Full Transcript for Black Women's Magic with Lindsey Stewart

were kind of forced to give her a seat at the table. 00:05:47.598 --> 00:05:50.807 They're like not another animal dropping in my path. 00:05:51.692 --> 00:05:59.492 I guess we'll treat you as an equal, rather than exclude you intentionally from all of your roles as a goddess. 00:05:59.913 --> 00:06:06.452 And so this was the second time that something like this was happening, and this time she decided to do something a lot more radical. 00:06:07.247 --> 00:06:23.264 Instead of just withdrawing her powers of fertility production and generation away from the earth, she decided to take all the women away from the world so that men would know what would happen when women were no longer around. 00:06:23.995 --> 00:06:25.300 Day without a woman, am I right? 00:06:25.574 --> 00:06:49.314 Yoruba version, mythical time, and she approached the Ultimate Divinity, who is a Diddy by the name of Oladumare, and asked  Oladumare to give a very small portion of his divine power to the women of the world so that they could defend themselves against the aggressions and the violence that men were inflicting upon them. 00:06:50.274 --> 00:07:00.865 This power that  Oladumare, gave Yoruba women is a power known as Ahe, which is translated into English as magic. 00:07:01.254 --> 00:07:18.185 And so when  Oladumare exceeded to this request, he gave women a small little portion of his creative, w orld building healing power, and that according to the stale, is how black women got their magic. 00:07:18.891 --> 00:07:32.870 In her book, Stewart describes how the story of Oshun and of black women's magic travels from West Africa and is still very much alive in the early days of slavery because the people are carrying on with their religious traditions. 00:07:33.305 --> 00:07:38.826 Over time that direct connection to the Yoruba religion was lost from any enslaved people. 00:07:39.036 --> 00:07:49.776 But over hundreds of years, and especially through various figures of black women that survive in the cultural imaginary, the idea of black women as having a kind of magic persists. 00:07:50.261 --> 00:08:03.221 This magic pertains to healing through arts of midwifery and herbal remedies, which we'll talk to Stewart about when we speak with her directly, as well as through practices of textiles, religious traditions, all sorts of ways. 00:08:03.430 --> 00:08:13.026 And for Stewart, it's important to recognize that uncovering the roots of black girl magic also helps us uncover the roots of American culture. 00:08:13.086 --> 00:08:16.805 She says towards the end of the book, our medicine has healed our countrymen. 00:08:16.805 --> 00:08:22.146 For centuries, our midwives brought thousands of Americans into the world, both black and white. 00:08:22.536 --> 00:08:26.795 Our textiles gave this country the iconic pants that are beloved around the world. 00:08:26.946 --> 00:08:28.565 Yes, we're talking about jeans. 00:08:28.565 --> 00:08:32.076 That edition 'cause she has like multiple chapters on jeans. 00:08:32.346 --> 00:08:35.676 The Music of America still moves to the rhythm of our blues. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:49.171 And so in talking about the historical roots of what we now call black girl Magic, Stewart also wants to call attention to the ignored contributions of black women over time contributions that are baked into the very structure of our society. 00:09:14.285 --> 00:09:18.581 Lindsey Stewart is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis. 00:09:18.880 --> 00:09:25.211 Her research and teaching interests are black feminism, African American philosophy, and social and political philosophy. 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:30.191 She is the author of a number of articles as well as the book, the Politics of Black Joy. 00:09:30.730 --> 00:09:41.171 She's also the author of the book that we're gonna be discussing today, which is The Conjuring of America Mojo's Mermaids Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic. 00:09:43.681 --> 00:09:46.416 Lindsey, thank you so much for joining us on Overthink. 00:09:46.436 --> 00:09:48.216 We are thrilled to talk with you today. 00:09:48.625 --> 00:09:49.375 Welcome. 00:09:49.785 --> 00:09:51.250 Oh, thanks for inviting me. 00:09:51.956 --> 00:09:53.365 We're so happy to have you. 00:09:53.365 --> 00:09:55.436 It was really such a joy to read this book. 00:09:55.466 --> 00:09:59.966 I learned so much when I was reading the book last week on vacation. 00:09:59.995 --> 00:10:07.765 Someone I was with asked me about the cover 'cause they saw the title and they were like, is it about literal magic or metaphorical magic? 00:10:07.796 --> 00:10:13.576 And I was like in a sense it's both, but I wanted to ask this to you directly. 00:10:13.605 --> 00:10:16.666 In what sense are you using the term magic? 00:10:16.666 --> 00:10:33.645 In the book, you refer to practices of conjure among early enslaved women, and the ways that traditions from West Africa were brought over on slave ships and then to the plantations, as well as the way that those practices then developed over the course of US history and really shaped US history. 00:10:33.975 --> 00:10:41.926 And so what is conjure and how should we understand its implications for how we understand the world? 00:10:41.926 --> 00:10:43.875 Like, is the world magical? 00:10:43.875 --> 00:10:45.436 In what sense do we mean magic? 00:10:45.436 --> 00:10:57.263 And I'm thinking a little bit about how, you talk about how Toni Morrison uses the term blended cosmology as a way of thinking about neither quite literal magic or metaphorical magic, but maybe something beyond that binary. 00:10:57.857 --> 00:11:00.278 Yeah, so I think that your answer is right. 00:11:00.278 --> 00:11:01.597 It's a little bit of both. 00:11:01.998 --> 00:11:14.613 Part of what I am trying to do is look at various crafts that black women are kind of renowned for in the country, like cooking, quilting, hairdressing. 00:11:15.812 --> 00:11:20.373 And

