Amena Brown:
Hey you all. Welcome back to HER with Amena Brown, and yes people, we are a week away from Election Day. In some ways, I want to say we made it. In other ways, I want to say even though we've got a week, we've still got a long way to go. This is your friendly voting reminder. Hopefully you have already voted, maybe through early voting or mailing in your ballot by now, but if you haven't, this is your reminder to do so. Make sure you get out and vote or stay home and vote, but whatever you do, vote. It's very important in every election to vote, especially important in this election. Make sure you do it.
Amena Brown:
As a woman, I have been asked quite a few inappropriate questions, and not too long ago, prior to the pandemic, I was asked a very inappropriate question in a professional setting. This just made me think about what are the things that you should never ask a woman? I thought instead of just including my own narrative, I put it out there to my social media community to ask people to tell me one thing that you should never ask a woman. I want to go through these because I want to share your responses and I'm hoping, if there's anyone listening, that you hear a question you have asked in this list that you will learn today to never ask those things of a woman.
Amena Brown:
Question number one, is that your hair? Never ask a woman is that your hair. If she decides she wants to tell you, then maybe she will. If she bought it, it's all her hair. Question two, what she wants to eat. I feel a little attacked by this question, and my husband is the producer of this podcast and I feel attacked that when I said that out loud he turned to look at me. I feel attacked because, you know what? I'm going to skip to the next question. Question three, this is a combination of questions along the same lines; why are you single, why are you still single, and why aren't you married? Stop asking people about their relationship status. If they want to share it with you, then they will, but stop asking them about it.
Amena Brown:
Sometimes I'm wondering is the problem that people just are not good at conversation, or are even not good at small talk. I get it. Some people, you just hate small talk, but a lot of these questions are coming up in some small talk situations. I do want to provide some suggestions at the end of this of things you could ask other than these questions, but I have to say also, these questions do not just come from strangers. Sometimes they also come from people that you know, but they're asking you this question in a setting that is not like you and your best friend were talking and your best friend's like... I'm saying that and I don't even know that a best friend would ever be like, "Why are you still single?" A best friend might say, "How is your dating life going?" Don't ask these questions, why are you single, why are you still single, why aren't you married? Don't ask those questions.
Amena Brown:
Question number four, were you born a woman? Do not ask these questions. Ever. Question five, a combination here, can you calm down and why are you so emotional? In the history of women womanizing, it has never helped a woman relax by asking her if she can calm down, and I resent the question why are you so emotional, because I think there's this insinuation there that to be emotional is to be a weakness. To be emotional is actually a great strength and can be a great strength, but if other people don't know how to handle their emotions, then sometimes they project onto you that you are what? Too emotional or that you have too many feelings. I think anytime the word too in the T-O-O is placed in front of a word regarding a woman is not a jam; too emotional, too thick, too big, too tall, too short, too whatever that is. You're not too anything. You are who you are in the fullness of that. Don't ever ask a woman these things.
Amena Brown:
Also, I'm covering all the pregnancy and child questions right here. Do not ask a woman, when are you due, are you pregnant, is there a baby in there? That one really makes me mad. Why don't you have kids? When are you going to have a baby? When are you going to have another baby? Let's stop and have a moment right here. Just in general, if you see a woman, I don't care if she has a stomach that looks like she's carrying another adult in there, you keep your eyes on the road. You keep your eyes on her eyes. You don't ask her anything unless she says that words to you, "I am pregnant." She says the words to you, "I would like to talk to you about my pregnancy." Because even, "I am pregnant" is not an invitation to have further conversation with her about her body. She would basically have to say a paragraph of things to you. I'm pregnant, and I would love to talk to you as a stranger about the myriad details of my pregnancy. Please ask me a question.
Amena Brown:
If you ever hear that from a woman, go on. Ask her, is there a baby in there? Ask her all these questions. Don't ask her when is she going to have another baby. Let me just give a little PSA right here. You don't know the story that a woman may have behind pregnancy, fertility, loss. You don't know any of those things. These questions that people might assume are small talk, are innocent questions, are never innocent questions. I just want to yell from the rooftops, never ask a woman these questions, and I just want to say, if you're listening and you have been asked these questions, I think it's well within your rights to just go ahead and come up with an equally uncomfortable response. I'm still trying to think through this.
Amena Brown:
There was somebody on my Facebook page who said whenever someone would ask her why she doesn't have kids or when she's going to have kids, she would say to them, "When was the last time you had sex?" They would get super uncomfortable right there. I think you should definitely come up with an answer right there. So far, one of the ones I'm sticking with is if someone is asking me why don't I have kids, if they want to know when I'm going to try, am I trying, all those things, my replacement question for them is I'm going to ask them have they had sex with a bear? I feel like that's an equally important question to ask. If you can ask me what my genitalia or my other reproductive organs are doing, then I should be able to point the question back to you. If you feel uncomfortable answering, then you should feel uncomfortable asking me. Do not inquire about what anyone's genitalia or reproductive organs are doing. Do not inquire.
