Becky Mollenkamp (00:00.824)
Hi Cher!
Cher (00:02.172)
Hi friend, how are you?
Becky Mollenkamp (00:04.02)
super excited because Audre Lorde is one of my very favoriteists and we're going to be talking about a really I mean it's a short piece from a larger collection of works which is what a lot of Audre Lorde stuff is collections of essays. But this is something I think a lot of people know the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house and while I knew that phrase and everything I hadn't actually ever read this so I was really excited to and I'm really excited to talk about it with you. How about you?
Cher (00:28.742)
Yeah, we're on the same page here. I also love Audre Lorde. I think I came to the station late in terms of like, everyone was very into Audre Lorde and like our collector liberatory spaces. And I was like, yeah, she seems nice. have her quotes, but didn't really like understand her life or her ethos. And so I've said just in the past year, I have like really just hit her work hard and have become a devout and fervent fan.
I also had never read this piece, so we're on the same page here in terms of newness.
Becky Mollenkamp (01:01.986)
Well, good, because that's kind of my goal with these is that it's both of us coming into something kind of with fresh eyes and just talking about what we think. And since I hadn't read it, I didn't know much about it other than the kind of the concept of like the master's tools will never dismantle master's house. But I didn't realize this was it's really more of a transcribed speech, I believe, where she's talking at an event sort of to the people who organize this event and the ways they've fallen short. And it's it felt especially powerful once you sort of understand the
and the, you know, just the strength it takes to stand up in front of the people who've hired you to be there to say, hey, you all have really fallen short. And I thought that was really interesting.
Cher (01:41.87)
mean it just speaks so much to Audre's ethos of calling people out, especially when they are perpetrators of oppression right? Like she she very rarely throughout her life minces his words about this and I love how feisty and spicy it is. It just gives me so much energy to be like who should I call out next?
Becky Mollenkamp (02:05.806)
right? It was from the personal and the political panel at the second sex conference from October 29th, 1979. like, this is a long time ago, right? We're coming up on like, or 50, 50 years ago, it would have been, which is because the thing about so much of this that I'm learning through this podcast is a lot of the things we're reading, because there are so many amazing pieces in the sort of second wave of feminism in the 70s. We're reading a lot of stuff from that.
Cher (02:13.746)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:32.822)
And sadly, so much of the stuff that I've been reading from that time is still insane, incredibly relevant today. And this is certainly a piece I would say is there is because there's so many places in this where I was like shaking my head going, yeah, I see you girl bosses still sort of participating in this.
Cher (02:50.824)
yeah so tell me as you're shaking your head the girl boss thing translates to me 100 % is there any other stuff that came up to you where you were like this is still too relevant?
Becky Mollenkamp (03:02.574)
Well, I mean, the piece that I put on my quote board and that I underlined that really got me was the idea of community. Without community, there is no liberation, just because that is sort of the place in my journey where I have really been in the last two years. I was just talking about this today where it feels sort of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where first it was just me doing some of this work internally so that, I guess for my own survival, right? Like how do I shift it within?
And then moving kind of towards like, okay, now that I've done that, how do I integrate this into my work and in the way I show up outside of just my own internal feelings and beliefs, but now how do I bring this outside of that? And where I've been moving in the last couple of years is like, okay, now how do I like create coalitions to see this change on a broader scale? How do I have community around this? So it's not just me as an individual trying to do this work, but it's me working collectively to try and do this work.
Cher (03:45.704)
you
Becky Mollenkamp (03:55.746)
And so that was a piece that feels so important to me now too. But the biggest part, just as far as like relevance was this idea of, there was a part in here saying something like, so was I the only black, like you called one black woman and then said, well we tried and nobody wants to, you know, what, what can we do? And I still see that shit all the time and hear it from white women who host podcasts and specific, just because I have a lot of, I have three podcasts, I host a podcast community and I still, not within my community,
these folks are people who are trying. But I've heard this in the circles of online business owners all the time who are hosting summits, who have podcasts, who are like, you call them out about like, why is this panel? Why are your guests all white? Why is this panel all white? Where is the like, where's the effort to make sure that you're uplifting other voices? And I hear again and again, like, well, I asked a few people and they didn't want to participate or I don't really know anyone. So I didn't know who to ask or whatever. It's like the bare minimum amount of effort. And that somehow seems like it's OK. And her saying like,
that's not enough. Calling one black lady and saying, will you do this? And that person saying no, or even if they say yes, and that's your one person, like that is not enough.
Cher (05:06.344)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think in the in this talk, she says, Why was I the only black person you consulted for other black people to include in the conference? Don't you know other black people? Exactly, exactly. Because I think the one question that Audre asked of her her children and her mentees, and the people that she worked with in these spaces is, are you doing your work?
Becky Mollenkamp (05:20.76)
And if you don't, don't you realize that's a problem?
Cher (05:35.28)
And I just, I find that that question can be applied in almost every area of my life and in the movements that I'm in, which is, we, am I doing my own work? And this piece forced me to answer that question too. I talked it through with my partner and prepped for our call. And he was like, well, you know, one of the things you complained about in the past is not having enough friends who come from like diverse backgrounds. Like, why is that? And I was like, well.
you put me on the spot let me think about it and I had to do what Audre tells us to do which is to dig really deep and she says that in this piece too I believe like dig really deep and confront the biases inside of you that are keeping you from making Black friends from from having this wide expansive network and it's uncomfortable right it's uncomfortable for me as a woman of color with diverse backgrounds. I'm wondering how have I
brought this oppressed racism or oppression into my life as an adult now. Someone who is actively just like you trying to dismantle these systems within me. And that's what she's asking us here is we need to dig deeper, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (06:49.154)
Yeah, yeah. mean, there was certainly a time not so long ago where other than save for my best friend who is black and, you know, not to use the like, have a best friend who's black. But that was sort of where I was like, well, no, I have like a diverse group of friends. But when I really looked at it, was that really, really true? And when you start to investigate the why, that's the part that gets really confrontational for yourself, because you have to sort of it.
Cher (07:00.424)
Sure.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:15.662)
The piece that was interesting for me was when I began to understand the systemic reasons for why I might not have a diverse set of friends, Understanding that it's not necessarily just because I haven't tried hard enough or something, but there are these real barriers. Am I a safe person for a person of color to be in space with? And if I'm not, why not? some of that is my own needing to learn, but some of it is also because of the systems that I exist inside of that I unknowingly
perpetuating. So yes, that's my issue to undo that. But it's also these systems that exist that create that, right? So it's like a both and. And that can be really hard because when you start to investigate, we make it only about ourselves. And then especially when you are somebody who has a more privileged identity, I think it's easy to get defensive because we don't want to sit with that discomfort. And it's like, no, that can be true that, maybe I have fallen short. And there's also these systemic
things that had been at play that are not my fault until I see them. And once I know about them, then it is my responsibility to begin to undo them in myself. But like when I was 15, I didn't know that. I didn't understand all of these systemic issues. It was just in my world, it was like, well, we don't have any black kids that go to my school. So how would I friends? How would I be friends with anyone who's black? They're not in my world, right? And that was sort of the answer until I began to understand, ask the bigger questions of why aren't they in my school? Right? What is going on here? And then if I know that, then I know
Okay, no longer can I just accept, well, they're not here, so that's it. It's like, no, I have to now actively, like there's efforting that needs to happen to make that change. And that is where you, like, it can be hard. And then there's the stuff that comes up around like tokenism and all sorts of things that I, you know, I will hear people say too, like, I don't want to reach out to somebody because just because they're black or whatever the thing is to have them on my show. And it's like, okay, but what's the intention? What's the intention behind your efforting here? Is it because you just want to get someone black on your show?
Or is it because this person, you've researched them, they're amazing, they know their shit, they could come talk about this topic and they happen to be a person of color and you wanna amplify voices of people of color. Well, now it's not tokenism, it's I have found somebody who's amazing to talk about this topic. And I've taken the effort to make sure that I'm also amplifying, because all things being equal, there's three people who could talk about this topic and one of them is a black woman, why don't I go to her? Just because she's black, I'm afraid she's gonna say, you're just choosing me out of,
Cher (09:40.007)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:43.926)
tokenism or is it because no, researched a bunch of people and yeah, there are several people who could talk about it, but I want to amplify the voice of the person who rarely gets heard.
Cher (09:51.88)
Yeah, and I would say tokenism is a through line for Audre's life, right? Like she was a trailblazer in so many areas and she talks about how it hurt her deeply to not only be the token lesbian black poet in the room.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:55.448)
Yeah. Heck yeah she was.
Cher (10:08.892)
but also that she knew dozens and dozens of incredible black female queer poets who weren't being given space or time to showcase their work and their talents. And that has to be so painful. I think that when we say tokenize, there is like the sense of like, yeah, I get it. It's a buzzword. We're choosing one person, but we forget the emotional implications of being tokenized and feeling like I am the only and
what trying to figure out like what power do I have as the only do I do I really have it or is it is it faux power right is it this this false sense that I have any kind of agency and I don't know those are there's a question that I still pick apart as someone who lives in a white majority community and who is often feel tokenized and often self-tokenized earlier on in my life.
Becky Mollenkamp (10:58.574)
Mmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:02.188)
Ooh, tell me about that. What does that mean for you to be self-tokenized?
Cher (11:05.37)
yeah I mean if I would say it comes from... so I lived in a place that was very right wing, very white, and I was used to that. I grew up in like a southern Michigan town that was almost all white and I'm Black just like not Asian and so I got used to kind of being the only Asian which brought about like jokes about being Asian or like some racist comments, microaggressions, stuff like that.
And so as a defense mechanism, oftentimes really white spaces, I will microaggress myself or I will choke about being Asian first as a defense mechanism. And then I think as a result, tokenize my own identity. Cause I'm like, I'm your only Asian friend, for example, it's like a really like easy way to tokenize myself.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:41.933)
Totally.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:49.474)
Got it. Now that makes so much sense.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:55.15)
I can relate to that in a different way in that being the only woman when I was working in tech spaces, being like an often the only or one of very few women in the room and that feeling of like wanting to sort of bond with the men in a way that was really sort of degrading women. And it's gross to me now, but I also understand it because it feels like a survival technique, like, and it is a survival technique, right? And we see fat.
folks who are fat and I'm in a large body, like I see that happen all the time too, this idea of like, well, if I poke at the pain first, at least I'm controlling that, right? There feels like there's some amount of control in it and probably again, going back to some safety in it. And so like, I can understand it, but it's also really painful to do that stuff. you know, it still hurts me when I see, cause I think one area where I still see that happen a lot is in fat jokes, where there are people who are in larger bodies who poke fun at that stuff.
Cher (12:29.608)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (12:51.16)
and you can feel the pain underneath it, right? And I'm sure that's what you experienced as well then.
Cher (12:53.928)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important here that we don't forget that the people who are self-tokenizing in that way are making those jokes. I they don't have access yet to that embodiment, right? Because I think that, to our point earlier, defense is one of the master's tools. And embodiment is how we dismantle that.
Becky Mollenkamp (13:22.168)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (13:22.432)
there's just like this this how do we close that gap and i mean for for audrey there are a lot of answers but i feel like poetry was what was the primary medium for her to close that gap.
Becky Mollenkamp (13:33.55)
Yeah. Well, and you you mentioned her being ahead of her time. This is 1979. It's a decade before Kimberlé Crenshaw was really credited with sort of understanding, defining, putting a name to intersectionality. And yet, like we see Audre Lorde here taught. mean, what she's talking about is intersectionality, right? Because she's saying it's your this is a panel like this is a space for feminists. And yet what is feminism look like? It looks like white women. And is that feminism if you're not able to
speak to issues for women that also include me, she says, as a Black queer woman. If your issues aren't including me, is that really feminism, right? So she's speaking to intersectionality before the word was really out there. And I think that that's another place where that was so important and one of the reasons why I so respect her work.
Cher (14:25.318)
Yeah, she had this really prescient sense of what
creates change within movement. I would say, think Ali is one of them, transnational solidarity is another one of them. She like, we have to get global. And she knew this before so many of us were like, hmm, this is a good idea. But she knew we had to get global. We had to be community. had to, yes, yes, there was so much that she just like intuitively got. And again, I think it goes back to her. She had a deep sense of emotion, like she had deep access to her emotions. But I think because she also had poetry as a
Becky Mollenkamp (14:32.429)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:38.658)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:45.71)
class consciousness.
