In episode 64 of the Pause on the Play podcast, Erica and India answer the question they’ve been hearing recently: “Can I support Black Lives Matter AND Pride month during the same month?”

Their response? YES! Please! Do both! Equity is not a pie!

More often than not, causes and movements intersect. For example, BLM intersects with Black Trans lives. But Erica and India’s reasoning doesn’t stop there – whether causes that interest you intersect or not, you do not have to choose one over the other! You’re a whole human being. You get to care about as many things as you want.

The hosts also emphasize that money isn’t the only way to support positive changes in the world.

And, like most things in life, having a supportive community like Pause on the Play: The Community makes allyship a little easier. Go check it out.

Are you ready to listen in? Here’s what’s happening in this episode:

[00:40] Erica and India have noticed that people are struggling to give themselves permission to care about more than one cause or marginalized group at a time.

[02:01] The hosts note that holding space for more than one thing at a time is like starting a new diet and exercise routine when you haven’t been doing either.

[04:00] Erica explains the ways in which allyship is all-encompassing.

[05:19] Erica discusses how the May 2020 murder of Nina Pop, a Black trans woman, is as important as the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and how all their names should be said out loud.

{06:24] It shouldn’t be only Black people saying the names of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. Just like it shouldn’t only be the LGBTQIA community saying the name of Nina Pop.

[07:35] If you aren’t familiar with Nina Pop, or the trans community, do your homework and ask Google.

[11:50] Saying their names creates awareness, so fewer people can look the other way when Black people are murdered.

[12:37] The system is set up to pit us against one another, making us believe we can’t care about one thing if we care about another.

[17:02] It’s time for groups that have been fractioned by the divide-and-conquer strategies for centuries to find ways to come together and be the change we want to see.

[19:10] Equity is not pie! There’s enough for everyone! And money is not the only way to help. Saying you can’t help because you don’t have enough money is your way of making excuses.

[23:00] Beautiful things happen when people say, "Okay, so this is what I do. And this is who I am. And I need these things to intersect in a meaningful and ethical way for me because I need to be a whole human to do this." And it helps to have a community there to support you.

WHAT’S ONE ACTION YOU CAN TAKE AWAY FROM THE DISCUSSION?

“You have to say these people's names. You have to make them people. Not hashtags, not causes, not movements. These are people. This is somebody's child, somebody's mother, somebody's love, somebody's daughter, somebody's son, somebody's something. So you have to name them. And very often, trans names are erased. So the fact that you are hearing Nina Pop mentioned alongside George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor is an important step.”

QUOTES

“One of the biggest things I see is this desire to try to do all the things. I think that it's better to take baby steps, just in my experience of being a bodybuilder and understanding what that looked like. It didn't happen overnight. “ – India

“Can't we be all-encompassing? Because you can't say "Black Lives Matter" and then allow the erasure of Black trans lives. To me, you can't. There is no separation..” – Erica

“And so my hope is that, the more times we hear the names of people like Nina Pop – I hope that that continues and I hope that continues for Black Trans Lives Matters. Because that means that if we can at least say it, maybe now we can acknowledge that it's a fucking problem .” – Erica

“This is not either/or. This is AND. AnND, people. This is AND. It is both. Because when you decide that you have to choose a cause, that's just not good for your whole spirit. Let's just start with that. That feels fucking awful. But to say that you are so unilateral that you can only give a shit about one thing at a time? No. We're better than that. As human beings, we are better than that. ” – Erica

“When you pit the people who are trying to rise against YOU against each other or feel like they have to fight for their little section when at the end of the day, when the lynching happens, they all get lynched. You know, it stops them from taking action together, it stops them from unifying each other. And a lot of what I hear you saying is really making me think that maybe the system was built this way. So that people feel like they have to pick and choose what they support, who they support. But also the people in those marginalized groups – how can they start to break that system and come together and support each other and each other's causes and begin to view each other as equal? Because the reality is that the equity problems, and the systemic racist problems, come across multiple kinds of groups.” – India

“It's important to have support with that along the way, and also identify, where's your path of least resistance? Because there will be days where this stuff gets hard, probably more than less. And when you have clearly identified that and you have the support system that you need to keep going, you can pick that path of least resistance and know that you're still doing something. ” – India

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Transcript

Erica Courdae  (00:11): Hello, hello and welcome back to Pause on the Play. As always, it is amazing to see you here where you are challenged to examine your beliefs, question your predisposed notions and consider realities you may be unfamiliar with in order to understand that they, too, are real. I am your host and conversation emcee for the day, Erica Courdae, here along with my co-host India Jackson to get the dialogue going. Good morning, Miss India. How are you?

