You're listening to afro Punk Solution Sessions. I'm your host Brigittad and I'm your co host Eve Jeff Cooke. Afro punk is a safe place, a blank space to freak out in, to construct a new reality, to live our lives as we see fit while making sense of the world around us. Here at Afropunk, we have the conversations that matter to us, conversations that lead to solutions. A little while back, Bridge and I sat down with image activists and writer Michaela Angela Davis and her beauty boss daughter a Lennie Davis Knight, and we had an amazing conversation that started out, you know, with us just wanted to talk about identity, but it really turned into a lot more than that, and we'd love you to hear it. So here goes since its publicly a lot like I know I am who I am because I grew up in DC when I did right and that it was right after d the Civil Rights movement and right as there was a big Black power movement, but it was expansive, meaning like you could be into Pink Floyd and probably in Funkadelic, like you know, people like DJ Spooky and Greg Tate. They were like in my neighborhood. So we were like that whole idea thing like black and cosmic and you know, the the best hardcore band that America's ever Right, So my first boyfriend was the drama of the backbrid well, and you know what, actually, let me take that back, because I thought he was my first boyfriend, Like that was my story. I was young. I was like fourteen or fifteen. And then when I saw him at Afro Punk a couple of years ago, I went backstage and I've seen him, you know, from fourteen to fifty whatever before, but when we were backstage Apropunk, He's like, oh man, this is the girl I who I always wanted to be my girlfriend. I know, like you wanted to me. I thought I want your friends. Yeah, I mean I was quartin. I didn't know. But so now my story, I don't know my story, like I don't know who my first boyfriend is now, because you know, that's not a bad story, I'll take that. But I did have a yeah, and and what was interesting about I guess this is like kind of even like sort of an Afro Punk three sixty was I was in the scene, I was in the hardcore scene. Because of that Brains and and the Brains were so dope, like they weren't just like loud boys playing fast and live like they were dope, right, and so but the scene was so white, so angry and so skinhead that there there were maybe two black girls in the whole scene like that, you and as part of being with the bad Brains, I could like they didn't want us on the floor because it was really it was violent, like when they were motion and with their steel toes and their Doc Martins, they were trying to funk you up. And imagine that as you know, first of all, being someone who was interested in like an alternative scene makes you a marginalized person. And then being like a black woman's like your marginal You're like a marginalized group within a marginalized group. I almost imagine that you could be like targeted, like I'm gonna go after her. You know, it's interesting. First, I wasn't a woman. I was a fourteen year old girl, right, so I wasn't even like I was just like I got music and the fashion because it was um, you know, it was kind of a thin line between punk and New Asians. So I was a fashion girl, but but I remember just never being in the crowd. We were either sitting on the speakers looking down or sitting in a balcony, but never And it was weird because it's like I heard the blackness into music because the reggae roots and whatever or and I was like, this meeting is so black, but the crowd is so white and mad. So it was a weird experience that I just disconnected from the fans and I was there for the music. Um. So, the first time I ever went to Afripunquin, it was super small and it was in the UM parking lot, and I said, I saw, actually, wasn't that the parker. It was in the club and I saw the first black mosh pit. I literally cried because I've never seen black kids in that scene and and I was thinking of any group who needs that kind of release and that kind of energy, and the best musicians that America produced were black in this scene, but there weren't any black fans to see, you know, twenty something years later there they were, was like like, yo, this is good. And they weren't trying to hurt each other. They were just trying to wow out. But they weren't know the scene and um at the Ninth Dirty Club with up with um bad brains like they would literally it was like UM UFC like they were like they were trying, and after a while you saw them like help you up and you fell down, or they weren't trying, they weren't like brawling. So that experience show you a bad identity, you know, it's interesting. And this is one of the things I miss about d C was because it was so black and you saw everybody like your doctor was black back. The the idea of identity wasn't It was so reinforced that you didn't think outside of it until you got outside of it, except for you know, I was so light and blond, and so that was my thing. Like I felt so black inside, but I I presented so light and really blond. And I remember when I first moved to UM d C, and I think I was in the second grade or younger, and all these kids were asking me whether I was albino, and I didn't even know what an albano was. Oh no, And so that the idea of being black and light and black and blonde, um, that was my sort of identity. Pies but it wasn't. It wasn't the same as like your blackness being interrogated because it was Chocola City and so you felt this a comfort. Um. And then I went to do Gallantine School the Yard, so I was I was comfortable with black genius, not just being black, but being black and complicated black and genius. And like I said, like being able to listen to whatever kind of music you wanted to and not being questioned, which was huge in the seventies, right, because it wasn't you're in like, uh private culture, meaning like if I look at my daughter's I don't know what she's listening to, Like it's private what you listen to, what podcasts you're into. Um, But then it wasn't. It was public, like you played a record player or radio, so people knew who you liked. So the fact that if you had to hide, I don't know if you like I he was thinking about, or like people were into like led Zeppelin and and um, Pink Floyd and Joni Mitchell and you know, just dope artists, but you weren't questioned whether you were black or not. And until until I got out right, Yeah, I remember feeling a lot of Um, anxiety about being into music like bad Brains and um, yeah, And I think that when I was growing up, we didn't have Afro punk intol I was like in college and so being able to find a place where that identity, I like how you put it, black ingenius. This idea that it's okay to be black and complex or black in you know, into punk rock or blacken into art. You know, that was not something that I grew up having reinforced as an identity that was okay. You know, there was like there was only one way to be black when I was growing up, is how I felt. And it wasn't until I got older than I realized that that was something that wasn't was that what was that one way? Um, that's a good question. I think the message that I got was that blackness was not complicated, That blackness was not you know, that blackness was one thing. It was what you saw on you know, MTV. And if that was that that was the only way to be black. Um, when I was growing up, and you know, I went to I went to schools where that was constantly reinforced. Um, that to be black meant to be one kind of person, and that if you didn't fit within that, like being black was straight, being black was you know, Christian that and I wasn't any of those things. And I always felt very swet. I felt I was very aware of that from a very hung age, Like I remember staying up at night thinking what does it mean that I'm, you know, a queer person? And every message I'm getting says that there's that that