Cher (14:59.794)
art that it gave her access to that. And I'm so curious.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:59.928)
Bye.
Interesting. you someone who do you read a lot of poetry? I'm not a big poetry person, so I'm curious, like, that if that piece resonates with you so much because you also find something through it.
Cher (15:11.752)
I mean, yes and no. wrote, I mean, I wrote like cute little poems when I was a teenager and like heartbroken, right? I've always been a writer. I write fiction now and poetry as a medium has always felt kind of too highbrow for me, if I'm being quite honest. Like I'll read Cleo, Wade, I'll read contemporary kind of like black poets and I'll appreciate their work. It feels, I feel something from it. But as a whole, I would say probably the past.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:16.942)
Right, of course.
Cher (15:39.996)
couple of years I've been like I don't really get poetry. Like there's something about it that doesn't feel like I wanted to like critically understand poetry in way that I understand nonfiction or fiction and I wasn't able to feel like I had access to a relationship with poetry until I let that go which is in large part from Audre's pleading to like not care so much about what it means but to focus more on how it feels.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:56.898)
Mmm!
Becky Mollenkamp (16:06.83)
I set a goal for this year. I turned 50 this year and I did a bunch of like 50 goals. Like I want to do 50 of whatever. And one of them was to read 50 poems, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I have just never been for the same reason. And you're, you're unlocking something here for me because I realized it's really the same reason is like, I don't want to do it if I don't get it. I don't like things I'm not good at right away. I don't like not, you know, perfecting something or being really good at something. And with poetry, I've always felt this like,
lacking of like, why don't I see these like 16 layers to this poem that everyone else does? My brain is much more like just reading it for what it is. I do sometimes wonder, like I've wondered some about my neurodivergence and perhaps even some degree of autism spectrum because I can be pretty literal in a lot of ways. And so when I read poetry, it's often very literal for me. And so I struggle where I'll hear someone else dissect it and I think, holy shit, how'd you get all that from? Like, that's not what I read at all.
Cher (16:40.508)
You
Becky Mollenkamp (17:03.532)
And then it leaves me feeling lacking. And I think that's the big piece is like, can I move past that? Because that is all grounded in that same white supremacist culture of like needing to be perfect, you know, one right way, all of that. Can I release that? And like you said, can I just be with a poem and how it makes me feel? And there have been a few poems in my life, not many, but that I have really felt. And so I've always been on the search for like a poem that I can find that feels that way that I'm like, that's my.
poem, but I think it's always like there's that still bit piece of like, I have to be able to master it and you know, know it and all that. And so I am on this quest with my 50 poems this year of like, can I just find 50 poems I enjoy for whatever reason? Don't have to get it. They don't, it doesn't have to make sense to me. Can I just find 50 poems that I'm like, that was nice and let that be enough, but it's really challenging.
Cher (17:35.417)
Hmm.
Cher (17:52.072)
It is. I admit I've been there too. And only recently I began again to write poetry because there's, I think to our point earlier about discomfort, right? That discomfort of not getting it. That keeps so many of us out of movement. That keeps so many of us out of change work. was like, I don't, if I don't fully understand this problem, I'm not going to participate in change making. And to an extent it's like, yes, do your work, do your research.
don't put out other people to do it for you. And there are still small actions we can take. We know what feels right, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (18:29.646)
Well, it's so funny. I just had this conversation yesterday with Taina Brown for Messy Liberation podcast. By the time this comes up, that episode will be a little bit older, but you can go back and look for it. But we ended up being a weird conversation that just kind of led us towards the end talking about Palestine and what's been happening there. And we both kind of admitted to having at different points in our lives this, and I think so many people can relate this feeling of like that's.
I don't, I can't and full, we'll maybe never fully understand all of the dynamics that are at play at that region of the world. Cause it is deeply complicated and all of that. And so there is this almost excusing ourselves from the conversation of like, well, it's not my religion. It's not my space. It's not my culture. I don't really understand it. So I'm just going to like excuse myself from the conversation entirely. And yet that part of the like, can I feel into what's right? And I may not all, may not get it all, but
Ultimately, I do know that in my humanity, I can at minimum say, when I see children starving to death, I know that's not okay. Right? And can I at least start there and let that be good enough for me to say, I get to be a part of the conversation to at least the degree that my humanity says what I see isn't humane. And that's okay. Like, can I be okay with that instead of excusing myself because the excusing myself from it entirely is not doing anything to help anyone.
Cher (19:44.103)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (19:52.136)
right including yourself right? I think we when we tap out of our own humanity what does that what does that do to us as people? oh or any of these like AI drone situation I just I just I it hurts to be human and so many of us want to unsubscribe from that.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:53.186)
Yeah.
Turns us into Trump.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:08.782)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:14.104)
Yeah, if only you could just unsubscribe from pain doesn't work that way, right? Yeah, because we all deal with loss and everything else in the world is hard. And I mean, I don't know, going back to this piece, I think in some ways that's what she's speaking to also with, again, going back to her like this is in front of this community saying, like, the papers I'm seeing presented here don't speak of my experience and don't speak to me. knowing that that
Cher (20:17.626)
Yeah.
Cher (20:22.705)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:42.254)
causes her pain and I feel like the other people in the room have allowed, excuse themselves from doing it because it's like, well, that's not my experience. And I, as a person with a privileged identity, as a white woman, I can say there's a part of me that understands that to the degree of, the degree of like, it's not my lived experience. I can't speak to that. So let's, it's better that we don't speak to it than try to speak to it and get it wrong. But that is still centering myself of like, I have to be the one speaking to it, right? But I still see that.
so often. And it's that learning of how do we center someone else. And again, it's not by like reaching out to the one token person, but like continuing until you get it right, until you find the person who can speak to it, the people, right? Making sure that any space you're holding is not just centering your identity, but has there's so many identities in the room. And I think, you know, going to like the easy out button, it's a whole lot easier to just not do any of that.
Right. It is certainly a lot easier just to call your besties and say, I'm putting together a summit or I'm going to do a podcast. Hey, besties, let's all just do this. And then all your besties happen to be just like you. And then you end up in this space. And then it feels like, well, it's no big deal because I was just doing it with my besties. Right. But what's the pain that that's causing to others who see what's happening and the exclusion that's happening? And it's hard work. It is a lot easier to opt out. But is it right?
Cher (22:04.294)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lack of solidarity there, right? It's like, if you're not organizing for our collective liberation, then you're organizing with the patriarchy's tools or the colonial tools that you have at your disposal, right? She's saying this. How do we...
Becky Mollenkamp (22:17.55)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (22:25.14)
assess the framework, the systems which we live and then choose differently. And one way that we choose differently is by getting all perspectives, collecting all insights, right? Not saying like, your movement over here is going to put pull. I think that what she was arguing before was like, you're saying that by not including us, you can like get ahead and then help us later, which is kind of the thought process, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (22:35.341)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:53.24)
That's very much it, right? Going back to the suffragettes, yeah.
Cher (22:54.748)
Right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Look, we'll help you later. But like we have to, our differences, she's saying in this piece, our differences make us stronger. And how do we draw on our differences for greater creativity towards solutions that free all of us?
Becky Mollenkamp (23:12.78)
Yeah, that's I have that part right here where she's like, difference is the raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged. And it's that all the way back to suffragettes. It's like it's this wait your turn mentality that we see happening right now with trans identities, right? Where you can feel that same thing happening, where there's this this rift amongst feminists saying like.
We're the feminists who are saying, no, no, no, it's not okay until all of us are safe. And then the turfy nasty JK Rowlings of the world who are like, well, hold up. It's almost like you're trying to take something from us that we fought so hard for. Let us get, we're not even protected yet. Let us get our stuff and then maybe we'll give you something, right? This like, wait your turn. And what does that say about you? It is those master's tools, right? Cause that goes, that's that hierarchical thinking of like, yeah.
And that is not to me what feminism is. The very idea that TERFs even have the word feminist in their, what they think of themselves, absolutely disgusts me because that is not what feminism should or really in its core is about, at least not feminism I believe in.
Cher (24:23.048)
Yeah, I hear you. I am processing all of that information because it landed really true for me.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:28.973)
Okay.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we see it all the time. I'm curious on that idea of the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. Are there things that come up for you like that still like where that feels resonant, where you see it happening now? I can give you an example if you're not ready, because I don't want to like put you on the spot.
Cher (24:49.244)
No, no, no, I was thinking about this too. I think I see a lot in parenting, right? I have a four year old and I read a lot of parenting literature. I watch, I observe parenting happening in the wild, we can say. And I'm prepping for homeschooling. So I think I'm very tapped into this, like the parenting, home education environment. And I see a lot of this patriarchal.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:05.121)
Yeah.
Cher (25:16.648)
hierarchical oppressive thinking happening in parenting where there's like an authoritarian sense, authoritarian presence for parents. And so I think like from the bottom of, from the core of our children's souls, I think about how we're impacting them and inculcating them into the system. We're telling them where our use of the master's tools makes it okay for you as you grow up to use the master's tools.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:45.134)
for sure. And I do feel like there's some shift happening there because I think in our time as children, our parents time as children even more, like every generation you go back, I feel like you see an even stronger belief that children are not humans in a way, right? They're not full humans yet. So you magically turn 18 and then you become an adult and you are now an independent human. Until then, you are really more like my property, right? Parents treating children as property. In fact, I mean, in back
not far ago, and maybe it still happens to some degree, people were having children truly as property, almost as cattle. Like you are here to help me farm this land. I'm having you as a servant to me, right? And we have treated children that way for a long time. And then you're right, they go into the school system. I don't homeschool because I'm not a saint like you. I don't know how you're going to do it, but I'm proud of you for doing it. I wish I could. So I use the public school system. And I do have a lot of troubles with that because I feel like I'm sending him into a space that the
real purpose of public education is not to develop our children into critical thinkers or into independent free spirits. The point of it is to teach them how to become cogs in the wheel, right? They go there to learn how to be workers, how to be in this hierarchical system that immediately starts to teach them about hierarchy and value and worth based on that and based on productivity and all the things that we need for good workers. And so that is really hard. And I see it too. And it's interesting. I see it in myself sometimes still with my parenting, right?
And when I noticed that I try really hard to step outside of it, and it's even more challenging for my husband, not surprisingly, as he has more privilege privileges than I do, because it was so ingrained in him, this idea of respect. But what respect looked like was really it meant fear and him trying to understand respect is not something that you can demand. It is earned. And that is a challenging thing when you're based in that hierarchical thinking where no respect isn't earned. It's forced. And so, yeah, I totally see that.
Cher (27:40.328)
yeah yeah for me it's a lot of like because because parenting you're right has had a major shift like we are more present parents than ever before and i think when i say that i notice master's tools i notice it in others and in myself too right where i'm like i'm like really wanting to be in control here
Becky Mollenkamp (28:01.23)
for sure.
Cher (28:01.284)
at the at the cost of anything at the cost of your emotions, at the cost of my own emotions. I just want to be in control here. And so really recognizing, like I, I carry these with me, like I have my own tool belt that I that I use in parenting, especially when you're desperate, especially when you are under resourced, right? Like those are the moments where they really come out.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:18.593)
Well, that goes back to the system, the systemic piece of this that we talked about earlier, right? It's one thing to look at you individually as a individual mom doing this job and thinking about the ways that maybe you're not doing it the way you wish. And yes, there is that individual change that needs to happen. And it doesn't matter if we look at that, if we don't contextualize it inside of systems, because every parent in America is under-resourced. We just are.
We are starting behind, we are starting in an under-resourced place. And many parents are far more under-resourced than others, right? Who don't have as much privilege around money and family, you know, community and things like that to support them. And so we all have some amount of, we're already all under-resourced because in America it's almost impossible to not work when you have a child. And if you, even if you have that privilege, you still are probably then expected to do all of it.
you're not working. that's your, know, and you have to do all of it with a smile and feel excited about it. Like we're just all under resourced. And so that is the part where we have to like do the work internally, but also then when we have those moments where we're resorting to the tools, be able to give ourselves that grace to say, and why wouldn't I? Right. Because the systems at play here are working against me.
Cher (29:26.982)
Hmm.
