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Join feminist coaches Taina Brown and Becky Mollenkamp for casual (and often deep) conversations about business, current events, politics, pop culture, and more. We’re not perfect activists or allies! These are our real-time, messy feminist perspectives on the world around us.
This podcast is for you if you find yourself asking questions like:
• Why is feminism important today?
• What is intersectional feminism?
• Can capitalism be ethical?
• What does liberation mean?
• Equity vs. equality — what's the difference and why does it matter?
• What does a Trump victory mean for my life?
• What is mutual aid?
• How do we engage in collective action?
• Can I find safety in community?
• What's a feminist approach to ... ?
• What's the feminist perspective on ...?
Becky Mollenkamp: Hi.
Taina Brown: Hi, how are you?
Becky Mollenkamp: That's the question that we always ask. and lately it feels like I don't know if I have the capacity to even do the cordial, ‘I'm good.’ How are you? I'm shitty. How are you?
Taina Brown: I'm pretty shitty too, but I do have some good news for you today. So you know how you've lovingly picked on me for not having finished this background, this wallpaper, and I told you I had to order the rest of the rolls. They finally came in.
Becky Mollenkamp: So soon viewers shall see an entirely wallpapered wall behind you. Fantastic. It's wonderful as a single or two strips. I thought it was one, but two strips, but it'll be nice to see it finished. Yeah, I gotta give props to self-adhesive wallpaper because I have a little nook in my office that has it as well. And it's so wonderful because you know, you can take it down if you get sick of it and it won't be so horrible.
Taina Brown: Yes, so soon it'll be finished.
Becky Mollenkamp: Okay, see, we have to find those little glimmers of something, of sunshine in the storm. It kind of reminds me the other day that it was really just gray and had been raining for 24 hours. And I looked up as we went to pick up my son from school and I noticed a tiny little hole in the clouds in the sky, like one out of everywhere, where I could see the blue, the bright blue, and the sun was back there. And it was just that reminder that like, it's there, it's always there. Sometimes it's hidden. Sometimes it feels like you'll never find it again, but it is there not to be too like self-helpy and like rah rah roo. But I do think that's sort of what we decided we might talk about today because by the time this comes out, we'll be two weeks out from the election. We've both been in kind of, I think the mode of like just sitting with the grief and the feelings and all of that and slowly starting to find that little hole in the sky where we say, okay, what is the sun? I don't know if I would call it the sun. Well, yeah, because it's the thing that's going to give us life in this, which is like the OK. And what are the things that we're doing or at least beginning to think about as we move forward in the last like 60 days of America as we know her and into this new and and I want to also just quickly, if it's OK, sorry to ramble, but on that idea of like 60 days of democracy left or of America as we know her or like freedom or whatever that I see people sharing. I just feel like it's also important that we acknowledge that for a lot of people with a lot of privilege, this does feel like a completely new, like a demarcation of a major change. But I think it's really important, especially as the white person in the room to remind white people and, you know, other folks who have other privileges. Like for many people, this is not the demarcation that we are experiencing. And so I think it's important for us to remember that.
Taina Brown: I was thinking about that this morning because I think a lot of white people, what they're experiencing right now is I would wager a lot of the hopelessness that white people are experiencing is because they've never had to imagine, they've never had to tap into imagination this deep. They've never had to actively figure out how to be resilient in this way. I say that not as a moral judgment. I want to be clear. I'm not saying that as you're bad because you've never had to imagine anything different. That is just a fact. And so now it's like, OK, what do we do from here? Let's acknowledge that fact, and then let's figure out how to tap into that imagination, how to tap into hope and pleasure and joy. And people from marginalized communities, from the global majority, Black people, Indigenous people, queer people have had to do this kind of imagining their entire lives. I remember there's a queer person, I forgot their name, but there's a queer person that years ago came out and said something along the lines of like, my queerness saved me because I had to create this life. I had to imagine what life could be like for me as opposed to settling into the status quo. So on that note, I think there's a lot of opportunity here for creativity, for imagination. And it's OK to feel despair and grief and hopelessness. But let's also figure out how to feel excited about the ways that this could potentially build momentum in our communities. And I know that sounds weird to say, and it sound weird to hear. You might be like, what the hell is there to be excited about? But I think those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive to each other.