doesn't exist. And I felt like I was some sort of like alien and this is going away off the rails here, but like things like um Funkadelic in Parliament, Likesban and Fire, black artists that really spoke to afro futurism and things like that. I always get entified with that because I felt so disconnected from you know, what I understood the black experience to be really is a function of figuring out my sexual identity. But that's another story. That is a story that you have an experience. Um No, Because I grew up in New York City and it's hard to find anything that's not complex. Um I think I probably grappled more with being interested in what else we had in our lineage. I knew I was black, I was happy about being black. My Dad's black from Atlanta, Georgia, so he's like extra black, um, and so all of our family is there too, And Mom identify so strongly with black culture, and that is her job and her work. That's not my story, um. And my interest also lies in like I sat down with my grandmother maybe a year or two ago, and she kind of told us like this crazy story about our lineage, which I think is one of the coolest parts about our family, um, is how mixed we actually are and what people sacrifice to to love each other in the Deep South and all of that. So I'm also proud that we're Irish and German and Syrian and black and all those other things. Um, crazy native blood too. And of course yes I'm black. That's how identify I don't check like I wish on the box so that that would be funny. I might do that just to funk with somebody like Irish actually, um, but I think for me it's more understanding those complexities don't necessarily make me feel like I'm not black, but that we're multifaceted. And there's a reason why my mom's light skinned, blonde hair and green eyes like that comes from somewhere and that story is just as interesting to me. Um. But I wasn't forced to find my blackness because I was never devoid of it in the environment that I grew up in. So growing up in New York City is almost a reverse bubble, like everything is so accepted and culturally diverse, and there's there is art, and there is people of mixed cultures and immigrants, and it's very hard. It's when you leave New York City then you start to be like, oh, shoot on black, like and I got to figure out how to be black in this particular space. But I never had to find it because it wasn't it wasn't forced on me or taken from me in any kind of way. Letting so and let me have se brilliant bestie UM and Elisa, And the fact that they could be very young and satirically black to me was like, oh, they're comfortable, like they made fun. So let me a little context. Her best friend's father is a renowned scholar and her mother is like this amazing painter, and there super black, extra black like but extra like uh, scholarly like black. You know that Corner West black like Cornell West black and black not not Lily Black. You know, like my dad that I like the different the dirt explanations and moms like Angela's black right right, And I do to so many spectrums and like a lot of asserting one's blackness. If I think if I wasn't black and blonde, maybe I'm wouldn't it wouldn't have called on me in the same way. Because also I know that my light blondness gets me into spaces in a way. So I feel this sense of you know, I feel like that razing commercial like all the black girls with me because I can get in this door easier, but um so her, she and her friends, so they got inundated with like extra blackness all the time and both that so much blackness. So and like we will you'll be talking about any snappiece and somehow Robin would bring it back to like Mississippi and the Labor Union and black people in Africa, like everything black, black, black black, any black black girl and like black and smart black. So they actually would make fun of it because it was just a given. So like fucking seven, Like what was the book that Eli said her father share It's like heaviest ship. Oh god, it's something something Misssippi, but they would he would read to her about the Black Labor Union like at night, like that story like not like a bad story. It was a bad time story. But they used to play I think you disclose this maybe when you were eighteen or nineteen. They used to play this game called Runaway Slane. We did and I was the target games. It was hilarious. We would so basically all the adults to be in the house and we would first of all, I had I handled the costumes because outfit, So we had outfits and we had like cloaks and like old boots, and we would basically would we'd be escaping from slavery, but we would use the house as different things around the plantation or whatever the situations, and they were like the masters. Basically we were trying to dodge so the so the parents would be in the in the room and we would like sneak with like like sacks on her back and like still stream cheese and like to could have masses house the catches and then we run into her. Yeah, oh yeah, very like this was lovely. It was full It was full blable when you're taught, when you're reading that from like six until my dad's an actors, So it was like that in Shakespeare and if I got in trouble, I had to read encyclopedias about slavery. So of course we were like, well, what's in our brains? Uh, slavery? And so happy we had We had no idea because you know, it's interesting, wait till y'all like have like families and you're sitting around with you and you're still young, like we're like in our I don't know, thirties or late thirties, late thirties, So we're sitting around, we're drinking, we're talking. We might be talking about our culture, but we're still in our thirties. So we're young. And our kids are in the house playing, and so we're hanging out. We don't know they're being runaways, enslaved Africans. At our face. We're just like, oh, look at the caves. They're fine. Girls are all right, Like we didn't even notice. Like they had cloaks and little baby dollars that they were taking and keep the baby quiet, and it got side one time the baby died. Oh god, a story. I just want to say, I'm I'm so grateful, Like several years of slave at like eight. They were acting out slave narratives very early in life. But um, but I was so grateful that she didn't tell me until I was older. And it was funny because I'm like, you played what in the and when I remember when she when Lenny was seven, she wrote a play on her chalkboard, like or the outline of a play on her talkboard about how Harriet Tubman spirit came down and talked to Martin the King and gave him the notion of how to organize. So her feminist, so she was also unbodgicable, how you need this? It's like seven because it was at the house and in lest Chester. Wow, so was like, okay, that's what you dropt last night. Why were these things on your mind? It's just young age. I didn't have a choice. I was inundated in in that and in fashion and in theater. My parents are best friends, that they weren't together, so I spent a week with my mom and a week with my dad and whatever that meant. I was in that environment and then my best friend since kindergarten. Her father was a professor, so that I was around all of that, and the mother was an artist, So that was a real It was a real combination of like academia, art, fashion, theater, and being one of the few children around adults. Adult always adults, so we heard adult conversation and had adult notions and dreamt weird ship dude. They were funny. Is there ever anything that happened to you, like outside of that space where anybody was surprised they were like, oh, she's really precocious, or experiences like that, like racial experiences any I guess the first one that I had was in kindergarten. Some girl told me that her rabbit couldn't play with me because I was black, and that was weird. And that was the only like real thing that I've had. All the other ones kind of came later in