Tillamtiptoldyou.com, the podcast about pop culture, black history and spirituality. It's about to be a great part. Doctor Tim, gone and take it away. Tillamtiptoldyou.
Hey y'all, hey, it's your girl, Tim. Thank you for joining me for another edition of Tillamtiptoldyou. The podcast where I give you all my ideas about the big things going on in the news and social media. So listen, I have a lot I want to talk to you about, but it really can be divided into two main categories.
I want to have a conversation about anti-Asian racism and the black community, right? Not those two things inherently go together, which is the point I want to make. And then I want to talk generally about this drama going around Derek Jackson, a social media influencer, I guess, social media entrepreneur, a so-called relationship expert. And what's going on with him?
I'm not going to focus in on the details of his case. And I'll tell you why when we get to that portion. I want to talk more generally about social media and relationships and black love. I want to let me pull it up on my phones so I can do this.
I want to start with this quote because I think it's an umbrella for everything we're going to talk about today. On my Instagram the other day, I was having a conversation and I couldn't remember the brother's names. I think the sister's who saved me. I'm going to use his name right today.
A Mili Foulley, I can't say it. Something of Mili Fuller, Jr. All right. This is a quote.
If you do not understand white supremacy, what it is and how it works, everything else that you understand will only confuse you. All right. I'm going to say it one more time. If you do not understand white supremacy slash racism, what it is and how it works, everything else that you understand will only confuse you.
And I want us, we're going to talk about the Puddit Master a little bit today. So let's just jump right in. You have to have been under a rock. Not to see how this anti-Asian violent group lynching in Atlanta played out.
You had a 22, well, a 21, 22 year old white boy. What up Asian women, please still can't agree if that's a hate crime or not. Or if it just happened to be that he went into three Asian spots and killed mostly women. I don't understand how you are hesitant to call that a hate crime, but that's nothing another criminal justice is not my for a y'all know that I'm a teacher.
So on the heels of this, we are now having increased conversations about anti Asian violence that have increased since the coronavirus. We know that 45 did a horrible job. Good job, horrible job, depending on who you're talking to, of blaming Asian people for this pandemic. And as a result, we've seen anti-Asian racist crimes increase, especially violent crimes increase.
And I think it's time for us to have a conversation about not necessarily, or we do need to be speaking about the crimes themselves, but I also want us to pay particular attention to how it's being couched in the media. I think it was NBC that had a headline that said something about what the black community can do about anti Asian racism, as if the bulk of these crimes have been committed by black people, they have not. So if you're unclear, let me say that they have not been perpetuated by black people. And as I just pointed out, there was a white boy that shot up them Asian salons.
We have to pay particular attention to the puppet master at all times. These headlines, some of the influencers that are posting right now, the so-called creatives that are posting right now, that are teasing up historical tensions between Asian communities and black communities are doing one a disservice to the real root of the problem, which is white supremacy. And two, they are distracting us from solving that real issue. Only white supremacists benefit from that.
Any kind of effort that creates more tension between marginalized populations is benefiting white supremacist culture. All right? I just want that to be very clear before I run down, I'm going to run down, that is my stance. That white supremacy is at the root of all of that.
All of us need to be fighting white supremacy. I'm going to say something about that point in just a moment, because there was a dumb troll on my page the other day that does not understand. So let me say it now, that white supremacy is not equal to black people. There are black white supremacists.
There are Asian white supremacists. There are white white supremacists. White supremacy does not belong to a particular race or ethnic group. Let me just say that.
In 1966, the New York Times was the first media source to use the term model minority. Now I'm a little disturbed that some of my students have never heard of this. I don't know if my generation is familiar with it because of how we're trying to pay attention to that, or if it's my black studies lens coming. I don't know.
I thought that was a term that everybody used. But it's important for us to know where it comes from. So in 1966, we have this article that presents Asian people as the model immigrant group in the United States. It's an incredibly problematic idea that has been spread through media propaganda.
But the whole idea of the Asian student always being the smartest, and the Asian community not having social justice issues that they pull on. Or the Asian community not to use the so-called race card when things get difficult. So on and so forth. That's usually why they're presented as the model minority because they're quiet about political things.
They turn inward, create ethnic enclaves where they can be successful, where they do business amongst each other, so on and so forth. And because of those characteristics, some of which are untrue, they've been presented to us in the media as this group that we should aspire to. Hence the term model minority. And you can see it over the years.
If you just look at news articles around Asian students, you'll see the term up here. And even when the term is not used, you can tell the reporter writes from that lens. Okay. There's a wonderful article from about maybe eight years ago by Wayne and Ben Binchi Chang.
