Kendra: [00:00:00] The views shared in this episode represent Kelli and Kendra, not our mamas, partners, church, job, or sponsors.

Kelli: Hi y'all. This is Kelli King Jackson and Kendra Ross, and welcome to this episode of our podcast, This Woman is Swear. We are glad to have you here. So, what was poppin in our group chat this week? 

Kendra: Well 

Kelli: I mean, go ahead. 

Kendra: I'm sorry. I'm gonna start with a little recency bias. Our good, our good girlfriend, Kya.

sent us a short video of like somebody getting a tattoo on their thighs. And I was like, who's behind him I'm looking at? Um, and I was just, and then she was like, I was like, is this your butt I'm looking at? And she was like, yes, girl. I said, Oh girl. [00:01:00] I mean, you still got booty, but you shrunk. And, you know, we were just talking about her, you know, weight loss journey.

And I was just proud of her because, you know, she's been on this for a while and she's been very committed to it. And we, I asked her instead of asking, saying how good she looked. I wanted to talk about how she felt and she says she feels great and she's not as achy. And, um, she doesn't even pay attention to what she looks like until she realizes something is too big when she tries it on.

So I was inspired by it, but I was also laughing because I'm like, who just randomly sends somebody's butt, you know, being tattooed. But that's, that's typical of our group chat. 

Kelli: Yes. And you know, congrats because when you are a woman of a certain age. The numbers don't move like they used to move. 

Kendra: Yes. Yes.

So, yeah, that was, that was a little serendipitous moment today. And, um, 

Kelli: yeah. 

Kendra: So, hi, Kya. Shout you out. We can't wait to have you back on again. Hey, 

Kelli: Kya. Yes. Yes. Um, you know, uh, interesting one was in my group chat. [00:02:00] So, um, the mayor of Birmingham, who is a young black man. Um, I had a chance to meet him, um, several years back when I was there for a meeting.

Um, he's kind of like a hip hop mayor and I put all the air quotes. You sound like somebody's 

Kendra: old grandma. I'm sorry. 

Kelli: Go 

Kendra: ahead. But 

Kelli: his Instagram has been. Wow. Oh, it's been so wild in an interesting way. So he is really amped up about the increase in crime in Birmingham. And so he been calling out the homies on his Instagram.

He was like, we coming for you. Like he's been wild. And so it's been interesting in the comments. where you have some people saying thank you because it's not snitching because we're protecting our community and we're protecting our children and then you got the people who are like don't snitch but then you have the people [00:03:00] who are like this feels very like centrist democrat tough on crime so i've been really intrigued by different perspectives of black folks because i think most folks When they think about us, they think about us as a monolith, and his chat is very clear.

That is not true. 

Kendra: Okay. I feel like I've said, maybe, did you send me a screenshot? I feel like somebody has been sending me screenshots and I didn't know who, I wasn't paying attention to who it was, but yeah, that's, that's definitely an interesting place to think from. Like, yeah, people think it's centrist and everything, but like, he's speaking about what he knows if he's from there and if he's calling out homies by name.

Listen, 

Kelli: what he said was since some of y'all want to ride around with sticks with switches on them, let's go ahead and sit you down with 10 years federal time. That was the least. I think 

Kendra: I, I think I might've read that one. And I didn't know what that 

Kelli: was referencing. Tell your sons and grandsons that [00:04:00] Switches are legal and simple possession will get them an automatic federal business sentence.

It was just really fascinating because one he's using urban language because somebody was like Like a switch like from slavery That's what I would have thought if I didn't you know have context clues. Yeah, and then you know people were explaining how you um I want to say adjust, but how you, uh, illegally change, um, weapons to make them, um, more deadly.

But anyway, so yeah, he been, he been like in your face, like I'm not playing with y'all in these streets and I feel torn, right? Like as an advocate, I also understand how our young people get caught up, right? Like I get it. Um, and then as a parent, I'm like, I'm worried about my kids or my grandkids. Like it just, it feels very conflicting, but I have not seen someone of his age, cause he's younger than us to be so [00:05:00] vocal in this way about the consequences of, of actions.