Becky Mollenkamp: It reminds me of Parable of the Sower, which I read early, early, early in the year. It was set in 2024. It started in 2024. And, well, if you haven't read it, read it or don't because it's also very depressing and realizing where we are in that story, in that universe, that timeline. But it makes me think of the lead character, Olamina, Lauren Olamina, who is with her family in this protected sort of bubble. And it reaches the sort of boiling point of the us versus them kind of thing that we're, you many of us are sensing and feeling. many of the people in her community want to just stay as is, right? And stay in this like reactive state of I'll just react to what's coming at me and hope that that's enough for me to survive. And Lauren Alamina has like a bigger vision. She's more creative than that. She sees beyond that and says, what else is out there? What else can I create for myself? Is it enough for me to just stay in this reactive state? What if I begin to be proactive and look for the light? What could that be? And it will be hard, and it will be scary, and it'll be dangerous. And I have the faith and belief that there is more than this. And what you're talking about makes me feel like that creativity of saying, I can just sit here now. And this is where I've been for two weeks. So I'm fully honoring, but there's, right, right. There's a space for that. Right. And they were two, she was two in the beginning of like just reacting. I'm just in reactive mode. It's just, it feels like the world is happening to me right now. And I also know that I can't stay in that space because that space doesn't feel good and it isn't great because I have fight in me, I have power in me, I also have privilege, and there are a lot of ways that I can use all of those things to imagine and create something else, even when it feels like I can't. So I just, makes me think of that character and that book, feels very prescient.
Taina Brown: And I think one thing you said that I think I really want people to walk away from is like, this is how we take our power back, by creating systems, by choosing how to respond to this thing, and not just being a passive recipient of what the world is throwing at us. And so a lot of us feel really powerless right now. Like we feel like there's nothing we can do. And on a very big scale, that might be the case. But what I often have to remind myself of and what I remind my clients of is like when things feel overwhelming, don't try to tackle the overwhelming thing, scale down. What are the little things that I can do to tap back into my power right now to help me feel better about what is happening and also to shape change in my world?
Becky Mollenkamp: I love that as maybe our starting point of how about we start at the smallest and then maybe try to move out if that's okay with you. So like, cause I would love to hear the tiniest things that have started to help you move towards that feeling of being more proactive. And I'll share one for me, which is just getting my house in order, meaning like doing some cleaning, some organizing, getting rid of some things I don't need. I have found myself in that and I don't know if you feel this, but it feels so much like those earliest days of March 2020 of this pandemic and of this feeling of again, very different, but like this thing that I can't control that feels huge, feels really scary. And I remember then too, the first sort of thing I did was like I was cleaning my house. I was getting rid of junk. I was trying to make this space where I knew I was going to be spending more time in. I sort of that feeling again, making it feel as good as I can for myself to feel more alive and energized. So for me, that is sort of my starting point, I think I'm starting to discover in crises. It's like, okay, can I at least control what I can within my own environment?
Taina Brown: I am actually in that same place. There are a few house projects that I've just kind of been like, I need to do that. And I keep telling, I have kept telling myself, I'm going to get to it. I'm going to get to it. I'm going to get to it. Like the wallpaper, I have been meaning to, like I bought the switch plates for like the outlets and the light switch here in the office and just hadn't installed them. So just these little projects that have been on my to-do list and in my periphery that I've just been like, I'll get to it one day. And it's like, OK, today's the day. Let's tackle some of this stuff so my space feels good, so I feel a little bit more in control of my immediate environment. So I'm definitely there. Another thing that, and this is something me and my wife talked about over the weekend, is starting a community pantry for our small circle of community here. So we don't know. I mean, we've been here in Baltimore about a year and a half now. And we haven't had a whole lot of luck really getting plugged in and meeting people and actually making legit friends and not just knowing people. But we do have a very, very count on one hand group of people that we feel like we're in good relationship with that we can trust and who were there for us also when I was hospitalized earlier this year and kind of helped out a little bit. And so we have, we're gonna start just like a community pantry among, you know, the small like five or six of us. And so basically what that will look like is whenever we do go to the store, dedicate an extra amount of money towards buying a surplus of essentials. So maybe it's $20 every time you go to the grocery store. Maybe it's $30. And then that surplus of just essential things like toilet paper, toothpaste, Tylenol, things like that will go into the pantry. And we'll keep just a tab of that, a log of it on a shared spreadsheet or something. And then as people have needs, they can just check that stuff out and get what they need. And we feel really good about doing that, just because, one, we know what it's like to have to decide, OK, we really need toilet paper this month, but we also need groceries. We need eggs, or we need meat. What is it going to be like? We've been there before. And so I think if we can pool some of our collective resources, that in the spirit of reciprocity, then that will kind of make a small impact and just like a very small circle of friends here.
