← Marriage and Martinis
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- [00:00]
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Host
Thanks Free for coming and talking to me today. I kind of sculpt you to get you here.
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Bri
Yeah, I was, I was super, super surprised to see your message. I was so flattered.
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Host
Oh well, thanks for coming on. I, I have to say I found you, I guess like when I was scrolling on my for you page or something and you know and, and I, it was definitely the, it was. Which, which video was the, the Daughters of the Confederacy.
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Bri
Yeah.
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Host
And I, I was so blown away by how well you explained it number one. And number two, like you're, I mean your obvious. Just like the knowledge that you have. And whenever I come across a video or I'm, you know, reading a book or watching a documentary or whatever about these topics, I think to myself, I kind of get, I get flustered because I think to myself, oh my gosh, I have not done nearly enough research work and like, and I realized that, you know, I grew up going to pretty, pretty good schools, pretty progressive schools. And you know, we read a really diverse amount of books and, and there's so much still that like is never touched upon. And you know, and this was in a really, you know, a liberal, like progressive diverse. The top of the top as far as there's no book banning, there's no restrictions on what you could teach. And still like, I feel like I lacked so much of that education and I do realize that so much of it has to come from us too. But talk to me a little bit about your background and how you got started into doing the Controversial Blonde and I want to know like where the name stemmed from and everything.
- [02:52]
Bri
Okay. That's a story so. Well, I want to be very, very clear. This was never an intentional thing. I have been on TikTok for like years, honestly. And just posting here and now, sometimes I would post political takes, but mostly, you know, fun little things. But the end of January I posted a video on tik tok about a girl who had voted for Trump. And she said that now she's scared because the people around her, she didn't do a research because the people around her just told her what to do. And then she gave us permission to roast her if we wanted to. So I, I made a video and I said, you know, marginalized groups were saying this the entire time. People of color have been saying this the entire time. And I said, so here's your roasting girl. Insert excellent of you. And so I went to bed. It was like 3 o' clock in the morning. I was on my couch because I couldn't sleep, so I was watching a movie. And I mean, I had blonde hair. And I'm the type of person, I always change my hair color. It's just consistently, probably Since I was 18, I've had a different hair color and style every two months. And so this, I just happened to be on a blonde cycle. You know, it just happens. And, and I made a lot of white people upset that I have blonde hair. And I was like, because I think my name on TikTok before that was like Keys and Care with Bri or something. And I was like, I didn't know, I didn't know this was this upsetting and I was getting bullied and it's not like me to run from it. So I leaned into it. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, I'm a little stubborn. You know, I'm, I'm a little bit stubborn. So that's, that's how the name came about. And it's just become a thing and it's, it's, it's gone pretty well so far.
- [04:59]
Host
Right, Right. I know when you change the hair, you're gonna have a lot of explaining to do.
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Bri
Yeah. At this point, I, I, I know, I'm like, dang it, should I have done that? Because now I feel a little stuck.
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Host
No, I think it's perfect. It's great. It's awesome. So, yeah. And I know your background is mental health. Right. And you said that this morning. You came from what, a three hour, what was it?
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Bri
Yes. So I am wrapping up my master's in clinical mental health counseling and I'm finishing up my clinicals at a substance abuse center. So we are what's called an iop. And I, I see clients Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and every Monday I facilitate a three hour. And we just focus, focus on psychoeducation, about substance use, about addiction. Today was something a little bit lighter. We had a graduation. Somebody graduated the program Those are always nice. Yeah, those are always really, really fun. So today we did vision board planning and goal planning and some healthy daydreaming.
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Host
Oh, that's awesome.
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Bri
Yeah, yeah, I enjoy it.
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Host
And that's sort of the root of where you do your history work and your anti racism work, Correct? Just sort of from the absol mental health field and the intersection of the two. So I would love you to just talk a little bit about that and, you know, and why that is the place sort of where you base all the rest of your content from.
