Connie Britton & Rebecca Traister FBF Episode

the power of raising your voice and telling a truthful story about your life and the way it has been shaped or altered or built around a power structure that wasn't meant to include you um is itself it's a powerful communicative tool and it's so powerful that people will immediately call you uh part of a mob yeah I quite like being part of a mob we we have a mob right here we do hello I'm Amanda decad and welcome back to the conversation with Amanda decad this week I have the honor of sitting down with two women who I have immense respect and admiration for one is Connie Brittain who is a phenomenal actress and she's also an activist I don't want to say that everyone's an activist but I have to say I do know a lot of women who are trying to make a change in the world and Connie Brittain certainly is I also am going to be sitting with Rebecca traa who I am so excited to meet I have interviewed a lot of people in my career I've been interviewing people since I'm 15 years old and Rebecca Tracer is someone that I have wanted to interview for a very very long time she is a phenomenal journalist and feminist voice of our time and I feel very fortunate to be able to sit and ask her some questions along with Connie about things like privilege raising kids in today's culture and how much information do you want to share with your kids and as she pointed out it's actually a privilege to have a choice how much information you want to share with your kids I just learned so much from her I love being schooled and I definitely was schooled [Music] today during um the selection some of the most reliable uh information that that was being reported on came from you actually Rebecca is that worrying it it is well it was it was so um easy to digest you know it was from a through a lens that was so valuable and important to me personally it just cut through the noise you know and your perspective was one that I came to really trust during election and kind of from that point on actually pretty much anything you do I pay attention to I just want you to know that I do think you are genuinely one of the great Scholars of Our Generation oh that truly well it's hard to accept compliments especially when you're like sitting in a little room with big mics in front of your face and you have both Connie and I praising you but we want you to receive that well I I appreciate it and I do receive it it it is also interesting because in in the capacity that I write about politics or about femin like anything that I write about I'm constantly revising my own opinions right because one of the things that about sort of covering the story whether it's the story of American politics or presidential politics whether it's the story of the allotment of resources in this country and the unequal distribution of power is it's constantly changing and and especially for somebody like me who was in no way a scholar of this like this is stuff I am learning at the same time that I'm writing about and so the more you learn you you're you're thinking about things differently all the time but that to me is the sign of someone who is number one extremely smart and number two extremely authentic Because unless we are continuing to grow and learn um and to be reflective on what we thought last year last week you know last month we can't progress and and so that's kind of encouraging to hear that that's why I I get frustrated sometimes when I hear people getting so defensive about the culture and what the culture was 50 years ago as if somehow they can't acknowledge that yes I maybe made mistakes 50 years ago or 20 years ago or 10 years ago because I didn't know any better right but we are constantly evolving we are constantly capable of educating ourselves and even you women who are two of the the most brilliant women that I know you know we we want to go deeper and understand better and that means that sometimes the perspective will change and I think particularly with so many of the big issues that are that are up right now I mean I think of me too and all of this it's it's like let's not be so punitive and let's actually think more in terms of how can we all together have a conversation about what needs to change and where we've come from from and why we came from there and where we can go I really appreciate you saying that and this is one of the things that you know in full transparency Connie and I are very good friends and we discuss many of these subject matters and then things like oh is your kid eating enough vegetables how do you get them to eat more fruit and raising boys and raising boys which is a really important significant discussion I want to bring up in a little bit but this is something that we've been speaking about recently which is call out culture is at an all time high and that means that there isn't a lot of room for people to make mistakes and to say well I'm sorry I didn't I didn't know or I've I've learned more I've educated myself on what I said or what I felt then I feel differently now now it doesn't mean you can go around excusing any and all Behavior but there has to be a space for people to say I I've evolved I wanted to do better and I now am and here's the living proof that I'm doing so and unfortunately callout culture doesn't provide a space for that so how do we move forward with a conversation that is inclusive I think there are very few people who react to being called out on something either something they're doing now or something in the past by saying um okay wow this criticism leveled at me uh actually is making me think in new ways about my behavior either current or past and um I'm learning something from it I think I really up I think you're right I think that what I did or said or the argument I made um was racist