Becky Mollenkamp: I love that I've been really exploring more around mutual aid and trying to learn more about that and how that might operate. We can talk that even more as we get into some of the bigger things. But so I'll share another thing that I think you may be doing as well or maybe have been anyway. But for me, I'm quieting a lot of the noise. So I am not listening to most. I'm not. I haven't watched the daily news like I was a big Lester Holt person. I know you're a CBS person, but I haven't seen his face since before the election. And even better, I haven't heard, I will not use his name, but Voldemort's voice since before the election. And my goal is to see how long I can go without having to hear that man's voice. I know eventually it will happen even without me taking news then, but I'm trying to protect some of my peace by just not listening to, because guess what? I have still been hearing about all of the appointees and all of the horrible shit that's going on without having tuned into any news. I tried listening yesterday, I watched or listened to maybe the first half of the Rachel Maddow show from Monday night on the podcast and had to turn it off because I was like, I'm not ready. I can't, I can't take this stuff in right now. And so that's helping me protect my peace and helping me remember too. Like I said, I had kind of bought into this idea that like, I don't know, I guess it felt like somehow control of like, if I know all the news when it first happens, somehow I'm like, feeling more informed and that gives me some sense of control or something. And I've realized like, I don't need to find out first. I don't even really need to find out because I'm still, even when I try not to be, you could actively be trying not to find out and you're gonna find out. And so that's been helpful. Like I have been on a media, a news diet and it has felt really good. And is making me feel like that's something I want to really be more conscious about moving forward because the news is not gonna get better, cheerier, and it does not help my mental state to be taking that in.
Taina Brown: Same. We're on a news diet. We used to or normally would watch CBS mornings with Gayle and outside of just like some local news. My wife is she just I swear she's like 70 years old inside sometimes, but she she she likes the morning news. so like she that's the first thing.
Becky Mollenkamp: I'm the same way. I like to watch my evening news. then I'm older because I watched the evening news and eat my dinner at that time. So that's how early it is.
Taina Brown: I watched Jeopardy and eat my dinner at that time. But yeah, so we are on a news diet. I have also decided that I will not be calling him by his last name. I'm making the choice to call him by his first name. And so I know that sounds really silly.
Becky Mollenkamp: It sounds petty and I love it.
Taina Brown: It's petty and it's also like I will not be dictated to in terms of how I address him. And so even though I don't have a personal relationship with him, I probably never will. I hope that it never comes to that. But yeah, I'm just like I... He doesn't deserve that level of respect from me.
Becky Mollenkamp: No, I'm not giving him that honorific of president. And I'm, I just only want to use, I don't want use any part of his name. We are in a chat group, which I'll talk about in a second too. And somebody in there suggested busted can of biscuits because he looks like a busted can of biscuits. And I kind of like BCB. I know a lot of people use TFG. But that was originally that former guy. I know it's just that fucking guy, which is also fine. But I kind of like BCB. But I've just using Voldemort, but I shouldn't because also I don't like Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling. like, there's just, I don't know, but we all have to come up with something. I'm waiting for the zeitgeist to like decide on what we were all gonna agree to say to indicate our solidarity.
Taina Brown: So yeah, definitely the news diet. think also, like I was talking with a client yesterday and we were just talking about social media consumption and how like being more intentional, like having an agenda to be on social media, right? So if it's before paying up the phone, before opening your device to get on social media, like what's the goal for this time for me on social media? Is it to connect with people and check in on people? Is it to just get some quick news updates, right? And then once you've done that, just getting off. So that way you don't fall into like the doom scrolling and you don't just like dysregulate your nervous system. And so I really liked that idea that my, my client brought up. So I think I'm going to incorporate that as well.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, speaking of social media, I have made a commitment to leave all meta products by the end of the year. I'm hoping to do it sooner, but because of business stuff, I'm trying to take my time a little bit to acclimate people to what that looks like for my business and where I'll be. But I am even though I had 19000 followers on threads, I've started over on blue sky and am planning to be there for now because I am certain that eventually it will also go the way of advertisements and attention economy issues. But right now it's really a wonderful place to be. It feels like Twitter before it was taken over by all of that. And so I am departing Meta products because I don't want to support them. Listen, I should have done it long ago. I had left Facebook long ago. I had all these intentions of leaving Instagram, but continue to give myself permission to like, I'll just stick around a little bit. I don't really use it. But I was an active user of threads and I just don't want to support these organizations that participated in getting this man elected through their negligence or even worse than negligence, their complicity, like their active participation in all of the misinformation that we now know, especially seeing so many of the results from the polls and the exit polls around the role misinformation and disinformation and lack of information played in this result. So I just don't feel like I can in good conscience be a part of those organizations. So I'm leaving those mostly out of that values piece because I still love social media. But I also want to be more mindful about my time. And to that end, I've created a space on Signal, which you suggested, Signal, because it's encrypted. It's not meta-owned. A wonderful place to go and have conversations with like-minded folks a great way to do some organizing, resource sharing. But also, you know, I just want it to be a space where I can, like I said in my pitch for it, which is like, I want a place where I can mindlessly scroll when I'm sitting on the toilet, right? But where it's not all activating and designed to be activating, but where instead it's like, I get to hear from the people I would want to hear from if I could like, out the people I want to hear from on social media. And so it's a much more positive space. And so I'm really excited about, mean, right now it's only 50 people, but it's 50 people that I am excited to hear their voices. And I'm hoping to see it grow a little, I think if it gets to 100 or so, maybe 200, it's going to feel active enough that I'm hoping it fills my need for that like mindless scrolling of social sharing in a way that feels way more positive and also like I'm not contributing to meta and the rest.
