Session 259: Black Women & Digital Communities

Published May 18, 2022, 7:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

What would the internet and social media be without Black women? Without the labor, brilliance, and talent of Black women, the Twitters and Tik Toks of the world wouldn’t hold the same cultural weight. Despite our continuous contributions to these sites, these same platforms are often disproportionately more harmful for us. Joining me today to discuss the ways we can build spaces that center our humanity is Bridget Todd, digital activist and host/creator of the There Are No Girls On the Internet podcast. 

Bridget and I chatted about what it looks like to create change online, the importance of Black women sharing their online experiences, how misinformation and conspiracy theories online negatively impact marginalized communities and creating a safer online ecosystem for everyone to participate in. 

Resources

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Where to Find Bridget

There Are No Girls on The Internet Podcast

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Our Production Team

Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard

Producers: Fredia Lucas, Ellice Ellis & Cindy Okereke

Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session of the Therapy of Black Girls podcasts. We'll get right into the conversation after a word from our sponsors. What would the Internet and social media be without black women? Without the labor, brilliance, and talent of black women, the twitters and TikTok's of the world wouldn't hold the same cultural weight. Despite our continuous contributions to these sites, these same platforms are often disproportionately more harmful for us. Joining me today to discuss the ways we can build spaces that center our humanity is Bridget Todd, digital activist and host and creator of I Heart Podcasts, There are No Girls on the Internet. During our conversation, Bridget and I chatted about what it looks like to create change online, the importance of black women sharing their online experiences, how misinformation and conspiracy theories online negatively impact marginal life communities, and creating a safer online ecosystem for everyone to participate in. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us in the digital safe space we've created for black women, the Sister Circle. To talk more in depth about the episode, you can join us at community dot therapy for black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us, Bridget, Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I'm such a big fan of your show and what you've built, So this is a dream come true. Very excited, very excited to have you here. So you're a podcaster, activists, and digital strategists working to create change on the Internet. Tell me a little bit about how you got started with net work. Yeah, it really just came from being a lifelong lover of the Internet. I grew up in a small town in Virginia. Shout out, timid Lothian, Virginia. I'm sure most folks have work in reach room for a while, so I've okay. So you know, it's a little different now, But when I was coming of age, it was a very sleepy, small suburban town, and I grew up feeling incredibly out of place in this very sleepy, small suburban town if not for the Internet. I will never forget the day that my parents had brought home this like clunky, gray computer and they set it up in what will be known as the computer room in our house, and nobody was allowed to drink of soda in there, nobody was allowed to take food in there, and it was like my parents had bought me a pair of wings. It was the first time that I was able to connect with people outside of my little small town, really discover who I was, and do a lot of self exploration that I would never have had the chance to do. And so I really saw the way that the Internet opened up this huge world of possibilities for me. And as I got older, I saw the way that younger generations today, especially for marginalized people so black women, brown folks, queer folks, LGBT, hugh folks. I saw the ways that the Internet. You know, I'm sure it's still this land of discovery and opportunity, but it's also can be really tough out there, and so I wanted to make sure that we had healthy Internet ecosystems and tell the story of all the different amazing black women who are contributing to making the Internet a safer place and more inclusive place, because I know just how powerful the Internet can be when it's a safe place to have those kinds of experiences. So, Bridget, I would love for you to share some of your earliest online community experiences, because when you said that, my brain immediately went to participating in like Yahoo chat rooms. And so I don't know your age, but that I feel like was my earliest goal talking to strangers on the Internet. So what was that for you? Was your earliest experience? Oh my god, I loved the Yahoo chat room. I loved America online like old school. I did a lot of I'm sure I was doing things and I shouldn't have been doing, and like in pockets of the Internet that I shouldn't have been Probably the community that was the most foundational place for me online. I moved from d C to San Francisco, California, where I knew no one. I was completely like a like a spur of the moment move, and I decided that that would be the appropriate time to do the big chap, to cut off all my hair because I was away from my family, you know, knew me new time in my life, and San Francisco is not like there weren't a lot of like black salons. And