Red Lip Theology

grounds me in times filled with numerous tempests. And I often nowadays love to get into conversations with people who are who have made their their profession, their life, their work, about their dedication to spirit, to God, to the universe. Right. I have over the past couple of years, you know, interviewed various folks who write about religion, religious scholars, yogi's,

people that are practicing a variety of connection. And so I was really excited and happy to get the opportunity to speak with Candice Marie Benbo whose new book Red Lip Theology for church girls who have considered tithing to

the beauty Supply Store. When Sunday isn't enough in her journey about what it means to be a black woman, what it means to create an environment that is about self care, self love in response to a world that refuses to see us, to see us as worthy outside of what it is that we can produce for them. And Candice is a theologian, and she is a self described church girl who grew up in the Black church,

which has its own kinds of imbalances. Right. The reason why she named the book read Lip Theology, and she will tell you in our conversation coming up next, is because of the dictations and the prescriptions that black women must follow inside of the church to look the right way right. And a red lip that I wear all the time does not show your chastity, does not show your servitude. Right. And she talks about in this book in such a thoughtful way about what it means to

understand yourself and your own relationship to God. She'll talk about, you know, a person asking her, well, how do you pray right? And her response is, well, I pray the same way that I'm talking to you. I don't need to show up prim and proper right and reciting you know, the text in with the proper enunciations and in the perfect way for God to understand me. God created me,

He created us, right. She goes on to say, you know, he knows who I am, and so if I can't talk and be in conversation with God in the way that I am with my loved ones, with my friends, then what am I doing? The foreword of this book is written by one of my friends, and the reason, the person really behind why I strive to educate in the way that I do, and why I ever got

on television Melissa Harris Perry. Now, for many of you old heads of MSNBC, Melissa Harris Perry had the weekend show and it was called Nerdland where we would gather and she would create a syllabus to kind of run us through with some of the most profound and overlooked intellectuals at that time to TV to talk not just about you know, issues, but to really try to figure out how to understand right, how to learn. You left the show feeling smarter, right, not just wrapped up in rage,

but you felt like you learned something. And you really can't say that right about a lot that is on television right now and Melissa is the reason why I try not to only create a platform that is about us coming together over our own grievances about this country and our desire for it to be better, but why I try to offer voices and conversations and exposure to people to themes, to ideas that are purposefully, in my

humble opinion, left out of the mainstream. And so Melissa wrote the foreword for Candice's book, and one of the things that she wrote is this, navigating a whole entire complicated cray morality, play of righteousness and rouged lips every time you step up to the makeup counter is exhausting. Surely, black women, who shoulder more than our fair share of child rearing, church building, community gathering, bag securing, and way making deserve a God better than some petty, distant patriarch

patriarch policing our lip color. Black girls deserve a magnificent, loving, imminent, and chill God. We need a God who loves our minds when we make deans list and when we piece out on the PhD. We need a God who loves our hearts, even when they are broken as a result of our foreseeably foolish choices. We know God will not shield us from agony when we lose our Mamma, and will not always guard us from the evil of sexual assault.

But we need a God big enough to send our BFFs to our grieving chamber, to gently lure us to the makeup counter, and to help us choose a red lipstick so that we can see ourselves again. We not only need a God who loves black girls, we need a God who likes us, us, regular black girls with nappy hair, big hips, and red lips. Candice Marie Benbo's red lip theology is a roadmap to where we might

find the God we need. I think that in times of great fear, anxiety, grief, anger, it is normal to challenge your relationships to God, to the universe, to a higher being, and to ask questions like, hey, are you listening? Why does evil always win? Hey? God, Hey Universe? When are we going to vibrate higher and align with our better selves? When are we going to see the actual better angels prevail in the way that scripture right, regardless

of what you prescribe, says it will. And for me, the past couple of years have been ones where I am trying to align myself with something other than anger, with something other than the tangible, because sometimes what can be felt, seen and heard is really heartbreaking, is really trying. And I think that it is important for us to recognize that we are but specs of dust in the larger scheme of things, and that our time is actually fleeting. Right, And so what does it mean to live a life

that is bold? That is bold just for sents of being, not because of what it is that you produce or what it is that you can provide, but by virtue of your just existence. Right, we have been tricked into believing that we are only worthy right of praise from up high if in fact we live our lives in some type of rigid fashion, if in fact we do these things that have been written down by God knows who,

