Native Land Pod is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
This is a mini pod and we're off the freaking rails because Andrew wants to blow his nose in the mic and then tells us that he can't wait to get around us to fart, So welcome.
Home, literally, ma'am. Context nasty right now is out of context.
I can't wait to get around you in fart.
Dinner table.
I'm at the dinner table now.
I just can't give up being recorded, save up in a damn podcast.
Just for you. But you know what, we're gonna get back to. We're gonna get car and we are.
On purpose and we still have the resident trollers. That's his name is Andrew Gillim. Y'all don't know that because he gets to be caught.
How are you you know? And whatever else he does.
Meanwhile, this is the real Andrew Gillim trying to wait to fart.
What I'm saying the questions the record, I was supporting my brother's no question, Please, what's up?
Native Land powd is BJ Brunius from New Orleans, Louisiana and I'm gonna tell you I was triggered by this conversation. And let me tell you why, because I don't know no black people who identify as gay before they identify as black, not one. Straight people are the ones who make a big deal out of who we go to
bed with. So the idea that we would identify first with who we sleeping with when who were sleeping with is is how y'all high the lens through with y'all view us, not the lens through what we view ourselves. So we always black first. I got a problem with black people taking on the views of white folk. White folk view marginalized communities gaining aspects of equality as a zero sum game, meaning that they got to lose something
in order for other people to gain. How did we get to a place where black people feel the exact same way about gay people, like for gay people to gain rights means that black people lost something. Andrew, make that make sense to me because I don't get it as a black man.
You first, Yeah, I don't know why he name checked me, because I definitely am not of that opinion. In fact, I pointed that out in our show, which was the reason why it's easy to talk about the immigrant or the LGBTQ identified person or the black person is the other rising is the blaming. It is because of this zero sum belief that that white folks tend to. Frankly, that belief system is penetrated. I think society period. In order for you, for you to gain, I have to lose.
And the way I spoke about it was it's the same way I.
Believe power works.
The more power you share, the more you get that it is not a limited resource, that it's an unlimited resource.
But this idea.
Of of of of seeing any other group as a as equivalent to my loss of something, their existence being a loss of something, you know, taking away from me.
I don't operate that way. I don't believe that way and I but I do know that it is a powerful instrument and politics when you can blame somebody else for whatever misery you may be experiencing. If it's joblessness, if it is a lack of access to resource, no no or low education or no access to educational opportunities, the other blame the other guy, Blame that woman, blame this. Even in the Congress this week, them deciding that they didn't want to extend the right of franchise for for
proxy voting, largely for women. Right, it's going to be the coupling and the crumbling of the entire establishment, the fact that women can take a few weeks after giving birth and vote remotely. So it is a backwards way of thinking. It is, however, a very powerful instrument and politics and in society to otherise and to blame others when you find yourself in.
A tight spot. I I'm sorry, please, Yeah, you got.
It A sorry bad.
I was just going to say, really quick, I am so sorry. I have been calling him Brunius. His name is BJ Brunius. I got it right now, BJ Brunius. But Ellie, you have the floor. I'm gonna get to BJ my cousin from Louisiana clearly in a moment.
So Andrew, I completely agree with you. I can completely agree with BJ Brunius. It's not a zero sum game. I am all about rising tie lifts all boats. But I wanted to stay on because I wanted to turn the question around on him a little bit. And I want to ask Brunius. I want to ask PJ. Why is it that everybody hates us because one of the things that I have learned painfully throughout my experience is, ain't nobody want to be black? Ain't nobody want to
associate with us? Ain't nobody want to lock hands with us as we march forward? And you see it all the time that the minute this country grants non blackness to any other group, they take it. They take it with both hands. The minute you tell a Mexican or a Guatemalan, or a gay person or a trans person, then I guess what, you don't have to be treated like those black folks. They're like, oh, yes, please, I
never was really that black anyway. They will abandon us at the drop of a hat, and it is painful. I've seen Egyptians. I've seen Egyptians be like, well, we ain't black. I don't see why you're calling us. That's just that's just wrong. We're not be associated with them negroes. And they don't say it as nice as I just did, right and and and it's hurtful to me because I feel like the thing in this country, the way that you prove that you're white in this country is to
shit on black people. That is, that is always to use a video game term that is always the final boss. That is always the final challenge to prove that you get to that you deserve to be treated like a white man in this country crap on some black folks,
and so I bring that up. I turn that question around just to say that while I completely agree with everything Andrew just said, I completely agree that it's not a zero sum game, that it's that is a trick done by the white man to try to keep everybody divided and divisive. I will also say that some of that I think feeling in the community that we have to look out for us and it is a zero sum game, is because we know that the minute the white man gives you the gives you the star, y'all
are going to abandon us. And that is that is painful, and that is something that our community is always trying to work around and protect protect ourselves from the inevitable knife that is coming for our next No.
