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.
Are you looking for something new and insightful to add to your bookshelf? Well, the Therapy for Black Girls Library is open for business, and you don’t even need a library card. This week we’re reading Patriarchy Blues. Patriarchy Blues is a thought-provoking collection of essays, poems, and short reflections, that explores issues of masculinity and patriarchy from both a personal and cultural standpoint. This week I’m joined by the New York Times bestseller author of the book, Frederick Joseph. Our conversation explores why it is important for Black men to proactively do the work to dismantle patriarchy and the toxic tropes tied to it.
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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 another TVG Library episode. We'll get right into the conversation after a word from our sponsors. Are you looking for something new and insightful to adds to your bookshelf? Well, the Therapy for Black Girls Library is open for business and you don't even need a library card. This week, we're reading Patriarchy Blues. Patriarchy Blues is a thought provoking collection of essays, poems, and short reflections that explores issues of masculinity and patriarchy from both the personal and cultural standpoint. This week, I'm joined by the New York Times Best selling author of the book Frederick Joseph. Our conversation explores why it's important for black men to proactively do the work to dismantle patriarchy and the toxic tropes tied to it. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag tb G in session, or join us a run the Sister Circle. To talk more in depth about the episode, you can join us at community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Frederick, it's a pleasure to be here. I've been excited for this for a long time. I just love the work that's being done, and I'm really excited for this conversation. Me too, Me too. We have been kind of trying to plan a conversation around this topic for a long time, and then when we heard about your new book, we were like, Oh, we think Frederick's going to be the perfect person for this conversation. So in the work that you do, you describe yourself as a black man who wants to be a resource for other black men to get it right when it comes to homophobia. In misogyny. What do you mean when you say getting it right? What does that mean to you? I think getting it right is nuanced right because there's a surface level of don't do these things right, go, don't be misogynistic, don't be homophobia, don't be transphobic. But then the more in depth version of that is, what does it mean? What are the implications on not just the world around you, but on yourself? Right? Because homophobia actually, for example, is the root of a lot of people's inability to be emotional oftentimes right, misogyny is the root of people's inability to have a positive relationship with their partners. Right, So what does it look like to get past that top layer and really get into how it's actually corrosive for you as a person. Yeah, and I would love to know how did you get to this place. I don't know much about your history, but I'm guessing you grew up in America, right, and so we know that there are just things that we grow up societally kind of believing. I'm curious to hear about how you got to this place where you feel like you are not perfect, as none of us are, but getting it right more often than not and what that has looked like for you. Yeah, I think that you know, that's a journey that has a lot of stops, right. I always help people when it comes to a lot of things, identify myself as an inter sexual feminist. I'm an inter sexual feminist in progress when it comes to being a good partner to my fiance to say, I'm in progress, right, so and so forth. So I think that progress started sometimes in maybe college, I found out that I have multiple's grosses. And when I found that out, actually I was in grad school, excuse me. When I found that out, I started thinking about what the world around me not only looks like, what my place in it is. And my grandmother used always tell me when I was growing up. She's like, while you can still use your hands using for good work, right, So I had to identify myself what does good work look like? Right? So my education in my background is in understanding a lot of the nuances that I spoke about before, but not just in terms of gender, in terms of patriarchy, but also in terms of white supremacy and systemic oppression in various ways. So I just started identifying different pockets where I can make a change and I do think that fight against the mess was probably the first step on the journey. Yeah, So, what do you think is one of the most common, or maybe a couple of the most common things that you think men misunderstand about being a man in today's society? Okay, I think that one of the most common misconceptions is probably rooted in this this false sense of toughness and what that actually means, right, because I think that I've seen plenty of times, especially in the digital age, this idea that violence makes you tough, this idea that not showing emotion makes you tough, this idea that misogyn war right in the ways in which that manifests makes you tough. And that is not only a misconception, but it's also for a lot of people. You know, the quote unquote hoteps and whatnot. People don't realize a lot of that is actually rooted in colonialism and white supremacy, right, because if you get to the root of who we are as a people, you know, before being brought over to these shores and to the shores of other countries, that's not who we were in our own world, right. We weren't people who were rooted in these gender stereotypes, this massogy in Moire, so on and so forth, and you can just look at our history and see that. So I think that's the largest misconception that I see get around. It's