Amena Brown:
Next question. What's your cup size? This question really sent me. I was commenting with people a little bit when I was asking this question, and I can't imagine a situation I would be in where someone who I don't know well or who I don't feel comfortable with would ask me my cup size. Okay. Next, this question is a banger. Is it that time of the month? I'll tell you the truth. First of all, periods have been blamed for quite a few things that are really the fault of sexism. I stand by that. I can remember times in high school that I would be overhearing a conversation where a girl is getting mad about a particular thing and it's a guy looking at her saying, more than likely, a phrase like this or similar to, "Are you on the rag?" I know I'm not the only person who remembers these types of phrases too. Is it that time of the month? Maybe it is, but whatever it is is none of your business. Whatever time of the month is none of your business.
Amena Brown:
Also, periods get thrown under the bus when periods are just fine. Periods are happening to probably more than half of the population of the world. Periods are normal. Periods are fine. There's nothing wrong with a woman having a time of the month, but also, there is this insinuation that because a woman is having her, air quote, time of the month, or because a person is having their, air quotes, time of the month, that means that person is wilding out, they're angry, they can't handle their feelings and emotions, and yet, we see men in leadership all over America who do not have an, air quote, time of the month, and yet manage to be irrational and manage to make decisions based solely on their feelings, but no one's asking them is it their testicle's time of month. Okay. Let's go on.
Amena Brown:
Next question. Asking a lesbian couple who is the man in the relationship. If you have asked this question, I hope this is your warning. Do not do that ever, ever again. Never ask a woman or a lesbian couple this question. Next question, this question actually is opening up with what is supposed to sound like a compliment and then it's not. You look good. Have you lost weight? What? Also, have you gained weight? Either of these questions regarding weight are not on the table of questions to ask. Okay. First of all, whatever a person is doing with their weight is whatever they want to do with it. You don't get to comment whether they lost it or they gained it. Sometimes isn't it interesting that in these conversations regarding lost weight or gained weight that there can be, depending on your cultural background, there can be particular value placed on whether you've lost weight or you gained weight.
Amena Brown:
I remember there'll be times that we would get together for our family reunion, and most of my family is from North Carolina. We'd all get together for a family reunion and if you had not been around the family in awhile, there was typically some commentary on your weight. There was typically this comment of either, "Baby, have you been eating? Do you even eat any food? You're wasting away." Or there would be this comment to say, "Oh, baby. You done got large. You done got huge." You can be in these situations not just with strangers, but even with your family members. People, don't comment on people's weight. Okay. Don't do that. There's no reason why you need to have that discussion. We don't need to place value upon losing or gaining weight. We don't want to place value on people based on their body. We want to place value on them based on who they are. We want to accept them in all of the ways their body represents itself. Okay. Boom. Next.
Amena Brown:
Does the carpet match the drapes? I understand that people feel very interested in home décor because of HGTV. I understand that. You're interested in what other people are doing with their shiplap, but look, you save those questions for when it's somebody's actual house. You don't need to be worried about nobody's carpet, nobody's drapes, nobody's valence, whatever. You don't need to be worried about any of that on anybody's body. Okay. You save that for some show on renovation. You don't do that when you're talking to someone. Hey, if a person gives you permission to see the carpet or see the drapes, then you'll find it, but if you're not in a situation where they're giving you permission to know what the drapes or the carpet or the wallpaper are doing, you don't need to be worried about it. Okay?
Amena Brown:
Next question. How many people have you slept with? I just tire of the ways that people are wearing us out with these questions. How many people have you slept with? I just have to go back to a very basic junior high answer, and the answer is none-ya. Yes, none-ya is a number. None-ya is an amount. It is quantified. None-ya is to say never. It is a long amount of time. None-ya involves a lot of enumeration and none-ya is basically saying whatever the number is, it's what, none of your business. Thank you Salt-N-Pepa for reminding us about that. Okay. It's none of your business. You don't need to know about that. If a person chooses to share that with you, they share it, but you don't need to be asking it. You don't need to know about that. Okay.
Amena Brown:
Next. Why don't you smile more? It is not our job as women to entertain. It's not our job as women to have to make people comfortable. We smile when we want to smile, and when we don't want to smile, we don't. You don't need to be quantifying or measuring how much I smile. You don't need to be worrying about why don't I smile more. In general, I want to remind everyone, don't ask questions about a woman's body. Don't ask questions regarding her period. Don't ask questions about things that are a woman's personal business that don't have nothing to do with you.
Amena Brown:
I want to give honorable mention. These three things were not questions but they were brought up a couple of times as I was talking to people from social media. These three statements are also things you should never say to a woman. Number one, you look tired. What am I supposed to do with that information? You tell me I look tired. What am I supposed to do? At the moment you say it to me, I'm supposed to go lay down? Take a nap somewhere? I look tired. Maybe I am tired, but maybe I'm not. Now you told me I look tired. What is the point of it? Don't say it. Number two, hush. I'm going to also add to this shh. Unless you're a librarian and I'm in the library making sure where there were clearly signs that stated don't talk in here, you should not be telling a woman to hush or shush. Lastly, you should not be telling a woman to calm down. It's not going to work actually. It's not a good tactic. Just like when a woman is angry or upset, how men in the movies always kiss her. Terrible tactic. Don't do these things.