Cher (29:31.622)
Yeah, and I think this goes back to your earlier statement about building community because
As we try to affect change systematically, we need a stop gap for our lack of resources. And community really is the answer here. And it's complicated, right? Like we have to confront ourselves as we try and build community. My number one challenge as I tried to create community around parenting and community change is rejection, which is hilarious. I'm a publicist. I am rejected literally every day, but on behalf of my clients.
typically. So I'm used to rejection as a process, as a a as a like a byproduct of my actions, but never before has it been so personal for me. So that's been a really interesting learning, learning opportunity as I go through this creating the stopgap for myself.
Becky Mollenkamp (30:32.408)
Well, the fact that you're in a, like you said, I don't know you still are, but you were in a really red area, red and white area. And I have that experience as well. And just finding community is challenging because community, not all community is the same as, you know, like community isn't community, isn't community, community. There needs to be a shared set of values for it to be the kind of community we're talking about. And that can be exponentially more challenging when you're in a space or an area where it's hard to find.
folks who have that shared value set because it makes it harder to even find the people who might reject you. And so like you're starting behind again. And so that's hard.
Cher (31:09.096)
I'm curious to know, this is a really sticky topic, so stick with me here. I am curious to know when you're thinking about value set for community, how willing are you to...
walk out of that value set to create community with others who do have differing beliefs and not dramatically different, right? Where they're not like, I'm a Nazi. They're like, well, we can meet our neighbors. We should be friends. Not like that, right? Where there is just like, there's slightly differing perspectives here. When you're creating community, how does that factor into who you choose to bring into your world and keep there?
Becky Mollenkamp (31:49.806)
Yeah, it's really interesting, like, because in my personal, it's just me on the line, right? So not in the parenting space where it now involves my child, right? That becomes a different set of different calculus. But for myself, I'm a little maybe I'm even more rigid than I ought to be, because I'm very much in a place where I know people talk about echo chambers is a bad thing. But I'm for my own mental health and the state of the world and where things are. I'm really OK personally being in an echo chamber, because
I step outside of that echo chamber enough to get enough of the other stuff that I need spaces for my own safety and mental health and all of that, where it's like, no, these are people who really fairly lockstep agree with me on the things that matter most to me. That does not mean we don't disagree on like, what's the best ice cream flavor or the best way to do email marketing, you know, whatever. But on like my core set of beliefs around humanity, I don't really waver from that in my personal, like for me, my business spaces.
if it's about my friendships personally and all of that. When my son is involved, because that makes it all different, you know, I find it more challenging there to say, I'm going to affect who you can and can't be friends with because of my set of beliefs or even his and I, we have a lot of shared beliefs, but I also recognize they're nine and they haven't yet fully developed their beliefs, right? And so is it fair for me to punish my son to not be friends? And this is a very real scenario.
for one particular friend and their parents, where it's like, it fair for me to somehow exclude him from having this friend because his parents voted for Trump and they're very, we don't have a lot of shared beliefs. I'm in the mind right now of no, because one, think trying to do that drives a wedge between my son and I, right? I'm removing his agency on him deciding who he wants to be friends with. I have to also have some belief that I'm raising him that if that becomes an issue between him and his friend,
I have to hope and believe that the way we are raising him, he will make the right choices. And third, he can be friends with that kid. Doesn't mean I have to be friends with that person's parents, the offenders, right? So like I have the friends of, you know, in some of his friends, it's much minor differences. Like he has some friends whose parents occasionally the dad makes some jokes that I'm like, these are not what I would do. But I also know that on the whole, they politically agree with us and they
Becky Mollenkamp (34:10.574)
you know, for the most part show up the way I would like, OK, there we can find some more solid ground to develop a friendship. But I also know friendships look different, right? Like my friendships, real friendships are really not any of his friends, parents. Those are more like situationships. Like, can we just coexist during this playdate or whatever and be able to get along well enough for the sake of our children? So I don't know. I don't know if that even answers your question, but that's kind of where I've been navigating it.
Cher (34:36.956)
Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. I would say that there is like, it's so nuanced and layered. I have the same issue where I find myself, I've really intentionally chosen communities that have similar values for like interaction with my daughter, who's four again. So very young, much younger than your child. And I will meet these people and we have similar value sets and I still just like won't feel a spark.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:39.95)
right?
Cher (35:03.75)
that sense of like, I see you and you see me and like, we can be friends. Like I feel safe around you. So it's, that, I find that really discouraging when I'm like, okay, I'm in communities where like I've chosen this. I know you believe in what I believe in. And I still like don't wanna be your friend. It's just.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:13.495)
It's.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:20.864)
It's so hard because especially with those, when my kid was little, this was a nonstop challenge for me. I was always, when he wasn't in school yet, so he wasn't making his own friends and you feel this responsibility to help your child develop friendships, understand social interactions, all of that, develop those skillset. So you kind of have to be the one driving that bus when they're little and finding those things. And like, how do you freaking do it? And in my case, I'm, because we had children late, I'm significantly older than most of my kids friends, parents. And so,
I don't have in my friend group a bunch of people with kids that are the same age. I couldn't just fall on those relationships. Most of them are, their kids are much older. And so was like, I have to go seek this out. And there is an app called Peanut, if you've never used it, that's a parent matching app, like whatever, you okay, so you know it. And that was a lot of trial and error. And it feels like dating and it's weird. And you're right, the rejection where somebody you're like, I think I could tolerate you and then you don't hear back from them or you have to be on the other side of that equation of like, I don't.
Cher (36:13.96)
Ted.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:19.158)
you, but now you keep messaging me and like, you know, like, it's awkward. It's fucking awkward. All I can tell you, well, you're going to be homeschooling. So it's harder. So for me, it became easier when my kid got to school and like, and he's very social and I'm very lucky he was born an extrovert. I am not. So it helps because he, he makes the friendships. I just have to come along. And now that he's nine, the beautiful thing is we have enough familiarity with his friends, parents that I can just be like, you can go over there without me now. So like, I don't have to be involved and that helps, but
This shit's hard and I don't think people talk enough about adult friendship making and community building. like there are so many challenges around that because you do have to sort of feel a spark like dating.
Cher (36:58.49)
yeah yeah and you know i think it's interesting Jordan Maney you've had who was like episode two yeah she talks about how asking for help is really the key here in like accessing rest and i think also building community and i wonder how much of my the block i have around asking for help i will do it but i will do it limited i'm i'm very like strategic about it
Becky Mollenkamp (37:02.702)
I love Jordan, I was just on a call with her before this.
Cher (37:26.566)
I wondered if I just like let the rains go a little bit more if the spark that I'm hoping will happen will happen if I like allow people to help me.
Becky Mollenkamp (37:35.886)
Yeah. And I mean, how much time are you giving people before you decide there's no spark?
Cher (37:41.16)
that's a good question, Becky. I would say it's a case-by-case basis. Sometimes I'll do like several play dates and sometimes we will come together for like, I don't know, school things. So she's in preschool right now. School things and I'll be like, I just continue to not really feel it. There's nothing really here. It's a case-by-case basis. then, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:02.286)
No, no, I just wonder if there's some of that same conditioning that we all have, like in relationships. Like I think I see it with dating and I wonder how much parallel there is with friendship building the same thing where we have this mythology that it's supposed to be this immediate spark and you're supposed to know right away. And all of a sudden you're like, did we just become best friends? That whole thing. it's like, and I do have those moments. So I know that that does exist. But I also know that like in relationships and everything else, that stuff can burn out. And sometimes it's the like
Are we both just committed to trying to know each other, to trying to find common ground? Are we both committed to the fact that we both want our children to have friends and so we're willing to show up for each other and believe that maybe there will be something that like more chemistry could develop over time? I don't know the answer to that because I'm not one who's very patient to give that time either. But I do wonder if maybe, yeah, I wonder if there's something to that if we were willing. I was more like the one play date and I'm done because I don't want, I just don't think this is going to work. But it's also kind of.
Cher (38:49.128)
Thank you for your honesty.
Cher (38:59.345)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:00.214)
my dating philosophy back when I was dating too.
Cher (39:03.196)
I think that was how I used to think as well. then because of the area where I live, I was like, I gotta give people more chances because there are so few of them that I could connect with. So I don't know, this has me thinking about even some people in my life, I'm like, I should just reach out and try to be more present and like just really beat it for the long haul. Because even if it's not that immediate spark best friend experience, there's still so much value in relationship, even at a distance, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (39:09.388)
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:28.643)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:32.558)
For sure. you know, speaking of like having a more diverse friend group, and I don't mean diverse and like you said, like, I need to have a Nazi friend and I need to have a MAGA friend. Like, no. But having in the effort of having more diverse friend groups, there is something to being said of having a little more patience and allowing more of that building to happen. Because when you don't have as much shared live experience, know, when your realities are that different, it can, I imagine, be harder to find common ground because you are coming from such different places.
And so I think it can take a little longer probably as well. And that's like, if we give up to East, I'm speaking here really more for white women, just that like going back to this piece, you know, and how she was, you know, the talking about like the tokenism and why there's not more people in the room who have different lived experiences. And if it's like, well, I try, but we just didn't have anything in common or we just didn't get along. Well, maybe not, but can you.
put in the effort and there is efforting. There's efforting in any relationship. A marriage is not just like this carefree happy thing. Like if you are in a long-term relationship, marriage or friendship.
It does take effort. does take work. It takes commitment. And I think we have to bring that same spirit into saying like, I'm going to welcome people into my spaces or be inside of other spaces. And no, we may not have immediate bonds. We may not have commonalities right away, but I'm there to learn. I'm there to learn about their experiences and hope that they're interested in the same. And then eventually we start to find places where we do have shared understanding or shared interests. Because I think that's another way it's really easy to sort of opt out of this of just like,
Well, I tried, went to this networking and it was mostly black women in the room and I felt isolated. I didn't know, I didn't share their understanding or their experiences. So I didn't feel welcome. And it's like, okay, that may be true, but also are you willing to give it another try? Are you willing to also not have your needs centered in the room? Because I think it's important for us, especially those of us with privilege identities to know.
Becky Mollenkamp (41:29.388)
This is what it feels like on the other side of that equation all the time. For the black woman who's coming to the room full of white women, and that happens all the time, right? That expectation seems to be there, that you're supposed to come into our space and assimilate, quote unquote, into our space. And yet the opposite feels like it's not true. Like I didn't, that wasn't a space for me. Well, people are coming into your spaces all the time that aren't for them. And they're learning to be there. Can you learn to be inside of a space that's not for you?
that wasn't about you, that isn't centering you and say, can I be here and just be in this experience and learn from other people and listen and grow and not expect that I'm going to be made to feel comfortable all the time.
Cher (42:08.464)
hmm yeah it is the comfort piece that's really important here and I think Audre excels at this Audre was so okay with this comfort she had a resilience and not for the first time either right when she went to Germany and she got on those stages she was like
Becky Mollenkamp (42:12.238)
That's the hardest thing.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:17.742)
Well, clearly if she said this in front of all those people, right?
Cher (42:26.352)
all white German women are being racist. You are all racist and like you are you are excluding population people who need to be included. She did it everywhere right? She was never very rarely in her life. I think in like two or three instances where she like did not speak up. But she was always that that quote is attributed to her right about like you have to use your voice, gotta use your voice no matter what.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:47.458)
Yeah.
And having to face that tired trope of being the angry black woman, which I think there are people who still think of Audre Lorde in that way, right? That she was, she wasn't like, think bell hooks, a lot of that had to do with her demeanor as well. But I think people think of her as this like sort of softer, sweeter kind of woman. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I fucking love bell hooks and is amazing. And I also think she had plenty of times where she showed up with that fierceness, but Audre Lorde never was afraid to show up with that fierceness. And unfortunately for black women, when you show up fiercely,
Cher (42:54.534)
Bye.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:19.338)
is often turned into feeding into this trope around the angry black woman and to do it anyway and to say I don't care about your trope this matters that's important.
Cher (43:27.464)
Yeah, I mean, she was angry. She was, yeah, she was a righteously angry. Yeah, I think a lot about how as someone who is black and Asian and a woman.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:30.766)
It should be!
Cher (43:45.158)
and how I have this tendency to not ask for help, to not really come to my friends when I really need them. Audre sets an example for us here too, right? She would get up her friends' site early in the morning, sometimes 4.30.
