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S1E6: What Will That Bring to the Field?
9 Plays15 days ago
This episode focuses on the host’s own research with focus on the trap of loyalty, violence and child abuse in her career as a sociologist. Discussion will focus on the inspiration for each piece of research, what each piece is about, and what was learned after completing it.
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Visit https://booksbbqblackhistory.com/portfolio/ to access host's available research.
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Transcript
Introduction & Background
00:00:01
Books, BBQ & Black History
We're back for another episode of Books, Barbecue, and Black History. i am your host, again, Toya, a North Carolina-based social scientist, educator, and organizer with an abolitionist praxis.
Trigger Warning & Episode Title
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Books, BBQ & Black History
Before we get into the content for today, i do want to note that this trigger warning that this episode is going to contain references to or discussions about slavery, sexual assault, and violence against children. So please be sure to take care of your mental health, however that has to happen. The name of this episode is What Will That Bring to the Field? And we will talk about that title pretty soon. But what we'll actually be discussing today is my own research.
00:00:46
Books, BBQ & Black History
I think I've said before, you know, I'm not a historian, but I am a social scientist, and I have actually published a couple of things. So I want to talk a little bit about my research, and I'll give you like short titles of them right now. We'll talk through all of them this episode.
Importance of Black Sociologists
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Books, BBQ & Black History
One is called America's Backbone, Politics of Peace, and my newest one, Stop Crying or I'll Give You Something to Cry About, but I'll give you a full title when we start talking about it.
00:01:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
I'll also talk about, again, why i think it's important for Black folks to engage Black sociologists and Black research like my own. And we will begin by doing the excerpt of the day.
Cultural Portrayals & Emotional Manipulation
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Books, BBQ & Black History
So here is the book excerpt of the day.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
In addition to the racial uplift discourse that leads to the trap of loyalty, contemporary media images contribute to the emotional manipulation of Black women and the creation of a hostile social environment in their communities.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
One need only look at the portrayal of Black women in cultural venues like music videos, movies, and novels. The primary culprit is surely the mainstream entertainment industry controlled by capitalist markets that are, by and large, owned by white men.
00:01:57
Books, BBQ & Black History
However, there is a subgroup of Black producers, artists, and profiteers who control negative images of women that Black communities consume. To be sure, there are complications to this analysis, the ways that women participate in these portrayals, the counter images that are very positive, and so on.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
In this discussion, however, it is important to make connections between those images that are advanced by and controlled by the Black community and the creation of a hostile social environment that harms Black women, and there are many.
00:02:25
Books, BBQ & Black History
In sum, Black women's experiences of emotional manipulation and social disregard at the community level parallel the trap of loyalty noted in the discussion of intimate personal violence.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
In addition, Black women encounter unequal demand for performance of the duties required to maintain social life and community responsibilities, and then they are blamed for feelings in Black neighborhoods. At a minimum, Black women are disenfranchised in terms of community decision-making and the forms of abuse they experience are trivialized.
00:02:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
It is not an overstatement to suggest that in the same ways that women are denied power in the relational and domestic spheres, The community embraces a set of dynamics that conspire to foster an environment where individual men can use physical and sexual violence against Black women with few real or learn long-term consequences.
00:03:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
Black community members tolerate direct physical assaults, sexual abuse and aggression, emotional manipulation, and social social alienation of Black women. This portrayal is furthered by the absence of gender analysis and the rhetoric of race and power, the discrediting of Black feminist leadership, and the disregard for the needs of Black women.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
The forms of abuse Black women experience in the community context, including assaults by neighbors, sexual aggression in the community, and the social disadvantages inflicted by neighborhood structures and processes only intensify their vulnerability.
00:03:46
Books, BBQ & Black History
So we will revisit that episode. you know At the end of the episode, as we usually do, though, i if you listen hard enough, you'll you'll get
Master's Thesis: 'Trap of Loyalty'
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Books, BBQ & Black History
it. So actually going to start off talking about my master's thesis, because that's really kind of the catalyst for a lot of this. But when I'm talking about my research, I'm not just going to tell you about kind of what my research is. I'm also going to tell you like what like led to it. So the first piece of research I want to talk about my master's thesis is called America's Backbone, a Contemporary Analysis of Black Women and the Trap of Loyalty. And I published that in 2017.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
seventeen at the end of my master's program. And so the origin of this idea for this particular thesis or this particular piece of research was when I was in graduate school, just something I really noticed. And I had noticed it all throughout my like academic, I guess, like school career, but was just that when I was getting a lot of the things we were given as far as like academic resources typically were written by white people. And that's something I picked up on like kind of early. And as I went through college, it became more and more apparent. And by the time I got to graduate school, I'm just like, okay, i think that there's an issue here. Why do I not have more texts about, you know, black people? So I did get more texts about black people again,
00:05:19
Books, BBQ & Black History
the the higher I got in my education. But it was still very obvious to me that like if I was given, you know, academic texts or resources about race, most of the time that it would be focusing on Black men. And whenever I was given like texts about, what was a gender, most of those were focusing on like white women. And that was a large part of like my curriculum. And i did not like that because i couldn't relate to like some of the stuff that was being talked about. So even in you know, trying to be diverse and including like these other groups, I just did not feel like my experience was like seen in a lot of the stuff that I was assigned to read until
00:06:07
Books, BBQ & Black History
Until i had, it was like maybe one or two professors. One of my professors assigned Angela Davis's Our Prisons Obsolete. That is a whole separate conversation, but like that led me to abolition. But we were allowed to like, i think my teacher gave us like a book list or something like that. And was like, oh, you have to read one of these books and like write up an analysis of it. And so I actually came across a book called Arrested Justice by Beth Ritchie. And that's where I learned about this concept called the trap of loyalty. And I'll talk about that
Methodology & Findings
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Books, BBQ & Black History
in a moment. But learning about that concept changed the way I thought about myself as a Black woman. It changed the way I thought about, like, really the world. And it has been, like, such a... I'll just... it's Just for now, i just say it's it's been such an important...
00:06:59
Books, BBQ & Black History
part of my like evolution i would say like as a social scientist and the the reason why it was so important for me is because the concept gave me language for experiences i've had and seen other black women deal with and it really inspired me to write my own research centering black women to fill the gap I saw in the representation of our own experiences. And, and this is where I'll kind of explain, like, this is actually where the namesake of this episode came from. Cause everything that I just explained to you, i remember taking a class in graduate school where we basically had to explain, like justify our research and all of that. And maybe not justify isn't the good word, but like basically explain about what our research was and why we were choosing to engage in it. And everything that I just told you about, like, you know, the exclusion of, you know, experiences for Black women like myself, I didn't see that in the and what we were given. So i was like, well, I'm going to write about that. Like, that would be what I'm doing. I don't see it, so I'm going to write it. And what I just always remember is my professor saying, after I said all of this, oh, that sounds interesting, but I'm not sure what it would bring to the field of sociology.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
And this was like years ago, because I published this in 2017. So this was like the 2015, 2016, something like that, where this happened. And I just think about how
00:08:28
Books, BBQ & Black History
If I had been a different person and in a different mindset that I could have just been like, you know what, was it what is the importance of this? I don't think that what I'm writing about is important, but I'm gonna tell y'all what I wrote about.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
So y'all can tell me, you know, how useful this research that I'm about to discuss actually is. So what is my master's thesis? What is America's Backbone? So this is actually a qualitative, research study, which I just did interviews for mine, that was designed by me to answer the question, in what ways is the Black woman's experience in the United States today defined or not defined by the trap of loyalty?