or sexist or harmful or close-minded or it's making me think about how I'm complicit in this there are very few people who actually do this right but when people are good at issuing apologies I actually think that even in what is called callout culture there's a receptiveness there is an eagerness for people who want to take responsibility for the errors that they've made in the past so I think those who can do it with thought and engagement not just the reflexive like being dragged out by a publicist uh I regret made a misstatement and you know like you can always tell when somebody's for real and when somebody for so a I think it's rarer that somebody actually does a good job of saying wow I screwed up I can think of an example actually it's kind of it's a political example in Virginia there was um the that period at the beginning of the year where Ralph Northam the government the governor of Virginia um was found to have participated in blackface and been in his medical school yearbook um and at first he admitted it and then he gave a terrible press conference where he almost moonwalked and then he said maybe that wasn't him in the picture it was a it was a disaster and then right after that the lieutenant governor um I can't remember the order exactly Justin Fairfax was accused by two women of violent sexual assault in his past and um as a young man at uh the Democratic National Convention in Boston and then once when he was an undergraduate um two women who went on the record and have told their stories and have since told their publicly and he responded with tremendous anger right then there was the third guy the the number three in Virginia Herring and he was also revealed to have participated in blackface when he was an undergraduate and he wrote I this is an example I would say he wrote an incredibly thoughtful statement about the culture he participated in his role in it what he derived from it it was a really thoughtful example now by the way none of those three men have lost their jobs none of them have stepped down okay so in this whole thing where we worry about people being punished and paying this endless price and having their lives ruined it's important to remember that a lot of the men who have and they're Democrats okay so it's not even just right-wing Donald Trump right it's like a lot of the men who have been persuasively accused in this period where we're talking in new ways um about kinds of Power abuse a lot of them are our president of the United States our Supreme Court Justices are the governor of Virginia and the lieutenant governor of Virginia right so so in fact even in hyper callout culture those guys still have their jobs controlling the Democratic party of Virginia but I would say the number three like okay you persuaded me right like you've learned something from he took account he was accountable role modeling accountability is what I'm all for well right now we're in reaction we are in reaction to a lot of things we are in reaction to the election of President Trump you know from that we had women's marches we've had this incredible uh Resurgence of activism which is all fantastic but we still are working within the confines of the old structures and so it's about creating a a new way of having conversation that we don't have any models for yet because we this is all new ground and so therefore you just named three guys who you know got into trouble for past behavior and dealt with it in three different ways and one of them actually had integrity and you know had some Consciousness about what he had done but it doesn't it didn't really matter because socially around them the environment is set up so that they're going to be fine and that's where we need to have a we need to have some real structural change in terms of how we speak to each other which is which is also I want to go back to the idea that like in what you call call out culture there's you sort of can't satisfy the crowd right which I think I hear a lot about this notion that and I understand it I I I understand it that there you're going to keep getting yelled at there's nothing you can say you're going to keep getting yelled at but part of that is because there's no guarantee first of all that when you do how react however you're going to react whether it's apology whether it's Reckoning that it's actually going to satisfy the people who are mad at you the people who are mad at you may keep yelling but that's okay that's part of the deal right it's not that I'm always on the side of the people yelling right I'm not a big supporter of like all the stuff on pylons I think social media does a lot of harm and and it also does a lot of good right I think everything's a mixed bag so I'm not sitting here being like call out culture is great I understand exactly the sort of um anxieties it creates but I also understand that the only Power that those at the margins who are angry about abuses of power have is to keep yelling right right and I and I don't disagree with that but what I am saying is there there needs to be a common space that is so tiny right now that I I hope we can focus on expanding it yeah and a common space but also just people being uh being available to acknowledge that they have been that they have evolved that they have come that they there were different ideas we all come from our own traumas we all come from our own baggage and our own family history and all the rest of it and his and the history of the country and all those things so let's acknowledge that we need to keep moving forward and we need to be able to take accountability for what we didn't know before and now we know better hi this is Amanda decad and I'm here to let you know that if you want to stay connected to me and the conversations I'm having and most importantly if