Healing What Was Purposefully Broken

on doing showing their entire and complete ass. The New York Times has put out articles like joy is not a strategy. You see other articles like Trump can win on character, like it is some white supremacist, fucking gas

lighting bullshit that is happening. And I think that, you know, in one way, I will say that I do think that the media is actually doing y'all a good service by showing you exactly who they are and what they care about, and the fact that they want to be feeding you a steady diet of fear of cruelty and normalizing that in a way that makes you feel hopeless and that you can't possibly perceive of anything outside of this narrow, you know, oppressive box that they want you

to be in, and for them, that's what sells, right. Hatred sells, misery sells, and anything outside of that doesn't work for them. So they don't really know what to do right now with Vice President Kamala Harrison, Tim Walls, and so they just continue doing what they've been doing over the last eight years, which is slighting all of us, right.

And so I'm just looking at, you know, where mainstream corporate media has been, you know, and I see that regardless of their attempts right now, the Vice President brought in killer numbers for the DNC, well surpassed the RNC on all four days of the convention. Her speech, I think was rated twenty two percent higher in terms of viewership than Donald Trump's ninety minute you know, stream of

consciousness ramblings. And so I think that more and more people are tapping out of mainstream corporate media because they are recognizing that they're not there to educate you, They are not there to uplift you, They are not there to connect the dots for you. They are there solely

for themselves and their shareholders and their CEOs. And you will continue to see headlines that are just so contrary to the reality that's happening on the ground, and recognize that, you know, when we have heard things like the liberal media, it's all bullshit, and it's all gaslighting, and it's all distortion in order to just lean into the grievance politics

of the Republican Party. So I'm over it. Nonetheless. Coming up on today's show is the author of an incredible book entitled You Get What You Pay For, Morgan Parker, and I just want to read you a bit about what this book is about. In a collection of essays as intimate as being in the room with Parker and her therapists, Parker examines America's cultural history and relationship to

Black Americans through the ages. She touches on such topics as the ubiquity of beauty standards that exclude black women, the implication of Bill Cosby's fall from grace in a culture predicate on acceptance through respectability, and the pitfalls of visibility as seen through the mischaracterizations of Serena Williams as

alternately iconic and too ambitious. With piercing wit and incisive observations, You Get What You Pay For is ultimately a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well being in America. Today, Morgan and I get into a fantastic conversation that I hope all of you will enjoy, and in the episode notes you can go ahead and purchase her book, which is out now, folks.

I am very happy to welcome to OKF Daily author Morgan Parker, whose new book, You Get What You Pay For is a laugh out loud memoir in essays that charts a devastatingly candid course through a story both of you unique and universal about liberation and asking the question with regard to reparations and whether or not black women, frankly should be our deserving of free mental health care. Morgan set it up for us, this kind of question

that you're posing through your series of essays. We all know and I can, you know, bring up just what is happening right now in terms of what just transpired with the Olympics and Jordan Chiles and the bronze medal contention. We can see what has happened with Sonya Massey and being killed in her home, like there are so many instances at which we know that black women's mental health is one weaponized against them and is taxed on a

regular basis, not just in this country but globally. So talk to us about your thoughts and the thought provoking question that you're bringing up in your book.

And in kind of discovering these things and just really discovering my own freedom to be, you know, my first thought was like, Wow, what if we all could have that? What if we all could see for ourselves, how much of what we punish ourselves for is not on us,

you know what I mean? And if we could all if we had you know, the time and space and support to actually acknowledge the toll that these things are taking and the various outside forces that are responsible for a lot of our pain instead of you know, swallowing it and internalizing it and turning it into something that we have to change for ourselves or about ourselves, and just really thinking about all the ways that these symptoms

really show up in our lives. You know, for me, it's a lot of that self hatred and internalized struggle, but for a lot of folks it can manifest in addiction, and it can manifest in just like dangerous behaviors. I mean, people could get locked up for everything that's rooted in this poisonous thinking, you know, So thinking about all the widespread effects, then thinking, okay, what if this was a solve, What if this was a sort of reparations for us,

this sort of like internalized healing. What kind of empires of our pain would fall? How many of us would not be in prison, any of us would love ourselves more, be more in love, make more art, All the possibilities

that that could open. And it really was an exciting question to ask, not only on the personal level, but really on this level of taking the appropriate perpetrators to task and really saying what hurts and not cloaking the issues in jargon or data or you know, figures about where people's families are from and how much money and all this stuff, Like, what if it was really directed at the source of the problem?