- [06:31]
Bri
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I found great community in TikTok is I found a group of. They called themselves European Americans and they have been breaking down and decolonizing. And I sit in with them on lives and just listen in and listen to the trains of thought. And I started to get this understanding that decolonizing takes a lot of mental work. It takes a lot of humility, it takes a lot of vulnerability, and it requires a place of softness and willingness to drop the ego. And that was my first introduction to looking at it from a mental health perspective. And from looking at it that way, I started digging into epigenetics and how that plays into it. And it's been interesting, the shift, because I was full blown, like, I want to work in substance use when I graduate, just stick with substance use. But now I'm really, really wanting to lean more into decolonization work and trying to bridge the gap, because coming from a place of superiority to realizing that you are the problem is not easy. You. It takes a lot of humility. And I think if I can help bridge the gap, start introducing literature that explains it, start producing content that explains it in that manner, I think that maybe, hopefully I can help start a shift in a different kind of way. I think I have a suspicion that one of the reasons that we are struggling to break down white supremacy and white nationalism so much is because people don't understand what in full it is. And that's when the history part comes in. They don't understand what they're. They're looking at us. Propaganda has done a perfect job. It did exactly what it's designed to do. It made people think that racism stopped when the Jim Crow era ended and they stopped burning crosses. That's not. That's not how it works because it's systemic and it's on a spectrum. Just because you aren't burning a cross in a yard doesn't mean you are any less harmful on the other side of complacency. On the spectrum. Right. So people don't even understand what it is looking at. When you think about how deep it runs in this country, think about how we are told it's healthy to eat three meals a day. That actually comes from a European industrial complex. African people, indigenous people, are intuitive eaters. You get the three meals a day from. You break your fast before you go to the field or the big house. You take a break in the middle of the day and then you eat when your work is done or when master says so. Right. So when you. When I look at it in terms of how deeply rooted is in something as small and important at the same time as just simply how we consume food, just the timing of how we consume food, it's so regular. And I think if we can really focus in on the everyday things that it's rooted in, that can help people start to understand and see what systemic racism is and how if you are not decolonizing, if you are not actively speaking out against, you are perpetuating it. Just because you aren't actively being loudly racist or loudly supremacist or nationalist doesn't mean that you aren't actively also causing harm. And so that's really the root of my history videos is to, you know, I get the comments all the time. Right. Why are you worried about this? This was 100 something years ago. Well, first of all, there were slaves in the south until the 60s through something called peonage. So that's not even remotely close to true. And so people get hung up on the timelines. And that made me realize again, oh, education system says it stopped and so they think it stopped because it no longer presents how history books teach us how it presents. But that doesn't mean it's gone.
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Host
Right? Right. I recently did an episode with someone who was talking to me about how slavery, the, like the last slaves didn't actually leave plantations until the 1970s.
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Bri
Yes, yes. So, peony, I actually did a video not too long ago about panage. So how it would work essentially is white white men in general, whether they were land owners or farmers even, they could come into jails, say they're going to bail these black men out for something like being vigilantes, which is really just. They just didn't have a job. Right. You know, they just standing around and they would go bail them out and say, oh, now you owe me a debt. They put them on their farm and at the end of the season they'd somehow still be in the black. They would never move up and so it would perpetuate and perpetuate. And so when you think about these lines of people who were not allowed to leave, not allowed to read, not allowed to write, not allowed to talk to outsiders, were threatened for their lives. They got perpetuated into a system. Some people literally were enslaved on farms in the south until the 60s and 70s.
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Host
It's unreal because if you, if you told the majority of people that they would be like, that's a lie. That's not true. You know, and which just.
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Bri
Well, that's, that's where the vagrancy laws come from.
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Host
Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.
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Bri
Yeah. Because I mean, vagrancy just simply would mean, you know, you're, you're just standing around.
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Host
Right, right.
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Bri
Oh, you're doing something against law. Why aren't you, why are you working? It's, it's very much stop at risk.