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Books, BBQ & Black History
And I answered this question by basically doing a historical analysis of various eras in U.S. history. So I did a lot of analysis around slavery. i did a lot around the civil rights era, especially around that Jim Crow era, mass incarceration. And I'm pretty sure like different waves of the feminist movement. It's been a while since I've been in my research. So this is kind of off the top of the head.
00:09:41
Books, BBQ & Black History
But I did interviews with some participants to basically see if the trap of loyalty was present in their experiences. So it was kind of two things that did. I did the quantitative of analysis where I'm asking, you know, these questions to participants, but also where I did a pretty deep historical analysis of, again, those different points of history that I talked about. So What is the trap of loyalty? Because if this is what, you know, i'm telling you, this is the language that I found and it's so important. So I have to tell you what the trap of loyalty is. So again, this is a concept that was coined by Beth Ritchie.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
The trap of loyalty is talking about the cultural and emotional exploitation of Black women's allegiance to their loved ones to ensure community loyalty. And it has three defining qualities. The first is that Black women are more privileged than Black men. The second is that Black women are expected to endure their abuse in silence. And the third is that Black women are expected to buffer their families from racism.
00:10:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
So essentially what I did in my research is I asked the question of, is this concept of the trap of loyalty present historically? And is it is it present like today? So that's what I mean by contemporary analysis. I want to see the different parts of time, if this showed up, and also like if it showed up historically and if it showed up presently.
00:11:08
Books, BBQ & Black History
So what did I find in my analysis? The trap of loyalty is absolutely historically present and definitely currently for Black women in the United States. It's almost 10 years old, but I think that if I wrote it again today, it would still be relevant.
Accessing the Research
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Books, BBQ & Black History
So I'm going to read you excerpts from the research that I've done, but you can access all of this on my website, booksbarbecueandblackhistory.com in the portfolio section. But I'm going to read you some excerpts from my research just so you can see Kind of the things that I was talking about. So this is an excerpt from America's Backbone.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
This section will explore the origins of the final defining quality of the trap of loyalty. Black women are expected to buffer their families from racism. The final defining quality differs from the previous two in two distinctive ways.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
It has the greatest historical presence throughout American history and shares a unique connection to the second defining quality that Black women are expected to endure their abuse in silence. As earlier sections have demonstrated, white women and black men have both historically abandoned black women where their issues no longer align with the dominant identity, white or men.
00:12:24
Books, BBQ & Black History
When white women and black men choose their race, it's usually at the expense of black women. When black women choose their race, it's often at the expense of themselves. This section examines slavery, various anti-racism movements, and the women's liberation movement to denote the presence of the third defining quality, the expectation of black women to buffer their families from racism. so that was a hit like i said that was something i wrote i can't even remember like what part specifically of my thesis that it was in but that was something i really picked up in like the historical analysis that i was doing was you know looking at how black women participated in like different movements throughout history and like you know that that's what I saw in like what I was reading you know with like you know the women's liber liberation the suffragette movements white women weren't necessarily fighting for the rights of black women or just considering that you know race was something that like mattered and once they kind of got whatever they wanted whatever what they needed out of the movement it was like black women just didn't matter anymore And as far as like the civil rights movement, you know, specifically around like mass incarceration and talking about the Black Power Movement, there was a lot of violence going on towards like Black women. And the idea was like, you don't say nothing about it.
00:13:50
Books, BBQ & Black History
You're not supposed to say anything about it. And that to me was something that just became really, really obvious as I was kind of looking at these historical like eras and just seeing how the treatment of Black women was often just like... It wasn't that like people weren't aware of it. It was more of like it just wasn't considered something that was like important. And we'll talk about that you know in a moment. but But yeah, but like as I did... this analysis and, of went through a lot of those interviews. It just reaffirmed, you know, for me that black women are not more privileged than black men. It's just that a lot of our experiences are just silenced, erased, or ignored.
00:14:36
Books, BBQ & Black History
when I wrote my thesis, I actually used R. Kelly. Uh, he's actually the intro chapter. i started talking about R. Kelly.
00:14:44
Books, BBQ & Black History
i use r kelly bill cosby and clarence thomas to make the point about how you can see the the exploitation the trap of loyalty like present in each of those things with you know r kelly specifically choosing to abuse young don't say young at this point but young and adult black girls and black women And he did it because he knew that people weren't going to care. Like, I'm sure that people even hear, if there were going to be people that hear this part episode and be like, oh, I still love R. Kelly. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, part of him being able to do what he did is because people are are so willing to overlook the victimization of like black women and girls and like find a way to like blame them for it because the idea is like oh we don't want to take down that black man but the implication is that in that is that we don't care about happened to these black girls and black black women and that became like very you know obvious clarence thomas like i think about anita hill and how
00:15:49
Books, BBQ & Black History
she was railroaded for like just speaking up about like how... you know, sexually predatory and like dangerous that men, and I'm speaking of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme court justice that is in the Epstein files, might I add. And again, I'm going to to talk about, you know, bring up Anita Hill because she, she said something about it.
00:16:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
And it's really also important to note that like, even in that particular case, a lot of the people who were there to, to, to basically re-victimize her for, like, telling her truth about this man, they're still part of the government. I still think about, like, Joe Biden.
00:16:29
Books, BBQ & Black History
Like, if I'm not mistaken, he was, like, in charge of, like, the committee that was, like, going in on her, like, during that time. And Clarence Thomas was... he was elect He was put into that position and we see what he's doing today.
00:16:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
And so, you know, to me, that's again, kind well, that's me getting to stuff I've learned, but like the whole point is like, it was a recognition of how, because he was doing things to black women, people did not care because they treated Anita Hill so poorly, so poorly, you know, during that time. And all she did was tell the truth about experience that she had with a black man that had power And that idea of like the community loyalty being like expected of like you know Black women towards Black men, even at the expense of their safety, I think is something that really the trap of loyalty does a good job of like reiterating.
00:17:29
Books, BBQ & Black History
The trap of loyalty, I feel like, also was demonstrated specifically this idea of, again, Black women not being more privileged than Black men, just having experienced silence erased or ignored. it it was demonstrated really in the interviews I did as well because the interviews were participants that most of them believe that race was expected to be prioritized for any social issue within the Black community.
00:17:58
Books, BBQ & Black History
And that supersedes all other identities, including their gender. And so what that meant is that anything, the only things that could be concentrated on are things that affected Black men specifically.
00:18:09
Books, BBQ & Black History
Like, yeah, it might affect some of us, but we got to talk about it in the sense of like, this is something that happened to Black men. And that's, to me, kind of reaffirming what the trap of loyalty was also talking about again. This is also where the, mentioned before in early episode about Harriet Jacobs and how I learned about her in graduate school. This is how I learned about her because I was literally studying about like sexual violence. And when I was looking into slavery, this story popped up.
00:18:40
Books, BBQ & Black History
don't even want popped up because I had to go find it. and And I think I actually just had a letter. It was like just actually a letter. So I didn't even at that point know that she had written a book until I like continued to like read a little bit more and then to find out like, oh, Harriet Jacobs is from North Carolina. Oh, she's the first black woman who was enslaved to like write her story.