I'm trying to place all of them in a 400 year tradition. 00:11:20.582 --> 00:11:32.552 So part of how I linked them together is looking at actual spiritual traditions that people were practicing from slavery on through Jim Crow and even currently today. 00:11:32.793 --> 00:11:38.373 So in that sense, I am talking about real rituals and real beliefs that people have. 00:11:38.793 --> 00:11:49.278 And another kind of level I'm thinking about how conjure, maybe in a metaphorical sense, has been absorbed by American culture. 00:11:49.518 --> 00:12:10.207 So a lot of the things that we take for granted in American culture, from the medicine we use to some hairstyles that we like, even some of the food that we eat we're produced in this context of conjure and has these roots, even though people who use some of these products aren't conjurers. 00:12:10.427 --> 00:12:10.638 Right? 00:12:10.638 --> 00:12:11.778 So it's a little bit of both. 00:12:12.783 --> 00:12:21.993 Maybe this is a time where you could tell us a little bit about Vick's Vapo Rub, one of the first stories that you tell in the book, because that seems very much to pertain to what you're talking about. 00:12:22.817 --> 00:12:28.577 I started writing the book during COVID and I was thinking about how. 00:12:29.373 --> 00:12:38.942 Many enslaved women were very good at handling fevers, and I started to wonder, well, why weren't the medical doctors so good at handling fevers? 00:12:38.972 --> 00:12:58.913 And part of what I was able to find out is that there was this consistent tradition that emerged among enslaved women in the United States, in particular in the South, and they were using particular things like turpentine, like mint, that has menthol in it. 00:12:59.452 --> 00:13:05.182 It just struck me how similar that was to Vix Vapor Rub, what I remember about using it as a child. 00:13:05.182 --> 00:13:09.143 So I started to wonder what's behind this. 00:13:09.623 --> 00:13:16.013 Especially what I found out that Lunsford Richardson, the man who patented Vick's Vapor Rub owned slaves. 00:13:16.408 --> 00:13:17.158 Mm. 00:13:17.327 --> 00:13:22.427 So then I started thinking, well, maybe he was influenced by some of these women. 00:13:23.028 --> 00:13:26.207 So I posted on Facebook, just a random question. 00:13:26.207 --> 00:13:28.758 How many of y'all used Vick's Vapor Rob growing up? 00:13:29.238 --> 00:13:51.942 And a lot of people responded actually from different countries, even responded Varo was kind of loved throughout the world and one woman popped up and said that her family, African American woman, her family has always said that Lunsford Richardson stole their family's recipe and based Vick's Vapor rub on that. 00:13:52.243 --> 00:13:56.413 And I did some research to kind of verify what she was saying. 00:13:56.442 --> 00:13:58.153 The woman's name is Crystal Sanders. 00:13:58.153 --> 00:13:59.113 She's at Emory. 00:13:59.508 --> 00:14:01.107 Where we did our PhD. In fact,

both of us. 00:14:01.128 --> 00:14:02.168 Right, right, right. 00:14:04.062 --> 00:14:08.052 So it seemed very likely that it was stolen. 00:14:08.238 --> 00:14:08.418 Yeah. 00:14:08.418 --> 00:14:16.337 And when I think about Vapo Rub, by the way, our Latino listeners are just like going wild right now because we all grew up with our abuelita rubbing vapo rub. 00:14:16.518 --> 00:14:26.087 And, you know, the menthol in Vapo Rub does give you this sense of something magical, something that takes you almost out of your chest, out of your body, elevates you. 00:14:26.898 --> 00:14:37.307 And one thing that you mentioned in writing about Vapo Rub is the tension between the figure of the black mammy, of the plantation, and then these white doctors. 00:14:37.368 --> 00:15:01.173 And as somebody who has an interest in the history of medicine and the history of science, I wanna ask you about that because one thing that runs throughout your book, but it's really exemplified in your account of the history of Apor Rub, is this tension between sactioned and non sanctioned forms of curative knowledge. 00:15:01.893 --> 00:15:21.932 And so this implicates, of course, the history of medicine, the history of botany, and a lot of black women, as you point out, have been simultaneously venerated and vilified for their medical knowhow, and because their medical knowhow has been at odds with mainstream white medical traditions. 00:15:22.023 --> 00:15:38.582 And so at the same time that, for example, these black women during the time of slavery are using things like teas to cure colds, doctors are using very different techniques like bloodletting and so there's a clear methodological opposition, right? 00:15:38.972 --> 00:15:43.852 Teas add liquid to the body, bloodletting takes out liquid from the body. 00:15:44.212 --> 00:15:53.043 And so I wanna hear you reflect on this relationship between these forgotten knowledges and maybe our understanding of science. 00:15:53.043 --> 00:16:01.503 Why has mainstream science been so eager to delegitimize the knowledge that we get from black women? 00:16:03.557 --> 00:16:10.967 There's so much to say about this, but I'll go back to what Ellie brought up with Toni Morrison and blended cosmology. 00:16:10.998 --> 00:16:15.888 Right, in the essay where Toni Morrison was talking about blended cosmology. 00:16:16.248 --> 00:16:17.778 She also mentions that. 00:16:18.128 --> 00:16:23.168 Conjure has been part of, she doesn't say conjure, but conjure has been part of how we come to know things. 00:16:23.557 --> 00:16:28.477 And that sort of knowledge has been discredited because of who it came from. 00:16:28.778 --> 00:16:53.937 And so I think when you're trying to figure out why have certain knowledges not been promoted in the medical field, sometimes it's because of where they came from and there was an assumption, in the 18th and 19th centuries that women, especially black women, old black women at that kind of didn't know what they were talking about. 00:16:53.937 --> 00:17:01.008 If you think even now some of the ways that we talk about home remedies is, you know, oh, it's stuff your grandma would tell you as if. 00:17:01.477 --> 00:17:05.288 Your grandma is not this veritable source of knowledge, right? 00:17:05.288 --> 00:17:08.498 So some of it is simply they were black women. 00:17:08.887 --> 00:17:24.063 Medical doctors wanted to establish that their background, their pedigree, and where they got their knowledge through universities was the way to get medical knowledge. 00:17:24.123 --> 00:17:33.212 This tension between invasive and non-invasive methods is something that we can continue to see even today. 00:17:33.722 --> 00:17:41.553 With how we think about midwifery and the way that women are having, or people with vulvas are having babies, right? 00:17:41.613 --> 00:17:59.938 It's a lot of doctors prefer to, go into the womb and kind of make you really not very much of a participant in the birthing process, but midwives, especially black midwives, retained this preference for non-invasive methods. 00:18:00.238 --> 00:18:13.093 So anything that they could do outside of the body, like giving you teas or massages was one way to enhance your strength, enhance your immune system, and not stress you out. 00:18:13.442 --> 00:18:25.383 Well, and in your book you talk about this in terms of attention between the indifference of the white official male doctor and the caregiving practices of the black mammy. 00:18:25.383 --> 00:18:44.758 So the irony, of course, is that even though they were vilified and delegitimate in public, many white Americans, including slave owners who lived on plantations, would still rush to them behind closed doors for their care, for their knowledge, and they would just turn their back on them, of course, in public. 