Amena Brown:
What are things that you can say instead when you are looking to just have small talk in a personal or professional situation? Maybe you find yourself at the hors d'oeuvre table next to a woman. You just wanted to say hello. There are thousands of other questions that are not these, such as what is her favorite fruit snack? You can also ask her where did she get those shoes. You can also ask her, what is one fun thing she did this week? I just gave you three questions that are great that will actually help you get to know this person that are avoiding things that are what? None of your business. Okay. This ends my PSA of things you should never ask a woman.
Amena Brown:
This week, I was thinking a lot about a question that a friend of mine asked me a few months ago. She asked me, in my life, what are the books that have most influenced, encouraged me in my Black womanhood. It's a really interesting question to think about. I don't know how many of you are avid readers or loved reading even as a kid, but I was totally like that. I loved reading as a kid. Thinking about the books that become these different landmark readings in your life that you remember getting ahold of that book and what it meant to you to find yourself or see yourself on the page. Just recently, there have been obviously a lot of conversation right now about how we can be supporting Black creatives and Black authors included in that, and how to uplift the stories that Black people are telling, and in particular, that Black women are telling.
Amena Brown:
I wanted to lift up a few of the books that have meant the world to me in my Black girl and Black woman journey. I hope that for my Black women listeners that if you have not read some of these books, maybe you will also be encourage to read them and check them out, some of them to reread, some of them are books that I reread at certain different times. For my listeners who are not Black women that hearing some of the titles of these books or authors of these books would also be helpful for you as you are thinking about how you can engage more in supporting and learning from the work of Black women.
Amena Brown:
First book on my list is For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. I actually saw this choreopoem as a play before I read it on it's pages. I saw it as a play when I was in college, at Spelman College, and it was, and still is, the most beautiful pieces of performance art I've ever seen. It was years later that I actually purchased the book and got to read it and reread it and reread it. It influences me so much as a poet who is writing work to perform on stage and reading the amazing things that Ntozake Shange was able to do with these words that I experienced powerfully in both forms. I experienced in powerfully as a stage play and experienced it powerfully in it's reading. I do want to say, if you have watched the For Colored Girls film that Tyler Perry made, I do highly encourage you to also buy the book and read the words that Ntozake Shange wrote. They are so powerful and as happens, the movies and films do not always or cannot always really contain all of the amazing things that are in a book, and this book, highly recommend.
Amena Brown:
Second book on my list, these are not in any particular order. Second book on my list is The Color Purple by Alice Walker, which also became a film and also became a Broadway play. I would encourage you, if you can and are able to, to experience The Color Purple is all three forms. You'll find different parts of the book highlighted in a certain way in the film, highlighted in different ways in the play and musical. The Color Purple was a book I read, I think, in eighth grade. I was actually reading The Color Purple and this other book called The Awakening. I was writing a paper on them both, but The Color Purple being, at that time, reading it so young, starting out, if you've never read The Color Purple, the first few pages of The Color Purple are some of the rawest fiction that you may have ever read. It is a very raw story, and I do want to give trigger warnings about that very raw story of abuse and assault very on in this book.
Amena Brown:
If you are able to continue on as Alice Walker unfolds the story, which is a story full of letter-writing, and some of that letter-writing is from Celie, the central character to God. Later as the story progresses, those letters are between Celie and her sister, Nettie. There's whole lexicon of things that come from The Color Purple for so many black women in America, but The Color Purple is such a quintessential work for me because I remember reading that novel as a junior high student. I don't know if that was too young or not, but I was reading it.
Amena Brown:
I remember reading it again later, maybe when I was in college. I think I was in my 20s, maybe late 20s, when I saw the musical on Broadway. The one that I went to see, Fantasia was starring as Celie. Also, obviously I watched the movie many, many time. Many, many times. So many times. There's certain parts of that movie that I know almost by heart. I reread the book not too long ago and this time in reading it, what really struck me is the strong sense of spirituality in that book. There are different things I feel that book showed me even about God and sort of the role of God in that story, the role of God in my own life. It was interesting to read that and sort of read through this lens of Black woman's spirituality. Highly recommend The Color Purple.
Amena Brown:
One other book that I'll recommend to you all, I obviously have a list of bunches and bunches of these, but one of my more recent reads is Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks. I actually started to read Sisters of the Yam during a time that I was really going through a difficult time in my health and I had this major, major surgery, required a long recovery time for me anyway. It was six to eight weeks. That was a long time for me at that time in my life to just focus on sitting still and getting well. I started reading Sisters of the Yam then and there's a lot to say about bell hooks. Anything that you see bell hooks' name on I think is worthy reading. Sisters of the Yam was really a healing text for me, helped me to really learn, as I'm continuing to learn, about what radical self care what looks, what it looks like to love yourself actually, and she really goes into the different systems that are in place that do not make it easy or make it simple even for Black women to love themselves. Big shout-out to bell hooks. She is a wonderful author and writer and thinker to read, but I highly recommend Sisters of the Yam.
