Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free ![rw-book-cover](https://d34adp677peecb.cloudfront.net/static/images/article0.00998d930354.png) 🔗 **Source:** [Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btaQ8aFQhe0) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [black-womanhood, evangelical-deconstruction, spoken-word-poetry, black-church-culture, memoir-writing, creator-boundaries] > author: Jen Hatmaker > source: For the Love with Jen Hatmaker > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btaQ8aFQhe0 > date created: 2026-08-12 00:00 > > # 🏷️ Title: Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free >  ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary - Spoken-word poet and author Amena Brown returns to Jen Hatmaker's podcast nine years after her first appearance to discuss her third book, *Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl*, and the decade-long arc of leaving white evangelical performance spaces. - She traces a slow exit: from a 22-year-old poet booked into 1,500-seat churches, through years of unpaid "racial reconciliation" labor after Trayvon Martin's death and George Zimmerman's acquittal, to a 2019 breaking point named for her by a healing-circle facilitator — "you have to get out." - Key stakeholders: Brown herself; the mostly white Christian conference/publishing industry she worked inside; a community of Black women artists and thinkers (Austin Channing Brown, Sarah Bessey, Jeff Chu) who modeled another way; her literary agent Margaret Riley King, who gave her permission to write with comedic looseness instead of trauma-as-proof-of-God's-goodness. - Risks and tradeoffs she names directly: leaving cost her money, audience, and certainty about what came next; staying cost her health, her sense of belonging to her own blackness in real time, and creative honesty. - Bottom line: institutional "diversity" invitations that stop at proximity (shared meals, token bookings) without shared values are not safety, and getting free required both an external witness who could name the harm and a new creative container permissive enough to hold comedy, grief, and desire in the same book. ## 📖 Main Content Brown frames 2017–2019 as the period when a decade of code-switched performance inside white evangelical spaces became untenable. She had entered the industry at 22 doing spoken word during church "worship transitions" — a format that structurally forbids political or embodied content because a poem sandwiched between two songs gets no introduction and no room to land. Over years this evolved into speaking and authorship, but the underlying deal stayed the same: proximity to white Christian audiences in exchange for self-editing. Two forces converged to end the arrangement. First, the murder of Trayvon Martin and acquittal of George Zimmerman broke her public silence on race — and the backlash (white commenters telling her to "trust the justice system" on her own Facebook page) revealed that colleagues who could look at her and know she was Black still treated her Blackness as something she should be able to set aside professionally. Second, she was becoming LGBTQ-affirming at the same time, compounding the mismatch between her actual convictions and the rooms paying her. Her language for the turning point is precise: she stopped treating individual conversations as the site of change ("maybe they just don't know") once it became clear the people she was educating "do not intend to disentangle themselves from white supremacy." The practical exit was not sudden. A performer friend, Susan Isaacs, first taught her to stop accepting fragmented one-poem bookings across multi-day conferences — unpaid, exhausting labor disguised as opportunity — and to insist on being booked as a full set. That reclaiming of scope and rate was itself a rehearsal for the larger exit. The actual break came at a Black women's retreat healing circle in early 2019, where a facilitator told her directly: "you can't keep re-entering that space — every time you reenter, it retraumatizes you. You have to get out." Brown is candid that clarity did not equal ease — she went home and had panic attacks for three months, because knowing you need to leave a known professional identity at 22-years-deep is not the same as having anywhere else to go. Two things gave her a landing place: the offer to write poetic copy for Tracy Ellis Ross's Pattern Beauty during that same window (proof "more was possible"), and Glennon Doyle booking her for the Together Live tour with the line "nothing about you being booked with us is taking a chance on you — I already knew where you were," which Brown reads as the possibility model she needed rather than another act of charity. That history reframes the new book. Her first two books were written inside a publishing economy that rewarded pain as proof of God's goodness, down to book-signing lines where readers demanded updates on her disclosed trauma. *Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl* started as a poetry manuscript; her agent asked for a few essays, Brown wrote unfiltered ones assuming the publisher would reject them, and the publisher instead asked for a book that was 85% essay. Being in therapy through the writing process — unlike her second book — let her decide in advance what she was and wasn't prepared to put into something "that will exist in perpetuity." The result is a comedic-essay structure organized loosely around the many, previously siloed ways of "black-girling" (skateboarding, cello, Nirvana, fried chicken) that '80s/'90s cafeteria-table culture didn't have a category for. ## 🗒️ Notes - The "worship-transition poem" format is structurally depoliticizing: no intro, no closing remarks possible, songs bookend it — Brown names this as the format that first trained her to self-censor professionally. - Green-room framing explicitly labeled talking about racial injustice as "divisive," which functioned as an informal speech code inside the industry before any formal one existed. - The Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman moment functions as her data point for a specific pattern: white colleagues who can visually clock her Blackness but treat it as optional context, not lived daily experience — "as if I am not remaining black all the time." - She distinguishes politeness/proximity ("going to dinner with you," "eating Ethiopian food with you") from actual anti-racist commitment — proximity was mistaken by white peers for the work itself. - Community formation among women of color inside the industry (informal lunches, shared processing) preceded any individual's exit and was necessary scaffolding for it — no one left alone first. - Susan Isaacs' intervention (stop accepting one-poem-per-day bookings across multi-day conferences) reframes underpayment/overuse as a solvable structural issue, not a personal endurance problem — "that's why you go home so tired... it's not the best use of you." - The healing-circle line "every time you reenter, it retraumatizes you" reframes repeated professional re-entry into a harmful space as cumulative harm, not neutral repetition. - Insight into what made leaving survivable: concrete external proof that another professional world existed (Pattern Beauty project, Together Live booking) arriving during the exact window of panic attacks — suggesting exits are aided less by conviction alone than by contemporaneous evidence of an alternative. - Christian publishing's incentive structure, per Brown: books succeeded partly by how much pain the author disclosed, since suffering functioned as proof of God's goodness — this shaped both what she wrote and how readers approached her in person afterward. - Therapy-during-writing (not just therapy-after-fallout) is the mechanism she credits for being able to consciously choose what stays private versus what becomes permanent, public material. - Her agent's instruction to "let your brain be random" instead of forcing a through-line is presented as both a comedic-writing technique and a trauma-writing permission structure — structurelessness as a form of self-protection. - The book's title/verb usage ("blackgirling") is a direct response to 1980s/90s cafeteria-table identity siloing, where activities (skateboarding, rock music, cello) were implicitly coded as not-black-girl things. - Two essay case studies show her drafting process: the "Black Woman Day Off" essay originates in a specific incident (having to process Philando Castile's murder overnight while on a majority-white trip in Rwanda, then being asked by a white colleague "do you feel better now?"); the Cardi B essay only cohered once she recognized the real subject was permission to be angry, not the artist herself. - She frames the audiobook's inclusion of a live "Black girl audience" (mother, sister, sister-in-law, friends heard reacting) as a deliberate craft choice by a spoken-word artist, not an afterthought. ## 📚 References - [Amena Brown — official site/socials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btaQ8aFQhe0) - *Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl* (Amena Brown, 2026) — book discussed - *How to Fix a Broken Record* (Amena Brown) — prior book referenced as the crumbling point - *Breaking Old Rhythms* (Amena Brown) — prior book - Pattern Beauty (Tracy Ellis Ross) — brand for which Brown wrote poetic copy - Together Live tour (Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach) — booking cited as a turning point ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Brown spent over a decade as a spoken-word poet and speaker inside white evangelical conference and publishing circuits, entering at 22 without knowing it was an industry. The arrangement required suppressing political speech and softening her identity in exchange for bookings; the 2013 Zimmerman acquittal and her own move toward LGBTQ affirmation made the mismatch impossible to keep absorbing quietly. - Her actual exit wasn't a single dramatic break but a sequence: a peer teaching her to stop underselling her labor, a community of Black women processing together before any one of them left, a healing-circle facilitator naming the retraumatization outright, months of panic attacks, and then two concrete proofs — a beauty-brand project and a tour booking — that another creative life was available. That sequence, not resolve alone, is what let her actually go. ## 📰 Newsletter Amena Brown is back on For the Love nine years later, and this time she's not doing the diplomatic-guest-in-a-hostile-room bit — she's talking straight about what it cost to leave the white evangelical speaking circuit and what it took to build something new. Her third book, *Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl*, is a comedic essay collection that only exists because her agent gave her permission to stop writing pain-as-proof-of-God's-goodness memoir and just be funny, specific, and honest instead. If you work in any community or conference space that claims "diversity" while quietly punishing candor, this conversation is a clean case study in the difference between proximity and actual shared values — and a reminder that people usually need both a witness and a landing place before they can leave. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Community management: audit whether speaker/contributor invitations reward candor or quietly punish it (green-room "don't be divisive" framing has a direct analog in tech/OSS community moderation norms) — check whether your CoC enforcement protects the person raising an issue as much as it protects "civility." - Community management: don't book contributors/speakers into fragmented, unpaid slivers of time across a multi-day event ("one poem, three days") — Susan Isaacs' fix (book the whole set, pay accordingly) generalizes directly to conference speaker scheduling and rate-setting. #### Community - Contributors: build informal peer-processing space (lunches, small cohorts) for underrepresented contributors *before* individual exits happen — Brown's account shows this collective scaffolding preceded any one person leaving the industry. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Creators who receive institutional "diversity" invitations without corresponding value alignment will experience escalating professional/health costs the longer the mismatch persists. - Structural underpayment (fragmented bookings, uncredited emotional labor) precedes and predicts eventual attrition of underrepresented talent from an institution, independent of stated inclusion goals. - The presence of an external witness explicitly naming harm (vs. self-diagnosis alone) measurably shortens the time between recognizing the need to leave a harmful institution and actually leaving. - Writing under therapeutic support during drafting (not only after publication fallout) changes what creators choose to disclose in memoir/essay work, independent of publisher demands. - Comedic framing functions as a disclosure-control mechanism, letting memoirists include painful material without being obligated to fully resolve or explain it. ### 📊 Methodology - Interview-based case study (n=1) via this transcript; could be tested at scale with structured surveys of conference speakers/contributors from underrepresented groups tracking booking structure, pay, peer-community presence, and attrition timing. - Comparative content analysis of memoir drafts written in therapy vs. not, coded for disclosure depth and resolution-seeking language. ### ❓ Questions - What specific threshold (time, incidents, or pay-per-labor ratio) tends to convert "I should leave" into actually leaving? - How much of the "possibility model" effect (Together Live booking, Pattern Beauty project) depends on timing relative to the crisis point versus the opportunity itself? ### 🔮 Future Research - Longitudinal tracking of Black women speakers/writers who exited faith-industry or conference circuits: career trajectory, income, and creative range pre- vs. post-exit. ### 💡 Implications - For conference and community organizers: proximity-based diversity efforts (shared meals, token bookings) without shared values do not read as safety to the people being invited, and may accelerate rather than prevent attrition. - For publishers/editors: therapeutic support during drafting, not just after, changes what a memoirist is able to write honestly — an editorial process consideration, not just an author wellness one. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment **Reading level:** conversational, ~Grade 8. Long-form podcast talk; no jargon barrier, but the emotional register is heavy and the argument is cumulative rather than sectioned. #### 👀 Visual learners Poorly served — audio only, no transcript-linked visuals, and the book being discussed is not shown. #### 🔊 Aural learners Best served. This is spoken-word poetry adjacent; cadence and pause carry meaning the transcript loses. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners Well served. The most portable content is phrased: "you have to get out," delivered by a healing-circle facilitator, is the episode's hinge. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners Weakly served. Nothing to do or practice; the arc is narrated rather than modeled. #### 🧠 Logical learners Moderately served. The chronology is clear — 22-year-old poet, 1,500-seat rooms, unpaid reconciliation labor after Trayvon Martin's death and the Zimmerman acquittal, 2019 exit — but the causal claims are experiential, not argued. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners Well served. Two people who have known each other nine years, returning to a prior conversation, is itself the form. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners Well served. Self-contained; no prior episode required, though the nine-year callback rewards it. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners Not applicable to this source. ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment Assessed as delivered: a podcast episode. #### Screen reader semantics Not applicable to the audio itself. Where a transcript is published, heading structure governs; none is evident here. #### Keyboard navigation Governed by the podcast player, not the content. No trap observed. #### Contrast and readability Not applicable to audio. **1.4.3 (Contrast, AA)** does not engage. #### Text resizing and reflow Not applicable to audio. #### Media and captions **The load-bearing failure.** An audio-only episode with no published transcript is inaccessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing listeners. **Fails WCAG 1.2.1 (Audio-only, A)**, which asks only for a text alternative. For an episode whose subject is exclusion from spaces, that gap is worth naming plainly. #### Forms and interactions Not applicable to this source. #### Standards reference WCAG 2.2 Level AA. One Level A failure (1.2.1), attributable to the publisher rather than the speakers, and remediable with a transcript. ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth Deep rather than broad by design: a Black woman's account of white evangelical performance spaces in the US. It does not claim to generalize beyond that, and the specificity is the value. #### Inclusive language Careful throughout. The speaker names her own terms — the book title reclaims an imperative ("Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl") rather than adopting an external descriptor. #### Neurodiversity support Weak, incidentally. Long unstructured audio with no chapters or transcript is hard to navigate for anyone who needs to re-find a passage. #### Representation The episode *is* the representation question. Its most concrete content is the economics: years of unpaid "racial reconciliation" labor requested by institutions that paid for other work. #### Psychological safety High and demonstrated rather than claimed. A named breaking point, attributed to a healing-circle facilitator rather than self-diagnosed, models disclosure without requiring the listener to reciprocate. ## ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - **The exit is dated and staged, not asserted.** A 2019 breaking point at the end of a traced arc is harder to dismiss than a general claim of exhaustion, because each stage is separately checkable against her own career. - **The unpaid-labor observation is structural.** Institutions that paid her to perform asked her to do reconciliation work for free. That is a claim about how the money moved, not about anyone's intent. - **The naming comes from outside.** "You have to get out" is attributed to a facilitator, which forecloses the reading that she talked herself into leaving. #### Fallacies - **Generalization risk sits with the listener, not the speaker.** This is one person's account, offered as such. A reader who treats it as a description of all such spaces is over-reading; the speaker does not invite it. **Fix:** none needed from her. - **Survivorship framing (mild).** The account is told by someone who left and built a career after. The people whose exits ended worse are structurally absent from a podcast about having gotten free. **Fix:** name the selection, as an aside. #### Tone of voice Warm, unhurried, occasionally funny about painful material. The register is a conversation between friends rather than a testimony, which is what lets the sharper economic claims land without sounding like grievance. ## 🛡️ DARVO Analysis **Deny** — none. The account does not deny anyone else's experience of the same spaces, and repeatedly marks its own limits. **Attack** — none in the DARVO sense. Institutions are described by what they asked for and what they paid for; no individual is named as villain. **Reverse victim and offender** — none. The most notable move is the opposite: she declines to cast herself as having been uniquely wronged, locating the problem in a structure that asked many people for the same unpaid labor. **Assessment: DARVO absent.** Worth recording because accounts of leaving an institution frequently invite it, and this one does not. ## 🎯 Conclusion Amena Brown's account is less "I left a bad industry" than a working anatomy of how someone actually gets free of one: underpayment gets named and refused first, peer community forms before any individual exit, an outside witness has to say the thing plainly, and a landing place — even an improvised one — has to appear at roughly the same time as the breaking point. The practical takeaway for anyone running a community, conference, or publishing pipeline that markets itself as inclusive: proximity is not the work, and the people you've invited in can tell the difference. ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) #### Reentering a harmful space compounds its harm > [!quote] > "Every time you reenter, it retraumatizes you." **Context & use**: - Said by a Black-women's-retreat healing circle facilitator to Brown in early 2019, naming the specific damage of her repeated professional re-entry into white evangelical spaces. - Functions as the direct catalyst for her exit — the diagnosis, not just the feeling, was what moved her to act. **Tags**: #xref #aphorisms  #### Fragmented one-poem bookings undersell a performer's full day > [!quote] > "You know that's almost 45 minutes of work... you need to do sets. Stop letting them book you like that." **Context & use**: - Advice from performer/comedian Susan Isaacs, who identified that Brown was being booked for one poem per session across a multi-day conference — effectively donating labor while appearing "booked." - First concrete boundary Brown set before the larger industry exit; generalizes to any contributor/speaker booking structure. **Tags**: #xref #articleseed  #### Comedic framing lets a memoirist withhold without dishonesty > [!quote] > "I'm not ready to write about that... and I don't owe it to anyone." **Context & use**: - Brown describing the freedom the comedic-essay format gave her, in contrast to her second book, where reader expectations at signings demanded ongoing disclosure of personal pain. - Ties to her agent's instruction to "let your brain be random" rather than force a redemptive through-line. **Tags**: #xref #addendum  ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### External witnesses catalyze exits from harmful communities **Claim** (Courtney's voice): People often need someone outside a harmful system to name its harm out loud before they can act on what they already privately suspect. **Evidence pointer**: [[Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free#H1]] **Scope & conditions**: Holds in high-investment identity-bound communities (faith, career industries, close-knit teams) where the person inside has strong sunk-cost and belonging pressure; may not hold where the person already has low attachment to the institution. **Links**: - [[Boundary-setting]] — because extends - [[Tokenism in institutional diversity efforts]] — because applies-in conference/community-organizing contexts  ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] Compare Brown's account to Austin Channing Brown's parallel exit narrative from white evangelical spaces — cross-reference for a piece on institutional proximity vs. shared values. #articleseed - [F2] Look into whether WordPress/OSS conference speaker booking practices have an equivalent "one-slot-across-three-days" underpayment pattern worth auditing. #xref ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Draft a short note comparing conference speaker-booking equity practices against the Susan Isaacs "book the whole set" fix — #things --- ## Full Transcript [00:01] [music] [00:06] Hi everybody. Welcome to the For the [00:08] Love podcast. It's Jen, your host who [00:12] loves you. Um, and who very much loves [00:16] my guest today. Um, I actually [00:20] honestly like just a couple of weeks ago [00:22] saw something cross my [00:25] um social media feed from her and I just [00:30] because I we've been friends for a long [00:32] time. I I I just texted her and went, [00:34] "Hey, [00:36] come on the show. Like, let's talk about [00:38] your new book." And here we are. Um, so [00:42] I've got a Mina Brown today. She was on [00:44] the show nine years ago. Nine. That was [00:47] at the very beginning of this podcast [00:51] and I said at the end of that episode [00:55] that we were going to have to do another [00:56] one cuz I still had like a million [00:59] questions and then nine years passed and [01:02] I just I told her we're never doing that [01:04] again. So today gets fixed. [01:07] Let me tell you about Amina. She's so [01:11] just a profound talent. So she's a [01:14] spoken word poet. She's an author and a [01:17] speaker. She's an event host. Um, she, [01:21] this is her third book. She's written [01:22] two previous books, Breaking Old Rhythms [01:24] and How to Fix a Broken Record. She has [01:28] created five spoken word albums and [01:31] hosted the podcast Her with Amina Brown. [01:35] Um, and fun fact, she wrote the poetic [01:38] language for Tracy Ellis Ross's hair [01:41] care brand, [01:43] um, Pattern Beauty, and she she appeared [01:46] in Janelle Monet's tightroppe video. [01:49] She's just so she's so cool. She's so [01:53] awesome. Um, [01:56] if you've never seen Amina do what Amina [01:58] does, well, first of all, you're gonna [02:00] need to follow her on socials because [02:03] no one does it like her. She is her own [02:07] creative genius. Um, I have been on [02:10] stages with her, many stages with her, [02:12] and we talk about that kind of back in [02:14] our olden days. And it's just kind of a [02:17] thrill every time to watch her. She's [02:19] she's magnetic and she's just kind of a [02:22] very special talent and she's also [02:24] hilarious. [02:26] You don't always get a real um you don't [02:29] always get a poet with a comedian and [02:33] somehow we get both um with her her her [02:37] stage work is just so so brilliant. So [02:39] her new book is called Never Tell a [02:42] Black Girl How to Black Girl. [02:44] And if it's not obvious, we are in a [02:47] series called Say the Quiet Thing Out [02:49] Loud. And so just even the title of her [02:52] book is a boundary, right? It's printed [02:56] on the cover. Um [03:00] it is inside her essays and poems and [03:03] stories and some truly unhinged lists [03:07] that she includes. Um, it's about hair [03:10] and food and bodies and her mother and [03:12] her grandmother and therapy and marriage [03:14] and church and obviously the real [03:17] housewives of Atlanta. I It's It's [03:21] moving, hilarious, [03:24] inspiring, [03:25] beautiful. [03:27] Um, she's just [03:32] she's a one-of-a-kind and I'm so lucky [03:34] that she's my friend and we talk about [03:36] her evolution in mine out of the space [03:39] in which we met into the spaces in which [03:43] we are now. And I just I'm grateful. I'm [03:48] grateful for her and for her integrity [03:52] and evolution [03:54] um and obviously for the gifts that she [03:56] shares with the rest of us. So you are [03:59] if you don't already know Amina, you're [04:01] just going to love her so much. So [04:02] without any further ado, welcome Amina [04:05] Brown. [04:13] I'm so happy to see you. I'm so This is [04:17] You've got to feel so good about this. [04:20] Don't you love it? [04:21] >> Really good. Yeah. [04:22] >> Yeah. Yeah. It's You just took all your [04:26] little guts and put them right on the [04:28] page. [04:28] >> Did did [04:30] >> um I'm I'm [04:32] I love this format for you. I love the [04:37] the shorts, the snippets, the memories. [04:40] I like being able to go in and out of [04:43] tone depending on what story you were [04:45] telling. Um I just I I love to see you [04:51] keep like writing in this genre. You're [04:53] so good at it. [04:54] >> It just absolutely fits your your skill [04:57] set. I apparently we're just getting [04:59] started here. [05:00] >> Okay, that's fine. [05:01] >> Yeah, here we go. We're just doing it. [05:02] We're just doing it. [05:03] >> [laughter] [05:04] >> Um, let's do like let's let's let's book [05:09] in this thing because you are right. Our [05:11] the first time you were on the show was [05:13] nine years ago. It was 2017. [05:15] >> Yeah. [05:16] >> And [05:18] it's been a minute. It's been a minute. [05:21] I'd love I mean, God, I don't even know [05:24] how to answer this question, but I'd [05:26] love to hear in your words like, all [05:28] right, more or less, here's where I was [05:31] in 2017. [05:34] and more or less here's where I am in [05:36] 2026 [05:38] like with the sort of the big movements [05:40] in your life. [05:45] >> Well, [05:47] I feel like in 2017 [05:50] some things were crumbling. [05:53] >> That was the release of my second book. [05:56] That's right. How to fix a broken [05:57] record. And at that time and probably [06:01] now, Jen, if I were to reread that book, [06:04] I would reread that book and say, "Oh, [06:06] you were leaving there. You were getting [06:07] ready to leave there." You know, like I [06:09] I would I would clock that now. [06:11] >> Yeah. [06:11] >> But then I didn't. I don't think I [06:14] completely clocked it. I thought I could [06:15] sort of like exist in this in between. I [06:17] think also if we think about where [06:20] things were by that time politically, [06:23] >> Yeah. and where things were for me [06:26] having been a black woman artist [06:28] performing at that time over 10 years in [06:31] white evangelical spaces. [06:33] >> So I think I was sort of at this [06:36] all all this all this crumbled [06:39] up when that book was released [06:42] >> and that book was like as much as I felt [06:44] I could be of myself [06:46] >> inside of that industry. I think I was [06:49] also at a place where I felt [06:52] I needed to help white people [06:55] >> in those conservative spaces because my [07:00] >> nice girl at that time, she's not here [07:02] anymore. [07:03] >> But the nice girl that I was at that [07:05] time, [07:06] >> she thought maybe those white people are [07:07] like that because they just don't know. [07:09] And maybe if I [07:11] >> participated in helping them in [07:13] educating them and telling them some of [07:15] my black woman experiences. So I think [07:18] even that 2017 into 2018 was sort of [07:20] like [07:22] >> every gig, everything turned into a a [07:25] workshop on racial reconciliation and [07:29] all of these sorts of conversations. By [07:31] the time 2018 came, it was becoming [07:33] really clear you're having conversations [07:36] with people who do not intend to [07:39] disentangle themselves from white [07:40] supremacy, [07:42] >> who do not intend to do the work, who [07:45] thought the work was going to dinner [07:46] with you. [07:47] >> That's right. [07:48] >> Who thought the work was [07:51] eating Ethiopian food with you. [07:53] >> That's right. [07:54] >> Having naan [snorts] with you. M [07:57] >> they thought that was the diversity. [08:02] >> So by the time 2018 came, I'm starting [08:04] to have that feeling like I think I need [08:06] to get out of here. I think the other [08:07] layer that was happening, Jen, was that [08:11] I was longing for a more inclusive [08:14] faith. [08:16] >> I wanted a faith where my queer people [08:19] were