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Conversations with Coleman
The Limits of Identity with Ayishat Akanbi (Ep.14)
01:17:59
For exclusive member-only content become a CwC subscriber via https://colemanhughes.org/ In this episode, Coleman interviews Ayishat Akanbi, a Nigerian-British fashion stylist, writer, cultural commentator, and photographer. During the episode they talk about Ayishat’s background in the fashion world, why the art world is so progressive, the tension between free speech and safety, the psychology of identity politics, the psychology of apologies, the pressure to post on social media about activist causes, how to address historical wrongs, and more.
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Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. If you're hearing this, then you're on the public feed, which means you'll get episodes a week after they come out and you'll hear advertisements. You can gain access to the subscriber feed by going to ColemanHughes.org and becoming a supporter. This means you'll have access to episodes a week early, you'll never hear ads, and you'll get access to bonus Q and A episodes. You can also support me by liking and subscribing on YouTube and sharing the show with friends and family. As always, thank you so much for your support. Before I introduce today's guest, one quick note. In response to listener feedback, I'm overhauling my website to give you more options for supporting the show. I'll keep you posted when that happens. As always, thank you to those of you who support the show. And if you can't, liking and subscribing on YouTube is still a big help. Today's guest is Aisha Akonbi. Aisha is a Nigerian British fashion stylist, writer, cultural commentator, and photographer. Many of you have probably discovered her via YouTube or Twitter in the past few months. We talk about Aisha's background in the fashion world, why the art world is so progressive, the tension between free speech and safety, the psychology of identity politics, the psychology of apologies, the pressure to post on social media about activist causes, how to address historical wrongs, and more. So, without further ado, Aisha Akonbi. So I've been introduced to you recently by seeing some of your videos circulating on my Twitter feed and seeing your tweets. And I have to imagine a lot of podcast listeners, a lot of my podcast listeners have also seen you probably just in the past two or three months. I think you had a few videos that went pretty viral earlier this year, but probably to most people in this audience, they're just learning of you recently and seeing some of the really amazing, unique and inspiring content you've put out. So just let me throw some praise on you for that. I think you're a great introduction into this space. Although I'm sure you feel you've been in it for a while, I think you're kind of a new face, a new voice to some people. So before we start talking about areas of mutual interest, I just, I think, you know, many people, including myself, are curious about who you are, where you come from, and how you came to be doing the kind of work that you're doing. So if you can give people a little Bit of your background. Where are you from? Where were you born? How did you come up and sort of. How did you begin to enter this space?
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A
Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for all the kind words. I definitely feel the same about the work that you're doing. It's very necessary. My journey. So I was born in London, but I grew up in a place called Southampton, which is maybe about an hour and a half away from London, further south. And I have been working as a stylist for the last 10 years. But my entry into fashion and styling was quite atypical in the sense that it wasn't necessarily fashion that I was majorly interested in. I was interested in why people wear the things that they wear. And if people change their outfits or change their aesthetic in general, to what extent does that open and close doors? I noticed with myself, I was quite eccentric as a younger person in the way that I used to present myself. And it used to make very unlikely people interested in me. You know, they would just be eager to give me opportunities or eager to, I don't know, just treat me in a way that I didn't necessarily see other people around me, my peer groups being treated.
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B
So when you say eccentric, what do you mean? Like, how would you dress?
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A
So I was quite, you know, colorful, quite loud. You know, there was a really cringe time called New Rave in maybe like, 2008, 9, that was almost like, I don't know, a contemporary spin on 80s fashion. And I was all up on it, and it was hideous. I was doing that. I had really crazy hair at the time, or very. Or at least a lot more out there than the hair that I have now. And so, yeah, it just attracted a lot of attention, and I just wondered if I could give that to other people. So that was my entry into styling. And I think now the work that I'm doing that I find very hard to categorize because I don't always know what I'm doing. But now I think a similar question has intrigued me, which is, why do we do what we do more broadly, just in general, why do we do what we do? You know, like, why do we listen to what we listen to? Why do we vote on the ways that we do? Like, what informs those beliefs? How do we think about race and ourselves and our identity and why? And I just started answering those kind of questions out loud to myself on Twitter. I had some things happen in my life. The loss of my brother. Actually, my brother was murdered in 2012. And that really sort of took me on A psychological trip, if I'm honest, to the place where I am now, where I'm just questioning things out loud and wondering how we can be more understanding.
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B
Yeah. So talk a little bit about what the fashion world is like. You know, I'm curious, I'm always curious with artistic spaces because I come from a music background, really a jazz background, and I was at Juilliard for a little while. And I'm also, I'm always interested in how artistic spaces seem to be very uniform in their politics. They seem to have a uniformly left wing and sort of very sympathetic to identity politics kind of bent. And I've always been curious why that is. You know, for example, I can go. Why is it that I can go into virtually any museum, any art museum in the city and I can find work that is anti capitalist, but I can't find any work that's pro capitalist? It seems a little weird because I would think, I would think there's got to be one artist out there who's pro capitalism at this museum, you know, But I never do find it and I'm sort of curious about that. I've been thinking about that for a long time, I think. Do you observe that in the fashion world at all? And if so, do you have any idea why that's the case?
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A
Yeah, I think we have, maybe quite paradoxically, we have a really conformist understanding of what it means to be radical, you know, so we see radicalism and rebellion through one lens and that is generally, you know, quite sympathetic with, you know, so called marginalized people. And yeah, the idea that capitalism is responsible for every single ill that there is in the world. And I think because fashion and the art world in general sees themselves as subversive, you know, or from a counter cultural kind of background, it seems like it feels like it has a moral obligation to resist, if you like, in a certain way. But I find it very, you know, cause you're right, the fashion industry and I, to be fair, I do work in the music industry more because I tend to work with musicians more than I work with models and fashion brands. But either way, in both spaces, you're right, there is a very strong left bias. But even with having a left bias, it just seems like there or it just seems as though having a more nuanced take or approach or more complicated way of thinking about certain issues is just really not allowed. You know, I very much think artists, you know, are people who consider themselves to be the good people, you know, and the good people think and behave in a Certain way. And that's something I'm interested, like yourself, in thinking about, for one, and challenging, maybe.