India Jackson  (00:36): I'm doing well. How are you?

Erica Courdae  (00:39): I am good. So I'm a little bit confused about something because I'm, first of all, the overwhelming thing that I find is is a big concern or challenge right now, is permission. Permission of what to do, how to do something, "what if I fuck it up?" All of the above. But the interesting thing though, for me, is being that this is Pride Month, I think that we had a very interesting intersection come up of seeing how the Black Lives Matter movement really needed the support.

But then also this is during Pride Month, and the LGBTQIA community absolutely needs that. And so it's an interesting thing to me to see what this permission looks like when I'm having people saying things like, "well, if I care about this, can I care about this?" And that's what I'm hearing, but what they're saying is, "well, can I support this cause AND this cause?" I'm kind of curious if you're seeing this, and the things that you're talking about with your clients when it comes to their marketing and the messages they're putting out?

India Jackson  (02:01): Absolutely, I think that many people struggle to hold space for two things at the same time, period. Especially if one of those things is something that is either a new thing for them or they're doing it in a new way or they've amped it up to a new level. A little bit off subject, but people can probably relate – I'm sure you can relate to this – when it comes to when we decide we want to get healthy. And we know okay, we need to work out AND we need to eat healthy. Trying to do both at the same time when you haven't been doing either is a little bit challenging.

Erica Courdae  (02:46): It is and it's funny because it draws that correlation of, "can I be healthy and still be able to enjoy it," if that makes sense. Being healthy is like, "I have to hate life and eat cardboard." And that's not what it has to be...

India Jackson  (03:09): Yeah. I think that one of the biggest things I see that stands out with that is this desire to try to do all the things, right. I think that it's better to take baby steps for most people, just in my experience of being a bodybuilder and understanding what that looked like. It didn't happen overnight.

But I think it relates back to Pride Month, it relates back to being an ally for Black Lives Matter, too. If you're taking small little baby steps, then you can hold space for these two things a little bit easier at the same time, versus trying to go full-blown, ham deep into all the things, all at the same time, from the beginning. That's not gonna be sustainable.

Erica Courdae  (03:59): No, it's not. And this is where I prefer that you are able to identify your values and then you figure out how – you want to figure out how to make it sustainable, but that does not mean, like you said, "I'm just gonna go ham and I'm gonna do all the things for all the things!" And it's like, wait, no. And this month for me – it was really tough to be in this place of, the rights for people that look like me was on the forefront, and it needed to be. And at the same exact time, the community that I self-identify as an ally for, the LGBTQ community as a whole.

In some ways, you weren't seeing that focused on as much because it was Trans Month, but at the same time, there was so much more talk around Black trans lives being discussed, that wasn't being discussed as much, like the fact that when you were hearing the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery, to also hear Nina Pop – that needed to happen. Because can't we be all-encompassing? Because you can't say "Black Lives Matter" and then allow the erasure of black trans lives. To me, you can't. There is no separation.

India Jackson  (05:27): Pause! So I'm going to ask you what many people are probably thinking and are too afraid to ask: who is Nina Pop?

Erica Courdae  (05:19): Alright. So I'm sitting in front of my computer. So I'm going to literally read you what comes up. When I pull this up. The minute you put it in Google, because this is what I'm gonna ask you to do, those of you listening, for your own piece.

“Trans woman Nina Pop stabbed to death in Missouri. This was dated May 6th. On May 3rd 2020, a 28-year-old Black transgender woman named Nina Pop was found dead with multiple stab wounds after being stabbed with a knife inside of her apartment in Sikeston, Missouri.” And so there were a lot of people that were saying her name.

And I say, "say their names," because it's important. You have to say these people's names. You have to make them people. Not hashtags, not causes, not movements. These are people. This is somebody's child, somebody's mother, somebody's love, somebody's daughter, somebody's son, somebody's something. So you have to name them. And very often, trans names are erased.