welcome, where my trans people were [08:21] welcome, where disabled people are [08:23] welcome, where we're foundationally [08:25] anti-racist. That's not like a [08:27] conversation. We're going to keep like [08:29] foundationally that's the value. Like [08:31] that's what I wanted [08:32] >> and I'm just going to keep getting [08:34] booked into gigs that aren't [08:37] going to be doing that. But I started [08:40] there at 22 years old. [08:41] >> Oh man, you know [08:43] >> that was how young I was when I entered [08:45] the market. So now in that late 30s [08:47] period was like well I need to get out [08:50] but what does that mean and where will I [08:52] go and [08:54] >> who will think what I have to say is [08:56] important. So I think [08:58] >> I I think that was sort of like the [09:00] shakeup of what was happening. I think [09:02] some other really beautiful things [09:04] happened in the sense of being able to [09:07] build more community with people like [09:09] you [09:10] >> and Jeff Chu and Austin Channing Brown [09:13] um and Sarah Bessie, right? So I think I [09:15] think there was the element too that you [09:16] needed to see there are people who also [09:20] would still consider themselves [09:22] followers of Jesus [09:25] >> but without the [09:27] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's my favorite [09:28] part of that era were [09:32] the that group of people and it's a much [09:35] wider circle even than that obviously [09:37] that I met in those years and [09:41] I feel like my proximity to progressive [09:44] thinkers who were in a faith space it [09:48] for me cast a vision of possibility. I [09:51] was like you. I mean, I came up from the [09:54] nursery like I didn't have another [09:58] version of [10:01] Christianity or church specifically if [10:03] we're going to talk about like organiza [10:05] organizational structures or um [10:08] leadership or even that baseline value [10:10] like you just really eloquently [10:12] explained like this doesn't need to keep [10:14] being um a workshop. This should just be [10:18] this is baseline that everything flows. [10:21] I didn't know about that. I had never [10:23] seen that. I had never been a part of [10:25] that. And that community of um creatives [10:30] and writers and thinkers that um and I [10:34] met you in that season as well. I mean, [10:37] I just I credit I credit [10:41] a lot of your courage [10:44] um as something that was seated in me [10:46] and offered a vision. I'd love to hear [10:49] you. So for everybody listening, so [10:52] Amina, [10:54] I mean I I explained this in the intro [10:56] of course, but if could you just do the [10:58] quick tip just touchdown on this is sort [11:01] of what your work has looked like. So [11:03] when you say up until then 2018 really [11:06] you had been deep heavily like investing [11:10] because they were not investing in you. [11:12] >> No, [11:12] >> you were investing in like white [11:15] evangelicalism. Can you talk a little [11:17] bit about what your particular gifts are [11:21] and and what that investment looked [11:22] like? [11:24] >> Yeah, I entered what I didn't know was a [11:26] market, what I didn't know was an [11:28] industry. [11:30] >> I entered sort of white evangelicalism [11:31] or what some of us came to refer to as [11:33] like white Christian industrial complex. [11:35] I entered that [11:36] >> as a spoken word poet, as a performer. [11:39] >> So, I was sort of coming very much from [11:41] the roots of black church. like poetry [11:42] [snorts] and spoken word in church is [11:44] not uncommon at all in my black church [11:47] growing up. [11:48] >> But when I started getting into some of [11:50] these other what were intended to I [11:52] think be like diverse spaces and meeting [11:55] uh very meeting white leaders of what [11:58] were very large ministries at that time. [12:02] my first gig as a 22-year-old who gets [12:06] invited by this ministry I'm just [12:08] meeting for the first time to perform in [12:11] a church that seats 1500 people and was [12:13] going to be simoc cast to 20,000 people [12:16] like that was my first what I didn't [12:18] know was my first professional event at [12:21] 22 years old [12:22] >> so that was really my experience sort of [12:25] being a poet who was in the worship [12:27] space very much doing poems in that [12:30] singing time of the service which really [12:34] doesn't afford you room to talk about a [12:37] lot. [12:37] >> That's right. [12:38] >> Because you're not getting an intro. A [12:41] song happens and then you're going to [12:43] walk out and say your [snorts] poem [12:46] >> and then you're going to walk back and [12:48] another song. So, [12:50] >> you don't have time to talk about [12:51] politics right there. You don't have [12:53] time to talk about titties right there [12:55] either. You can't walk out right before [12:59] Oceans is going to start playing and be [13:01] like, "Do y'all ever be wondering why [13:05] cities are like like you can't do [13:08] >> Nope. [13:08] >> That [13:09] >> no room for that in the programming. [13:11] >> You can't do that." So, I was a [13:13] performing artist who then became a [13:16] speaker, which is sort of how you and I [13:17] were also meeting. Became an author and [13:20] was just sort of trying to navigate all [13:22] of this. And honestly, I will say I was [13:24] raised in a in a type of black church [13:26] environment that was sort of saying if [13:28] you know other people who are Christian, [13:30] they're your family. [13:32] >> So I actually walked into white [13:33] evangelicalism assuming, [13:36] >> yeah, [13:36] >> these people are also Christian, they're [13:38] my family. And over the years, it was [13:41] proven to me that most of those people [13:43] were not ever close to anything that was [13:45] like family. [13:46] >> That's right. This is just so uh [13:51] reminiscent of my recent conversations [13:53] with um with Austin who also started [13:57] inside the white church with the same [13:59] sort of earnest, sincere, [14:02] naive thought. I am here to help. They [14:06] just must not know. um they just must [14:08] not let I'll be here long enough and [14:11] we'll start this like really important [14:13] change from the inside out because [14:15] obviously we have shared values of [14:18] equality and some such um assuming a [14:21] baseline and so [14:25] I I'd like to hear you talk we're [14:27] getting to this don't worry we're coming [14:30] >> yes we're coming we're present [14:31] >> we're coming [14:33] >> um [14:35] >> can you talk a little bit about your [14:38] decision [14:39] because a it was it was a maybe a more [14:42] gentle off-ramp than just a hard stop [14:45] like to sort of [14:46] >> carine off that superighway industry. Um [14:51] and what was that like for you? Uh I'd [14:54] like to hear um about resistance you [14:56] got. Um, and then I'd like to hear about [14:59] what you learned once you were out of [15:03] the belly of the beast and could look [15:06] back on it from the safety of the shore [15:08] over here. And I'd love to know what [15:10] that was like for you. [15:13] I think there are a lot of these like [15:15] now I can look back and see there were [15:17] these landmark moments that were [15:19] happening there. I think one of the [15:21] early ones and I will give credit to [15:24] Susan Issacs who is a fantastic uh [15:26] performer and comedian. She and I got [15:29] booked for the same conference and she [15:31] said come to lunch with me and we went [15:33] to lunch and she said do you know these [15:35] people are booking you for three days [15:38] for their conference to do one poem in [15:40] each of these sessions. [15:42] >> She said you know that's almost 45 [15:44] minutes of work. She was like you need [15:46] to do sets. [15:47] >> Stop letting them book you like that. [15:49] She said, "That's why you go home and [15:51] you're so tired. You're so exhausted. [15:53] Make them book you like a keynote. [15:56] >> Stop letting them book you like this." [15:58] She said, "It's it's not the best use of [16:00] you." [16:01] >> So, my first thing was to say, I'm going [16:03] to stop going into this these churches [16:05] and these conferences and doing the one [16:07] poem at a time. [16:08] >> Lost a lot of money right there because [16:10] people were like, we know, we didn't [16:12] want that. We wanted the big like we [16:13] like with the smoke machines like we we [16:16] looking the pads and the guitars like [16:19] and you we don't want whatever this set [16:21] is we don't want it. But over time some [16:24] organizations came you know on board [16:27] with that and really I started doing [16:29] what was going to become what I'm doing [16:31] now which is doing comedy and [16:33] storytelling and poetry. I just had to [16:35] say something that was like an alter [16:37] call at some point in it. So, I started [16:42] sort of building that set and I think [16:43] that kind of helped me feel a little [16:45] like, okay, maybe I can, maybe I can do [16:48] this. Then Trayvon Martin was murdered [16:52] and George Zimmerman was acquitted. [16:53] >> Yeah. [16:54] >> And I had never spoken publicly about [16:57] any of that because I was also sort of [17:01] coming from the type of background where [17:03] it was like, well, maybe maybe we don't [17:04] talk about those things [17:06] >> and then being told in green rooms that [17:08] to speak about those things is divisive. [17:10] Yes. [17:10] >> And we don't want to be divisive. So, I [17:12] remember going on my Facebook page and [17:15] saying I think I just said something [17:17] about how how [17:19] speechless, how wordless I felt [17:23] and how angry it made me, how upset it [17:26] made me that this whole thing had [17:29] transpired. And there were white people [17:31] in the comments of my Facebook page [17:33] saying, "Oh, sweetie, you need to learn [17:36] to trust our justice system." [17:39] >> Yeah. And that was also a moment of [17:43] >> h [17:44] >> these people [17:46] >> I know you looking at me and know I'm [17:48] black. [17:48] >> Yeah. [17:49] >> But somehow you were looking at me as if [17:52] that is a thing I put away somewhere [17:54] sometimes [17:55] >> as if I am not remaining black all the [17:57] time waking up black every day as if [17:59] these things don't matter to me don't [18:02] affect