you want to support this podcast the best way for you to do it is to sign up for my substack that is where I share the more personal lessons I'm learning extra wisdom from my guests plus the tools I'm gathering from the various teachers in my life the way you get access to all of this is by heading over to www. amand acad. substack do.com and just sign up put your email in it's totally free so head over to www. amanda. substack do.com I would I would posit that for good and for ill the closest thing we have right now to that common space where huge numbers of people who haven't previously been invited is the very internet that produces call out culture because the fact is that lots of people who haven't previously been invited to those like think of Twitter right it is a space where famous and powerful people like Donald Trump uses Twitter the president of the United States actively uses Twitter and so do millions of other people many of whom like have nothing like Donald Trump's power but do have the power like we I read in the newspapers all the time about Twitter mobs right I'm obsessed with how when it comes to power abuse those with the least power are framed as the aggressor so there are a million examples of this that have come about recently I think it it was in 2015 was Freddy gray was killed in Baltimore so Freddy gray was an African-American man in Baltimore who was taken on a rough ride by the police and he died of his injuries and in response his community the community was Furious and there were protests and I was a reporter at the time I wasn't writing about the story I was consuming the news and what I realized was that in the CNN coverage the New York Times coverage it said there were these protests and it said the violence started when the protesters threw rocks the fin started when he was killed right Freddy gray was killed this became this became something that like really informed I mean and this it's I'm this is an example of like my own like how could I not have seen this pattern thought of it before 2015 but I I mean at the time I wrote about it it was the IND discernability of harm when the harm flows in the direction it's supposed to flow from the people with more power to the people with less power so when a man is killed by the police that is almost IND discernible as it's not a disruptive event it is an event that is where the power and the damage and the abuse is happening in the direction that we expect it to happen however when the people whose only tools are rocks that they can throw at police cars those people are written about in the like in the media of record not rightwing not Fox News right like in mainstream media as the disruptive Force the violence begins with them with the people who are throwing the Rocks now once you begin to see this pattern you see think about Meo okay the hashtag Mew movement which began of course with Toronto burk's me2 movement um which is about and especially in Toronto Burke's hands and telling it is about women's stories so what is the power that these people have and and toron Burke talked about it specifically her me tooo movement was about sexual violence done within communities of color and about all of the various pressures for women to not tell their stories and that the power of what she was a leader of and founder of was the power to raise your voice that's the only Power Shifting the perspective from the assaulter to the woman who has been abused and always talks about this about centering the marginalized yes that is what she talks about endlessly and and her frustration with the media's representation of the me too movement is that it has been too focused on the people who are assaulting and not the healing of the victims exactly and in the focus on the people who have done the assault so think about those kinds of powers the power is in the storytelling the raising your voice and telling another person this is my story of my life and what happened within it that's the power raising your voice telling a story okay then you get to the a stage of the hashtag meu movement where that storytelling winds up having repercussions for some of the powerful men about whom those stories are told now those repercussions for the most part aren't criminal they're not that right and which is I'm actually far less I'm not a prison person I'm not a fan of jail or imprisonment or incarceration so I am not complaining about this but I am pointing out that for very few of the hundreds of powerful men across Industries about whom stories were told stories often of physical harm of of harassment of assault in some cases violence certainly of workplace discrimination um men who had power within workplaces and how they behaved toward people who had less power how is that very often framed by a media it is framed as a witch hunt a mob the media is to I interviewed toron about this exact subject and I said the media well I asked the question which is is the media complicit in creating clickbait stories that sensationalize the actual issue and is putting the focus again on the person who is the perpetrator and yes they do endlessly and the victimhood is the victimhood of the most powerful again many of whom didn't even lose their jobs many of whom did not actually they suffered shame they suffered people yelling at them they suffered having embarrassing stories but many of them even the ones who did lose their jobs many of them got enormous buyouts and are currently living in mansions right or they're living in different countries and they started businesses in like Asia or something right and so and yet the that reversal the the power the only Power the were the people who told the stories was Raising The Voice versus and that was and that in itself is perceived as enormous harm mobs that have come after