school. Um, what did you say to her? I never heard that one the rabbit. I was like, I don't know. I was like, I don't want to play with your rabbit either, and Elie was like yeah, And the whole your little fit, the whole crew, like Max and all of my elementary school friends like didn't talk to her, and so she felt real stupid and we're all just like your whack, like we we know you're whacking We're five like you know, um, but then yeah, well yeah was outnumbered. Yeah uh. And then in high school, um, I grappled because I was very popular, but I wasn't popular with like one group. I had like my weird artsy friends. I had my super rich, crazy like gossip girlfriends. And then I had like two hood girls that I what you always need. So I had all these different experiences, but I certainly encountered more often than not passive. They didn't know they were being racist racist ship from white people who were like who loved me, but they would just say ship like, oh my god, you're like so much agrhan and I'm like, but then with my with Unfortunately, the most aggressive stuff that I got was from women of color who were darker and angry and didn't consider me, you know, black enough, which is a story I'm sure we've all heard in some way or another. But I didn't speak black enough, I wasn't dark enough. I liked too much white girl ship whatever that means. Um. And so unfortunately I ended up gravitating towards kind of a hodgepodge of people and ultimately never really felt comfortable in any any one space all white people, all black people, all anything for me is a little bit uncomfortable. And I think most of that is cousin from New York. So even just visually, all of one thing is like where are we um, But also just you know, it's it's a weird place to be in when you are complex both biologically and intellectually to fit in UM. And that's why spaces like afro punk and another kind of cool girl spaces that are are based in the black community but aren't specific to the black community can be really dope UM or like Insecure, like was the first show that I was like, this is yes, like a Molly is that is a complex black girl who's like, yes, I can be reacted, but like I'm also super corporate and slutty and I like to get drunk and like all the things that you think only white girls can do. UM, which she was black and fly and I was like, okay, this, I get I get this, and I got Sex in the City, but they just weren't black like that. That's where my brain was more of us X in the city kind of girl than like girlfriends, Like yeah, I liked the show, but Sex and the City was like fab that's how I felt, so kind of like how you said you felt like there was only one way to be black. There were certain things that I was interested in that I thought weren't black because that's what I was told. Um, but that's bullshit. We're gonna take a quick break. It sounds like something that's important for both of you in terms of understanding your identity is cultural things, art, TV, music, movies. Is that the case today still? Um? But see my tastes in like movies and culture and art is pretty white in terms of who creates it, Like I'm a game throned uh like succession, sharp opects like dark twisted ship, which I blame on my father for all the shakespecause. And also why do you think to see signs of the lands when you're like eight, Like we don't we don't are dead, Like that's my homie, he's dope that she's dope, don't dope dead, He's I love him, he's family and we can have very few like beefs. But I remember she came home like vibrating because she was like eight and saw the silence of the lamps. I'm like, like I almost throughout the m my dad. My dad's like sip talk was so letting with front, so like mature that you sometimes you forget, oh yo, that little girl is eight because she she liked to be in the spaces, so she would kind of like fall in really easy. She could talk about like the story, arc and all this other stuff, but then she'd come back to me freaked out. So I think part of it could be that. But I think our monikers for identity are super different. My mom and I we definitely we've clashed in some ways, um privately called each other out. I think in some ways how she identifies as black and how I do are very different. How they kind I think hers is a little bit, for lack of a better word, more of a classic approach to blackness. Like it's very activism based. She grew up in d C. Chocolate City, black black black, like that is her thing. UM, and black women and and anything that's like like she'll watch a movie that's awful because it was made by a black woman to support the cause, and I'm like, it's a whack movie. I'm not watching it, Like sorry, you know, Um. And for me, I don't feel the need to overly state anything I'm just who I am. I don't have to I'm not. I'm also not leading a black charge. I'm not in a space where that is my my job and my my passion. My passion is in the beauty industry, and I certainly find spaces within that too, have little moments of revolution and make sure that one image gets to one country that it might be it wouldn't have, or make sure that the model featured on the on the gondola is black drinking a coconut. True story. Um, but that's kind of where I'm in and I know that it can seem a lot more frivolous. But I'm sure there's spaces within my work to show black women in different in different ways. But it's not it's not the same My my My blackness is just who I who. Part of who I am blackness is also Mom's life. It's also her job, it's her platform, it's her it's her career. I almost wondered, that's like the legacy that you've been able to gift to your daughter. You know, it's interesting because what the dopest thing about being a mother and one of the thing and I told you this in Paris, I said, the thing that was most nervous about and doing this with my daughter. She's the person that I am the most myself with, Like I don't say ratchet ship. I'm not shady and public, I don't you know, but I am with her like one of one of the most one of the most fun things about when she was living with me is that we could watch like love and Hip Hop for Sex in the City and be shady as fun like just like it was. It was like it was almost like a sport, right, and so I kind of shade is definitely yes, and she's a champion, right and she was from a very early So it was it's a very intimate space to um, I find to be in. It was very intimate for me to um be completely unfiltered and have because I have. We have fun throwing shade, but it's not to hurt anybody, it's not to break anybody down. It's entertainment. It's almost like Twitter. You know how you watch Twitter. So she was like my she was my black Twitter. Like everything I couldn't say black Twitter like I would say with her, or I would share something like there are times that there's there's something I want to get into on Twitter, but I can't because it will make me shady and petty. It's so good. How do you say about having that kind of monitor yourself before you know? Because at this I'm gonna want to ask a woman, right, And so part of being grown is modeling that you can have boundaries and you can have intimate parts of your personality, right, And that because I'm a public figure and I've chosen to say I'm here for black girls, right, So it it doesn't unless it benefits other people. I don't call out other black women. I just don't. And because of who I said, I am in the public world. But I also get to have a private self, right, And I have my most fun and private self with a Letty That said my whole idea of of wanting to I mean, I've always said, like, I've really want to know what it's like to be free black woman, and I don't get to define what that is. So if for a Lenny to be free is for her to date white boys with tattoos, and that's the real story, that's her thing. Like and you have as a parent, you you watch your children go the next step, Like my mother