And so the fact that right now you are hearing Nina Pop mentioned alongside again, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, to me is an important step because too often, you only hear people that identify as a part of this community saying it, and that's not okay. No different than, it should not only be black people saying George Floyd's name. Which, we saw that shift, and now as an ally, okay, can we now talk about trans lives outside of the fact that Pose is the best fucking show ever? Like, can we make them real life and talk about how that happens?

India Jackson  (07:24): Can I interject for a second? So I know that naturally, we all have – when it's our industry, we're more aware of certain things than people who are not in our industry. I share this space with you. I also share Flaunt Your Fire with you and Pause on the Play: The Community. This is my first time ever hearing about Nina Pop and I am directly in business with a DEI coach and consultant.

So I think that if somebody is listening to this, I'm gonna ask you, have you heard of this person prior to now, and if not go do your research and learn about them. That is going to be my homework assignment for myself, because I have not heard this name mentioned as much as I am deep into the work that you do right now, just as the nature of us having a business together. So I don't know, say their name. Has Nina's name really been said as much as we like to think it has been? I'm going to say maybe not.

Erica Courdae  (08:25): Well, and it hasn't been said as much as I would want it to. Now I'm gonna say, for example, the episode that I think we did when everything was really like, "Oh, hell." I've mentioned her before, but here's the problem that can come with the trauma of what we're dealing with right now. So many things blur together.

So, unfortunately, the names – there are just so many names. And we almost don't even notice anymore because it's another name. It's another Black body. It's another person that was just treated horrifically and whose life was ended early, and by the hands of someone that just didn't give a fuck, and it shouldn't be a thing. So the problem, I don't think is that her name isn't being said. I think the problem is that there are too many names that have to be said.

India Jackson  (09:21): So why do you think that hers is the one that's being forgotten?

Erica Courdae  (09:24): I don't think it's that it's forgotten. I think what's happening though, is that if we think about Ahmaud Arbery, if we think about Breonna Taylor, and if we think about George Floyd, you see it on the news. You're hearing it repeatedly. And it's something to where there's national media and headlines on investigations going into it.

And to the best of my knowledge – and this is where I'm going to say I could be wrong. And so anyone that knows differently, by all means I'm open to being corrected here. Nina Pop is not being treated in the same manner. Now, I don't know the specifics of her murder, but I know the fact is she was murdered. And she is not an isolated incident. And the fact of being a trans woman that was murdered... the list of trans people that are murdered simply because they're trans, it's too long, but it doesn't get the same type of press.

Then, unfortunately, how many Trayvon Martins and Sandra Blands, and Eric Garners and Freddie Grays that we have to have before we even hit this point? And Freddie Gray. I mean, that was the entire basis of the riots in Baltimore. I think that was 2016 if I remember correctly, 2015 or 2016. And it wasn't a small thing, and yet at the same time, how many times did it happen again? And so now unfortunately, we had George Floyd and then we have Rayshard Brooks. And so it still happened again.

And I think what's happening is that it's happened to the point to where there's still people that will say, "Oh, it's not race-related," but then there's more people than what there were previously that are like, "Wait. I can't even act like I don't understand this anymore. There is no amount of 'yeah, maybe not' that I can do anymore."

And so my hope is that, the more times that we hear the names of people like Nina Pop, and like this year is 51 years since Stonewall happened. And I think that again, it's like okay, can we – I don't say normalize it because I want the fuckery with it to be normalized – but the same way that we shouldn't have to say Black Lives Matters, but now it's more stigma to NOT it. I hope that that continues and I hope that that continues for Black Trans Lives Matters. Because then that means that okay, now if we can at least say it, maybe now we can acknowledge that it's a fucking problem going on around it.

India Jackson  (12:11): Yeah. Interesting, interesting. I don't know as much about... as you say this I'm having to recognize, I have ignorance and work to do because I don't know much about trans stuff period, or trans hate crimes period, let alone Black trans.

