Introduction to 'Alienity The Podcast'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi guys, welcome to the Alienity The Podcast. I'm your host, Alion, and I am so excited to have you join me for this week's podcast. As you can see, I did not play my normal intro and intro music and
00:00:18
Speaker
I have changed the tone of things for this particular podcast.
Global Protests and Personal Reflections
00:00:26
Speaker
But I have to say that this is one of the hardest podcasts that I have ever had to record. I wanted to talk about our current climate in our country currently.
00:00:45
Speaker
In the USA and in 18 countries around the world, there has been several protests and demonstrations for the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.
00:01:03
Speaker
Although three of these beautiful people was murdered and two out of three of them was murdered by the police and the other was murdered by two citizens or one citizen and his father trying to, I guess, patrol the neighborhood and they killed him without reason or cause.
00:01:28
Speaker
And it has caused such a shaking and an uproar in the US. And I'm aware that several people or I'm aware that people all around the world listen to my podcast. So you might be unaware of what's going on in the US. This may not even affect you.
Historical Context and Systemic Issues
00:01:50
Speaker
And I just wanted to get on here and on this podcast because I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't talk about it and just share my heart and maybe even some of my own experiences. I don't have many notes written down.
00:02:10
Speaker
I don't have a real structure for this podcast. I'm just here to share my heart and what future podcasts for the Alienity podcast will look like moving forward. I didn't want to immediately express
00:02:27
Speaker
my thoughts and feelings. I just wanted to take a minute to listen and understand and gather my thoughts and feelings. And I knew I had a voice, but I didn't know what to say. And I knew that I needed to find my lane and I needed to find my voice.
00:02:49
Speaker
And I just wanted to take a moment to just to think and process everything out that I was experiencing. And honestly, as I thought about how for centuries African Americans have been suppressed or oppressed and suppressed and how we have been subjected to slavery, racism, prejudice, injustice, abuse and neglect, just to name a few.
00:03:17
Speaker
And I need to, I feel like I need to say this just in case you don't know it. And I don't even know if I even stated this on the podcast, but I am a black woman. And we as an African-American community has endured so many things from systemic racism to systemic poverty, from racism, from slavery, you know, all of the things that I just recently named, we have become
00:03:47
Speaker
so frustrated and so tired of the constant abuse of us and we are ready and desperate and hungry and fighting for change.
Social Equality and Economic Disparities
00:04:00
Speaker
So if you are someone that doesn't live in the US and maybe you don't know what exactly is going on, we are just protesting and fighting and sending emails and
00:04:15
Speaker
signing petitions and pushing our governors and our mayors and any elected official to take action for police brutality. And we are fighting to get social
00:04:32
Speaker
equality for all racial groups. It goes without saying that there is a huge wealth gap in between when you compare whites and when you compare blacks, there's a huge wealth gap between us and
00:04:52
Speaker
It is, it's so many statistics and so many things and I won't get into it in this podcast, but there are so many things that has been in place in America to keep black people below the poverty line or at the poverty line. And yeah, there are a few of us that do break out and, you know, in some cases we break out and become, you know,
00:05:20
Speaker
beyond the poverty line or beyond the system, quote unquote, but there's not enough of us that's doing it. And so, you know, even in the discussion of black on black, quote unquote, black on black crime and all of that stuff, you know, where there is poverty, there is violence, and that is in any context you can go to.
00:05:42
Speaker
any low income neighborhood and it doesn't it doesn't have to be a black neighborhood. It could be any kind of neighborhood of any race, and you will see violence because of poverty so there needs to be several discussions happening all at once right now we're fighting for justice for three people.
00:06:03
Speaker
And we are looking and pressing to see justice being served on her path. But justice, honestly for us at this moment, is just a prerequisite to what more we need, more conversations that we need to sit down.
00:06:18
Speaker
and have and things that need to happen to ensure that black people are treated with respect and given the same opportunities to advance forward as some of our other racial counterparts have had.
Personal Experiences with Racism
00:06:36
Speaker
And so we are, as a community, we are frustrated and we're weary and we're tired of the constant mistreatment of our people at the hands of the police, people that we pay taxes to employ, people that swore to serve and protect, people that supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be our allies, supposed to protect us.
00:07:02
Speaker
We are struggling, and this has been a struggle for us, with police. And so we're just at a point of unrest. And as a black woman that grew up in poverty, I've seen a lot, and I've experienced a lot myself. I've experienced racism directly and indirectly. So as I watch the constant events unfold before my eyes, I struggle with maintaining hope for the future.
00:07:32
Speaker
I, like I said, I'm a black woman and I'm afraid of what the future would look like for my children. You know, if I was to have kids, I'm afraid of my brother, my father, my cousins leaving the house and something happening to them.