me. That's right. And so I think [18:04] and and I think also as I was becoming [18:07] LGBTQ affirming, right, like it's sort [18:10] of like the arc of both of these things [18:12] are happening at once. [18:13] >> Yeah. For me too. [18:14] >> Then I'm starting to feel real [18:15] conflicted [18:17] >> being in the space. [18:20] >> So then I started also, which I think [18:22] was very healing, I started just at [18:23] least seeking out like environments [18:25] where black more black women were, [18:27] >> where I wasn't like the only one, where [18:29] there were more women of color. And in [18:31] that space, [18:33] >> the women of color were meeting all the [18:35] time and were having these lunches and [18:37] having these connections. And that also [18:39] helped me to know you're not alone in [18:41] feeling how you feel and here are some [18:44] ways. I think we were all at first [18:45] trying to help each other navigate that. [18:46] And then it became really clear some of [18:47] us are going to have to leave. And then [18:49] like what does that look like? And in my [18:51] late 30s I was like, well, I'm not 23. [18:54] What do I do? I just start a YouTube [18:56] channel and just hope I become [19:00] Issa Ray somehow. Like I was like, I [19:03] don't know. [19:04] >> So, I went to this black woman retreat [19:07] >> and they had a healing circle and I was [19:10] nervous as hell. Jen, I'm not even gonna [19:12] hold you because, you know, I grew up [19:14] Pentecostal. So, I was like, I are the [19:16] people gonna heaba towards me and like [19:18] is this [19:19] >> is this a hee baba that I trust? You [19:21] know, I just don't know. But I was like, [19:23] I'm just going to go because I'm I feel [19:26] I need to do something. I don't know [19:28] what this something is. So I went to the [19:29] healing circle and you could volunteer [19:32] to sort of say how your your life was [19:34] going. And I just boohoo in the healing [19:36] circle telling these women, [19:39] >> here's what's happening in my work life. [19:42] Here's how that's affecting my health. [19:44] >> Here are all these things that are going [19:45] on. And the black woman leading the [19:47] healing circle looked at me and she [19:48] said, "You can't keep re-entering that [19:51] space." [19:51] >> That's good. She said, "Every time you [19:53] reenter, it retraumatizes you." [19:56] >> That's right. Yeah. [19:56] >> She said, "You have to get out." [19:59] >> And it was like I knew I needed to get [20:01] out, but it was like something about her [20:03] looking me so direct in my face and [20:05] saying, [20:06] >> "There has to be another way. You have [20:08] to get out." So, I went home. This was [20:10] beginning of 2019. I go home and I'm [20:12] like, "Okay, [20:13] >> okay. We're getting out." [20:17] >> And then I just had panic attacks. Of [20:20] course, [20:21] >> it it it's it's so clear on paper, but [20:24] in practice, it's messy and hard. [20:28] >> I was like, what does that mean? What is [20:30] >> What does it mean? This is a thing I've [20:32] been I've been doing. How do I It's not [20:34] like a It's not like I'm on a train [20:36] track here and I can just [20:37] >> switch tracks so easily. And I have to [20:40] say the opportunity to work with Tracy [20:43] Ellis Ross actually came up in that [20:46] three months of not sleeping. [20:47] >> What do you know? and having all the [20:50] anxiety attacks and I have shared with [20:52] her as well that that project coming to [20:55] me at that time showed me more was [20:58] possible. [20:58] >> I love that [21:00] >> that everything wasn't over just because [21:02] this was the space I had known and [21:05] getting the opportunity to work with [21:07] people who we were all at that same [21:10] baseline. [21:11] >> Like we don't have to have that that [21:14] conversation. We're we're we're all [21:15] clear. [21:16] >> Yeah. why we're here and what we're here [21:18] to do. Now we can just do the creative [21:21] work. So 2018 really started me [21:26] >> knowing there were other things to do. [21:28] Glennon Doyle and Abby, I always give [21:30] credit to them as well. They booked me [21:32] for the Together Live tour that year. I [21:35] was crying to them. I cried to Glennon [21:39] and I said, "Thank you for taking a [21:40] chance on me." She said, "What do you [21:42] mean?" She was like, "Nothing about you [21:45] being booked to do this with us is [21:47] taking a chance on you." She said, [21:48] "Amina, you can hear it." [21:49] >> Yeah. [21:50] >> She was like, "When I see you doing your [21:52] work, I I I already knew where you [21:54] were." [21:54] >> That's right. [21:54] >> Even though you had been on stage with [21:56] some of those people. [21:58] >> So, I think I just needed that [22:00] >> possibility model [22:02] >> to know there's a world out here. You [22:04] know, [22:05] >> I have goosebumps. [22:07] there is a world and it is so vi much [22:11] more vibrant and [22:14] um you you and I were sort of arcing at [22:16] a really similar time and across some [22:18] similar arcs. Um I I I remember this I [22:23] mean that was kind of back in blog days [22:25] but I remember writing a blog called [22:26] Dear Trayvon's Mom and I lost 100,000 [22:32] social media followers that day. I'm [22:34] like, "Oh, [22:35] our baseline's not what I thought." [22:38] >> Um, good intentions don't count for [22:43] >> Um, and and of course the LGBTQ [22:46] community, too. And um it's so [22:49] interesting to be sitting here with you [22:50] in 2026 and having so that in our [22:53] rearview mirror [22:56] understanding like the the joy, the free [23:01] the absolute freedom, the liberation to [23:04] have moved out of that community. Um for [23:07] me, I'm out entirely and [23:10] um to be over here like were y'all here [23:13] all along? like was this always here? [23:18] I did not know. Um and it's I'm grateful [23:22] I'm grateful for I'm grateful for [23:26] even all the turmoil to get somewhere [23:29] where baseline [23:31] is um safe [23:34] >> and true. Um and I love that for you. [23:38] I'm so that that there's no other way [23:41] for you to have written never tell a [23:44] black girl how to black girl if you had [23:47] not made that migra migration. You would [23:49] have just felt muzzled and you would [23:52] have been softening your language and [23:55] you would have had that white gaze on [23:58] you the whole time um even in creation. [24:01] And so I mean this speaks of a girl who [24:04] got all the way free of it. Um, and I'm [24:07] so thrilled for you. And I want to say [24:09] also before we start talking about the [24:11] book, which is right now, [24:12] >> um, thank you for coming on the show to [24:14] talk about it to a white friend. I I [24:17] appreciate that so much because, um, the [24:20] there's so many beautiful things about [24:22] your book. Um, chief of which is this [24:25] incredible [24:27] like visceral because you're such a [24:29] descriptive storyteller. You're so [24:31] gifted. um sense of the community of [24:34] black women. It's just so special. It's [24:38] so special. So even though I'm over here [24:41] outside the circle, I can like peek in [24:43] the windows and go that is so damn [24:45] awesome and I I experience that as an [24:49] observer and somebody on the edge of the [24:52] community and um so thank you for taking [24:57] for being here to talk about it. I [24:59] appreciate it so much. Let's um tee [25:02] everybody up here. Um so, as I just [25:05] mentioned, this is called Never Tell a [25:07] Black Girl. But um part two of the book [25:11] is titled And everybody, Here We Are. Um [25:14] I have been monogamous my whole life, [25:16] but I'd consider polygamy if I could [25:18] marry Pcido. [25:20] >> Is this where we're at? [25:22] >> You're just telling your truth. [25:24] >> Yeah. [25:25] >> And and there's such things in here as [25:28] like, look, I'm married. I'm still [25:30] married. I've got this dude, but he is [25:33] fully aware of my could get it list. And [25:36] I'm like, that is a healthy [25:37] relationship. [25:39] Cuz it's not that you don't have it. [25:41] It's just either they know it or they [25:43] don't know it. So, let's talk about you [25:47] dreaming this book up in your head as [25:50] it's like in its like earliest infancy [25:53] and you're like, what do I want to do [25:56] with this next project? [25:59] This book started out as a book of [26:02] poetry and it was not going to be this [26:04] title and that was really honestly for a [26:08] sense of ease because those of us who [26:10] published I don't know what Christian [26:12] publishing is like today. [26:13] >> Oh neither. In the era in which I was [26:16] publishing there, a part of how your [26:18] books could succeed was how painful of a [26:23] story you could bring into your books [26:27] because that's how people would know God [26:30] is good if you [26:32] >> so true. [26:33] >> Tell them [26:34] >> this thing. So my first two books and [26:38] especially that second one, I wrote some [26:41] vulnerable things there and imagine [26:43] doing book signings in those particular [26:46] church spaces and people walking up. Do [26:48] you have an update for us? [26:50] >> What's going on with this? What's going [26:51] on with that? Like just nothing about [26:54] the privacy, nothing about the [26:56] gentleness there. So I sort of had this [26:58] feeling of like I'm not sure I want to [27:00] write non-fiction because I don't know [27:02] that I want to have that experience. [27:05] Yeah. [27:06] >> So, I sent my agent a book of poems. [27:10] She emailed me back and she was like, [27:12] "Hey, can I just get a couple of essays [27:16] to put into here?" Okay. [27:18] >> Just just give me like a couple of them. [27:22] >> And I was like, "All right." [27:26] I always wanted to have bigger titties. [27:28] And the reason is because [27:30] >> it's amazing. [27:31] >> And I I think in a way, Jen, it was [27:34] almost like I had all this like backlog [27:36] of voice [27:38] >> that had sort of been [27:40] >> put away somewhere that I did not feel [27:43] permission to really let that voice out. [27:46] >> And something about me knowing I'm like [27:48] I'm in a broader market now. [27:50] >> Totally. [27:51] >> She asked me for these essays. I'm just [27:55] gonna start typing some