I just I was gonna say, you know, one of the things that is so powerful to me here is him talking about this zero sum because I did hear a lot of that throughout the election.
Season, and I love this and.
Combining this with some of the things that David Johnson has shared, who's a good friend of ours who runs the National Black Justice Coalition. He's like, we have never said we're anything but black first, even with this data. They they've got a commission with Terrence who joined us last week. But I'm black first is a thing that I've always said, because people are like, well, aren't you one first? I'm like, I lead with my black I
don't know how not to do that. I don't know a single black person tied to the culture, tied to our experience who doesn't. And so I really am My heart goes out to what BJ is saying, because I do think that we are telling people in our families, people in our friend circles, who are in the LGBTQIA community, that you have to choose your blackness first.
In this moment.
And they're like, we know we're doing that, so why are you saying that to me? And I wonder if there is a different approach that we could and should be using in this moment. I think my approach has been that for survival purposes, we don't need to be fragmenting off on micro agendas and various separatists agendas, particularly
when we're not all. We're not all under the umbrella as it is, And I don't know a great way to put that other than it has to be an overall black agenda first, and I think, but at the same time, I hear BJ's pushback on that, which is an overall black agenda first should not.
Be at the expense of what I need to survive.
Absolutely, And I'm.
Trying to figure out how we thread that needle because I'm not asking that, at least not overtly, but I can see how the way that I'm framing it may seem that way.
So that's not my intention. Yeah, I shall hear what your response is, No.
I hear.
So where you're getting at is so rich, and I feel that tension at a really deep level. And I also feel very much what the brother is saying, because he's saying, if not only do they get to see my blackness first, but then they see my identity as an LGBTQ person, and that makes if you get the flu, if we get in the flu as black folks, then what do I have? I got corona plus plus long syndrome plus plus plus. The threat is just that much greater,
that much deeper. So I hear that as well. And what I would say in response to this, with the underlying assumption, which is is that LGBTQ folks who are black have separated themselves off jump by saying I'm gay, I'm by first, and then I'm black. That's not how it happened in the election. What happened in the election is political campaigns and political instruments decided to single out groups.
Whether it was the Harris campaign saying this is what we're going to do for this group of people, or whether it was the Trump folks saying, these people are coming for our babies, our kids, our boys, and our girls in our sports. And so they created a constituency, this straw man constituency in some cases certainly on the right, that then became the ire of a lot of folks because they're saying, you know, times given.
You a special agenda, but then what about us?
And I'm so sick of all of these communities getting precedents over us, because there's best show and that isn't something that as I hear, you know, BJ he's saying I never did that, and he could be right, but society and the greater politic that billions of dollars went into absolutely created these constituencies, whether it was an affirmative agenda or a negative agenda, and it caused a lot of folks in our community to react by saying, I don't even know about this, but she wants.
To give rights to this group in this group, in this Can.
He be saying, Tiffy, I know I want to hear you, but answer this. Why you answering what you're gonna say? But can you do you think that he could be saying, even with an l g b t Q I A focused agenda, we still left out of that too.
Could he be saying that.
Yes, that's possible too, that's why we need to have come on the show invitation.
Well, you know, I would say this first of all, was leading with blackness. We don't even have a choice. You know, when when you see me coming, you don't see a woman coming, you see a black woman coming. We particularly as black women, and I think for all you know, even people who are in the LGBTQ community, a lot of intersectionality in our community, we lead with our blackness. I think Gary said it so beautifully. Gary Chambers, activist and former politician out of uh, Louisiana. He said
it so beautifully. Before my mom and daddy knew I was a boy, they knew I was black. And so I think it's really challenging to consider anything else. And so when we look at for these subgroups, the intersectionality of it, when we look at the space of feminism. You know, Betty fore Dan was was the face to society.
Gloria Steinem was the face of society, not shirlea Chism, not Audrey Lord, not Bell Hooks, like not any of our leaders elevated because with feminism and whiteness, they will most likely choose race over gender, right, And so your point, Elie,
even when you look into other communities. I've done organizing work with all communities of color, and there are anti black movements in every community of color, in the Asian American, Pacific Islander movement, in the Latino or community, in the Latino community, in the Indigenous community.
It just exists.
And so I want to at least acknowledge what VJ is saying, because the truth is, we have to acknowledge, yes, we are not Like I never met no group of black folks who are organizing against the gay community, who are organizing against the trans community. That is something that exists within white people who have been manipulated by somebody who really they just want to seize power. But we do have to acknowledge, though we may not be a part of that organizing, there are people in our community
who have spoken ill of gay people. There are people in our community with very big microphones who have spoken ill of the trans community, and they need to be called out. And because otherwise we're gaslighting this man by.
Saying, what what do you mean?
Like, No, of course there are people in our community. I've set in churches where the preacher is there and half the choir is gay, half my section is gay, and they're talking about, you know, blasphemy and you know, say that, you say you were born that way, be born again, things that are so incredibly disrespectful to people. And so I don't know how we get past that.