And it's called, Your Asian How Could You Fail Mad? So just Google that. I'll put a link in the show notes. But Wayne, Al and Ben Chichang's, Your Asian How Could You Fail Mad does an incredible job of outlining the historiography of the model minority term.
But they do an even better job of arguing why we need to understand Asian communities differently. And we see a piece of that happening right now in the response to a lot of this anti-Asian violence. We're seeing a new term become popular, the AAPI community. Before anti-Asian violence, you all have to tell me, send me an email at Dr.
Tippett tell him to tell you. If that was a comment, I've never heard that before now, this designation of the AAPI, Asian American Pacific Islander community. But Al and Chang in their article do a good job explaining to us how to group all Asian communities under the umbrella of Asian. It's incredibly problematic because their experiences, their class, their level of political engagement is all so varied that when we speak of them as the Asian community, we are marginalizing the distinct differences and experiences that are found within and among those communities.
So again, click the link in the show notes. Make sure you read that article. It does a great job. And I think we're better situated to have conversations about what's happening in the media right now if we're informed about the model minority myth.
Now, all that being said, here's what I want to say. To be black in the United States is to understand that we have not always been able to rely on other people of color to find problems in the system the way that we do. I think it's important for me to state right now and for you to think about. We are the only minority group, the only marginalized population in the United States to have suffered under shadow slavery.
Because of that, our relationship to this beast of white supremacy is slightly different. I would argue we may be more informed and may be more sensitive to the imaginations of white supremacy because of that unique experience we've had in the US. But I don't want us to forget that depending on where we live, it may be a shorter memory, but there have always been collaborations between communities of color. Should those collaborations be more of the norm?
Yes. But have they happened? Also yes. So I recognize that there needs to be intercultural healings between AAPI communities and black folk.
There needs to be intercultural healings. There needs to be some admission of we're sorry. So let me, I'm going to speak now with Tiffany and I'm not going to generalize this. Tiffany is, I stop Asian hate, right?
Stop Asian hate. You will hear me say that. Stop Asian hate. I have to concede that there is a reason why some black folk don't feel comfortable marching in the streets for Asian communities.
Because by and large, the history is such that you didn't have our backs. You didn't have our backs. And so there's a feeling now. It's a tension within, right?
This is why critical self-reflection is so important. There's a tension within that says should I put it all on the line for these people who only sometimes do that for me? I think we have to be honest with ourselves about that tension within. All of that being said, here's why I want to go back to the nearly fuller quote.
Even though that tension is within, what I think is important for black folk to remember in this moment is who the person pulling the strings is. It was a white boy that shot up these salons, these bars. White supremacy got on TV in the face of a sheriff and said he was just having a bad day. It was white supremacy which wrote a headline asking the black community what they were going to do about anti-Asian violence even though we're not the ones perpetuating it.
There's only one system that benefits from anti-Asian violence and anti-black violence. That's where our attention needs to be right now. Yes, we have intercultural work and intercultural healing to do between the AAPI community, probably more with the Asian American community than the PIA community. That's the problem with grouping them together.
We have some healing to do and some work to do between us. But we have to remember who the common foe is. That's why it's a privacy. White supremacy is the puppet master pulling all these strings.
And as long as we're focused on the intercultural piece that does need to happen, but our focus can't be there right now. Our primary focus has to be on the enemy because until we focus on the enemy as fully reminds us everything else about our relationship is going to confuse us. We'll forget who set them up as the model minority to be aspired to. We'll forget who gave them those school seats in urban areas in affluent schools while they pushed our babies out.
We'll forget who orchestrated all of that. We'll forget how the poverty in some of these urban areas set up the tensions between two marginalized populations. We can't afford to forget. Now let me say this.
I posted on my page the other day. When I saw, y'all know I don't like these, most of them, I don't like these social media hashtags, they get real popular right after a crime or event or movement or whatever. So I create my own. So when people use a hashtag, stop Asian hate, I did a meme that basically said, you know, white supremacy is what causes anti-Asian hate.
And there was a black man. You know, Mama Zora is my virtual mentor and I could hear her in the corner of my ear. Oh, your skin folk ain't your skin folk. All right.
So I put on my post that this is what we do. We always blame writing for our problems and blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me say to you what I say to that brother, when we talk about white supremacy, that is not synonymous with white people. See, the Fuller had it right until we understand white supremacy.
Everything else will confuse us. So you might see my post and think I'm talking about white people. I'm not. I grew up in the South, which means I know a whole lot of rural white people who are working class who are who systems foot is only next, just like its own man.
Now I want them to know that. I want them to understand that better because they are also confused because they don't understand white supremacy. But white supremacy is a system. It's not people.
It's not people. Every white person is not a white supremacist. Every black person ain't necessarily not a white supremacist. That's whatever.