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B
Yeah. I think in my experience, it's also true that there's a lot of people in the. In artistic spaces that don't agree with, you know, far left orthodoxies, but it's just that they often keep it to themselves. They don't make artwork about it. So it's. It is. It may just not be true that as a whole, the music world or the fashion world or the art world, it has a different political demographic than the world at large. It's just that people are. If people are afraid to challenge the idea that a particular minority is oppressed in a political conversation, they're twice as afraid to challenge it if they're an artist who is constantly inhabiting artistic spaces. That's sort of something that I've observed. So it's, I think, rare to see someone like yourself who is coming from an arts background and who is challenging the idea that, based on what I hear you say, that it's that you can easily divide the world politically into good people and bad people. And the good people are the ones that are focused on racism and lifting up intersectional identities and seeing the world as a competition between oppressed groups and oppressor groups. These are a lot of the things that you riff on. And it's just rare to see someone from an art space who believes what you believe or who's asking the questions at minimum, that you're asking and who also voices them. Because it's just. There's very little to be gained if you plan on remaining in the art world. To voicing these things, it seems like there's. It's all downside and no upside if you plan on staying in these spaces. So I'm just sort of speaking from, I think, experience and from knowing people in the music world there. But it's definitely refreshing to see that. And I have to imagine you get a lot of people. You know, I'm curious, do you get a lot of people from the fashion world or from the music world that say, privately I agree with you, but I. Or like, I'm interested in what you're saying, but I don't know how to broach these conversations with my other music or artist friends or. I don't know how to make work about this subject?
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A
Yeah, unfortunately, I'm getting it a lot these days, you know, including from celebrities and people who appear to be actually quite as many would call woke in some areas, you know, at least very outwardly espousing woke ideas. And they do message me and they tell me that they're interested in the things I'm saying or they even agree. But the thing. What's happened, especially in the uk, where there are far fewer voices, let's say, on race, as there are in the US at least, public voices anyway. And so these people, predominantly, let's say, who fall into certain orthodoxies, they want to be good people. And so they've listened. That's the advice that we were told these days, you have to listen, listen to people of color, and they're listening to people of color, and they're being told, this is what it is. And under this kind of worldview, you're not meant to question anything. And so when they have seen someone else who shares that identity of those that you're meant to listen to, who is saying something else, I think it's very. I think for them, it's like, I didn't know this was a thing. I didn't know this was allowed. You know, I'm even myself, I think when I first started having certain thoughts, and I think we've had a similar journey in terms of we both at one stage, were more sympathetic to the prevailing narratives that we now have. And then when I first started questioning them, even I was like, can I do this? You know, is this okay? So, yeah, I think a lot of people don't even know that it's possible. Have another view.
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B
No, that's exactly right. And you're right about. I relate to that a lot. As I. When I had John McWhorter on my podcast, I think it's the second episode, I talked about how seeing his YouTube videos when I was maybe 19 years old and going. I actually think I discovered him by going into the Columbia University library and just picking him off the shelves. And I began to read his essay collection, Authentically Black, which is an excellent. Yeah, it's really good. And actually, as I was reading it, I was like, halfway through that book, and then I took a break from class one day and ran into him in the bathroom. And I was like, you know, starstruck. But it was reading someone who was intelligent, a great writer who was black, and who was saying things that made total sense to me, but I had almost never heard anyone say, that does have an impact on you. It gives you a kind of permission to think. And sometimes that's really all that people need. It's not the case that the people you hear about in the media are so much smarter than you and that's why they've gotten where they are. That's the part of the critique of meritocracy that I very much agree with. And if you find yourself being skeptical, a lot of the smartest people I've met are people you'll never hear about. They're just living their lives privately. And often people just need to hear something questioned publicly by a person who is, who seems sane because they are sane. And that can give you all the, all the permission you need to actually think through things without just sort of digesting the lowest resolution version of the talking points that you're hearing sort of in the media. And it seems like that's at least part of what you're providing for people.
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A
Well, this is why I'm quite in support of free speech, because I think to be anti free speech is to be anti curious. And as you're saying, when you hear someone question something out loud, and especially right now, where there's not that much scope to question things beyond the talking points, the accepted narratives, it's that permission to think that can take you somewhere else. And I think if we're truly serious about overcoming some of our social issues, then we need to be able to think about these things from a range of perspectives and through a range of frameworks which we're not getting at the moment and we can't have as long as we're as hostile to free speech or speech that is alternative. Yeah, I don't think that we're going to reduce these problems anytime soon. We can't at least have open conversations.
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B
So what about safety? Some people will say, okay, free speech, for the most part, it's all well and good until your speech begins to threaten my safety. Let's say I'm a person of color or a trans person. And your speech is, if taken seriously and if widely believed, I believe it would be a threat to my physical safety, for example. A recent example of this in the United States is the Tom Cotton op ed. I don't know if you heard about this, but one of our senators wrote an op ed for the New York Times suggesting that that federal troops be shipped into cities in order to stop the rioting that was happening because local police weren't doing a good enough job. And the New York Times published it and then eventually retracted it because it got so much backlash. But without commenting on that, let's say someone, someone says, well, Tom Cotton's speech, that's an example where free speech goes too far. Because I think as a person of color, that if the troops came in and Trump, you know, and they were directed by Trump, that that would lead directly to something like a. Something close to a genocide of black people or brown people. And that speech goes too far. What do you say to that critique of free speech?
