There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is there are no Girls on the Internet. There are black people in the future, and I'm sad to say that last week we lost somebody who helped us all visualize it. Michelle Nichols died of age eighty nine, and she is and always will be an icon. She lovingly portrayed Lieutenant Uhora on Star Trek. Now there is so much to love about her. She's smart, capable, gorgeous, stylish.
She rocked a Bluetooth on Star Trek even before that was really a thing. She had it all. But Michelle did a lot off screen as well. In the seventies, Michelle toured around the country visiting different colleges and professional organizations to encourage women and people of color scientists, engineers, and mathematicians to apply to become astronauts, and a lot
of them actually did. According to The New York Times, Charles Bolden, a former Marine Corps major general who flew on four Space Shuttle missions and became nassa's administrator for eight years, credited Michelle Nichols visiting his college with giving him the idea to apply in the first place. And May Jemison, the first black woman astronaut, has often publicly cited Michelle Nichols as her inspiration to honor the out of this world woman that allowed so many of us
nerds to see ourselves in different timelines and universes. We're revisiting our episode about Star Trek with Star Trek super fan Blair Amani. When you think of the future, what does it look like? In nineteen sixty six, Star Trek creator Gene Rosenberry imagined a future where the multiracial crew of the U. S. S. Enterprise worked together to explore the wonders of space, and while they were at it,
they also explored race, disability, and gender. Star Trek has long been a vessel for people to imagine themselves in the future. When Michelle Nichols, who played a horror wanted to quit the show to pursue a career on Broadway, it was Martin Luther King, a Treky himself, who convinced her to stay on so the world could see a black woman as commanding and capable. Here's Nichols describing the historic encounter and I'm looking at Dr Martin Luther King.
He said, you can't, and I couldn't, and I've never regretted it. I didn't leave. I couldn't leave. The rest is history. Is it any surprise that MLK was a star Trek fan. In order to be an activist, you have to be able to imagine a future it's better than the current reality, and believe in the promise that the future includes people like you. Blairmanti is an activist, historian,
and author. Like MLK before her, she's a huge Trek e and the show helped her imagine a future where people like her aren't just included, but where they can also live long in Prospera. Last year, Blair went to Comic Con in California. She cosplayed as Jordie LaForge, the Enterprises chief engineer, played by LaVar Burton. Her character was a nod to George LaForge, a quadraplegic fan of the show. Jordie is blind and a device called Avisor gives them
the autility to see. And if you're anything like me, you spent your childhood mimicking the device with a headband on your face. Blair wanted to dress this Jordy, but also at her own spin to it. I have always believed that Jordie Laforage of Star Trek is a Muslim, because he's born I think on February five not I think. I know um in Mogadi Shoe Somalia, which is a Muslim majority country, and in three hundred years it'll probably still be a Muslim majority country. So odds are that
Jordie LaForge is a black Muslim. So I thought, oh, how fun and wholesome it will be for me to bring my religiosity and myself to this space. I didn't not anticipate gonna go superviral. I did not anticipate pissing off islamophobes. Um. I mean I kind of always anticipate that, but not in the Star Trek fandom. So it kind of turned into like some fun thing I could do, and of course, like most things, it became a political statement. You can find a link to Blair's outfit in the
show notes, and I definitely suggest checking it out. Her feminized Islama sized take on Jordy LaForge with Ajab went Viral had this beautiful robe from el Haffer Design, which is based in Los Angeles, created by Katie l Hoffer, so woman owned business love that I had the Jordy Leforge visor which is his seeing device, because um, Jordy LaForge is not cited. He's blind, but he uses this vision device visor device in order to be able to see. So I had that and then I put a nice
black job on top of it. Blair said only three people asked her about cosplaying as a version of Jordy who presents as a woman, but it was the addition of the hajjab that really riled people up. Some of the responses were really pedantic, like one Twitter user who's had a job would violate the Starfleet's dress code. So, Blair, what was the reaction like online? You would have thought that I had, like, I don't know, a little holy
book on fire the way some people were reacting. So you have the one group of folks who, um, well, actually, I wouldn't have even photographed it if it wasn't from my friend Kaylin Barowski, who like he's my photographer, like primarily, and he was like, you need to get photographs of this, and I was like, okay, fine, let's do it before
I go to comic Con. And I just posted it for Juma, which is you know, Friday Friday Prayer Day, and I was like, you know, jubba much to all Muslims across the galaxy, and the pictures came out super iconic, and so I posted them and it was wild because cast of the Star Trek franchise, like Will Wheaton and uh, you know, LaVar Burton himself and Michael Dorn and Brent Spinner saw the post and started sharing it themselves, which was like super duper validating. I was like on top
of the world. Um. And then of course the fans started to see it, and then of course Star Trek dot com itself started to see it, um, and so there was like this outpourt of like what is this the most exciting and kind of like I guess surprising aspect was that people thought I was a new character on the show p card and I still get emails from people who are like, when is your episode coming out? I'm so excited. So some people really liked it and