Amena Brown:
I'll add one more. My other one, which is sort of like a gateway book into this writer is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I say that because I remember when that book was a part of Oprah's Book Club and Oprah talking about what it meant to her to read those first few lines of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I remember reading it and having grown up in church and having that Easter speech moment, but I say that I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a gateway because once you start that book, then you're opening yourself up to this whole world of the work of Dr. Maya Angelou. As a poet, Dr. Angelou obviously highly influenced me and the work that I'm doing today. Some of her work were early things that I memorized. Memorizing Phenomenal Woman for an oratorical contest that my church growing up used to do every Black History Month and memorizing Still I Rise.
Amena Brown:
Not only is Dr. Angelou's poetry amazing, but her autobiographical series that begins with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and goes on for several books. I think that's a wonderful gateway to start with and just read and read and read until you've read through all of her books. I do want to give a special shout-out to Phenomenal Woman. I watched a new movie recently called Miss Juneteenth. Miss Juneteenth is a pageant in this story of this film and the daughter of the central character is memorizing Phenomenal Woman to perform in the movie, and the mother has also memorized it and that just totally resonated with me because that's a huge part of my history to have memorized Dr. Maya Angelou's work and really her work on stage teaching me in its own way how to eventually become comfortable with my own writing voice.
Amena Brown:
Those are a few books I would recommend, books I would say have been really quintessential for me in my upbringing. I would encourage you, dig into these works and if any of my listeners have any suggestions for me, especially my Black woman listeners, you have suggestions for me of other Black womanhood books that you would love for me to shout-out here, please let me know or reach out to me on socials. I'd love to hear it.
Amena Brown:
Okay. For this week's podcast, we are doing a new segment, but it will be recurring. I'll come back and do this every now and then. This segment is called Ask Amena, and if you have questions you want to ask me, it could be questions you want to know about me, you want to know about just life or macaroni and cheese. We can also talk about that. If you have things that you might like advice on, I will also take those. You can use the hashtag #AskAmena and I can answer your questions that way.
Amena Brown:
I've got a few questions from social media. Let's dive in. Which dance movie gives you life? Okay. I feel like I'm about to disappoint with this answer because I don't really have a favorite dance movie. There are very few musicals or dance movies that I like. I just lost a listener probably right now. They were like no, I'm out of here. I don't need to listen to her anymore. I will tell you one of my favorite dance scenes, and I'm like, does this count as a dance scene? I think it does. I don't know if this is actually in the category of dance movie because so many other things were going on, but Spike Lee's movie School Daze, which was this exploration of historically black college and university life, has a scene in this hair salon that is probably one of my favorite dance scenes. If you haven't seen School Daze, you need to see it, but if you have seen School Daze, you know immediately what I'm talking about. I'm so sorry that's the only answer I have for you there. If you have dance movies suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them.
Amena Brown:
Next question says, when will we have donuts together again? Like you and I and the royal we. This is from my friend, Audrey. Audrey, thank you. Audrey, you and I, we need to figure out how we're going to have donuts together again. First of all, it's really hard for me and my anxiety to try to figure out how to meet up with my friends, especially those that have been doing a good job social distancing. It's hard to find ways to meet up with them and eat, because it's like any other activity, if we were to go for a walk outside together, if we were to just sit on each other's porches socially distanced, that's fine, but when you bring food and drink into it, I still haven't figured that out. I've had a couple of little gatherings where I've tried this, but it's hard to figure out, because it's like, okay, I've got to take this mask down to eat some food. Then at some I've got to put the mask back up, because I can't enjoy a donut or sit and drink coffee with you with my mask up.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, like many of you, I saw the clip where there was like a masked designed where it had some sort of apparatus in it where you could keep your mask on and somehow still eat, and it just grossed me out. I can't. When will we get to have donuts together again, Audrey? I hope we figure out a way to do it soon. The royal we, when will we have donuts together again, I don't know. I feel like our safest bet is to get our own collective donuts and have some sort of Zoom donut eating. That's the best best. Otherwise, I don't know. You have to find some sort of six foot long table and you and your friends sit at the ends of it. I wonder if that's going to happen eventually. Well, first of all, we hope we're not in the pandemic long enough for this to happen, but I don't know. The way that things are being handled right now, it makes me feel like we're going to be in this for awhile.
Amena Brown:
I don't know if coffee shops are going to get rid of the little small circle tables, where it was really intimate for you to go there on a date or sit there with your friend and talk. Is it going to turn into all the tables in coffee shops are six feet long? All those long farmer looking tables. Except now, instead of eight people being able to sit there, only two people sit there and they sit at either end. I just don't know. All that to say, let us talk about donuts because this is very important. I'm a big fan of donuts. I will share with you all that I have a passion project that I do with my sister-in-law. We have a pop-up podcast called Here for the Donuts, and I say pop-up because it basically pops up when she I actually have time to record it. We haven't posted a new one in awhile, but you can go there and listen to the archives of that and hear all of the amazing donut places we've been to.