- [12:12]
Host
Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Yes. And it is amazing to me how it's all interconnected and like how the pieces come together and that it really is just an extension of the system, for sure. And you mentioned epigenetics, which I know a little bit about, you know, about sort of the, the, the passing on kind of like physiologically of certain, you know, I know, for instance, when it came to, you know, like famine, offspring of people who had experienced famine, you know, wound up like getting type 1 diabetes more or, you know, and so you talk about it in the sense of racism and the trauma of racism.
- [12:59]
Bri
Yeah. So, and this is something that's. Epigenetics in and of itself is new because, I mean, unfortunately, the trauma had to have existed for a while for us to get to this point to study it. Right. So, but just, just the same tone as America always does, we love to focus on black pain and black trauma. So science does the same. So epigenetics is mainly the focus on the trauma that black individuals have experienced due to exposure to racism in this country over and over and over for hundreds of years. Right. And so we are more susceptible to stress related mental health issues, stress related physical issues. And it's been shown that epigenetics has a lot to do with that. And what epigenetics is, it doesn't change your DNA, but it changes the. How it looks. It changes the DNA methylation and histone modification of the DNA. So those spools that wrap around the DNA look different when you've been affected epigenetically, essentially. So I was, I was again, I'm a terrible sleeper. I was up one night like three O' clock in the morning, just scrolling and reading. And then I had the thought, wait a minute. If we didn't come out of this unscathed, neither did they. It occurred to me that if someone can pass down something like PTSD from, to a singular bloodline, white people have had a hand, a majority hand in a lot of harmful, cruel, violent behavior for a very, very long time. And so when I started thinking about that, I was like, well, well, we know that mental health speaking, people who have PTSD can pass that down. We know that bipolar type illnesses are typically passed down genetically from the mother. So if these things can be transferred, why would white people not also be epigenetically affected? And then you think about how an epigenetics, your empathy responses can be heightened or lowered. It can affect the superiority complex involved in an environment where you are systemically put first breeds it almost like narcissistic type complex. And so that leads me to why is it racism in the dsm?
- [15:37]
Host
Right?
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Bri
Because it's a very narcissistic type thing. It crosses lines with a lot, quite a few, quite a few issues there. It crosses, it crosses lines with, with a lot of things in the dsm. So I, it's curious to me that it isn't. And so I have another thought of, well, I would love to see racism in the DSM because it's maladaptive. And I think if we can look at it in terms of that way, we might, we might get somewhere.
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Host
Right? Wow. Amazing. I mean, and so, and so do you think when, when you're thinking about, you know, these things that have been happening recently? Because, I mean, I know they're always happening, but right now I feel like people are feeling extremely brazen and, you know, and feeling protected to really take things to the next level. So, you know, when you, when you think about things like I know you said in one of your videos about the Rochester woman, I can't remember her name, the racist woman.
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Bri
Shiloh.
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Host
Shiloh, yeah.
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Bri
Shiloh something or another.
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Host
Yeah. You know, and that whole episode and the raising of the money and you said, which I, which really hit me hard was the worst part about it is the fact that she did it in front of her kids. And that hit home because I think I have been in situations where I, you know, either being at other people's houses or, you know, as a white person, where I'm around other white people and not that they're encouraging bad behavior and just outright racism, but. But there is a passivity to, you know, let's say an old man who doesn't know better. Right. And instead of calling it out, it's look that he's from a different time. Those were different, you know, and.
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Bri
And that's that gentle racism on the spectrum of complacency that I'm talking about.
