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It is Angela Ride, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillim. We are here today to talk about something very important. Drew Barrymore had Kamala Harris on her show this week or no, it'll be last week by the time this airs, and I just want to roll the clip.
Let's roll the clip.
I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I've been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now. But in our country, we need you to be Mamla of the country.
I mean, no, I we need a great protector.
Yeah. Well, you know part of it is I think that sadly, over the last many years, there's been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one's strength is based on who you beat down instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up.
Yes, right, yes, okay, So I just want to say this was the first time did any of us have heard the clip beyond we need you to be mama of this country, and then Kamma's like, you know, yeah, yeah, like there's this very uncommon no yeah right, there's.
No no, no, no, no no.
So I actually want to give her some props because how she pivoted. Of course, let me show you what strength looks like, because I'm not gonna knock you down and be like no, but I'm not gonna be the country's mammy. She did say, I am, I'm gonna tell you that I don't have to beat you down to be strong. And I do think that is the strength of a woman, and like it could be a delicate touch, but it also could be fierce.
Bows come on out of your bows.
And I will just say sometimes that's what a mom does too. Now I had a couple of issues with this. The first is as someone who really really wants to be a mom at forty four and knowing the journey that it takes to get there. I don't know, I've never actually talked to Kamala about this, but like, like, did you want kids and did your career prevent you from getting there? Like did you look up and the clock had like run out or you know whatever, and now as a bonus mom, she's got step kids who
call her mamla, which is how this segment started. She was telling dre Yo, my stepkids call me mamala. It's a human moment, but she wasn't trying to get Drew to call her mommy.
Probably right.
So I just am curious to know if that's at all triggering when somebody's asking you to step into a role that you don't actually play and maybe you never had the privilege of playing. I know she loves her her great nieces, and she loves men as her niece, and she's you've definitely definitely been a mom figure and a big sister to many of us. But like, how does that feel like? I don't know how I would feel about that. I think I would have like a
lump in my throat and been uncomfortable about that. And as a white, a grown ass white woman looking at me saying we need you to be the mom of this country, I feel like I would have been like, well, I wish that Jo Mama would have told y'all not to vote for Donald Trump, because then we would have been here to begin with.
That's how I feel.
I got a whole lot of things to say about this, but I'm be quiet because Andrew already crying, and Tiffa's looking like she want I don't think that.
Let me go.
Well, I want to be clear. We're not suggesting that Drew Barrymore voted for Trump. You know who she voted for.
But I'm saying her friends and therem I'm talking about killing talking.
About Andrew the voting block of white women.
That'scus conservative, which I agree, But I think to your larger point, Angela, this like mammification of black women in the country that still persists. I mean, I remember being on cable news sets and you know years ago where people would say, oh, black women are going to save us, or you know, like we're so thank you so much like all the black women. And I always say this, black women are not trying to save you. We are not your blood sacrifice. We are saving ourselves and you
benefit from it. And so I think this when we hear that. I don't think this was Drew Barrymore's intention. I think it was well intentioned and a heartfelt moment that she was trying to have with the Vice president. And I think the viewers took it as such. I think all of us black women collectively, we were probably in the audience giving each other that look where you don't have to say anything, but you have a whole conversation with just your eyes.
I think that was happening.
When everybody say girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, exact we are having a whole conversation that nobody I was about, and I felt like that.
Was which girl is that?
No? No, no, no, no, no, no, no so.
And I do think there is a magic to our humanity as black women, you know, there is something about us that is loving. I think when we have when we create spaces for black women to come together and have those conversations, it's kind of like the young lady who like, I love when you call me baby. When a black woman calls me baby, I get that, like, I get that understanding. We do have that kind of love to give. It is not in a self sacrificial way.
And sitting across a woman who is multiple degreed, you know, graduated from Howard, a law school graduate and is the first Black woman to ascend to this level, does not have biological children, and the expectation that she should be yo Mama in that moment. Even though it was well intentioned, it is it is not well received.
So and how we stop it?
Stop it.
All right, shall We're going to take a quick break, but after that, more on MAMAA.
I think Drew was identifying more over a need for the country rather than a desire for Kamala, because she's so ripe with affection and mommy energy that she should play that role. I think I think the need. I think we've looked at it so far one way, and I would just challenge us to look at it another way, which is to say, there's a lot of pain right now in the country. There's a lot of division right now in the country. There's a lot of uncertainty right
now in the country. There's death. There's just the a discomfort that sits at our core for everybody. And what we need is someone who could put us at ease, who could make it, help make us feel okay. You know, Reagan was often, you know, referred to as the grandfather. You know, then you know he sort of gives these
grandfather energies. Now I hate that because it totally papers over, you know, the the hateful agenda that that he pushed but but, but but sometimes people the country has a need and I and I don't think she's wrong in diagnosing that there is for a good portion of the country a need to feel safe, secure and held. And and so she didn't have Joe Biden there. She probably if if he would have been there, she said, you know, we need a we need our grandpa Joe to show up.