00:18:45.512 --> 00:19:01.952 I'm thinking about so many of the characters that emerge in your book because part of the pleasure of reading this book is that you get introduced to such a wide variety of black women throughout history, throughout American history, who shaped the America that we know in fundamental ways. 00:19:01.958 --> 00:19:34.417 And I'm actually just realizing as we're having this conversation now, how, I think virtually all of those figures that you focus on, including the mammy, especially through the figure of Aunt Jemima, the candy lady, the voodoo Queen, and we'll come back to the Voodoo Queen a bit later, in a sense, they're all caregivers, and so I'm curious how you feel about that as well, because I think some of these tropes, especially the mammy trope, are often treated as racist tropes that we should move away from, and you even explicitly address that in the book. 00:19:34.718 --> 00:19:43.538 But I think what you're also trying to address is how, okay, first off, mammies were real historical figures, and so it's not like a racist trope. 00:19:43.567 --> 00:20:05.327 They were just like a person with

a definitive role on a plantation, but also that we can sort of, think about their role in a new way, moving away maybe from what black feminist sociologist, Patricia Hill Collins calls controlling images and showing how these roles were so much more than the kind of tropes that we have today. 00:20:05.478 --> 00:20:13.218 So I'm curious what you think about that and the way that these women, I think almost to a one, if not to a one, are caregivers. 00:20:13.218 --> 00:20:15.347 Maybe not the mermaid, although maybe even the Mermaid. 00:20:15.377 --> 00:20:17.147 You talk about the mermaid a lot in your book too. 00:20:18.827 --> 00:20:32.748 So part of this comes back to in many West African cultures, there is no, you know, I, without we, so there's always gonna be concern for the community you live in and thrive within. 00:20:33.363 --> 00:20:36.272 A group and how well that group is doing as well. 00:20:36.782 --> 00:20:59.173 But I think too, one way of addressing the, the caregiving and thinking about something that David said earlier about the different ways that they were viewed negro mammies, it seems like when they were giving care to enslaved people in a way that benefited slave masters, that's when they were loved and great. 00:20:59.192 --> 00:20:59.413 Mm. 00:20:59.583 --> 00:20:59.942 Right. 00:21:00.303 --> 00:21:11.313 But when they were given care in a way that challenged white doctors or helped the enslaved be rebellious in any way, then they're evil. 00:21:12.093 --> 00:21:12.482 Right? 00:21:12.482 --> 00:21:13.593 And then they're a problem. 00:21:13.982 --> 00:21:23.613 And it seems like a lot of oppressed people fall into that, in that you can be the Madonna or you can be the Jezebel, and you can be the same person, right? 00:21:23.613 --> 00:21:27.452 It just depends on your relationship to the oppression you're facing. 00:21:28.803 --> 00:21:34.907 And I think this connects to one of the central themes in magic studies, which is the instability of magic. 00:21:34.938 --> 00:21:38.627 That magic, of course, can be used for good or for evil. 00:21:38.627 --> 00:21:50.222 And the judgment really depends on the eye of the beholder, especially given that magic is an attribution often made from the perspective of those who seek to reject or condemn a practice, right? 00:21:50.222 --> 00:21:50.423 Mm-hmm. 00:21:50.423 --> 00:21:51.022 Mm-hmm. 00:21:51.022 --> 00:22:01.992 A lot of people will describe what they do as medical knowledge or tradition or spirituality, but it's often presented as magic by people in positions of religious or scientific authority. 00:22:02.353 --> 00:22:14.480 And one thing that I think your, book does wonderfully is walk us historically through all these historical periods showing how black women's magic really shaped American culture. 00:22:15.246 --> 00:22:23.286 And your book is written in terms of a procession of characters, as Ellie mentioned, you know there is the negro mammy of slavery. 00:22:23.286 --> 00:22:25.836 There is the voodoo queen of the Antebellum south. 00:22:26.135 --> 00:22:34.445 There is the mojo building woman of Reconstruction, the granny midwife of the Jim Crow era, and then finally the candy lady. 00:22:34.596 --> 00:22:38.405 And at the end of your book you also talk about modern day black women conjurers. 00:22:39.280 --> 00:22:53.050 Now to give our listeners a taste of the kind of analysis that you give in this book, I want to focus on one of these figures, and because I lived in New Orleans, I immediately gravitated to the Voodoo Queen. 00:22:53.171 --> 00:23:04.886 And I wanna ask you about that because in the case of the Voodoo Queen, you mentioned that this figure was embodied historically by the real character of Marie Laveau in New Orleans. 00:23:04.983 --> 00:23:16.925 Who was feared not only because of her magical powers, but also because she represented in the flesh the possibility of rebellion, racial rebellion. 00:23:17.256 --> 00:23:22.836 So I want to hear you talk to us a little bit more about this figure and how you interpret her. 00:23:23.796 --> 00:23:26.675 I mean, in some way the book was written to get to her. 00:23:26.895 --> 00:23:37.056 I'm from Louisiana, so I'd always heard stories about Marie Laveau, and I think one thing that's important to remember is that there was a historical person. 00:23:37.840 --> 00:24:05.381 Probably two people under the same name of Marie Laveau, who did have enormous influence in New Orleans right before the Civil War, and a little bit afterwards, she was a free black woman, which was also something kind of rare during slavery, even though there's a historical basis, what's really interesting to me is the stories that people tell around her, because a lot of those stories are about rebellion. 00:24:05.740 --> 00:24:06.641 They're about. 00:24:07.010 --> 00:24:13.240 Women who have been domestically abused, who want some help out of the situation. 00:24:13.240 --> 00:24:17.810 It's about, you know, enslaved people who wanted to run away. 00:24:18.111 --> 00:24:18.411 Right. 00:24:18.411 --> 00:24:21.421 Those are the sort of stories that kind of circulate around Marie Laveau. 00:24:21.421 --> 00:24:28.340 So there's a historical Marie Laveau, and then there's the kind of fantasy or mythological Marie Levo. 00:24:28.810 --> 00:24:34.790 And I'm more interested in the second, although there is some of the first in the book, because the second is still with us. 00:24:35.211 --> 00:24:40.520 You mentioned that she's a character in American Horror Story, and your students didn't realize she was a real person. 00:24:40.810 --> 00:24:41.570 Which was sad. 00:24:41.570 --> 00:24:56.885 It's like, wait, you didn't know this I also was really interested in how the stories that people told about Marie Laveau right around the time where she was alive is really different than what you get in shows like American Horror, where she's kind of vilified. 00:24:57.155