Amena Brown:
I want to give a shout-out to my favorite donut place in Atlanta, Revolution Donuts. They're my favorite place. They are the place that my friend Audrey and I love to get donuts as well. What is your favorite donut place? I'd love to hear from you all. Tell me more about that. All right, next question. Somebody is trying to get vulnerable today. How do you keep going and keep your heart soft? Whew. That's deep. That's a deep question today. How do you keep going and keep your heart soft? I think the name of the game for me, I probably would never describe it as keeping my heart soft, but I think what that phrase sounds like to me is how do you remain open, how do you remain vulnerable, even in the middle of times, whether collectively or personally, that would cause you to have a heart that's hardened or cause you to not remain open to things, to people, et cetera.
Amena Brown:
I think a part of that for me is really... the phrase that came to my mind first is self care. I know when we hear that phrase, sometimes... this is the same for me too. I hear that phrase and I immediately start rolling my eyes like oh, I don't want to hear about any more bath bombs, but as a side, I actually really love bath bombs. I think when we hear self care, we just think about baths and facials and all sorts of things like that, but for me, self care encompasses quite a few things. Right now, in this season of my life, includes therapy. I think that's one thing that keeps my heart open and soft is having a place to talk to a professional about the things that I am processing mentally and emotionally. Having someone who's objective, who doesn't have any personal skin in the game of my life that can hear what's underneath the things that I might be thinking or the patterns that I have in my life. That's been really helpful.
Amena Brown:
Having a squad of wonderful women friends is also something that has kept my heart very open and soft, because when you have good and deep friendships, for me that is very much my women friendships, but whatever those friendships look like for you, just having people that you don't have to put on for them. You can tell them your insecurities, you can tell them where you're struggling, you can tell them your petty thoughts and really be vulnerable and be yourself, whether yourself feels beautiful that day, whether yourself feels not so beautiful that day. Whatever. I think having people like that in my life has been really helpful. I would say my husband also, and my husband and I were friends before we were ever together romantically. We were actually chatting about that before we started recording. I think having a spouse and a partner in life that I can really be who I am with. I live in the same house with him, but I can also be at home with him. That's a big help for me.
Amena Brown:
I've been thinking a lot about what my spiritual practice looks like in this season of life, and for me, I am a Christian, I'm a part of the Christian tradition and I have been examining a lot of, well, what are my spiritual practices within my faith context, and what are some new spiritual practices that are maybe things that I didn't grow up with in my faith context, but are wonderful spiritual practices for me? Gospel music is a big one for me. Some of those songs just still are just in the core of my soul and help remind me that there is a life and a world and God that's bigger than I am. That's something that helps keep my heart soft.
Amena Brown:
I am just ankle-deep in meditation. I'm very new to meditation. I haven't gotten to the point where I'm doing meditation unassisted. I've been doing guided meditation and there are two apps that I really love. I love the Headspace app and I love the Shine app as well. I especially love the Shine app because I'm getting to hear the voices of women of color on their guiding meditation and different sleep stories and things like that. Meditation has been really helpful for me in keeping my heart soft because it is something that helps me remain grounded and centered. It's a place where I can come back to focusing on my breath and things like that. That's been really important for me. Those are a few things that are really keeping me going right now, keeping my heart soft.
Amena Brown:
Of course, finding ways to laugh and finding things that bring me joy. I love cooking. I love cooking really for the mindfulness. I think sometimes cooking itself or baking can be a spiritual practice. I've been watching a lot more comedies lately, just to remind myself to laugh and be silly. I'll tell you something else that my husband and I have been doing. I don't know if you all have been watching Cobra Kai on Netflix. I love Cobra Kai. It's everything, and it's probably everything to me in particular because I also was a Karate Kid fan. I never took karate as a kid or anything like that, but I loved Karate Kid, the whole series. I loved it. My husband and I went back to watch Cobra Kai. It's just like this wonderful moment where you're getting to see whatever happened to Daniel's son?
Amena Brown:
One thing that we've been doing is whenever there's a fight scene in Cobra Kai, we stand up and we do our own karate kicks and we yell hi-yah, hi-yah, hi-yah. I'm going to tell you, if you have an argument with your spouse, you have a fight with your partner, you all have talked it out and then you all get to the point where there's really nothing else to say in the argument and it's just that awkward air where you either resolved it or you've resolved as much as you can in a conversation, but you still just have the awkward air and need to deal with it, listen, give yourself three karate kicks and yell hi-yah three times, totally gets rid of the awkward air. I'm here giving you all relationship tips. Okay. Please.
Amena Brown:
Next question. Do you ever struggle with putting yourself, your work, out for all to see and judge? Okay. I'm going to answer these two separately regarding putting yourself and then putting your work out there. I'll say those two are kind of different for me. Regarding putting my work out there, do I ever struggle with it? Absolutely. As I've grown older, matured as a writer, I feel like my work gets more and more vulnerable because I am becoming more and more comfortable with really being myself. There have been several pieces that I've written. In particular, more and more in the last several years that I have felt really nervous to put out there because they were so vulnerable.