when and for what purpose. I say that I have never prescribed to organized religion because I believe much in the same ways as government. It is about control. It is about us giving up our own will and our own power to something else. Right, that if left to our own devices, then there would just be mayhem. So there was this construction of this being that for some people is about God fearing right but for others, is it about the expansiveness of what it means to love right,

even in the face of cruelty of hardship. So I hope that you all enjoy the conversation that I have with Candice. And this book is specifically, you know, written with eyes on black women and girls, but it is for everybody, for allies as well. We're in a really tough place and I think that we need to be sharpening all of the tools in our toolboxes to help us be able to make it to the other side,

whatever that other side. Maybe you know I said yesterday in what was my very solemn opening to the show, that I'm kind of still feeling today is what is it going to take for us to really make it? And when we say make it, what is it that we actually mean When everything around you is failing, where

do you go? Right? And what I have found myself doing over the course of these last several years is going within, is tightening my circle, my tribe of a handful of friends and family allow me to be my fully messy, complex layered emotional self and hold that hold that space for me. And I think that what is really beautiful about Candice's book is that she is holding space for Black women and girls who don't often get space, not even inside of our own churches, of our own homes,

of our own communities. And so it's an offering right for us to come back home to ourselves and to recognizing the beauty of who we are and allowing ourselves to love ourselves despite whatever the outside projection and stereotypes

hateful comments that may always plague us. There is a beauty in black women that and I say this in an interview, that there are people way smarter than me, way more studied than me, throughout history that have stated the truth about how this country, how this world sees black women, how they feel like they are in the right to dictate our looks, the way we talk, how we hold emotion, you know, how we're able to express ourselves and trying to strive to reach some ideal sense

of beauty or demurnis that we will never meet. And so in this book, I think that Candice make space for Black women and girls to meet themselves where they are and to connect with a higher power where they are, and also how we make ourselves up right, how we cover ourselves with certain types of armor, including a red lip to meet the world that is not always welcoming towards us. So coming up next is my conversation with theologian and author whose book drops today, Red Lip Theology,

Candice Marie Benbo. Go and pick it up, folks. I am very excited to welcome to wok F Daily for the very first time, theologian and author of I mean, look at this. I just folks, I just want like, look at this, Look at this cover. It's so bomb, author of the book Red Lip Theology for church girls who've considered tithing to the beauty supply store when Sunday

morning isn't enough, Candice Bembo. I mean, first of all, the cover, the content, um, the fact that you have my girl, the reason why I do the work that I do. Melissa Harris Perry, writing your forward, I was like, oh, so yes, so yes, okay certified, so yes, um, tell me about the the idea behind the book. How how did you come to this place? Because it's it's it's

deep red. And the funny thing is I wear red lipstick all the time and it had it had become my my my armor and my and my weapon of choice. Beginning in twenty twenty. Um, I don't know. I don't even know. Beginning to read this, I started thinking to myself, was this like a real conscious decision that I made? Like this is this another form of rebellion? But please tell me about your how you came to this book. Well, thank you first for having me. I'm so excited to

be here. I came to really theology one because at the time that I was in seminary I was coming out of a failed relationship and my best friend came to see me and she was like, you look like what you've been through and you do not look like my best friend. So she was like, we love best friends for that. Listen. She was like, I need you to get it together. And part of what she made me promise to do was make my face every day, put more emphasis and interest in what I wore, just

my overall appearance. And so as I committed to doing that, I was also in seminary learning doing a much more deep theological dive than I've ever done before as part of theological education, and I just I had a commitment that I felt like black women, especially younger black women, deserve to have faith conversations rooted in our own experiences, and so too often we're listening to black men who

don't really hear us or center us first. And so I was like, when it came to thinking through, like, how do how do we have conversations that put us at the center and make us, you know, and our experiences the object of exploration. That's really how real theology

came to life. You know, I think that, I mean, we know right that black women and black girls have so many barriers that are placed in front of them, have so many dictations about our body, our hair, our speech, our addiction, right, our presence, and I think, you know, the the decision to take on, even within the context of our own community and church, the dictations that are really rooted in what is it respectability politics, right of how of how women should learn and how they should

show up. As a self professed church girl, how do you, at one hand, because I know that you have been grappling with a lot, how do you want, one hand, you know, respect the Christianity that you have been reared in, but also push against some of the notions that have been proclaimed as truth that are in fact rooted in respectability politics. And really, you know, if I may say, white supremacy and the idea that if we look good, if we look better, right, then we will be accepted.