about toughness and things of that nature. Yeah, And I think that this idea of toughness really lends itself to this idea of toxic masculinity. Right, So that is often a term we hear kind of thrown around a lot. What do you see most normalized when we are talking about things like toxic masculinity? It's interesting is I think a lot of things are normalized, but most of all, I actually would say, I think a certain aspect of rape culture, to be honest, is the most normalized thing that I see in our society right now. And the reason I say that is because it's prevalent in our music, is prevalent in our entertainment, is prevalent in the conversations. And I as assists head man, right, the way that people speak about women, the way that some of our artists speak about women, the way that women have normalized being talking about, right, and then like falsely equate that or rather correlate that to what they should want in a man right, aggression and things like that. Right. So I think that rape culture is probably, in my opinion, the most prevalent form of toxic masculinity that's normalized. So many thoughts come to mind. I think that's very timely because I'm sure you saw this video that was going around last week about the friend at the party who is always trying to force the girls to over drink right. And as someone with a background in college student mental health, I was often shocked by how many people didn't understand conversations around coersion and what consent actually looks like, especially when you mix in alcohol and other substances. And you also wrote for the Route about like continuing to support r Kelly is not supporting black women, and so I love to just hear your thoughts about how can we begin having those conversations with other black men? And I think this largely has to come from other black men, because black women have been talking until we passed out around this, and so I feel like it has to be a conversation that has lived by black men. What does it look like to start those conversations. I think every conversation, including that one, starts with accountability. For the person right next to you, Right. I think that a lot of times when people are trying to make any sort of change, they look at it in these large structural ways, but legitimately, and we say this to white people in a regular basis about white supremacy, it starts in your home, it starts in your family, it starts with your friends. And I think the same thing goes for black men, right, Like, I'm not afraid to tell the person at the gym who I work out with, to tell one of my closest friends, to tell all these are people around me, like, not only you're not right, but I am actually going to put our friendship or relationship on the line for this, right, Like, you have to have an actual stake in the game. And I think that's what we don't have right now. Like even in the video that you're talking about, I did see that from the comedian who I think it's now deleted, But if you look under that post, right, was scared me more about wasn't just the video itself in the context. It was thousands upon thousands of men laughing, oh this is so and so and adding their friend this reminds me it is so I've done this before, right, And I saw another post by a young woman on Twitter actually who was saying, if you have that friend, if you know that person who's in this video, you need to do something about it, right, And it's that simple in my opinion. So you break up a really good point that when we are having these conversations around racism, it feels very easy for people to see, right, But when we are having these conversations around misogyny and homophobia massagey noir, it does seem like it is harder for brothers to see it. And so what kind of tips would you give people for how to start those conversations, because I think, yes, it is important to have those conversations, like with the people in your immediate circle. But I think people feel very awkward, like how do I tell somebody not to laugh at this? Or what does it even look like to start that conversation with somebody? You know? I think the humans just naturally understand things based on their own oppression, right, which is why I think that a lot of times the few white women that there are who want to do something about like supremacy is because of their womanhood right there, Like, oh, I can understand the oppression of black people simply because I have an understanding of my oppression in patriarchy, and I think that you have to approach a lot of men in the same way. So it's not just a matter of oh, you shouldn't do this because that impacts this group. No, you shouldn't do this because it also impacts you. Write you are corroding your own soul but also your environment around you. And I say this, actually, again, the patriarchy does how are you going to be liberated? As assists at Black Man if black women and the black l g B t Q plus community are not liberated, right, it literally makes no sense. If you are for the liberation of black people, you have to inherently be for the liberation of all black people. So I think they're putting in terms that like relate to the person definitely helps them begin that conversation of understanding the importance and implications. Yeah, so let's say, you know, you see a friend pass around like in your group, Chad, like that video that has since been deleted, or some other kind of meme that talks poorly about women. What should someone say in that moment? Well, I think the first thing you do once again is just ask them how they would feel in X Y situation. And I've done that before where I've been at the gym and guys would be talking about women, right, or like even staring at women just working out. You can't even work out as a woman. A lot of times just doing these different things. I'm like, Okay, let me ask you a question. Let's say you were the black guy in a predominantly white gym