Um, so yeah, that, that really caught my attention. I'm, I'm paying attention to his, his IG. 

Kendra: Yeah. It's interesting, you know, particularly in this political moment ahead of the election in November, it feels politics feels weird. I mean, it always feels weird around this time, but it's like, it's always, when we get to this point, it's always like, look, I have so many political and social views, but right now I'm just trying to like, Not go towards.

absolute disaster in the end of the world. So it's really hard to be able to like think deeply about things. So nuance like that. Um, but I think it's important that we do, because we have to remember that, like we have a job to do in November, but. We still got to live our lives every day and we, you know, as contrary to popular belief, the whole world is not going to change in 24 hours.

We still got to live day to day. And like people should not feel for their lives in their own communities. And even though the people in those cars riding around with their switches, you know, are part of [00:06:00] that community too. If they're terrorizing the community, I can see like, especially when it's his job to like keep people safe.

Um, I can see why, you know, that would be, we can't just, we can't just be like, uh, Immediately call him, you know, top cop, how they did Kamala Harris, you know, has to have a more nuanced conversation at the same time is wild to be like from the, from the hood and be like, talking about putting people in federal prison.

So it's just, yes, there's a lot of time and I'm gonna stay out of it right now. Cause I don't live there and I don't know. 

Kelli: He wrapped it up with Alexa play two chains fence watching. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna let you drop your mic and I'm gonna go sit down. Cause The mayor of Birmingham has something to say.

Um, and you know, I am concerned about our kids, right? Like it's not, I was talking to someone the other day about the fact that, you know, when we were teenagers, there were jobs that kids had. Like you had a paper route or you worked at the grocery store, all those things. [00:07:00] Those jobs don't exist for our children anymore.

And so what, what, what are we to do? Like, we're in the hot heat of summer in a horrible economy. And we think that that's not going to have a negative consequence on our children. Like, 

Kendra: no. And here in Pittsburgh. Kids, particularly black and brown kids can't go nowhere. Like my niece, you know, who's now 16, but a few months ago when she was 15, was in the mall with her friends.

And like, there's a lot of malls around here now that if you're a certain age, if you're a teenager, you can only be in the mall with an adult at certain times. And then she was there with some friends and they weren't bothering her, but they randomly chose these black dudes. That's who she actually knew.

They was like trying to kick him out of the mall. She was like, well, why are you bothering them? And they was trying to bark at her. So my best friend, who is a crazy mama, had to roll up on him and go off on the mall. People, [00:08:00] they can't go to the movies. They can't do nothing. And granted, I'm not saying that things don't occur because people have, 

they've 

been shooting that ball before, but like, they are clearly targeting our children.

Um, 

and they specifically, I think, targeting young black men if they see them in those, in those spaces. So it's, it's a hard time and there's not a lot for them. So I, my whole like response to all this is that like, we've got to be as black folks have to be able to have more nuanced conversations about all this.

We can't automatically judge somebody to the, for their response, especially if we're not in there exactly in their shoes, but we have to be able to critique each other and be like, look, Yeah. You know, because there's a, there's a lot to think about because folks are terrorized in like the, the crime rates and the shootings and the, the car theft, all that stuff has gone up in a lot of places since the pandemic.

So that's a reality we have to, we have to wrestle with at the same time. We don't want all our babies in prison. So 

Kelli: yeah. I mean, it feels like we're going back to the eighties and nineties, [00:09:00] which terrifies me, right? We lived in Brooklyn in the early nineties, like, or mid nineties. That was not, that was not a good.

Good situation. I mean, I remember, um, they, because that was when people were still using crack. So there were still crack vials on the ground. And remember the little drug dealer used to walk us. Cause I was like, I'm talking to all the homies. 

Kendra: Wait, what drug dealer used to walk us? 

Kelli: There used to be a young, uh, young guy who we on the corner where we used to get the fried chicken wings.

Kendra: That sounds vaguely familiar, but I, I don't, but go ahead. 

Kelli: And I, we would just kind of be chit chatting, but I was like, yeah, we gon chat cause I need to make sure I make it to the house. And we only lived a block from the train, but you know, like, we was out. That's when Clinton 

Kendra: Hill was Clinton 

Kelli: Hills.