Taina Brown: I do love that group. And I love that I don't have to, it's not like a group chat, right, where you're just constantly on. It's like, you can just let it build up and then just get on whenever you want and catch up. This might be another petty thing, but like it's the holidays, right, or about to be. actually, for me, it's the holidays. I consider Halloween part of the holidays. we usually do holiday cards. And we send them to everyone. It's just a fun little thing to just let people know we're thinking about them, we care about them, here's a quick update on us kind of thing cause we don't, we don't really get to see like extended family that often. cause there's a lot of them and they're everywhere. but, this year I'm just like, I'm not spending money on a holiday card for someone who voted for Trump.
Becky Mollenkamp: I don't think that's petty.
Taina Brown: Like I'm not spending my financial resources on you. And I'm a really big gift giver. I love giving gifts. Like if I'm not careful, like I will go bankrupt giving gifts to people. Like that's how much I love giving gifts. And we're also just thinking about, okay, who's actually getting a gift this year? And how are we using our financial energy, our emotional energy to like just really stay connected to the people who think we should have the right to be together and be married and like, don't want to take any of our civil rights away. it's kind of, we're like just kind of rethinking what the holidays mean to us and how to spend that time.
Becky Mollenkamp: Similarly, I've been thinking a lot about where I spend my money for the holidays. Because to be honest, in the past, it has just been easy. And I have a lot going on in my life where easy often wins out over ethics and other things to just use Amazon and order everything I need and be done. And it comes to the house and I don't think about I can do it in one spot. It's all set up. I don't have to get out my credit card, like, you know, all of that. And so I'm really trying to rethink this year, where do I spend my dollars? started today. In fact, I was researching the contributions made by various companies to the Trump campaign to try and think about where do I want to spend my money based on that, based on billionaire status, based on how they treat their employees, all of those sorts of things. So I'm going to try to really make a more, I shouldn't say try, I'm going to make a more concerted effort this year to really rethink about not just like, how I spend my energy and time and who I'm with with the holidays, which I also think is really important, but thinking about like where I'm spending my money and where I'm contributing. And that goes beyond just the holidays, but that sort of feels like this most immediate place because I'm obviously those are coming up and I spend money then. So I'm really thinking about it there. But I think moving forward, just trying to really rethink like, cause I saw somebody else asking about like business tools and things too, thinking about are we re-examining again, like refocusing and doubling down on finding out which tools, the companies behind various platforms and tools that we use, where their money goes and how they were showing up in this cycle and are we supporting them or not with our money?
Taina Brown: Same. Really thinking about who I can buy from for those holiday gifts. so buying from people that I know that create stuff, small businesses locally here, especially bookstores. I saw or seen on social media people just go buy a book. I saw someone post like, a book every week about racism, know, queer, if you can, yeah. Then I think that was the point, right? Like start, let's start buying these things up before they start banning them.
Becky Mollenkamp: That also makes me think about putting them in the... We have several of those little libraries in our neighborhood. I hadn't thought of that till just now, but thank you for that idea because I think I have so many wonderful resources and a lot of them I like to hold on to because I refer back later. But there's probably some of those that I'd be willing to or go buy new to put into the little library and just sort of subversively try to reach some of the people in my community.