so if it was not for online message boards about how you maintain curly hair, how you have emotional resilience when you're going through the big chap all of that, I don't know if I would have ever gotten through that time. And so that was probably the time when an online community that felt like a real community, like people that I had that could be in my corner and helped me through this tough time in my life. That was probably the time that it was the most impactful for me. Even though these are people that I didn't know in real life, I came to really depend on them for this sense of community that I just didn't have. I r L because I had just moved to this new city that I didn't know anybody in Yeah, you know, really, I know we're gonna get into this a little later, just around like how important Indians for black women's to form community. But this natural hair movement, I feel like it's like a hallmark of black women's online community building, because you're right, I think so many of us did the big chap and like talked about products and all of this, and so much of that I think was happening online where I didn't necessarily feel like even though I was in bigger cities, I wasn't necessarily in like a Midlothian. But even in real life, I don't remember having as many of those conversations in person as I did, like on the message board. So that's a very important point. We're going to get back to that later. But you also do some work as the COMPS director of Ultra Violet. Talk to me about your role there and like how you approach making change through that organization. Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought this up. Ultra Violet is very near and near to my heart. If you don't know what we are, we are a gender justice advocacy organization with over one point two million gender justice advocates nationwide. We really want to create a cost for things like sexism, massogyny gets black women in specifically, or an intersectional feminist organization that is really lifting up some of the fights that we believe are sort of on the path to getting a feminist, anti racist future that I know that we all want. And so a big part of that work at Ultra Violet for me has looked like advocating for safer internet experiences and communities, particularly forward people who are traditionally marginalized. So black folks, brown folks, queer folks, LGBTQ folks, making sure that we are able to show up online safely and make our voices heard, because online experiences are so crucial to how we all show up in the world, especially these days. M And I know a large part of work has also been researched, So can you talk a little bit about like some of the research that you've done, but also what you found in terms of like how the internet impacts women in people of color. Yeah, So, working with Ultra Violet, we really are so lucky to be working in like deep collaboration and community with all sorts of different organizations who are all researching the internet and technology and the way it impacts people who are traditionally marginalized. And so a lot of the research that I do is just lifting up and amplifying and packaging and doing analysis around research of like other great researchers. And so we are in these different coalitions like the Women's Information Defense Project, which is an organization of multiple different gender justice organizations who are all talking about things like disinformation and online safety and online communities from the perspective of rooting gender and feminism and an intersectional lens. That's how we approach it. And so I'm very lucky to have access to all this different research that I would never be able to get my hands on just working alone. So definitely it's been deep collaboration and partnership. Can you share any of the findings of some of their research then has really jumped out to you as like most interesting or impactful. Yeah. Just recently, we put together a report card grading all of the major social media platforms on how they really fail women and people of color, and we, perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the platforms didn't do great on this report card, and I think that's sort of been the the I don't say most surprising, but definitely most impactful thing I've seen from this research is just how badly and how deeply a lot of social media platforms are failing traditionally marginalized people. And so that work really was sort of like making sure that these platforms really understood what's at stake and the root of the problem, so we can really get to a place where we can figure out where we go from there and how we fix it. I'm glad you brought that a bridget because as you've alluded to, like even in your introduction, you know, there's research, i think even from the Pew research that talks about like how black people and other traditionally marginalized people are like the main ones on a lot of these social media platforms. So it's really interesting to hear that even though we are sometimes like the largest user base, that we are not safe in these places, right, Like we are the ones who typically like make things pop on these platforms, you know, like all these viral moments are a lot of people from traditionally modginalized communities, yet these are not typically safe spaces for us. Absolutely, you just articulated it so well, and that really for me was a big foundational shift and why and how I approached this work because the Internet and social media would be nothing without black folks, particularly black women and black queer