Right then then then then we will we will be seen as worthy. Yeah, I think part of it is

getting to a place where you recognize an honor. That that that be respectability politics, that the anti blackness, that the white supremacist grounding, that so much of what we've been taught is not actually scripture, right, like when you when you when you really look at Jesus's life, when you look at who Jesus rolled with, like the way that he taught in parables, like he was teaching us how to live in community with each other, how to hold

each other accountable, and how to honor each other's particularities. Right. And so that doesn't mean that you tell me how I need to dress in order to be appropriate for church space right now. It may mean you do as my best friend did. And when you see me not living up to my potential and who you know that I can be, that's when you pull me to the side and say, hey, like, what what's really going on here? Right?

And so part of why I've been able to hold the tension is because I know and believe what the church can be when it's at its best, when it holds space for our complexities, when it holds space to honor who we can be, Like I know one who we could be if we push it in that space.

And too, I hold to the truth that what we have seen isn't who isn't what Christ wants for us as it looks at the church, and especially as it relates to black girls and women, right like, when we look at the church, who is literally who is really

running the church? Sisters? Like if sisters sat down and decided not to pay tides, decided not to work in churches just one sunday, we wouldn't have church like And so then it becomes what does the institution old to Black girls and women as it relates to how it treats us just by virtue of the work that we

continue to do in this way. You know, it's so funny because even if you were to take this out of the context of the church and take it into you know, a corporate workplace or a nonprofit workplace, what you're talking about in terms of the work that women do Black women do in the church is considered soft skills, right, It's it's what the soft skills are in the workplace.

But if you don't tap into those soft skills, if those people decide, those women in the workplace decide I'm not going to make sure that there is food in the fridge, I'm not going to clean up, I'm not going to check in on so and so, then what happens? Right, Like, we don't see the work that is being done as the infrastructure, right like you would. The layout of your of your contents um in the book is about how we layer our faces right, and you know, and the

foundation of any good makeup right is good scan. So when you're in first you know in your in your first chapter, you know we are we we are good creation. And I just want to and I just want to just like read it for the audience. My skin tells all my business. When I'm embarrassed, angry or stressed, when I'm not taking care of myself and need water, my skin is the mean I can't escape. And taking care of my skin and shores, I become a person worthy

of my time and attention. That really grabs me, right because I think that right now, Candice too particularly we as black women are really I think as a whole deciding that we're not waiting to take care of ourselves.

Like from from you know, from our sister Tomes of Essence magazine, you know, and on, you get this sense that we are all in this same collective experience of you're not going to suck me dry, right like that, because that's what I that's that's how I interpret what I just read is that this this life, this work, this um finger waving, whether it's coming from the church elders or it's coming from my boss, like you are not going to suck me dry. I am going to

stay hydrated. I'm going to stay in my in my skin right right. Yeah. Like it's so funny that you said that, because I've been thinking a lot about it in the wake of the Great Resignation right where everybody leaving to choose better for themselves. Like there there is a moment where we're in where black women are saying we have options and we have no problem exercising them. Come on, and you are not going to make me feel like I have to abide by what you say,

Like you're just not going to do that. Yeah, And what you know, I think about that because part of the conversation around the Great resignation, right, because I've been talking about this unwokeapp a lot is a lot, right, it's a lie of the workers being lazy. People don't want to work, and so they're just opting out, right, it's a lie. No, like you said, people are not

opting out because they are lazy. They are alloped. They are opting into better lives and livelihoods, right, They're they're opting into um, recognizing their own personal worth and that not being dictated to them by their bank accounts, right or lack thereof. And and so I think that it's you know, what is it about black women though in particular that has us? And you know it is it has been said by by way more you know, smarter people than myself, Black women, you know, the mules of

the world. You know this bridge called my back, like all of you know, like all of these things have been true, they have been rooted in truth. We are the workhorses, right, the workhorses of democracy, all of these things.