--> 00:24:57.365 Right? 00:24:57.365 --> 00:25:15.895 And you can see this still, this trend even today of when a woman is powerful and maybe even engaging in social justice, a little bit rebellious, they get read in American culture as these kind of evil witches. 00:25:15.965 --> 00:25:16.430 For me. 00:25:16.460 --> 00:25:30.230 New Orleans was a central character really in, in your telling of that, because of the legal complexities of New Orleans where there are elements of British, Spanish and French law that then created the possibility for these. 00:25:30.654 --> 00:25:40.365 Very peculiar forms of black existence, like the black slave who can nonetheless buy their freedom or who can own property. 00:25:40.765 --> 00:25:45.944 And I wanna hear you say a little bit more about what her relationship. 00:25:46.365 --> 00:26:00.259 And I hear mean that fantasm or that figure, the mythological figure was to the political and economic institution of slavery such that she represented a source of anxiety for white America. 00:26:00.470 --> 00:26:04.670 In what ways was she seen as a threat to the institution? 00:26:04.819 --> 00:26:07.130 Mostly because of her connection to Voodoo. 00:26:07.579 --> 00:26:16.640 And this is where it's important to remember that when you're thinking about American history, you need to put it in the context of what's going on in other countries as well, right? 00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:27.645 So you've got the Haitian Revolution just before Marie Laveau born and that just struck so much fear in the Americas, right? 00:26:27.661 --> 00:26:38.760 Because the Haitian Revolution was the only successful black revolution against slavery, and it was well known that it was started by a voodoo ceremony. 00:26:39.340 --> 00:26:56.790 So now you've got this very powerful woman who is free mingling with people who are enslaved and practicing a religion that is known to spark rebellion like that, just, that just can't happen for these slave owners. 00:26:56.790 --> 00:26:58.125 That's too much of a threat. 00:26:58.496 --> 00:27:05.175 And can you say a little bit about the sort of communal or collective aspects of these voodoo ceremonies? 00:27:05.175 --> 00:27:10.605 It's just reminding me of what some of what you were saying before about the we coming before the eye. 00:27:11.222 --> 00:27:16.923 and that's more, you know, in the West African traditions that you were talking about, whereas Voodoo has a more complex legacy, especially in the Caribbean. 00:27:17.133 --> 00:27:24.423 But it strikes me that somebody like Marie Laveau as powerful an individual or not, because like you said, maybe she's actually two people, right. 00:27:24.423 --> 00:27:27.053 Which already says something about this. 00:27:27.502 --> 00:27:29.313 As powerful as she was. 00:27:29.313 --> 00:27:39.992 I mean, that's also you're talking about the way that her power was predicated on and seen as threatening because of its relation to the community. 00:27:40.367 --> 00:27:45.647 She and her voodoo participants often had their meetings. 00:27:45.708 --> 00:27:48.252 They were raided by the police and they were outlawed. 00:27:48.923 --> 00:27:49.252 Right. 00:27:49.252 --> 00:28:00.016 And they were outlawed under the law against unlawful assembly, which I find really funny because now they're bringing back unlawful assembly as a reason to, complain about protests. 00:28:00.536 --> 00:28:03.895 But, it's crazy how long that thing has lived. 00:28:03.925 --> 00:28:16.030 But the problem was this mixing of very different groups inNnew Orleans at the time, you had upper class white women there. 00:28:16.361 --> 00:28:20.560 You had enslaved blacks, you had free black people. 00:28:21.010 --> 00:28:21.431 Right? 00:28:21.641 --> 00:28:32.951 It was thought that during these meetings, because these different classes were interacting, you could get all sorts of information that you wouldn't normally have access to, right? 00:28:32.951 --> 00:28:43.506 So you might know that, you might hear from an upper class white woman that this slave owner is looking for so and so, which you wouldn't have known if you hadn't have, have gone to these meetings. 00:28:43.506 --> 00:28:49.655 So part of what was dangerous about these meetings was simply the mixing of these different classes. 00:28:50.705 --> 00:29:08.675 I'm really happy that you mentioned the police raids on these gatherings ran by the voodoo women of Louisiana, because you mentioned that in one of those, they confiscated a figurine of a mermaid that embodied the mythical magical power of Marie Laveau. 00:29:08.861 --> 00:29:13.115 And you use this to launch an inquiry. 00:29:13.500 --> 00:29:44.881 Into the role of a mermaid worship, both in voodoo, but also in other spiritual traditions, dating all the way back to West Africa to make a point that even though we think of mermaids, and you see this with the recent controversy over the Little Mermaid and the casting of a black actress to play that role, even though we think of mermaids as like North European white ladies with a fish tail, in fact t hey're part of the mythologies and spiritual traditions of many cultures, and that includes voodoo. 00:29:45.151 --> 00:29:57.080 Can you say a little bit more about the symbolism of the mermaid, because it reappears multiple times in your discussion of the Voodoo Queen in the Antebellum South. 00:29:57.326 --> 00:30:13.286 I mean, part of what I really loved with diving into mermaids, besides just mermaids are awesome, is they're one of those figures that you can really see how different cultures kind of met and, and influence each other, right? 00:30:13.286 --> 00:30:19.046 So in West Africa there's always been nature spirits that were worshiped. 00:30:19.306 --> 00:30:21.316 That could take the form of mermaids. 00:30:21.316 --> 00:30:23.596 They also took the form of serpents. 00:30:24.135 --> 00:30:35.715 They already had that base, and then you put