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A
Well, for one, I think our notion of unsafe is very generous at the moment, you know, and very broad. Unsafe can mean so many different things. And I think a lot of the cause of the tensions that we have in discourse at the moment is because of, you know, we're using the same language, but it has different meanings. And so I think we need to be specific when we say unsafe. And maybe it's uncomfortable or maybe undesirable, but unsafe I'm not so sure about. So if I'm honest, most of the time with most people's claims of unsafety, I'm always fairly skeptical if we're using the right term there. And let's say with this issue that you're talking about, I think sometimes we just have a really uncharitable view of our, you know, fellow humans. I think, you know, if there was truly something that could put lots of people's lives at risk, you know, and cause something like a genocide, you know, I think we should have enough trust in our humans that, you know, most people are going to push back on that. I don't think it's something that needs to be unspeakable. I don't think people, you know, I don't think the idea put forward that you were talking about in the New York Times, like, I don't think that's something that. I don't know. There just seems to be such a big jump between an idea I disagree with and death. You know, there doesn't seem to be any sort of room, you know, between those points. And so I would just say that, you know, sometimes I think we need to be less dramatic, less hyperbolic and specific. We need to be precise with our words. I don't think every idea that is counter to my own or even, you know, let's say something about, like, sexuality. I don't think if someone, let's say, didn't believe in the rights for gay people to get married in a church, I don't think that necessarily makes me unsafe. You know, I think that makes us disagree. I don't know. I may not answer it quite directly, but I just think we need to be precise with our language.
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B
Yeah. And I think the other thing there is that a lot of the reason that politics and ideas are complicated to begin with is because it's not obvious which ideas are increasing all of our safety and which ones aren't. So if we don't allow. So like, for example, the idea that we should abolish the police if we're going to obey a kind of principle that says free speech is okay up until it has a plausible chance of killing somebody, let's say that's our criterion, should we be allowed to say let's abolish the police? Because in theory, you could very easily make the argument that abolishing the police will lead to more people dying, and in America in particular, more black people dying, because black people are very overrepresented among those victims of homicide. So it's curious to me that people only pick and choose when they use the safety argument so as to bolster left wing biases as opposed to right wing ones. So my position on this is just, I'm not going to obey anyone's injunction to tell me not to speak because it's limiting someone's safety. Because often the very thing we're arguing about is whether this policy or idea is going to promote safety. So how can we figure that out if we can't? If we pretend we already know?
- [22:55]
A
Yes, exactly that. And yeah, that's a perfect way to look at it. Yeah. No, I agree, Coleman. We have to be able to have these things out loud. And, yeah, we can't know. I mean, and the thing is, as well, when it comes to being unsafe, people can do what they like with ideas. You know, you could put forward a very reasonable, sensible claim or idea for something and someone will misinterpret it and think that you were calling for violence. You know, I don't think that. I just think it's a slippery slope. And so, yeah, with, you know, unless it's the direct incitement of violence, you know, I think we should try to be somewhat more resilient there.
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B
Okay, I'm going to do something a little unconventional and just read you some of your tweets and get you to explain them. Sound good? Okay. The fixation with your identity limits your identity. What do you mean by that?
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A
So what I mean by that, and it's an idea, actually, that it jumped out at me because recommended from, I think your conversation with John McWhorter was Shelby Steelbook, and it was the contents of our character, which I read recently. And he said something that triggered that thought in me, but it seemed. I can't remember specifically what he said, but what I took from it is, let's say the more that we claim if you're a male, you're a man, and the more you cling to this idea about what a man should be, you know, what is masculine. And based on that you think about where I should go to eat, maybe like who I should date. All of these things limit what your identity could be or if you have a strong notion of what it means to be black. And let's say what it means to be black to you is always reacting to what white people do, you know, because that's how you are authentically black. Let's say that will just limit you. It will stop you from exploring so many other things that could be a lot more interesting. It will navigate what you think you should read, who you should hang out with, who you believe can understand you or empathize with you. I just think it's very limiting in that sense. The more that we are obsessed with trying to work out what being black male or woman means. Yeah, so that's what I think. I think it's very, yeah, reductive of our characters, the more sort of attached we are to them.
- [25:37]
B
I agree with all of that. But I think there's a line of pushback that could go something like this. Don't people need limits? Don't people crave limits? Don't people? I think in some sense freedom, complete freedom, having no lines within which to draw is terrifying to people. And why not go into your identity if it gives you a sense of structure in your life? If you're not, if you're not, if you find you're not able to be completely freeform, why not? Why not be? Go into your blackness, go into your gayness, go into your trans identity, whatever it is that's meaningful to you, and identify with that.
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A
I mean, there's one thing to identify with it and I think there's one thing to be obsessed with it. And I would just ask those people, I mean, you can, I mean we can all put whatever self imposed limits on ourselves that we want. And I think discipline is a helpful thing. But how fulfilling is it? I think that's all I would ask a lot of people who were, you know, who maybe teeter the line of being obsessive about their identity. Is it fulfilling? You know, do you feel more enriched? Do you feel like you are able to understand people more? Do you feel like you're having a good or at least a decent time navigating this earth? And if you feel that you're constantly paranoid, if you feel like you're constantly searching for ill intent and offense. I would probably suggest that you're not quite, you're not quite fulfilled. And in that sense I don't think there's any negatives to loosening the reins on what your identity should or could be.
- [27:35]
B
It is really interesting to me that I feel so. You're clearly a very open minded person, I think, and I always push myself to try to be open minded. I remember as a kid a lot of what I disliked about the culture of the American right was the lack of open mindedness that I perceive among people who, you know, were lived by a set of rules about, you know, how to be good, which involved being religious in America at least being Christian. And it seemed to me, regardless of any particular policies, that the left was broadly the more open minded section of the culture and the right was the more rigid and closed minded section of the culture. And over the past five years, it seems to me now just pretty unclear where I'm finding the most open minded people. It's much less predictable than I felt it was and that could have been a misperception based on the fact that I grew up in a very progressive part of the country. Still, if you're looking for people that are just open minded and sort of fluid and not trying to think rigidly and people who are playful with ideas, it's increasingly hard to find that in very culturally left wing spaces. That's at least something that I found and that's always been something that I've craved and found very exciting is people who just like playing with ideas. So I wonder if you agree with that at all, if you understand what I'm saying.