But to me, that is moving. How colonizers move to his point, that is and I think we A larger question might be do we have that ability to move like they move? And I've seen us move that way.
I think we can.
I don't want to take away from the LGBT movement, but I have seen and I have been guilty of this. But like when you go to another country and the service ain't fast enough for you, and you're like, but I'm here and I need you to move faster. That is a colonizer move. Like you need to adjust to the culture here. When you go someplace outside of a marreor and I don't like the music being play. Everybody else is fine, I don't like the music me play. That is a colonizer move. You have to adjust to
us here. And I think about those things in Ghana, where there are very anti LGBTQ laws on the books, It's like, can we actually be the gentrifiers? Can we be the colonizers?
And I think in.
All areas where we do that, we have to challenge ourselves to call it out within our community when we see it from friends or foes alike, and not embody those those characteristics ourselves, which I you know, I can certainly, you know, challenge myself to do those things better. Well.
One of the things that I try to do in our community when I hear some of this anti LGBTQ pushback, when I hear some of this zero sum game pushback, is that I always ask people, if I'm in the shop or whatever, write me the law, right me, the law that you think that we can have that lifts us up but excludes them.
Write it.
I will tell you if that's going to work out for you. Right, The easiest, simple, and most forward thinking thing to do from a legal standpoint is equal protection under the law. And every time you deviate from that for whatever personal, parochial, religious conservative reasons, every time you deviate from equal protection under the law, black people get fucked every single time. So I don't care how much you might hate these people, or disagree with these people,
or disagree with that lifestyle or whatever. But if you're giving me a law that you want past, and that law does not guarantee equal protection under it for all people, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender at birth, or whatever the hell else you want to throw in there, if that law is not equally applied to everybody, I promise you that law will be used to hurt your heteronormative, heterosexual, gun totin red, blood eaten black man. I promise you.
If it's not equal, it will be used against us in some way.
And so that's one of my big ways. That's a norse star. I mean to think about what would the law be, and then we find ourselves where Tiffany was going, which is in this spirit of a colonizer, and I always talk about it in the spirit of power that you know, we were talking about black law enforcement officers. So we have encountered who move and operate, you know, in very violent ways toward.
People in our community. And I'm saying, power does that. When you adopt, you know, what you believe is the is the the tools of the people in power. Then you stop moving like we move, and you start moving more adjacent to how they move because you think that's how you keep maintaining and then grow and build power.
It was like, that's a black cop, Daddy. I was like, no, those could be the worst.
Hello, Hello, And I don't want to pick on cops, but but really it is across the board, this mentality. Mentality, whether it's going to a different country, a different type of establishment, a different side of town, where you show up and you think, because of your presence, it's supposed to necessitate a different level of treatment, where something is wrong with this space. The space is wrong because it isn't catering to what my need is. When we began
this conversation, I wasn't trying. I wasn't speaking at what the greater larger society is as it relates to how black folks treat other lgbt QIA folks. My perspective was just from the podcast we did last week in the political terms, in which we were speaking around this whether I lead versus as gay or if I lead versus black.
I know that's not what we were trying to go in the direction of, but I will tell you this much, I have stopped really caring about other people's opinions of me, by and large, because most people's opinions of others is really fueled by their own an individual and discrete experiences that you're just a foil for. And so it's clear that other people's allowance and acceptance and you know, the subscription to me or what I believe or how I move in the world is none of my business.
That's between them and their situations. And what we could.
All do is I think we're Elliott really you know, into his point, which was we ought to be all fighting for a legal system, a societal system where we are not discriminating against people based off of these you know, uh factors that if you were, if you were being your most generous self to your directed at your your opposite self, treat me like you want to treat that that person with that generous spirit, and how you want
to be treated on the opposite end. And unfortunately, too many of us divorce ourselves from that level of generosity and humanity because we stop seeing the humanity and the other person.
That sucks. And but I think that's what we are as a greater society.
But this brother, really, I think I love for us to be able to engage with him at some point because I think there is some stuff there and and the anti piece is huge. I've left churches, I've left barbers I've left friends over slip comments that that get at a deeper part of the meaning of that person that is anti me.
And I hope that all of us exercise that right. It's right have.
Yeah, it's it's always it's always only politics to people who ain't directed that right. When it's hell, it's directed that you. It's not politics, it is it is literally personal. You are literally impinging on my right to exist and move about the world as a fair, full and equal person and that that that goes beyond politics.
And on that, especially because it looks like we've lost our sister to we also have a right to end this show.
Ellie has a right to sell them right.
And yes, it is our it is our it is our highest pulling and so we would like once again to welcome you home.
We thank you for listening and for watching.
Y'all remember the rate review, Subscribe and tune in to our regular episode on Thursdays. This of course is our mini pod with our very special guest and our brother, Elie Messalu is invited back anytime, even as a call host.
We love to have it. I'm to come home, always a problem.
Welcome Home.
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