00:07:50
Speaker
because of their skin color. I have seen time at the time, at the time, my brother being harassed by the police and made to lay on the concrete and hog-tied up with, you know, it was almost like he was hog-tied. This one instance where him and his friends was being harassed and they wasn't doing anything and they didn't have drugs, they didn't have guns, these were young men
00:08:16
Speaker
college students that was better in their future just hanging out with each other and they felt like they were safe in front of their own home instead of being out somewhere else. Even on their own property, they wasn't safe. If you've ever experienced that as a black woman, if you've ever seen that, it's very traumatizing and it's extremely triggering for
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us to have to endure through and so I've seen you know murders and and I know of how the police plant guns and just stuff like that just all of the things that that has happened in our community our drug you know how drugs entered our community and so forth and so on and so
00:09:04
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I've seen stuff with my own eyes.
Emotional Impact and Advocacy
00:09:08
Speaker
Honestly, after watching George Floyd be murdered by the police, it just erupted in everybody and we're just at an unrest. So many questions ran through my mind. Some of the questions was, what will it take to make a change and what can I do and where do I start?
00:09:30
Speaker
It's it's hard to settle yourself when your emotions is high and your spirits is low You know your spirit my spirit is completely low and I have to you know, I got back on social media just for a hot second just to voice my to share my voice and to disseminate information as much as I can to help and
00:09:57
Speaker
I have to even limit myself because I know that my heart is heavy and and even today you know my mom called me and she she was sharing with me how she was going to get some food and she she had she hadn't seen she's seen protests on tv but she hadn't um like really seen them up close and personal and and today she finally seen one
00:10:20
Speaker
and it brought her the tears and she called me and she was just crying because for her it was just emotionally overwhelming because it was so beautiful to see us fighting for a cause but I think for her it kind of all just kind of came together because she had been feeling some emotions but kind of suppressed them.
00:10:42
Speaker
And at that moment, she was just able to express those emotions through tears as she's seen us gather and protest. And so our emotions are everywhere right now and our spirit is low because we are just honestly trying to hold on and keep the hope and keep believing that things will get better.
00:11:06
Speaker
I just gave myself a moment to feel, to cry, to be angry, to be sad, and more importantly, to think. And after all of that, I still don't have answers. But I decided where I would start. And one thing
Future Podcast Focus on Race
00:11:22
Speaker
I realized is that there are two things that I'm extremely passionate about.
00:11:26
Speaker
One, I want to see the racial wealth gap close. I want to see black businesses and black people and people of color actually be able to see success and be able to get equal
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mortgage loans and not have to deal with predatory rates. I want to see black businesses be able to flourish and grow like white businesses have the opportunity to. I want to see black people just be able to come up and make an even and fair wage. I want to see black women be able to be fairly paid and equally paid.
00:12:14
Speaker
as a white woman would be or as a white man would be. Like if I have the education or if I have the experience or if I work hard or if I have the ideas or whatever, I wanna be able to be paid fairly and not be judged by the color of my skin. I don't wanna make a dollar less because I'm black. And so I wanna see those things change. And so I'm extremely passionate about that.
00:12:43
Speaker
about promoting and uplifting Black businesses and Black entrepreneurs. And another thing that I am passionate about is educating. I do this podcast, I podcast as much as I can, and I really take my time to develop
00:13:02
Speaker
information or find information and develop these podcasts in a way that would help you become a better person. The person that's listening to this podcast, I always want to uplift you and encourage you and empower you with information and knowledge.
00:13:18
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That's why I give recommended resources. That's why I find credible people to come on the podcast to have discussions and conversations about things that could really help you advance forward. And I'm passionate about educating and getting information, getting the right information out.
00:13:39
Speaker
in your hands and so I decided that my lane and my voice is in those two areas that that's part of who I am and that's part of what I do and so as I move forward with the Alienity podcast
00:13:56
Speaker
Honestly, we have to take a shift because of where we are right now. We need every voice that we can, we need every ally that we can to really help us fight this fight because this is a war. What I realized is that education is the best tool that we can have, one of the strongest tools that we can have in our arsenal.
00:14:23
Speaker
And so I'm going to be bringing on some guests. I have several people lined up and I actually have two lawyers coming on the podcast and they're going to talk to us about knowing our rights about things like that. So I won't get too much into that podcast, but I'm really excited to bring that to you guys. And so.
00:14:42
Speaker
I have several other things lined up to talk about to just to really educate us about race and racism and I know for so many people that is a very uncomfortable conversation to have, but we have to deal with the elephant in the room.