00:19:04
Books, BBQ & Black History
And I'm just like, you know, just just learning all of these things. And I'm like, don't want to accidentally came across it, but like, if I hadn't been doing the research that was doing, it probably would have taken me a lot longer to find out about Harriet Jacobs,
00:19:19
Books, BBQ & Black History
you know, story. And the in the book that Harriet Jacobs wrote, Incidents in the Life was of a Slave Girl, she essentially described how, like, Black women and girls were sexually abused by slave owners, but no crime was committed because they were not considered people, just property. And, of course, people of all genders, I want to point out, for sure were abused under the system of slavery but again in reading Jacob's book I just I would encourage people to read it it is a hard read but I think that people should read it to really really understand why it's important for people to actually consider the gender dynamics of oppression as well because one of the things that Jacob's pointed out was just about how like when
00:20:10
Books, BBQ & Black History
when there were enslaved children, when they had girls, those were the ones that they were, you know, kind of the most afraid for because they knew that when she hit a certain age, that the slave owners, I mean, because their property, there is no crime committed. There's literally no crime committed. And even in Jacob's book, she talked about how she hid in an attic that was nine feet by seven feet for seven years so she could watch her children grow up because she knew if that white man found her she had no rights
00:20:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
He could abuse her in any way that he wanted, and she could do nothing because she was not property. I'm sorry, because she was property. And like again, reaffirming for me, this idea of of gender has to be talked about because there is a consequence to having people in hierarchies where violence is, again, allowed to be used used against them. And the fact that I learned about Harriet Jacobs in graduate school, and I'm from North Carolina, and I only learned about her because I was doing research about violence against Black women, to me, is really an indictment on the educational system, you know, in general, but definitely in North Carolina. And if you... And I'm also pointing this out because North Carolina just did this, and I got to say something. But they just passed a law...
00:21:33
Books, BBQ & Black History
actually, you know what? I'm a pause that. I'm a come back, but they are definitely trying to make sure that this information isn't taught, but I'm gonna come back to that. Jacob's story in regards to this, uh, my master's thesis was really, it was really impactful because Jacob's story made me really interested in this defining quality under the trap of loyalty of enduring and abuse and silence. And so I've been very intrigued by that idea. of enduring abuse and silence because speaking up about intra-community violence and when I say intra-community I'm talking about violence that happens within the black community. Black community, yeah, so you're talking about violence committed within, you know, the community that you're in. So speaking up about intercommunity violence at the hands of Black cishet, meaning cisgender heterosexual men, tends to be socially punished, ostracized, or worse in within the Black community. And this is what it says under enduring abuse and silence, under the trap of loyalty. Also notes that Black women cannot be victims when white men victimize them and can't discuss it when Black men do it. So the only choice in a white supremacist, cis-hetero patriarchal society is to endure the violence for your own safety because, you know, already a category has been created where you have, you know, no protection.
00:22:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
so what did I learn after doing all of this research? So first of all, and I specifically spoke the way that I did so I can note this, But my lack of inclusive language at that time impacted what stories I was able to share. So even though the trap of loyalty, as I was like writing about it,
00:23:15
Books, BBQ & Black History
I was concentrating on Black women. And this is because at that time, I i got to share this story, but at that time, because I didn't have as deep of an analysis of gender as i do now, I think that the language that I use prevented me from including other people within the study that I wanted to include, just because I lacked the language on how to let people know like that it isn't just women. So I'm going to read you an excerpt that I wrote that was kind of about this.
00:23:51
Books, BBQ & Black History
Let me see. de da-da du Actually, we're not going to read that. I actually just want talk about it. But yeah, so one of the drawbacks I would say, for and I don't want to drawbacks, but like just things that I learned from the study is that you really have to have the language to be inclusive. And this is also important when people are like, oh, well... why do I have to say this? And, you know, people are so offended by stuff.
00:24:17
Books, BBQ & Black History
For me, it's more of learning how to talk about things so that people know that they are invited in, as opposed to like, they're not a part of it. Because I think when I was recruiting for this, I think I recruited as like, oh, you know, black women and femmes. And I thought that that was inclusive at that time, but it it was still not inclusive enough for like what I was looking for, which was really just anyone who wasn't a, who who was not a cishet man.
00:24:47
Books, BBQ & Black History
So because I didn't have the appropriate language to say that, it it made my analysis, I would say a little weaker because I couldn't include more black lgbtqia people even though i had them in my study i think it could have been better if i had been again more inclusive so like one of the things the research actually taught me was about how even in my own marginalized identity i still have to be aware of people being more marginalized than me because that's really really important
00:25:22
Books, BBQ & Black History
and yeah, so just adding to that, as far as what I learned after this research is that, you know, all the stuff that i talked about can also be applied, again, to people who are not cishet men. The concept I use now is called Black Mages. So Mages is short for marginalized genders. And i noted this because when I was doing my research and I did have, you know, some black queer people that were a part of my study and like one of the things that they talked about was about how, you know, harmful like CISEP people in general in the black community are not just men, but just CISEP people and like how they stigmatize or label negatively people who are, who are not heterosexual, who are not cisgender. And so, it was really a point of again pointed out that black cis-et women and adults in general are able to inflict violence on the black lgbtqia community and this is really coming from understanding that framework of like the trap of loyalty helped me to understand like that there are people more vulnerable than you and
00:26:32
Books, BBQ & Black History
Whenever people cannot speak up about the violence that is happening to them, especially like within their own community, that to me is kind of an indication of like some some level of like power differential. And so I'm always interested in what what systems made that possible so we can figure out how to kind of dismantle that.
00:26:50
Books, BBQ & Black History
and that system would say it's just heteropatriarchy and so another thing i learned after you know doing this research is that cis heteropatriarchal violence is normalized and it's so normalized that people are actually punished for naming it hence black women being punished for naming who their abusers are people punish or try to discredit black women for naming the violence against them is often called a liberal agenda against Black men.
00:27:21
Books, BBQ & Black History
But noting that Black men engage in you know, violent and patriarchal power and patriarchal violence, I'm sorry, noting that Black men engage in patriarchal violence doesn't mean that we're saying other people, you know, cannot engage in this, but it still has to be pointed out about how patriarchy provides power for people. And Yeah, and and how that can show up in the ways that you can harm other people. So even though like, yeah, we're talking about, you know, black men wielding, you know, this patriarchal power, it does not mean that like other people don't. So cisgender people can also be violent. Heterosexual people can be violent. Adults, you know, can be violent. And i would say like that piece kind of leads me into my next piece of research. So that was kind of a synopsis of America's Backbone, my master's thesis. But the next thing, the next piece of research I want to talk about is is called Politics of Peace and an Abolitionist Analysis of Peace as a Tool of Social Control in Settler-Colonial Societies. This one I wrote in 2024. And this is actually the first piece of research that I published that is peer reviewed. And so peer reviewed research. So what it means if your research is peer reviewed is a process where experts from a specific field or discipline evaluate the quality of a peer's research to assess the validity, quality, and often the originality of articles for publication.
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Books, BBQ & Black History
It's considered the foundation for safeguarding the quality and integrity of scholarly research. So I say that to say that I'm very proud of this. This was my first peer-reviewed research. But let me tell you a little bit about it.