these right versus the power these guys had as often the bosses the powerful men the people who did the physical or the emotional or the professional harm and yet they're very easily framed as the victim what's going to happen to him do we need and we saw that around Kavanagh like I'm worried for my sons right I'm worried that my sons are the the sympathy and the and the possibility for vulnerability adheres to the most powerful in the situation think about black lives matter which is talk which has been talked about black lives matter a movement that protests the violence the murder perpetrated by a by a powerful arm of the State against um some of the least powerful people in this country and yet when black lives matter gathers and protests they are talked about as a hate group thugs as a a terrorist organization right they're framed as the aggressors as the powerful the the the thing that challenges the status quo well that's the thing is is painted in a light that is undesirable and is paint in that way with the objective to squash it and to um you know to undermine The credibility and the validity of it which we know happens has happened historically for a very long time but this is the time that we're living in we are living in a moment where those who are holding on to the status quo those who are holding on to the patriarchy those who are holding on to the old ways are holding on so tightly that even what you could describe as the progressive media is still using terminology as as you as you say the Epstein case I thought my was my head was going to explode when people the headlines that I saw in multiple uh mainstream media was saying um you know Jeffrey Epstein had sex with an underage woman it was like what no an underage woman is a child you know and not had sex with that is rape let's call it what it is our president told four American Congress women to go back from where they came from and the New York Times wouldn't call it racist why not why not now look we all know people that work at the New York Times we all do right we all have relationships there why is that not a really important phone call or email or or social media why is that not a request hey New York Times why do you not call this what it is how do we just keep letting this happen I think it is there was a huge push back against the New York Times and and lots of people who we within the New York Times lots of people within the organization certainly believe but that's an old infrastructure it's old infrastructure I mean there was a big joke racially infused racially you know racially tinged um by the way I have been guilty of using this language myself I have this an example like I have you can my journalism is full of that kind of euphemism in the past like it's been a process of you learn you try to listen to the people who are saying to you what is this dodging you're doing why are you calling this like and what were you afraid of it wasn't it wasn't conscious in my past no no no it's like but also there are certain rules that we understand we still this goes back to the inversion of harm and power we still operate within a model that assumes that there's more harm in calling someone racist than being than than having racism determine your future right like it's still the greater we still reflexively many of us because in fact it is a white patriarchal society that has decided that the worst thing that happen to you is that you be called racist or sexist that you be that's why all these guys I can name three powerful men right Donald Trump um uh Joe Biden and the New York Times columnist Brett Stevens who just within the past few weeks have used the term there's not a racist bone in my body guess what that doesn't have any meaning but it's coming from a place where again the great vulnerability and the great Injustice in the world is to be called racist it's not to be a it's like not to be on the other end of racism it's not to have your life and ciled by enti Sy you at margins and all disadvantages the great harm is if the most powerful in this in this picture is is called a racist I'm really interested in women who refuse to uh support women who are running for office and I know a lot of them I've known a lot of them I'm fascinated with what it is that makes it so difficult for them to see a woman in power and but I get you think that is it's it this is and you Rebecca your book your book talks all about it you know the history of where we come from we have such a tradition and such a history of women thinking a very specific way about themselves we are born into it we it has been ingrained in us for Generations for some women they hold very firmly and very deeply to the to what they know and to who they think they're supposed to be and how they think they're supposed to behave and how they think the world is supposed to work and if if those things get shaken it's terrifying terrifying to acknowledge is there a Common Thread though because often the women who I have known who have had a very hard time supporting any female candidates have been women who have been has somehow that woman that woman being able to achieve some level of power has somehow threatened and reflected in them their own feeling of powerlessness yeah I think that's part of it yeah that's what I've tended to notice yeah I also want to say that there's something to be said about the models for what we can imagine and I think about I write a lot about um women in politics and there are certain patterns that help us see this really clearly right we can we have ideas in a country that was built around um white patriarchal capitalism right like that's the that's the we yeah no softening the words there no it's it's true and in fact that's true just those are as dangerous those d words are as dangerous