Taina Brown: Gosh, what was I going to say? Christmas spending, yeah. Anything else on the micro level for you?
Becky Mollenkamp: We're talking about Christmas spending. think that might have been what made you think about it. I mean, I think that's like the big things I'm thinking of right now. I mean, for me right now, it's mostly about thinking about my attention. Where am I spending my energy with whom and how, my money with whom and how, and then just like community for myself, which is sort of that same as like who I'm surrounding myself with. Those are the things I've been thinking most about. And I'm trying to start thinking about, like I said, mutual aid and some of the bigger picture things. So I'd love to hear maybe some of your thoughts on those because I have a feeling you are more evolved in that area. Not even a feeling, I know you are than I am.
Taina Brown: Yeah, you know what? I got into, like I've always believed in mutual aid. Not always, but for years I believed in mutual aid, not obviously, but you know. But I had a client a few years ago who created a digital mutual aid care circle. And she asked if I wanted to be a part of it. And I said, And so basically what we did was think there was a group of like six or seven of us and we use Instagram DMs to like communicate because that was the one platform that everybody was on. And that way we wouldn't have to share phone numbers to just, because not everybody knew each other. And so it was just an added layer of just like anonymity to just kind of buffer or help buffer trust. And so we agreed on a minimum dollar amount that everybody contributed every year, we agreed on who would get that money, right? And it was a disability rights activist that none of us had ever really met in real life, but that some of us followed on social media. And so we wanted to focus on someone in the disability community, because I think that is a community that often gets forgotten about. When you're thinking about things like community and mutual aid, because often people in the disability community, they have little to reciprocate, if anything at all, depending on the impact that the disability has in their everyday life. So if you're talking about creating a pantry or doing a community garden or things like that, those are things that they have need of but may not be able to actively participate in. And so a lot of people just forget about their needs. Or sometimes in mutual aid circles, there is a requirement for reciprocity, and they're unable to fulfill that requirement. So we chose a disability rights activist on social media. And we had their venmo. we did it for, we also agreed on a set amount of time. So we were going to do this for six months. And then at the six-month mark, if we wanted to continue, we could. Or if we wanted to create our own mutual aid circles outside of that, we could as well. And every month, a different person was tasked with sending the money to this person. And so it created a point of connection. So that way, it didn't devolve into like saviorism, like that detached sense of saviorism. I don't want to say like I enjoyed it because that sounds weird. Like I don't think that's the right word, but it was really educational. It was a really educational experience for me. And so I think when you're thinking about mutual aid, there are so many ways to do mutual aid. You can do pod mapping, right? Where it's basically you create, it's kind of like what my wife and I are doing with the community pantry. We're creating a pod of people that are going to look out for each other. And with pod mapping, what I love about pod mapping is that you create a micro group, and then you can build on that into a macro, on a macro level. So you have your really tight pod and then the pod in the periphery. So you can create it as big as you want to while still focusing on just that really micro community that you're a part of. I've heard of people doing neighborhood care maps. So this is very localized geographically where you get to know your neighbors and create a shared resource list of what your neighbors' needs are. you're very specific, just on your block. It doesn't have to be further than that. It could just be your neighbor to your left and to your right, right? Where you are attuned to what their needs are, what their schedules are, some possible things that you can anticipate coming up, right? Phone numbers, family members to contact if something happens, et cetera. So that's a way to do mutual aid. And yeah, and then there's the pantry, right? And so you can create a resource an actual tangible resource pantry for what people's, or to help meet people's needs. And the thing is, you can get as creative with this as possible. You can do the whole money thing, but locally, like within your neighborhood, within your local community. You can just create a pool of money that people can pull from if they have a need, whether it's medical or groceries or gas or whatever. There's just so many ways to do this. The limit is your creativity. The limit is your creativity. One thing I will say about tapping into community, and this is something that came up in our Signal group yesterday, really understand what it's imperative right now for us to really understand what community is and what community isn't. This is the best time for all of us as individuals to work on our conflict management skills, because there is no community without conflict. Because if you are in a group of people that just agree with you all the time, that's not community. Or I would argue that's not a deeply invested community.
Becky Mollenkamp: Sycophants..
Taina Brown: So there's going to be conflict. There's going to be disagreement. And I think it's important to understand that just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean that it's values misalignment, doesn't mean that it's personal, right? Allow space for people to be who they are, which is a really big thing in conflict management. Just let people be who they are. And if there is a conflict, like work on your skills on how to deal with that in a healthy, not toxic way, because this is how communities fall apart.
