort of line is drawn down. Sometimes there's people that get caught in the crossfire, but most of the time and the majority of people aren't willfully out to be.

To be ignorant.

But if we're actually talking about in terms of the way that society is changing or change when it comes to, you know, the way people look at race, it's a couple of things that are point that happened to me recently having a daughter she's three years old, right, and she's got curly hair, and I'm really getting scared of the day that she comes home and wants to straighten it, you know, because she's just so like I saw my sister straighten her hair for her whole life and being

Now.

When my partner and I just recently were showing my daughter the.

Bananas ad from the nineties. Do you remember that one ban Na Na Na Na Nana.

Yeah, so I mean classic ad, right, And my partner was like, oh, let's go and watch this Banana's ad.

You know, and she was singing the song and my daughter was like, what is that? What's that song? And my partner's like, we'll watch the ad.

So we sat down and watched the ad and after the ad, this was the classic nineties ad.

After the ad, I looked up and my partner was literally crying, right, and I was like, oh, my gosh, what's what's what happened with the banana? I don't know, like what happened?

I know, I know, I know, like, well yeah, but she was like, I just realized that there's only white kids in that ad, right, which is fine. It's the nineties and that's what. But then she was like, now that I you know, our daughter is part African and and now I'm with you, I'm only realizing that that you would have grown up watching that ad and seen a completely different ad. So she only realized that now, And that's absolutely fine. Everyone takes the time to learn

She's got curly hair and she's got yeah and brown skin like me. And I felt so.

Like thankful that it has changed, because I think when we talk about race and everything, it's like it gets blurred to this line where us as adults understand it, but kids don't. And the best example I always sort of use in this scenario is when I was ten and I was watching the you know, Pauline Hansen was making her biggest rise up through the ranks, and she was all over the news, and she was talking about immigrants and blah blah blah.

And I remember, you know, looking at.

At the news and thinking about and hearing her talk about how bad immigrants are and blah blah blah. And then I remember going into my mum's room and asking her his dad an immigrant, and my mum said yes, And I remember feeling really embarrassed about that and ashamed and like scared.

I thought, oh, no, I can't let anyone know. I can't let anyone know that my dad's an immigrant, you know. And that's so like, it's quite evil what.

Can be done and the way that kids can be manipulated through the media, And so as adults, it's easy to say, oh, well, shouldn't everyone have their say and have their opinion and blah blah blah. But we're forgetting who actually gets access to that and who gets to and who suddenly feels like they're not one of us and not allowed to be here, and whose parents are less.

Valued in society.

And so that's why, you know, just my daughter seeing someone that look like her on a sign to me today felt like we're going in the right direction.

How does that for you?

How does that impact you growing up? Like seeing that ad on TV or seeing seeing Pauline on TV and seeing that conversation and then having speaking to your dad and connecting the dots, like, how does that impact you long term where you are now in your life?

Well, the reason why I do stand up comedy is because I.

Didn't think that I was going to get any acting jobs because there was no brown people on austrain and TV, and so I felt like if I connected with audiences by being myself as much as possible, that they'd see and hear someone that they could relate to without needing

I think this is really important though, so that one Moment of the Year at the Podcast Awards last year for speaking about this, and that's when we listened to that section that audio that was put forward for the Podcast Awards. That was why we were like, this is the conversation we want to have on stage.

Yeah, and look, it's a really important one. It's very difficult.

People get very defensive when they talk about it, feel uncomfortable and it's like you just don't that's not that doesn't help anyone. You know, You've just got to kind of try and be as open as possible about it. So what what I was gonna say is, you know, you feel like, I mean, growing up, you feel that you do.

Feel a little bit like embarrassed about being brown.

You're making all the sort of jokes to try and you know, cover up, you know who you are and what you are, you kind of reject there's a lot of cultural rejection and all that sort of stuff.

And you feel like, I look back on some of the stuff that I used to say and do.

