This is an accidentally funny podcast about the realities of Blackness and adult life.
Our goal is to create a space for Black millennials to discuss and embody adult life on their own terms. We aren’t beholden to “traditional” gender or parenting roles, queerness is fluid and present in the ways we show up in our relationships and in the world, and we want to build community with other 30-something Black folx who are trying to figure this ish out.
We do “adult” differently.
-About Daren and Jenn-
Jenn is a queer, Black feminist from Oakland. Daren is an introverted nerd and novelist from Anaheim.
They are boo’ed up and have been since 2002 when they bonded over a mutual love of Brian McKnight’s “Never Felt This Way”, their favorite Brandy lyrics, and nineties TV like Family Matters, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Living Single. It was a shared obsession with Black cultural icons, histories, and artistry that drew Jenn and Daren to one another even though they are actually completely different personality-wise.
Jenn and Daren have always said to themselves, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a show?” Well, no major networks have reached out yet. So, until that happens, you can find the them here, sharing their views on race and culture and everything in between.
They are young thirty-somethings who have been married since for over a decade. Jenn and Daren have three beautiful, brilliant, radical, snarky kids who play no games.
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In the first segment, Jenn and Daren discuss the Canadian Poet Laureate who stole ‘Still I Rise’ from Maya Angelou, the problem with those "Phenomenal Women" t-shirts, and the historical erasure of Black Women's work. In the second segment, they talk about the role of Black women in the workplace, very public examples of Black women’s erasure like the adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor's novel "Who Fears Death" at HBO, and the ways patriarchy also operates to shut up Black women like Jemele Hill and M...
In this short primer for the podcast, Jenn and Daren give listeners a brief summary of their work at WaterCoolerConvos.com and how it informs the podcast. Listeners are encouraged to support the show through donations on Paypal.me/watercoolerconvos and Patreon.com/watercoolerconvos. Listen now to learn all the ways you can support!
In the first segment, Jenn and Daren discuss how Serena Williams and Beyonce were treated during their pregnancies. Their experiences are indicative of how Black women really are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and pregnancy and motherhood are fraught with racial and gendered biases and innuendo. In the second segment, they talk about motherhood in very real terms. Namely, there is an immense amount of under-recognized labor that people with uteruses do when pregnant, the expectation...
In "First Things First", we talk about how we were introduced to masculinity and the impact of growing up in single-mother households. In "The Conversation", we define toxic masculinity and give some concrete examples from television shows. Highlights include perpetually invasive stalker Stever Urkel from "Family Matters" and Overton and Kyle from "Living Single". In "The Reflection", we discuss how grateful we are to have been raised by single mothers and explain how the absence of male figures...
In this episode, we discuss the white supremacist march and rally in Charlottesville, abstinence parenting, and why it is important to be honest with kids about the political realities facing the world today. In the first segment, we talk about what happened in Charlottesville and how it affects Black families. In the second segment, we talk about an experience we had with our kids during a recent trip to Ohio that raised a debate over if racism is learned or if that even matters. We also talk a...
In the first segment, Jenn and Daren describe how they came to be called "That Black Couple" by walking through how they became a couple in the first place. Highlights include when Daren had to literally be Jenn's mouthpiece and their "Never Felt This Way Moment" at the back of a bus. In the second segment, they provide a brief overview of the content listeners can expect to hear discussed on the podcast, including gender roles, class and capitalism, and sexuality. In the third segment, Jenn and...