Becky Mollenkamp: Can I recommend a book for that too, especially for the white-bodied folks listening? I would definitely suggest My Grandmother's Hands by Resma Minicum. It's such a wonderful book about the somatic experience of doing anti-racism work and understanding how to be embodied in that experience because it is challenging. It is challenging when you are new to doing this work, even if you've been doing the work for a long time because you're unlearning so much conditioning that teaches us, especially, I think, white body folks, we learn that conflict is bad, it's dangerous, it's a threat. We have to avoid it at all costs, right? We also learn that we are very entitled to being correct and to being the voice in the room. And just a lot of things that can be really challenging that create visceral reactions in your body when those things are challenged for you. And my grandmother's hands really gives you tools for learning how to be embodied in that practice so that when you feel challenged in those moments, you have some tools you can use to get you through it. Because those feelings, that visceral reaction doesn't go away, at least not quickly. I can speak firsthand to that. I've been doing this work for a really long time. And I still, I feel conflict coming up, when someone's challenging me, when I get called in, my immediate reaction is absolutely my body feels defensive. My body feels like it goes into a defensive posture. I can feel all of that have to work against it. And that doesn't mean that I'm bad and wrong for having that reaction. That's the reaction I have been very deeply conditioned into, but I can learn how to manage it if I have the right tools and can love myself through that. So anyway, I just love that book. I want to suggest it. And on mutual aid, I also wanted to say, check where you live. There are also a lot of mutual aid organizations. St. Louis, we have one, St. Louis Mutual Aid, that work with various groups, depending on if you own a business there's a very good chance that you can participate in a mutual aid organization where you're all giving sort of of your resources to each other or to the community. So look for what also exists, because I think very often we jump to, and this is, I'm speaking to myself here, we jump to creating new things when things often already exist that we can plug ourselves into. And those folks probably know what they're doing better and have been doing it longer. So not that, you know, what exists is always right or better but look and see there may be something that's already out there too that you can tap yourself into. And that's also a way to get involved in your community, speaking of community. So I think that's great. And I wanted to throw out just a couple more examples of mutual aid because one is what I'm trying to organize in our little signal chat group, which is like just a care package exchange. And this time we're all feeling really overwhelmed and stressed. I know how much I love just receiving a package in the mail. Like I used to do that FabFitFun box during COVID, which I never, I thought I would never do that kind of shit. But during COVID, I was just feeling so like alone and you know, it was really challenging. And so it was just nice to get something in the mail that was like exciting to open and what am I gonna get? And so I wanna recreate that experience for our community and just like everyone gives what they can to someone and it's just, I hope will be a really nice thing to brighten our days. And then we're also, you and I in a mastermind together talking about creating a mutual aid experience for business as business owners, where we're all working together to help each other reach a goal in our business and then getting to celebrate with each other. So it's a financial piece where we put money in and we take turns basically receiving that pot of money to help then give us a larger amount of money at one time to do something that we want to do in our business and then being able to celebrate with each other. So there's, like you said, there's so many ways it's just getting creative, going back to what you said at the beginning of like, what does it look like to get creative here?
Taina Brown: So I mean, I think if you're having trouble tapping into that creativity, I think your first step is to get regulated. It's hard to be creative when you're dysregulated, when you're stressed out, when you're anxious, because cognitively, you're not at your best. you need to be like creativity requires mindfulness. It requires you to be present. And if that's what you're struggling with right now, I think just finding a way to regulate your system, right? Getting enough sunlight, getting into your garden, getting enough sleep, you know, making sure that you are sustaining your body with like adequate nourishment, drinking enough water.
Becky Mollenkamp: After I ate two donuts for breakfast.
Taina Brown: I eat cookies for breakfast. But it's all about balance. Yeah, but it's all about balance. I'll eat a salad for lunch.
Becky Mollenkamp: Right? I'm not quite there yet. I'm working towards it. Yeah, right. Well, and also it's, it's, it's also giving space for the fact that it may take a while to get to this place. Like I still yesterday, I was really depressed today. I feel a little more like, okay, I can, know, I keep vacillating between like deep depression and like rage, righteous rage of fighting. So like it'll take a while and it may not be consistent.