Amena Brown:
I wrote a poem called Mothers of Invisible Children that was about my experience with miscarriage and I remember the first time I ever performed. I wouldn't say performed that piece. It's such a vulnerable piece. I always read it. It would be too hard and too emotional even to memorize for me, but I remember I was performing at one of our local open mics. I was the feature artist for one of the events and I don't know why, but that poem was really in my mind leading up to the event. I just decided to start my set with it and to hold space for people that had experienced miscarriage, to hold space for people that had experienced just grief and loss overall. There is this struggle, especially for me as a poet, in putting out work that is very vulnerable because sometimes as a poet I'm writing about TV sitcoms or I'm writing about all the things I think are amazing about being a Black girl. Those poems I don't as much struggle putting out there because they're not vulnerable in the same way as if I'm telling something that is a hard story for me.
Amena Brown:
A lot of times I will say, for me as a writer, I've learned that it's okay for me to write something vulnerable and that it may not be for the public. I have many poems that never see the light of day as far as anyone else seeing them, but it doesn't mean they were any less important to write. Then there are things that I have written for my own private processing, and then those things get to a point where I realize this is something that I think may help someone else or help someone else feel seen or known or understood. That makes it important to share in public. I think I do a lot of processing about the work that I do share, and I make decisions about what's private and what's public. I have to say, I worry less about how the work will be judged once I come to peace with why I put it out there. I think that's one of the things that I guess helps me in that struggle is knowing what is the purpose that makes me want to put out this work? The purpose, in a lot of cases for me, will override whatever criticism or judgment could come from it.
Amena Brown:
Let me go back to this question, considering it not just about my work, but about myself. Do you ever struggle with putting yourself out there for all to see and judge? I probably struggle with that for myself even more than my work, because as a writer, you're constantly drafting and editing. By the time a piece comes out in the public, I'm not a person that writes a first draft and then that night puts it out there. If I put something out there in the public, it's gone through a lot of drafting, which has given me time to process what I'm saying, to process if I stand for what I said and all those things. Whereas when you are just out in the world in society being yourself, you're not always able to process it all and do all these edits to yourself. You just are who you are.
Amena Brown:
Yes, I do struggle with putting myself out there for people to see and judge. Other reasons to be in therapy, because I do talk to my therapist about that. There are a lot of ways that my own inner voice is very judgmental of myself. Sometimes it's not even just the struggle of how other people will judge me. It's also the struggle of how I inwardly judge myself. A lot of my inner healing work and therapy and honestly, in prayer and in my relationships too, my family and friends, who've really helped me in the healing process of learning to love and accept who I am and be fully who I am. Of course, time and age for me has helped with that too. I just probably care less at this stage of life than maybe I would have 10 years ago as far feeling like I need to make myself something else for other people. I think all of those spaces are very helpful for me in being who I am. I think, in a way, accepting that people will judge and they will criticize.
Amena Brown:
I remember I was in, not with my current therapist, but with a therapist I had in the past, we were having a conversation about how I kept saying yes to things and I wouldn't say no to enough things, and she asked me why. I said, well, I just hate to disappoint people. She was like, I have something to tell you. She was like, no matter what you do, people will be disappointed. I know that seems so simple and so basic facts, but I just didn't think of it that way. I just really thought I can do a bunch of things so that people won't be disappointed. When she said that, it really freed me and I think it can also be freeing to realize people are going to judge. People are going to criticize you. People are not going to understand who you are, the decisions you need to make to do what's best for you.
Amena Brown:
There are just going to be people who don't get that, who think that's dumb or stupid or whatever, and they are not the center. They are not why you do what you do or why you should continue to be who you are. They deserve less energy and less space. The people accept you and do show you love and support, those people deserve more of your energy. Really, even peeling back the layer of that, that I should accept myself and judge myself less too. Great question.
Amena Brown:
Okay, next question, boy, you all came in here with some questions today. I'm glad that I have a therapy appointment today because maybe I should take these questions into therapy and ask my therapist these questions too. Okay. Next question says, how did you overcome imposter syndrome? I'm curious almost to know what is the definition of imposter syndrome. I'm actually going to look one up real quick. Okay, general definition, imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments, and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. I actually have three overcome questions right here. I want to say, before I get into any of them, that I feel like imposter syndrome, we're also going to talk about writer's block and insecurity, all three of these are things that are going to come up periodically.
Amena Brown:
I think it's less of will you ever get to a place where you're like oh, I don't think about that anymore. I don't deal with that. Maybe you will, but for most of us, that won't be the case. For most of us, it will mean those thoughts, those feelings will pop up, but it will be more of a question of what is your process for how you deal with those things when they come up. What's your emotional filing system, if that makes sense. Where do you put those things so they go in their proper place, instead of being at the center of how you have to interact and live in the world.
Amena Brown:
One of the things that helps me with imposter syndrome is, again, my community and relationships, the people who are close to me. I have amazing friends in general, but I have two friends who, and I was actually just talking to a friend about this. I think in one of these episodes I want to talk about the types of friends that I think every person should have. I'm going to work on that, but we were talking about how it's important to have friends that you know in your personal life, but it's also important to have friends that you know in your professional life as well.