And whatever news headlines had broken her heart the day before or the day of, she would call them so early in morning and just pour her heart out to them. And they were always willing to receive. And I think that's just the energy that she brings to relationships where she was like, I'm going to ask that you hold space for me and I'm going to take care of you too.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:15.978)
Mm. I love that. Sherry, you can always hop in my voxer and do that with me anytime and I'll the same. I just did that today where I was just texting Taina, my co-host on Messy Liberation, friend of mine saying like, did you see the new Supreme Court ruling? I'm so pissed off. And it's just important to have those spaces. That's what community looks like, right? It's being held and holding and having space for each other. I love that. The other thing I wanted to mention before our time is up is the example I was thinking of.
Cher (44:39.336)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:44.192)
of this like master's tool thing. Of course, I went to business, which says a lot about where my brain is all the time, not parenting. But anyway, is this idea of like, we should all be millionaires or like this, this girl bossy kind of a thing of like, we, and she mentions it in here specifically, we'll beat them at their own game, right? Like, that's how we get ahead is by beating them at their own game. And her whole point with this is, that's not, that's not what we need, right? That's not going to change anything. All that does is shift.
who's at the top of that hierarchy, but it doesn't get rid of the hierarchy. And that's the goal. The goal is not changing who sits at the top. Yeah, that might feel good. Like, ooh, wouldn't it feel real good if we women had all the power? And I see that in that girl boss kind of thing. And I get it. I get where it comes from a righteous anger of like, if I have all the money, I have all the power, that's going to be where I win. And it's like, have you won? Maybe you've won at their game, but what kind of game is it? It's a rigged shitty game. Is that the game you want to win?
Or do you want to change the game? And I'm with her and saying, want to change the game. And yet so many of us see this like girl bossy, we should all be millionaires. Everyone should be rich. Everyone like go get your seven figures, babe, as a form of empowerment, right? Where it's like, is it? Is it though? And I sometimes have a challenge with that because I'm like, there is no part of me that wants to begrudge a woman of color from getting wealthy. Yeah, hell yeah, you should. Yes, I am behind that.
And I still think it's lacking the context again of the systems and saying like, can I want to get richer, increase my wealth and still say this game sucks and ultimately I want to get rid of the game. That's the stuff I want to see more of.
Cher (46:29.212)
Yeah, feels to me, because Atres was a socialist, right? Like she had a very clear political perspective. And it seems to that people who have this, let's speak about their own gay mentality.
lack both like the historical context and the patience for change. I think that they want to see change in their lifetime, which is I mean like a fair ass. We're human. We're like, I'm gonna like spend all my effort doing this. I want to see some some ROI to use like the language that they're using, right? That's just not how movement works. And I think we have to get used to that, that not having a payoff.
in our lifetimes, which is uncomfortable.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:14.398)
sure. I mean, how many hundreds of years did we have slavery? How many hundreds of years did America exist before white women got to vote, let alone Black women? Yeah. And there's, there's generations inside of each of those examples of people who never got to see the end of that thing or the, you know, the change for the thing that they wanted. And if they had given up the fight, where would we be? And, and I feel that you're right. I feel that. And I get that too, because I'm the most impatient person on the world.
Cher (47:17.382)
I know.
Cher (47:22.311)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (47:36.04)
Mm.
Cher (47:41.414)
Hahaha
Becky Mollenkamp (47:42.444)
in world where I'm like, yes, I want the change now. And I have to recognize it's not going to be the case. Like I am not going to see the fall of patriarchy in my lifetime. I don't care what some really optimistic people out there say. And I'm glad that they're they feel it and like keep the fight up. But for me, that actually feels discouraging because then when it when I don't see that change, that's when I want to be like, I'm out of this. If I go into the fight knowing this fight will be my entire lifetime, it's a different.
way for me to frame that for myself than like, I'm trying to reach some end goal here. I don't get to reach that, but that's okay. It doesn't mean I don't want it for my grandchildren and their children, right? Just because I don't get it for myself doesn't mean I don't wish it for future generations, even if I didn't have kids, but it is really hard. You're right. I see that.
Cher (48:14.984)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Cher (48:23.036)
Yeah.
yeah i'm trying to have this like geologic time stardust mindset where i'm like how long did it take for like the earth to form for things to change like i am a part of this i'm a part of nature i have to act like i'm part of nature now that i'm
oppressing nature or I'm controlling nature. So how do I also live into that rhythmic mentality that can be so easy to discard in a post-colonial, post-capitalist society, right? Like how can I embody that change that I want to also see happen even if it's 200, 300 years from now?
Becky Mollenkamp (49:09.334)
Yeah, but you're right. It is really hard to get people involved in a movement when you're like, when the promise is, if you join me in this fight, in 300 years, we want to change. I mean, most people would be like, no thanks. That doesn't sound very appealing.
Cher (49:12.168)
It's so hard.
Cher (49:18.856)
Totally, I know.
Yeah, 100 %! Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah, the question I keep asking myself is like, how do we shift the way that we are?
Cher (49:38.88)
forming our minds about like what's important or how we do how we live like how do we like discard the Amazon Prime mentality that someone may well slip inside of like that's my question right now it's like in my body and I think this conversation has really unlocked some of those topics for me I'm like okay if
Becky Mollenkamp (49:52.238)
Mmm.
Cher (50:01.742)
this is a core of what I think is keeping us back from being involved and putting effort for it, like how can I impact changing minds at that core level?
Becky Mollenkamp (50:14.722)
This is one of those times where don't you wish Audre Lorde was around today to see how she would be functioning, showing up, speaking in a time of the attention economy the way it is. Like it'd be so interesting. Not that there, I mean, there are so many amazing people who are speaking to these issues, but there's just, you read these things and you're like, sometimes it feels hard because it's like, well, this existed in such a different time than now, right? Where I'm like, you're right, because we live, I mean, the wealth distribution gap has gotten in, it's just like,
Cher (50:25.224)
Mm.
Cher (50:36.551)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (50:43.741)
wildly more vast since 1979, like ridiculous amounts. So thanks to the Bezos and the musts of the world, right? And there not even was there not, I mean, there wasn't internet shopping in two days, but there wasn't even internet. There was no social media. There was not like just how much different her thinking might be today. And again, there are amazing people out there thinking, but just I so wish that we could hear maybe AI could do it for us.
Cher (51:02.694)
I know.
Cher (51:08.584)
I know. Well, I thinking because she passed in 92. So this is before the internet, right? Yes, you were saying and I often try to imagine Audre on sub stack. Like how would she operate on sub stack? And how would she how do we? Or would she? Yeah, would she would she be opting into this? And I don't know. But I, there's so much that she gives that she gives us now. And I get her life such an example of that that fierceness and that like,
Becky Mollenkamp (51:24.174)
We're witchy.
Who knows?
Cher (51:38.534)
deep love and that subversiveness. she was so fucking subversive. i just in awe and reverence just mama audrey yeah
Becky Mollenkamp (51:43.138)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (51:49.26)
right? Well, again, this very question of asking ourselves, where am I still using the master's tools in the hopes that we'll dismantle the master's house? And that's a hard question to sit with with ourselves, right? Because especially when you're if you're really in this like liberation journey and doing the work, as you said, I think we often kind of want to we fall into that exceptionalism piece that's again part of white supremacy, but where we feel like, well, I'm the exception to that rule. Of course, I'm not doing that. And I'm doing it all right.
Cher (51:57.82)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:18.04)
But there's no way because it's the air we breathe. It's in all of us. We are also conditioned, like you said, from not just school, but before that with our parenting into school, into college, into career. All steps along the way, we are being indoctrinated into this idea of using these master's tools. And trying to suss that out in yourself and find the places where it's showing up, it's really fucking hard work. And so that gift continues to live on because that question will always probably be there for us.
to sit with, to wrestle with, to try and find and say, what changes can I make?
Cher (52:51.432)
Hmm, yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:54.286)
I know you said you're doing it around parenting. Anything else that from this piece that it's like left you as you read it and you've reflected on it that you're like sitting with, even if you don't have the answers yet, or just like that it's left you sort of going, I'm going to think about this. I'm going to explore this.
Cher (53:08.762)
Yeah, it's what I referenced earlier, it's art. I'm a writer and I'm a writer of creative nonfiction and fiction. And I also do visual art. And I think a lot about how I don't dig deeply enough and how Audre did. She was like to all of her mentees, all of her students, she was like, go deeper, what's the truth? What can only you say?
Becky Mollenkamp (53:11.382)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (53:22.03)
Mmm.
Cher (53:32.016)
And that is just like a rally cry for me. It's like both a slap in the face, a hug and a rally cry for me. Where she's like, you have to dig deeper. I almost feel like she's sometimes on my shoulder. Like, is that what you really feel? Is that what you really think?
Becky Mollenkamp (53:47.15)
That's good. And that makes me think of another way where the master's tools are still showing up for me also around creativity, because that's been something I've been wanting to do more of and explore for myself and allow space for. And the place I see this need or this, if I'm not going to monetize it, what's the point? Right? That's like, you can't do it unless it's going to be good enough to make money on. And that is so part of that capitalist master's tools. That's such an invitation for me to say.
How do I release that and say if really want, if liberation shouldn't be about how do I make something to monetize it. It's about creative expression for expression's sake. But it's challenging. Like these are things that are so much easier to say than to do.
Cher (54:29.436)
I agree. The work of art, the work of emotional expression and self-integration is like, just makes you want to maybe step outside of community and be by yourself and just wallow on all that you can't do. But I think that's the calling it, right? It's like, we're braver together, number one. And.
We have capacity, right? And if you don't, can we create some margin in our lives? Like that's been my work the past couple of years. It's like, how do I create more margins so that I can have space for creative self-expression? So that I can do these things. And I do sit in some privileged stances here of like, I have a partner who's really supportive. I've been working for 12 years on an online business that like is really solid and I feel secure in that. So there are differences in my life and I don't want anyone to think like, hmm, margin's easy to create. It's not.
also quit social media because I needed more margin for art and that was a massive transformational lever that I I pulled that I will never go back.
Becky Mollenkamp (55:36.27)
I've been moving towards that myself and it's such freedom. But also, as you said, there is privilege inside of that and it's not something everyone can do and I get that. But I think that the call here is like, what can you do? Right? I feel, yeah, I think it's just for each of us to examine. I think the first piece is just to bring awareness to the places where you are holding those master's tools. And again, that's whether you hold all privileged identities or a ton of marginalized identities, we are indoctrinated no matter so to be
Cher (55:44.818)
Mm-hmm
Yeah, exactly.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:05.676)
to want to pull for those tools, right? And so for all of us to find that awareness of where we're holding onto them and how we can maybe begin to let go, even if it's just like one little finger at a time, right? Because it might be too much to ask to say, I'm just dropping the keys completely because that may not be realistic, right? But what does it look like to start to challenge it?
Cher (56:15.464)
Mm.
Cher (56:22.618)
Yeah, and to let ourselves be imperfect along the way before we get involved, before we try to make community. We don't have to, Erica Courdae our mutual connect always says, like, we can be imperfect allies. And that just, that rings so true in Audre's life and in the context of the challenges we're facing today.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:40.014)
Yeah. Thank you for this conversation, Cher. For anyone watching, your hair looks gorgeous. I've never seen it sewed on up, and I love it. But anyway, I really... Go ahead.
Cher (56:45.672)
Thank you. Now I was gonna say I cut it all off, because it was like very, very long and curly. And then I was dumping so much product on it that I was like, enough of this, I need more margin in my life. I need less time to do my hair.
Becky Mollenkamp (57:00.014)
There have been times where I thought about shaving mine off. I just don't think I have the head shape, but I totally dig everyone who does it because I'm like, I get it. Like what freedom would come from that? And I only wear lipstick for this podcast. Beyond that, like makeups done too. I love that. I'm thinking about Marge and I'm going to start thinking about that. But thank you for being here and having this conversation with me and reading this. And I love that you are like such an Audre Lord head that you have all that knowledge about her too. So thank you.
Cher (57:05.496)
No.
Yeah.
Cher (57:26.236)
Thank you, Becky. This gave me so much to think about and to reflect on. I just appreciate you so much.
Becky Mollenkamp (57:34.228)
I appreciate you. Thank you.