as saying racist frankly that's why I'm saying right no no no but I I mean I say them because it's they're descriptors right like there's not that's just reality like look at look at our constitution look at our economy look at our like this nation's economy was built on the slave trade and on and on slavery that did the work of building the literal buildings that our government has housed on that did the work of making the economy building the banks that still have power by doing the actual labor while enslaved right like this is and and that is that's what the country is built on before we even like that's it that's the groundwork okay so in that nation in which for hundreds of years only certain kinds of people were permitted to have all kinds of power right and that is political power it's holding office it's representing within the government it is it's having money it's having property it's right there and and for a very long time it was white men and so that becomes the vision of what it means to be um a leader a presidential um an executive somebody who has economic power and anybody who doesn't fit that model it it takes a long time to get over that but there is there's fascinating research that has been done I haven't written about this in a while and I don't know but but when I wrote about the 2008 election um I I dove into this a little bit if you look state by state the hardest part for electing women especially to executive power so governorships right there's a woman named Barbara Lee in Boston who has funded she's a philanthropist who's done who's funded all this research specifically into how women are elected Governors and and by the way it's still a very small list and so far all the women Governors have been white we have never had a black woman governor in this entire country even though Stacy Abrams in this year of our lord9 should be the governor of Georgia right by every rational measure I was about to say but um so if you look at the states where women were elected once a woman is elected governor once and in fact more broadly once woman is elected to high office I found that state then begins to elect a lot more women this is the classic way most when you look up who is the first woman senator who was the first woman it's very often women who are taking over their husband's seat because that's actually the very first step that you take so it's a male right it's a the man gave you permission because he died right right and you and then apparently there's a legal precedent for it so that makes it okay well which is one of the things that people I mean there was this and I understand it I'm I'm sympathetic to it this was one of the anxieties about Hillary Clinton as potentially the first woman president that because she was married to a former president that it was somehow less feminist and I get that and I am I am sympathetic to that and I understand but it's also the history of how women first in this country got into politics it completely matches the history of women who were the first Senator the first it's it was called the women's the The Widow's mandate The Widow's mandate that's the my gosh I had no idea and um so so you're teaching me so much today know see she's a scholar she's literally I'm not a scholar there are so there the thing is I'm so not an academic my entire job is taking stuff that that actual Scholars have done as historians dealing with you know writing about history doing the research in the archives and I read it and like I digest it you digest it and you put it back out in the world so that we can read it and understand it in a way that is digestible and comprehensible for us so from a fe from a feminist standpoint precisely I could just sit here and listen to you all day another thing that we talk about a lot is the challenges of raising kids today um and I have twins I have a boy and a girl who are 12 and I have a daughter who's 27 and you Rebecca have two daughters and you Connie have yobi your wonderful son who I love and adore um and no matter gender and all all the genders the of the rainbow it is every parent I know that is raising kids right now are having discussions about about the cultural um precedents that are being set with the people in leadership and the information that's being shared on the internet and how it's so hard for little Minds to to grasp what's going on and a discussion that I have with many of my women friends and dads as well actually which is how do you how do you help your kids navigate this current moment in time because they are so aware of what's going on the last election I don't think there has ever been younger viewers and younger participants I guess starting with the women's March right where families entire families multi-generation generational families went and participated all over the world and it was phenomenal and beautiful and Powerful to see um I've never seen so much integration in a March ever and not like I've been doing it forever but just in my limited experience and those are the conversations that people are really struggling um to have right now and so I wanted to just kind of open the discussion up for that um because you're both women who are raising kids today and I wanted to ask your opinion on how I mean Connie specifically because your son yobi is adopted you chose to have him as a single mother I met you just after you had adopted him and we spoke about this a lot on the conversation eight years ago yeah but how do you address having conversations with yobi about what he might be seeing or hearing well I'll tell you you know Y's just eight and I I'm not a big TV Watcher I I don't have I'm not a person who has the news going in my house all the time um and I'll be really honest and this might not be the most popular uh way of addressing this