some people really hated it. But Blair couldn't understand why her using Star Trek to affirm that the future includes black Muslims like her was so shocking, particularly given that Star Trek was meant to show a vision of the future that includes everybody. It was really polarizing on the one hand as far as like social media went. It was like folks who are really excited or thought that I was a new character. Then you had folks saying things like Gene Roddenberry didn't intend for Muslims to be
in space. Muslims aren't in Star Trek, and I'm like, first of all, Star Trek is fictional. Second of all, yeah he did because you know, Gene Roddenberry, he believed in infinite diversity and infinite combinations. And Star Trek was a beloved show of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Who actually encourage Um, you know Ahura, you know, the woman
who plays Uhura to like continue on the show. Um and Michelle Nichols and so like, not only is Gene Roddenberry not this like you know, like anti diversity, anti PC dude, here was the reason there was the first interracial kiss on television between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura. And so that's huge, you know, so when people are saying there's no Muslims in space and like, actually I have evidence to back it up. But also this isn't
even a real universe. If you hate Muslims so much, maybe you should just say that instead of trying to use either you know, your own bandom or something else to hide behind that there's a rich tradition of activists finding inspiration and being able to see themselves in fictional worlds. It's one of the reasons like MLK wanted Michelle Nichols
to keep showing that kind of presentation. Civil Rights icon John Lewis was one of my heroes, and my favorite fact about him is that during Comic Con he cosplayed as his own younger self crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma during the Civil rights movement. At Comic Con, he wore the same coat and carried the same backpack that contained the same things he brought with him back on that fateful day in n an Apple, a toothbrush and a comic book, all the things you need to
survive a night in jail. At the convention, dressed as his own younger self, Lewis led kids on a little march around the convention to help them visualize that anyone could be a hero, even them. He was there to promote his own comic book, a graphic novel retelling of the March on Selma called March. Here's the Late John Lewis at comic advocating for a new generation to create
good trouble and young people, people and really all. It might sound strange for a civil rights icon to be talking about comics at a convention, but John Lewis says that he was first inspired to join the civil rights movement from reading a comic book about MLK called Dr King Martin Luther King in the Montgomery Story. I think it really shows that civil rights leaders and activists are real people with real interests. They're not just sort of like someone that you read about on in February for
Black History Month and the picture in a book. They're real, multifaceted people. And I do think there's this connection to science fiction and other nerdy interests and civil rights and activism because you have to be able to sort of imagine and dream that different worlds are possible to be an activist and to fight for, to fight for the
kind of change that you fight for. It. I keep making the connections between religion and you know, sci fi because it is the idea of a different world like you know Dr King spoke about the mountain top, but we can also look at that as you know, imagining a Afro futurism um and imagining ourselves in a different realm, and this whole idea that we have to get beyond
the limitations of our own imagination um. And sometimes for you know, religious folks such as by self, it means trusting that you know, a law or God or Yahweh has the ultimate plan um and that is beyond our own understanding because we have a finite kept you know,
ability to understand in our current um system. Or it could be to use you know, graphics and art and illustration and comics and books and video and film uh in podcasts to you know, imagine what that looks like and transport us to a different place as a reprieve from the difficulties of the world. But it's also crucial to understand that, you know, these are tools used to transport us, but they're still being created by people, and
because of that, there's going to be limitations. I mean, the example I keep giving is that you know, in Star Trek they have people giving painful you know, traditional birth um, you know, via the birth canal and I'm like, okay, well, if you can like zap somebody healthy with like a laser gun, then why can't you just like teleport the
baby out of the womb? You know, like there's a limitations, you know, or the idea that we haven't surpassed, this idea of you know, pain during childbirth, etcetera, or just you know, is there an incubation pod like you know, because Star Trek the next Generation was created at a specific time in history. Even the things that they make as a futuristic interpretation of a current technology, it's going
to be based on that current technology. But the other cool thing is that so many technologies are then based on UM, you know, the imaginings of previous sci fi writers, even like Jules Burne. You know, people as they imagine
are also limited by the imaginings of each other. UM. And so with John Lewis, I was actually able to meet him while he was on tour UM during UH the first March book UM created by himself and Andrew Aiden and Nate Powell, and I spoke to him about why he decided to do this format, and it was because he wanted to reach as many people as possible, and so Andrew Aiden and John Lewis. They both love
comic books. And that comic book that you refer to is called Dr King Martin Luther King in the Montgomery Story, and it's it's beautiful because it shows how much of a superman Dr King was made to be. Not only is in an educational tool, but these are representational materials of things that are happening in the present moment. I think today we get caught up in conversations about this