Hi Cher!
Cher (00:02.172)
Hi friend, how are you?
Becky Mollenkamp (00:04.02)
super excited because Audre Lorde is one of my very favoriteists and we're going to be talking about a really I mean it's a short piece from a larger collection of works which is what a lot of Audre Lorde stuff is collections of essays. But this is something I think a lot of people know the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house and while I knew that phrase and everything I hadn't actually ever read this so I was really excited to and I'm really excited to talk about it with you. How about you?
Cher (00:28.742)
Yeah, we're on the same page here. I also love Audre Lorde. I think I came to the station late in terms of like, everyone was very into Audre Lorde and like our collector liberatory spaces. And I was like, yeah, she seems nice. have her quotes, but didn't really like understand her life or her ethos. And so I've said just in the past year, I have like really just hit her work hard and have become a devout and fervent fan.
I also had never read this piece, so we're on the same page here in terms of newness.
Becky Mollenkamp (01:01.986)
Well, good, because that's kind of my goal with these is that it's both of us coming into something kind of with fresh eyes and just talking about what we think. And since I hadn't read it, I didn't know much about it other than the kind of the concept of like the master's tools will never dismantle master's house. But I didn't realize this was it's really more of a transcribed speech, I believe, where she's talking at an event sort of to the people who organize this event and the ways they've fallen short. And it's it felt especially powerful once you sort of understand the
and the, you know, just the strength it takes to stand up in front of the people who've hired you to be there to say, hey, you all have really fallen short. And I thought that was really interesting.
Cher (01:41.87)
mean it just speaks so much to Audre's ethos of calling people out, especially when they are perpetrators of oppression right? Like she she very rarely throughout her life minces his words about this and I love how feisty and spicy it is. It just gives me so much energy to be like who should I call out next?
Becky Mollenkamp (02:05.806)
right? It was from the personal and the political panel at the second sex conference from October 29th, 1979. like, this is a long time ago, right? We're coming up on like, or 50, 50 years ago, it would have been, which is because the thing about so much of this that I'm learning through this podcast is a lot of the things we're reading, because there are so many amazing pieces in the sort of second wave of feminism in the 70s. We're reading a lot of stuff from that.
Cher (02:13.746)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:32.822)
And sadly, so much of the stuff that I've been reading from that time is still insane, incredibly relevant today. And this is certainly a piece I would say is there is because there's so many places in this where I was like shaking my head going, yeah, I see you girl bosses still sort of participating in this.
Cher (02:50.824)
yeah so tell me as you're shaking your head the girl boss thing translates to me 100 % is there any other stuff that came up to you where you were like this is still too relevant?
Becky Mollenkamp (03:02.574)
Well, I mean, the piece that I put on my quote board and that I underlined that really got me was the idea of community. Without community, there is no liberation, just because that is sort of the place in my journey where I have really been in the last two years. I was just talking about this today where it feels sort of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where first it was just me doing some of this work internally so that, I guess for my own survival, right? Like how do I shift it within?
And then moving kind of towards like, okay, now that I've done that, how do I integrate this into my work and in the way I show up outside of just my own internal feelings and beliefs, but now how do I bring this outside of that? And where I've been moving in the last couple of years is like, okay, now how do I like create coalitions to see this change on a broader scale? How do I have community around this? So it's not just me as an individual trying to do this work, but it's me working collectively to try and do this work.
Cher (03:45.704)
you
Becky Mollenkamp (03:55.746)
And so that was a piece that feels so important to me now too. But the biggest part, just as far as like relevance was this idea of, there was a part in here saying something like, so was I the only black, like you called one black woman and then said, well we tried and nobody wants to, you know, what, what can we do? And I still see that shit all the time and hear it from white women who host podcasts and specific, just because I have a lot of, I have three podcasts, I host a podcast community and I still, not within my community,
these folks are people who are trying. But I've heard this in the circles of online business owners all the time who are hosting summits, who have podcasts, who are like, you call them out about like, why is this panel? Why are your guests all white? Why is this panel all white? Where is the like, where's the effort to make sure that you're uplifting other voices? And I hear again and again, like, well, I asked a few people and they didn't want to participate or I don't really know anyone. So I didn't know who to ask or whatever. It's like the bare minimum amount of effort. And that somehow seems like it's OK. And her saying like,
that's not enough. Calling one black lady and saying, will you do this? And that person saying no, or even if they say yes, and that's your one person, like that is not enough.
Cher (05:06.344)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think in the in this talk, she says, Why was I the only black person you consulted for other black people to include in the conference? Don't you know other black people? Exactly, exactly. Because I think the one question that Audre asked of her her children and her mentees, and the people that she worked with in these spaces is, are you doing your work?
Becky Mollenkamp (05:20.76)
And if you don't, don't you realize that's a problem?
Cher (05:35.28)
And I just, I find that that question can be applied in almost every area of my life and in the movements that I'm in, which is, we, am I doing my own work? And this piece forced me to answer that question too. I talked it through with my partner and prepped for our call. And he was like, well, you know, one of the things you complained about in the past is not having enough friends who come from like diverse backgrounds. Like, why is that? And I was like, well.
you put me on the spot let me think about it and I had to do what Audre tells us to do which is to dig really deep and she says that in this piece too I believe like dig really deep and confront the biases inside of you that are keeping you from making Black friends from from having this wide expansive network and it's uncomfortable right it's uncomfortable for me as a woman of color with diverse backgrounds. I'm wondering how have I
brought this oppressed racism or oppression into my life as an adult now. Someone who is actively just like you trying to dismantle these systems within me. And that's what she's asking us here is we need to dig deeper, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (06:49.154)
Yeah, yeah. mean, there was certainly a time not so long ago where other than save for my best friend who is black and, you know, not to use the like, have a best friend who's black. But that was sort of where I was like, well, no, I have like a diverse group of friends. But when I really looked at it, was that really, really true? And when you start to investigate the why, that's the part that gets really confrontational for yourself, because you have to sort of it.
Cher (07:00.424)
Sure.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:15.662)
The piece that was interesting for me was when I began to understand the systemic reasons for why I might not have a diverse set of friends, Understanding that it's not necessarily just because I haven't tried hard enough or something, but there are these real barriers. Am I a safe person for a person of color to be in space with? And if I'm not, why not? some of that is my own needing to learn, but some of it is also because of the systems that I exist inside of that I unknowingly
perpetuating. So yes, that's my issue to undo that. But it's also these systems that exist that create that, right? So it's like a both and. And that can be really hard because when you start to investigate, we make it only about ourselves. And then especially when you are somebody who has a more privileged identity, I think it's easy to get defensive because we don't want to sit with that discomfort. And it's like, no, that can be true that, maybe I have fallen short. And there's also these systemic
things that had been at play that are not my fault until I see them. And once I know about them, then it is my responsibility to begin to undo them in myself. But like when I was 15, I didn't know that. I didn't understand all of these systemic issues. It was just in my world, it was like, well, we don't have any black kids that go to my school. So how would I friends? How would I be friends with anyone who's black? They're not in my world, right? And that was sort of the answer until I began to understand, ask the bigger questions of why aren't they in my school? Right? What is going on here? And then if I know that, then I know
Okay, no longer can I just accept, well, they're not here, so that's it. It's like, no, I have to now actively, like there's efforting that needs to happen to make that change. And that is where you, like, it can be hard. And then there's the stuff that comes up around like tokenism and all sorts of things that I, you know, I will hear people say too, like, I don't want to reach out to somebody because just because they're black or whatever the thing is to have them on my show. And it's like, okay, but what's the intention? What's the intention behind your efforting here? Is it because you just want to get someone black on your show?
Or is it because this person, you've researched them, they're amazing, they know their shit, they could come talk about this topic and they happen to be a person of color and you wanna amplify voices of people of color. Well, now it's not tokenism, it's I have found somebody who's amazing to talk about this topic. And I've taken the effort to make sure that I'm also amplifying, because all things being equal, there's three people who could talk about this topic and one of them is a black woman, why don't I go to her? Just because she's black, I'm afraid she's gonna say, you're just choosing me out of,
Cher (09:40.007)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:43.926)
tokenism or is it because no, researched a bunch of people and yeah, there are several people who could talk about it, but I want to amplify the voice of the person who rarely gets heard.
Cher (09:51.88)
Yeah, and I would say tokenism is a through line for Audre's life, right? Like she was a trailblazer in so many areas and she talks about how it hurt her deeply to not only be the token lesbian black poet in the room.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:55.448)
Yeah. Heck yeah she was.
Cher (10:08.892)
but also that she knew dozens and dozens of incredible black female queer poets who weren't being given space or time to showcase their work and their talents. And that has to be so painful. I think that when we say tokenize, there is like the sense of like, yeah, I get it. It's a buzzword. We're choosing one person, but we forget the emotional implications of being tokenized and feeling like I am the only and
what trying to figure out like what power do I have as the only do I do I really have it or is it is it faux power right is it this this false sense that I have any kind of agency and I don't know those are there's a question that I still pick apart as someone who lives in a white majority community and who is often feel tokenized and often self-tokenized earlier on in my life.
Becky Mollenkamp (10:58.574)
Mmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:02.188)
Ooh, tell me about that. What does that mean for you to be self-tokenized?
Cher (11:05.37)
yeah I mean if I would say it comes from... so I lived in a place that was very right wing, very white, and I was used to that. I grew up in like a southern Michigan town that was almost all white and I'm Black just like not Asian and so I got used to kind of being the only Asian which brought about like jokes about being Asian or like some racist comments, microaggressions, stuff like that.
And so as a defense mechanism, oftentimes really white spaces, I will microaggress myself or I will choke about being Asian first as a defense mechanism. And then I think as a result, tokenize my own identity. Cause I'm like, I'm your only Asian friend, for example, it's like a really like easy way to tokenize myself.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:41.933)
Totally.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:49.474)
Got it. Now that makes so much sense.
Becky Mollenkamp (11:55.15)
I can relate to that in a different way in that being the only woman when I was working in tech spaces, being like an often the only or one of very few women in the room and that feeling of like wanting to sort of bond with the men in a way that was really sort of degrading women. And it's gross to me now, but I also understand it because it feels like a survival technique, like, and it is a survival technique, right? And we see fat.
folks who are fat and I'm in a large body, like I see that happen all the time too, this idea of like, well, if I poke at the pain first, at least I'm controlling that, right? There feels like there's some amount of control in it and probably again, going back to some safety in it. And so like, I can understand it, but it's also really painful to do that stuff. you know, it still hurts me when I see, cause I think one area where I still see that happen a lot is in fat jokes, where there are people who are in larger bodies who poke fun at that stuff.
Cher (12:29.608)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (12:51.16)
and you can feel the pain underneath it, right? And I'm sure that's what you experienced as well then.
Cher (12:53.928)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important here that we don't forget that the people who are self-tokenizing in that way are making those jokes. I they don't have access yet to that embodiment, right? Because I think that, to our point earlier, defense is one of the master's tools. And embodiment is how we dismantle that.
Becky Mollenkamp (13:22.168)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (13:22.432)
there's just like this this how do we close that gap and i mean for for audrey there are a lot of answers but i feel like poetry was what was the primary medium for her to close that gap.
Becky Mollenkamp (13:33.55)
Yeah. Well, and you you mentioned her being ahead of her time. This is 1979. It's a decade before Kimberlé Crenshaw was really credited with sort of understanding, defining, putting a name to intersectionality. And yet, like we see Audre Lorde here taught. mean, what she's talking about is intersectionality, right? Because she's saying it's your this is a panel like this is a space for feminists. And yet what is feminism look like? It looks like white women. And is that feminism if you're not able to
speak to issues for women that also include me, she says, as a Black queer woman. If your issues aren't including me, is that really feminism, right? So she's speaking to intersectionality before the word was really out there. And I think that that's another place where that was so important and one of the reasons why I so respect her work.
Cher (14:25.318)
Yeah, she had this really prescient sense of what
creates change within movement. I would say, think Ali is one of them, transnational solidarity is another one of them. She like, we have to get global. And she knew this before so many of us were like, hmm, this is a good idea. But she knew we had to get global. We had to be community. had to, yes, yes, there was so much that she just like intuitively got. And again, I think it goes back to her. She had a deep sense of emotion, like she had deep access to her emotions. But I think because she also had poetry as a
Becky Mollenkamp (14:32.429)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:38.658)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:45.71)
class consciousness.