and people might be like you're a terrible parent but I I I have believed since before Trump was elected that I I I never wanted to give him air time and I was really angry that so many people allowed him this reality television star to have so much airtime and I really in my heart believe that that's how he created this whole movement behind him and got got himself somehow elected and to me I continue to feel that way about him I I almost never say his name um and I'll tell you really honestly I I'm I just feel protective of my son at this point he's young enough now where he doesn't have to be in meshed in all of the drama I find this to be a really despicable moment in our time I think that I worry very deeply about children who are growing up at in this moment and you know Yi got to meet Barack Obama you know that and he he'll remember that he will remember that that that was his president and that was our president and he knows that Trump is in office and he knows that Trump is our president but I honestly feel like at the moment until you know he's a little bit older and it really becomes much more of a conversation at school for right now there's nothing this President says that I want influencing my son there's nothing that I want him to hear this President is not a reflection of what I think this country is of what I think the presidency is so I'll be really honest I'm pretty damn protective of my kid right now well I guess he's eight and so so I can do that it's you know and I mean I'm I'm I'm entering into an I'm sure a time when it will be not as easy to do that I get a lot of conversation around this but one of the things that I try to keep in mind is that the notion that childhood should be a space that is protected from these issues is a notion that has been allowed to flourish really only within the past 50 years in a white middle class because if you think about it like in the allows for that a privilege but in the post civil rights post women's movement post gay rights movement where there was the fantasy that that that um that you could buy into especially if you I mean basically since the period of the middle 20th century when when the United States government actually invests in creating a stable white middle class and then the social movements come and do work to correct many of the legal and um and normative in in justices at the at the very basic level right and there's the sense that we've made tremendous progress and that we fix things right then there's this period in which and and the United States always likes to tell us tell itself the story that we fix things right we made a better we used to have this Injustice and this harm in our past but we fixed it we fixed it we fixed it um but even in that period it's not you know the the that there are kids involved in this right now um that there are kids at the marches right now feels new for those of us who grew up white in middle class in the 1970s and the 1980s but there was a Children's March and the Civil Rights Movement not only that the kids who were doing the work of Labor in factories there's a reason that a labor movement was formed around um you know making child labor illegal because it was kids who were losing fingers in factories and kids standing up for hours there kids still kids walking in factories exactly exactly and of course even during this period where a white middle class was permitted a sort of the invention of a period of childhood which is relatively modern the notion that right remember we're coming from periods where children were for Farm labor or for factory labor It's relatively modern that childhood is a protected space and but even in that period where a white middle- class childhood we could Envision it as something that was supposed to be separate from the politics and the inequity and the engagement with these kind of inequities that is true for certain populations certainly not true for those children who are born in poverty who are born likely to see their parents incarcerated likely to right that's those kids have never been at a place where they like where it was an option to have those discussions so so while I I have many of the same questions as a parent right but the fact that I even can have those questions about how much do I expose or what that is born it's not just a privilege like it is it is elective that we can decide how how how wide we want to open the door is a privilege when for children throughout history and around the world there's no not opening the door right there's no space that can be that where you can be where your life experience isn't in part determined by the very uh injustices and and instances of violence and abuse that we are debating whether or not we talk to our kids about I mean you look at it's it's it's all around us when you see things and then there as a child your mind interprets it in the way that it's able to with its age appropriate filter having someone communicate a situation that is coming from a thoughtful informed place makes all the difference when processing very hard experiences or information so I think what we're also talking about is yes the fact that we have a choice about how much you want to expose our children to but I think for me I also want to uh educate myself enough so that I can be prepared to have difficult discussions and that's part of the call of this time is to educate like that's part of engagement right I think it's really key to not make Trump some individual monster because that gets us away from in fact what we should be learning which is that this is an entire history these are structural in inequalities he's a particularly virulent symptom of what the Republican party has been building toward for many years and he did not he did not happen in a vacuum and the ideas