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A
No, I completely understand what you're saying. And I remember I did an interview or I did a conversation with a writer called Alain de Botton. He's a philosopher of sorts, should I say. And, or at least, you know, he's like everyday philosophy, you know, for a mainstream audience. And you know, I remember them asking like, where do you find community? And I. And that was a really hard question for me because like you, I am searching for open minded or you know, maybe quite centric even with their thinking and just don't mind to completely turn something on its head and think about it from the opposite way that we've been taught to think about it. That's really hard, you know, and I'm in, I'm entrenched in very left wing spaces. I'm only recently meeting conservatives, I think for the first time in recent years, which I feel kind of embarrassed about. But I mean, I think it is a testament to how to the bias of the art world and creative spaces. So yeah, I don't find it very much on the left very easily. Not at all. I do find when I get one on one with someone who might be like, you know, a die hard socialist or a communist, I find that I'm able to be a lot more open there. And even if they disagree, they don't necessarily smear your carrot, you know, this isn't some irredeemable like stain on your morality, whereas it is online, you know, and I think that's because everyone's watching online. So no one, no one wants to get, you know, no one wants to be left behind. But I do find that, you know, at least the conservative people that I'm getting to know and dialogue with and you know, speak with on various social media platforms, I do find that if they disagree with you, again, it's no reflection on your morality. It's just, oh, I think you're wrong. You know, that's just it. It's no more, no less. And so I think it's easier for me to have discussions about things from alternative viewpoints with people who don't identify as being on the left. They don't necessarily have to be conservatives either. You know, I meet still many apolitical people, people who are moved by, I don't know, some humanist principles that are untethered from mainstream politics.
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B
Okay, here's another tweet. Maturity is being able to hear something undesirable about your in group and view it objectively instead of defensively. What do you mean by that?
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A
Well, it seems to almost be one of the foundational problems of everything is that we cannot hear anything undesirable about a group that we belong to. And so, you know, if we think about race now, we're only willing to accept the narrative or we're only looking. We're only willing to look at the part of the story that focuses on systemic and institutional racism. You know, any of the other potential causes for a certain level of black underachievement or, you know, the lack of progress in certain areas is, you know, you're not allowed to do that, you know, because we're not allowed to acknowledge that any problem could potentially start at home. And I just think people can't, people on the left can't do that. There's people on the right who can't acknowledge more unsavoury elements of, you know, the ways many people from their camp do things feminists may not be able to tend with some of the ways that women work to make their situations just as difficult, or the ways that women are raising boys or whatever it may be. We just want to outsource blame constantly. And because of that, I think it makes conversations very stagnant. And it's just, again, it's quite anti. Curious to me. You know, I try to be of the mindset where. Because I prioritize curiosity above many things, and that has its own issues. But anyway, you know, sometimes if someone was to say something even negative about me before I get defensive, I'm just like, interesting. I wonder, you know, I wonder if this is true. And I'm more likely to interrogate it first. And I just think if we were able to look at something with more curiosity than defensiveness, I just think we'd be in a better position. But I think we can only do that if we recognize that having undesirable aspects of our communities, of our groups, doesn't make them bad. Doesn't mean that you're a wrong person. You know, it just means that, oh, here's something. He's a little texture, you know, But I think we just see everything as either good or bad.
- [34:37]
B
Yeah, I mean, that. That's something I agree with very deeply. And it seems obvious to me that you just. Like a person can have flaws and imperfections and maturity in the, In. In the case of an individual is an ability to see your own flaws and always be curious about them. You know, like if you're.
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A
If.
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B
If your significant other, if your partner says, like, hey, you have this thing that you always do, and it makes me feel bad. Your maturity in that moment is the ability to say, wait, are they right? Let me think about this. And maybe they're not, but maybe they are right. And I think we all recognize that that's true of the individual case. But when it comes to groups, it seems people are unable to do that. So, you know, for example, this is something I've talked about before. If you're a black boy in America, and, you know, this is something that everyone from Barack Obama to Jay Z has pointed out, that there is a phenomenon where if you are scholarly and you take a very deep interest in school, especially if you're at an integrated school, you are in some cases likely to be teased for acting white. And that's a problem because boys, especially boys, but girls as well, you know, you feel an enormous amount of pressure in your early teen and teen years to be cool. And if there's a added penalty or scholarly curiosity, if you have dark skin, that's going to have consequences that aren't going to be good for the long term. Right. And that's, that's something that it's very difficult to see how white people could fix. So if your politics commits you to every, you know, racial disparity, say, in education being a function of something white people have done and therefore white people can fix, then you're never going to be able to talk honestly about that problem. And, you know, Obama, I think, has gotten criticized for saying that, but I really admired him for saying it.
- [37:03]
A
Yeah, I do, too. And would you say, I mean, you know, this is me asking you a question now, but do you think that stereotype about, you know, the young black boy who's quite studious and charged that he's acting white, do you still think that's a thing? Do you think it's still quite prevalent?
- [37:20]
B
Yeah, I do. I think it just depends where you are. It depends where you are in the country. It depends what kind of school you go to. I think if you go to a school where it's almost all black and brown people, that's actually less likely to happen, it seems. This is partly based on Roland Fryer's research and lots of anecdotes, but it seems like it's more likely to happen at integrated schools, especially integrated schools where white kids are on average doing better than black kids, which is most schools. So in that context where kids are seeing and noticing that the white kids are on average more studious, getting better grades, the black kid who is as studious risks being seen as a traitor because it's easy to make a comparison or to see the similarities between him and the white kids and lump him into that category. And that could be very hurtful to be told that you're not, you're not an authentic, you know, you're not an authentic holder of your own identity. And then, you know, it's, it's, then there's an enormous pressure to dumb it down. And I have a lot of sympathy for those people, but, yeah, I do, I do think it's, it is prevalent. I don't know how prevalent it is. It's hard to measure, of course, but Roland Fryer has done probably the best research on trying to measure it.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And exactly. I can't really see we're truly going to contend with things like that. I can't see where white people would come in to help that situation.