People 

Kendra: don't know about Clinton Hills. They still have No they don't. Like, like, You know, people look at Clinton Hill now. I'm like, this is the Clinton Hill Biggie was talking about? Well, Biggie used to call it Bed Stuy because technically part of Clinton Hill was Bed Stuy at that time. And I'm like, yeah, we lived in Biggie's [00:10:00] Clinton Hill's Bed Stuy.

Like, literally, we used to go out of our back door and he lived right there on St. James. 

Kelli: Yep. But yeah, I mean, I just don't want us to, I don't want us to go back and We, we know what it was like, um, watching our friends disappear, right? Friends getting shot, friends going to jail, like, Yeah, I just want something better for them.

Kendra: I remember the first time I went to a funeral of somebody I was, I grew up with from church. He got killed over a girl saying, and, and I don't even think he was really messing with the girl. I think it might've been like just some misunderstanding. Somebody just rolled up on his porch and like shot him.

That was my boy since like elementary school. It was wild. I was like, Oh, this is like normal life. Like people be watching, you know, boys in the hood and, um, menace to society and all that stuff. And [00:11:00] people like, and like, I mean, I wasn't living in South Central on the set, but like had very similar experiences in terms of just losing folks at a young age to foolishness.

So you're right. I do think a lot of it, people, a lot of times like, Oh, things are worse than ever been. I'm like, no, things are just documented differently. Like we know what's going on at all times now, but there was stuff going on back then. You just, you were privileged to not know about, yeah, for real. I was thinking about, you know, I forgot the young lady's name in Illinois that was killed by the police.

And I'm just like. How many, every time I see something like that come up, you know, obviously it's not big news like it was during black lives matter. Um, which is sad. So I had to remind myself, girl, go ahead and repost this on your stories because people need to know. But like, I think about how many, how much of this stuff happened when we were like young teenagers or young adults and we just didn't know.

And for some people they're like, Oh, it just, these things just started happening. Like, no, I'm sure [00:12:00] this happened probably even more regularly than we would ever know. But there was no documentation. So there's like, obviously positives or positive in the sense that at least we know, so we can react to it and a lot of negatives to like having access to so much information so readily, because it feels like we, you would think this would be a time that we just.

It's time of clarity because we know so much, but actually it's the information overload and people don't even know what to believe anymore. People who I thought were smart are saying wild things about who they're going to vote for and why they're going to vote for them. And yeah, so apparently there's a same sex couple in the middle of my block.

But there's a new, freshly, newly minted Trump sign in the, um, yard to come. There was always one lady that had Trump signs, but nobody pays her any attention. But there's a house like five, five doors down after the house. I was going to try to buy before I bought the house, like before I bought this one, but they didn't want to sell to no black lady.

But that's another story for another time. Anyway, the people who lived there, I didn't realize it was a same sex couple. It was two women. But Greg said he knows that. And we [00:13:00] asked how he knows. He's like, trust me, I know the tea. Anyway, the two, these two women have a Trump sign in their front yard. And I'm like, Hmm.

Make this make sense. He really don't mess with y'all, but okay. Sorry. Go ahead. 

Kelli: Wow. Yeah. I mean, and the reasons that people are just excusing this toxic human being president is just. bananas. I mean, I, whether it's the church people who say they don't care what he's done, the business people who say, and everybody for different interests, right?

So the church people say they don't care what he's done as long as he, um, outlaws abortion nationwide, they're down with him. And then you got the business people who say, yeah, we know he's an asshole, but you know, we're concerned about the economy. And then it's just, and now you've got the entertainer.

It's just absolutely wild that On a public stage, [00:14:00] we continue to give white men a pass for every awful, horrible thing that they do. Um, including the, the person who shot him. I don't hear nothing about this man. And I'm just like, What if a black man had shot him? We would be on a continuous loop of his childhood, his high school graduation picture, like school records.

But we just continue as a country to default to white men as the fixer of all the things. bananas. 