that he expresses are ideas that have shaped this nation from its start and from you know so and that's a really important part of what we're communicating so that we're not just talking about this one guy who's a monster one of the biggest problems we have and this is goes for when we talk about me too too right or when we talk about police violence is that we behave as though it's individual behavior and if we can just get rid of these individual bad apples then we'll solve the problem when it's syic but I'm just I and and for sure I mean the thing that the thing that I have liked about how I've been dealing with Yi so far is that you know as I said we I I just don't expose him to Trump per se because I don't think it's necessary there's no value that he can gain from that but we have a lot of conversations about what's happening in the world and what you know when we go on marches what that's about and how did and he asked me how did Trump get elected and we've spent time with a lot of time with Kirsten gbrand you know so it's like he he is he's getting the education but you know it's funny I'm also you know I'm also a white single mother of a black child from Africa so there are a lot of different levels of of issues that we deal with and that we will continue to deal with how do you have that conversation with yobi how do you help uh educate and support him well how do I talk to yobi about it I mean I'm still figuring it out you know I'm I'm just I'm a mom like everybody else you know that's a mom is a mom in the sense that we don't there's no guide book there's no there's no answer and I'm figuring it out based on knowing him knowing what his background is knowing you know discovering who he is every day and what he needs and my goal with him is to always have honest open conversations and he can be honest and open with me in regards to everything and he will ask me questions in the most random moments and uh you know that are just really profound questions but they come they come out of the lightest little you know you know where it's during bath time or whatever and those moments are so precious to me because those are times when I can just share with him what my experience is and whatever I I know about the subject matter that we're talking about but I also am going to always be honest with him that you know there's a lot that I'm not going to know about his experience as he gets older as a black teenager a black teenage boy and but I'm always going to be there and to to give him guidance in whatever way I can and to give him protection in whatever way I can quite frankly and by the way that's 100% privilege but like I don't even think we need to talk about privilege in this conversation because we are all incredibly privileged here and I'm fully aware that I as a white woman um have brought a child who you know was not in the best circumstances uh into a world of privilege and so that is that is the given that is the foundation and then what I want to do is let him evolve into who he can be in the most honest way I can yeah you're doing a beautiful job I have to say your son is is a really um heart centered boy okay one other thing that I did want to talk about is obviously your book I mean all of your books are amazing and I love every single thing that you write and sometimes something will happen in the news and then the next day you've got this amazing article out about it and I think wow how does this woman do this so fast but but I don't do it all the time sometimes I have it in me to like you know get a piece out and very often I'm like no oh but I'm always so grateful when I'm like yes she's written about this it just it just pours out of her oh my gosh okay so um I want to talk about um good and mad and the Revolutionary par women's anger um that was such a needed book I want to thank you for writing it um can you accept that compliment I can thank you so much okay just checking just checking um and I wanted to talk a little bit about how I think seeing giving people women permission to voice uh rage anger Fury anything in that realm um is is really important and it goes back to actually we're talking about with callout culture and I do think that um oppressing emotion like anger and rage when people have a very have very valid just reasons for their feelings is ultimately detrimental to their health and their mental health their physical health to to all of it so I'm a big proponent for processing anger and for releasing it I've done intensive uh trauma and therapy work that involved releasing a lot of rage through physical sematic experiences so I have my own history with rage um but I also want to talk to you about do you think that female rage is still uh allocated to only being acceptable in certain Outlets oh totally I don't in fact in lots of ways my book isn't so much prescriptive it's actually not telling it it I had a couple of goals with the book one was to recognize the power of women's anger as it has reshaped the country and has been at the root of so many of the um transformative social and political movements that um have done work to make the country better it also to describe though it spends less time on this the way that women's rage The Rage of white women has often worked to suppress those very movements um you know rage doesn't just work in a progressive Direction the The Rage of uh white women was certainly used to oppose the integration of schools um I don't mean just used those white women who were angry about integration were the people who in their Fury um did some of the most violent and harmful work to stop integration um the angry white women sto the passage of the erra right anger works the women's anger Works in a lot of different directions both on behalf of and against the system the bulk of this