activism is performative. You know, if you have an outfit to show up to a protest, you're being a shallow activist, completely ignoring the fact that, like the Black Panther Party didn't just wake up with perfectly symmetrical afros, excellently tailored slacks and turtlenecks and berets. They didn't just roll out of bed like that. It was all intentional and performance and art and illustration and the conveyance of information requires intentionality,
and that's going to deal with aesthetics. So it's not to say we have to choose one's not to say one should overcome the other, but that we can have both of these things in tandem, and that sometimes we limit ourselves, um, we being kind of like the broader community or you know, people who uh just you know, we as a people often limit ourselves in what tools we uh grab onto because if you've only seen tweets or TikTok's that cover surface level you know material, If
the only way you've come into contact with sci fi has been at the surface level way, then you're probably not going to understand the fact that, you know, during the time of a crack epidemic, the Star Trek universe decided to tackle addiction. You might not understand that, you know, TikTok is being used to educate young people and people across literacy and language. Um. And so it's all about how we use the tools. And that's why I find you know, comics and film and TV so exciting because yeah,
it's a different world. Yeah it's not real life, but it can totally be a proxy for our real life and it can be a reprieve from our world. But then it's also very important to make sure that we check our own biases when creating network fiction, comic books, cartoons, TV shows, all of them can be tools to help us better understand ourselves and the world around us. Blair
is also an author. Her books Modern History and Making Our Way Home use colorful illustrations to help introduce audiences to the concept that marginalized people of the past weren't just two dimensional historical figures. They were complex and the cover of both of her books kind of look like comics. Fun factful circle story is the reason why I'm an author is because of LaVar Burton. So one, LaVar Burton made me an enthusiastic reader via reading Rainbow, and two
I thanked him for that. He started following me, and when I was trying to get a publisher for the book, he shouted me out and literally said, somebody published this woman's book and like out to two million people who were probably in literacy to some extent. And that paved the way for me not only getting my first book, deal with my second one with the same publishing house.
So LeVar Burton is amazing. Um And so I, you know, couldn't relish the fact that I that you know, imagery and things like TV and film shaped my own understanding as a reader and as you know, an informed person like you might remember Jimmy Neutron, like they actually snuck in a lot of very important scientific and you know, um engineering information into that show, Like even SpongeBob talks about things that like makes sense in real life and
so and and the fact that Steve Hillenberg, who created SpongeBob, was a marine biologist and wanted to convey that education to young people through his work. So I was definitely informed by that. And I think growing up in like the golden era of animation really helped me to kind of connect those two things. But I also like the idea of somebody picking up my book because it looks like a good coffee table book. It looks like a
light read. And I do make my books accessible at a fifth grade level, because most folks read at a fifth grade level and most magazines are written at a fifth grade level. But I like the idea of some sweet grandma who might have you know, conservative politics, picking up the book because it looks friendly on the front cover, giving it to her you know, offspring, and surprise, they're
getting radicalized. They're getting educated about things that are complex and intricate in a way that is family friendly and you know, age appropriate, but things that might not be covered until I get to college because of the limitations
of the educational system. So especially with my second book, Making Our Way Home, even though there's a gay couple on the front cover in the form of my uncle Lester and a partner we imagined for him, I still get emails from people say saying I didn't know this book was going to be queer affirming. Of course they don't say it like that, but I'm like, I didn't
hide anything. But because it's presented in a certain way, UM, it doesn't detract from people who are already seeking that material, but it also invites people in who might not have otherwise engaged with something like the Great Migration or Black History. UM that covers everything from the period of enslavement to the creation of hip hop. So I try to use imagery to sneak my way in, uh, and it's pretty effective. So we know they're black folks, queer folks, and Muslim
folks in the future. Did Star Trek help you be able to visualize that kind of world? Yeah? And it's funny, like so much. You know, Star Trek has really helped me envision what the future looks like. So often when we look at sci fi, UM, it's you know, aliens from a different universe who have a completely different molecular structure, but for some reason they have a British accent, Like wtf, you know, like white supremacy goes hard, I guess, even in sci fi. And so I'm definitely not like under
any delusions about why, you know, certain biases exist. It's because it's the limitations of our own imagination as people. But it's not only helped me understand diversity. It's helped me understand how I discuss religion at large as a historian, and so often that means looking back in time. It's a really exciting thing to also look at sci fi
as a step towards the future. Star Trek has been fundamental in the identity formation of myself as a black woman and as a Muslim woman, and it's helped me speak about religion just to see how something as secular and something as you know, low stakes. I guess it's Star Trek can be imbued with the same type of passion and vitriol but also beauty that comes with religious debates.