Cher (14:59.794)
art that it gave her access to that. And I'm so curious.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:59.928)
Bye.
Interesting. you someone who do you read a lot of poetry? I'm not a big poetry person, so I'm curious, like, that if that piece resonates with you so much because you also find something through it.
Cher (15:11.752)
I mean, yes and no. wrote, I mean, I wrote like cute little poems when I was a teenager and like heartbroken, right? I've always been a writer. I write fiction now and poetry as a medium has always felt kind of too highbrow for me, if I'm being quite honest. Like I'll read Cleo, Wade, I'll read contemporary kind of like black poets and I'll appreciate their work. It feels, I feel something from it. But as a whole, I would say probably the past.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:16.942)
Right, of course.
Cher (15:39.996)
couple of years I've been like I don't really get poetry. Like there's something about it that doesn't feel like I wanted to like critically understand poetry in way that I understand nonfiction or fiction and I wasn't able to feel like I had access to a relationship with poetry until I let that go which is in large part from Audre's pleading to like not care so much about what it means but to focus more on how it feels.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:56.898)
Mmm!
Becky Mollenkamp (16:06.83)
I set a goal for this year. I turned 50 this year and I did a bunch of like 50 goals. Like I want to do 50 of whatever. And one of them was to read 50 poems, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I have just never been for the same reason. And you're, you're unlocking something here for me because I realized it's really the same reason is like, I don't want to do it if I don't get it. I don't like things I'm not good at right away. I don't like not, you know, perfecting something or being really good at something. And with poetry, I've always felt this like,
lacking of like, why don't I see these like 16 layers to this poem that everyone else does? My brain is much more like just reading it for what it is. I do sometimes wonder, like I've wondered some about my neurodivergence and perhaps even some degree of autism spectrum because I can be pretty literal in a lot of ways. And so when I read poetry, it's often very literal for me. And so I struggle where I'll hear someone else dissect it and I think, holy shit, how'd you get all that from? Like, that's not what I read at all.
Cher (16:40.508)
You
Becky Mollenkamp (17:03.532)
And then it leaves me feeling lacking. And I think that's the big piece is like, can I move past that? Because that is all grounded in that same white supremacist culture of like needing to be perfect, you know, one right way, all of that. Can I release that? And like you said, can I just be with a poem and how it makes me feel? And there have been a few poems in my life, not many, but that I have really felt. And so I've always been on the search for like a poem that I can find that feels that way that I'm like, that's my.
poem, but I think it's always like there's that still bit piece of like, I have to be able to master it and you know, know it and all that. And so I am on this quest with my 50 poems this year of like, can I just find 50 poems I enjoy for whatever reason? Don't have to get it. They don't, it doesn't have to make sense to me. Can I just find 50 poems that I'm like, that was nice and let that be enough, but it's really challenging.
Cher (17:35.417)
Hmm.
Cher (17:52.072)
It is. I admit I've been there too. And only recently I began again to write poetry because there's, I think to our point earlier about discomfort, right? That discomfort of not getting it. That keeps so many of us out of movement. That keeps so many of us out of change work. was like, I don't, if I don't fully understand this problem, I'm not going to participate in change making. And to an extent it's like, yes, do your work, do your research.
don't put out other people to do it for you. And there are still small actions we can take. We know what feels right, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (18:29.646)
Well, it's so funny. I just had this conversation yesterday with Taina Brown for Messy Liberation podcast. By the time this comes up, that episode will be a little bit older, but you can go back and look for it. But we ended up being a weird conversation that just kind of led us towards the end talking about Palestine and what's been happening there. And we both kind of admitted to having at different points in our lives this, and I think so many people can relate this feeling of like that's.
I don't, I can't and full, we'll maybe never fully understand all of the dynamics that are at play at that region of the world. Cause it is deeply complicated and all of that. And so there is this almost excusing ourselves from the conversation of like, well, it's not my religion. It's not my space. It's not my culture. I don't really understand it. So I'm just going to like excuse myself from the conversation entirely. And yet that part of the like, can I feel into what's right? And I may not all, may not get it all, but
Ultimately, I do know that in my humanity, I can at minimum say, when I see children starving to death, I know that's not okay. Right? And can I at least start there and let that be good enough for me to say, I get to be a part of the conversation to at least the degree that my humanity says what I see isn't humane. And that's okay. Like, can I be okay with that instead of excusing myself because the excusing myself from it entirely is not doing anything to help anyone.
Cher (19:44.103)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (19:52.136)
right including yourself right? I think we when we tap out of our own humanity what does that what does that do to us as people? oh or any of these like AI drone situation I just I just I it hurts to be human and so many of us want to unsubscribe from that.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:53.186)
Yeah.
Turns us into Trump.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:08.782)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:14.104)
Yeah, if only you could just unsubscribe from pain doesn't work that way, right? Yeah, because we all deal with loss and everything else in the world is hard. And I mean, I don't know, going back to this piece, I think in some ways that's what she's speaking to also with, again, going back to her like this is in front of this community saying, like, the papers I'm seeing presented here don't speak of my experience and don't speak to me. knowing that that
Cher (20:17.626)
Yeah.
Cher (20:22.705)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:42.254)
causes her pain and I feel like the other people in the room have allowed, excuse themselves from doing it because it's like, well, that's not my experience. And I, as a person with a privileged identity, as a white woman, I can say there's a part of me that understands that to the degree of, the degree of like, it's not my lived experience. I can't speak to that. So let's, it's better that we don't speak to it than try to speak to it and get it wrong. But that is still centering myself of like, I have to be the one speaking to it, right? But I still see that.
so often. And it's that learning of how do we center someone else. And again, it's not by like reaching out to the one token person, but like continuing until you get it right, until you find the person who can speak to it, the people, right? Making sure that any space you're holding is not just centering your identity, but has there's so many identities in the room. And I think, you know, going to like the easy out button, it's a whole lot easier to just not do any of that.
Right. It is certainly a lot easier just to call your besties and say, I'm putting together a summit or I'm going to do a podcast. Hey, besties, let's all just do this. And then all your besties happen to be just like you. And then you end up in this space. And then it feels like, well, it's no big deal because I was just doing it with my besties. Right. But what's the pain that that's causing to others who see what's happening and the exclusion that's happening? And it's hard work. It is a lot easier to opt out. But is it right?
Cher (22:04.294)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lack of solidarity there, right? It's like, if you're not organizing for our collective liberation, then you're organizing with the patriarchy's tools or the colonial tools that you have at your disposal, right? She's saying this. How do we...
Becky Mollenkamp (22:17.55)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (22:25.14)
assess the framework, the systems which we live and then choose differently. And one way that we choose differently is by getting all perspectives, collecting all insights, right? Not saying like, your movement over here is going to put pull. I think that what she was arguing before was like, you're saying that by not including us, you can like get ahead and then help us later, which is kind of the thought process, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (22:35.341)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:53.24)
That's very much it, right? Going back to the suffragettes, yeah.
Cher (22:54.748)
Right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Look, we'll help you later. But like we have to, our differences, she's saying in this piece, our differences make us stronger. And how do we draw on our differences for greater creativity towards solutions that free all of us?
Becky Mollenkamp (23:12.78)
Yeah, that's I have that part right here where she's like, difference is the raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged. And it's that all the way back to suffragettes. It's like it's this wait your turn mentality that we see happening right now with trans identities, right? Where you can feel that same thing happening, where there's this this rift amongst feminists saying like.
We're the feminists who are saying, no, no, no, it's not okay until all of us are safe. And then the turfy nasty JK Rowlings of the world who are like, well, hold up. It's almost like you're trying to take something from us that we fought so hard for. Let us get, we're not even protected yet. Let us get our stuff and then maybe we'll give you something, right? This like, wait your turn. And what does that say about you? It is those master's tools, right? Cause that goes, that's that hierarchical thinking of like, yeah.
And that is not to me what feminism is. The very idea that TERFs even have the word feminist in their, what they think of themselves, absolutely disgusts me because that is not what feminism should or really in its core is about, at least not feminism I believe in.
Cher (24:23.048)
Yeah, I hear you. I am processing all of that information because it landed really true for me.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:28.973)
Okay.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we see it all the time. I'm curious on that idea of the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. Are there things that come up for you like that still like where that feels resonant, where you see it happening now? I can give you an example if you're not ready, because I don't want to like put you on the spot.
Cher (24:49.244)
No, no, no, I was thinking about this too. I think I see a lot in parenting, right? I have a four year old and I read a lot of parenting literature. I watch, I observe parenting happening in the wild, we can say. And I'm prepping for homeschooling. So I think I'm very tapped into this, like the parenting, home education environment. And I see a lot of this patriarchal.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:05.121)
Yeah.
Cher (25:16.648)
hierarchical oppressive thinking happening in parenting where there's like an authoritarian sense, authoritarian presence for parents. And so I think like from the bottom of, from the core of our children's souls, I think about how we're impacting them and inculcating them into the system. We're telling them where our use of the master's tools makes it okay for you as you grow up to use the master's tools.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:45.134)
for sure. And I do feel like there's some shift happening there because I think in our time as children, our parents time as children even more, like every generation you go back, I feel like you see an even stronger belief that children are not humans in a way, right? They're not full humans yet. So you magically turn 18 and then you become an adult and you are now an independent human. Until then, you are really more like my property, right? Parents treating children as property. In fact, I mean, in back
not far ago, and maybe it still happens to some degree, people were having children truly as property, almost as cattle. Like you are here to help me farm this land. I'm having you as a servant to me, right? And we have treated children that way for a long time. And then you're right, they go into the school system. I don't homeschool because I'm not a saint like you. I don't know how you're going to do it, but I'm proud of you for doing it. I wish I could. So I use the public school system. And I do have a lot of troubles with that because I feel like I'm sending him into a space that the
real purpose of public education is not to develop our children into critical thinkers or into independent free spirits. The point of it is to teach them how to become cogs in the wheel, right? They go there to learn how to be workers, how to be in this hierarchical system that immediately starts to teach them about hierarchy and value and worth based on that and based on productivity and all the things that we need for good workers. And so that is really hard. And I see it too. And it's interesting. I see it in myself sometimes still with my parenting, right?
And when I noticed that I try really hard to step outside of it, and it's even more challenging for my husband, not surprisingly, as he has more privilege privileges than I do, because it was so ingrained in him, this idea of respect. But what respect looked like was really it meant fear and him trying to understand respect is not something that you can demand. It is earned. And that is a challenging thing when you're based in that hierarchical thinking where no respect isn't earned. It's forced. And so, yeah, I totally see that.
Cher (27:40.328)
yeah yeah for me it's a lot of like because because parenting you're right has had a major shift like we are more present parents than ever before and i think when i say that i notice master's tools i notice it in others and in myself too right where i'm like i'm like really wanting to be in control here
Becky Mollenkamp (28:01.23)
for sure.
Cher (28:01.284)
at the at the cost of anything at the cost of your emotions, at the cost of my own emotions. I just want to be in control here. And so really recognizing, like I, I carry these with me, like I have my own tool belt that I that I use in parenting, especially when you're desperate, especially when you are under resourced, right? Like those are the moments where they really come out.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:18.593)
Well, that goes back to the system, the systemic piece of this that we talked about earlier, right? It's one thing to look at you individually as a individual mom doing this job and thinking about the ways that maybe you're not doing it the way you wish. And yes, there is that individual change that needs to happen. And it doesn't matter if we look at that, if we don't contextualize it inside of systems, because every parent in America is under-resourced. We just are.
We are starting behind, we are starting in an under-resourced place. And many parents are far more under-resourced than others, right? Who don't have as much privilege around money and family, you know, community and things like that to support them. And so we all have some amount of, we're already all under-resourced because in America it's almost impossible to not work when you have a child. And if you, even if you have that privilege, you still are probably then expected to do all of it.
you're not working. that's your, know, and you have to do all of it with a smile and feel excited about it. Like we're just all under resourced. And so that is the part where we have to like do the work internally, but also then when we have those moments where we're resorting to the tools, be able to give ourselves that grace to say, and why wouldn't I? Right. Because the systems at play here are working against me.
Cher (29:26.982)
Hmm.