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Host
Right, right. The complacency and complicity and violence is compliance, you know. Yeah. And then also with music, you know, and we. I've tried to, you know, I'm a definite work in progress. And, you know, I'm raising three kids, two boys and a girl, and we have a rule, you know, in my house and in the car and anywhere we are, that if they're playing music or they say something or there's something on TV that they see and, you know, and I hear something that I don't like, that they were not as reactive to as I would have liked that we stop it and we go back and we talk about it and everything sort of the rule, like, you want to pick the music in the car. Well, you better know that I'm going to have some lectures and we're going to be pausing it, which oftentimes is not received great. But. But, you know, but it also has led to some really good conversations, you know, on both sides, like from my kids to me, me to my kids. And just keeping that line of communication open of, this is why you never say it, and here is, you know, why you never say it. Here's the history of it, here's how you will make people feel or, you know, and. And so that type of stuff, I really tried to keep a line open for, but. But I know there's still so much work to do. And, you know, and I guess what I'm wondering is, like, what. What are you hoping in terms of, you know, for white women especially, and I know white parents in general, but white women especially like that we should be doing on the other side of that.
- [19:40]
Bri
Well, I think it's very important for white women who are of an understanding to be as loud as possible to other white women. So I don't. I don't know if you saw the video I just posted. I had a white woman attacking me and calling me sexist, that I was perpetuating sexism because I was holding the Daughters of Confederacy, the white women who perpetuated the Confederacy, to task and accountability. And she said, well, do you not care about the men? And that who had the school boards and the rulings? Who wrote the rules? And it was so easy for her to shun her accountability and turn the mask on me. And in moments like those, it really makes me question intersectionality, like, is it an actual thing? And I think the only way intersectionality can be a thing, as if. Is if white women correct each other. They have got. And don't mince words about it, to be honest with you. I think politically wise, respectability, politics is a lot of the issue here, and we have got to stop doing that. One of the reasons why white supremacy has been able to flourish as much as it has through times and the years and the different hands of government is because it's given oxygen by not utilizing the words that we need to utilize with it. It is supremacy. It is nationalism. It's a problem. And until it is othered, we cannot be complacent, complicit, silent, neutral. You have to call it what it is, call it out, call it loud. And teach your children to as well. Teach your kids to say this is wrong. Teach your kids to stand in front of us. Yeah, teacher can be a voice for us when we can't.
- [21:30]
Host
My teenager just got his license. He just turned 17 and got his license. So help us all. But one of the first things that we did when he had his permit was to talk to him about if he ever has one of his black or brown friends in the car with him or he's in the passenger seat and you get pulled over and everything is that he is, you know, the one who. Who is to. To go from there, to be the one to lead and to, you know, to. To deal with everything. And, you know, and he understood that and, you know, and completely, like, was on the same level we were and understood. And then I talked about that on Instagram on a post that we need to, in those situations, like, like you said, be the protectors, be the ones who put ourselves in between. I lost. I think I lost more followers for that. I had. I mean, that. And like, when I post about trans issues, it's very disheartening. It's very. It's upsetting.
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Bri
Yeah.
- [22:39]
Host
Yeah. So I. I see it, you know, even on mine, as a white person saying that, what the reaction is. I mean, and I just don't know where we go from here like that.