is like what like who I've been in the world is very different than that's what evolution is. But sometimes it moves faster than you. UM. You do yes, and it causes you to grow, and that's to me, that's the most That's what love is does, right, whether it's love of family, UM and partnership. It brings things out of you um and makes things, makes you aware of where you can grow, and that that's when you're in a great relationship, not one it is just like, oh, we get along, we like everything the same. And if you something's not growing, then I don't. I don't know if that's really love. And so Lenny challenges me and makes me grow in a way, and to I mean quite honestly, saying yes to this is a growth because I know I can't be in conversation up be unfiltered with her um. So it means that I'm safe and often myself now that okay, if Michael and Anthela Davis is a little shady. So what I've got receipts of all this other work that I've done, I think it's more than just shade. I think I would bring up topics or talk about things that other people probably wouldn't because they don't know you were not like dirty laundry. But you know what I mean, Like there are things that we've definitely but it heads on um And to your point about legacy, I don't think I think she was going to leave a legacy for a lot of other young black women. But our relationship is the legacy that her and I have. But I'm not ever going to follow in her footsteps in that way. Right. One of the things I liked so much about the dynamic that you guys have as mother and daughters, that you do class you are different. I was reading the essay that you wrote about her pledging to us about you should have bought you should have bought cocktails for that for then you we didn't talk for a little bit after that was and part and part of it was and I can't be I can be shady. Part of it. It was also really bad editing, Like there were parts of it that I turned into story and what ended up on the pages of essence were very different in a way the country but in a way I said, and they were very specific people that were called out that got taken out because they were worried about their readership, which completely changed the entire stories. So why I chose not to go to black sororities because they were freaking mean to me? And she and she was also very clear that it varies from campus to campus, right, So we're take so on her campus, the black sororities were not just me, and they weren't active, and they weren't they weren't a community in which she fit. And it wasn't just because they were black. What did she say, It's like they were in the thirteenth grade, like they were. She chose a sorority that was um, socially active, she was able to head the p whatever, and multicultural. There were black girls, there were Spanish girls, there were immigrants, there were Yes, it's a historically Jewish sorority, but if you look at that picture, and if you look at subsequent pictures of my of my crew, there's tons of girls like me. There's girls that are darker, there's Asian girls, there's I didn't join like a white sorority, right, And that's and that's really how it was trained. But because it was, it was interesting some of my friends, like I don't it's interesting that when the landing is like that I'm you know, centered in my blackness. I am, but I'm still considered alternative in my generation. Like the fact that even went to a Bad Brains concert was you know, I'm other black, or that I worked in fashion and I wasn't. And I didn't get into UM really targeting black audiences until I met Susan Taylor. But also there was an opening there because I was like, all this stuff, the images that I've been making for mainstream fashion or white fashion, white using eurocentric lens. Let me just put it that way, UM, And I was doing a lot of fashion research and seeing all this work and all these images and all these references, and and then when I started getting into UM media, I just not only did I love black women and black girls in the black esthetic, it was also opportunity, meaning what we had created a vibe was it hadn't been created in that way meeting. We were interested in covering hip hop culture elevated in an elevated way, and like getting the best photographers, getting hilt now, like getting the best writers, and so it wasn't just only because I love this culture. There was opportunity. There was an opening. There wasn't a lot of Um, there wasn't the same amount of images of black women and girls and our this that looked like what I saw so much in the Conde Nast world and the rolling stuff. So I also was working with those alternative artists like CEO and Bloody Crabt and Michelle and d Cello, and so even though those are all black artists, they're still like on the edge black artists, you know what I mean. So, um, these thousands streams of blackness, like identifying myself for my work and my life centered in blackness feels very expansive to me because I feel like there's just so much to explore because my education. Um, even though I went to a historically black high school, I then came to a very white um university at m y U and then it sella Atlanta, very very white, Like I was the only person of color in my acting conservatory and they didn't even know I was because I was punk looking and I had short on finger waves and more rice powder and read listic, Like why didn't they know? I was black? Like I literally I literally but literally, and I wore a mouse saked. I felt so black inside. I'm light as fun, like I'm light and I put on rice powder and shaved my eyebrows and wore red list I was cool and I'm wore a mouse say tune suit every day for two weeks, my first two weeks of school, and I didn't know when they didn't know I was black, Like that's what happened. So I feel and what happened to what what became like a creative um challenge, meaning how can I look at the life and art in the world not through with your central lens. So at seventeen eighteen, that that became was I wasn't born Angela Davis, so Michael Angela Davis because I was in a very straight fashion and track like I wore out you know, I listen to any Lennox end Rays Jones, like the whole thing. But I felt like, and this is this literally happened. I was going back and looking at UM sort of back Vogue issues and the work was so expansive and so beautiful, and the things that Um Diane Vreeland did, or looking at the work of Bill Cunningham or early Bill Cunningham Details magazine like there's nothing left to do, like they did the best, like it's never gonna get better, like there was a part of me it's like or even looking at black theater, I mean white like, um, I wasn't doing check off and I was like, God, it's not. What else can they do? Like what's gonna be better than this? And so part of it was a creative challenge, like look at the world not through your centric lens. And it was harder than I thought because everything, even when doing Black Ship, it was asset come haired to whiteness because we're so programmed to do that. So so somewhere around eighteen or nineteen, I challenged myself to try to create out of a space that wasn't euro center, to try to try to use black culture as my um inspiration. And then then I was gone. Then it was like even in doing more avant fashion um or more high fashion, I started working a lot with a photographer named Venafanador, and Reuben was from Colombia, and he also even though he did all the CONTI nests, his lens wasn't your center either. So we were able to create these very like the work I did with him, with Diana Ross and all these people, it was not your It wasn't what you would have seen in essence, it was what you would see in Vogue with a black life. So that yes, not a French right, So something in my se so my path got clear. And so when your path gets clear, um, you go, you follow it. And so my path was paved with black girls and so um and you know. So