Cher (29:31.622)
Yeah, and I think this goes back to your earlier statement about building community because
As we try to affect change systematically, we need a stop gap for our lack of resources. And community really is the answer here. And it's complicated, right? Like we have to confront ourselves as we try and build community. My number one challenge as I tried to create community around parenting and community change is rejection, which is hilarious. I'm a publicist. I am rejected literally every day, but on behalf of my clients.
typically. So I'm used to rejection as a process, as a a as a like a byproduct of my actions, but never before has it been so personal for me. So that's been a really interesting learning, learning opportunity as I go through this creating the stopgap for myself.
Becky Mollenkamp (30:32.408)
Well, the fact that you're in a, like you said, I don't know you still are, but you were in a really red area, red and white area. And I have that experience as well. And just finding community is challenging because community, not all community is the same as, you know, like community isn't community, isn't community, community. There needs to be a shared set of values for it to be the kind of community we're talking about. And that can be exponentially more challenging when you're in a space or an area where it's hard to find.
folks who have that shared value set because it makes it harder to even find the people who might reject you. And so like you're starting behind again. And so that's hard.
Cher (31:09.096)
I'm curious to know, this is a really sticky topic, so stick with me here. I am curious to know when you're thinking about value set for community, how willing are you to...
walk out of that value set to create community with others who do have differing beliefs and not dramatically different, right? Where they're not like, I'm a Nazi. They're like, well, we can meet our neighbors. We should be friends. Not like that, right? Where there is just like, there's slightly differing perspectives here. When you're creating community, how does that factor into who you choose to bring into your world and keep there?
Becky Mollenkamp (31:49.806)
Yeah, it's really interesting, like, because in my personal, it's just me on the line, right? So not in the parenting space where it now involves my child, right? That becomes a different set of different calculus. But for myself, I'm a little maybe I'm even more rigid than I ought to be, because I'm very much in a place where I know people talk about echo chambers is a bad thing. But I'm for my own mental health and the state of the world and where things are. I'm really OK personally being in an echo chamber, because
I step outside of that echo chamber enough to get enough of the other stuff that I need spaces for my own safety and mental health and all of that, where it's like, no, these are people who really fairly lockstep agree with me on the things that matter most to me. That does not mean we don't disagree on like, what's the best ice cream flavor or the best way to do email marketing, you know, whatever. But on like my core set of beliefs around humanity, I don't really waver from that in my personal, like for me, my business spaces.
if it's about my friendships personally and all of that. When my son is involved, because that makes it all different, you know, I find it more challenging there to say, I'm going to affect who you can and can't be friends with because of my set of beliefs or even his and I, we have a lot of shared beliefs, but I also recognize they're nine and they haven't yet fully developed their beliefs, right? And so is it fair for me to punish my son to not be friends? And this is a very real scenario.
for one particular friend and their parents, where it's like, it fair for me to somehow exclude him from having this friend because his parents voted for Trump and they're very, we don't have a lot of shared beliefs. I'm in the mind right now of no, because one, think trying to do that drives a wedge between my son and I, right? I'm removing his agency on him deciding who he wants to be friends with. I have to also have some belief that I'm raising him that if that becomes an issue between him and his friend,
I have to hope and believe that the way we are raising him, he will make the right choices. And third, he can be friends with that kid. Doesn't mean I have to be friends with that person's parents, the offenders, right? So like I have the friends of, you know, in some of his friends, it's much minor differences. Like he has some friends whose parents occasionally the dad makes some jokes that I'm like, these are not what I would do. But I also know that on the whole, they politically agree with us and they
Becky Mollenkamp (34:10.574)
you know, for the most part show up the way I would like, OK, there we can find some more solid ground to develop a friendship. But I also know friendships look different, right? Like my friendships, real friendships are really not any of his friends, parents. Those are more like situationships. Like, can we just coexist during this playdate or whatever and be able to get along well enough for the sake of our children? So I don't know. I don't know if that even answers your question, but that's kind of where I've been navigating it.
Cher (34:36.956)
Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. I would say that there is like, it's so nuanced and layered. I have the same issue where I find myself, I've really intentionally chosen communities that have similar values for like interaction with my daughter, who's four again. So very young, much younger than your child. And I will meet these people and we have similar value sets and I still just like won't feel a spark.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:39.95)
right?
Cher (35:03.75)
that sense of like, I see you and you see me and like, we can be friends. Like I feel safe around you. So it's, that, I find that really discouraging when I'm like, okay, I'm in communities where like I've chosen this. I know you believe in what I believe in. And I still like don't wanna be your friend. It's just.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:13.495)
It's.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:20.864)
It's so hard because especially with those, when my kid was little, this was a nonstop challenge for me. I was always, when he wasn't in school yet, so he wasn't making his own friends and you feel this responsibility to help your child develop friendships, understand social interactions, all of that, develop those skillset. So you kind of have to be the one driving that bus when they're little and finding those things. And like, how do you freaking do it? And in my case, I'm, because we had children late, I'm significantly older than most of my kids friends, parents. And so,
I don't have in my friend group a bunch of people with kids that are the same age. I couldn't just fall on those relationships. Most of them are, their kids are much older. And so was like, I have to go seek this out. And there is an app called Peanut, if you've never used it, that's a parent matching app, like whatever, you okay, so you know it. And that was a lot of trial and error. And it feels like dating and it's weird. And you're right, the rejection where somebody you're like, I think I could tolerate you and then you don't hear back from them or you have to be on the other side of that equation of like, I don't.
Cher (36:13.96)
Ted.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:19.158)
you, but now you keep messaging me and like, you know, like, it's awkward. It's fucking awkward. All I can tell you, well, you're going to be homeschooling. So it's harder. So for me, it became easier when my kid got to school and like, and he's very social and I'm very lucky he was born an extrovert. I am not. So it helps because he, he makes the friendships. I just have to come along. And now that he's nine, the beautiful thing is we have enough familiarity with his friends, parents that I can just be like, you can go over there without me now. So like, I don't have to be involved and that helps, but
This shit's hard and I don't think people talk enough about adult friendship making and community building. like there are so many challenges around that because you do have to sort of feel a spark like dating.
Cher (36:58.49)
yeah yeah and you know i think it's interesting Jordan Maney you've had who was like episode two yeah she talks about how asking for help is really the key here in like accessing rest and i think also building community and i wonder how much of my the block i have around asking for help i will do it but i will do it limited i'm i'm very like strategic about it
Becky Mollenkamp (37:02.702)
I love Jordan, I was just on a call with her before this.
Cher (37:26.566)
I wondered if I just like let the rains go a little bit more if the spark that I'm hoping will happen will happen if I like allow people to help me.
Becky Mollenkamp (37:35.886)
Yeah. And I mean, how much time are you giving people before you decide there's no spark?
Cher (37:41.16)
that's a good question, Becky. I would say it's a case-by-case basis. Sometimes I'll do like several play dates and sometimes we will come together for like, I don't know, school things. So she's in preschool right now. School things and I'll be like, I just continue to not really feel it. There's nothing really here. It's a case-by-case basis. then, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:02.286)
No, no, I just wonder if there's some of that same conditioning that we all have, like in relationships. Like I think I see it with dating and I wonder how much parallel there is with friendship building the same thing where we have this mythology that it's supposed to be this immediate spark and you're supposed to know right away. And all of a sudden you're like, did we just become best friends? That whole thing. it's like, and I do have those moments. So I know that that does exist. But I also know that like in relationships and everything else, that stuff can burn out. And sometimes it's the like
Are we both just committed to trying to know each other, to trying to find common ground? Are we both committed to the fact that we both want our children to have friends and so we're willing to show up for each other and believe that maybe there will be something that like more chemistry could develop over time? I don't know the answer to that because I'm not one who's very patient to give that time either. But I do wonder if maybe, yeah, I wonder if there's something to that if we were willing. I was more like the one play date and I'm done because I don't want, I just don't think this is going to work. But it's also kind of.
Cher (38:49.128)
Thank you for your honesty.
Cher (38:59.345)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:00.214)
my dating philosophy back when I was dating too.
Cher (39:03.196)
I think that was how I used to think as well. then because of the area where I live, I was like, I gotta give people more chances because there are so few of them that I could connect with. So I don't know, this has me thinking about even some people in my life, I'm like, I should just reach out and try to be more present and like just really beat it for the long haul. Because even if it's not that immediate spark best friend experience, there's still so much value in relationship, even at a distance, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (39:09.388)
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:28.643)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:32.558)
For sure. you know, speaking of like having a more diverse friend group, and I don't mean diverse and like you said, like, I need to have a Nazi friend and I need to have a MAGA friend. Like, no. But having in the effort of having more diverse friend groups, there is something to being said of having a little more patience and allowing more of that building to happen. Because when you don't have as much shared live experience, know, when your realities are that different, it can, I imagine, be harder to find common ground because you are coming from such different places.
And so I think it can take a little longer probably as well. And that's like, if we give up to East, I'm speaking here really more for white women, just that like going back to this piece, you know, and how she was, you know, the talking about like the tokenism and why there's not more people in the room who have different lived experiences. And if it's like, well, I try, but we just didn't have anything in common or we just didn't get along. Well, maybe not, but can you.
put in the effort and there is efforting. There's efforting in any relationship. A marriage is not just like this carefree happy thing. Like if you are in a long-term relationship, marriage or friendship.
It does take effort. does take work. It takes commitment. And I think we have to bring that same spirit into saying like, I'm going to welcome people into my spaces or be inside of other spaces. And no, we may not have immediate bonds. We may not have commonalities right away, but I'm there to learn. I'm there to learn about their experiences and hope that they're interested in the same. And then eventually we start to find places where we do have shared understanding or shared interests. Because I think that's another way it's really easy to sort of opt out of this of just like,
Well, I tried, went to this networking and it was mostly black women in the room and I felt isolated. I didn't know, I didn't share their understanding or their experiences. So I didn't feel welcome. And it's like, okay, that may be true, but also are you willing to give it another try? Are you willing to also not have your needs centered in the room? Because I think it's important for us, especially those of us with privilege identities to know.
Becky Mollenkamp (41:29.388)
This is what it feels like on the other side of that equation all the time. For the black woman who's coming to the room full of white women, and that happens all the time, right? That expectation seems to be there, that you're supposed to come into our space and assimilate, quote unquote, into our space. And yet the opposite feels like it's not true. Like I didn't, that wasn't a space for me. Well, people are coming into your spaces all the time that aren't for them. And they're learning to be there. Can you learn to be inside of a space that's not for you?
that wasn't about you, that isn't centering you and say, can I be here and just be in this experience and learn from other people and listen and grow and not expect that I'm going to be made to feel comfortable all the time.
Cher (42:08.464)
hmm yeah it is the comfort piece that's really important here and I think Audre excels at this Audre was so okay with this comfort she had a resilience and not for the first time either right when she went to Germany and she got on those stages she was like
Becky Mollenkamp (42:12.238)
That's the hardest thing.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:17.742)
Well, clearly if she said this in front of all those people, right?
Cher (42:26.352)
all white German women are being racist. You are all racist and like you are you are excluding population people who need to be included. She did it everywhere right? She was never very rarely in her life. I think in like two or three instances where she like did not speak up. But she was always that that quote is attributed to her right about like you have to use your voice, gotta use your voice no matter what.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:47.458)
Yeah.
And having to face that tired trope of being the angry black woman, which I think there are people who still think of Audre Lorde in that way, right? That she was, she wasn't like, think bell hooks, a lot of that had to do with her demeanor as well. But I think people think of her as this like sort of softer, sweeter kind of woman. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I fucking love bell hooks and is amazing. And I also think she had plenty of times where she showed up with that fierceness, but Audre Lorde never was afraid to show up with that fierceness. And unfortunately for black women, when you show up fiercely,
Cher (42:54.534)
Bye.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:19.338)
is often turned into feeding into this trope around the angry black woman and to do it anyway and to say I don't care about your trope this matters that's important.
Cher (43:27.464)
Yeah, I mean, she was angry. She was, yeah, she was a righteously angry. Yeah, I think a lot about how as someone who is black and Asian and a woman.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:30.766)
It should be!
Cher (43:45.158)
and how I have this tendency to not ask for help, to not really come to my friends when I really need them. Audre sets an example for us here too, right? She would get up her friends' site early in the morning, sometimes 4.30.