And I was actually at the School of Divinity at Princeton giving a talk and I was talking about cannon and um, you know, today we talk about canon, like your fan your fan canon, your headcan and things that you know to be true but maybe aren't canonical to the actual franchise. You know, say things like maybe you believe all Pika Choose are related in Pokemon, but you
don't actually have a basis for things like that. And so I was talking about how in my head canon for um Star Trek, Jordie Leforge is a black Muslim, and of course that's influenced by my own, you know, skin in the game. I would also love there to be a black Muslim in my favorite show and my favorite character to be one, so of course I'm going to imbue that. But there's also a basis in the fact that he's born in Mogadisha, Somalia, which is canonical
to the text. And I was talking about this in the context of religion and how, you know, we can all read the same religious scripture and come to completely
different theological interpretations, and people tend to grasp that. But I was talking about how, of course that happens, Like I think some people get confused, like how can we all read the same story of Genesis and you know, well, we're not even reading the same story we're reading different interpretations, different translations, centuries old differences, We're reading people imbuing our
own biases while they translate all these different things. And it was so great because I was talking to this group at this very you know, like fancy institution, uh Princeton, talking about how Star Trek is a case study into why there's so much religious turmoil. Because if something is like I said, low stakes, is Star Trek can start a virtual flame war over what religion is or is not in Star Trek, then of course something as high stakes as our eternal souls is going to you know,
spark a bunch of debate. And I tell people this, and I think it helps them understand everything from why you know, I feel comfortable being a queer Muslim um and owning that and owning God's love, to things like why fandoms can be so fraught and disconnected and um, you know, uh, just chaotic. But the really cool thing to see is how people will use the scripture or in this case, the fandom or you know, the original source material from the creator in this case Gene Roddenberry
and not God. Um, well you know, uh, to use that to protect and preserve other people because it was so cool seeing like, you know trek eas and Trekkers, which are also trek E's, but they use their own
terminology which we respect. Um kind of defending me basing this in like not only Star Trek the Next Generation, but Deep Space Nine, the movies, the animated series, all showing a basis for religion in Star Trek, from episodes in the original series where there's a Christmas tree, two episodes in Deep Space nine where they totally get into religion, to episodes in the Next Generation itself, and I just felt so warm in that, like it was like a
virtual hug from all these different strangers who were like, we're not only going to protect her as a Muslim woman, but her ability to belong in this fandom. And that's the thing about being a girl or woman on the Internet is that you constantly have to defend yourself and it's a relief when other people step into do it on your behalf. Definitely, that's something that I I love.
Like one thing I love at that being somebody who was like a woman online is people will ride for you, people will fight for you, they'll speak up for you, they'll they'll shake tables for you, they'll make sure that your voice is included and amplified, and and those moments just saying yes to that trust, falling into your community that has your back. Those have been my favorite times online,
oh a hundred percent. Like I think that when you go to comic connor you go to a convention or any space where you're taking virtual connections and putting it into the physical realm, there's always that concern of am I going to be rejected? And that really goes with anything, you know, just like the first day at school, your first day on the job, Am I going to be rejected? And then also being in a fandom space and a geek or a nerd space, it's that constant feeling of
do you even know the material well enough? Like oh, oh you like like you know, you like Beyonce, name all of her freckles, that type of thing, you know, and it's like come on now, Like we can all enjoy things at are different levels, but just the whole feeling that we don't know our stuff enough as women, And that's not just like I said, it's not just with Star Trek, like you know, the assumption that I don't know every character off the top of my head,
even though I totally bombed at Star Trek Trivia recently. Um, but it's also the implication that we as professionals, as women in the world, don't know what we're talking about.