it wasn't like I was born Chocolate City made me. But then I came to New York to be in fashion and in theater, and that I didn't necessarily think about black fashion and black theater. I totally didn't think about it, um, but I did. I did realize that neither did my school, like they had no but like we didn't read any black playwrights. We didn't. I mean, there was nothing like none in the great American theater um repertoire. There was not one. Maybe Lorraine hands Ferry was down in there somewhere. So I felt like it was a creative challenge at first, and then it became more a calling and while you're here. So and also I do think the experience of being my blackness being challenged very young also created this desire to sent to myself in it because it was questioned and my my brothers and sister my brother and my two sisters, although they're very light skin, did like, you know, my sister and my brother weren't questioned whether they were black or not. You know, they had a you know, the helly gary kind of coloring. But so I think my how I present also really informed who I became and to you know, honestly with the Lenny. She and her her friends say that their towny like, it's like ry was there classic tawny you know, tawny foundation and raising lipstick. But that was my look, like that fashion fair. It was such a classic anthing. Um. But this idea of not being questioned, like there was a part of me that I felt like when a Lenny entered this world, like there was a part of me healed up because that the idea of being questioned about who you are, there's no question about it, so then you can just be That's not true for me. But that's why I felt. No, That's when I said, I felt because I felt you looked like I always wanted to. I mean I literally used to dream at night to be that I would wake up and be darker, like darker than hert Like I wanted to be dark like an Philip pot um An philpot was chocolate, and her hair she was chocolate, and her hair pressed so beautifully that it looked like pat and leather, and it was just like it was black and shiny. And then but I realized all the boys liked her because she had an acid in the third grade. But I just saw that she was so pretty and so and no one ever asked her whether she was black enough. And her hair, her skin in her hair was just like I just used to dream like I want that skin, I want that hair um and not and and I think at that age, I think it was really purely aesthetic. Like her hair was so shiny and thick and heavy, and her skin, I could I see it right now, like it had color, Like I could see colors in it, Like I could see like the like the bricky color, and I could see the gold fly like she was so gorgeous, but she got teased for being black, Like it was great. Like that's where we were in and that's where we still are in a lot of ways. We'll be back after this short break. So you mentioned that you that the sort of dream that you had from your daughter of not having this question wasn't actually what you feel like ended up happening in your life. Questioned all the time, I mean people, what are you is usually the first question, and I obviously know what they mean. UM. A lot of people think I'm Dominican, Puerto Rican, uh um, Middle Eastern. Sometimes I'll get um, but they something about I don't know what it is. Something always prompts people, particularly white men, UM and sometimes other women of color that are not black, will ask me what's your background? And I think it's because maybe it's my coloring. Maybe I don't know what it is. I feel like I look very black. UM, But I answer honestly. I don't just say black. I could, but if you really want to know, they're we do have a complex lineage. There is a reason why Mom's whole side of the family is light and fair and has green blue eyes. And that's a real thing. That's a genetic thing. That's not something that UM, I think should be discounted or or not to be explored. I think all lineages interesting. UM. Both whatever tribe you were able to track down in Africa, but also where did that was a little that was just a little light a little bit. But also she was like my little Leaf, but ever tribe, Like my nose is from Ebo, and I'm like, yeah, that's really dope. But like where your eyes from probably like Belfast, you know what I mean. Like we can be all types of things. That's that's the beauty of it. Um. And I had a really like intense conversation actually with my grandmother about that, and she was like, you know, sometimes I wish we would look more at the other stuff because I think it's really fascinating and and it plays into the story of our entire family, which is really kind of badass that all these people of mixed races were in the South and choosing to love each other. More about that story, Um, from what I remember, Um, I know that is it Grandmama's grandparents, which what which story are you getting there? It's Syrian and Irish and German and and uh Native American and they it was an Irish woman, Helen Moore. I'll never forget because I was like, that is super Irish. Um, I don't remember great grandmother. So yeah, because one of the most fascinating stories that Grandmama told also she cuts me off the time, Um, was that and I didn't know this that one of her, someone in our family was passing for black so he can marry. He's one of the things that was which is like, Yo, you're gonna you're gonna be black in Jim Crow South because you love this woman. Like that's that's like a dope love story, right. But also part of um, you know, my my mother was had to was part of the whole paper like she wasn't allowed to date brown skimming, Like that whole paperback thing was real because when you do survive the terrorism of Jim Crow South, the lighter you were, the more likely you were to survive. So her grandparents like um, my grandmother, aunt Colia, all of them lived in um some to South Carolina and witnessed Jim Crow and they were terrorists basically, so they allow of them were refugees that left South Carolina to Philadelphia, and so part of part part of it was like we don't have all those stories like oh they were raped, but like they were. There was actual marriages and family. But then there was also you you have to stay light because if you're terroristed, and light means living. Any animal in the jungle is going to want to protect their children. And so part of the part of them, just a diabolical terrorism of Jim Crow creates certain survival things, right, and so part of my reckon or I got I found some piece when when my grandmother was about to make her transition, because she used to flip on like her dad. Her dad had lots when we first met, and I used to like make sure I put my hair back because it would just trigger things. Um I remember we we we cornrode my brother's hair once and my grandmother went off like because you would cornrol their hair so your afro would come out fluffy, like that was treatment, and she was triggered because she was And I didn't learn this stood way later, like the certain children's hair were corn wrote in a particular way. They were to signify that they were owned by these people over there, Like no one corn rode their hair in her mind for fashion or for fun. It was it triggered um sharecropping or like we got to like it was it was a big deal and we didn't know, like what the fuck? But then when I learned, like the this is PTSD, these this is terrorism, or like why my grandfather wouldn't stop to pee if we were driving down south, like after Virginia just like straight and so that those complicated things I don't find them, not like I find that really interesting, Like I make sense to me now, you know when I was little, I didn't make it didn't make a lot of sense, Like why do I feel why do I feel like soul training that I kind of look like American man stand a little bit, but um, but understanding this is part of the American story. Like I looked the way that