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Bri
Yeah, it's. It's difficult. And I think it honestly starts with having the same boldness that they have to say it out loud, have the same boldness to correct them, and it has to be othered. The oxygen that is given to it is literally because it has not been othered in a way that's impactful. And so my thought process is maybe by continuing to call it out historically, continuing to connect the links between then and now, pushing and helping people to understand a lot of this is maladaptive and it should be considered a mental health issue. And so maybe if we put it in those standards, we can push it further along, because that's the conversations, the difficult conversations have to be had out loud. It cannot remain in the households anymore. It has to be othered. It has to be treated as odd behavior because it is. It's not. It's abnormal. Right. And to answer your other question about what I wish I had as a child, and to put it bluntly, white people terrorized me my entire childhood between teachers and strangers. I mean, my first. My first. One of my first core memories, but definitely my first encounter with racism. My mom was in the middle between my sister and. I have a little sister. My little sister was on the left of my mom. I was on the right. She was holding her hands. We were crossing the street, going into Walmart, and a white man in a monster truck had Confederate flags on the back of it, revved his engine and yelled out, you know, if you ain't white, it ain't right. And got closer with his truck. And my mom ended up, you know, running inside, running us inside. And then, you know, I had incidences in school from a very, very young age to a classmate, as young as I think we were in the first grade, as young as the first grade, calling me the N word. And it's because we had a playdate. And I guess her parents didn't realize her new friend was a little black girl. And so before that, we never had issues. And as soon as that play date happened the next day at school, that's when she started calling me that. I had a substitute teacher in the second grade tell a class full of young black children, myself included, that it was okay to call a black person the N word. Her granddaddy did it. Her dad did it. I mean, I've had a principle of. Of again, the same Christian school, tell my mom that it was our fault, that I understood what racism was because her granddaughter had told me I could play house with him if I was the maid because I was black. And then, you know, a little bit later, I get to high school, I have a teacher. My sister and I are the only black kids in the school in the class. And my English teacher, we were reading Gone with the Wind, I think, and she made a comment, this flippant comment. About how. How can we really blame them for not wanting to give up slavery? Because if she had people to do everything for her, she wouldn't want it to stop either. So white people have made my childhood very uncomfortable in terms of feeling safe around them. I learned in very harsh ways how violent words can be. Right. So I wish that for the white people who don't feel comfortable with those things, who don't like those things, to. Without waiting for something to happen, protect black children. Understand that and assume that from the moment they step into a room and they're around white people that they are in danger and they need help. It has to be an assumption, right?
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Host
Wow.
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Bri
Because if it hasn't happened in the first five minutes, it'll happen in the next three. Whether it is a microaggression or straight up aggression, passive aggression, Black children are in constant positions of danger. And so my greatest wish is white people, white women in particular, have an understanding that you have to protect black children first, always as soon as you see them in the room. Be a shield before something harms them. No child should have the kind of understanding of racism that I had at all.
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Host
And how do we, you know, this is the other hard part that I can't wrap my head around is right now. You know, you think about that one teacher in Idaho who literally just had the. The sign up saying all are welcome. And it had, you know, the different tones of skin in, you know, in the picture. And she got fired and hasn't gotten her job back, despite the fact that, like, her entire, you know, school district was behind her and everything like that because the school board is petrified of, you know, I'm sure losing their funding or whatever it is. And that's gonna kind of be a little par for the course for these, at least these next three and a half years. How in places like a classroom or other, you know, how are we going to do that when there is so much fear right now?
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Bri
Yeah, it's intimidating. And things are changing so quickly. Especially it's intimidating. One of the. One of the videos of mine that went viral on Instagram, a black, a young black girl, she was teaching, I want to say, kindergarten or pre K, one of the two. And she'd always done, you know, very, very basic, kid friendly Black History Month. She did the same curriculum the year before, but this year, because of the political environment, she got fired from her job. And I brought attention to it. And it. I don't. If black kids aren't even allowed to experience their own history in Schools, their trauma and their realities are going to be stifled. If they're not even allowed to know who they are as people, how are they allowed room to feel as people? And so that's why this whole I see no color thing is so damaging, because our experiences are very different, and our experiences are directly related to color. So when you start dabbling in things like banning books and trying to remove history from classrooms and when that history is ours, it's extremely frustrating. I can't even really put into words very well how frustrated I am by it. I'm a Woodson. I'm a descendant of the father of Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson. So I take personal offense in a way I can't even. I can't even explain. It is such a dishonor. I think of my ancestors. I think of the stories my grandmothers told me, my parents have told me. I think of my own realities. And it is so disturbing how easy it is for people to minimize those realities in that history. People like to even separate black history as a small little sect of something. When the whole establishment of this entire country was because of us.
- [30:41]
Verizon Representative
It was.
- [30:42]
Bri
Built on the backs of people who look like me, right?