Amena Brown:
I have two friends who we talk about our personal lives too, but we also talk a lot about work, because we work in similar industries, even though we all do different things. I have two friends that when I get a big meeting, for example, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, some times I'll get a big meeting with someone who's work I've admired a long time or who I'm super impressed with, and I will have to call one of those friends and go, whoa, girl. I'm about to have this meeting with, insert this person's name. Give me the talk. I have really good friends in my life. I have one friend, in particular, that I can think about and she'll tell me, "Hey, you're a badass too. Just because you're going to go in and meet with this person. They might be a badass, but you're a badass too."
Amena Brown:
I think having people that can speak the truth back to you, because imposter syndrome is inevitably and intrinsically a lie, because it is not speaking to you about who you are. It's speaking to you about how you perceive yourself, how other people perceive you. Sometimes you need somebody who's sort of outside of you that can remind you, hey girl, let me tell you who you are. Let me tell you these things that you've accomplished. Let me tell you these things you've survived and you've made it through. That's been a big help for me in walking through imposter syndrome.
Amena Brown:
I think, also, the other thing that helps me with imposter syndrome is just remaining connected to the women that I come from. I think about my mom and I think about my grandmother, and I think about my great-grandmother, and thinking about the things that they survived, that they went through, that they invested in so that I could be a podcast host and be a poet and have a business with my husband. There are all these things in my life that I would not be able to do if those women had not gone before me. I think when I remain connected to that, it also helps me to not be so focused on worrying only about myself, but it helps me to remember that I can walk in confidence because of the women who came before me and just sort of widens my view. I think that can be really helpful with imposter syndrome, when we widen the view of who we are, of our place in the world, of the people that worked hard and sacrificed so we could get to the place where we are and be who we are.
Amena Brown:
When I think about my great-grandmother not even being able to graduate high school, but she sacrificed that so that my grandmother could graduate from high school, and my grandmother sacrificed so that my mother could become a nurse and make it to college. My single mom sacrificed so that my sister and I both could go to college and graduate and be artists and live our lives according to the things we were passionate about. I wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for those women, and that sort of helps me remember my confidence is not just only in myself and what I have, what I can do in this moment; that I am really standing in the confidence and in the strength of these women before me. That's been huge helpful for me.
Amena Brown:
Next question says, how do you overcome writer's block? Writers block sucks. It sucks. I feel like the longest period of time I've had writer's block, I think it was a year and a half. I think so far that's the longest I've gone since I've been an adult anyway without writing. I want to normalize writer's block. I think sometimes writer's block comes up for us as writers and we are afraid that it means we will never write. I think if we normalize that writer's block is going to happen, and writer's block happens for various reasons, but if we normalize it, then we know writer's block is going to come and instead of me fearing it and clinching myself and forcing myself to try to not have writer's block, we can sort of welcome the process of writer's block in a way and maybe do some digging to figure out, can we sense the reasons why we might have writer's block? How can we move past that or how can we sit in writer's block until we're not longer blocked?
Amena Brown:
there's a couple of things. Sometimes writer's block happens because we're tired. I can't write when I'm exhausted, and that can mean physically exhausted, that can mean emotionally exhausted. I also think there is such a thing as being creatively exhausted as well. That doesn't mean you're being exhausted in creative ways, but it means your creative brain, the part of you that thinks up new ideas is exhausted. When I finished writing my second book, How to Fix a Broken Record, that was the longest period I had of writer's block after I wrote that book. I didn't write a year, year and a half. I think year and a half right there was the stretch. A part of that was just having creative fatigue, in a way; that I'd put so much of myself emotionally into this book and I just kind of had to re-up, and it took me a long time and some other really terrible things happened in that same time.
Amena Brown:
Because those terrible things happened in addition to the book, that just shut me down completely, but it didn't mean anything was wrong with me, that I couldn't write. It just meant I needed some time away from it. I needed some time to rest and heal and find my voice. Sometimes we have writer's block because we're afraid of what we have to write. Sometimes we have writer's block because we know what we need to write and we fear it. That you can also walk through and sometimes, for me, when I have that type of writer's block, if I'm working on a book, for example, and books are always scary to write. I don't care who's writing them. Okay. Well, I will say, I don't know about fiction books, because I've never written fiction, but writing non-fiction is always scary for me, and most of my friends who write non-fiction books, it's always a scary process. You're always afraid. You would rather run and do anything else for weeks before you want to sit down and write this book.
Amena Brown:
Sometimes you're going to have writer's block because you're afraid. There are little techniques that you can use to help yourself work through that fear. Sometimes for me it'll just be like okay, maybe I can't sit down and write a thousand words today, but I can sit in my chair for 30 minutes, for 25 minutes, and just write whatever comes out and then as soon as my alarm goes off, I'm going to get up and run away from here. I think you have to dig underneath what are the reasons why you might be having writer's block. The other thing I will say is sometimes you have writer's block because you are letting your editor and your critic in the room with you when you write. They are not welcome in the room when you write.