folks. Right, what would Twitter be nothing? What would what would Instagram be nothing? What would TikTok be if it wasn't for our labor, are, brilliance, our talent, nothing, right, And so these platforms they need us. We are the lifeblood of these platforms. And so I think that for a long time, people who run platforms didn't think that they had to be accountable to us, the people who are the lifeblood of why these things make them millions of dollars like every month or so. Right, And so I really wanted to flip the script and say, no, platforms, they ought to be accountable to us. If we are the ones who are making your platform profitable, making your platform a good place to be, we ought to be able to expect that you're going to be accountable to us, to make sure that us being there feels good, for us being there feel safe that if we're going to be out these platforms, we can actually get paid for our labor and our brilliance, not just exploited and have to be mined by others for them to get paid. And so I really wanted to start having some of those conversations that really center us and our power and reality of what we actually do provide these platforms, which is a lot. So what are some of the recommendations more things that these platforms might be able to put into police so that we can have safer and healthier experiences on the platforms. Such a great question. So I would say, first and foremost, really making sure that moderation decisions are being made by humans who know what they're doing. I think that we do a lot of relying on algorithmic models that we know are biased against us a lot of times, and so I would say getting away from algorithmic moderation policies and really center more human moderation policies. I can't tell you how many times I've seen I'm thinking of TikTok in particular, where a black contact creator will make a joke that is clearly an intra community black thing, and a algorithmic based con at moderation model won't understand that. Nuance I won't understand that, and so well penalize this black content creator for making completely appropriate content speaking to a black audience because that moderation system doesn't understand it. So I would say making sure that we're not prioritizing moderation models that just continue to marginalize us and penalize us unfairly is one too. I would say, really making sure that at these tech companies, the people who are making the decisions and holding the power look like the user base of those platforms. And so it's a huge problem as I'm sure you know that the people who are making decisions not to mention the money and a lot of these major platforms are white men. That's just the way it is. And so I think making a shift toward hiring to make sure that the people who are actually making these decisions look a little bit more like the communities they are meant to be serving and protecting such important work. I really appreciate you sharing it. So you also have this very cool podcast called There Are No Girls on the Internet, which I think is like the coolest Kay's name. First, I want to hear the story behind the naming, but also why and how you chose podcasting as an additional avenue for you to be able to share some of these messages. Oh my gosh, I love this question. So the name of the podcast, there are No Girls on the Internet. I love the name, but it is a little bit of a mouthful. Every time I have to type it, I'm like, why did I pick something that was so long? The idea of there are no girls on the Internet is sort of like an unstated rule of the Internet, and it kind of means two different things, both of which I think are not correct. One that anybody on the Internet that you meet who says they are a woman is not actually a woman. They're lying because there are no girls on the Internet. Too. It's this idea that when we show up on the internet, when we show up online, our identities don't actually matter, and so if you are a black woman, you leave that identity at the door when you log on. Both of those things are not true. You know. First of all, there are so many interesting, dynamic women who aren't just showing up online but actually changing what it means to be online, fighting and shaping the Internet to make it more inclusive and safer. So that's one to this idea that our identities don't matter online just doesn't hold water for me. You know, we know time and time again that the experiences that we have out in the real world as traditionally marginalized people, as black women, they do show up online. And so I really wanted to create a platform that was really centered in what I know to be the truth about our Internet experiences. That one it is black and brown folks, LGBT, hugh folks who are really doing the work of making the Internet safer, more inclusive, and just a more fun, dynamic place to spend time. And that our identities really do make a difference when it comes to the kinds of experiences we can expect online. And what makes you think that podcasting was a great way to have those conversations? Who I have always been a podcast person. There's just something about it. I'm sure you feel the same way, Like I'll never forget when I was a kid. My family is from North Carolina. We have one of those big black Southern families, and my grandmother she was this like beautiful matriarch figure of our fami. Really and now I grew up at her knees hearing her stories about her life all the time, And after she passed, I actually found that she had been part of a research project with the University of North Carolina, and they had