So that could be anything that you do. Like I was in the communications field when we worked at Planned Parenthood, and yeah, I would constantly have people telling me not their like you know, thank goodness, but I'd have reporters constantly questioning how I was so young and doing what I was doing, how I was doing this and doing what I was doing. And so it's exhausting to then deal with that in a leisurely space, a recreational space. But it is that beautiful thing where people will just
go for you. Like even when you're making an inside joke amongst friends and you're ragging on each other on the internet and somebody who doesn't know that your friends are like, hey, leave Blair alone, it's like, hey, actually we're cool, but thanks for having my back. Let's take a quick break and we're back. The future will be intersectional. There will be black people, queer people, and Muslim people
and people like Blair who exist at these intersections. But on social media people tell Blair there's no such thing as a queer Muslim, so she can't possibly exist. Yeah, here she is existing. What's it like to have so many people online essentially saying that because you're a queer
Muslim you can't possibly exist. It's funny to me, And honestly, you know, I'm so grateful that I've gotten to a place in my heart and in my own personal journey where I can laugh at it, because, like in my family, if we can laugh at it, no matter how messed up it is, we've moved on, or at least we were able to like view it in a way that's healthy.
You know, in a Islam at least we don't believe that of human being can then tell another human being what their salvation is going to look like, not even the prophet Peace be upon him. It's this idea that you know, a law is a law. You know, deities are deities and humans are humans, And so I can be very comfortable in saying when somebody says you can't be Musclim, I'm like, oh my goodness, I did not know that a law used Instagram. How are you doing?
You know? Or I have people who say things like the devil called They're waiting for you in hell, and I'm just like, oh, my goodness, you have the devil's direct line. That sounds like a problem, you know, So I can really have fun with it. But at the same time, it's really breaking down the fact that in my belief, you know, Islam faith, you know, regardless of the faith that you come from, those things are so
deeply personal. And yes they have, you know, accompaniments like religious texts, the Koran, you have hadiths, which are you know, stories passed down from the prophet's time and from other leaders, and it is up to you how you walk into that. And so for myself, I will never let another human being tell me what a law believes about myself because as human beings, yes we can communicate to God through prayer, but it is again through the limitations of our own
understandings and our own biases. So I own up to that, But then I also encourage others to to think of that as well. Not to say this is how you should do Islam, this is how you should not do a Islam, but to say what speaks to you. And so it used to really bother me. I think also it used to bother me was being told that I wasn't a black woman because I, you know, am lighter skinned.
And what's so frustrating to me is that I so often see lighter skinned black women using that as a reason to perpetuate and continue being colorists instead of grasping the fact that colorism isn't the same as getting made fun of for being lighter skinned. It's not the same as getting made fun of for having a sunburned. It means that as a lighter skinned black woman, I have enjoyed the benefits and the privilege that are unearned of living in a society that calls me beautiful at the
peril of my darker skinned siblings. And you know, then, understanding that you're feeling shouldn't get in the way of you dismantling that your feelings, Yeah, those are valid, but they should not get in the way or step on the next of the people who are already being harmed
by those systems. So I'm constantly thinking about systems of oppression and systems of privilege and making sure that i'm you know, quickly and easily discerning when something is from the self serving interest or input of an individual who wants to do me harm versus when it's something that's worth listening to and being called in things like my religion, those are not negotiable. But of course I'm going to
be um. You know, I'm always going to understand things like privilege, class privilege, abled privilege, UM and be receptive to those conversations. But it is a line to walk between when people are trying to hurt you and when people are calling you on your BS. Blair went on Tucker carlson Stocks new show to discuss the surveillance of Muslim communities. Carlson clumsily tries to call her out for
trying to speak on behalf of the Muslim and LGBTQ community. Again, the underlying assumption and being that Blair couldn't possibly be both Muslim and weir and that's how she ended up coming out and put a millions of people on the box nags. If you noticed that all identity politics kind of converges in the ends with about Muslims, it's about the LBGT community, and it's like, you know, at some point, well, some of us, like myself exists in all of those communities.