Amena Brown:
You need your editor voice at a later point in your writing process, but at the very beginning, you need to just write, and if we let our editor voice in the room with us, then our editor voice can cause us to have writer's block because then we're questioning every word we write. We're questioning did the comma get put in the right place and should we use the em dash and should we use a semicolon? All those questions don't belong in the writer's room. In your personal writer's room, it should be you and your thoughts or your characters, the voice of the story that you want to tell. You let your editor in after you've written. Those are a few things I do to overcome writer's block.
Amena Brown:
Last question, how do you overcome insecurity? You all were not playing with these questions. You all really fit me with some Ask Amena questions this time. How do you overcome insecurity? I repeat what I said when I got into these first overcome questions. I don't know if insecurity is something you ever completely overcome. I don't know that there's any human being that's like, I never feel insecure. Over your whole life, you'll have different reasons to feel insecure, different things that you'll be insecure about. I think it's less about getting to a point where you no longer feel insecure at all and more about how you process insecurities when they come up and how you manage your emotions and your thoughts as you walk through that.
Amena Brown:
No, I have not overcome insecurity and I probably won't in my whole life, but I don't know if this sounds weird or not, but one of the things that has been helpful to me in overcoming insecurity is spending time alone with myself and I have really had a hard time doing that sometimes because I love engaging with people and I love talking with them. Even when I'm alone sometimes, I have all these different apps where I talk to my different friends across the country, and the times that I feel the most insecure, when I give myself some time away from the phone, when I take that time to read or sit just in silence quietly.
Amena Brown:
Evens sometimes when I'm driving and I'm just by myself driving, listening to music. Just spending time with myself. It really helps me to become more secure in who I am and to accept who I am, and that I am a beautiful person, that I'm a beautiful human being and that I'm also imperfect and I'm going to mess up. That I'm a human with imperfections, that I hurt, that I get angry, that I make mistakes and that sometimes I do things that make me so proud of myself, but in a way, our security can't be found externally. We're not going to find our security in our relationships to other people. Other people can't make us feel more secure about ourselves. That's our own work that we have to do, and when we spend time with ourselves, it helps us to get to know ourselves and it helps us to love ourselves, and I think that security and accepting who we are comes from being able to be with who we are and love us in a similar way that we sort of give that attention to other people, but giving ourselves that same energy.
Amena Brown:
My therapist said something to me when I was talking to her several sessions ago and I was telling her how I really, really love to be a good friend to my friends, to be supportive to them when they are going through a hard thing, to cheer them on when they're going through a great thing, and I told her, due to some things going on in my life, I felt like I just wasn't able to be there for my friends as much as I wanted to be. She said to me, after evaluating all the things that were going on in my life, she said, "I think it's good that you want to be a good friend." She said, "I want you to remember that you can be a good friend to yourself too." I wrote that on a Post-it Note and every now and then, I come across that Post-it Note and I remember it. We can begin the journey of becoming more secure in who we are when we remember to be our own friend too.
Amena Brown:
I hope that's helpful to you all. This was great. You all asked some great questions on this week's addition of hashtag Ask Amena. I'll come back periodically and we'll do this, and if you have any questions, you can feel free to send me DMs. I'm mostly active on Instagram, a little bit on Twitter as well. Feel free to comment on any of the podcast posts that you see and let me know what questions you have. I'd love to address them next time.
Amena Brown:
Every week here on HER with Amena Brown, I like to close the episode by choosing a woman of color and giving her a crown. What it means when I Give Her A Crown, I just think of a woman of color whose work is amazing, whose personal story really inspires me, and it gives me an opportunity to celebrate her, because women of color deserve to be celebrated. Maybe you also know some women of color in your own life that deserve a crown, so I really encourage you to give them a crown, give them their flowers while they can smell them and appreciate them. give them all of the good words and encouragement as you can, because you can't get enough of that.
Amena Brown:
For this week's Give Her A Crown, I want to give a crown to Milck. Milck is spelled M-I-L-C-K. Milck is a fabulous singer/songwriter. She wrote the song "I Can't Keep Quiet" and is the founder of the I Can't Keep Quiet Movement. I got to hear Milck on the side of state at the Together Live Tour last fall, fall of 2019, in the before times, when we were still going to live events, and I was part of the tour as well. I was performing poetry there, but Milck opened up one of the nights of the tour with her music, and just hearing her there playing at the piano, hearing her amazing voice singing was one of the most beautiful things I witnessed on the tour. I've been following her ever since, and even in these times now that we in a pandemic as well as in an uprising, and watching the ways that Milck is using her voice and her music to uplift us, to speak the truth to us, to remind us to care for ourselves and care for each other. I just think that's beautiful.
Amena Brown:
Her newest single, "Somebody's Beloved", or it could be beloved, is out now wherever you like to stream your music. Make sure you follow Milck. You could get all this information in the show notes on amenabrown.com/herwithamena. You can get a link to Milck's website there as well as information about how you can follow her, stream her music, download her music, support her music. She's amazing. Yes, Milck. Give her a crown.
Amena Brown:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.