and people are staring at you the same way because you're a black guy, right, just like examining you, fawning over you this after how would you feel? And then a lot of people it starts those gears turning right, like, oh, I get it, And I think that again everybody relates to understanding of oppression to their own oppression. And that's where the conversations a lot of times have started with me. And again you have to understand it's the beginning of a conversation, right, like at least you're broaching it, and if the gears start turning now you can start getting into some of the sort of depths of it. I appreciate it. So, what kinds of toxic tropes associated with manhood and masculinely. Do you feel like you want to see left behind? Oh? Oh, there's so many. I think one example, I played football and basketball growing up, but before that, I was really into drama. I was into musical theatery I love, I still love musical theater, but I gave musical theater up because there was this false correlation between musical theater and being in the lgbt Q plus community. Right, and I'm ten years old. I don't even know what that means, but it's been talked about negatively, So I'm like a lot. I don't want to do that. It's the right thing is to hit people, right, and things like that. So I think that one of the things I want to see go away is the correlation negatively of certain things being equated to other things. Right, It's just like, be yourself as a man. It is okay to throw a football, it's okay to dance, it's okay to cry, it's okay to laugh. Like it's so bad now that I've literally seen posts on Twitter where guys are like, I don't eat bananas in public because of corre lance is something that pertains to the gay community. Just that makes like we can't be serious, right, we cannot be serious. How are you going to limit what you eat publicly because of how deep your own homophobia is? Right, So that's something I want to just see left behind, is how much men limit themselves based on their homophobia. Yeah, until one of your earlier points, like, I don't think that men always think about it in those ways, right, Like they kind of associate toughness and like all of these very modo stereotypes with what masculinity means, and don't always look at the ways that they are kind of limiting themselves and each other by buying into patriarchy. Oh. Absolutely, I mean my view of patriarchy is we are all implicated, right, Primarily it's Cis had men, but every one of us, right, I see on a regular basis, Like there's a post earlier and I saw about Ziah Wade, the waves Is Daughter, And the post I saw was deeply transphobic, but it came from a black woman, right, And that made me so sad. And I'm like, you're not only upholding transphobia, you're upholding the systems that inherently oppress you. Right. In other ways, you're normalizing the things that I'm trying to talk to black men about and then also the same things I'm trying to talk to white women about in this book. Right, It's like, on one hand, you'll wear the paint hats, set the march and this and that third, but then you can't go home to a Trump supporting husband, right, you can't say, oh, grab him by to this and at the third I hate that, blah blah blah, but then still marry this man who's upholding no systems because inherently then you're upholding the system too. So you know, again, I think that there's just so much that needs to be done, in so many conversations that we need to have. So you already kind of alluded to it, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about why you decided to write Patriarchy Blues, especially right now. You know, it's interesting Patriarchy Blues was about ten different books at different points. You know, I just I want to call out, you know, the publishing industry is very difficult for black authors, but I think it's especially difficult when you're trying to write something of substance. In their view is that the only people who read is white women. Right, that's the view in publishing circles for the most part. So the reason I wanted to write this and I fought so hard to get it made, is because I saw the utility in a black man having the courage to call himself out, not just to point the finger at other people. Right. Like in this book, you know, there's one letter I write to my babysitter. She molested me from eight to ten years old, right, And I never told any buy about that, And I wrote a letter to her because I understood that letter helped me heal, but also was healing because we don't talk about how many black and brown children are molested and then specifically and hyper sexualized if they are a lot of times, and that view, in that hyper sexuality lens that we have on them doesn't get the conversations that you get for like white children, for example. Right. And then what I write in that letter is that I spent so much time in my hatred for what she had did to me, taking that hatred and then using it as a weapon against women, specifically black women. Right. So I tried to take the pieces of me that she stole and basically still them from other women and so I wanted to have that conversation along with a conversation about my father and not about not being their conversations about violence and all these different things, because I just when I looked around, they weren't being had right, like like they just we're not having them. So if I'm gonna use my hands for good words, I could still use them. I just was like, somebody has to have them. So if you see that they don't exist, why don't you start try to start them to a certain extent. More from my conversation with Frederick after the break, you know, I really appreciate you being so transparent with us Frederick around you know, your your mass diagnosis, and now with this early experience of molestation, and clearly you've shared this in the book, it sounds like too. I'm just wondering about the process for