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9: I Can Tell That Love Is Fake
56 Plays5 years ago
I've been down so long it look like up to me...I got fake people showin' fake love to me, straight up to my face. Mindful Musings is now Geneva Says - more at brittanygeneva dot com.
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Transcript
Podcast Return & Struggles
00:00:02
Speaker
Oh my God. It is Brittany Geneva and 540 weeks later. I'm finally back with episode nine of Mindful Musings. I appreciate y'all's patience, okay? Because let me tell you, it's hard doing this when you got a job.
00:00:31
Speaker
You know, I started this when I had no job. And even then I couldn't keep it up, but I was better. So imagine now that I come home tired every day, I'm like, shit, who is doing podcasts and working? I need somebody to sponsor me so I can get into my content, you know? Anyways.
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm back, so sorry for the delay.
Perfectionism & Delays
00:01:02
Speaker
I had actually recorded a couple of episode nines, and I hated them both. What you guys may not realize is that I listen to my podcast every time. I listen to it right after I finish recording it, and then I listen to it a day or two later to see if I still like it.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I don't be likin' it. I be like, ooh, that's not funny at all. I gotta start all over. Like, I can't give y'all no stale podcasts. You know, it's only me talking. So, you know, if I'm not good one time, I gotta go try again. Take two, take three, take eight, however long it takes to give y'all
00:01:43
Speaker
the gold that you come here for. Okay. So this is take three and I hope this one is better. You know, it's hard. It's so hard being consistent. Y'all like
00:01:58
Speaker
You know, those who may follow my whereabouts and things on the social medias may see like my job is pretty busy. I got a little, you know, got a little position, you know, got a little title. So it's a lot of responsibility and some travel and I be tired. And then on top of that, you know, it's finally warm in DC. You know, after 12 months of winter,
00:02:26
Speaker
Folks is trying to be out, live a little, you know? So, I know that's not a good excuse, it's not a good excuse, but it's the reasons, okay? Reasons! That's why I'm late with the podcast, but I'm here now because I was...
Inspiration & Media Critique
00:02:44
Speaker
I definitely had to comment on some shit that happened recently on Twitter. I should, I should start calling this podcast stuff that happened on Twitter because that's what inspires me. Like I spend so much time on that damn app that it makes me just think of stuff and I've just be wanting to talk about it on here. So anyways,
00:03:08
Speaker
Last week, I think it was last week, there was a series of news organizations doing a story about how Kim Kardashian quietly helped save, I think it was 17, inmates from wrongful conviction and everything.
00:03:29
Speaker
They all, you know, I do this for a living, like media PR communication. So I understand I can sometimes immediately see people's strategy. They all have the same headline and all have the same essential information. So one of those was an exclusive and everybody else was just copying. So I think it was TMZ that first reported.
00:03:52
Speaker
Oh, Kim Kardashian for the last several months has been quietly working to free 17 wrongfully convicted inmates and she's been doing this on the low, not trying to draw attention to herself. But somehow we got this information and I highly doubt that TMZ was combing through court records in LA looking for Kim Kardashian's name. So I was like, wait a second.
00:04:18
Speaker
I tweeted, how can this be quiet and everyone is reporting on it? I mean, I know TMZ doesn't have a damn court beat reporter. Okay, please. How did they get the information? Kim's team gave it to them. Ergo, the shit was not quiet. And somebody, a black man,
00:04:40
Speaker
Don't respond to me talking about, well, you know, to give her credit, it was quiet for a long time, like before now. Okay. Well, nigga, it's loud today. So I have to give it the side eye, but I said, okay, let me just look. Maybe somehow this information got out there and Kim really wasn't trying to put it out there.
00:05:07
Speaker
and have it make front page news, but then, oh, look what happened a day later. Lo and behold, Kim's doing a documentary about her work to flee the poor blacks in LA. Oh, so quiet, so quiet that it became a
Fake Activism & Celebrity Criticism
00:05:25
Speaker
documentary.
00:05:25
Speaker
At the same time as keeping up with the Kardashians, ratings are in the trash and the show's getting more and more boring every day, suddenly Kim's making a new production out of her newfound desire to help the poor blacks in jail. Oh, isn't that fucking sweet? And it just reminded me
00:05:50
Speaker
of this trend that, I mean, it's been going on forever, but I'm just paying so much attention to it now. Like it's just fake love. People specifically aimed at the black community, people
00:06:05
Speaker
pretending like they care about the black community and care about causes that matter to us, only to turn around and use it for profit, use it for gain, use it to make money. You don't really care. This is not something that's near and dear to your heart.
00:06:23
Speaker
All you do is see dollar signs and an opportunity to come up. There are many celebrities. There are many public figures who do this kind of work on a regular basis, who are freeing wrongfully convicted inmates, who are feeding the homeless, who are
00:06:40
Speaker
building shelters and schools and everything. And you are not hearing about that on a regular basis. They are not putting out press releases. They are not calling their reporter friendlies. They are not issuing statements via
00:06:55
Speaker
they're publicists, they are just out there doing the work and doing the things that actually uplift the community and truly not looking to get recognition for that. But your funky ass is gonna make sure that you pass the news to TMZ and then suddenly there's a documentary on the rise. Nah, like, nah, I'm good. I'm good on giving you one fucking ounce of credit.