00:29:07
Books, BBQ & Black History
So Politics of Peace is originates from being asked to contribute to a special edition of the North Carolina Sociological Association. public journal called Association by one of my mentors slash colleagues. The focus of the special edition was actually looking at peace, love, and forgiveness using a sociological or criminological analysis. And i just remember when when I was reading about like kind of the special edition, because I really liked to write, so I knew I wanted to contribute. but like the the topic just did not resonate with me because you know if the focus is on peace love and forgiveness you know as a black woman i don't know that i've ever known peace living in these united states so i felt like that that feeling that i had that that's something that i needed to write about so how how to
00:30:09
Books, BBQ & Black History
turn that into research. So I started looking up what the word peace actually meant and came across a sociological definition for it. and And with it, my research question and the topic of the actual paper was born. So what is Politics of Peace about? My first peer-reviewed article. So politics of peace is actually an autoethnography. So autoethnography is just a form of still qualitative research. And so let me give you some background about what I'm saying. So qualitative research. So there are a couple of different types of research. So qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative research is going to be research that's dealing with numbers. Qualitative research is going to be pretty much everything else. But it's really more so talking about like,
00:31:00
Books, BBQ & Black History
you know, experience. I don't want say just experiences, but like interviews will be qualitative research because you can't use numbers to describe that. Autoethnographies, which is what I'm about to talk about, is qualitative research because numbers don't really describe that. So autoethnography is basically using your own experience and and using your own experience to make wider connections to the social structures essentially around you. That's probably the simplest way that I could explain it. So, Politics of Peace is an autoethnography with historical, sociological, and criminological analysis to answer the the question.
00:31:39
Books, BBQ & Black History
Who is allowed to be violent and why? And who is expected to be peaceful and why? And the argument that I actually make in this particular article is that in white supremacist, cis-hetero patriarchal settler colonial societies, people who inhabit higher social positions are allowed to engage in violence within society. And people in lower social positions are expected to accept the violence by not saying or doing anything about it. And I'm going to read you the definitions that I have for peace and violence just to kind of demonstrate kind of what I'm talking about with it. So first excerpt I have for you from this article, Politics of Feats, is the concept of forgiveness entails absolving individuals and structures of the harm they called.
00:32:32
Books, BBQ & Black History
Cause. Power refers to an institution or individual's ability to enact their will upon you. One of the methods to assert power is through violence, which is defined as the as behavior that is intentional, unwanted, non-essential, and harmful.
00:32:47
Books, BBQ & Black History
this definition allows for the inclusion exclusion of behaviors such as child abuse and self-defense. this comes from, a researcher by the name of Hamby. Finally, Valiant Court's definition of peace, which is the absence of violence, is utilizing this paper to provide the necessary context for an analysis of how peace is used as a tool of social control. And,
00:33:11
Books, BBQ & Black History
So I like to kind of define concepts so it makes sense about what I'm talking about. So social control is really talking about how do we get people to adhere to the social norms and social order of society. And so by social norms, I mean the socially acceptable behaviors. By the what did I say, the social norms and social orders. a Social order is talking about accepting the hierarchies within society so saying that you know women are supposed to do this and men are supposed to do this and children are supposed to do this and black people behave this way and white people behave this way and they see like those are kind of the reaffirming of those uh social what is it
00:33:53
Books, BBQ & Black History
those the social order. So social control is what what gets people to do what we expect them to do because we know that there are consequences. So for example, people may not, get people steal, but people might be deterred from stealing because of things like laws and that there are like actual consequences you know for that. And so, yeah so this conversation about peace as a form of social control is basically saying that people do not engage in violence because there is a social, there is a social consequence for that, but the social consequence isn't really for everybody. That's where the questions about who is allowed to engage a violence and who is expected to be peaceful, you know, come from.
00:34:41
Books, BBQ & Black History
So, what did I find in my research? And actually, just a little bit more about it, is the way that I kind of came to the conclusions I was about to tell you about is I utilize my work in abolitionist organizing that I've been doing over the years and things that I've seen, you know, kind of in that. talking about like the experiences of incarcerated people. i drew back on the trap of loyalty, that concept of that tenant of what is it? Enduring abuse and silence. That was also a pretty big part of this analysis. I talked about the criminal justice system and the ways that violence is allowed to be used within that system. Imperialism, colonialism,
00:35:25
Books, BBQ & Black History
just abuse in general I it was a lot it was a lot but you can go back and read it this is actually one of the shorter things that I've written but but yeah like so i did it an analysis of like all of those things and what I you know and I'm sorry And when I was, you know, especially looking at these different groups, there were specific things that I was looking at. So when I was looking at incarcerated people, I was talking about the violence enacted upon them by denying them access to their community. So the denial of like phone calls and letters and like charging people for that, you know, under the definition of violence, I would actually say that that is, you know, the state inflicting violence upon incarcerated people, but incarcerated people can't do nothing or not supposed to do anything back because they are in a lower social position, but they can be, you know, they can experience violence from the state, you know, by not giving them food, not giving them health care. you know, all of those sorts of things, not really, you know, leaving them when a natural disaster hits. Like, those are indicators of violence. But if incarcerated people respond to that, the consequence for them might be their own death.
00:36:36
Books, BBQ & Black History
So, like... it It, to me, kind of demonstrates, again, that inequality. Yeah. So let me see. Children, violence, and I was pointing out with them, is child poverty, crimes against humanity. So, you know, having a government that will not hold, like, pedophiles accountable and still allow them to be in positions of power to make decisions that literally impact Children, to you know, to be harmed. And, you know, and even domestically, like, sanctioning the bombing of people and other children in other countries specifically, and also levying economic sanctions, you know, the United States doing that. to other countries, you know, to essentially inflict harm upon them, that is violence. That is violence. It really comes back to that question of who is allowed to be a about violent and why. The trap of loyalty research again becomes important because that research kind of indicates that by people having to endure abuse in silence, that's expected because they are of a lower social position. Why else would you expect them to just accept the violence, you know, that was happening to them unless there is someone else whose livelihood is more valued than that?
00:37:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
And so what did I find, you know, upon this analysis that I did? that I'm right. Like, I'm right. oh People who are poor and disabled can't speak out on violence against them that is caused by capitalism because people would tell you capitalism has to exist. Black people can't speak out on the violence that happens against them because white supremacy is going to punish you for even, you know, doing anything about it, which is what we're seeing with all this, anti-diversity equity inclusion. Please stop saying DEI. They're shortening it to make it a buzzword, but they are literally trying to stop people who are marginalized from having their voices and experiences, which again is why this podcast exists.
00:38:38
Books, BBQ & Black History
Children can't speak out on adults' violence against them. And this happens under that system of cis-heteropatriarchy because part of that system is people in higher social people, people being placed into hierarchies based on their gender identity and also their sexuality and their age. That becomes a part of it as well. So children can't really speak out against adult violence. Mages can't speak out on violence that they experienced by cis-het men under the system of patriarchy. indigenous people can't speak out on the violence against them by colonial governments and nations with because they'll be punished for that think of people who are like water defenders defending the land you know you just like people can are not supposed to you know complain about it and even you know thinking about you know what's happening with what is it
00:39:32
Books, BBQ & Black History
the united states and palestine and israel and the war being like raged on them by the united on palestinians by the united states and israel and idea is that they just supposed accept like all the violence that's happening to them they ain't supposed to because israel got the right to defend itself And like nobody's really talking about, you know, the United States, like going around destabilizing and engaging in violence, like all around the world, but expecting other people to just like allow them to do it actually sounds like bully behavior. But, you know, so what did I learn after this bit of research that I did is that violence is literally what holds this white supremacist, this heteropatriarchal capitalist system together.