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B
But it's also interesting because white liberals in particular are very good at pointing to problems in their own group. So, you know, the problem of racism, for example, racism itself is a kind of cultural problem. Anti black racism in particular is a cultural problem that white Americans have historically had. And part of overcoming that has been a white liberal critique of white people. And I would argue with books like White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, you know, claiming that you have to agree with whatever a black person says about race, that that is an example of that critique being taken too far. But the critique itself, viewed in the long view of American history, was valid. It was certainly, you know, it was valid to be a white liberal in 1965 saying, hey, we should be less racist. There's this racism problem. It's a problem we are perpetrating. Let's do better. Right. So that's a. That's a kind of an inward looking, self cultural critique that has happened. And it's interesting to me that many liberals will allow for that kind of critique, but won't allow for any sort of critique that black people make that is similar in the sense that it's inward looking.
- [40:53]
A
Yeah, I mean, at some points, you know, you have to wonder if there is something kinky even about the position they hold and holding themselves accountable for all of these things because they're very desperate to hold onto it. And again, I'm not sure if it's this cult of goodness complex that a lot of people seem to take on, you know, or maybe some form of persecution complex that can turn into something quite tantalizing after a while. But I always just think, you know, it's very rare in human life in general that, you know, if we're in an issue or facing some kind of problem, it's often rare that we can outsource 100% of that blame. You know, like if we do the relationship analogy again, you know, if you're in a relationship with someone and it's a bad relationship, and maybe it's often a bad relationship because of this other individual. You know, if you were to go to like a couple's therapy session, you know, you're gonna come away knowing your part in this too. You know, there's always. That's always gonna be there. It's very rare. I think that, you know, something is completely, you know, default of some external entity. So, yeah, it's. It's curious to me why we're not able to do that. You know, I think it's gonna be something very beneficial when we can do that.
- [42:19]
B
All right, here's another One of your tweets, accepting an apology you've demanded diminishes the meaning of a sorry. It is either given freely or to coddle you. What were you thinking about when you tweeted that?
- [42:34]
A
I think it was the nature of public apologies. You know, I've been thinking about public apologies and just apologizing for a long time. You know, maybe from the first time I heard someone demand me to give an apology, and I just kind of thought to myself, if you've asked for it, is it really an apology? I'm just kind. I'm just trying to, like, placate you, you know, Surely that's kind of how it read to me. And then I just thought about, yeah, isn't it interesting? Demand apology. And that's enough. You know, as soon as they give, they give us what we've literally asked for, you know, and then we feel good. And I just think that's very interesting. But when it comes to public apologies at the moment, which many people have to do, if you're speaking publicly, and especially if you're willing to say anything that doesn't fit the script, there's often. Sorry. We're often encouraged to give a public apology. But from what I observe, it never seems to go well. You know, it seems like offering a public apology is. Yeah. Almost bad advice a lot of the time. I'm maybe not saying all of the time. I'm sure there's instances where it's helpful. But the idea that you should. I don't know, I just kind of think it's coddling. I think if you've asked for one and it comes to you like someone is just giving you what you want. I think, you know, an apology, or at least when it's worthwhile, is when you don't have to ask and people show you themselves what they think is the morally sound thing to do. So, yeah, I guess I was thinking a bit about public apologies and, you know, the act of demanding one, doesn't that just by nature diminish it? Maybe not, but it's. I'm struggling with it in mind. I wouldn't demand an apology from someone. I would note that they haven't given one, and that would. I don't know, that would probably be more compelling evidence of something.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, it is. I think I'm like you in that sense. I don't know, anytime that I've demanded an apology from someone, I think if I, you know, interpersonally, I think if I've felt wronged by someone and I feel Like, I need to tell this person how they've wronged me. There's been times when I've had to do that. And they, they either offer an apology because they, they agree. They're like, holy shit. I, yeah, I shouldn't have done that. Or they don't. In which case I know where they stand. I know how they view what just happened between us. And if they offer an apology, then I feel good, and if not, then I, I rethink my relationship with this person.
- [45:14]
A
Also, an answer, you know, not giving an apology is also right. Yeah.
- [45:19]
B
But I think of someone like Louis CK I don't know if you followed the fallout of his situation, but he, I remember he offered an apology that was published in the New York Times. It was maybe two paragraphs long. And I do genuinely wonder whether it did any good for him, because the only times I've heard about his apology talked about, I've heard about. I've heard it said that it just didn't feel genuine to people. It wasn't enough. I'm not sure, you know, I read it. It seemed. It read as fairly genuine to me, but it does seem like, you know, and then you compare that to someone like Trump, who. I don't think he's ever apologized for anything in his entire life, which is its own kind of pathology in his case, I think. But it's also very effective. And I think if there is some kind of wisdom to glean from all of these cases, it's that you should, you should be willing to offer apologies when it actually, when you actually feel remorseful for what you've done, not just because you got caught, not just because. Or not just because you're. You're being dragged on social media, but because you actually agree on the substance of the issue. You see how your actions or words are wrong. You could explain in detail why they were wrong if pressed to, and you feel they were wrong enough to merit an apology. But if you don't, I think it, you know, it just doesn't make sense to give an apology because it will inevitably not seem like enough to the people demanding it. I think, you know, I think about this on the topic of reparations often. And I think there's actually been times in my life where I've heard an apology from someone and somehow it made me angrier. Like, I don't, I don't. I wonder how many people can. Can relate to this. But that's what I think of when, When I see people demanding a national apology for slavery in The US Context, you know, first there's the point that we've sort of had one already. But you know, I wonder actually, you know, it's possible to, to think you're going to enjoy an apology if you're, to think you're going to feel whole after apology and to be completely wrong about your own prediction of your own mind. And I think there's something, there's something like that going on with these historical wrongs that none of us have directly experienced, but we all sort of learn about and learn to feel angry about.
- [48:21]
A
I think the apology that a lot of people are waiting for is going to feel very underwhelming, Very underwhelming. I don't think it's going to give closure. I don't think it's going to give the kind of closure that, you know, one may hope to receive. Yeah, I'm similar to you there. I think for me, like apologizing about those types of things, those historical wrongdoings. I don't know, it's just, it's just fairly. And I, and I can understand that maybe just my temperament is different, but I fail to not read it as, you know, just empty symbolism. You know, I can't, I fail to take something very meaningful from it.