- [30:44]
Host
Oh, absolutely. To me, I feel like in any relationship across the board, in order to develop a trust, there has to be truth, right? Like there has to be a recognition of the truth. I mean, we talk about gaslighting all the time, and, you know, it doesn't. I don't care if it's your marriage, if it's, you know, family, it's friends, it's between communities. If you can't acknowledge the truth and the, you know, of what happens and your maybe not past place in it, but current place in it, as I am the picture to you of what that looked like. If we aren't allowed to.
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Bri
To.
- [31:29]
Host
Talk about the history, then we're never allowed to communicate in a way that builds that trust back. And I just feel like I know that's the point, right? Like, I know that's the point. Not only do they not want you to know your history, they don't want us to know your history. I'm learning is that a lot of the history needs to happen at home, you know, 100%. And not just your own history, but the history, you know, of every single, you know, marginalized, vulnerable community and, like, the truth, then we could look at it and say, oh, my God, like, this is something that I need to reflect about.
- [32:13]
Bri
Exactly.
- [32:14]
Host
Yeah.
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Bri
And I feel very. That's part of the reason Why I think the way I do is I had a grandmother that was absolutely obsessed with books and reading and history, and she shoved that in front of my face from a very young age. And then my parents were always buying me history books and making sure I knew exactly where it was I came from. And my father, especially had a very good understanding of propaganda. And he would ask me, you know, things like, what did you learn in history today? And he would pretty much always challenge it with something new or add something to it. And I was taught from a very, very young age to not rely on the resources given to me in school. And that's even coming from someone who had a classical education and was homeschooled for a good chunk of my schooling. Even with the curriculum that we use, my mom and my dad still made a grand effort to always make sure the history part was correct because did not believe in the erasure of us. Right. So.
- [33:20]
Host
Wow. Yeah. And I just think that everyone, you know, to. To even. To have books and start reading them, you know, to your kids, and to start having those conversations and keep the conversations open and. And, you know, and in your house, if you hear something that you know is wrong or, you know, you see something that you know is wrong, like, call it out, you know, it doesn't matter. Oh, they're young. They'll learn. Oh, they're. No.
- [33:46]
Bri
And I just. That's exactly what I was thinking about just to. And I know those stories that I shared were harsh, but just to reflect back, there are so many people that believe this notion that the kids can't handle it.
- [34:00]
Host
Yeah.
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Bri
And. And I just want to point out if I could start being radicalized at the age of seven through experience, they can start getting radicalized by literature. They're perfectly fine.
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Host
Right. Exactly.
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Bri
They're perfectly fine.
- [34:15]
Host
Exactly.
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Bri
Children are resilient. They are perfectly fine.
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Host
Right. Wow. Thank you for saying that, because that is so true. I wanted to. Before. I know we got, like, on so many tangents. I just wanted to.
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Bri
I don't know, we were just going off on a little tangent because I love your.
- [34:30]
Host
You're awesome. I wanted to just talk a little bit about Juneteenth because I think that, you know, that it's something that has become sort of performative for white people and for business owners and for, you know, schools that are still invested in DEI and everything, and that there isn't a lot of talk about. I bet you if you ask most people who even have off for Juneteenth 18th now, you know, as A holiday and everything. What it meant, they don't know. They don't know. And I've recently started, you know, really trying to research this and, you know, and. But I. The experience for me is something, you know, that obviously is going to be worlds of different than the experience it is for you. And so just, you know, from your perspective, you just want to, like, give a little bit of the history. And why. Why should it be more than just, oh, it's Juneteenth like that? Why should we stop and reflect and take that day as we would, as people do in schools do for Martin Luther King Day?