And whatever news headlines had broken her heart the day before or the day of, she would call them so early in morning and just pour her heart out to them. And they were always willing to receive. And I think that's just the energy that she brings to relationships where she was like, I'm going to ask that you hold space for me and I'm going to take care of you too.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:15.978)
Mm. I love that. Sherry, you can always hop in my voxer and do that with me anytime and I'll the same. I just did that today where I was just texting Taina, my co-host on Messy Liberation, friend of mine saying like, did you see the new Supreme Court ruling? I'm so pissed off. And it's just important to have those spaces. That's what community looks like, right? It's being held and holding and having space for each other. I love that. The other thing I wanted to mention before our time is up is the example I was thinking of.
Cher (44:39.336)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:44.192)
of this like master's tool thing. Of course, I went to business, which says a lot about where my brain is all the time, not parenting. But anyway, is this idea of like, we should all be millionaires or like this, this girl bossy kind of a thing of like, we, and she mentions it in here specifically, we'll beat them at their own game, right? Like, that's how we get ahead is by beating them at their own game. And her whole point with this is, that's not, that's not what we need, right? That's not going to change anything. All that does is shift.
who's at the top of that hierarchy, but it doesn't get rid of the hierarchy. And that's the goal. The goal is not changing who sits at the top. Yeah, that might feel good. Like, ooh, wouldn't it feel real good if we women had all the power? And I see that in that girl boss kind of thing. And I get it. I get where it comes from a righteous anger of like, if I have all the money, I have all the power, that's going to be where I win. And it's like, have you won? Maybe you've won at their game, but what kind of game is it? It's a rigged shitty game. Is that the game you want to win?
Or do you want to change the game? And I'm with her and saying, want to change the game. And yet so many of us see this like girl bossy, we should all be millionaires. Everyone should be rich. Everyone like go get your seven figures, babe, as a form of empowerment, right? Where it's like, is it? Is it though? And I sometimes have a challenge with that because I'm like, there is no part of me that wants to begrudge a woman of color from getting wealthy. Yeah, hell yeah, you should. Yes, I am behind that.
And I still think it's lacking the context again of the systems and saying like, can I want to get richer, increase my wealth and still say this game sucks and ultimately I want to get rid of the game. That's the stuff I want to see more of.
Cher (46:29.212)
Yeah, feels to me, because Atres was a socialist, right? Like she had a very clear political perspective. And it seems to that people who have this, let's speak about their own gay mentality.
lack both like the historical context and the patience for change. I think that they want to see change in their lifetime, which is I mean like a fair ass. We're human. We're like, I'm gonna like spend all my effort doing this. I want to see some some ROI to use like the language that they're using, right? That's just not how movement works. And I think we have to get used to that, that not having a payoff.
in our lifetimes, which is uncomfortable.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:14.398)
sure. I mean, how many hundreds of years did we have slavery? How many hundreds of years did America exist before white women got to vote, let alone Black women? Yeah. And there's, there's generations inside of each of those examples of people who never got to see the end of that thing or the, you know, the change for the thing that they wanted. And if they had given up the fight, where would we be? And, and I feel that you're right. I feel that. And I get that too, because I'm the most impatient person on the world.
Cher (47:17.382)
I know.
Cher (47:22.311)
Mm-hmm.
Cher (47:36.04)
Mm.
Cher (47:41.414)
Hahaha
Becky Mollenkamp (47:42.444)
in world where I'm like, yes, I want the change now. And I have to recognize it's not going to be the case. Like I am not going to see the fall of patriarchy in my lifetime. I don't care what some really optimistic people out there say. And I'm glad that they're they feel it and like keep the fight up. But for me, that actually feels discouraging because then when it when I don't see that change, that's when I want to be like, I'm out of this. If I go into the fight knowing this fight will be my entire lifetime, it's a different.
way for me to frame that for myself than like, I'm trying to reach some end goal here. I don't get to reach that, but that's okay. It doesn't mean I don't want it for my grandchildren and their children, right? Just because I don't get it for myself doesn't mean I don't wish it for future generations, even if I didn't have kids, but it is really hard. You're right. I see that.
Cher (48:14.984)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Cher (48:23.036)
Yeah.
yeah i'm trying to have this like geologic time stardust mindset where i'm like how long did it take for like the earth to form for things to change like i am a part of this i'm a part of nature i have to act like i'm part of nature now that i'm
oppressing nature or I'm controlling nature. So how do I also live into that rhythmic mentality that can be so easy to discard in a post-colonial, post-capitalist society, right? Like how can I embody that change that I want to also see happen even if it's 200, 300 years from now?
Becky Mollenkamp (49:09.334)
Yeah, but you're right. It is really hard to get people involved in a movement when you're like, when the promise is, if you join me in this fight, in 300 years, we want to change. I mean, most people would be like, no thanks. That doesn't sound very appealing.
Cher (49:12.168)
It's so hard.
Cher (49:18.856)
Totally, I know.
Yeah, 100 %! Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah, the question I keep asking myself is like, how do we shift the way that we are?
Cher (49:38.88)
forming our minds about like what's important or how we do how we live like how do we like discard the Amazon Prime mentality that someone may well slip inside of like that's my question right now it's like in my body and I think this conversation has really unlocked some of those topics for me I'm like okay if
Becky Mollenkamp (49:52.238)
Mmm.
Cher (50:01.742)
this is a core of what I think is keeping us back from being involved and putting effort for it, like how can I impact changing minds at that core level?
Becky Mollenkamp (50:14.722)
This is one of those times where don't you wish Audre Lorde was around today to see how she would be functioning, showing up, speaking in a time of the attention economy the way it is. Like it'd be so interesting. Not that there, I mean, there are so many amazing people who are speaking to these issues, but there's just, you read these things and you're like, sometimes it feels hard because it's like, well, this existed in such a different time than now, right? Where I'm like, you're right, because we live, I mean, the wealth distribution gap has gotten in, it's just like,
Cher (50:25.224)
Mm.
Cher (50:36.551)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (50:43.741)
wildly more vast since 1979, like ridiculous amounts. So thanks to the Bezos and the musts of the world, right? And there not even was there not, I mean, there wasn't internet shopping in two days, but there wasn't even internet. There was no social media. There was not like just how much different her thinking might be today. And again, there are amazing people out there thinking, but just I so wish that we could hear maybe AI could do it for us.
Cher (51:02.694)
I know.
Cher (51:08.584)
I know. Well, I thinking because she passed in 92. So this is before the internet, right? Yes, you were saying and I often try to imagine Audre on sub stack. Like how would she operate on sub stack? And how would she how do we? Or would she? Yeah, would she would she be opting into this? And I don't know. But I, there's so much that she gives that she gives us now. And I get her life such an example of that that fierceness and that like,
Becky Mollenkamp (51:24.174)
We're witchy.
Who knows?
Cher (51:38.534)
deep love and that subversiveness. she was so fucking subversive. i just in awe and reverence just mama audrey yeah
Becky Mollenkamp (51:43.138)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (51:49.26)
right? Well, again, this very question of asking ourselves, where am I still using the master's tools in the hopes that we'll dismantle the master's house? And that's a hard question to sit with with ourselves, right? Because especially when you're if you're really in this like liberation journey and doing the work, as you said, I think we often kind of want to we fall into that exceptionalism piece that's again part of white supremacy, but where we feel like, well, I'm the exception to that rule. Of course, I'm not doing that. And I'm doing it all right.
Cher (51:57.82)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:18.04)
But there's no way because it's the air we breathe. It's in all of us. We are also conditioned, like you said, from not just school, but before that with our parenting into school, into college, into career. All steps along the way, we are being indoctrinated into this idea of using these master's tools. And trying to suss that out in yourself and find the places where it's showing up, it's really fucking hard work. And so that gift continues to live on because that question will always probably be there for us.
to sit with, to wrestle with, to try and find and say, what changes can I make?
Cher (52:51.432)
Hmm, yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:54.286)
I know you said you're doing it around parenting. Anything else that from this piece that it's like left you as you read it and you've reflected on it that you're like sitting with, even if you don't have the answers yet, or just like that it's left you sort of going, I'm going to think about this. I'm going to explore this.
Cher (53:08.762)
Yeah, it's what I referenced earlier, it's art. I'm a writer and I'm a writer of creative nonfiction and fiction. And I also do visual art. And I think a lot about how I don't dig deeply enough and how Audre did. She was like to all of her mentees, all of her students, she was like, go deeper, what's the truth? What can only you say?
Becky Mollenkamp (53:11.382)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (53:22.03)
Mmm.
Cher (53:32.016)
And that is just like a rally cry for me. It's like both a slap in the face, a hug and a rally cry for me. Where she's like, you have to dig deeper. I almost feel like she's sometimes on my shoulder. Like, is that what you really feel? Is that what you really think?
Becky Mollenkamp (53:47.15)
That's good. And that makes me think of another way where the master's tools are still showing up for me also around creativity, because that's been something I've been wanting to do more of and explore for myself and allow space for. And the place I see this need or this, if I'm not going to monetize it, what's the point? Right? That's like, you can't do it unless it's going to be good enough to make money on. And that is so part of that capitalist master's tools. That's such an invitation for me to say.
How do I release that and say if really want, if liberation shouldn't be about how do I make something to monetize it. It's about creative expression for expression's sake. But it's challenging. Like these are things that are so much easier to say than to do.
Cher (54:29.436)
I agree. The work of art, the work of emotional expression and self-integration is like, just makes you want to maybe step outside of community and be by yourself and just wallow on all that you can't do. But I think that's the calling it, right? It's like, we're braver together, number one. And.
We have capacity, right? And if you don't, can we create some margin in our lives? Like that's been my work the past couple of years. It's like, how do I create more margins so that I can have space for creative self-expression? So that I can do these things. And I do sit in some privileged stances here of like, I have a partner who's really supportive. I've been working for 12 years on an online business that like is really solid and I feel secure in that. So there are differences in my life and I don't want anyone to think like, hmm, margin's easy to create. It's not.
also quit social media because I needed more margin for art and that was a massive transformational lever that I I pulled that I will never go back.
Becky Mollenkamp (55:36.27)
I've been moving towards that myself and it's such freedom. But also, as you said, there is privilege inside of that and it's not something everyone can do and I get that. But I think that the call here is like, what can you do? Right? I feel, yeah, I think it's just for each of us to examine. I think the first piece is just to bring awareness to the places where you are holding those master's tools. And again, that's whether you hold all privileged identities or a ton of marginalized identities, we are indoctrinated no matter so to be
Cher (55:44.818)
Mm-hmm
Yeah, exactly.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:05.676)
to want to pull for those tools, right? And so for all of us to find that awareness of where we're holding onto them and how we can maybe begin to let go, even if it's just like one little finger at a time, right? Because it might be too much to ask to say, I'm just dropping the keys completely because that may not be realistic, right? But what does it look like to start to challenge it?
Cher (56:15.464)
Mm.
Cher (56:22.618)
Yeah, and to let ourselves be imperfect along the way before we get involved, before we try to make community. We don't have to, Erica Courdae our mutual connect always says, like, we can be imperfect allies. And that just, that rings so true in Audre's life and in the context of the challenges we're facing today.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:40.014)
Yeah. Thank you for this conversation, Cher. For anyone watching, your hair looks gorgeous. I've never seen it sewed on up, and I love it. But anyway, I really... Go ahead.
Cher (56:45.672)
Thank you. Now I was gonna say I cut it all off, because it was like very, very long and curly. And then I was dumping so much product on it that I was like, enough of this, I need more margin in my life. I need less time to do my hair.
Becky Mollenkamp (57:00.014)
There have been times where I thought about shaving mine off. I just don't think I have the head shape, but I totally dig everyone who does it because I'm like, I get it. Like what freedom would come from that? And I only wear lipstick for this podcast. Beyond that, like makeups done too. I love that. I'm thinking about Marge and I'm going to start thinking about that. But thank you for being here and having this conversation with me and reading this. And I love that you are like such an Audre Lord head that you have all that knowledge about her too. So thank you.
Cher (57:05.496)
No.
Yeah.
Cher (57:26.236)
Thank you, Becky. This gave me so much to think about and to reflect on. I just appreciate you so much.
Becky Mollenkamp (57:34.228)
I appreciate you. Thank you.