Erica Courdae  (12:37): Well, and unfortunately, I think that the system is built this way. I think the divide-and-conquer piece is helpful because as much as you can kind of put people in a place to where, you know, oh, it's Black lives. Oh, it's trans lives. Oh, it's LGBTQIA Oh, it's Native Americans. Indigenous people. Women. Insert marginalized group here. You minimize the impact because you're forcing people to ante up into certain groups. And to not be able to say, can equity just not be something that we're doling out like fucking pie and all of a sudden, we don't have enough?

That is where I think I'm struggling with it, because when you see it – so for example, I've had conversations with clients around what does it look like to be able to have the duality of supporting one thing and another? And I think that a very tangible example is someone saying to me, "How can I support Black Lives Matters causes and charities and still donate to environmental protection causes and charities?" And it's like... so we don't have to choose Black bodies OR the planet. Black bodies need the planet, too. We all need the goddamn planet. This is not like – I mean shit, I drive an electric car and I drink out of reusable straws. I give a fuck, too. Please don't think that just because I'm a Black woman that I don't give a shit about the other things. I do.

This is not either/or. This is and. And people. This is AND. Yes, I had to clap that out. AND. It is both. Because when you decide that you have to choose a cause, first of all, that's just not good for your whole spirit. Let's just start with that. That feels fucking awful. But to say that you are so unilateral that you can only give a shit about one thing at a time. No. We're better than that. As human beings, we are better than that. Like we can say that, like for me, as a cis-gendered Black woman married to a white man, I can and still do advocate for same-sex marriage. I can do both. Newsflash! I can do both.

India Jackson  (15:17): It makes me really question, was the system built this way? And I think that that question arises because when I think back about slavery days – which, thank God we didn't have to experience... but our ancestors did – there were so many layers to that. And when we really look at the unique nature of people not being able to get out of the system.

I feel like a large part of that was changing their last name so you don't know who your family is anymore. That's one way of divide-and-conquer. Putting the people who worked in the fields and did manual labor in one category. And then the people who had fairer skin – which, if we're going to be real, was due to raping slaves most times, and then having children from their slave master – putting them in the house and having the front-facing jobs.

And then part of that programming became lighter-skinned people or fair-skinned or mixed people versus darker-skinned people. And when you pit the people who are trying to rise against YOU against each other, you know, or feel like they have to fight for their little section, when at the end of the day, when the lynching happens, they're all get lynched. You know, it stops them from taking action together, it stops them from unifying each other.

And a lot of what I hear you saying is really making me think that maybe the system was built this way. So that people feel like they have to pick and choose what they support, who they support. But also the people in those marginalized groups – how can they start to break that system and come together and support each other and each other's causes and begin to view each other as equal? Because the reality is that the equity problems, and the systemic racist problems, come across multiple kinds of groups.

Erica Courdae  (17:28): It absolutely was designed that way, because that is doing the work for them. Because, you know, it applies to both of us growing up, even though I'm a little bit older than you – the whole light-skinned versus dark skin. Light skin was somehow heralded as better. Or you got "good hair" because it's straighter and longer. Or, you got Indian in your family.

I can go through I don't know how many of these stupid ass colloquialisms built to separate Black people that were ingrained as I was growing up, and that were ingrained in my parents and grandparents going back. Because that is our part of the– this is us, now seeing it and figuring out how to deprogram ourselves of the programming that we were given to play our part in the system.

This is what was given in order to say, "Oh, you can help me do this job of dismantling Black people as a whole in the culture and keeping y'all all down by me making you feel like you are better or worse if you don't pass the brown paper bag test. Let me give you a false hierarchy, and the end of the day none of y'all are gonna actually make it, but I'm gonna give you some false hope." That's bullshit.

India Jackson  (18:49): Yeah, there's there's a lot of layers to that. I don't know. It just makes me say like, what can people do to hold this space to unify? And to not feel like they have to pick and choose what they're supporting? Where can they find that "and?"

Erica Courdae  (19:08): First of all, I think part of it is understanding that again, it's not pie. Equity is not pie. There's enough for everyone. And so when you see anyone that does not have it, supporting them, and shifting that power dynamic, there's enough to do that. And so I think for some people, they'll look at it from a point of view of – I've had clients that are like, "Oh, well, I only have XYZ amount of money." Okay, well, there's more ways to foster equity than just money. And so, I always go back to the examples of Silver Immersion with me having to support same-sex marriage because for me, that was something that I'm like, "why the fuck is this not okay? This is this is dumb."