What is it though, that you think is intrensit in usum that has us show up in that way right, that we are having to unlearn this labor that we have taken on or that has been put on us, because it's a both and I mean to be honest, Danielle, I do think, and that's part of the reason why I wrote Relic Theology is because I do think that it is rooted in a centuries long belief that we have to work in order to be worthy, right, that we have to that what we produce, how people see

us as expendable, how people see us as valuable, determines how we should see ourselves. And we've seen it in church, right like we've seen it. That's how, that's how. So much of a lot of this work around walking away from front spaces that don't serve us is also about walking away from shame. And we don't quote unquote do the things that people expect us to do. Right. So you have a moment where say you you you made a decision, or say you do something that may not

have worked out the way you thought it was. The way sisters internalize the shame of I should have known better, Why did I do that? You know? The way that we do all of that is so rooted, and if I would have done it and been productive. Then people would see me as worthy now because I didn't do it, or because it didn't show up the way that I thought it was. There's there's a certain level of worth that's detached from me and I and we've seen it,

and I'm moms, we've seen it, you know. And our grandmother's Like I had a conversation with my with my grandmother where we were talking about, you know, the power that sisters have now to walk away from relationships, not because not because he's he is a bad guy, but just because I'm not thriving in it anymore. Yeah, and I'm deserted. It used to be well did it beat you? Right? Like it's just like so it physical abuse is the only thing that can get me to least, is it?

You know? And my grandma that is exactly what my grandma said. She was like, y'all are saying like I'm just not happy no more. I'm waking up and I'm not happy. I'm not I don't want to be here. And she said, when I was growing up, it wasn't you left because he might have had an affair and an outside child. You only could leave if you put his hands scime because she was like, if you left while he just because he cheated, that didn't mean he wasn't a good provider. That didn't mean he couldn't be

a good dad to his kids in your house. And so we were having this conversation about how excited at eighty seven she is at the option that we like, No, like he a good dude, He's just not good for me, right, but he's not. He's not the great one for me.

And I think that we're also in a moment where sisters are applying that to other areas of our lives, right, Like we're looking at friendships differently, Like we're looking at work differently, We're looking at other kinds of relationships, like how how do I get to wake up every day, show up as my full self, get to do the work that allows me to be my full self and to be in the spaces and relationships that allow me to be my full self for no other reason than

because I deserve it. Like, I mean, my God, that seems so simple and yet so damn revolutionary. I'm like, wait, just just because just because I am listen, just because like, like one of the things that my therapist and I worked on last year is allowing myself to say I deserve something and and and obtaining it, going and purchasing it, going and getting it whatever. It was working towards the goal and the justification being simply because I breathe, like

like just just sitting with that. And I remember the first time she introduced that to me in our session, and I was like, what you simply because I breathe? Like I can't just do this because you know I I'm not, I'm alive, Like I have to have a justification. I have to have another reason, like how does this make sense in my budget? How can I what else kind of work can I do to make up for the purchase? And she was like no, like simply because you breathe, it can be yours like you walk in

this earth every day. And the wild part is that when you look at white people and when you look at black men, they move that way. It's there simply because they exist, Like how dare you say they can't have it? And we and as sisters, what does it look like for us to continue to move into that space. I see a lot of us doing it. I see younger.

I mean, I tell but all the time, like when we be said the children the future, like she went lying, because these younger sisters and and they're teaching us, and it's up to us to also continue to work to create the space that gives them the room to be able to fully lean into that and flourishing. Man, you know, I mean, my god, they're so there's so much there. Because I will tell you myself. You know, I've been,

like millions of Americans, working from home. Right, this is this is not this is not the studio, this is this is my house, and have been really grappling with what it means to relax, have been really grappling um with rest. And last weekend I did absolutely nothing right, Like, did absolutely nothing but Candice the guilt, the guilt that I had to work through around that I should be reading, I should be doing this, I should be taking notes.

I should be looking at X, Y and Z. The guilt you know, speak speak to reconciling with the guilt that black women have. Like you know, one of the one of the spaces that I follow on Instagram and I have talked about on the show is the NAT Ministry. Right, I follow the nat Ministry and I am trying to you know, take myself off of the hamster wheel, take myself, you know, out of this space of unworthiness because my worthiness,

to your point, being attached to my production level. Right, you are worthy, as your therapist said, because you breathe, right, because you get up, because we are human. How do you you know, how do you help black women understand their guilt and how to even recognize that the emotion that they're feeling is in fact guilt, is in fact shame,

and how to maneuver through that. Yeah, part so much of it is is about getting them to to go back to, especially in a faith time text, go back to the truths they know about God, right that, like that God is not this petty you know, um angry,