00:40:22
Books, BBQ & Black History
It's literally what holds it together. That's how they reaffirm it. And that's what we say happening right now in 2026. That's what ICE is doing is they're reaffirming the white supremacist, cisheteropatriarchal hierarchy, because under that system, the people who have the most social power are people who are white, people who are men, people who are cisgender, people who are heterosexual, people who are, and I use American citizen very, very loosely, but I'll say people who reside in the imperial court. That's a a better way to talk about it. And Imperial Corps would be those nations like the United States that use imperialism and colonialism to dominate and use violence to strip and exploit other places around the world of their resources. And that violence is allowed, i want to point out. So like...
00:41:16
Books, BBQ & Black History
is so allowed within the United States that we don't even really have, like, people hear, like, leftist, especially, like, black leftists, say, like, there's no difference between the Democratic and Republican Party, and people hear that and say, like, oh, well, you know, if this this Democrat had been president, then this wouldn't happen, da-da-da-da, but I'm not thinking about it like that, like, because my analysis extends past the United States borders, because even if the Democrats and Republicans do not agree on, like,
00:41:44
Books, BBQ & Black History
you know what's the example they may not agree on like you know people having access to welfare and like food stamps and all of that they're in agreeance on dropping bombs on other countries and taking their resources they're actually in very agreeance and that's what we mean when we say that like there's no difference The global politics of Republicans and Democrats, and to a certain extent, I would say domestic, but, you know, won't get into that. But it's not different. Like, if you talk to people outside the United States, they're not going to look at you as an American and you know what? Y'all have a pretty progressive party in the Democrats because they be voting to bomb people, too. And again, that's that conversation about who is allowed to be violent and why.
00:42:29
Books, BBQ & Black History
And so like, as I'm recording this episode right now, the World Cup is happening in the United States. The World Cup is happening in the United States as the United States is kidnapping people. ice yeah ice kidnapping people as there is a pedophile president as they are dropping bombs on other countries as they are funding genocides as they are engaging in genocides as police continue to kill black people as lynchings of black people are continuing to happen in 2026 and this is the society that says like you can't be violent that's not okay and
00:43:08
Books, BBQ & Black History
I just believe what my eyes see, not what I'm being told. And I believe what my ancestors have said about this government, not what they're trying to tell me what it is. And I see nothing but violence, nothing but violence. So for people who are violent to tell other people not to be violent, that's really where you know this idea and this research that I did really like comes from. Because again, people talking to me about peace is actually kind of wild when you're being violent. Like, so I should allow you to to punch me in my face, to steal my home, to create conditions for me that will take generations to to push back against and still, you know, consider you like a moral, someone who who tells people morally, like, what is and isn't good behavior. It's just weird. It just doesn't make sense, which is why I wrote this research. Because...
00:44:06
Books, BBQ & Black History
It doesn't make sense to ask people to ask for peace when the people asking for peace are violent. And the people who are violent are never asked to be peaceful. like nobody like Everybody keeps saying, like oh, well, you can't protest against ICE. Well, ICE can shoot you.
00:44:22
Books, BBQ & Black History
why You be peaceful, but ICE can shoot you. Same thing with police. You be peaceful when I'm pointing a gun at you because I'm going be scared and shoot you and it's going to be your fault.
00:44:32
Books, BBQ & Black History
And it's like, those things do not make sense. Which is why those questions of who is expected to be peaceful and why and who is allowed to be violent and why, to me, are more important questions than talking about peace forgiveness. Because what what does peace mean in a society that is that is building concentration camps in the year 2026 not that prisons haven't technically been those but like they're building them and people are acting like that's acceptable but anyway i digress after again doing this research it also reaffirms my commitment to abolition because
00:45:16
Books, BBQ & Black History
I firmly believe that all these systems are harmful. and I've talked more about that in my abolition episode, but I believe all these systems are harmful. So I'm not interested in like trying to make them work better.
00:45:27
Books, BBQ & Black History
I have seen things that let me know that there are life affirming institutions that have already been built. there are indigenous ways of living that people could have could continue to be doing. But again, it takes kind of understanding what you're living in, not being a natural hierarchy. So we are living in a natural hierarchy, which is why violence has to be used to sustain it, because it's not natural. If it was natural, you wouldn't need anything to like make it happen. It just would.
00:45:55
Books, BBQ & Black History
also want to point out that while I was writing this research, there were also the anti-genocide protests that were going on at college campuses. I'm go read you a little bit. About that from an excerpt from my article about that. So in the midst of writing this paper, I've been observing recent student protests against the genocides in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the other occupied territories around the world.
00:46:22
Books, BBQ & Black History
Students, faculties, and other community members have been peacefully protesting against genocide within campus, providing teach-ins, food, and prayer areas for participants. At UNC Chapel Hill, protester demands included cutting contracts with any company benefiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
00:46:41
Books, BBQ & Black History
The response to the peaceful protesters at UNC and other student encampments, as reported by various news outlets, was university administrator administrator administrators calling the police on students and faculty to clear the encampments for violating school policies. Various media outlets and videos on social media show student protesters being met by police in riot gear, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. In addition to the police president presence, administrators utilize other resources such as suspensions and denial of degrees to sanction protesters.
00:47:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
the violence The violent administrative and police responses to students asking for transparency from their institutions while taking a moral stance against genocide reminds me of my original questions.
00:47:23
Books, BBQ & Black History
Who is engaging in violence and why? Who is expected to be peaceful and why? And this literally, and again, like this happened while I was writing this this research. and for me, it again demonstrates exactly what I just, you know, was talking about is that, Thank you.
00:47:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
These institutions used, I'm sorry, these schools used their institutional power to punish students who protested against violence. And the punishment that they gave them were violent.
00:47:56
Books, BBQ & Black History
Like calling the police out, having you know them in riot gear, rubber bullets, tear gas. I actually saw a picture of a sniper on a building at a college campus pointing at the students during these protests as well. And again, what were the students protesting?
00:48:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
Genocide. So students protesting genocide was met with violence, but the conversation is about the students being peaceful.
00:48:23
Books, BBQ & Black History
And again, to me, that just really demonstrates about how any conversation that you have about violence that does not take into account the social hierarchies is is probably going to produce some some inaccurate or unbalanced analyses because you have to consider the social hierarchy where you're talking about who is allowed to engage in violence. And that's really what this article was really talking about.
00:48:51
Books, BBQ & Black History
So that is my second piece of research. so now I'm going to talk about my third one. And this is my baby. Like, you know, i feel very actually, I'll get into that. But I, this piece that about to talk about is not even out yet. It's actually a chapter, well, let me tell you about it. So third piece of research is called Stop Crying or I'll Give You Something to Cry About, The Invisible Line Between Child Abuse and Spanking. This will be out actually at the end of the year.
00:49:24
Books, BBQ & Black History
And this is actually a book chapter that I was asked to contribute to, a book about stigma. So the name of the book is called Navigating Stigma, Stories of Living as an Offender, Victim, and Survivor. This is also another piece of peer reviewed research that I've written. And like the others, they all kind of build upon each other. So this is also another auto ethnography. So this this means that it's from my own experience.