you personally putting this on the page right, and what are you feeling now as it is close to release. I said this in a note earlier to someone who received the book. I said that the book was two things. One it was cathartic, and two it was necessary for my survival. I think that being this vulnerable was purposeful in that allows me to ask other people to be vulnerable with themselves, right, because I think that's the work that we need to do, because, like I said, there's countless people who were molested, Countless boys and girls whose father or parent wasn't around. There's countless people who have been violent. There's counless people have been on the other end of violence. There's countless people who are sex workers. There's all these different things are in this book. But unless the person who's offering the thoughts is willing to go there with you, you're not gonna necessarily want to go there with yourself. And that's what I wanted to do in this space, and it healed me. I I truly mean that. It's this book saved my life and and it probably saved my relationship with many people. M m mmmm yeah. You know, to your comments around molestation, especially when we see boys, there is this very warped since that, oh you became a man early, and you know, like that kind of thing, which is not typically the language we use when girls are molested, and definitely not with non black people, right. You know, So I really appreciate you sharing that piece because I do think we don't talk about childhood sexual abuse in general enough, I think in the black community, especially when it happens with boys, I think, yeah, I mean, I remember the reason I wasn't gonna write about it, and it comes towards the end of the book. But when I looked back at the books, the book is set up in different sections, and one of the sections is called in Defensive Black Women, right, And it's just me writing about all these different structures and things that are happening that directly pertaining the black women misogyn noir, are you talking about the way people responded to the moment with making the stallion and her being shot and things like that, and how we respond to harm against black women. But when I got through the book and I looked back, right, I said, Okay, there's all these things that I also saw myself in. What was the beginning of that? What was the impetus of my pain? And I was like, I cannot write about this. And it just happened to be that week I saw this video about little Wayne who had lost his virginity too. I've leave a sex worker who was paid and he was like twelve years old, and it was so normalized amongst him, and it was so normalized that he then years later paid another sex worker to take the virginity of somebody on his label who was about thirteen or fourteen years old. Right. And I remember I cried so hard when I saw that, because I said, I wonder if something existed that somebody could read and somebody can understand what this have not happened? Right? And I searched the internet. I scoured the internet for any books when people were talking about it was so rare. That's mab three three books ever talking about this issue. Right. So I said, Okay, if I'm gonna put something in there, if I'm gonna have this platform, you gotta be honest about it. What happened to you and what the implications of it are on all these things you've spoken about before. So you mentioned that you feel like Bill Hooks and her work was a large part of inspiration for you. I wonder if there are other points of inspiration that you want to share other authors who have us is did you, in producing your work, are along your a healing journey? Oh? Yeah, absolutely, And I named some of them actually in the book, and I think them Mickey Kendall wrote the book Hood Feminism is phenomenal. She's a friend, She's just a brilliant person bringing news and a brilliant thought leader on Twitter and other spaces. Angela Davis Asada. She core like to be honest, which is all black women and black women specifically who are womanists, right, like, people who are looking at the world in in intersectional ways. I think that, frankly, is one of the failures of you know, mainstream feminism is that a lot of people are like, Oh, it's the patriarchy is men versus women, and I'm like, oh, it's so much more than that, right, It's it's so much more than that. It's so much more than that simple idea. So I really wanted to find intersectional feminists and womanists who were talking about again, transphobia, homophobia, class structures, and these conversations were important, especially recently what we saw up with the oscars and whatnot, an understanding how to unpack even that moment. So, you know, there's just so much inspiration. My fiance say, just being impatient with me, Yeah, I understand that. There's also an excite in the book around Dave Chappelle and everything that had kind of been going along with him. Can you see a little bit about why that felt important to include. Yeah, I think that one of the most important parts of the book might be that Dave Chappelle essay, because so often our idols, the people who we built monuments to, fail, right, And that should be okay as long as you're willing to grow. The issue that I have is when our idols, the people we look up to from the time where kids double down because it's not a joke, right, A lot of these things are actually life and death like, and we see that with jokes about transport me right, like you're talking about I'm fine with kind of like punching up right, And I think Dave Chappelle, you know, I write about this. Dave Chappelle made a career on that, like punching up at like supremacy, punching up at the wealthy white class and things like that. And then it's even a thing when we start punching laterally making jokes about other black men, so and so forth, when you start punching down right at a community who had the highest murder rate in