How could you do that? And look at you, you know, with these like scornful like now you now, since you did that, I'm going to to to put to let ten people get in front of you in the blessing line and withhold whatever thing you desire to want it like that's not who God is, um and and getting sisters to move from from from a space where they associate God's disappointment or society's disappointment with God and getting them to see it may not have been the best

decision that you should have made right, And at the same time, you are not the only person in the world who has ever made a bad decision or not an optimal decision. And the grace for you is in that right, and the grace for you is in exploring the wisdom that came from making the decision that you did right. What did you learn about yourself? What can you apply as you move forward? How do you align?

How do you allow for what you learned about yourself who you've discovered yourself to be, to align with who you want to be and who you desire to be, and asking those questions and also reconciling with this is actually the space in which God dwells and wants us to dwell like that. How could you do it? Oh? My god? How dare you like? That's where people are judgmental, shady, petty people. Their life was on a summer jam screen. They would be looking, they would be trying to find

the nearest exit. Right, let's be clear, right, But God dwells in the Yeah, that wasn't the best move, right, But you live to see another day, and hopefully when you get to make the next move you make it with more wisdom, and you make it with more grace for yourself. Again, as you just said, that tends that is so much easier to say, and it takes a lot of unlearning, right that even I have to I

have to. I have black us all we are working from home and I have these sticky notes on on my computer screen where I have to remember my mind myself in those moments. Stay in your time zone, like stay where you are, stay present in the moment, and don't go back and think how could I have done this?

Or don't go too far ahead that you don't allow yourself to stay where you are, get what you need out of the moment, deal with whatever you gotta deal with, and equip yourself to move forward in a much more healthier whole way. I think, I think we my my hope. And what what I wrote really theology for was to help us as sisters take ourselves off the hook. Like, yes,

we can be entirely. We can be so hard on ourselves that it doesn't matter if other people love us, and it doesn't matter if other people see the best of us. We can be so hard on ourselves that if we don't see it if it doesn't matter right, and like I want us to to get to a point where we're like, wait a minute, like I am human. I don't have to adopt the super the superhuman black woman, you know, traits strong black woman traits that everybody says

that I have to. I don't have to go to church and lie and say I'm blessed, a highly favorite when I literally want to cuss everybody out and I don't feel blessed. I don't have to force myself to praise my way through situations and circumstances when I am crying, when I am despondent, Like I get to say, God, this is some bull Like I get to say that, Yeah, I get to say I didn't expect to be here again, like like I have to say that very clearly. I don't like it. I ain't expect to be here. You say,

you control all things. Why you ain't see this coming and help me? I didn't want to be here again. Like I was telling someone the other day because they we were on a zoom and she was like, how

do you how do you pray? I said, just like how I'm talking to you, Mike, exactly how I'm talking to you because God created me to be me, like like in kind of relationship, you are supposed to bring your authentic, honest, truthful self to a relationship, Like I don't need to come to God poise, prettim our Father making sure all of my words are over annanciated and using all of the scriptures and all of these because

that's not how I talk and that's not me. Like when I'm grateful God you did that, and thank you, like you made a way out of a way because it was looking scary for your girl and you came through. Thank you. And when I am broken and when I am hurting, God, I didn't think I didn't see this coming, help me because I didn't see it coming, right, Like it matters for us to be human, and because that is the only thing that we can be, is human, because that is what we are. It's you know, Candice,

I have to say, I am so thankful. I have such gratitude for you coming on to woke a f um because we have been you know, I've been trying to have conversations at very I'm not a religious person. I have always said that I am a spiritual person and as a matter of fact has become more so UM over the last couple of years, and I think that that's just by virtue of having sense and dealing with the times that we are in UM to find

find ways to ground UM. And I just I am so thankful to you for writing this book, for sharing this book and forming on the show. I hope that I hope that you come back so we can have more conversations about faith, about what it means to love ourselves and to you know, love God, connect with the universe, you know, and uncouple ourselves from shame and guilt, because I think that that is so incredibly important, particularly now, folks.

The book is Red Lip Theology for church girls who've considered tithing to the beauty supply store when Sunday morning isn't enough. Candice Marie Benvo, thank you so much for making the time for us. Thank you so much. Thank you. That is it for me today. Friends on Woke a FP as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.