00:49:51
Books, BBQ & Black History
So I was approached to, you know, write about, you know, stigma. And if you don't know what stigma is, stigma is just a label. It's talking about when you devalue somebody based on their label. And so the stigmatized identity I chose to write about was about being a survivor of child abuse because, know,
00:50:12
Books, BBQ & Black History
I think even talking about like child abuse is something that makes people uncomfortable, which in and of itself, just by definition of stigma is kind of the point. Like the fact that it's kind of taboo to talk about it, it contributes to the stigma, which is why I wanted to talk about it. Also chose to talk about it because being a survivor of child abuse and being a very vocal advocate against spanking, you know, children this was also an opportunity for me to contribute, you know, what I consider to be necessary research to this this argument that I'm making using firsthand experience and my sociological expertise. So, like, I think it, i think that
00:50:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
this is a really great piece of research because I'm not just speaking from like my own, like I'm speaking from my own experience with this, but I'm also using my experience to, again, tell a wider story about how the conditions that made my experience essentially possible. So dig in a little deeper is what is stop crying. or I'll give you something to cry about, about, It's again an autoethnography with historical and sociological analysis to answer the following questions. How did I come to realize there was a stigma in the child abuse label?
00:51:33
Books, BBQ & Black History
How did I navigate that stigma? And why are survivors of child abuse stigmatized for speaking out about it? and
00:51:42
Books, BBQ & Black History
Yeah, like I said, this one was a more personal piece of research, but I still felt like it was like really, really necessary. And the... Well, I'll give a little context for this before I get into like my arguments. So the context of this, because I really don't want this episode to be necessarily about me and you know that particular experience, but I do feel like the context of it matters because that's what has shaped like not just this research, but a lot. But yeah, the context of this is that... you know, my father was very, very abusive and everything about everything I really think about with my understanding of like power dynamics and my, you know, very strong interest in advocating for children and being interested in like the dynamics that produce violence against vulnerable people that really stems from like my own experiences with those things. And
00:52:42
Books, BBQ & Black History
So for me, like, to even be able to take that sort of experience and turn it into something else for me is, and I know this is probably like jumping towards the end, but i really feel like I should should say this before I get into this stuff, but it's just very important for me to, like, be transparent about, like, that particular background of it because, yeah, I'll share more when we get to the what I learned, but that's kind of the context of, like, what kind of created the circumstance for me to even do this. So the main arguments I actually make in this chapter is that religion, white supremacy, and cis-heteropatriarchy contribute to the abuse, I'm sorry, child abuse victims' stigmatization within society.
00:53:30
Books, BBQ & Black History
Yeah, so that's one of my arguments. The other one is pretty straightforward, is that spanking is child abuse. That is what I am saying. That is what I believe. That is what my research supports. And it's not even something that I really feel like is necessary to to debate with people because like I'm not the first person to say that. Yeah.
00:53:51
Books, BBQ & Black History
But I am making argument like that there is no difference between spanking and child abuse. And that's why i use the concept of the invisible line between child abuse and spanking, because I don't really think that there is a difference. And when and when i was actually putting together my findings for this and how I did the analysis. is i Like i said, i told stories. It's a little bit of narrative about like my own experiences with child abuse. So this is very much a trigger warning sort of a piece of research.
00:54:23
Books, BBQ & Black History
But it was just using those stories to kind of unpack how we aren't even allowed as like victims of abuse to like,
00:54:36
Books, BBQ & Black History
really unpack our story and like the very very complicated feelings that come with it because a lot of people are abused by people that they know that's the the other part that's really important about this the the research is that a lot of abuse actually happens with people that you know and i think unpacking that for a lot of people is like kind of hard But yeah, but that was one of the things that I definitely made a point of, you know, kind of talking about. And the conclusions and findings that ended up coming up with after I kind of built these things out, we're just talking about how, you know, education.
00:55:11
Books, BBQ & Black History
So learning the language to be able to name what is like happening to you is really helpful. I'm going to share an excerpt in a second to kind of build that out. but education was really really important to like understanding like oh well this is actually a social problem not just a you problem exposure to diverse perspectives meeting people that ain't never been spanked before you know and find out like wow there are other people that live like this so like that was very helpful
00:55:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
with kind of navigating the stigma. mental Mental health resources, also really important as a victim. So education, exposure to diverse perspectives, and mental health resources as a victim of child abuse were all integral in my understanding, the stigma associated with the child abuse label. So I wouldn't have really recognized that there was a negative perception around, not in the way that I'm talking about now, but that there was a negative perception around being a child abuse survivor if I hadn't talked to other people who had a different experience than me, if I hadn't learned language to describe what happened to me, and if I hadn't had access to resources to
00:56:30
Books, BBQ & Black History
unpack the trauma, you know, of what happened to me. My previous research about violence being allowed for those in lower social positions is also supported by, you know, what I am talking about in this particular chapter, because child abuse could not exist if we did not allow for people in lower social positions to be to be exposed to violence. And again, if those children were to use violence against the adults that are using against them, people would say that they're wrong. But people don't, nest and I don't say people, but there are people who don't find it to be a problem for
00:57:09
Books, BBQ & Black History
violence to be used against children. Again, that's kind of that demonstration of what I was saying before in politics of peace about we actually do allow violence, you know, to certain groups of people. It's just the ones who have less power. So if you have more power in society, you're going allowed to engage in more violence than people who don't. Yeah. and another conclusion finding from this is Once I kind of did all of my analysis, it really demonstrated for me that there is no real difference between spanking and abuse when you take into account the historical context like slavery and the social context like white supremacy, cistern patriarchy. and the the violence required to uphold those hierarchies. When you consider those, it's hard to kind of differentiate between what spanking and abuse is when you you consider those contexts. Violence is required in these systems against vulnerable groups to maintain these particular social hierarchies. And so I'm going to read you a little
00:58:10
Books, BBQ & Black History
clip from this and i'm sorry yeah i'm gonna read you a little excerpt from particular chapter just so you can kind of hear some of the stuff i'm talking about so learning language to describe the experience i've had has been empowering on this journey to navigate the stigma associated with being a child abuse survivor the idea of patriarchy taught me to understand that violence within male dominant society is necessary to control marginalized genders and children as well Grasping the notion of white supremacy and seeing it at a society seeing it as a society-level problem was helpful, even though I had known about it from direct experience all my life. Being informed about research and data on child abuse victims helped me stay attuned to what happens in others' lives. Learning about the historical and cultural significance of these ideas and their practices helped me but better understand the structural causes and implications of the stigma I felt.
00:59:00
Books, BBQ & Black History
In other words, having a conceptual framework and language in which understanding in which to understand my personal experience was insightful, concerning, and empowerful empowering. Thus, it changed how I navigated my stigmatized identities as being Black, a woman, and a child abuse survivor.
00:59:17
Books, BBQ & Black History
Maybe a simpler way to say this is that as I started learning more about the commonality patterns and outcomes of other survivors, I saw some my own behaviors being mirrored, and that helped me recognize the importance of understanding what happened to me.
00:59:30
Books, BBQ & Black History
One thing but became clear. Cycles repeat if you aren't aware of them, enough to interrupt and change them. This is true in an individual's life and in the society's systems will produce the same outcomes if you do not challenge them.
00:59:44
Books, BBQ & Black History
yeah, so that is an excerpt from the, chapter. So what did I learn after doing this particular research about child abuse?
00:59:55
Books, BBQ & Black History
Children are the most oppressed group, I would say, in the world. Adult decisions determine which children get safety, which children get access to resources, which children get opportunities, and which children just in general have a chance to have a future. Yet children often get no say-so in those conversations.
01:00:18
Books, BBQ & Black History
And that really makes me think, well, we'll pause there, but yeah. That to me is like very important to to really sit with because if you aren't considering the most vulnerable within your society, then you're probably you're probably creating things that are going to harm them.