I always [27:58] wanted to say. [27:59] >> I sent it to her. I was assuming that [28:01] the publisher was gonna come back and [28:04] say, "Thank you so much for these [28:06] ignorant essays, [laughter] [28:07] >> but [28:09] we're going to put out that book of [28:11] poems that you [laughter] sent us [28:13] originally." [28:14] >> And the publisher came back and said, [28:16] "We've been looking for a book of [28:18] comedic essays." [28:20] >> Amazing. [28:20] >> And I was like, "Did I do that?" [28:23] >> Amazing. Like is that I was I I was [28:25] writing [28:26] >> Yeah. [28:27] >> comedic essays. Okay. Yeah. They were [28:29] like, "We love these essays so much. We [28:32] would like the book to be 85% [28:34] >> Oh, well [28:35] >> essay." [28:36] >> Bleep bloop. [28:38] >> And I said, [28:39] >> they're like, "Y'all, I was done. [28:42] I was done. [laughter] [28:44] You're sending me back to the laptop." [28:47] [gasps] [28:48] >> I said, "What are you talking about?" [28:50] And I didn't I wasn't in therapy when I [28:51] went through when I wrote my second [28:53] book. [28:54] >> I did enter therapy after that book was [28:56] released because everything went to [28:58] And my then therapist said, "Hey, [29:01] >> let's try being in therapy while you [29:03] write. [29:04] >> Let's just try that." And then you can [29:07] decide therapeutically what you are [29:11] prepared [29:12] >> good [29:12] >> to put into a book that will exist in [29:15] perpetuity that people will ask you [29:17] questions about at your book events. So [29:20] we remained in therapy through this book [29:23] here. [29:24] >> So I did pitch them never tell a black [29:28] girl how to black girl which I thought [29:30] was going to be a book of poems with two [29:32] essays. Mh. [29:33] >> And then they said, "We would like this [29:35] to be a book of essays." [29:36] >> Yeah. [29:37] >> And my literary agent, shout out to [29:39] Margaret Riley King, she told me, she [29:41] said, "When you go to write this book, [29:44] >> she said, let your brain be random." [29:47] >> She was like, "Don't focus so much on [29:49] trying to have this thread or this [29:52] through line." [29:53] >> She was like, "Just just let your brain [29:55] do And comedically, that's a part of [29:57] where the funny is. Sure. [29:58] >> To me, [30:00] >> is letting your brain just start having [30:02] some random thoughts there. So, in a [30:05] way, for the first time, Jen, writing [30:07] this book, because I did get to use a [30:09] comedic lens throughout, [30:12] >> there were some parts of some painful [30:15] >> and I just said, [30:16] >> I'm not ready to write about that. [30:18] >> Great. [30:19] it doesn't have to go [30:21] >> in here. And I don't owe it [30:24] >> to anyone. [30:26] >> And that made the writing process way [30:28] more fun. [30:30] >> I love, you know, Margaret is my agent, [30:33] too. [30:34] >> And so, she was my bridge also out of [30:36] Christian publishing and Christian [30:39] representation and where I the container [30:42] just no longer fit. Um, it was just [30:44] painful for all of us. Um, and she told [30:46] me something. I love hearing her little [30:49] nuggets that she's dropping to all of [30:50] her authors. Um she told me something [30:53] before I started writing Awake, my most [30:55] recent one, which is hard. It was a hard [30:57] book [30:57] >> um to write and it was just about the [30:59] just um lost my marriage. It's hard. And [31:03] she told me, she's like, "All right, [31:06] as you decide like what's going to go in [31:08] and what's going to not stay out, like [31:10] just save nothing for the swim home." [31:13] She's like, "You right out to the middle [31:15] of the ocean. don't don't hold back for [31:19] self-preservation. [31:20] She's like, "Save nothing for that swim [31:23] home." And I was like, "Whoa." And [31:24] nobody had ever cut me loose like that. [31:27] I mean, my publishing experience up to [31:29] that point had been more like, "Save [31:31] everything for the swim home." Like, [31:33] "Don't get too far out there. Do don't [31:35] you we need to see you from the shore [31:38] and you need to have on floaties and [31:41] like there needs to be an exit ramp at [31:44] all time. if you've gone too far. And so [31:46] just having someone speak some [31:48] permission like that to us. She knew [31:50] what you needed and she knew what I [31:51] needed to be like, [31:53] >> "Yeah, [31:54] >> I that's um a that was a gift to the [31:57] writing process for both of us probably [31:59] as we wrote in new ways." [32:01] >> Um I'm Did you have fun writing like [32:04] this? Because it sound it seems like you [32:06] did. [32:07] >> Okay. I know. [32:08] >> I had so much fun. I laughed so much. I [32:12] think it was also this permission to [32:15] because of course once I I this book [32:17] title was a poem title first. Okay. [32:19] >> And I just knew once this was going to [32:21] be a book of essays, I'm like the the [32:23] poem title has to also be the title of [32:25] this book. [32:25] >> Yeah. [32:26] >> And then I thought, well, when you think [32:28] about black girl experiences, I I can't [32:32] write all of the black girl things. I [32:34] can only write my black girl things. So [32:36] trying to think about what are these [32:37] like buckets of topics that I really [32:41] want to cover and what's absurd about [32:46] those [laughter] [32:47] >> topics. Yes. [32:48] >> You know, what are the moments in that [32:51] that were so funny? I mean, first of [32:53] all, I have wanted to write about [32:54] titties for so long because I wanted [32:57] these titties so bad. Like I just [32:59] >> I really I wanted that cup. I wanted [33:02] that cup and it just didn't. [33:03] >> You asked the Lord. It didn't come to [33:04] me. [33:04] >> It didn't. It wasn't your journey. [33:07] >> It didn't come to me. I mean, I guess um [33:09] it sort of may fall in the category of [33:11] when people say like God may not come [33:12] with you one God, but God be on time or [33:14] something. But the on time, we have [33:16] different like measurements of where the [33:18] time. I don't know why my titties came [33:20] in my 30s, but you know, here they are [33:22] now. And nobody told me they keep [33:24] growing. [33:25] >> That's right. [33:25] >> Huh. [33:26] >> That's right. [33:26] >> Nobody said that. Nobody said [33:29] >> why my bra unfit. [33:31] >> What's up with this? I'm 50. Like, come [33:34] on. [33:35] Um, also let the reader know that it's t [33:38] i d i s as [33:42] >> as it is written. Um, I don't know where [33:45] those two t's went in the middle. I I [33:47] never knew them. Those are [laughter] [33:49] these. I mean, [33:51] >> um, let's let's real quick before we [33:53] talk about some of the essays. [33:56] Um, [33:59] I think I I love the way that you use [34:02] black girl as a verb and as a noun. And [34:07] it's it's poetic. It's honest. [34:10] It's expansive. Um, like I I read this [34:14] title and I have a sense of [34:19] the the freedom and the wideness of this [34:22] expression that you're about to offer [34:23] your reader. Can you talk a little bit [34:25] about maybe the original poem first of [34:27] all, but also kind of the ethos of the [34:29] book like um [34:32] the the very very very wide container [34:35] you are creating for the for the black [34:38] woman's experience. [34:41] >> A part of this is because I was a kid of [34:44] the8s and a middle school high schooler [34:47] of the '9s. And I think for those of us [34:50] that were sort of raised in these two [34:52] decades, there were very siloed [34:55] understandings [34:57] of what you could be. You're walking [34:59] into your high school cafeteria. The [35:01] jocks have a table. The Goths have a [35:04] table. The nerds had a table. So then if [35:08] you go under that layer to say, "Well, [35:11] what were the black girl tables?" Well, [35:14] if I was a black girl who liked to [35:17] skateboard, [35:18] >> there wasn't a table for that because [35:21] was that considered a thing black girls [35:23] do? [35:25] >> Or if I loved Nirvana, [35:29] if I loved rock music, [35:32] >> was that considered a thing that black [35:34] girls do? So, I think in those eras, [35:36] which is one reason why I'm so happy for [35:39] Gen Z to not have some of that siloed [35:42] stuff that a lot of Gen Xers and some of [35:45] millennials as well have had [35:47] [clears throat] is I wanted to address [35:49] that and say there are a lot of ways we [35:52] blackled that we did not feel like we [35:55] could say [35:56] >> we black girlled [35:58] >> and now we can say and whatever a black [36:02] girl does is blackirling. [36:04] If I'm a black girl who likes to fry [36:06] chicken, then that's blackirling. If I'm [36:08] a black girl who likes to play the [36:09] cello, that is blackirling. [36:12] And I wanted to for my younger self sort [36:15] of break through that box and say all [36:19] those things you thought you would feel [36:21] so embarrassed [36:23] >> to say at the cafeteria table, that you [36:26] loved reading that book, [36:27] >> that you love being up in the library, [36:29] or whatever your things were. all those [36:31] things, those things are blackirling. [36:34] And it was a lot of fun to explore [36:38] what were those parts, you know, and [36:40] what were the things that I was told [36:42] maybe maybe you're not supposed to say. [36:44] And then also to examine where were the [36:47] the pieces of media and different things [36:49] that I was learning [36:51] were black girl things that sort of [36:54] exposed me to that. Like, oh, black [36:55] girls do that. [36:57] >> That means I I can do that, right? [37:00] So, I think there were a lot of there [37:02] was some like healing in writing it. [37:04] Yeah. [37:05] >> I was definitely like messaging my mom [37:07] like, "Who was braiding our hair?" [37:09] >> Yeah. [37:10] >> Who was that lady? You know, asking my [37:12] grandmother, "Why did Miss Martha tell [37:14] me that was steam?" [37:17] >> And it wasn't. What What were you [37:20] getting done to your hair? What made you [37:21] press my hair? You know, there all these [37:23] conversations that went on that were [37:26] really wonderful and fun to get to have, [37:28] too, you know. What were some of the G [37:31] give give me a couple examples of um [37:34] stories