Taina Brown: That's part of the process of getting into mindfulness, giving yourself the time, giving yourself the space to just be what you are right now and not feeling shame or guilt or discourage for not getting to a certain place emotionally by a certain deadline. We're all grieving right now, and grief is not linear, and there is no timeline on grief. so give yourself time.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, isn't that true? And before we finish, and you may have some more ideas, I want to share one more idea or thing that actually just came up again in the Signal group that I wanted, that was a great reminder for me and I want to share for other folks who hold various privileged identities. So depending on what your identity is, knowing when you can use that privilege and doing it, even if it's uncomfortable and difficult, right? So we had a person in our group talking about being sort of followed around as a queer Black person in a space that we're being followed around by white people and how some white folks, white body folks stepped in to provide some aid in that moment to make sure that person was safe. And I just want to remind folks, like, if you see something happening, speak up, use your body. And I want to also make sure if we have any men listening, I don't know if I do, but if there are any men listening, like, because I already feel that, I feel a change in the air, whether it's real or not, when I'm in spaces where I feel this escalated tension about being a woman inside of a space when I see men and especially certain types of men that present a certain way that makes me feel like they may be more likely to hold certain beliefs and just being able to see a man in the space who gives me kind eyes that shows through their physical actions that they see me and they understand that tension I'm carrying in my body. And I'm trying to do the same when I see black folks out in spaces to try and just through my eyes and in my body communicate, I see you and I know this is hard right now, right? And I want just all of us to think about how can we use our privilege in those spaces to both help people feel a little more sense of peace, right? But also when we see something to do something.
Taina Brown: I love that. And I love the idea of using your body. It makes me think of, do you remember Bree Newsome who scaled that flagpole and took down the Confederate flag? This was years ago. Yeah, I think it was either South Carolina or Alabama. It was in front of a courthouse. She scaled the flagpole, took down the Confederate flag. It was all over the news. And we might look at that and be like, damn, wow, that was gutsy. That took balls. But the story behind that is that that was a planned event. And there were white allies there. And the purpose of the white allies was to create a barricade around the flagpole because they knew that police officers would not incite violence upon them knew if there were black bodies there, they would probably go to violence. But if there were white bodies, that they would just not touch them, basically, and give her the time that she needed to scale that flagpole and take that on the Confederate flag. So if you have a body of privilege, be willing to risk something. It's time to shit or get off the pot. Be willing to risk something.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, my friend Erica, I don't know if you know Erica Vogel, but she's amazing trans woman who I saw on social media had posted like this is the time to not just say you support trans people, but to be out there when the rocks start being thrown to be shielding people with your body. Right? Like that's what allyship looks like. It doesn't look like putting a, you know, I trans ally in your bio and then not doing anything. And I heard someone else suggest too, because as we know, mass deportations are at least theoretically, and it looks less like theoretically and more like probably very likely to start happening next year. And so I heard someone saying like, what does it look like to begin to organize and again, using spaces like Signal or wherever you can, where you can protect yourself as much as possible, right? So encrypted spaces and whatever, but to start or real life talking person to person where no one's listening to begin organizing ourselves to say, how do we begin to create some resistance, some chaos, as in like, what if we start changing house numbers around so people don't know where people are? But just to start thinking again creatively and what does it look like? Like you were saying, that whole idea around the flagpole, I just think it makes me think of that kind of thing. We need to start thinking about how we look out for each other in ways that we have probably never been challenged to think about, at least not for a lot, for most of us in our lifetimes. And so I think, and also that makes me think too, like let's listen to our elders. Who are those folks that were really active back in the civil rights protests in the 60s? Can we learn from them? What were the things they were doing? So there's probably plenty of books on that as well. I'm sure podcasts in places where you can go and get those oral histories to start learning about what are the things that we have not yet had to think about to really challenge in a way that we've never had to do.
Taina Brown: Civil disobedience has a time and a place and this is the time and the place.
Becky Mollenkamp: It's going to be real soon. Yeah. I mean, it's already, this is the time I think for us to begin. I, again, to me what I'm feeling and tell me if you feel the same, but I'm feeling like these next 60 days plus for me, feel really like this is the time to figure out who your people are calling in community, finding community, getting community spaces, getting activated in that way, because there aren't as many actions to be taking yet because thankfully that power structure hasn't yet changed fully. So to me, it's like right now, it's this getting ready. It's this armoring up. And what does that look like? What are the things we need to do in advance to make sure that when the time comes, we're not behind the game because we haven't found our communities yet.
Taina Brown: I feel that 100%. I sent that to my email list the other day and I was like, this is what you need to do right now. Figure out who you can actually trust. Who are your people? And if you are in a toxic relationship with a man, dump him. This is the time to dump him. And if you can't immediately say that you're not in a toxic relationship with a man, then it's probably toxic. Like, if you have to think about it, it's probably... I'm gonna guess it's probably not the relationship for you.