01:00:41
Books, BBQ & Black History
Also, after doing this research, it just reaffirmed for me that almost all social problems in the world can be traced back to children, either being socialized in a way that produces harmful ideas and beliefs that they carry into adulthood and then use their power to to enact those you know sorts of behaviors.
01:01:03
Books, BBQ & Black History
Or just by like not providing them with the resources, again, that they actually need to thrive as like children. So children are failed in like such a variety of ways. And I'm going to continue to point out specifically within the United States There is no way that a pedophile and pedophiles could be in the government of the United States if there was not already a hatred and a hatred of children and a disregard for children. Because all of that should be disqualifying behavior for any, i don't care what type of work that you're doing. But when you understand like the history of the United States and how they have always treated children, especially those that are the most marginalized. Not that they care that much about, you know, white children either. But like when you look at like policies that are passed, data centers are a great example. AI is a great example of what is happening today and how harmful those things are to children. they don't have no choice.
01:01:58
Books, BBQ & Black History
don't have no choice and and last thing i'll note about that is that you know after doing this research it it reaffirms for me again that people should not be spanking their kids and i i really stand firm on that because of just the understanding about how child abuse you know really it it is an extension again of like white supremacy and you I'll say, don't want to say too much because this is still coming out, but like, yeah, that is probably the biggest thing that I kind of get out of that. And the last thing I'll mention as far as what I learned is that,
01:02:35
Books, BBQ & Black History
Abolition work must include children being centered because part of abolition, you know, for me is like destroying the the harm, the systems of harm for building better worlds or yeah building better worlds. But if you not building a world that centers children, that for me doesn't really mesh. And that's why I'm so interested in matriarchal societies, because they do actually center children in a way that patriarchal societies just refuse to. So why do I believe my research is important to black folks?
01:03:08
Books, BBQ & Black History
So a few reasons. So I think that the research that I do addresses like root causes of systemic inequality. And part of that is because i actually spend so much time reading things written by black people or things about black people. So by centering you know, Black people, and, like, even my research, I think it has given me, like, a more thorough analysis of, like, the world, honestly, because people who don't read Black people, then, like, I just assume that they don't really know as much, and that's not to say, like, I read lots of lots of different things, but Black people are, like, 90 percent of where I'm going to be looking because the black people I read also read outside of their, borders outside of their community. So like, it's not as if I'm not engaging other people's white works.
01:04:03
Books, BBQ & Black History
but like, I can read black people that are talking about Edward Said, you know i mean? So like, I know that there are people that are expanding, like kind of past that, but yeah. also believe my research is important to black folks because, white supremacist institutions will never teach you about black people, their history or their knowledge. was literally discouraged from centering, people, even in shaping my own research.
01:04:30
Books, BBQ & Black History
which is why it's also important, you know, creating your own spaces. I believe that, you know, centering Black folks unapologetically in, you know, those spaces is something, you know, that's important for me. And i think it's important in, like, research that people are doing as well is, you know, because
01:04:52
Books, BBQ & Black History
by telling our own experiences, we can connect our experiences with others and really just learn about the world. Because I'm just thinking about, like, how sharing my experience as a child abuse survivor, sharing my, you know, won't say just sharing, but like talking about my experiences, like with abolition, talking about like, you know, how it has felt to be a black woman and like not having a lot of language to describe those experiences. Those are things that I've been able to build out because I have been so,
01:05:24
Books, BBQ & Black History
I've been so clear about like how my own experiences have like impacted me. And this is also why I say like science isn't objective because it's not objective for me to write about like Black women because part of me writing about Black women is because of the unique experiences I've had as a Black woman.
01:05:39
Books, BBQ & Black History
Part of me writing about child abuse the way that I do is because of my experiences. So anyone who says that you know science is objective is wrong that's what say science is an objective because it's still created by humans also believe my research is important because it really again demonstrates this idea of like everybody will not support your work so you got to believe in it even when they don't so that white woman that was a professor told me oh i'm not sure what this will bring to the field she really could have shut down like my ideas if i believed
01:06:15
Books, BBQ & Black History
that what I was writing at that time wasn't important. And every piece of research that I have written, literally every piece of research I have written since I did my master's thesis has called back to that master's thesis that she told me, what will that bring? I could have wrote that this year and it would still be relevant today. It would have been better written, but the ideas I'm talking about would still be relevant today. yeah.
01:06:40
Books, BBQ & Black History
Also believe the research is important because when you understand the systems, you can share the tools to dismantle them. This is why i' saying like like, I am so into matriarchal societies because societies that center children and create structures for their safety, care and development have better outcomes for all people.
01:07:00
Books, BBQ & Black History
Like, and that's something that I've learned as I have continued to do like my sociological research and like focusing on again on like vulnerable people. And this again kind of goes back to me getting to the point of understanding that like Black youth need to be centered in all work that Black people are doing. And when I say centered, I don't mean that it has to all be about them, but they need to be considered there at some point. But there also needs to be work that centers them specifically, not as a side thought, but like literally as an o oppressed group in the same ways that we talk about disabled people as an oppressed group, as Black people as an o oppressed group, Black LGBTQIA people as oppressed group. Black youth have to be considered an oppressed group because children are very oppressed in our society.
01:07:42
Books, BBQ & Black History
But part of doing that centering of them is that you got to respect them enough to find out what they need and not actually assume. But that will be built out a little bit more the next episode. So instead of an interesting fact for today, I'm actually going to do a notable person instead of a fact. And the notable person that I am choosing, datada you shouldn't be surprised, but it is Dr. Beth Ritchie, who has had such a profound impact on my work. But yeah, she is a professor of Black Studies, Criminology, Law, and Justice, and
01:08:16
Books, BBQ & Black History
What's she known for? Her scholarly and activist work has been on the ways that race and ethnicity and the social position affect women's experience of violence and incarceration with focus on the experiences of African-American battered women and sexual assault survivors. And some of her notable work is she is one of the editors of the long-term resisting life sentences working towards freedom in 2018.
01:08:43
Books, BBQ & Black History
with collaborating teachers from Stateville Prison. Her earlier book, Compelled to Crime, the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, is taught in many college courses and is recognized as its original arguments concerning race, gender, and crime and the contemporary advocacy work on behalf of criminalized survivors. Dr. Richie's most recent book titled Abolition feminist Feminism Now in 2022 with Angela Davis, Gina Dent, and Erica Miners. Dr. Richie is a founding member of INSIGHT Women of Color Against Violence.
01:09:13
Books, BBQ & Black History
She, let me see, she was also appointed as a senior advisor to the NFL to work on their gender violence prevention program. So what has her work mean meant to me?
01:09:24
Books, BBQ & Black History
Oh my goodness, I could probably do a full episode about that. But because a lot of, you know, everything that's in this episode has been pretty much inspired by what I learned from, you know, Beth Ritchie and especially this framework of the trap of loyalty. It literally has changed the way i analyze the world and made me consider gender oppression just as serious as racial oppression. And it also required me to consider the cost of silence as a silence as a survivor of abuse.
01:09:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
Her work is a reminder to me that having the language to describe your own experiences is powerful. And like I just remember when I came across you know the concept of the trap of loyalty, like just how...
01:10:10
Books, BBQ & Black History
It was like an aha you know sort of moment. And I was just like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that there is a word you know for something like this. And I got to know more. And you know just since then, I've just been going with it. So.