taken all this audio archival of my grandmother telling her stories. And the first time that I heard her voice in my ear telling the stories of her growing up in the South, through segregation, raising this family, it just hit me like something completely different. And that was the first time that I really understood the power of audio, the power of hearing someone tell their own story in their own words. And so I've always been an audio person. I've been involved in podcasts from the very very beginning, back before shows like Cereal, when we didn't know what the heck we were doing, you know, we had no idea. I think that with podcasting, it's really a chance to hear people tell their own experience in their own words and their own voice, and it's just so intimate. There's something about the intimacy of someone's voice in your ears, and honestly, we deserve it. We deserve in to meet thoughtful of nuanced, beautiful stories about our experiences. We deserve that more. From my conversation with Bridget after the break, yeah, and you know it's our earlier conversation about the natural hair community, it feels like it nicely dove tails with what you're sharing now, and even though it is like beautiful and really important, it is also difficult because it feels like there are so few safe spaces for black women to be able to commune online. Right, So, even if you share a tweet and say that you're only talking to other black women, like, undoubtedly other people will like budge into their conversation. Right, And so I wonder if you have any thoughts about, like how we can create spaces and save spaces for black women online. Yeah, what a great question. A tool or a platform that I've been really into lately has been Twitter spaces, right, so you know, when you can say, like, I want to curate a conversation with a handful of people that I select. If other people come in, okay, that's fine, but I have control over who I want to have the stage and whose voice I want to be spotlighting. I love that I've seen some really interesting use cases of how people are really using Twitter spaces to cure rate the voices they want to be engaging with. Yeah. I agree with that, And it does feel like in a lot of ways, Twitter spaces feels like a zoom but like a for like a lower lift, right, because because you know how to like sit out a password and you know all of that stuff, and you, as the holes, do have control over those things. I would agree with you there. Yeah, I love it. I've never hosted a space myself, but I am always popping in like, what's what's this that the Twitter spaces. I think you might have been in it the night of the Oscars where it was like everybody was like, um, like, oh, we we need a family debrief what just happened? Yes? And you know, so I'm you hear that joke? Let go at the next like all black people meeting, right, And I often think, like the night of the Oscars, it would be really cool if we did have these like actual like all hands on deck black people meeting, like there's a family emergency, we gotta come together. So it does feel like Twitter spaces in some ways has kind of given us an opportunity to do some of that. And it also, you know, I don't know where you on clubhouse bridget I, So it does feel like there's a different feeling for Twitter versus Clubhouse or do you feel that way? Also? I do feel that way, And part of the reason I haven't really thought about this, So this is like not a fully fleshed out thought, but I do think it comes from the fact that when Clubhouse first started, it had this layer of like exclusivity because you had to get an invite to go. And obviously everybody likes feeling special. Everybody likes feeling they have a special invite to something. But I think the reason why, at least for me, Twitter space has hits a little bit different is because it's not about exclusivity, Like if you see it on the top of your page, you can go in and listen and you don't have to have any kind of special invite. And so for me, I always like it when spaces are more accessible for everybody. I also think the Clubhouse in the beginning was only for iPhone and not for Android, and so I think there's a little bit of a a different user experience sort of baked into using the platform versus something like a Twitter Spaces, which I just feel like from the ground up didn't have those same kinds of barriers. Yeah, I agree, that does make a lot of sense. You know, so in the past couple of years, especially, you know, kind of doing the pandemic, I think the issue of like online safety and like online experiences has really been heightened, and so I love to hear you talk about like how misinformation and conspiracy theories around like COVID and all of these other things have really hurt marginalized communities. Oh, I could talk all day. It's one of the reasons why I turned my focus in terms of my work and my podcast and my research to miss and disinformation because I was seeing it firsthand how it impacted in my community. For a long time, I thought of all this internet safety work as sort of my nine to five, and then I would show up in my community with my family very differently. And it was around COVID that I I started seeing, like, wait a minute, what's happening in my own family group chat? What are the conversations that are popping off there? And so I really had to turn my lens back to my own people in my own community to say, like, wait, how are we being targeted and impacted by things like misinformation? And something that I really wish that people talked more about when they talk about