To my dad because I was kind of a little bit embarrassed by, you know, him being African and stuff like that, and it's like it's shameful, you know, because this is a guy who like worked his ass off to you know, get his university degree out of Ghana, to move to Australia, start in your life, set up a family, you know, and everything, and and then you're making fun of him for the way he says ms squee to instead of mosquito, you know.

What I mean.

And I mean he still does it, and I still make fun of him, but you know, I'm allowed to now, I'm allowed to.

But yeah, but like things like that, you know, so you look back on it, you're like, what was I thinking?

But that's you know, you're you're you're such under the influence of the powers outside of you that you kind of don't realize the Yeah, the effect that you're having on not just yourself but others are the others people are important to you.

Do you find that you still experience it, these these microaggressions in your day to day life with people that are in your life. So maybe they're friends, because maybe it's a level of ignorance or not being educated enough on the topic, because I sometimes.

Been casual, I think educated on it. But they're like, oh, like, we're mates, so you don't mind, do you.

Yeah, Look, I mean racism is one of those things that hides very well behind discrepancy, and so you know, in a way you can never really racists in the same way that abuses are very good at hiding what they do, and they're very good at making it impossible to prove it, right.

So that's why when.

You know, you have to be really lucky to catch with video a police officers choking a dude to death, and even when the video exists, they're still room for oh, well, actually I'm not that person. And so it's the same with abuse. These people work so they're masters of covering their tracks and their trails, so they very rarely get caught.

You know, I remember applying for a job on at a.

Video store, and I remember putting my photo on the video store on the CV because I wanted to make sure that when people saw my last name, I kind of my middle name a Jetta, they looked at my photo and they saw that I wasn't that black. Right now, it's I am embarrassed that I did that, but I also did that because studies had.

Proven and still prove, that you're less likely to get a job interview in that instance. So these sort of things, unless you really get busted, they just happen all the time.

And it's the same way so often where you go, I got a feeling about this person, or I don't I really don't trust this person, or I wouldn't trust this person making a decision on my behalf because I actually don't think that they're an ally. It's the same way people of color do that, same way the women

I mean, but that's I mean, that's the thing. You shouldn't have to suck it You should suck it up, because we do.

But you should have to suck it up and get on with your day. And I guess that should.

That's why we want to have these conversations and just on that.

I when we did our due.

Diligence, I was reading an article from somebody with an ethnic name that went for a job, like put their CV down twice. They went for the job twice. They didn't have photos, it was just their name, but they changed their name with the same CV, so they had their ethnic name and then they had you know, John Smith and John Smith got the interview.

Yeah.

And the fact that that is happening now, I mean it's very upsetting, which is why we want to have these conversations. But part of the moment of the year that you did win was talking about racism and Black Lives Matter the movement. Do you think there has been have you noticed in your life since the Black Lives Matter movement? Have you noticed a big difference in society in things that are happening to you in the day to day.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's I think it's great.

I think it is something that has Definitely there's there's levels of overcompensation at times that I feel, which I which I think is fine because it's kind of long overdue. There's also, you know, instances of people where you know, you know, there's people who will I'm trying to figure out how to say this about pointing at particular fruits or names, but essentially there will be people or companies who are very much on board.

You know, yeah we did this, and you look back just like two.

Years ago and you're like, well, you didn't represent any people of color, and you had like how many people on your books?

One hundred people on your books.

You didn't care about people of color, but now you suddenly care because you need to. That's sort of people that I don't. That's that they're the people who I get really kind of frustrated with. But I mean, it's it's it's definitely. It's definitely changing, and I'm and I'm stoked, and it's always it's changed a lot since.

The banana's ad in the nineties, and it's going to keep changing.

And I have faith that the majority of people are doing the right thing and that you know, it's it's you know, we're all trying our best.

I think most of us are trying our best.

Matt, thank you so much for joining us, Thank you for sharing your experiences. You are literally the fucking best.

Thank you, thank you so much. Matt.

Kamba kaabaaaaamba