01:10:24
Books, BBQ & Black History
This gets us to our excerpt of the day. And I actually feel like you should not be surprised by this. You should really have expected this because of this episode. But of course, the the book is from Beth Ritchie. Arrested Justice, Black Women Violence in America's Prison Nation. That is literally the book that inspired my master's thesis. I literally, like I said, I take stuff from it all the time to this day. It's that important in the work that I do.
01:10:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
So a little bit more about Dr. Beth Ritchie. So Dr. Ritchie is the author of Arrested Justice, Black Women, Violence in America's Prison Nation, which chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States and numerous articles concerning Black feminism and gender violence, race and criminal justice policy and the social dynamics around issues of sexuality, prison abolition and grassroots organizations in African-American communities.
01:11:22
Books, BBQ & Black History
All right. So in the excerpt that I read, Richie is really noting how the portrayal of Black women in cultural venues like music videos, movies, and novels add to the emotional manipulation of Black women that The Trap of Loyalty describes. She pointed out that, yes, white men own the capitalist markets that these portrayals of Black women are kind of put on.
01:11:49
Books, BBQ & Black History
But she also noted that, you know, there are also Black producers, artists, and profiteers who benefit from the negative portrayals of Black women in the entertainment industry. She also noted the ways that racial and gender oppression...
01:12:04
Books, BBQ & Black History
of Black women are used to blame them for the conditions they are in and make them responsible for creating those conditions, even if those aren't true. And she knows the vulnerability and harm of Black women and girls in the community when race is centered above all other identities. And especially when she made the point about how, let me see, Black community members tolerate direct physical assault, sexual abuse and aggression, emotional manipulation, and the social alienation of Black women. And like, I literally, you know, be thinking about what I have. Well, actually, yeah, I'm not going to say those yet. But like, I just think about the things that I've seen. And I'm just like, yeah, this is like actually a thing.
01:12:42
Books, BBQ & Black History
that is still like very, very present because I just think of how just any time a Black woman speaks up about violence she's experienced from Black men, that she is ostracized for it. And even outside of that, it really says something to me that people are more willing to be in community with like predators than they are like queer people.
01:13:07
Books, BBQ & Black History
Because that to me is also... a part of that conversation again about cis-heteropatriarchy.
01:13:17
Books, BBQ & Black History
The impact that Beth Ritchie has had just on my research in general is that the trap of loyalty gave me a framework of centering the most vulnerable. Enduring abuse in silence, like I said, is one of the most... is one of the most important parts I kind of took out of the trap of loyalty. And it is actually what I use to build out my research around violence against children. The concept also allowed me to examine system structures and ideologies that allow violence against those in lower social positions. So like I said, trap of loyalty has informed like all the research that I've done. so like, I just cannot understate how much of an impact that is had on me.
01:13:59
Books, BBQ & Black History
the trap of loyalty the original research that i did with it i actually so that would be my master's thesis america's backbone actually consider it to be like one of the most important pieces of research that i've written even though i think everything that i've written has been important for a few reasons because one my mom and my grandmother both got to come see me defend my thesis and I'm going to a picture of that, but it is really one of like the proudest moments I have from like my academic career, like period for them to be able to like see me like do that. and you know, it's also the most important research I've written because it has inspired everything I published since which I've, you know, been saying,
01:14:41
Books, BBQ & Black History
the arguments again, keep being built out. I'm just very glad that I chose to write it because 10 years later is still relevant. When I wrote it, I was talking about R. Kelly, Clarence Thomas and Bill Cosby.
01:14:54
Books, BBQ & Black History
r Kelly has, and I just won't say I'm an abolitionist. So like, you know, complicated feelings about this, but r Kelly being in jail, Bill Cosby being in jail, that wasn't something I thought that I would ever see. i thought that they would be allowed to continue to harm people. And this, again, like i wrote this almost 10 years ago, but today i could have still written it about Clarence Thomas could still be in there. I could have written it about Tory Lanez. I could have written it about Chris Brown. I could have written it about Diddy. And the arguments would still be the same. because people still defend those people in the same way that they defend, well, Clarence Thomas, maybe not him, but like Diddy, Chris Brown, Tory Lanez, literally see people defending them in the same way that I talked about R. Kelly, like in that article that I talked about. So that trap of loyalty, like I said, it just feels so relevant, like as as a descriptor.
01:15:52
Books, BBQ & Black History
And this, like I said, Trap of Loyalty and just Beth Ritchie's work also is a reminder to me of the importance of having high racial self-esteem, because if I had believed what that white woman professor told me, I wouldn't have written my research. I wouldn't be here today. i couldn't even read you about the things that I just wrote that I wrote about because I wouldn't have written it originally. And it made me a lot more unapologetic in my pushback against cis-heteropatriarchy and this violence. I'm not debating with nobody about who i in patriarchy is real and if Black men have power you know under that system, if cisgender have power. I'm not debating nobody about that. I have lived the experience. I have seen what I have seen. i have organized around that violence.
01:16:34
Books, BBQ & Black History
So it's not even a space that I'm like willing to go to with people in the same sense of like I'm not arguing with people about white supremacy. This is for me kind of the same thing. All right, so we have kind of reached the end. So I want to share my inspirational black quote with you for today.
01:16:51
Books, BBQ & Black History
So here's the quote. When you're able to describe exactly what people are experiencing, it makes it that much easier to address it. It's hard to address something that you don't have context for.
01:17:03
Books, BBQ & Black History
This quote is from Moya Bailey, who is also the person who coined the term misogynoir, which is also another concept that describes the emotion. I'm not emotional, but describes the way that racism and sexism work together to produce oppression. um'm I'm paraphrasing, but oppression against black women. And this quote is exactly how I felt when I started discovering concepts like misogynoir, like, you know, the trap of loyalty, like trans misogynoir, like,
01:17:37
Books, BBQ & Black History
It just was really helpful in having concepts that reflected my experience as a Black woman. Gender re oppression in the Black community is real.
01:17:47
Books, BBQ & Black History
Those who benefit from it, Black men, Black cisgender people, Black heterosexual people, Black adults, are still harmed by it, though. The most impactful people I've read about in Black history centered the most vulnerable by naming what was happening to them. So for me, it's really an honor to be able to walk in those footsteps, to be able to use that language, to name these things unapologetically.
01:18:11
Books, BBQ & Black History
And the fact that that language is there for me to actually use. And again, i don't debate people about the harm of patriarchy in the Black community, cisheteropatriarchy specifically in the Black community. I have the language to describe it, the research to back up what I'm saying, and my own lived experience with the violence. So to me, there's not a debate in that. If people want you to be silent, ignore, or get mad when you share your experiences with gender oppression, or as an abuse victim of any kind, even within the Black community, please know that they are likely part of the problem and are assisting in upholding white supremacy. And as always, all skinfolk ain't kinfolk.
01:18:49
Books, BBQ & Black History
So, I am looking forward to continuing to learn with you. I hope that you know you enjoyed learning about my research. I actually have some other stuff I'm working on that I actually didn't talk about, so I'll definitely keep sharing. Of course, like, comment, subscribe to the podcast. And if you'd like to access any of this research,
01:19:09
Books, BBQ & Black History
besides the the book chapter that's not out yet but any of the information that's out right now you can go to my website books barbecue and black history.com backslash portfolio and all of my research is up there for free for you to read so if you enjoyed learning about any of this information you can actually access all of it so talk to y'all soon