Yeah, so that didn't that didn't take me money to be able to draw a fucking line in the sand and say ,"Nah, son, I'm not doing this." It was really just kind of that simple for me. I'm not anyone else. And so therefore I can't decide what your journey looks like. But if you look at it as money? First of all, if you're looking at money as a limited resource in the sense that you don't have enough, that's a limiting belief. That's a whole nother piece. But I'm not gonna go into that.

I'm looking at it from the point of view of if you say that, "This is what I have. And this is all I can do with it." If you say okay, this is the amount of money that I have to utilize as one of my resources. And I will allocate this and now I can begin to see what other resources I have. Is it my time? Is it my influence? Is it my network? What else can I utilize in order to work on equity? But it's not about "I don't have enough." It's, how can I best use what I do have access to?

Don't look at it from the place of what I can't do look at it from the point of what you can do and finding ways in order to say, "I can support multiple causes, particularly the intersection." And so this goes back to the environmental piece. Saving the whales ain't no good if people's all gone. What are we gonna do? That's not really how it works. And so it's not about like, I can only do this, or this. You know what I mean? You know I have to do sustainable clothes, but I can't support a living wage. This is AND. And, and, and.

Stop looking for the either/or. Because what you're doing at that point is you're looking for a "no." You're looking for a reason to say, "See, I can't do that. I tried I couldn't make it happen." Mm hmm. Because you're looking for excuses. You looking for reasons to say this couldn't be done. Because womp, womp, "Mama was out of money. I couldn't do nothing." Bullshit. You feed into the system with that. You're feeding into the division of trying to create what equity really is about, which is, can we all have access to the same things? Can we not constantly be put into these goddamn factions? No. No.

India Jackson  (22:13): You don't have to have money to use your voice. I just want to remind people of that.

Erica Courdae  (22:19): No. And we talked about that in the community. Like, we're like, you know, there's more than one way to do this. And we've seen people in the community – this is Pause on the Play: The Community for those that might not know. We talk about the different ways that different industries can make an impact. And honestly, the first ones that come to my mind have absolutely nothing to do with donating to a cause with money.

India Jackson  (22:44): No, I've definitely been really proud to see people in our community amplifying voices and bringing attention to causes and really standing up for what they believe in.

Erica Courdae  (22:57): Yes, the way that people are like "Okay, so this is what I do. And this is who I am. And I need these things to intersect in a meaningful and ethical way for me because I need to be a whole human to do this." Like, that's, that's such an important piece of it. And so knowing those values, and how that intersects with what you do, and the impact that you can make with that, that's a huge piece of it.

India Jackson  (23:26): Absolutely. And I think that it's important to have support with that along the way, and also identify, where's your path of least resistance with it as you're stepping into leading with your values and creating change, because there will be days where this stuff gets hard, probably more than less. And when you have clearly identified that and you have the support system that you need to keep going, you can pick that path of least resistance and know that you're still doing something.

And maybe that path of least resistance is sharing somebody else's podcast or introducing a friend to a black owned business, whatever that might be. But I really have enjoyed the fact that we're diving deeper into what this looks like with the people in our community, Pause on the Play: The Community. And if that's something that has been on your radar, to get that support and get that clarity, you can learn more about it at www.pauseontheplay.com/community. You can also apply there. We would love to see you in the room.

Erica Courdae  (24:33): And I agree 150% I don't want you to feel like you have to do this on your own. This is something that can be done in a community environment and you can get support with it. There's a few days left in Pride Month and so I would really love to see people digging in and learning more and finding out how they can better support Black Lives mattering and Trans Lives mattering and LGBTQIA rights mattering. There's an intersection.

And so I would love to see you digging into what these intersections look like and how you can best highlight and support them, and not as singular causes. And so with that, we love being here. We love having these conversations, and we love allowing you to be a fly on the wall to hear them. So thank you, India for being here with me.

 India Jackson  (25:29): Thanks for having me.

Erica Courdae  (25:31): And we love you being here and allowing some space for you to consider how you can be the change that you want to see. So join us next time and until then, keep the dialogue going.