them on ships, you know, when they were kidnapped and taken across the Atlantic and on these ships there were mermaid figureheads. 00:30:35.865 --> 00:30:36.256 Right? 00:30:36.526 --> 00:30:45.230 So it makes kind of sense that when they took their water spirits with them from West Africa, the one that really stuck out was mermaids. 00:30:45.320 --> 00:31:02.631 And one of the things that I love about mermaids is how they're really vengeful So in the context of Marie Lavoe, again, really dangerous free spirited woman. 00:31:02.721 --> 00:31:08.090 She's also calling on spirits that avenge black people. 00:31:08.211 --> 00:31:10.580 It's just, she was so dangerous. 00:31:11.405 --> 00:31:17.675 This also reminds me of one of the stories you tell in the book about a white doctor who opened a pharmacy. 00:31:17.885 --> 00:31:25.715 I'm forgetting exactly where, but then basically like all of his would be customers were going to the local black woman healer. 00:31:25.895 --> 00:31:34.810 And so then he created a mermaid exhibit in his pharmacy to try and get the local population to come over, you know? 00:31:35.556 --> 00:31:35.976 Yeah. 00:31:36.036 --> 00:31:37.205 No, I love that story. 00:31:37.205 --> 00:31:39.185 It's based in Charleston, right? 00:31:39.215 --> 00:31:40.056 Oh, Charleston? 00:31:40.056 --> 00:31:40.506 Yes. 00:31:40.536 --> 00:31:40.865 Yep. 00:31:41.276 --> 00:31:41.556 Yeah. 00:31:41.846 --> 00:31:53.526 And just how, you know, I used it as an instance of how these mermaid stories that were told in black communities could also summon rebellion. 00:31:53.566 --> 00:32:07.066 Because that local conjure woman used mermaid stories to galvanize the people into a riot, and what they were rioting wasn't just the supposed mermaid that was in the shop. 00:32:07.066 --> 00:32:18.286 I think what they were rioting and protesting was how badly African Americans have been treated by the medical establishment, especially during that time. 00:32:18.346 --> 00:32:22.215 This is the time when there were people called Night Raiders. 00:32:22.671 --> 00:32:33.050 Who would steal black corpses or just when they're treating someone, let them die so that they can use those bodies for medical experimentation. 00:32:33.290 --> 00:32:41.691 So it's just, you know, really interesting that you could use a mermaid story to kind of get people going to protest in that way. 00:32:41.990 --> 00:32:46.461 Well, and how the goals of the protest were indirectly articulated, right? 00:32:46.461 --> 00:33:15.471 Because ostensibly, many of the people who showed up to the, clinic of this pharmacist, I you know, they were protesting the fact that he had kidnapped this mermaid that they thought was real or that they said they thought was real on the grounds that she had been separated from her children and if you read that in the context of slavery, what they're opposing is the separation of parents and children, which was a very common practice in the south. 00:33:15.871 --> 00:33:36.830 And so I really appreciated that you make that connection because initially when you were telling that story, I wasn't seeing the connection, but then it really drew at home that magical language, like the language of mermaids in Charleston is a way of making sense of the world, the material world, the real world in which one finds oneself. 00:33:36.980 --> 00:33:40.250 I mean, it's also a way to transmit knowledge, right? 00:33:40.250 --> 00:33:41.316 And part of the ways that. 00:33:42.276 --> 00:33:49.086 I think about this all the time with where we are in America with the attacks on education and history. 00:33:49.596 --> 00:33:54.486 One of the ways that you can keep history alive is telling stories. 00:33:54.846 --> 00:34:02.076 There's always some nugget in there that attests to the conditions that people were living in. 00:34:02.611 --> 00:34:09.425 I wanna ask about how this practice of conjure and the magic that you discuss in the book. 00:34:09.815 --> 00:34:30.365 Pertains to the relationship between the mind and the body because David, you mentioned the material world a moment ago, and I think a lot of what we've been circling around puts pressure on our expectation that, you know, we receive at least those of us who are trained in philosophy, that the mind and the body are separate, or that mind and matter are separate. 00:34:30.596 --> 00:34:42.936 It's clear from reading your book that the Yoruba traditions that African Americans brought over with them from West Africa don't share those that dualism. 00:34:43.416 --> 00:34:47.556 And indeed, I think the practice of conjure really puts pressure on it too. 00:34:47.615 --> 00:34:52.715 And so you talked about the difference between non-invasive versus invasive medical practices. 00:34:52.715 --> 00:35:02.346 I think that is obviously relevant in this context, but I was also particularly struck by how you describe the importance of hairdressing in Yoruba and African American cultures. 00:35:02.885 --> 00:35:07.655 You mentioned that hair is considered threads of your destiny in Yoruba society. 00:35:07.775 --> 00:35:11.385 And so the hairdresser was considered a spiritual figure. 00:35:11.596 --> 00:35:26.175 And I'm curious what you think this practice of hairdressing might say about the spiritual character of the body as well as in general, the view of mind and body that we're seeing here where they seem to be more interconnected than dualistic. 00:35:26.451 --> 00:35:26.871 Mm-hmm. 00:35:27.485 --> 00:35:37.565 I mean, I think one of the advantages that Conjure women had from slavery up to modern day hairdressers is the sense that health is holistic. 00:35:38.045 --> 00:35:41.436 So you need to pay attention to what the body is doing. 00:35:41.436 --> 00:35:46.896 Yes, but you also need to pay attention to people's environments and their relationships with other people. 00:35:48.010 --> 00:35:50.291 Whether there's conflict in those relationships.

00:35:50.291 --> 00:35:50.590 Right? 00:35:50.590 --> 00:35:58.871 And when you sit, I mean, at least at black hairdressers, when you sit down in the hairdresser's chair, you tell her all about your life, right? 00:35:59.260 --> 00:36:05.141 She's getting information on whether you've had a fight with your mother or your child. 00:36:05.501 --> 00:36:14.760 She's getting a sense of how stressed you are and how that stress is affecting your body in terms of your hair thinning and things like that. 00:36:14.871 --> 00:36:25.175 Sometimes the really chronic diseases show up first in the hair, so they really have access to how these different parts of your life are fitting together. 00:36:26.166 --> 00:36:32.646 And so would you say that there's a more monistic view of minded body, than a dualistic one? 00:36:32.646 --> 00:36:38.585 Would you say that indicates maybe not necessarily a monism, but at least like a sense more of their interconnection? 00:36:39.126 --> 00:36:41.135 I am not quite sure to tell you the truth. 00:36:41.166 --> 00:36:47.856 The Yoruba have a very complex cosmology that I do not claim to know everything about. 00:36:48.246 --> 00:36:52.391 I will definitely say that there's connections between the soul, but the body. 00:36:53.101 --> 00:36:54.001 Definitely. 