book is examining um The Rage of the at the margins um but it's also an examination of how that that rage is uh is vilified is the how if how it's discouraged so that that the expression of anger um at Injustice or inequality is so discouraged by those in power that women who are angry are made to feel infantile or crazy women of color who are angry are portrayed as crazy or comical or if they're in any way threatening to to take power as militant or violent or monstrous right there are all these things that have we've just been marinated in about what Anger from marginalized populations how all the reasons why we shouldn't express it because it's going to undermine us if we if we speak in a if we speak too loudly too aggressively we're going to sound unhinged nobody's going to take us seriously they won't listen to what we're saying but guess what that is largely true yes it's true no this is this is this is mine is mine is my book is not saying like so go ra it's like appreciating people who have in moments and in and at Great risk to themselves but it's also trying to identify the patterns and how that rage is still discouraged not taking taken seriously written off how it's still vilified you know I talk about how when you look at photographs of powerful women in the in the papers and in magazines and online very often they're shown looking furious with their mouths open making aggressive gestures and that's a way of undermining them right because women whether or not they're angry at the moment that they're photographed with a Furrow in their brow and you know you see it with Alexandria Casio Cortez you see it Maxine Waters um it's like everybody you know all of them Elizabeth Warren kamla Harris um they're always photographed that way and it's a way of underscoring for those who are looking because we know women who are angry are supposed to we're told that they're unattractive they're not appealing they're not feminine so it's identifying those patterns which I think in itself I think besides being besides encouraging the expression of anger it's also often helpful for a lot of women who've been made to feel crazy because they feel this anger and yet every message around them tells them that it's inappropriate or that they shouldn't express it or if they do they're unpleasant nobody's going to want to be around them I think part which they often don't part of the book is to say look this is all part of a system but it's also to identify the strategy why do you suppress the the expression of Fury at the margins because when the messages have been so clearly received that your anger at inequality at Injustice um is not going to be warmly received that you're going to sound crazy that nobody's going to like you if you express it you keep it inside and that isolates you right also no one knows they're angry if you don't talk about it then no one knows but when you yell when you let it out I don't mean just yelling when you express it when you talk about it I'm furious I think this is UN you become Audible and visible to others who might be right next to you who share the anger but who are also like persuaded to be quiet about it and then that's the building block of organizing because then when you realize that you're both angry at this power abuse you can start to work together and that's the building block of Coalition and so there's a reason it's not just coincidence that this anger is discouraged it's because there's a communicative and Coalition building power in shared anger that's what when workers the beginning of the labor movement the 1830s girls young girls um in the L textile mills angry about working conditions in low pay and also by the way you know angry about other forms of inequality they start talking to each other and then they form they go they do some of the first walkouts some of the first labor actions um in the country's history right it's organizing the power of conversation I mean look this is why I bother to do this communicating shared experiences gives us backp that may have been taken from us it goes back to the point that you say Toronto Burke has made to you and and so often that the power is in the Stelling the power is in raising your voice we told that our stories don't matter we're reminded that that stories don't matter um if they're not the stories of the most powerful and we're reminded that in a million little ways a million little ways from you know and so the power of raising your voice and telling a truthful story about your life and the way it has been shaped or altered or built around a power structure that wasn't to include you um is itself I mean it's a powerful communicative tool and it's so powerful that people will immediately call you uh part of a mob yeah I quite like being part of a mob we we have a mob right here we do I want to thank you both so much for coming and having this conversation with me um Rebecca I already said this I have just been such a long time fan of yours um really I have so much admiration and respect for the work you do so thank you so much thank you so much for having me and it's truly it really is I was so excited to meet you I sort of was fangirling out and Connie you know you're just phenomenal in every stretch of the imagination and I love you and you're my friend and thank you for being a woman who I get to walk this path with thank you too the conversation with Amanda decad is a Spotify original podcast executive produced by me Amanda decad from Spotify our executive producers are Natalie Tuller and Erica Clark our production partner is neon hum which includes the team of Jonathan hirs Catherine St Louis Courtney kosac and Marissa Schneiderman and while I've got your attention please listen to all episodes of the conversation with Amanda acad on Spotify for free [Music]