that you kind of caught by the [37:35] ankle and decided to tell um that sort [37:38] of were either a revelation to you or it [37:42] gave you this room to play around in [37:45] with this idea that you've kind of [37:47] always felt or wanted to express or say [37:49] or I'm just curious like as you look at [37:52] some of the things that you included [37:53] here what were some of the ones that you [37:54] go oh yeah that one felt really good to [37:57] Right. [37:59] >> Man, that section on therapy felt really [38:02] good to write. [38:03] >> Yeah, [38:03] >> there are two essays there. Uh, one of [38:05] them is about my journey to find a [38:07] therapist because I I felt I wanted to [38:08] express that finding a therapist is not [38:10] always an easy thing, which is why some [38:12] people start that journey and then [38:14] they're like, you know what, I'm [38:16] >> for sure. [38:18] >> I'm enough is enough for me. And I did [38:20] have some very funny experiences [38:24] in the weird dating process. It can feel [38:27] like when you're trying to find a [38:28] therapist that works for you because [38:31] it's really it's really hard for me to [38:34] talk through my trauma if your smoke [38:38] detector keeps chirping through that. [38:41] It's just it's challenging for me, you [38:44] know. I don't know. I I I have never in [38:47] a session wanted so badly to give [38:49] batteries to someone because I can't [38:53] talk about my family of origin if I just [38:57] hear the smoke detector chirping. [39:00] >> Yeah. I think uh the opportunity to [39:04] write a letter to my black woman [39:06] therapist, it was the one essay that I [39:08] cried writing [39:11] >> because I just I wanted to write that to [39:14] black women therapists overall because [39:16] the work that they do is so important. I [39:20] have showed up with my bonnet on to [39:22] session. I have showed up where half my [39:24] hair was done and the other half was not [39:27] done. Yeah. And my therapist asks no [39:29] questions. She does she does one of [39:32] these and she'll say wash day [39:34] >> and I'll be like yeah girl like anyway [39:37] what are those people [39:38] >> baseline [39:40] >> we're already in there. [39:41] >> Yeah. [39:41] >> She'll be like anyway what are those [39:42] people at your job at your work what [39:44] what happened at the work event? And we [39:46] just jump right into there. [39:47] >> And just the the healing process that [39:49] was really tender. Um, I will say one of [39:52] the essays in this book started out as [39:55] an essay about Cardi B because I wanted [39:57] to write about Cardi B. Who doesn't? [39:59] >> So bad. [laughter] [40:01] >> I just I just I love Cardi B so bad. So, [40:05] you know, for those of us who are [40:06] non-fiction authors, you know, you're [40:08] starting with your proposal. So, [40:09] sometimes I'm just really like listing [40:11] and I'm like, I bet I'll write [40:13] about that. I bet I'll do it. [40:14] >> I might come up with something. [40:15] >> And then, yeah. [40:17] >> Yeah. I'm sure I'll do that. Then I get [40:18] to actually writing it and I can't [40:20] figure out how to like it's just not [40:23] coming together. My editor's like, I [40:26] like where some of this is. I don't know [40:28] where this is headed. And so that was a [40:29] fun moment to sort of think to myself, [40:32] okay, well, why can't this essay come [40:33] together? What is it about Cardi B that [40:35] I love? M [40:36] >> and [clears throat] then realizing I [40:38] love about Cardi B that she gives me [40:40] permission to be mad as hell [40:44] >> because anyone who could start a song [40:46] with little [40:49] >> like [40:51] >> you've already given me as a church girl [40:54] >> as a girl raised in the south [40:56] >> that's good [40:57] >> raised in a family that maybe you [40:59] weren't given that permission girls were [41:01] not allowed [41:02] >> to be angry you not allowed to raise [41:04] your voice to yell [41:06] Then I said, "Well, damn. Is the essay [41:07] about Cardi B or is it about being an [41:09] angry black woman?" [41:11] >> Yeah, [41:11] >> maybe this is about an angry black woman [41:14] playlist. It's about the other black [41:17] women artists that give me permission to [41:20] be mad as hell. So, I think it was sort [41:22] of letting [41:24] >> the story like Rubik's cube until it [41:27] tells you what it wants to be, you know? [41:30] Ah, that is the mark of such a great [41:32] writer who can go under the thing and [41:37] then one more under and go okay this is [41:42] triggering me in a way that is positive [41:45] even but like why what is it what's the [41:48] thing about it I can you talk a little [41:51] bit about um [41:54] black woman day off you have a list of [41:57] qualifying reasons feel like it's worth [42:00] having on the record. [42:03] >> I I wanted to write about this because I [42:06] have just had I've had several moments [42:08] moments that were hard and moments that [42:12] were full of joy where I also had to be [42:17] around a lot of white people in that [42:19] particular day. And I just wished there [42:22] was just like a little punch clock to [42:24] say this this is a day [42:27] >> a black woman needs a day off. a very [42:29] serious moment. I was in Rwanda [42:34] on a predominantly white [42:38] trip [42:40] >> when Philando Castile was murdered. [42:43] >> Oh boy. [42:45] >> Wow. [42:45] >> And so because of the time change, my [42:48] phone overnight is just like people are [42:52] checking in checking in on me. We're [42:54] we're talking about what does this mean? [42:56] How do we process this? knowing people [42:58] who lived in the area near where this [43:00] happened and what was happening in their [43:02] city. Like my phone's blowing. I don't [43:04] hardly sleep that night, [43:06] >> of course. [43:06] >> But I have to go out that morning and [43:09] have breakfast with this like large [43:12] group of us from America that have gone [43:15] into the country to partner with this [43:17] nonprofit there. [43:19] >> And a white woman who's in the breakfast [43:22] line with me is like, "Are you okay? [43:26] like you just look like are you sad? [43:31] >> And me having to explain to her because [43:33] no one's been blowing her phone up all [43:35] night [43:36] >> about this [43:39] and and then me sort of being at the [43:41] very beginnings, Jen, of trying not to [43:42] hide that and to just say here's what [43:45] happened and here's why like like I feel [43:47] like my mind isn't here. [43:49] >> Like I feel like my body's here and my [43:51] mind is there. And then the end of the [43:53] day coming and her saying, "Do you feel [43:56] better now?" [43:56] >> Oh boy. [43:59] >> It was moments like that and me knowing [44:01] like, "Yeah, I'm on this trip having [44:03] this experience. Black women are having [44:05] this experience at their jobs." [44:07] >> Yeah. [44:08] >> Some of them are having these [44:09] experiences in churches that they go to. [44:12] So part of it was sometimes a very [44:15] serious need to have that day off. And [44:19] also, listen, when Beyonce dropped the [44:22] self-title, I don't know what you're [44:25] expecting of me. I I need the day to [44:30] really [44:32] >> out. [44:33] >> Yeah. [44:34] >> I I need some time. When Beyonce dropped [44:36] Lemonade, cuz now we got an album and it [44:39] was a visual album and the audio. [44:42] >> Yeah. As soon as I heard Pray You Catch [44:44] Me Listening, I said, I I this just [44:49] can't be like an after five. Like, I [44:50] don't know how you could expect this to [44:52] drop and expect me to like be on Zoom [44:55] having meetings and talking about [44:57] projects. Like, why are we not talking [45:00] about [45:02] Hold up. Why are we not talking about [45:04] Beyonce flouncing around with a bat over [45:08] her shoulder, beating the out of a [45:11] city, [45:11] >> right? [45:12] >> And you're on here talking to me about [45:14] what some numbers are doing. I can't do [45:18] that. No, no, [45:22] >> no. Andre 3000 put that flute album out [45:25] for a lot of reasons. I need to focus on [45:27] that. [45:28] >> I mean, for reasons. [45:30] >> I need a name. [45:31] >> That took over the airwaves. [45:33] that that salt and pepper beard. [45:36] >> Hey, [45:38] I need to focus on that. [45:40] >> Need a day off. [45:41] >> I need a day. [45:43] >> Um, [45:46] they're so funny. They're so funny. [45:49] [laughter] I don't know how you chose [45:50] between I'm so happy you didn't force [45:52] yourself to choose between like, I'm [45:53] going to do poetry. Am I going to do [45:55] comedy? And you're just like, guess [45:57] what? I'm doing it all. I'm gonna mash [46:00] it all together into one thing that I [46:02] do. And it it just the the borders of it [46:06] all are so porous and they it just [46:08] weaves in and out of [46:11] drama and comedy and poetry and you've [46:14] just you're your own thing. You're just [46:17] I don't know anybody exactly like you. I [46:20] don't know an artist who has your ex [46:22] your exact expression in the world. [46:26] You've just you're you. You're so [46:28] uniquely you in a way that is so amazing [46:32] to watch, so entertaining and moving and [46:36] funny and serious and important. And I'm [46:40] just [46:42] grateful that you moved out of an [46:46] environment that was not built for you [46:49] and is never going to be. [46:51] >> It matter how long you stay there until [46:53] you're dead. You could stay there till [46:54] you're dead. [46:55] um and be running up against the same [46:58] walls and the same ceilings. And [47:02] I'm I'm proud of you for the courage it [47:05] took to step away before you had a new [47:07] boat built. I mean, you didn't have a [47:10] new ship immediately to set a shore, to [47:14] set sail with, and you did it anyway. [47:17] And [47:18] it's awesome to watch your career [47:24] just flourish. [47:26] When you were on Tracy's thing, I texted [47:28] you. I was like, are you joking me right [47:30] now? This cannot. Is this happening? [47:33] Like, [47:34] >> yeah, [47:34] >> the road just rose up to meet you in [47:36] ways that you deserve. [47:38] >> That you really, really deserve. Um, I'd [47:41] love for you to have the last word here [47:46] on Never Tell a Black Girl. [47:50] It's such a It's such a love