- [49:09]
B
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, if you actually picture, you know, some politicians today, it would have to be in America, it'd have to be white politicians apologizing for slavery. I honestly, you know, what it is, is I know that they're only apologizing for it because a culturally powerful contingent of the activist American left has demanded it. I know that they didn't, they weren't waking up 10 years ago feeling guilty about slavery. I know they don't give a shit at bottom and I know they're only doing it to save face. They're thinking about their next election, whatever it is. So it can't possibly feel. And that's me, that's someone who's more sympathetic probably to white people en masse than the activists demanding the reparations to begin with. So how will they feel when they see a white politician getting up there saying we're so sorry about slavery. It's the original sin and we genuinely feel, we hope that this apology is accepted. They're going to see that person as totally disingenuous and they're going to get, they're going to get more angry probably because they're going to think, really, you think you can get off with a bullshit half ass apology like that? But it's paradoxical because they're the very people that are demanding the apology to begin with.
- [50:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. I just think a lot of the time, I mean, and you know, this is me, my very amateur psychoanalysis, but it just feels like people are clearly in pain about various things and they are sometimes very misguided in where they're aiming that, you know, and so often it feels to me that they're targeting things, people that can never truly, you know, give them what it is that they're looking for, this closure or this, an awakened sense of, you know, positive esteem or something like that. It just seems like, yeah, I think a lot of people can often think that what they want is what they want, but it often is not. Yeah, something like that. I don't, Yeah, I just, I fail to see how it's going to bring those who are demanding it anything beneficial and even, let's say even with just maybe a lot of white help in particular in terms of fight against racism, as it's called. You know, I think if you allow white people to do too much, then you know, that's also called superiority complex. They call that a superiority complex. But if they don't do anything and they're just kind of living their lives, you know, not necessarily hateful or anything like that, but just carrying on, then they're complicit, you know. And so it seems that, you know, the activist space, or at least the mainstream activist space, especially in the US it seems like it's created a lose, lose situation, you know, for many people involved.
- [52:32]
B
Yeah, I know this is a, I don't know, this is probably a very taboo opinion to some people, but I just can't help but feel it in the past two or three months that I have sympathy for white people who have no idea what to do, you know, because in the wake, I don't know if it was similar to this in the uk, I'm curious, but in the wake of George Floyd, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, there was a month, I would say, where how you dealt with that news event on Instagram was a genuine full time job for people and it was a full time job for white people. And what that, what that meant was how much do you post about it? Do you post about it? And you know, and if you don't post about it, I've heard from friends of mine who said they lost followers just because they didn't post anything.
- [53:45]
A
Right.
- [53:45]
B
And to. This will seem crazy to some people that I care about this, but it's such A hype phenomenon, because In America, about 50 people get killed unarmed by the cops every year. Thereabouts. Could be a little higher. Of all races. Yeah, the biggest number of those will be white. I think last year, a little over 20 of those were black and a somewhat higher number were white. And some of those are justified killings. Some of them, the cop deserves to be in prison and everything in between. So it's hard to generalize about all of these cases and have the same feeling towards all of them. But the idea that this particular one, that if you don't post something on social media about this one that we've arbitrarily chosen to care about, even though, you know, a white guy died the same exact way in 2016 and none of you cared or heard about his name, if you don't post about this one, and if you don't say exactly what we want you to say, you're a horrible human being. You're a bad person at your core. So this is a problem that, you know, I think millions of white people, probably Asians as well, and to some extent Hispanics, have had to deal with in the past two months in America. But if you're black, it doesn't matter. Like, post or don't post anything you feel, you know, as long as you don't, you know, sound like Coleman Hughes. Anything you post or feel is valid because you're black and you, you know, post as much as you want, post as little as you want. If you feel you need to take a break from social media, it's totally okay. If you want to be posting all the time, that's totally okay, too. But if you're white, it's like you post. If you're posting too much, then you're drawing too much attention to yourself and making it about you. And truly, anything you do is going to be wrong. Right?
- [55:58]
A
Yeah. I mean, and this is also probably a taboo position or opinion to suggest. But, you know, I often think that many people, more than not, are more committed to the project of making white people feel guilty than any kind of liberation of black people. And at least as far as the racial discussion goes, I'm not bothered about what white people do or don't do. That really isn't my concern. I'm concerned about what black people do, don't do, and how we see ourselves. Maybe more importantly, how we see ourselves and how we think about our lives. But I think when you are committed to the project of making white people feel guilty, which is very lucrative, that's becoming an industry of its own. Yeah, I think it's a full time job holding them to account, making sure that they do everything that you ask them to do. And if they make a mistake, a very human, genuine mistake that we can all see, you will demean them for it, you know, and make them feel terrible. That month was so hard for me, you know, even being in the uk, it was the exact same, you know, and so, you know, police killings happen here far less. Which isn't to say that, you know, people haven't been murdered in police custody, but for one, you know, we don't walk around with guns. Like, our police are often unarmed. So it's very rare that, you know, someone's ever shot or killed in cold blood in the streets by a police officer here, white or black. And all of a sudden I remember around Instagram, some people I know in fashion who, you know, they're black, but generally the kinds of people who do not care about race and racism, that's a boring, conscious conversation, you know, so, yeah, these people aren't, you know, far from what anyone would consider woke or activist like. And all of a sudden those very same people are saying, I'm scared to leave the house. You know, I can't leave the house. I'm scared to leave the house because I'm scared to have an interaction with the police. I'm thinking what every white person that I know, you know, is posting a black square. And I couldn't help but feel condescended and patronized from every corner, you know, because it felt like this whole apology situation that I mentioned where, you know, is something valid or even meaningful if it's only being done because I've asked for it, you know, and especially as something as, you know, like on social media, it's not like we're doing actually much in the physical world. And it was really, really difficult for me because it felt, I mean, you know, I guess to some degree I've always understood, or at least understood for a long time that it's easier to go with the crowd in life. You know, putting, you know, sticking your neck out with a different way of seeing things has its consequences and many of them can be negative. But to see it, to truly, you know, to have this palpable visual representation of how much people are not willing to think and how scared people are and fearful was terrifying to me. It was genuinely terrifying. I think I had one night where I genuinely, I think I, you know, tears came to my eyes because I was so frustrated by the whole thing. You know, and in an instance, just kind of this international projection of victimhood onto every black person. You know, I was speaking to white people online, and sometimes I was taking a while to get back just because I'm like that, or I was doing something. And then they would come back, you know, just after the hello, how are you? And they'd be like, oh, my God, of course I can't ask you how you are, you know, how insensitive of me. And I'm just like, you know, people were acting like George Floyd was my father. You know, like I had, you know, my actual father pass away. And people weren't as forthcoming. No one was. My actual dad passed away. And so it's. It's. It was scary to me, and I was desperately looking for a white friend who hadn't posted it, because I knew that. And obviously I didn't think that white person would. Was racist, but I wanted to know that someone, you know, hadn't felt the need to succumb to this collective international peer pressure.