disinformation and conspiracy theories and things like that is the way that bad actors are so savvy at targeting our and by our our I mean black folks targeting our legitimate existing tensions, traumas, and fears and using them against us. Right, And so the thing about misinformation and conspiracy theories at oftentimes more often than not, it is rooted in a grain of truth. Right, I guess I see the ways that bad actors really do exploit this harmful traumatic legacy that we as black folks do have in this country, right, and so things like, yeah, it is absolutely reasonable for a black person in the United States to be a little bit skeptical of, you know, the medical industry, given our history. And so that's just a fact that it's just a reality about our experience as black folks in this country. And so the way that bad actors they seize on that reality to inflame it, to exploit it, has been the most damaging thing, I think to our communities. And it really lets institutions and people with power who have let us down off the hook, because it makes it so much harder to talk about the reality of what our experiences and traumas have been like when bad actors are exploiting those conversations for their own gain. Yeah, you actually had a mini series on your podcast called Disinformed. Can you talk a little bit about how that came to be and some of them, like common misconceptions that you explored in that series. Yeah, so that really came to be when I noticed the ways that black and brown folks are specifically targeted. You might not know this to look at the space, because so many times when we're talking about conspiracy theories, we're talking about white people, but black and brown communities are disproportionately targeted for things like disent for nation of conspiracy theories and disproportionately harmed, right, And so I really didn't see that reality being reflected in the space where we talk about conspiracy theories. I didn't really see that reality reflected, and so I really wanted to start a conversation about the harm that conspiracy theories and disinformation have had in our communities and who is profiting off those things, right, Because if you're a social media platform, maybe you don't love the fact that there's conspiracy theories being spread on your platform, but that engagement is making you money, and so I really wanted to have that conversation about what do we do with the fact that platforms are benefiting materially from content that we know disproportionately harms our communities, and so that's really how that series came to be. I would say the biggest misconception about disinformation and conspiracy theories is that people who fall for them are quote stupid or uneducated. Right, Like, I've been working in the disinformation space for a long time and I get fooled sometimes. That's because bad actors are very savvy, and we really don't have a media landscape that lends itself to the kinds of authentic, helpful, honest content that we should all have easy access to, right And so when you look at things like the ways that black and brown folks are underserved by traditional media just written large, it is not surprising why people would fall for conspiracy theories or bad actors or misinformation. And so I see a lot of people talk about people who fall for conspiracy theories as stupid or uneducated or ignorant, and that's nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that bad actors are very very savvy and very very good, and the best of us can fall for it. Can you give us a definition of what you mean by bad actors? Bridgid that may maybe a time a lot of people are familiar with. Absolutely. Yeah, So I use bad actors as a way to talk about people who spread disinformation. So, disinformation is untrue content that is being purposely spread with the intent to spread confusion or chaos. And so somebody who was spreading disinformation, they are a bad actor. They are doing this knowingly on purpose to confuse was and scare people, as opposed to somebody who is spreading misinformation that's just inaccurate content that you might not even know it's not true. And so spreading misinformation isn't great, but people aren't always doing it with bad intentions. And so I use the phrase of bad actors to specify somebody who is spreading lies with the intent to cause fear and chaos and distrust and confusion. God, I thank you for this. So what are some of the ways, Like you just said, it's not always easy to know when you're getting like misinformation or disinformation. So what are some ways that we can identify like extremist or misinformation, especially online? What a good question. So honestly, I think of this as almost sort of like a mindfulness practice. You can't see right now, but on my Leaftop. I have a little post it that just says the word slow down, because oftentimes I find that when I'm online, I'm just moving very quickly. I'm getting, you know, tweet after tweet after tweet after a tweet, and I see something that I like and I just smash share right away. And so I always just try to ground myself and this idea of slow down a little bit and notice when you're scrolling on your social media page, notice how the content is making you feel. Really be a little bit mindful about it. You don't have to share everything right away, you don't have to respond to everything right away. It's completely okay to take a minute, take a beat when you see something. If you see something that gets your heart racing or makes you feel a little bit twitchy, which I see all the time, I always have to stop