powers that be to acknowledge a wrongdoing. Right, Like, there is still something about the idea that our collective healing is still connected to the acknowledgment of the causation of pain in the first place. And so I feel like, to some extent, then that's why we get stuck in doing our own work, because we're still being forced to rely on other people's acknowledgment in order for us to be able to move forward. So how do you grapple

with that? How do we grapple with that very real understanding of kind of where we are and where we've been exactly?

but then they're going out into an unchanged world. If we can change, but what good does it do if the outside world doesn't change? And I think that is it's such a valid point and it's something that I wanted to put out there as like, you know, an indictment for all of us. But it's also something that I get hung up on when I feel and makes me feel a little bit helpless, which is scary, you know, because that's the thing about healing is that we're in

charge of it. And so that I think, yeah, there's a little bit of contention there because we want to be able to do our own work and feel that we're making progress. But as you said, part of that is this acknowledgment culturally. My answer is just the more of us that are on that same page, you know what I mean, because they're not even pressured to.

a way that allows you to navigate it as a whole person. Right? And So I wonder, how do you see younger generations of Black women accessing the kinds of

mental health that you are talking about? And are there enough in this generation Z to forge the change that our ancestors have been calling for since the beginning of time since the acknowledgment of the difference between you know, quote unquote feminism and black feminism, right repro justice versus reproductive health care, Like, is there something that you are seeing and hearing in this younger, more articulate generation, and I mean articulate in the way that they're able to

verbalize their pain, their trauma, and how society has played a part in that.

of collectivity. I think is what's really exciting. But I also wish that it was a more holistic community thing, you know, intergenerational, And on one hand, I want this kind of broader umbrella conversation about mental health in the black community. But I also do see which is really encouraging a specific focus on black women's mental health care versus black men. I do think all of that is important.

I think what's missing really is just that political piece of the whole of like what are the mental health care needs of the African American community in America?

exhausted thinking about it. If I got it, if I have to, you know what I'm saying, Like, if I have to rely on my healing being contingent upon the acknowledgment that you've caused, You've inflicted generations of pain that sources through you know, my DNA on a regular basis, like if I'm waiting for that, then I feel like my healing again, like I said at the top, is going to be stuck. So is it contingent upon.

the white powers that be to acknowledge that. But I think of utmost and primary importance is us acknowledging that on not only a holistic level, but also a personal level and vice versa, if that makes sense, because I think that's where the healing begins, and the reparations idea that is contingent, you know what I mean. That's really

like putting it outward and putting it on the government. Really, for me, it's the question of rethinking what reparations is and how far any kind of reparation can get us. So for me, it's a question of how far can a check get us versus how far mental healthcare can get us, But not to say that our healing is wholly contingent upon that. It's just a matter of trying to utilize the resources that the government has toward our healing.

that liberation actually look like? And I feel like most recently, God, and I can't remember, but I can't remember the person's name, and maybe you know, but it was like the difference between the freedom from and the freedom too, and us that kind of statement is that there are levels and layers to the liberation, and being free from something doesn't necessarily equate to you being free to do something. So the ultimate goal is for liberation is the freedom too,

not just the freedom from? And so I wonder even though all of our paths are different. What do you see as the collective desire for the community? And when I say community, I'm also talking about Black women specifically and then Black people at large.

And I love the idea of imagining a self that is like unmolested by you know what I mean, like why it's supremacist motivations that I've internalized via I mean, even like the law, you know, like things that are like that's kind of subconscious language of things.

big change. So that's really what I hope my readers take away is this idea that the little bits matter, the little moments matter, and seeing other people for real, for real matters a lot.