recorded history in the year that these specials came out, that Dave Chappelle was making these trans jokes. Right, That's when I have an issue because it's not just about jokes, as about what you are normalizing, what behavior you're normalizing. And I think that just being frank, it's also at the root of my issue with Chris Rock, right, Will Smith aside and all these different things. We don't need to be normalizing black women being the butt of our jokes because black women are inherently the butt of the last aspects of all forms of oppression. You have black women who are suffering from the patriarchy. Black women are suffering from my supremacy, blackground and suffering from classism. Black women are suffering from patriarchal violence at the hands of black men, at the hands of white men, at the hands of the police, so on and so forth. So what you're doing is not just making jokes. If you are Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, whomever, you were normalizing not just behaviors. You were normalizing ideologies, right. You were making it okay to make jokes about black women in front of millions of white viewers. You were normalizing making jokes about trans people. As people's hatred against the trans community has never been greater systemically, politically legally so on and so forth. So so I write about it. M So, I am imagining this is something that happened recently, so too reason for you to have included in your book. But it feels like a very stark contrast to Dave Chappelle's style of comedy. Is Gerard Carmichael's most recent comedy special Overrothaniel. Have you had a chance to see that? Yeah? So, I mean so it feels to me like a stark contrast to Dave Chappelle, but also feels like it fits very nicely with a lot of what you have talked about and like really pushing back against I think some very toxic masculinity kind of ideals. I'm just curious about your thoughts around that special. Yeah, I thought the special was well done. I think that draw car Michael. It's interesting if you watch his career closely and his other special actually on HBO, he kind of alluded to getting to this point a little bit, right, and I love that and this special He's just like, this is what it is, and also this is like what accountability to like the people around me kind of looks like, and you know, and the things that have harmed me and the things that have been said and done. So I really did love that because I think that there's a little bit of that in every person who has suffered quietly at the hands of the patriarchy. And not everybody gets an HBO special, you know. Not everybody gets to make Moonlight, not everybody gets to have, you know, the voice of Red Table Talk whenever we get that. Not everybody gets these platforms, but I think it's important when they do, because it's a symbol of more than just themselves. So I really love that special, you know. So, how do you feel like you were changed by writing Patriarchy Blues. I think that m I let things go. I let things go so I can be the person that I want to become. Right, I'm not there, you know, and I think that's important. I'm not there. I'm on my way. When I finished writing it, I said, I think the last piece in it is like patriarchy at the beginning, and it has an ending, right, and we all have to be a part of that ending. And I don't know that before writing this book I ever really thought about that, right. I was just like, oh, well, like in my immediate circles, I don't want to be a certain person. But I never really understood until writing this book and actually going through the history of patriarchy, right, like, how it actually can end, Like we can end it in our households, we can end it in our communities and so on and so forth, because it's like it wasn't always there. And I think also the other thing that changed me in writing Patriarchy Blues. I'm more hopeful, right I'm more hopeful because I think that people who have received the book are hopeful, and I think that that makes me feel like I'm in community. There are men who have read it, there are women who have read it. There there are people who don't get it. But the people who do get it and do enjoy it, they give me hope, right like we can actually do this. And I think that's what we're left with in whatever system that we're fighting of oppression, whether it be patriarchy or white supremacy, we have to have hope. In this book gave me that. M more from my conversation with Frederick after the break, how are you hoping that readers will engage with it? You know, the book is not a how to God, and I think that's important for people to know. It's not a how to God, is not how to begin anti patriarch or anything like that. It is a very deep personal reflection, and I hope that people engage with it as if they are on this conversation with you, and I write now out right. I want people to take parts of it, sound bites, moments, and sit with it and use it as a mirror, right, like, legitimately use it as a mirror in the ways in which they have been implicated. Like, there's some hard concepts in there that I didn't even start really understanding until maybe eight nine years ago, right, Like just even the idea that our binaries are constructs, right, and like that any gender norms that we have are based on constructs, like the simple idea that like, I don't think a lot of people realize women couldn't even wear pants like fifty years ago, and so all these different things that have existed in time are legitimate constructs. And I think that when you force people to have to take a step back and look around at their world and be like, oh, this is basically just the matrixbody just making all this up as we go, that's a hard pill to swallow sometimes, but I'm hoping that people digested in bites like that to make it an easier pill. You know, Frederick, I'm wondering if you are worried at all about you know, you've been seeing so much