myself and say, no, no, take a minute. This piece of content obviously triggered some feelings, and you take a minute to see like why that might be. And so I would say slowing down online that's probably the biggest piece of feedback I have, because when we're just moving really quickly, that's how we share things without reading the whole article. That's how we share things without looking at another source to see if it's true. That's how we share things. And if you took a minute and really thought about it, maybe it will be a little bit fishy to us. And so I would say the biggest thing I can can tell people is to slow down before you share and just be a little bit mindful when you're scrolling social media in general. Yeah, think that that's really important too, because I think the other thing that has happened online and I think I see this most often on Twitter, but I also spend the most time on Twitter. So my answer is probably biased. My thoughts on this are probably biased. But it also feels like and I think there's some legitimacy to this, like organizations and people using like shock and racism as like an engagement strategy, right, so they know that if they say something like off the wall races, we are all going to be talking about it. We're all going to be sharing about it, right, And really, again, the slowing down can help us to remember like, Okay, yes I am enraged about this, but me sharing this article also give them clicks, right, Me sharing this also gives them the engagement that they're looking for. So I think that that is really helpful in that way too. Oh my gosh, you've said it. And I think we all know, Like if you think about your Instagram feed, I see that an Instagram a lot. We all know those big social media accounts where they are using things that they know we're inflammatory to get us riled up. And when you use an algorithmic based social media platform on like a Twitter or an Instagram, you are training that algorithm what you want to see. And so if somebody posts something that is intentionally extreme or inflammatory and you engage with it, that's going to make more people see that content, because that's how algorithms work. The algorithm is gonna think, oh, you want to see this kind of intensely negative or outrageous content. And so I actually had to unfollow a lot of Instagram accounts that would use, especially black queer youth and black women, they would use content around them in this incredibly transparent way to clearly stoke outrage, and I just had to stop giving them my outrage. It wasn't productive after a while to see the worst of the worst, and like see these comments sections where black women or black queer youth would be getting dragged. It just wasn't good for me. And so I would invite people to really think about curating the kind of social media experience they want to have that is actually going to be productive for how they want to show up online. More from my conversation with bridget after the break, Yeah, because you know, like to your point, like that can become exhausting, right, I mean, there are enough actually bad things happening in the world for us to be adding additional like layers of stress and like, oh, look at this latest online outrage. Right, No, part of what is happening is that in a lot of ways, we are becoming desensitized to a lot of this, Right, And so when you are constantly looking at this latest hate crime or you know, all of these things, at some point like your system can't process at all. And so I think that it is a good reminders who to just kind of make sure we're paying attention to how we're curating our feeds and our experiences. We both talked about that kind of being very online. In what ways do you feel like the internet really an online behavior has impacted black women specifically? Oh, I think it's been such a double ledged sword for us, because on the one hand, the thing I love about the Internet is the way that it democratized our voices. And so you know, you didn't have to have a contact on a media company or a contact at a news company to get your voice out there. If you've got a Twitter account and a phone, great, you can make an entire movement. You can make a Black Lives Matter, or a Me Too, or any number of movements that we saw that were created by black women that would go on to change the world. And so on the one hand, I think it's been incredibly powerful for us to have this democratized voice where we could really change the conversation, start a movement just by a tweet. That is what black women have always done. There is nothing more powerful in this world and a black holeman with a cell phone and an Internet connection, right, And so I firmly believe that where we need to catch up is people with power, decision makers really honoring how much we have brought to the Internet, how much we have brought to technology, and really honoring us as the innovators that we are. And so you know, when I say it's a double edged sword, I want us to fee old, like it's our right to take up more space online. I don't want anyone to be like, oh, you're a black woman on the internet, like what an anomaly. No, I want us to see the internet and technology as our rightful domain where we belong and where we have a right to take up a lot of space and had a big voice in the conversation, you know, Ridgid, I firmly agree with you, but I also feel like I have had enough conversations here on the podcast and just in other places, right, Like, so many sisters who are doing that kind of work eventually feel like they have to disconnect from