Kendra: Yeah, I live in it. So, you know, Pittsburgh is a very interesting place. Cause it's like the city is like squarely democratic, like, and it has been for years. We're a union town. We are very democratic, but our County is not County is, is, and Butler, even though Butler is the next County over Butler is like Trump country.

Like That's why he was there. If you drive through [00:15:00] Butler, it's like, Oh, these people worship the ground he walks on. I remember after the last time he was in office, I drove through Trump, uh, uh, I was about to say I drove through Trump country. I drove through Butler on the way to a farm I was going to.

And when I tell you, it looked like he was campaigning because every single farm, everything had Trump merch. They were selling merch and stuff as if he was like campaigning. So it's wild out there. Um, but anyway, yeah, but in Pittsburgh, I guess squarely Democratic, but it's very like old school. Like, you know, they give Summer Lee a run for her money cause she's from, you know, from here.

They're like very center. Some of them is a little Republican y. And quite frankly, In many ways, the democratic party is what the Republican party was like certain years ago here. You know, 

Kelli: can you say that again? 

Kendra: I mean, you don't, I ain't trying to get in trouble or nothing. Cause this is my city. I got to live here.

And I technically I'm a government official, so I have to be careful about what I say. I'm an [00:16:00]official of the state of Pennsylvania. I have two, I hold two kind of official.

Kelli: I'm sorry. I know you said that in the past, but I've just really, I think reflecting on what that means. 

Kendra: I mean, I can have my, my beliefs.

I'm not saying anything about my state or my region. I'm just saying the truth is that the political parties. Yeah. So, uh, and yet I, and yet similar to you, I love my city for all his faults. I'm kind of on my James Baldwin where I'm like, it's because I love her that I critique her so much that like Pittsburgh is A, uh, is a very white, it's one of the whitest metropolitan areas in the, in the country.

Very white, um, very, has a blue collar past, but has reinvented itself in the, specifically in the city of Pittsburgh through like robotics and tech and, and, uh, [00:17:00] the medical field. Cause UPMC is, is a mammoth. Um, but we are who we are. We're complicated. We're complicated. Um, and I, and this sounds weird, but I'm always like, if I prefer my racist over up racist in other places, because you know, you're a racist.

I know my racist. Cause I know they still gonna like, I live near them, but I know like we're cordial. We'll still look out for each other, but I just know where we stand and uh, it is what it is. 

Kelli: I mean, you know, there's a lot of conversation. particularly after 45 was shot around the division must stop.

The division must stop. And I was on a call this week and was expressing my concern that, um, there are people who are causing real harm. And just saying the division must stop doesn't address that. the harms that are happening, right? And so we got into this [00:18:00] question of like, can you come together without accountability?

Yes, there are things we can all agree to disagree on, and then there are some fundamental things. That we cannot and that I am not clear how we find a path forward. One of the people I do follow on IG is he's a Christian guy who's really in pop culture and we don't have the same theology, but I appreciate his content and his, his line has been, um, we don't stand on issues.

We stand with people. Right. And so his whole thing is like, yeah, they're going to be fundamental issues that we disagree on. But as like, as a human being, there are things that still connect us. And he put up a post about praying for 45 after he was shot and like, he lost thousands of followers. Um, and it was fascinating watching people in [00:19:00] the comments be like, No, I'm not praying for him.

I ain't feeling it. I'm not doing it. No. Why should we pray for someone who's, who's caused violence? Like it was fascinating. And his whole point was, I don't have to like 45 pray for 45. And I was the, I was intrigued by the whole thing. Right. But I feel like we have this constant back and forth about like, how do we come together without a fundamental acknowledgement that there are some real harms that have to be addressed.

Right. Before that will ever happen. And that has nothing to do with. I'm a Democrat and you're a Republican, but I feel like that gets lost in the conversation. 

Kendra: Agreed. And I mean, yeah, let's, let's be very clear when I say I prefer my race over other races. Don't mean I fool with them like that. Like, I don't speak, you know, like I'm very clear on like, if, if, If your beliefs basically like don't, are not rooted in like [00:20:00] my, my humanity being equal to your humanity, I can't rock with you.