I look partly because of the American story. And it's and it's competing truth all the way down, like some of it's great, some of its terroristms, some of its love, some of it's just sucked up ship like some and so embodying all of that, um is all of our challenge, like embodying our our contradictions, whether how we were raised or what our history was. Um, I'm just I mean literally, I trained myself. I'm just not that interested in white people. And that's what It's not that I'm not interested in my family. I'm not that interested in whiteness and euro you're that I'm interested in myself and my family, but in terms of like culture, and it's just like y'all had a really good run, Like I'm not that interested in anymore as much anymore in particular, really now this whiteness is so brutal and nasty and stupid and destructive. I've really I'm now made more hyper focused and black girl just everything like everything like um, because it's also part of my survival spiritually and mentally and um having had to have these public conversations in white spaces like CNN. I guess, um, what's his name? Empire? Who's the main character? No, liont um cookies husband, Yeah, his character whatever he called White People's TV, like he called tenn White people TV. Like to be in those spaces and talk about blackness while all this horror is going on. Um, I just like this is this is actually also a survival thing for me too. It's like I'm just gonna double down the blackness and black culture because it feeds me this other thing, um depletes me. And so yeah, but how have you gotten to that point where you've been able to set this multitude? It's like be able to parse all that because I feel like there are a lot of people who don't necessarily know how to navigate that. I don't I mean, I don't know part it's just good getting grown, Like there's a part of it, like becoming a grown as woman is so there's a part you get like how you want to live the rest of this out like when you're in, when you're at the halfway mark, Like I'm at the halfway mark, Um, what's the second half going to be? Like? And and and and what kind of life do you want? And your life is what you think about all day long? This let's say who Sundaiata said once? And I believe it. Your your life is your thoughts, right, Like that's what is That's your life. This other stuff is what you perform, what you how you how you navigate. So not to say that I'm not a piece of everything. There's parts of me that are still working. Um. But in terms of identity and particularly and and and I think Lenny helps me see this. In real life, a lot of people identified with who loved them right and and so if like my mother's second husband was as Irish and white, isn't his name is William Delaney white f a f he loved me and he loved my mother. But also part of humors are very black, well, but but it wasn't black what it was was old school, asked New York hardcore Irish, which Irish people, black people and Jewish people get along very well because there's shared oppression and a bit of grit, especially in New York. You all the same way and be black as Jimmy who's Irish and whose phil who's Italian? Like there's there's also to be really really honest. Is that in South Carolina when we went to the graves, um indentured servants I mean indentured workers Irish who were fleeing the you know, um we're living in the same quarters as the enslaved Africans. So they so it's the most common mix in America is because they were both on those plantations together. The thing is that the white person could put on a suit and leave eventually eventually. But also we've had some family that bought bought their uh spouses, and so the whole Irish black thing is also you know, there was a time when Irish people couldn't go you know, there's no Indians, no niggas, no Irish, so they at one point we were you know, but that's the whole thing. Anti blackness is interesting because those people who were oppressed aside from I've never experienced that from first world from natives, but everybody else was like, when it comes to it, at least I'm not a nigga, like they can because they've been oppressed, that they felt like shit, or they've been treated a certain way. Whether you're Irish or or Jewish, that option is always there because of how anti blackness has been structured. Anti blackness was a strategy that is very clear, and so it's not I don't even really make it individual's fault anymore because now because I just learned that that it's literally around anti blackness, not just white supremacy, because that means then we can't get the Irish, then we can get the strategy that I mean. Hitler studied American slavery to understand his strategy, which is how to dehumanize a group of people. That's when you can do exactly. I'm pretty surprised to learn about the ways that particularly the Irish were able to sort of become white through things like you know, American policies like housing policies that allowed for Irish people to compete in ways that black people were just not allowed to. And so how these very specific policy interventions created a pathway to whiteness for Irish people while simultaneously lacking black folks out and how that is a very deliberate, deliberate thing. But then you can find like individual people who's um, hustle you get, who humor you get. You know, so there's a lot of reasons why. But you know, have you all dated or been have family members that who weren't black or who weren't you know, yes, because I'm not and I'm not talking specifically to you, because i know where you've been educated and how you present, how you talk, what you're interested in. Probably people who are interested in you are Cain and I'm just making it. I'll make it as that. And you know, your teacher, um that you also are attracted to it, are attracted by a spectrum of people. And what does that do with your sense of self and your blackness? And that's such a big question. Um, I think that for me, you know, I've always been someone who's been interested in sort of the other. So what if it's alternative, if it's different, that's something that I I'm automatically interested in. Has been the way I've been since I was young and I think, Yeah, I think I've dated and been with a lot of different people of all kinds of races. But the thing that is sort of of the thing that grounds my interest in them is that they're like if they seem different, they don't seem like they're part of, you know, the majority. And what's interesting is that my last the last person I dated, not very seriously, but he is Irish but from Ireland and was there for what they call the trouble you know um and would get very wistful and sad when talking about it. But when it came to the United States, he was like, I really only date women of color, specifically black women, because the idea of dating someone who embodies what it means to be the majority is just not how I feel. And so he was like, I didn't understand that I was white and what that meant in America until a couple of years, and even now when I look to people who I date, I only feel comfortable dating specifically black women, because they mirror what it what it felt like to be another in a way that you know, your average white woman in d C, you know, just will never will never understand and ever embody. So that what you guys were talking about, that grit, that hustle, that sort of internal almost like internal sadness and a kind of way, but also intern like an internal swag and strength and beauty. It's like this double edged thing that we all carry inside of us because of that shared depression that when you meet someone who has that, whether they are, you know, a white person or not, that like like something inside of me responds to that as well. And I think it's interesting how you can sort of kind of scope that out on each other in a kind of way. It's makes sense. Yeah, but why