social media, right, So, whether it be the trolls or you know, so it's almost like they will maybe sometimes keep their channels active so they can just kind of share highlights, but they really aren't personally engaging. And so I think that that's the double edged sword that you're referring to, right that it is a powerful opportunity to kind of share your message, but we also know, you know that the online experiences operate much like they do in real life, right, and we are often the targets of people who want to be hateful. If you were to go to my Twitter right now, you would say, I don't think this person really likes being online because I'm sort of using my Twitter as like a highlight reel, like here's my latest podcast episode, here's my latest appearance, whatever, whatever. I'm not spending a lot of time they're having conversations because of precisely what you just said. And I think that's part of the double edged sword of showing up as a black woman online, that every single piece of research will make this point that black women are disproportionately targeted for things like disinformation campaigns, misinformation attacks, and harassment rooted in attacks on our identity as black women. Like that's just what we have to deal with to show up online. And so I can't blame anybody who was like, you know, I think I'm gonna check out of this for a little while, or i think I'm gonna use this to just to get my point across. I'm not gonna be here for extended conversations or back and forth with people. I completely get that, and I think that's part of the double edged sort of what it means to show up online as a black woman. Yeah, so you know the other thing, and we've had a very very public example of this around how like comedians and jokes and even a lot of the like internet comedians, I guess is the best descriptor how they actually make their careers off of dressing up as like older black women or there tends to be like some black women being the butt of the joke, and that is tend to be what we see going viral, right, And I'd love to hear your thoughts about like how that can impact us and our experiences online. You're absolutely right, And now that I do this work professionally and have a little bit of research behind it, I can say that's not just an anecdotal thing. We have a digital media ecosystem that will always be ready and willing to amplify attacks on black women. That is just the way that it is. Comedians and podcasters and all of that. They traffic in jokes about black women that make us about the joke because it is effective. It is an effective strategy to build cloud. We saw it over and over and over again with our former president, who, when his back was against the wall, often attack prominent black women in politics and journalism because that was always going to be a way to like rile up the base and get them going. And it's been so heartbreaking to see our own community do the same thing. But unfortunately that is the reality. And I think when the way that you see yourself as black women is these hurtful, cruel depictions that are so dehumanizing, after a while you can start to internalize it and believe it. And the research is very clear that these kinds of attacks, particularly on prominent Black women in politics, they have a real world impact. So they keep black women from being civically engaged, They keep us from doing things like running for office, They keep us from doing things like just putting our opinions out there and having a voice on our own discourse online. And so these are not just jokes. They translate to very clear real world harm for Black women and for everybody, because we are all better served when we have a digital landscape where everybody can show up and everybody can see themselves thoughtfully depicted, right, And so if we don't have that, it's not just a threat to black women, which it is, it is a threat to all of us to our democracy into having a functioning digital media landscape, which is very important. Right as we move forward with a more increasingly digital kind of reality, right, Like, so many things are done online, so it is really important to focus on that, absolutely, especially since COVID, like, we're all showing up online much more frequently. And so if our online ecosystem is a dumpster fire where black women don't feel safe and can't speak up, what kind of online ecosystem is that? So You've already share some of these things, but I'd love to hear there are other parts of this strategy that you've put together for yourself, Like how do you protect your mental health as someone who is very online? Oh, I love this question. So one is that I'm offline quite a bit, might take long breaks from social media. I'm not somebody who is like, hey, y'all taking a social media break, but I do that quite a lot too. I spend a lot of time outdoors. That's how I like reconnect and plug back in and recharge. Is just like go for a walk in the park or going for a nice hike. I love to be outside. I love to be out in the water. And then I would say I also just really have a clear understanding of where I plug in in my offline world. Right, So I love showing up online. I love the Internet, but I'm also really clear that my people are my community that I really am able to dial in with offline, and so when things online start to feel not so good, it's always good for me to like reconnect with my friends and family who I know have my back, got me will always make me feel grounded when the online space just feels too much. That is super important. Thank you for sharing