00:36:54.360 --> 00:37:18.021 There's also a sense that your ancestry is really important too, that the people that came before you placed a definitive stamp on who you are now, and I think that's also really important to remember is how much the stuff that came before you not only shaped who you are, but also shapes a lot of the opportunities that you get Now. 00:37:18.431 --> 00:37:20.036 Mm-hmm Absolutely. 00:37:20.036 --> 00:37:29.576 And it strikes me that that's also really different from the predominant Christian way of understanding things that many of us have in the us, including many African American communities. 00:37:29.755 --> 00:37:42.590 And you mentioned in the book that there's been a kind of denigration of conjure because of Christian fundamentalism and Christian nationalism, and of course like many black Americans are Christian. 00:37:42.590 --> 00:37:52.460 And so I'm curious to hear you say more about whether you think that part of the ignorance that many Americans have around conjure comes from Christianity. 00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:56.751 And what you would like to see happen in the future? 00:37:56.751 --> 00:38:03.021 Like should there be a move away from Christian fundamentalism altogether and a renewal of practices of conjure? 00:38:03.021 --> 00:38:08.516 Do you think there's room, maybe not for fundamentalism, but for a Christian worldview and conjure or not? 00:38:08.891 --> 00:38:21.726 Yeah, I usually end up having to deal with this question in the course I teach called Human in the Divine and university of Memphis is I think 40% African American. 00:38:21.726 --> 00:38:26.135 So it's very large number of African Americans in that class. 00:38:26.626 --> 00:38:35.615 And usually they kind of struggle a bit with, I'm Christian, I'm not supposed to like this stuff, but I do like this stuff. 00:38:35.826 --> 00:38:36.186 Right. 00:38:36.606 --> 00:38:49.356 And one of the goals of that course is to help them see that especially in the south, a lot of what you do in churches are also conjure and you don't even realize it. 00:38:49.385 --> 00:38:51.545 A lot of it comes from West Africa. 00:38:51.956 --> 00:39:01.166 A lot of the types of Christianity that black people in this country practice have been informed very deeply by conjure. 00:39:01.565 --> 00:39:05.135 So I like to show people that you're already doing it and you don't know it. 00:39:05.556 --> 00:39:17.045 I also like to remind the students that historically, many of their ancestors did not feel like they had to choose between Christianity and conjure, right? 00:39:17.045 --> 00:39:19.085 So you see this a lot in Catholicism. 00:39:19.376 --> 00:39:20.485 All around the world. 00:39:20.485 --> 00:39:26.096 Catholicism was, I don't know, something about that, the structure of Catholicism. 00:39:26.096 --> 00:39:47.876 It was people were able to kind of retain a lot of their indigenous religious traditions and just kind of veil it under Catholicism and the US, a lot of us are Protestant, but there were still ways that even with Protestant Christianity, some aspects of conjure were still retained. 00:39:48.650 --> 00:40:13.161 This is hitting home very close for me because it was not until I was an adult that I realized just how many strands of the Catholicism I was raised with was actually not Catholicism at all, but we that, and it in fact was, Amerindian traditions that had survived by camouflaging themselves as local iterations of a Catholic theme. 00:40:13.701 --> 00:40:27.811 But I wanna go back to something that was mentioned a minute ago, which is the importance of the past, and returning to it because you close the book by invoking the principle of Sankofa, if I'm pronouncing correctly. 00:40:28.300 --> 00:40:28.880 Mm-hmm. 00:40:29.021 --> 00:40:39.306 Which is the idea that you should go back and fetch it, i.e, you need to look back at your history and reclaim the aspects of it that will help you flourish. 00:40:40.050 --> 00:40:56.221 In this case, part of black women's history is conjure, and I wanna ask you the very question that you put in the title of your conclusion, which is, Where have All the black women conjures gone? 00:40:56.280 --> 00:40:58.231 And the reason I wanna ask that is because when. 00:40:59.181 --> 00:41:08.420 We think about magic or conjure as a category, I think it's very easy for us to fall into a sociological or purely anthropological mindset that is retrospective. 00:41:08.420 --> 00:41:18.800 Like, oh, it's this thing that we used to do back in the day, but now that we live in an industrial modern world, a la Weber, we have been disenchanted. 00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:21.081 And so

there is no room for magic anymore. 00:41:21.501 --> 00:41:26.621 But you point out that in fact, controversial are still all around us. 00:41:26.735 --> 00:41:28.175 Beyonce may be one of them. 00:41:28.264 --> 00:41:28.565 Yeah. 00:41:28.579 --> 00:41:28.869 Yeah, 00:41:29.320 --> 00:41:30.429 I'm taking that from the book. 00:41:30.429 --> 00:41:33.219 Although I was, I didn't need to take to convince me much. 00:41:36.565 --> 00:41:37.014 Yeah. 00:41:37.195 --> 00:41:38.635 Oh, definitely Beyonce. 00:41:38.695 --> 00:41:47.574 I mean, her visual album Lemonade was all about bringing kind of national consciousness of Oshun, right? 00:41:47.605 --> 00:41:50.094 So, the Yoruba goddess. 00:41:50.304 --> 00:41:52.855 So yeah, definitely Beyonce, right? 00:41:53.034 --> 00:41:57.114 I think a lot of conjure shows up in the health and wellness industry. 00:41:57.445 --> 00:42:01.434 So there's a product that I've started to use, it's called Black Girl Vitamin. 00:42:02.099 --> 00:42:13.829 And it's by these black women, both herbalists and, and doctors kind of joined together to address some of the kind of deficiencies that are very specific to black women. 00:42:14.239 --> 00:42:24.510 I see that as a continuation of Negro Mammies looking at how do we find the herbs and roots that will help boost our immune system. 00:42:25.050 --> 00:42:29.699 I see it conjure also show up in the rise of doulas. 00:42:30.664 --> 00:42:34.954 And alternative forms of giving birth, right? 00:42:35.045 --> 00:42:46.474 And this kind of push against some of the traditional ways that we think about, you know, how a birth should go with maybe you don't necessarily have to go to a hospital for it. 00:42:46.775 --> 00:42:52.414 Maybe you need support all throughout the pregnancy and even afterwards. 00:42:52.929 --> 00:42:57.349 So those are some ways I see conjure still being practiced. 00:42:57.800 --> 00:43:03.369 I also see in black communities, this move towards going back to the land. 00:43:03.610 --> 00:43:08.934 So gardening and developing that kind of ancestral relationship to the land. 00:43:09.704 --> 00:43:10.574 I see it there. 00:43:11.054 --> 00:43:11.445 Right. 