- [35:44]
Bri
So, first of all, Juneteenth is short for June 19, 1865. So what is his name? Union. I wrote my own notes, and I can't even read my handwriting. Union Major General Gordon Granger. I know, that's a mouthful. Union Major General Gordon Granger. He arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the general order number three. And that means all enslaved people were free. And that's a whole two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. So not the end of slavery entirely, but what it means is it's the last enforcement of emancipation in the Confederacy. So Juneteenth really represents freedom, but freedom delayed in the beginning of the. Of another long road to a different kind of freedom. So, you know, that's the in between of the complex, complex road that we were still on, to be honest with you. So a lot of people ask, well, how did it happen? How did it happen that people just didn't know? Well, people knew, but the right people weren't there to relay the message. Texas was still very remote in that time. There's not a lot of Union there. And slaveholders actually moved. They ran away to Texas, essentially, so they wouldn't lose their. I hate saying this this way. Wouldn't lose their property. Enslaved humans. Right. So general order number three says the people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free. Some were able to leave their plantations immediately. They left. But a lot were intimidated or manipulated in continuing to work without pay. And that is also how you end up with things like pannage, where people were still enslaved long afterward. So it's a day of liberation, but it's also very much. I guess you can consider it a reality check that freedom was not automatic and freedom was not equitable. Right. And so Juneteenth had a different name back in the day. It was called Jubilee Day. They started celebrating in 1866. So black Texans Would gather together. Churches, fields, homes, they were their Sunday best. They would share music and food and prayer and stories. And actually reading the Emancipation Proclamation became a tradition as well. And then, you know, we. We added on, like, rodeos and cookouts and family reunions, parades, all sorts of things. All sorts of things. So. And after Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost cause narrative, we were often punished for gathering or celebrating together. And then you have the economic suppression where, you know, obviously lower wages, hard for us to get or keep jobs. So different standards for us for employment. So a lot of people couldn't even afford to take the day off. But huge, huge in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma is big on Juneteenth as well. And fun fact, a lot of people don't know. We'll just, like, divot off a little bit because I love telling people this fact. People obviously know which way the underground railroad went north, but people don't know it also ran south. A lot of people ran away to Mexico. There is place called Guerrero Mexico, which has a huge Afro Mexicano population, and they actually celebrate Juneteenth.
- [39:18]
Host
Oh, wow. Wow.
- [39:20]
Bri
It's. It's a very. It's very cool. It's very cool. But, like, communities actually started to fundraise. Fundraise to buy land for celebrations. There's Emancipation park in Houston. They bought that in 1872. What else. What else is important?
- [39:38]
Host
Do people, like, travel there to celebrate? Like, do. Do people go there every year to celebrate in the past?
- [39:44]
Bri
Yes. I don't know if they still do, but I know that's. That's one of the biggest ones that was purchased. So it's really cool. Mr. Zoo. Oh, Texas, first state. They were the first state to recognize it as a holiday. That happened in 1980.
- [40:01]
Host
Wow. That's shocking.
- [40:03]
Bri
Yeah, right, right. A lot of people don't know that either. That was a new foundation back to me when I started doing my deeper dive a few years ago, I was like, huh? Oh, okay.
- [40:14]
Verizon Representative
And.
- [40:14]
Bri
And going back also, people don't also know that the whole war in Texas was rooted in slavery as well. They didn't want to give up their land. But Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021 by Mr. President Biden. So modern events are a little different. You know, they're very heavily focused on supporting black businesses, buying black, learning, history, healing. And it's jubilee. Jubilee means joy. So it's. It's really. It's really an homage to. To the original name and meaning of it. It's. It's a joy. It's A day of joy. Freedom is not given. It's fought for, it's protected. It's a consequence of personal effort. So.
- [41:05]
Host
And that is such a good and important lesson right now that nothing, not one right that we have came from anybody being complacent and saying, I'll leave it to somebody else.
- [41:20]
Bri
It's a hard pill to swallow, too. Especially black women are at the forefront of the movements. It feels like I was describing it to someone not too long ago. It feels. It truly feels like a boxer trying to get in a ring and being held back. It's. I. We have. Of course we want to march. Of course we have things to say. Yeah, of course we have solutions. But this is not a problem. We. We created.