does that even have to be in any kind of indicator about your own identity who you're attracted to. If I happen to like purple lesbian, that doesn't mean that I don't feel black. It's who I'm attracted to. I don't think it's fair to say that that being interested in someone that doesn't look like you means that you're less black. Yeah, I mean. And also I think that there's a black woman the side of everybody. So there's that, but um no, there's they're they're in there, but they're hidden. They don't let their black girls out like they're buried under so much bullshit. Um, that's my theory. I think that there's our ancestors are so they're just everywhere they're they're here to help everybody. That's the title of our next episode. And everybody they're like, So I'm my new obsession is my house. Um, I don't know what took me so long to watch this series. I'm abost, but that's who I see come out, Like when I see those kids focus, No, I mean my house. Yes, So my house is the reality version of post and it's in real time. It's now, it's not in the baby and um, you know, and watching that wholeball scene and to me, I see in particularly way that everybody talks, like even just saying shade and girl and gage to me that anyways black Auntie from the seventies and but like the dash of lots of gay. Yeah, but the gays amplify Auntie in a way that makes her like they gave her life. Like I remember listening to my mother and her black girlfriend's, particularly her young when she was young, and how they would talk and how they would dress, and they were like you know, if you watch oh good Times like Winona, like that kind of sexy, sluggy. You know, black women in their in their private conversations that they have in the kitchens or the or in the um, you know, when they would talk dirty and like and I feel like the gay kids, particularly gave men and trans women take that spirit and give her like like like jazz hands right like So so I still feel it's like black women's energy, but passing through different kinds of bodies. So it became ms more like what's the line of that in appropriation to get pissed off? I don't know. I don't know, because it's appropriation. It's not Monona, like you know what, it's monona. And so like for instance, Tina Marie and any wine house that's Winona, that's not appropriation. That is. So it's like, you know what, when you see it right corn Rows on top, Kylie Janner, that's some appropriationship. So like that that's my you know judge. Now I us have to say something, which is this is gonna sound like a little bit out of left field. But when I was touring around Paris and something that I saw that just made me feel so happy and made me remind It was a reminder that like black women are everywhere? Was that the loose someone lost a braid and I was I was like, this is like z It's like it's like we're everywhere. Are are? It's like it's like fairy dust, but like Black Girls Ferriage Us, it's like a little piece of a break. That's exactly. But you know what speaking, I did feel kind of a way with the tribal painting and Approca White Girls. I'm just like, I'm over it on Black Girls too. But I feel like, but that's like, are you like but that's festival where that's like, so then why are you mad about it? Because it's our Like I don't like it, but they do it at Coachella. I don't. I'm just saying I don't what I mean, you can't be like I'm mad about it on Black on White Girls as a festival thing. What you said, what you're mad about it for Black Girl? I said, I don't like it on anybody. I'm done. I'm done with that. I'm not. It's not you're not in a tribe. You're not actual you are in a tribe, so then everyone should be able to wear tribe. But you're not in the appropunk tribe. You're at the Apropunk concert festival, festival. You're not in the tribe, you're not in the natural hair whether it's like there, I no, but you can choose to be if you wanted to. But I'm not. The white girls can't choose it, but you could choose it. What do you want? You're making it no sense. Is being invited as a guest somewhere and like so it's like I could invite you to my family reunion, but you would not have a family. So you're saying that white people aren't invited to participate in Afropa. No, I'm just saying I feel away when I see them wearing tribal makeup, Like I don't like it, Like, no, there are white tribes. Have you ever seen Vikings? Yeah? And I do like the Viking clap that she is amazing just saying it. Yeah, it's pretty. I love it. No, I don't like them. No, I think a personal kind of way that's like slightly bigoted. It's obviously personal. I don't like it. And as aesthetic, like I don't like white dreads either. Well that's cleanliness, that's an issue. I love her enough, but it's aesthetic, like why do you have white dots in your white face? Like I don't want to see it because she wants to be I'm fine. I don't say anything to her. See this is what I'm saying, Like, I don't say that to her at the I just I'll see her. That's my own personal shape. And I just have this because because there's also this feeling like see me with my white dots with you, Like, no, I don't. I think that's how you're proceeding, of course, but your life is your perception, you know someone, I have white girlfriends. That sounds like black people. That's why I said it. I'm not realchic. I vote for Obama again. I have white friends, white girlfriends. I have like four white girl friends. I do not hate. Actually do have about four good white girlfriend Mommy, you're still perpetrating my joke. But I know I don't. You talked about perpetuating your show, perpetrating joke. So in the way that um you spoke about sort of wanting to make these spaces in the fashion and art in the fashion and art communities, do you feel like you do the same thing in your own kind of way and beauty industry And yeah, a little bit. I mean me, even being at the table is the first step because I walk into a boardroom and it's a bunch of older white men and women. I will say there's much more femininity in the beauty space in terms of power, which is great and I love that. Um. But there's a vested interest now in big corporate corporations like Loureal and Revlon, which is where I am. Um. They have full blown internal initiatives to bring on women of color, trans women and men millennials. They need. They understand that they need to diversify the space because if you're sitting at a table trying to understand why you're not getting to a target consumer and that consumer isn't at the table or someone who connects that consumers and at the table, it's impossible. Um. So from a corporate standpoint, they know that. So me even just being there is that. But UM, I've definitely not necessarily in this particular job because it's fragrance and it's just ethereal and it's a little bit more fun. Um. But when I was in color at Becca, there were tested, vested moments where I had to be a little bit of a hard ass and say no, poland you have to take this imagery or you're not getting the fixture in your store, and they would take it. Um. So those ones were like little ones for me because I'd be like, you know, there's gonna be a black grown warsaw um. So I think that I can. I love what I do. I certainly don't have any misconceived notions about the fervility of it. But I'd like I like to have fun at my job, and my job is fun um, and I take it seriously. But I know that the moments that I can do something are available. Because I'm talking about beauty. I'm in the beauty space in a in a corporate way. So if there's moments where I can raise my hand and be like, maybe we shouldn't pick that tagline or whatever it is, um, those moments are the ones that are gonna have an impact. Well, that connects kind of time. I think the I think you can speak to this as well, but sort of overarching theme of our show, which is that you don't have to be someone like yourself to be to take those