00:14:58
Speaker
And so all of the podcasts will not be about, you know, race and racism and things like that. I don't want to alarm you, but I do want to let you know that there are going to be subjects about race and racism that's coming up in future podcasts. The very next podcast after this is a very lighter podcast. If anybody watched the show in secure, and if you've been following along with the podcast, you know that, um,
00:15:25
Speaker
One of my favorite people to discuss insecure with is Dr. Crystal Martin, and she'll be on for the next podcast. So we're going to have a little sit down talk with that. And it's light and airy and easy to digest as we continue the process forward. But moving forward, we're going to have some very serious conversations about race.
00:15:49
Speaker
Reconciliation and what you can do if you are not a black person. What you can do to help us in this this current climate and how you can educate yourself so I'm passionate about this obviously I am like I said I'm a black woman so
00:16:08
Speaker
I am fighting this fight and I've been fighting this fight and we can no longer ignore what is going on.
Resources and Community Engagement
00:16:16
Speaker
So I am going to link some Instagram tags, some people that you can follow. Maybe if you want to learn more information,
00:16:29
Speaker
And I wanna say this too, if you are not a person of color and you listen to this podcast and you say, well, I don't even really know where to begin. I just know it's wrong, but I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to figure this out. I wanna let you know that I am a safe place. I am not a radical. I don't hate white people. I actually really do love them. And so,
00:16:56
Speaker
If you need to ask any questions, if you want to know where to start, what books to read, who to follow, what petitions to sign, how can you get involved, how can you be of help, you can always email me at ElianaNitaShow at gmail.com and I'm going to list a ton of resources
00:17:18
Speaker
in this podcast in the show description. So I really want you guys to really click on the show descriptions and look at who you can follow, find their Instagram or their Twitter feed or whatever and get involved. I'm going to list where you can sign petitions for George Floyd.
00:17:39
Speaker
Ahmaud Arbery and especially Breonna Taylor. So I'm just gonna list a ton of information there for you guys. And yeah, we're gonna get into some really hot and heavy topics moving forward in the future podcast.
00:17:57
Speaker
And I hope that I don't lose your listenership. I really do appreciate everybody that listen and stream and share. But these are conversations that we have to have because the world is going to change. And I'll say this about 2020. 2020 has been one of the most interesting years that I have ever lived in. We have had a global pandemic and we are currently fighting a racial pandemic. I mean, we've been fighting this racial pandemic, but it has come to a head.
00:18:27
Speaker
in the middle of a health pandemic. And so 2020 has been one of the most hardest but it's been hard and it's been uncomfortable, but it's been a very eye opening and a very challenging season. And I think that the challenges that we face, the things that we're facing right now
00:18:48
Speaker
is really helping us to shape the world in the future and so I think that honestly as hard as this year has been this is us facing the future forward and it's us telling like really making history to say we're going to really change this because now is the time.
00:19:07
Speaker
And so I want to encourage anybody that's listening to get involved, be a part of history, be a part of the right side of history and and really fight this thing with us so.
00:19:22
Speaker
I love you guys so much. I hope that you guys are being safe. If you are out protesting, if you are out doing the work, you know, on front lines, please be safe. Please obey the law. You know, check in with your people.
00:19:40
Speaker
Take this time, if you need to take time away from social media, take time away from social media. If you need a moment to pause, if you need to cry, if you need a safe place, you guys can always reach me. I gave out my email. My email will be in the show description. You can find me on social media. I am back active on social media for the time being. If you want to reach out to me, I promise you I am 100% available.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I just I really want you guys to be okay. And I'm sorry if this podcast is a little bit choppy and kind of all over the place, but please understand that I am completely emotional. I am trying my best to give you guys information that's raw and that's real and that's pure and really share my heart.
00:20:28
Speaker
And I have to tell you that honestly, my heart is really broken at this moment. So I am trying to not cry over this podcast and really settle myself emotionally to give you guys information that will really help us in the end. And I'm going to end this podcast by saying this quote.
Conclusion with Dr. King's Quote
00:20:48
Speaker
And this is from Dr. Martin Luther King. And it says, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
00:20:56
Speaker
So whether you are directly impacted by racism or not or indirectly impacted by racism or not anywhere that there is an injustice, it is a threat to justice everywhere. So whether you feel like this is your fight or not, it is honestly your fight and you
00:21:21
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I would really encourage any and everybody to really think through their position and really find their lane in their voice and utilize it right now in this time.
00:21:37
Speaker
I don't have a lot of language obviously like I said I'm crazy emotional and I'm fighting back tears now but honestly we just need your help and if you feel like you don't know enough and if you feel like you don't have enough yet there's plenty of information out there and this podcast will be a resource for information for you so
00:21:58
Speaker
I love you guys. I really hope that you guys stay well. I really hope that you guys are blessed. And yeah, stay blessed. Stay relevant. I love you guys. Peace.