00:43:11.445 --> 00:43:17.655 And I totally see it in TV and novels that are very popular right now. 00:43:17.655 --> 00:43:20.775 So Queen Sugar is a show that I love. 00:43:21.284 --> 00:43:29.375 There's also legacy of the Orishas, trilogy that is gonna be turned into a, I think a three part, three movies, I think. 00:43:29.764 --> 00:43:31.755 That's very, very popular. 00:43:32.114 --> 00:43:32.565 Right. 00:43:32.985 --> 00:43:34.244 And I think if people. 00:43:34.885 --> 00:43:42.264 Learn about the history, they'll be able to see it more, how it's still there and how it's still shaping American culture. 00:43:42.849 --> 00:43:56.695 And I think your book fits in this tradition insofar as it's a kind of necromancy where you're in contact with dead, with these past figures as a way of enacting Sankofa in the form of writing. 00:43:57.079 --> 00:43:57.429 Yeah. 00:43:58.074 --> 00:44:01.945 And I've never agreed with Bell Hook's statement that Beyonce is a terrorist. 00:44:01.945 --> 00:44:04.525 I think Lemonade, I'm like a full on lemonade apologist. 00:44:04.525 --> 00:44:07.625 I think it's one of the best works of art of the 21st century. 00:44:09.195 --> 00:44:13.855 Okay, well we are so, so, so grateful for you joining us, Lindsay. 00:44:13.855 --> 00:44:16.025 This has been a delightful conversation. 00:44:16.755 --> 00:44:20.034 Really fascinating book and thank you so much for taking the time. 00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:23.570 Oh, thanks for having me. 00:44:24.059 --> 00:44:25.409 Craving more Overthink? 00:44:26.010 --> 00:44:36.300 Subscribe to our Substack for an extended version of our episodes, community chat, and additional bonus content. 00:44:36.300 --> 00:44:47.269 If you'd prefer to make a one-time tax-deductibe donation, you can learn more at our website, Overthinkpodcastcom. 00:44:47.269 --> 00:44:48.545 our support helps cover key production costs and allows us to pay our student assistants a fair wage. 00:44:48.625 --> 00:44:50.275 David, this interview was so fun. 00:44:50.275 --> 00:44:56.155 I learned so much from the book, as I said before, but also hearing Lindsay speak about it just opened new avenues as well. 00:44:56.425 --> 00:45:01.614 And I'm curious what, what do you wanna follow up on here in our last few minutes of wrap up? 00:45:02.139 --> 00:45:06.690 Well, I wanna keep talking about Beyonce. 00:45:06.690 --> 00:45:07.989 I won't complain. 00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:14.550 Well, the reason I wanna talk about this is because I don't wanna brag, but I just saw her live in Las Vegas. 00:45:14.550 --> 00:45:14.869 I was there. 00:45:14.889 --> 00:45:16.909 Oh yeah, I saw that on your Instagram. 00:45:16.940 --> 00:45:18.250 Oh, it was Las Vegas. 00:45:18.519 --> 00:45:23.949 It was the last show of the Cowboy Carter tour, and so I went to see her live. 00:45:24.130 --> 00:45:24.969 Okay. 00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:25.269 Okay. 00:45:25.269 --> 00:45:25.539 Yeah. 00:45:25.539 --> 00:45:31.719 You know, I'm not a huge fan of that album, even though I appreciate all that she's doing for the recognition of black people in country. 00:45:31.719 --> 00:45:34.570 How was the show? 00:45:34.750 --> 00:45:36.889 Okay, so I didn't really love it either. 00:45:37.150 --> 00:45:37.659 Okay. 00:45:37.780 --> 00:45:39.280 Did you know the album well before? 00:45:39.730 --> 00:45:46.530 No, I didn't know the album, and in fact, I was only listening to it on the way to the airport to Vegas to go to the show. 00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:48.670 Wait, so you, why did you go to the show? 00:45:48.670 --> 00:45:53.170 Because a few of my friends were going and they found tickets, and then they're like, you should come with us. 00:45:53.170 --> 00:45:54.489 It's gonna be life changing. 00:45:54.489 --> 00:45:55.750 And so I

agreed to do it. 00:45:55.769 --> 00:45:57.059 Like a gay Las Vegas excursion? 00:45:57.085 --> 00:46:00.864 It was a gay Las Vegas become part of the hive moment. 00:46:01.255 --> 00:46:05.275 And I have to say, I thought the show was good. 00:46:05.275 --> 00:46:06.474 I had a good time. 00:46:06.474 --> 00:46:16.764 But there were also moments that were slow just because country music is not going to live up to the kind of upbeatness of pop in general. 00:46:17.545 --> 00:46:20.784 But then I read Lindsay Stewart's book. 00:46:21.530 --> 00:46:35.309 It changed my interpretation of the album and of the experience altogether because I started thinking about what is it about the music that I listened to at the stadium in Las Vegas that I thought maybe was unexpected? 00:46:35.309 --> 00:46:41.853 And it was precisely the fact that it incorporated a lot of very different traditions that I just was not expecting. 00:46:41.884 --> 00:46:48.603 So there was a lot of, well, obviously country, but also gospel influences. 00:46:48.824 --> 00:46:52.384 There were Creole influences here and there, including the lyrics. 00:46:52.713 --> 00:47:06.849 But after reading Stewart's book where she talks about the syncretism in black women's conjure practices, I started to see all those mixed elements in Beyonce's music in that light. 00:47:06.878 --> 00:47:20.798 And so I actually started listening to the album over and over again after having gone to see her live, and I came to really appreciate the album, listening to it now with an ear molded by my reading of this text. 00:47:21.454 --> 00:47:22.293 Okay. 00:47:22.353 --> 00:47:29.164 I wanna hear more about that because I mentioned in passing in our interview that I think lemonade is one of the great works of art of the 21st century. 00:47:29.523 --> 00:47:45.793 I know people have criticisms of Beyonce, like thinks she's a capitalist, sellout and all of that, and, but I think from an artistic perspective, that album is just absolutely brilliant, in part because of the way that she synthesizes and moves beyond in a really original fashion. 00:47:45.974 --> 00:47:48.614 A lot of different traditions in American culture. 00:47:48.684 --> 00:48:10.994 And I would even defend the idea that Lemonade, especially the Visual Album, is an encapsulation of what Adorno talks about as the work of art being a riddle and having a kind of unique relationship to its environment where it's not a direct commentary on social conditions, but it's sort of transforming those in a unique way. 00:48:10.994 --> 00:48:15.534 It's like related to its context, but it also exists on its own. 00:48:15.534 --> 00:48:26.934 There's like not a complete wholeness to the work of art, but there is a kind of riddle like nature to it, such that it is a whole unto itself, but also uniquely connected to the surrounding environment. 00:48:27.264 --> 00:48:30.753 However, I did not feel that way about Cowboy Carter. 00:48:30.753 --> 00:48:32.724 So