Becky Mollenkamp: And by the way, I will extend that beyond just romantic partners and also say like relationships in general, business relationships with men who are toxic, your extended family, exactly. Yeah, I agree. think it's examining all of those things to think about who are those people that you can really, that you know will have your back when shit really does hit the fan. And for most of us, I think that's fewer people than we think it is, but I also think those people are out there and starting to find them. The other thing is I will just say I've seen a lot of trans folks talking about this is also the time to really be thinking about gender markers and paperwork and all of that. Like anything that you want to get taken care of, not that you need me to tell you as a non-trans person, but just for any of us thinking about these things, like what are these last minute things? And non-binary folks, like I saw someone, do you know James is smiling on Instagram? Anyway, they're non-binary, but have said, like, I'm going to go and file all the paperwork to choose a gender, the one that I will be most easily recognized as, and in their case, female, because they don't feel safe with that. And they were like, as much as that X on my identifications brings me gender euphoria, at this point in time, I'm choosing safety. And I want to just remind people, too, it's also OK to choose safety.
Taina Brown: I think right now it's about what is going to give you the most space to not just survive, but thrive. And that's going to be different. It's going to be different from one person to the next. And that's OK. I think we need to allow each other the space to do that without shame and without judgment. And fuck, I was going to say something and my mind just went blank. Becky Mollenkamp: I'll say unless you're a white man, white cis man, white cishet man, then right, you've had lots of space. And by the way, as a white woman, I also will say I've had lots of space. So I think the more privilege you have, the more you also need to be thinking about how much do I think about my safety versus collective safety and what is my role inside that? Because I think we are the worst at allowing ourselves to fall into the piece of our oppressed identity and choosing the safety because of that instead of saying, but I have a whole lot of privilege identity that affords me to not just lean into my safety, but to also say, I need to recognize that I inherently have a lot of safety. And so I need to be one of the people that's actually more active and risking.
Taina Brown: Along that line, I would recommend Patricia Hill Collins' work on The Matrix of Domination. It's in a specific book. I don't remember which book of hers, but her work on The Matrix of Domination is really good because it's parallel to intersectionality, but its focus more on also the privileges that we have. Whereas intersectionality is a framework to really understand how oppression works, like how systems work to oppress people. The matrix of domination really helps you understand not just that, but also where you have certain privileges and how you can hold those two seemingly exclusive ideas together. So I really recommend that.
Becky Mollenkamp: And I want to offer up and hey, Riverside AI, make sure you pull this as a clip for me. To all of you MAGA folks, and by the way, I need to stop using that because you're not just MAGA, you're Republicans and it's this is the Republican Party now. So to all you Republicans that I see on YouTube who keep deciding to make really ridiculous and hateful and disgusting comments, I see you. I don't reply to you because you don't deserve my energy. I will fight my tooth and nail to protect Taina from any of it. That's my goal. But we see you and we don't give a shit. Go ahead because you only hopefully help to bolster our place there. You're getting us more subscribers. You're getting us more views. But your shit doesn't it doesn't hurt us and it won't. And we won't shut up just because you are trying to make us. And I'm saying that to you, but also to everyone who thinks that being hateful and angry and calling women names, calling black people names, all of that stuff, like this is all gonna work to shut us up and to make us fall in line. It's actually doing the opposite. So thank you for emboldening us.
Taina Brown: It didn't work in the 60s. It didn't work on the plantation. Like, it's not working today, so.
Becky Mollenkamp: It’s sure as hell is not going to work now. So have at it. Have fun. Thanks for all of the views and all that you're doing to help our station, but it won't work. And I think I can speak for most folks who are not Republicans. We're pissed and we are not going down without a fight and we are ready. We are mobilizing. You may not get to see it because we're doing it in spaces where you don't see it, but we're mobilizing and we are going to be ready and we're going to take action. So we will protect each other. And if you're listening and don't have community, free to reach out to us because I want to make sure everyone knows that they have community and I'm a big fan of creating communities. So I'm happy to help people.
Taina Brown: Yeah, y'all stay safe. And my hope is for everyone to find space during this time to feel safe, to feel held, to feel loved, and to just take their power back. Any little way that you can take your power back matters. It may seem trivial. It may seem petty. But it matters. It matters.
Becky Mollenkamp: That’s a beautiful place to end. Thanks, Taina.
Taina Brown: Thank you for this conversation.
Becky Mollenkamp: Always.