it. So as someone who is very online, I'd love to hear some of your favorite podcasts, newsletters, or digital communities that you feel like do a really good job of creating safe spaces for black women. Well, one is your own. I have to shout out Therapy for Black Girls, which I'm sure all your listeners feel the same, but I can say I have to say, like, what you're doing is so groundbreaking and it's something that I don't even think I realized that it was missing until I found your work, And so definitely the community that you've built around black women talking honestly about our mental health and how we show up. Another podcast that I really love is Still Processing. It is one of my favorite culture podcasts, and it's a podcast where I, I guess I feel like they just do a really good job of making sure that black women and black queer folks get lovingly depicted. Whenever I listened to that podcast, I always feel very loved and seen afterward. And then another I have to shout out it's I think it's no longer active, but it's called being seen. It's about the experience of being black and queer. And again, for me, podcasts really allow me to feel lovingly depicted. Like I know when I'm listening to a podcast when afterward I feel kind of like more in love with myself after I listened. So those are some of the ones that really make me do that I love. Then Yeah, I just saw Still Processing is coming back for a new season too, So I'm very excited because I've been missing them. Right, it feels like when they're a big cultural moments, like I often think about, like, oh, what would gin and so we have to say about this. So jenn is gonna be on a break because I think she's still writing, but Wesley is going to come back with some guests coasts. Oh my gosh, I can't wait. I know, I know, I'm very excited they're coming back. So I appreciate that list. So what advice would you have for other black women who are seeking to build and create community digitally? Yeah, I would say, we need more healthy communities where our experiences and our voices are meeting ply centered. So if you're thinking about starting that podcast or starting that newsletter or starting that listser do it. We need you, We need your voice. So yeah, that's the first one I would say. And then I would also say, like, I think I can't remember the writer I might have been Tony Morrison who said that she wrote the books that she needed when she was younger that she didn't see and that advice has always been so useful for me. You know, figure out what that need is in yourself, and I guarantee that somebody else out there has same need. And so if you're like, the only better was an online community for us to talk about blank, I guarantee that there's another black woman out there who was like I would join that community. So yeah, just really asking yourself what it is that you need and not being afraid to build the thing that you feel like you need in the world that is so important, like you mentioned earlier, right, like the democratizing of it right, Like, all you really need is a digital device and you can create a community. And I do think that that is one of the things that black women and you know, the other marginalized communities that you've talked about, do a particularly great job and is like sharing our stories and making room for other people to know that they're not alone in their experiences. So I think that that's one of the things that's really cool about online communities. Yeah, I love it too, And I think like sharing our experience, the entire trajectory of those experiences, because the experience of being a black woman online is sometimes difficult, sometimes hard. Somemime's full of pain, but it's also full of joy and love and laughter and magic and light and beauty and creativity. And so I really try to tell all sides of the story, not just rooted in the tough parts, but also buoyed by the happy parts as well. So leaning into the entire experience that we show up with, I think it's really important. Yeah, I agree. So where can we stay connected with you? Bridget What is your website? Tell us more about where we can listen to the podcast, as well as any social media handles you'd like to share. Oh yeah, so you can find my work with Ultra Violet and we are ultra violet dot org. We would love to have you there. Check out some of our cool campaigns, including our campaign a Feminist Net to make a feminist, anti racist Internet, so definitely check that out. We can find my podcast on I Heart Radio. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast on. It's called There Are No Girls on the Internet. You can follow me on social media. I'm at Bridget Marie in on Twitter and at Bridget Murrie in DC on Instagram. Perfect well. We will be sure to include all of that in the show Knows. Thank you so much for sharing with us. To Dave Bridget, I really appreciate it. Oh my pleasure. This was super fun, dream come true. Thank you. I'm so glad Bridget was able to share her expertise with us today. To learn more about her and to check out her podcast, be sure to visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash session to and be sure to text two of your girls and tell them to check out the episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, be sure to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Freda Lucas and Alice Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take get care what pos swoot

Therapy for Black Girls

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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