- [60:34]
B
Yeah. And there. There's something. There's a really strange assumption there, which is that if you saw the George Floyd video and you're black, that by definition it hurt you more than if you were white seeing the same video. Like, there's some assumption that a white person couldn't have seen that and felt just as aggrieved and angry and disgusted. Right. So that white people need to, en masse, reach out to their black friend and say, how are you? Rather than, you know, in theory, everyone reaching out to everyone and saying, did you see this video? Wow, this is. This really affected me. And if it did affect you, then it. Then it did. But it just. It did seem there was a strange assumption that empathy and solidarity only happens or happens much more within race. And I'm not sure that that's true at this point in history. I'm not sure it's true.
- [61:30]
A
No, I don't think it is. No. I mean, I know myself and many other black people who obviously watched the video and were more horrified, but I can't say I was traumatized by it. Not going to say that. That's just not true, you know, and, you know, I saw memes and advice at the time saying to white people, because there was so much advice to white people, you know, around this time. And, you know, I saw something saying, reach out to your black friends. I saw other things saying, don't reach out to your black friends. Don't talk to any of your black friends. Don't talk to black people for the rest of the month. You know, I saw things like this. I saw people replying back to emails where they were given opportunities. Kind of like just pouncing on these people and talking about like, how dare you? Do you not know what's happened? You know, like, I'm traumatized. Or, you know, I seen bounce back messages, emails from people saying, you know, I'm out of office because I'm traumatized because of this situation. And I, you know, I don't know. I mean, I don't think that we do feel, generally speaking, should I say, I don't feel that we see something happen to someone black and because they're black, we all kind of feel this unanimous pain. That's not what I understand. But there was something very curious about the George Floyd situation. I'm not sure why it was that one in particular that set in motion everything that happened.
- [62:59]
B
I think it was partly because there was something about the video. Well, I think it's partly because of coronavirus. Everyone is at home and watching more news and more social media and people are out of work and they're frustrated and they're antsy. And the idea of a protest is way more appealing if you haven't left your house in three months than if you're sort of out and about going to school, going to job, and you have to interrupt your life to go to a protest rather than the protest is probably the most exciting thing you've done in the past month. So I think that was a big part of it. But yeah, it's, you know, you're right to note that a lot of the advice, it wasn't advice, it was demands. A lot of the demands given to white people were directly contradictory. And all of the demands are said as if, you know, the actions of a white person on social media are directly preventing more black people from getting killed by the cops. It's like as if there's a connection between what you do or don't post on social media. It's as if, you know, the future of racism depends on your obeying the advice from or the demand of an activist. And if you don't post, you are thought to be, you know, you are the knee on George Floyd's neck.
- [64:24]
A
Right?
- [64:25]
B
So the idea that if you're white, God forbid you don't have a strong opinion and you're actually the type of person who likes to think about something for weeks or months before you post on social media, God forbid you are the knee on George Floyd's neck. And it's just, I think that's a really insane way to approach race relations and politics in general. Because, you know, now I don't know if a white person is posting something on social media, do they really feel that? Are they terrified of not posting? And if they are terrified of not posting, is that why their post doesn't feel as genuine as it might otherwise feel? It kind of goes back to the apology that you raised in many ways.
- [65:22]
A
That, you know, a lot of this movement, especially in the direction of race and maybe actually not just race in many directions, feels like we're just. We're demanding people to placate us. It doesn't matter if it's genuine or not. Just, like, appease me. That's all I need. You know, I don't care if it's genuine. Just do as I say. And I think because the collective esteem of so many people who are involved in such movements is quite low, they can't see when they're being patronized. They can't tell patronization from, you know, maybe solidarity. And this worries me. This worries me because I think it's a reflection of, you know, our levels of self worth.
- [66:06]
B
Okay, one last tweet. Suffering, whether current, historical, or imagined, can often make people feel exempt from holding themselves to the moral standards they expect of everyone else.
- [66:20]
A
Yes. So there is this idea now, and it's. And I'm sure it's probably always been around, but it's very dominant now that if you are a victim of something past or present or even imagined, that you are absolved from treating other people in the way that you wish to be treating. Treated. You know, so it's always been, you know, very important to me to just, you know, the basic thing of treat other people how I'd like to be treated. I won't speak to someone in a way that I will get upset about myself. And I think it's a fairly easy principle to live by. And, you know, a lot of people are demanding respect, they're demanding equality there or to be treated as human beings, that they don't want to treat many people as human beings. We're saying that racial discrimination is traumatic and deadly. Many people don't mind to be racially discriminatory as long as it's to the right people, which is the white people at the moment. And yeah, we just seem to think that, you know, victimhood is synonymous with virtue or synonymous with innocence. And it's a ticket, it's a get out of jail free card to do anything that you want to do. And all I think this is doing is for one, it's obnoxious because most people in the world don't care. You know, like not everybody is a guilty white liberal. Most people have to get on with their lives. They have bills, they have their own mental things to contend with, you know, stress, just all of it. And we don't care to, you know, to nurse and babysit, you know, someone who feels that their suffering allows them to get away with whatever they want to do. I think this is causing resentment in people. You know, it's. People can clearly see that, well, we're being told that racism is bad and we're being told that this discrimination is bad. Yet look at this, you know, this person is doing it in plain sight. And yeah, I just can't see the consequences for any of this being positive. And I just don't think again, it's good for the self esteem of the individual who's behaving this way.