ridiculous news around, like book bands, and you can't read these certain books. Are you worried at all about your book being impacted by any of that? Well, I think my first book is banned in twenty seven schools. You know my show My first Book is banned, said the school that there's actually a video of somebody burning my book in upstate New York. A guy in like Pennsylvania, so his daughter reading my first book and like took it from her and threw it out because this book is not for young adults like my first book was. I think there'll be less bands hopefully, right, Like I I want this book to be in the hands grown folks, like people who are I mean young people as well. But I think grown people sometimes we think we don't need to learn something, And that's the lie of age, right, Like you think that the older you get, the less you need to learn. But a lot of times the older you get, the more you need to learn, the more you need to grow. So I'm hoping that you can't really ban and grown as person from reading the book, so that doesn't happen. You're right, right, So do you have any parting advice for men who are wanting to be better? I think that the first step is trying right. The reality of it is. When I started this book, I asked myself two questions. I said, one, can we as a society be better about misogyny and specifically misogyn noir and sexism. The other question I asked myself is can we change in relation to grape culture, transforivia, homophobia, glass ceilings, so on and so forth. And I had to have the audacity to say yes, right, And I think that the first step and change is having the audacity to believe that change is possible. For men, and specifically black men who want to be better. You have to look in at mirror and have the audacity to tell yourself that you can grow and like in the idea that you don't need to grow as a lot, we all need to grow. As I sit on this call right now, there is something that I'm gonna look back on it like I wish I would have said this. I wish I would have added that, I wish I would have done this, And that is how we grow by always self examining ourselves. Right, So I pray that black men give this book a chance. And if you don't give this book a chance, that's actually fine with me. I pray that black men give Bell Hooks a chance. I pray that black men give us ode of a chance, and Angela Davis and all these great theorists of women's perspective and women'st hope. Right. So that's my parting advice. You're gonna stumble, You're gonna fall, But you know, cliche or not, it's about how you get up. It's how you hold yourself accountable to the people around you. How are you holding itself accountable to the women in your life, the lgbt Q plus community around you, yourself, How you're holding yourself accountable to yourself because the only person that you're being toxic for at the end of the day is you. You know, if I doing something else I'm curious about it is I hear you talking. I'm wondering, like what your friendship circles with other men look like now that you are more committed to do in this work. I'm just wondering, like how it has changed your really a ship with other brothers. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I actually had a text message this morning that I hadn't checked. There's actually a few weeks old. I'm really bad at texting, but I noticed that one of my friends, who had known for years, we played sports together, so on and so for, he actually unfollowed me on every social media platform. Luckily, I have hundreds of thousands followers, so I'm not really checking necessarily, but like I was like, you know, I haven't seen someone so in a long time. So like I looked, I was like, oh, he's un following. So I went to my text messages with him. He sent me this long message. It's about someone in my life who is trans, and he sends me this message like I'm not into all of that. I can't do that, and so I don't want to be your friend anymore. And that's how much some people are holding on to this corrosive, patriarchal world that we live in. And I wasn't gonna say anything back, but I sent my voice memoent and I basically told I basically told him, you know, that's okay, because I'm working towards right now is actually gonna free you And you don't realize it yet, but I'm working towards right now. Is going to free the children that you don't have yet, because you don't know who those children are gonna be. You sometimes in certain ways, don't even know who you are yet because you are so not free. You're holding yourself so accountable in the wrong things that you're willing to give up a twenty year friendship because of how someone else exists in this world. Stick with that, because that doesn't sound like freedom. So at least in that situation, that friendship ended. Yeah, yeah, that friendships over And you know I'm better now. I mean, look, I got you now, so who I love it? So tell us where can we stay connected to you? Where? Where can we grab a copy of the book? Where can we stay connected with all the work that you're doing. Everyone could find me on Twitter or Instagram at fred T Joseph. I'm always rabble rousing on one of those. And in terms of the book, Patriarchy Blues comes out MAWO and it's available wherever books are sold, especially places that are sold and owned by black women. Well, thank you, fred We appreciate it, thanks for having me. A huge thank you to Frederick for joining me today. Be sure to order your copy of Patriarchy Blues wherever you buy your books, and text this episode to two of your girls right now so they can check it out as well. 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 System Circle. It's our cozy corner of the internet design just for black women. You can join us at community nott Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Freda Lucas and Elice Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with if you all real soon take it here