And people don't have that.
They do and and I've seen and by the way, it kind of fits. He has a very emotive way with people when he's one on one with folks right as you know you you they call him a sympathizer in chief. He doesn't have to make it up, right, there's something intuitive about it. I didn't get that. It was like, oh, you're Kamala Harris. You're a woman, be mamager you know to us, because because I actually in all my interactions with I've never sort of gotten that energy.
I've always experienced her as a very uh, sort of about the business, you know, kind of person, and I wouldn't read her as the overwhelmingly affectionate type. I just think what was being identified here was the need. Was Drew identifying good a need that the country has right now, I think.
But the only thing is, like, let me ask you all this. Do you think that if Michelle Obama were sitting there and she said that that we would feel differently.
Well, Michelle Obama wasn't an elected official. She was the first lady, so I think that is a different thing. And then Michelle Obama quite frankly, was disrespected when she was referred to as President Obama's baby mama. And sometimes people don't like it when we you know, some people may say Kamala, I just want to point out that you know, we we know her.
I still say vice President Harris, but I'm working on it.
But but but we do know her personally before she was vice president, so you know, we may mix it up. But some people do have this no, but we all we all have a relation, so it's a little different when we do it. But there's no disrespect intended. I think there is this presumed familiarity with black women because we had have We are ambidextrous that way, like we can go in and be the multi degree like about business person but also extremely loving, kind, soft people who
are open to loving you. We decide when we want to show up that way. We don't like other people putting that expectation on us. So yes, I think people would have still been offended had she said that to first Lady Michelle Obama. And I think even among our community sometimes there's this this this desire to link these two, you know, like first it was Michelle Obama, then we have Vice President Harris, and you have to remind people, well, Michelle Obama.
Literally was the first lady.
Vice President Harris is the vice President of the United States, And these are very different roles exactly.
And I should, I frankly wish somebody would have referred to Michelle and in that way missus Obama a first Sadi Obama, because they never tried to humanize her, you know, the other side, never tried to make her appear as a human. She was a evil, you know, evil first time they tried to make her appear as something other than human.
But I brought up the point, Andrew, sorry, but I just just to fine point, fine point that she was planting gardens with local elementary students in reced She constantly referenced her kids and Sasha and Malia and making sure that.
They remember their human.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not.
I'm not even qualifying like how she mommed. I'm just saying she was actually a mom, you know, and and and tried to bring mother mothering, tender, compassionate, empathetic energy to what was happening in the country. To tips point, she was not elected, but she was the first black woman to ascend to that role too. And I think for that reason some people do draw these parallels that may not be fair to our MVP because she has.
A completely different job description.
So I wonder if Drew would have said the same thing to Joe Biden. You know, this whole idea about a mammy is something that has it's a it's a trope that has followed us since slavery. And we had to nurse your kids and make sure your kids were good and that they were taken care of and they were well.
You sold our children and beat our children and murdered our children and raped our children.
Separate us from our families.
But we got a mammy and mommy.
We had to deepen our humanity and and and then.
Still So I'm not I'm not saying Drew knows this. I just want her to be aware of the history, the historic trauma associated with the sentiment.
It could also be operating in her self conscious right that that as you interact with black, there's this thing like the woman she was like, this's this this thing that comes over me when I hear you say d d d da da da. I believe with every fiber of my being the woman was being sincerely and know that it was and didn't know that it was loaded with all the other stuff. But so so there's no doubt that there's something operating in the subconscious that gives
folks that. But you know, in truth, Kamala, if she the vice president Harrison, she didn't, you know, like you could have been like, who is that? Gael King and Oprah, don't untie me, my pet Peeves, I'm not your auntie. Yeah, you know, you know they they they drew the line. Don't do it to me. I don't find it respectful. And I'm not your your auntie, Oprah, And I'm not Auntie Yale. I don't know.
I just feel like that's our kids. I think that's our kids.
Yeah. No, I think they were talking to us. Yeah, I think they were talking.
A definitely different issue.
But when in our community, I think it's something different versus someone outside our community having that familiarity, it can be unintentionally misplaced.
I'll say that.
Yeah.
Like, in addition to you running the full portfolio on the border and immigration and voting rights and reproductive justice.
Can you please just be her mom? I ain't got no more time left.
For y'all kidsactly, badass kids won't follow the rules, all right.
I think we're I think it's multi dimensional. I think y'all are right to call it out. I just put the emphasis on the need of the country, and she rightly found. Hey, you're the vice president. You're in a position to do this. Can you do it?
Okay, Papa Andrew, Andrew wants to be the dad of the country.
I don't.
Oh, oh, okay. Well, on that note, Welcome home, y'all, wee out.
I want to be the dad to my three kids.
Welcome home everybody.
Welcome home, y'all, to everybody but everyone who want to say Mama La. Thanks for listening, y'all. Remember to rate reviews, subscribe, and tune into our regular episode on Thursdays.
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