It's your life, so okay, fun story. Um. I was just feeling really coffee because I had spent the previous year working at Planned Parenthood. Uh, you know, educating folks in all parts of the country about a portion and abortion stigma and doing it to like solid effect where I would have conversations with people where they would come at me and say things like y'all are the devil, and at the end they'd be like, oh, maybe I can take my daughter to Planned Parenthood for sex head.
So I was feeling on top of the world. My talking points were working, messaging was working. I get an inquiry from this guy. It's my last month working at Planned Parenthood because my grant was over um, and so I was like, yeah, I can do this. Who he was this guy I was not thinking about, like, oh, maybe I should do some r intel figure out who he is. I'm going to plan to come out on
national TV, not thinking about that. I still have friends who are in the comms and like pr Field, who just thinks I'm a genius who orchestrated the whole thing. I'm not sure I would like to claim that, but no, I was just correcting him. I forgot that we were on stage. It got to this point where I was so fed up with him dancing around it and and really trying to erase me and pull it poke and product me. Then I just snapped back in a very eloquent way, and I said, well, actually, in addition to
being a Muslim woman, I'm a black queer person. And uh, then I immediately realized I came out on TV and I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and I could you know my partner was actually on set with me, because um it was remote. So I've never breathed the same Maris Tucker Carlson all hum de la, praise God. Um, but my partners like standing there looking at me, and I can't totally look off camera because you know, you got to hold a face, and I
have a pretty good poker face. But if you watch it with that knowledge, then it kind of becomes a parent that Like then, when I stumbled over my word, it was because I had just come out on national TV and so everything changed. Um immediately, people who were homophobic but in my life and then found out who I was or you know, am uh removed themselves, which
I considered to be a blessing, but it still was hard. Um, Sarah kay Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAD, reached out and Uh, that was awesome because GLAD basically scooped me up and they will do this anytime somebody comes out publicly. They make themselves a resource. They help you tell your story. If you want to do press, they'll make sure that you get connected. Um. And I really just felt scooped up and embraced by the community and
it was just like a really beautiful thing. For a year after that, I felt like I was like the bell of the queer ball in the same way that I felt like that about Star Trek. I was like, oh, look at this, you know, I feel popular. Um. And I felt like that after I converted to Islam as well. It was kind of this feeling of being new in
a community and being exciting. Um. And I also learned as I was dealing the you know, experiencing those beautiful, euphoric things, that privilege would showing up because I had the privilege of growing up in a context where I can be myself. Now, it's not to say that these things should be a privilege. You should be able to be yourself in your sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, regardless of the religious or cultural context you come from.
But that is not the case. Blair didn't want to be the black clear Muslim. She didn't want her story to obsteer the stories of other marginalized people who didn't have the ability to cut out like she did. So I wasn't realizing that, you know, people were calling me be queer Muslim, that people were looking at me as
the queer Muslim. You know, I was becoming very tokenized, and so once I became awake to that, then I started to really immerse myself within other queer Muslim context and start to use my profile or increasingly large profile UM to help fund raise for organizations like Kadaiah lgbt Q, both in the UK and the US Muslims for progressive values, and start to feel that this wasn't just me on you know, like the Blair Show, but a responsibility that I had to use UM this newly found visibility for
the upliftment of others. Because as I was telling stories that are authentic to myself and that's important to do, I wasn't realizing how it was harming other people. Like, you know, I was talking about how I've never second guest myself for being queer in my whole life. But I'm not trying to tell that story in a way that makes others feel bad for going through a homophobic, you know, queer phobic existence. That's not what I'm called
to do. That's not what my role should be. And so now, um, and I don't think it's completely shifted. I've always tried to be very responsible and how I tell my story, but it's this increased responsibility. So when I have young people reach out to me and they're like, Blair, how can I be out like you? I first explained to them and remind them of the context of the world that we live in, and that that's something you have to decide for yourself, and that whether you're out
or whether you're not, you're valid. Um, your queerness is valid, and you're not lying to anyone just because you're unable to share your truth with people, because it is incumbent on our society and on the people that love you to be able to make space for you. And if they don't do that, that's not your fault. And so I've really shifted from this idea of you know, come out,
have a rainbow flag all types of beautiful things. Those are important, but that's not all queerness is the people who are living closeted, the people who can't come out. Those stories are important and if I can help to shed light on those or ease the lives of those people,
then I'm absolutely going to do that. So you know, your your books are really about archiving and preserving all of the ways that women and non binary people and black women in particular, you know, the contributions that we really have made to history and society and to culture. Why is preserving that so important to you? And what can we do to make sure that these voices and
these stories don't get overlooked or erased or lost. That is the biggest, most terrifying thing for me, the idea that we will only remember people through the lens of those who remember them, because you know, we see it happen often unfortunately, where we'll have someone who was being critical and calling you know, Representative John Lewis all types of you know, besmirching names, then post uh, you know, a beautiful eulogy, or you have you know, idiots like
Marco Rubio posting the incorrect black person with him while also claiming to honor his memory. If you can't even tell us apart, then no, I'm not going to trust that you remember us for the work that we did UM. And we saw it when Elijah comings past and people thought that John Lewis. It's just so frustrating that we are constantly collapsed. So no, I do not trust the institutions that collapse us into one monolith or you know, sanitize our legacies like what we see with Dr King.