small activist stances. That you may not consider yourself an activist, but I think one because of the legacy that your mom has done created for you. You know those times where you can say no poland you're going to take this imagery like that's an activist win, even if it's small, and you know, you might think that it feels small or frivolous, but it's it's powerful, like knowing that you have that voice and that you can that you have that seat at the table where you can advocate in that way. I don't think I'm more of an an advocator than an activist. I do not see my mother's work as my legacy. If I did, it would be the fashion, the fashion part. But but here's here's here's who I think it. It may not be, it may not be. Okay, okay, thank you. Um you have to keep that in the podcast. And then we'll say an example of white girl. So you came in six minutes earlier. We had to be just like I looked and I was like, wait, so it's not past week through. I would never have gone that, never in a million or four black before obviously, but also and you have on headphones and you're holding something and you still decide to talk like write a sign. Would never have done. Here's the thing anyway, where where being advocate is different than activists. But here's I do think here's where my legacy I think lives in a Lenny is the fact that she uses her voice and that feels the confidence to say I recommend you doing this, not not from because of her blackness, but because of her um, because she's an expert, like she knows, like I know this. I know this comes from you being an amazing, powerful mom and woman. Not about what you do but that. But part of what I do is who I am someone but I love. But here's but here's what I want to say because I have seen like, for instance, Gabby City Bay on the cover of l I'm still tired about this because I love Gabby, her edges were horrible. Right, there were other black people in that room. Right, in order for something to go from a you know, a shot to a cover, there's a lot of yeses, there's a lot of steps. And I was like, where why didn't anybody speak up? Why do anybody speak up on the set? Right, So just because you're a black girl at the table doesn't mean you use your voice. Doesn't mean oh I'm new at that gap. I'm not going to challenge. But my point is I I'm proud of it. I get that legacy from Michael and my mom, not from michaela Angela Davis. Other women might get that from you. I don't that happened far beyond you were a public figure or anything. You taught me to speak up for myself and to be bold and to be strong and to be very specific with my words, very early, and so did my father. You guys just raised me to be a vocal and educated young woman, not because of what you do, just because your great mom. That is beautiful and I and I grab it. I proud of that, and I'm proud of you. But my I I struggle because I'm I love my mom and I'm proud of her, but I want to be completely separate of her. I don't always want to be dope daughter, like I have my own name. I am my own person, and what I do is fly as ship. It's just in another in another arena that isn't seen um in the kind of way that my mother is. And ME being proud of her and supportive comes from me being a supportive and proud daughter. But I don't I don't want your life I don't want your your legacy of work, Um, I have no interest in it. And the same with my dad. He wants me to be an actor so bad. I'm like, I love what you guys do, it's just not me and I've never wanted you to be I didn't even know I wanted to be me. Like I was a fashion girl, and that's meal when I began, you know, back to full circle. Like I started off, I was in fashion in theater and it didn't I didn't have like a I wasn't going to do the National Black Theater when I love Washington. When I lef d C, I was going to m y U Stella Adler, Right, that wasn't my trajectory. I was hanging out at the Pyramid Lounge and dancing on the bar with Madonnas. The legacy I relate, but but that's part of my that's part of me. Like I literally was doing that. So it got black when like also just I remember Keith Harry and Michael Stewart. We're both dope artists that were considered street artists at the time. Right, they were tagging the cots, handcuffs and beat Michael Stewarts too. That Keith Herring and that it was almost like the party where all of us are having fun and we're like freedome or in downtown, and it's like he's really the daughta. It was all of a sudden, I'm ship he's black. That's what happened. And so there was part of it. There was a moment in time when I was young it really wasn't about black it was about freedom. And we were all in the same space and boscas at this party and then Michael Stewart got murdered. It's almost like a Treylon thing in the art scene, and we knew he was murdered because he was black, and he was he literally had handcuffs on his wrists and his ankles and Lemon cops beat him to death. And Keith Herring kept tagging, you know what I mean, like that, some my innocence broke in that moment too. So there's a lot of you become who you are as a result of your experiences. And so when you have certain kinds of experiences, um, they get in your DNA, they make you a certain way. And that's why certain things that when things like racists and things like Jim Crow can deform, Like, I don't know who my grandmother would have been if she didn't see people hanging from tree, he said, fourteen and fifteen years old, Like who do you get to be? You know? Like who do these kids get to be? Who being ripped away from their children and I mean from their parents at the border and scattered all over the country, Like who do you get to be? So a lot of who we are, that's how we were raised. And her father and I made very clear decisions about trying to create spaces that felt safe and um, supported and creative and but with some boundaries, like she won't one of them boundaries, boundaries because we didn't want to one of the little Brady crazy no bradies. So um, that's the legacy to right again full circle. When you say, oh I want I want black girls to be free, you better be ready for what freedom looks like in different ways, you know. And sometimes she's like freedom looks like that, Okay, that's your freedom, and so my you know, and it's challenging, it's and it's you know, it's challenging. But but what's great is we do there are places that we really connect fashion then we don't. Yeah, exactly. Actually true, It's true. No, there, we we connect way more than we don't. They're just the moments she'll say something I'm like and I call her out. But how often does she get called out? It's me, her close girlfriends, no one on like. I don't know, all those white trolls call me out, but not much you actually, so I wouldn't call you out a white troll. I know we have to go see it, but I have a question. Yeah, let see you said we have to. You know, you get to pick what your freedom looks like. So what is your freedom look like? Both of you glitter? So the one glitter that's it. That's really it. Freedom looks like glitter? This, I mean this, This is what my freedom looks like like. Four different black girls sitting in a room talking about what their freedom looks like. That. I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as we did. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with another interview. Afro Punk Solution Sessions is a co production between Afro Punk and How Stuff Works. Your hosts are Bridgett and Eve's Jeff Cope. Executive co producers are Julie Douglas, Jocelyn Cooper and Kuan latif Hill. Dylan Fagan is supervising producer and audio engineer. Many many thanks to Casey Pegram and Annie Reese for their production and editorial oversight, and many thanks to her on the ground Atlanta crew Ben Bowland, Corey Oliver and Noel Brown. The Underside of Power is performed by Algiers. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Apropo