tell me what I'm missing. 00:48:33.188 --> 00:48:45.954 Okay, so I mean, I like what you're saying because it suggests that, at least in relation to lemonade, it's not that it's giving us a clear answer, but that maybe it's posing a well-formulated question to which there might be multiple answers, right? 00:48:45.958 --> 00:48:49.809 Like that's the enigmatic riddle, like quality that unifies. 00:48:49.809 --> 00:48:52.358 But it's not just like, oh, I have no idea what's going on. 00:48:52.418 --> 00:48:59.018 I mean, there's just like an incredible arc and trajectory to album that I think just like you really are transported. 00:48:59.423 --> 00:48:59.664 Yeah. 00:48:59.664 --> 00:49:20.273 Well, and with Cowboy Carter, there is the album, and at the concert there were all these video montages that were projected, that put the music in conversation with a visual element that very explicitly invoked African American history, the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow. 00:49:21.059 --> 00:49:29.099 And so there was backwards looking stance to the experience of being in the concert. 00:49:29.429 --> 00:49:36.478 That also echoes what Stewart says about disco conjuring, especially the practice of Sankofa. 00:49:36.568 --> 00:49:47.639 And in fact, I read an article about Cowboy Carter, the album, it was a review written by a woman who is a professor of African American thought at Loyola, and she 00:49:47.753 --> 00:49:48.474 Which Loyola? 00:49:48.474 --> 00:49:48.983 There's so many. 00:49:49.313 --> 00:49:54.623 I know there, there are multiple Loyola, she is at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. 00:49:54.623 --> 00:49:56.914 LMU 00:49:56.914 --> 00:50:06.764 Yeah, LMU, her name is Kim R Harris, and she reads Cowboy Carter as a Sankofa album. 00:50:06.818 --> 00:50:17.708 So she explicit explicitly uses that term and she says that what Beyonce is doing is exactly what Stewart says we should be doing in connection to our history. 00:50:17.708 --> 00:50:34.463 We should be looking back and going back into the past in order to recover elements from it, especially those that have been forgotten and sidelined as a way of enriching and illuminating and rendering meaningful our experience in the present. 00:50:34.954 --> 00:50:35.463 Okay. 00:50:35.463 --> 00:50:40.864 And can you say more specifically about what features of the album might lend itself to that? 00:50:40.864 --> 00:50:45.173 I know we're a philosophy podcast, not a music criticism podcast, but certainly relevant here. 00:50:45.563 --> 00:50:49.523 I love that you clocked me for like, sidestepping the question where I'm like, I just liked it. 00:50:50.224 --> 00:50:54.634 no, I mean, we venture into artistic appreciation. 00:50:54.634 --> 00:50:58.744 My half baked Adornian analysis, not withstanding. 00:50:59.228 --> 00:51:14.889 One example that Harris gives is the lyrics of the song Freedom, which according to her hearken back to the historic Negro spiritual Wade in the Water, which was a song that was secretly a code in the underwater. 00:51:15.438 --> 00:51:16.338 Oh my God, not the underwater, 00:51:16.728 --> 00:51:18.048 Underwater railroad? 00:51:18.659 --> 00:51:21.338 I mean, it's giving mermaid. 00:51:24.048 --> 00:51:24.498 I'm sorry. 00:51:24.498 --> 00:51:26.989 In the Underground Railroad. 00:51:27.248 --> 00:51:34.719 I mean, there are famously, like Harriet Tubman had to forward the river, or like remember she jumped into the river to escape the slave catcher. 00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:38.579 So maybe underwater railroad, I mean, yeah, not technically what you were looking for 00:51:38.579 --> 00:51:38.751 yeah, not at 00:51:38.858 --> 00:51:40.599 but there are some interesting resonances. 00:51:41.579 --> 00:51:51.219 And so yeah, there are these allusions to historically meaningful aspects of the black experience that then get presented. 00:51:51.773 --> 00:51:57.293 In connection to current events and the status of race in contemporary American society. 00:51:57.384 --> 00:52:05.184 So it's that reaching back and rediscovering and putting to work that I think is the essence of the principle of Sankofa. 00:52:05.528 --> 00:52:28.784 As you're talking about this, David, I'm reminded of some parts of the book where Stewart writes about quilting and the importance of quilting among black women in the US and the way that the patching together involves taking existing material, but then transforming it into something quite original, and I would say, I'm really coming in hard here as a Beyonce apologist. 00:52:29.893 --> 00:52:34.664 I would say I think that's what Beyonce's doing in her work as well. 00:52:34.693 --> 00:52:34.963 Right. 00:52:34.963 --> 00:52:44.713 There's like a sense in which there's an original transformation of existing material, and I'm particularly struck by what you said about. 00:52:44.784 --> 00:52:51.204 The visuals kind of hearkening back to history because I think that's also what's happening in the practice of quilting. 00:52:51.204 --> 00:53:00.233 You know, it's materials that have been used for other means, like a kind of ancestral lineage of the textiles that are then being reworked and transformed into something new. 00:53:00.608 --> 00:53:00.849 Yeah. 00:53:00.849 --> 00:53:10.119 And I think that technical knowhow or that Wiley intelligence is also something that Steward associates with the candy lady right of the 20th century. 00:53:10.358 --> 00:53:19.199 The woman who knows how to improvise and make something that is appealing to other people based on the materials that are available to her. 00:53:19.588 --> 00:53:22.719 And so in that sense, Beyonce would be like. 00:53:22.918 --> 00:53:43.318 The candy lady of the present precisely because of that ability to improvise in making something wonderful out of one's existence, which of course is part of what we mean by black girl magic, when we use that phrase, it's a reference to the fact that black women are able to produce magic in non magical places. 00:53:46.039 --> 00:53:47.478 We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. 00:53:47.798 --> 00:53:54.349 Please consider subscribing to our Substack for extended episodes, community chats, and other additional Overthink content. 00:53:54.708 --> 00:53:56.248 And thanks to those of you who already do. 00:53:56.248 --> 00:54:00.494 To find episode transcripts and make one-time tax deductible donations. 00:54:00.525 --> 00:54:03.315 Please check out our website, overthink podcast.com. 00:54:03.675 --> 00:54:10.554 We also have a thriving YouTube channel as well as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter accounts at Overthink_Pod. 00:54:10.784 --> 00:54:13.184 We'd like to thank our audio editor, Aaron Morgan. 00:54:13.394 --> 00:54:19.094 Our production assistants Bayarmaa Bat-Erdene, and Kristen Taylor, and Samuel PK Smith for the original music. 00:54:19.324 --> 00:54:21.936 And to our listeners, thanks so much for overthinking with us.