- [41:53]
Host
That's right.
- [41:53]
Bri
Or perpetuated. 92% of us tried to fix this problem. And so, as my grandma used to say, a hard head makes horse off behind. So.
- [42:10]
Host
One of the first videos I did after Kamala lost was, you know, when I sort of was. Was really starting to decide that, you know, I had to shift all my content was the fact that, you know, when 92% of black women tell you to do something, you fucking listen. And we didn't, and look where we are. I will keep spreading that message, and I will keep listening. Honestly, every single fucking white person should be out there protesting as much as possible. And you go on behalf of somebody else. You don't go and show up for yourself. You show up for somebody, you know, a black or brown person, a trans person.
- [42:53]
Bri
And speaking. And speaking of protest, I've been working with a group of wonderful black women. We are putting together the People Sick Day because the people are tired. And what it is is a sort of a silent, resistant. You. We are not dropping the date just yet, but people will get a date. And the goal is to collectively take three. Three days off of work because we believe that our government has forgotten the powers with the working people.
- [43:24]
Host
Right. Is this for everyone, or is this.
- [43:27]
Bri
Yes, yes, it is a protest that we are putting together. I have details of it, a few videos of it on my page. It is called the Sickles People Sick Day. You can follow that hashtag TPSD or the People Sick Day. And if you can't afford to take three days off of work, there's tons of ways that you can get involved. We've put together an entire discord channel. It's beginning to flourish, and it's really cool to see. But I just want to remind people, in talking about the People Sick Day is that rest is radical resistance. When we live in an economy and exist in a world, in a society where they profit off of our exhaustion, we've earned those three days of rest we all collectively should take just magically at the same time. Hint. Hints.
- [44:15]
Host
Yes, I know. Especially in an economy where the minimum wage in some places is still 775.
- [44:24]
Bri
725.
- [44:25]
Host
725.
- [44:27]
Bri
Yes.
- [44:28]
Host
What? Unreal. Unreal. Okay. And I actually run a women's activist community also from women all over the country. And so however you need us to spread the message. However you need me to spread the message, send everything and absolutely, I will post about it. And, you know, once you reveal the date, I will. Absolutely. You just send stuff my way and let me know how I can help.
- [44:53]
Bri
I absolutely will. Absolutely.
- [44:55]
Host
Thank you so much, Bri. I have so much respect for you, and I think you're doing such a wonderful thing, and I really hope that everyone will follow you, tell everyone where they can find you in all the ways.
- [45:07]
Bri
Yes, yes. I am Most active on TikTok. You can find me also on Instagram and YouTube. Blue sky. Blue sky. I have a blue sky. It's not as active as I need for it to be, but I am there. I am there.
- [45:21]
Host
It's impossible.
- [45:22]
Bri
I just wish I. I just. I need to be. I just need a magic button to just be everywhere all at once.
- [45:29]
Host
I'm also on Facebook that. Look into that.
- [45:32]
Bri
Yeah, I will, because this is. This is too much. Because I post three places, then forget two other ones. I know, but you can find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Blue Sky, Facebook.
- [45:43]
Host
The controversial blonde.
- [45:45]
Bri
Everything is the controversial blonde.
- [45:47]
Host
And I know you're on substack now, right?
- [45:49]
Bri
I am on substack as well, which. Thank you for reminding me. I need to post. I need to write some blurbs.
- [45:56]
Host
I know you need a whole team behind you, which you will have, I am sure, one day. Well, you will. Well, thank you so much. You're awesome. I hope you'll come back and talk again. And like I said, thank you for having me. You need. You send it my way. And I will be watching all the videos. And I'm a very big fan, so.
- [46:16]
Bri
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. I'm just as much of a fan of yours.
- [46:20]
Host
Oh, thank you.
- [46:37]
Bri
Sam.
- [47:16]
Verizon Representative
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