- [68:37]
B
Yeah, I have. So I'm one of those people that heard Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech as a kid and actually took it literally and believed it. And I'm just noticing increasingly that many people just no longer use that as a reference point for what direction we should be trying to go in. So like as a kid, I grew up in a very diverse town and I had friends of every race and we got together as a school every year and you know, around Martin Luther King Day and learned about the racism he was fighting and how he, he fought it and learned about the principles on which he stood to fought it, to fight it. Which is just, you know, the idea that your race doesn't matter and that anyone who's making any serious claim that your race makes you less than, whether it's less than a full moral person or whether it means your opinion is not welcome. They are the ones that are committing the error. It doesn't. You know, obviously for most of American history, the overwhelming majority of racism has been perpetrated by white people towards black people. At least the racism that has had the most powerful effect. But in principle, it is racism in itself that is the problem. So there's recently, I guess it's not so recent, but it's become more popular. The notion that it's not possible to be racist to a white person because white people as a collective have the power in society and black people don't. Therefore you can be. Sometimes it's parsed by saying, sure, black people can be prejudiced, as if that's just totally fine. But only white people can be racist. I'm curious what you think of that idea.
- [70:45]
A
If I'm honest, I can't not shudder at it. You know, I find it really insufferable if I'm honest. And I want to use milder language. But I struggle to because for one, again, I mean, one, not every white person has power. In fact, I would say majority of them don't. You know, not every white person is rich and powerful and has all this influence. And whether we want to call it racism or not, racial discrimination, we can discriminate based on someone's race. And the same impact, whether that's hurt feelings or feeling isolated or not getting a job. Let's say if you are applying at an organization that has predominately many more black people like we can, you know, we are capable of committing the same moral sin in that sense. And I just think, you know, I really think in so many ideas that are maybe meant to be radical, all they do is confirm the myth of white superiority. You know, because that's a myth to me. I can't. I don't believe the white people are superior simply because they have white skin. You know, that's something that some very insecure white people think. But it seems that many people are intent on confirming this. And I think an idea that only white people can be racist is to confirm this idea. They are collectively superior. So much so that they have the power to hurt black people in a way that we could never do to them. And I'm not down with that. No, it's not true. I mean, it's just not true. I mean, you can. You can kill someone, and you can kill someone because of their race, let's say, because maybe you thought they were. Whatever. I can't see. I can't see much more power than that. The power to take away someone else's life because of their race. And everyone is capable of being able to do such a thing. So, yeah, I don't think it's a helpful idea. I think it's an idea that would be reasonable to abandon. As far as I can see.
- [73:04]
B
I was actually. You bring up the idea of racist killings. I was once on a debate panel with a Native American tribal chief who sincerely believed that the only racist murders in the history of America had been white people murdering people of color. That there has never been a case of a person of color murdering a white person for racism. This person actually believed this. It is fascinating. So, like, from my point of view, it's so obvious to me that racism and prejudice are human universals, which is to say every group of people has had outgroup prejudice, out group hatred and, you know, killing. That's a legacy. A lot of what I object to about the way history is talked about is not that we shouldn't look into the enormous wrongs that people have committed in the past. It's just that we should all kind of own them. It should not be something that's narrowly pinned on white people. Slavery being the perfect example. You know, if we're, if we're going to make today's white people feel guilty for their ancestors participation in slavery, then we should also make West Africans feel guilty for their participation in the slave trade, which they sold the slaves to European slave traders in exchange for profit and goods. So why is it that we only try to make people of a certain color feel bad for historical wrongs? That if you were to trace all of our individual ancestral lineages, we would all have ancestors that participated in and that did horrible things to other people, things that we couldn't even imagine today. So the selective condemnation and guilt mining is what I object to so strongly.
- [75:13]
A
Yeah, and I think you have that again for me, what it comes down to, because you seem like to work on a principle of fairness, you know, you like things that are fair, you know, and I think that's very separate to equal, but fair in treatment, you know, and I resonate with that. So yes, I believe that, you know, history, as you're saying, you know, has unspeakable and unthinkable wrongs that happened. But, you know, it was, it was all of us. And I think you've. If we think that only white people are capable of immoral behavior or, you know, some of the most wicked things that humans can ever have done for one, that's just not true. But also we are, I don't know, we're, we're deluding ourselves. We're deluding ourselves to preserve a narrative, a narrative that is flawed. And if we can't comprehend and contend with the things that all human beings are capable of, then these things will keep reproducing themselves. It doesn't matter if you have all black trans women at the top of, you know, any system. You know, as long as, you know, people are prone to, you know, unchecked insecurities and greed and jealousy and corruption and so on and so forth, you will always get worlds like, you know, the one we have today or the ones that we've had, you know, yesterday, because you know, the world, the moment is better than it has been in many ways. So I just. Yeah, I just think it's an oversight and very simplistic to think that a lot of these behaviors that we against are unique to white people.
- [77:11]
B
All right, well, on that note, this has been a really great conversation. Aisha, I'm really glad I got you on this podcast. And can you point my listeners to where they can find you and what you're up to?
- [77:24]
A
Yes. So you can find me on my social media. It's the same for both, which is mostly Twitter and Instagram. So that's my name at my last name, sorry. Aishaakambi. So hopefully, I don't know. I don't need to spell my name. It's in the description. Right? Yeah.
- [77:43]
B
Aisha with a T at the end. Right?
- [77:45]
A
Aisha with a T. Aisha with the silency underscore. Akambi. Yeah.
- [77:50]
B
All right, thanks so much.
- [77:51]
A
Thank you.