00:07:21
Speaker
Even if the net outcome is something good for people, your motivation was not pure. I don't believe it was pure and I cannot be convinced otherwise. Sorry, not sorry. There is so much of this happening. So many new brands that are popping up or new media verticals. I saw bustle.com, which is like a millennial woman site launched sort of a microsite called good hair to that that says
00:07:50
Speaker
It was created to appreciate and show love for 4C type of hair, which is typically not considered good hair. Typically, that would be what people would say is too nappy or whatever. And I'm like, OK, do the powers that be at Bustle or whatever media company owns Bustle, do they really believe truthfully and strongly in the advancement of
00:08:19
Speaker
black women's hair and making sure that everyone's beauty is seen on a level playing field? Or do they recognize an opportunity to sell products to black women who are going to go to that site and read an article and see a nice plug for Pantene's new natural hair care line? It's fucking fake. It is fake. It's marketing. It's people trying to make money.
00:08:48
Speaker
I'm starting to just get to a point where I'm like, even if there is any good outcome for the community, like even amongst people's greed and selfish motives, if something good can come of it, I don't even know if, if I'm okay, because I'm like, it's still a better outcome for the person who used us for their game. Yes.
00:09:14
Speaker
A handful of people will be helped, but this one person stands to make potentially millions of dollars off
Cultural Exploitation Concerns
00:09:21
Speaker
of whatever enterprise they've launched on our backs. And I just, I don't know how to reconcile that against the fact that there are people who genuinely do care about the community who are allies, but I'm like, I don't, somebody tell me what I need to do to be able to differentiate them from the greedy motherfuckers because
00:09:43
Speaker
All I see is people trying to come up people trying to get rich from everything from something very serious like what Kim is doing to just other you know taking our catchphrases and our lingo and making it into the name of your show or the tagline on your fucking
00:10:00
Speaker
ad campaign, you didn't come up with fleek. That black girl on Vine came up with fleek. And she hasn't seen a dime from that shit, but some white companies are using fleek in their day of marketing and making money off of it. So I just have a problem. Like I just have a problem with the proliferation of people coming up
00:10:25
Speaker
off of black struggle or even capitalizing off of black anger. There are trolls and there are people who are purposely online poking and prodding black people saying
00:10:39
Speaker
the most ridiculous inflammatory out of control stuff for the sole purpose of getting niggas riled up. They want to see the reaction. They want to see the anger because somehow the engagement that they'll get with their posts or their website or whatever is a benefit to them.
00:11:01
Speaker
People are doing things with the black community, whether it's outwardly positive or even outwardly negative to benefit themselves. And I'm like, how can we?
00:11:15
Speaker
How can we stop this from happening or have a better understanding of people who are truly sincere versus people who are just trying to, who just see an opportunity, who just see a come up because it's starting to make me, you know, it's, it's kind of sad. It's almost like when you, when you're a person who like had a heart for charity and you give people.
00:11:38
Speaker
And anybody you see on the street, you give them money, but then you found out one day that, you know, somebody took your money, used it for the wrong purposes or for, you know, something different than you thought. And you're like, fuck, I don't want to give anybody more money. You know, that's like a dumb example or like a trivial example. But that's sort of how I feel like.
00:11:56
Speaker
I don't even look, all y'all can just stop trying to be helpful because now I can't figure out which ones of y'all are legit and which ones of y'all are bullshit. And I don't want to even invite the bullshit in. I don't want the insincere show of solidarity or the claim that you're an ally
00:12:20
Speaker
just so that you can come up or promote your movie or promote your documentary or promote your product or get more attention to your website or whatever it is that your true motivation is.
00:12:32
Speaker
So this one is short and sweet, because all it is is a rant and end. I don't even have a solution. At the end, I usually like to try to offer a perspective of here's how we can all be better. Shit, I don't know. But what we need to do, I guess my net outcome for us would just be to have a greater sense of
00:12:57
Speaker
vigilance when we're seeing people because we are way too motherfucking quick and I know I've said this before we are way too quick to let white people get a damn invite to the cookout because they did a human thing because
00:13:15
Speaker
We said, please. And they said, thank you. Oh, take this invite to the cookout. Then what kind of plate y'all wanted the cookout?
Ally Recognition & Future Engagement
00:13:22
Speaker
Bitch, that is normal being a good person and a respectful human being. That is not cookout invitation behavior. Stop that. Stop.
00:13:34
Speaker
thinking that just because any non-black person does something remotely good or nice or respectful toward black people, that we just got to roll out the red carpet and act like they are the second coming. They are not. They're just being how people should be. And we are so used to others being awful to us that even the smallest little hint of respect just has us
00:14:04
Speaker
jumping on the table and it's not, no, stop, enough. No more cookout invites. The cookout is closed.
00:14:13
Speaker
We are not going to keep getting too excited about white people doing regular stuff that they should be doing as a fellow human being, okay? That's my takeaway. Stop giving them all that damn credit for being just good humans. That's enough. That is our responsibility as people. So if we fulfill that responsibility, we don't get special treatment. We just get the regular respect that we should all give one another.
00:14:43
Speaker
That's that on that, okay?
00:14:46
Speaker
So that being said, this is Brittany Geneva. Um, as you guys know, I love to talk on Twitter clearly. So if you have any thoughts or any opinions on what I've said, you want to chat with me about it, hit me up. I'm on Twitter, Brittany underscore Geneva, also on Instagram. Um, I also have my website, mindfulishly.com. Uh, leave me a comment, whatever floats your boat.
00:15:15
Speaker
Because I like to talk, so let me talk to you. Anyways, that's it. Come back in two weeks, fingers crossed, for episode 10. This has been Mindful Musings. Thanks, guys.