I don't care who you are. I don't care. Black, white, Puerto Rican or Haitian. So then what 

Kelli: do we, what do we come together on? 

Kendra: I mean, I, I, I know, I think I know the person you're talking about and I saw bits and stuff of the post and even if I wouldn't do something, I, I, I'm at a point in my life where I have, I have less of these like visceral reactions to things like if, if, if you want to pray for, for Donald grow right ahead.

I got, I got better things to prank, I'm sorry, but I'm not mad at you. I'm not gonna stop. I'm not gonna unfollow you. It's not like you said he was going to be BFFs with him. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, so like, because I also know where, where, I mean, I'm assuming I know, I think I know where it's coming from.

It's just like, that's what we were taught is that like, no matter what, I remember there were people who were saying, Who were upset when people were cheering on the death of bin Laden. And they were like, [00:21:00] how can you cheer on another human being's death? Well, I'm like, well, you know, like, you know, there's some extremes to this.

Right. So. 

Kelli: I mean, it's also the abolitionists who say they wouldn't want 45 to go to prison. And I'm like, wait, what? 

Kendra: Yeah. 

Kelli: Right. Like, I know I'm not an abolitionist. Cause I'm gonna tell you right now, you mess with my people. I'm gonna put you under the jail. Like, I'm very clear. Like I, I respect why people do.

I mean, I got two family members right now. I need to be writing letters too. 

Kendra: Um, 

Kelli: and, and I know what the carceral state does and to our nuance conversation from before people have to be held accountable for their actions, but in an abolitionist frame, what they talk about is accountability is not incarceration.

So he should be accountable for what he did. But prison is not that accountability. 

Kendra: And my answer to that would be like, we don't have the [00:22:00] framework for what that is right now. So when we do, I'm with you, but right now we don't, I'm not, and we have to learn how to like, the hardest part is that we have to learn how to dream and work towards what we want and recognize where we are.

And a lot of people think that you have to make choices. And my thing is like, is it better for him just to be out here while in for us? Is it better for society? No, it's not. So like sometimes. Standing on principle to an extreme, I just, it has really adverse effects. And I think people say that that's, you know, in the past, people who stood on principle to extremes or who pushed the needle, and I don't necessarily agree with that.

I feel like it's those little, um, I'm not anti radical. I love radical people, but I'm saying is like, it takes a spectrum. of folks to move things along. We need our advocates. We need our activists. We need our people who are going to keep the lights on. We don't, we need the people who feeding people in the back room.

I don't believe that one group of people [00:23:00] have led the change. I believe that as there was a spectrum of folks and that our hope is that more of the people fall to this side of the spectrum to that. And that's how we, that's how we win. 

Kelli: Anything else in the chat before we let the people go? 

Kendra: No, I'm just thinking in my head what I need to edit out so I don't get, um, kicked off my government.

I think that's enough for today. I think I'm gonna stop talking because I was about to say some other stuff and I was like, oh girl, no, you can't say that. 

Kelli: Um, what are our takeaways for our bonus episode? 

Kendra: Hmm. I think just a takeaway for me is just my need and our need to still have nuance. rich political conversations, even in these really polarizing times.

And it's hard to find a safe space for that. And also to your other point about just like, um, how do we align each with each [00:24:00] other as humans, not just based on like our political affiliation and how do we do that and maintain our own humanity are things that I'm gonna be thinking about as we, as we go back to the group chat.

I think I'm similarly thinking about the spectrum. Um, and just like, I'm thinking about who in my world. And it's in my world. And where are they on that spectrum? Um, cool. What was that? Well, we're happy that you stuck with us for this episode. Don't forget to follow us and join our group chat conversation on IG at this woman is work.

Until the next episode, we'll be in 

Kelli: peace. 

Kendra: You 

know, when you, when you came home, remember that right there, you came home and you saw a dead body on the street? 

Kelli: Nope. Block that out. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. 

Kendra: I don't know if it was dead, but somebody got [00:25:00] shot and you was walking home. I don't doubt it. Somebody got shot and you was walking up Washington Avenue and you saw it.

You didn't see him get shot, but you saw him laying there. I'm sorry to retraumatize you.