letter. [47:53] It's so It's so loving. It's so loving [47:56] to black women. It is so loving to your [47:59] best friend. It's so loving to your mom [48:01] and grandma. Like it just is [48:06] I feel like I just got to [48:09] peek into the window of this beautiful [48:12] world that you came from that raised you [48:15] that you've built with your choice um as [48:18] an adult. So when when somebody is [48:22] holding this book in their hands, what [48:25] are you just hoping that they experience [48:28] when they kind of close that last page? [48:32] I think my biggest hope is that this [48:36] little place under the cheekbones is [48:39] just like a little tender. [48:41] >> That's good. THAT'S SO GOOD. AMINA, [48:45] that's such a good answer. [48:47] >> [laughter] [48:47] >> It's like how when you like you we all [48:49] have a friend who makes us laugh laugh [48:53] like even in our worst day like you have [48:55] that homie that you know if you went to [48:58] coffee if they came to your living room [49:00] your cheeks are just like a little sore [49:02] because you laughed you smiled so long [49:06] like you did not plan on doing that you [49:07] cried a little laughing. I I hope people [49:11] have a little bit of that um tenderness [49:13] here. And I also hope that people like [49:17] feel like and are reminded that our [49:20] stories and our memories are important [49:23] >> that those things matter that finding [49:26] those pockets of joy even in our [49:30] upbringing even in the ways in that our [49:32] upbringing was not what we hoped it [49:34] could have been. You know, there are [49:36] some places to say, I can look back on [49:39] that and say, now why do the girls have [49:41] to cover their bathing suits up with a [49:43] t-shirt? What is a you know, like our [49:46] memories are important to us because [49:49] they are telling us something about our [49:51] futures, about our present. Our stories [49:53] are important whether we write them or [49:55] whether we turn to someone close to us [49:57] and tell that story to them. I hope that [50:00] this book um is that for people and for [50:03] black women who read this. I hope it's [50:05] just like somebody gave you a gift [50:07] basket of joy. [50:08] >> Yeah. [50:08] >> Right. When you needed it. Um joy is a [50:11] part of how we survive. It's a part of [50:13] how we resist. And that is what I was [50:16] hoping for my black woman readers in [50:18] particular. [50:19] >> Amazing. Bravo. Uh, for everyone [50:21] wondering if you're going to have that [50:22] cheek pain, you're going to also [50:25] experience such information in Amina's [50:28] book as um, Real Housewives, Real [50:31] Housewives of Atlanta, Obby. Um, [50:34] horseback riding. It's a thing. It's a [50:37] situation. [50:37] >> Never going to do it. Never going to do [50:38] it again, people. It's not going to [50:42] >> um, [50:43] one time, this is back in my days of [50:47] when I was still in that old world. I [50:50] was at a I don't know what to say. I was [50:53] at a horse ranch and it was with like [50:56] >> like a bunch of famous Christian white [50:59] people and [51:02] um I had not been horseback riding in I [51:05] don't know. I'm grown. Like what? I [51:07] don't know when. And so we're like going [51:10] to be on our horses and and there's a [51:12] big big big big man pastor big everybody [51:16] knows him and he's at the he's on the [51:18] horseback trail with all of us and um we [51:23] start the horseback riding it's hit and [51:26] I'm like oh I'm going to pee my [51:28] pants. um uh you don't understand how it [51:31] hits so hard people if you haven't been [51:33] on a horse in a while. [51:35] >> And I'm like I can't I am going to pee [51:37] in my pants. And so at one point I have [51:39] to like holler up to the horse leader or [51:42] whatever the person is who's leading us [51:44] around [51:45] >> leader. I need to and I had to get off [51:48] my horse and go behind a bush and pull [51:51] my pants down and pee on the side of the [51:54] trail with the pastor. I'm like don't [51:56] look this direction. And I just want to [51:59] say same. I'm not getting back on a [52:01] horse. So, um, no, we're not doing it. [52:04] Um, [52:06] >> uh, couple friends, um, why every couple [52:09] needs two bathrooms says I [52:12] say it, say it, say all the words of it. [52:15] I have a partner. [52:17] >> Be honest about that. We're not [52:19] >> I'm flying this very day to Nashville to [52:21] be with Tyler and um I'm there for like [52:25] the next five or six or seven days or [52:26] something and it's just the one [52:29] bathroom. It's devastating. [52:32] >> Okay, [52:33] >> thanks. [52:34] >> Okay, [52:34] >> if you could just think of me. [52:36] >> Okay, I I'm You know what? I'm going to [52:38] light a candle. [52:39] >> Thank you. It's so devastating. [52:40] >> Yeah. [52:41] >> Um we do we you're going to hear about [52:43] the titties as you should. Judy Bloom. [52:46] It's just in there. So [52:49] no, no stone was left unturned and it is [52:53] a mar. It is immaculate. You're so good [52:55] at this. You're so good at what you're [52:57] good at. It's so fun. [52:59] >> Um okay. Is there a place that you're [53:02] sending people to get your book? [53:05] >> I am telling the people bookshop is a [53:08] wonderful place to start because I love [53:10] for folks to support our indie [53:12] bookstores. Support our blackowned [53:14] bookstores as best as you can. It is [53:17] available at all the book sellers also [53:19] the library people times are tight okay [53:22] this book is also available at the [53:25] library also I want to make a small [53:27] mention about the audio book I did read [53:29] the audio book myself because no one is [53:31] reading my business [53:33] >> of course [53:33] >> but me first of all second of all the [53:37] audio book does have these poems in it [53:40] with a black girl audience if you are a [53:42] person who loves audiobooks my mother my [53:46] sister, her wife, my girlfriends. I [53:50] asked them to come in the studio with me [53:52] and be my black girl audience for these [53:54] poems. [53:55] >> I have goosebumps. [53:56] >> So when you Oh, yeah. [53:57] >> So like they're hollering back at you. [53:59] >> Oh yes. They're like you're hearing it. [54:02] It's [54:02] >> That is such a good idea. [54:05] [sighs and gasps] [54:06] >> That is so great, Amina. I mean, you're [54:09] a spoken word poet, so obviously you've [54:11] got audio at the forefront of your mind. [54:13] You know how to create. That is so [54:16] clever. Okay, so get it where get it. [54:20] Get it, girl. Everybody listening, just [54:23] get it. You can get it in the library. [54:24] You can get a hard copy in a bookstore. [54:27] You can get the audio. You can get them [54:28] all. Um, [54:31] >> I love you. I'm proud of you. I'm happy [54:33] that you're my friend. Um, I learned [54:36] from you and I [54:38] >> am inspired by you and I would like for [54:41] you to come back to the show before [54:42] 2035. [54:44] Okay. Cuz yeah, [54:46] >> about the gap. [54:48] >> That was almost a decade. Like, yeah, [54:50] >> I don't know what we're doing. So, we're [54:51] going to do better this time. [54:52] >> We're going to work on that. [54:53] >> Okay. Yeah. [54:54] >> Love you. [54:55] >> Love you. [55:03] All right, guys. Um, [55:06] so many good takeaways here. So many [55:10] good ones. And [55:14] you'll you would love this book and you [55:16] should race to get it. If you go over to [55:18] jenhhatmaker.com [55:20] under the podcast tab, I'm going to have [55:23] this all the show notes from this [55:26] episode. I'll have the link if you want [55:27] to share it and then I'll have links to [55:29] all Amina all of Amina's stuff including [55:31] her socials because you're going to want [55:33] to follow her online for sure. Um, and [55:36] you can also leave us a message over [55:37] there. Anything you'd like to say or um [55:40] ask or respond to, there is a send [55:43] voicemail button and we listen to every [55:44] single one that you leave. Thanks for [55:47] joining us today. Um, we have more [55:50] incredible [55:52] um guests and episodes coming up and I'm [55:55] looking forward to every single one of [55:57] them. You guys make sure you are [55:59] subscribing to the show and you won't [56:01] miss any of them. All right, see you [56:03] next week.  ## Highlights - Every time you reenter, it retraumatizes you. - Note: 📚 Reentering a harmful space compounds its harm · - Said by a Black-women's-retreat healing circle facilitator to Brown in early 2019, naming the specific damage of her repeated professional re-entry into white evangelical spaces. - Functions as the direct catalyst for her exit — the diagnosis, not just the feeling, was what moved her to act. · #atom/literature/h1 - You know that's almost 45 minutes of work... you need to do sets. Stop letting them book you like that. - Note: 📚 Fragmented one-poem bookings undersell a performer's full day · - Advice from performer/comedian Susan Isaacs, who identified that Brown was being booked for one poem per session across a multi-day conference — effectively donating labor while appearing "booked." - First concrete boundary Brown set before the larger industry exit; generalizes to any… · #atom/literature/h2 - I'm not ready to write about that... and I don't owe it to anyone. - Note: 📚 Comedic framing lets a memoirist withhold without dishonesty · - Brown describing the freedom the comedic-essay format gave her, in contrast to her second book, where reader expectations at signings demanded ongoing disclosure of personal pain. - Ties to her agent's instruction to "let your brain be random" rather than force a redemptive through-line. · #atom/literature/h3 - External witnesses catalyze exits from harmful communities - Note: [[Boundary-setting]] — because extends · - [[Boundary-setting]] — because extends · #atom/zettel/z1 - Compare Brown's account to Austin Channing Brown's parallel exit narrative from white evangelical spaces — cross-reference for a piece on institutional proximity vs. shared values. #articleseed - Note: ✏️ Fleeting capture #atom/fleeting/f1 - Look into whether WordPress/OSS conference speaker booking practices have an equivalent "one-slot-across-three-days" underpayment pattern worth auditing. #xref - Note: ✏️ Fleeting capture #atom/fleeting/f2