I do not trust institutions to do us justice. So you know, I had made a joke I think probably a couple of years ago, that I was going to write my own eulogy, But I also started to think about how that opportunity is denied to so many people, and that's constantly happening to us as black people, as black women, as you know, black non men, non binary folks,
et cetera. UM. And so it's fighting against all of that and really trying to go back to the original text, you know, like I was able to pour over some of the UM, you know, handwritten letters that my partner's grandmother had UM that she corresponded with her husband, and
finding those firsthand accounts. There's all types of things. There's pop culture references, there's mentions, um of just so many minute yet infinitely important things that Mike get glazed over, UM because you know, whatever white historian didn't give a ship or whatever, you know, academic historian um couldn't be bothered with because they, you know, viewed it as not important.
And because they didn't view it was important, it gets erased, which is terrifying because you know, it is so we have so little power as a people, as black people in this country because of things like enslave reconstruction, the New Deal being a you know, same old, same old
deal that you know, really shafted black folks. Just I could go on and on, but just all of this equal and equality in the country, and not only do we not learn about those things, but that just makes our condition worse because we are blamed for what we have endured instead of praised for getting through it while also being held down by centuries and centuries of weight.
But we then, you know, have to do this whole mind mental gymnastics of figuring out why our contingents are so poor while we also see you know, model minorities and white folks uplifted as evidence that the system works, but we're just not trying hard enough instead of actually
learning the context. So it's it's one of those things where it's a cycle, and the only way we can break it is by elevating the truth and by changing who is telling that truth, because people are going to tell the truth that's important to them and it's going to follow along bias lines, especially if the people who are telling those historical truths are faceless and nameless. More after this click ring, let's get right back to it. If Blair has anything to say about it, the future
of history won't be nameless or faceless. She's building a future where our stories aren't told carelessly. One of your life mottos is to boldly go. You know from Star Trek. What is your vision for a bold, queer, black Muslim
future look like? Man? I mean, it would be great if we didn't have to get surveiled, uh, you know, just basic things like I think, you know, one of the most basic things of you know, being a marginalized person or historically marginalized person, uh, is the ability to direct your own future and to have the resources and
abilities to do that. Just basic things like having you know, Gil Scott Hair and is like, you know, I just want a family and a wife and a food and the children and you know, to food, some food to feed them every night. And it's just those basic things. The fact that there's premiums on water and healthcare, and you know the fact that black maternal mortality is egregious, and it's not just because black women can't give birth,
it's because of the medical system and medical racism. The fact that the Tuskegee syphilis experiments went on well beyond there was a cure for syphilis, and these people went untreated until they were called out in the New York Times in nineteen seventy two. It's it's so many of those things, and you know, it's nothing's going to you know,
let me not live myself in my own imaginations. There could be something that changes everything overnight, but there's going to be so many things that need to change, and that the whole goal, I think is that we can determine our own futures. Not that we have to, you know, endure racelessness or lose our identities, but that our identities and who we are doesn't because of the systems we live in inhibit us from living our full futures. It doesn't mean that I want to suddenly live my life
as a white Christian woman. No, I like being who I am. I would just like to be able to be who I am without the consequences of oppressive systems and what those systems put onto me. What do you think of when you think of the future, Who does it include? Who feels safe there? Who supported there? Star Trek helped a generation of activists like Mlka and Blair imagine a future that included them and imagine a future where they could break out of the oppressive systems that
keep us all from being free. And that is a future worth fighting for. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridgetad. It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison
is our producer and sound engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridgetad if you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. H