If you're six or something years old and you posted some shit like that on my page, you are closer to white supremacy than I am. But even with him, even with a 60 year old black troll having a problem with other black people calling out white supremacy, lets me know that there's a puppet master and I'm distracted if my focus is on a 60 something year old troll and not on the system that creates a 60 something year old troll. Do you understand what I'm saying? That we have to when we're dealing with these things, when we're dealing with anything because in the next, we're going to talk about Derek Jackson just a second.
Anything when we are trying to do, we're trying to achieve the good condition. I'm not going to. Erosun Iwardi. I was not going to do it, but I'm going to do it.
Erosun Iwardi is probably my second favorite O do after Oce to her. So in Erosun Iwardi, humans are being reincarnated, right? So built into the cosmology of your book culture is the idea of reincarnation. And so humans were living in heaven and then having to be reborn, earth is the marketplace.
You know, they were living in heaven, having to be reborn, dying and going back to heaven and it was a cycle. And humans became frustrated and they went to God and they were like, look, we tired. We don't want to go there no more. Please, you know, where are those ghetto keep us here?
Why we got to keep going out in? And God says, you know, until you get it right, it is your job to make the good condition on earth. And until you do that, you got to keep going to work. Until the job is done.
And we know that's one of the primary distinctions between Christianity and Yoruba cosmology is this idea that the savior of the world is not some being, it's humans. There's a lot of agency there. Anyway, that might be why I'm drawing to it. Okay, I said all that.
Why did I go? Why did y'all have me talking about Erosun Iwardi? That is human jobs to bring the conditional earth. Oh, I know why.
So if we are going to bring about this good conditional earth, personal development, professional development, spiritual development, mental development, emotional development, all of that depends on our critical self reflection of our role in what's happening in the condition that currently exists. What role is Tiffany playing in this condition? What role is my spending of money playing in this condition? What role are my relationships playing in this condition?
Are they serving to help bring about the good condition or am I part of that toxicity that has to be repaired before we can stop coming to this ghetto place? You understand what I'm saying? All right. In this current season of the puppet master trying to pit Asian folk against black folk.
You got Asians so distracted by black lives matter right now. They ain't even talking about the white boy and what it did to shoot. Can you understand how insidious white supremacy is where it can cause victims of a crime not to look to the perpetuator of the crime, but the innocent bystander, we had nothing to do with that white boy running up in the spot. But almost 90% of the news stories about this tension anti-Asian racism right now talks about black people.
And I'm like, what kind of bait and switch con job is happening? We have to be consciously aware of who's writing the stories, who's publishing the stories and who benefits from the continued now increasing tensions between two groups who are already marginalized by a system set up for only one group to win. Okay, I'm off that. But I do want to draw some comparisons to this bullshig of it going on right now with Derek Jackson.
I don't follow the brother even well enough to know am I saying his name right? JAXN is a Jackson. Does he say Jackson? But y'all know what I'm talking about.
This the brother that sits in the car. If you want to talk to me that you've seen, I don't follow him, but enough people share his stuff that I'm familiar. So it's the buff, dark skin, chocolate, attractive guy who sits in the car and waxes poetic about black love and relationships. And he started that whole crazy mess a couple of summers ago about black men, don't she?
See when that came out, I was like, I don't know enough about him, but I know that that right there, I'm still clear of you. All right, because you can't come out with some stuff like that. Anyway, you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, we should have been a little wet.
That was a red flag. It was a red flag. All right. It was also a red flag to me that you were doing all these conversations about black love and you always by yourself.
Like I just, we don't get to that part in a moment, right? About, y'all know literacy is my background. Material culture and literacy is part of my background. So my dissertation study was on it.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me just speak. All right. So his most recent book is called Healed Together.
And then like I say, he started just hashtag black me and don't cheat a few years ago. Well, there Jackson, you know, influencer selling these books, making a lot of money, very popular brother, right? He seems to me, you know, a couple of videos that I saw that people were sharing. I was like, okay, he's defending the sisters.
I'm with it. I ain't gonna follow you because that black man don't cheat things throws me. But you know, I support it. But how about this weekend?
Honey chai. So supposedly, not supposedly, this is what all the guys are people doing. This is not a guys podcast. So I'm gonna take it from his micro situation to the macro in just a moment, but I just want to set up the conversation.
So supposedly this woman, sister Candace, who he's been sleeping with, spilled all the beans. Okay, she says, brother, Jackson, be married for four years, at least. He ain't told nobody. Like, did you know he was married?
Not many of us knew he was married. I don't know anybody who knows he was married. And from what these guys of common myths are saying, he's been telling women and sleeping with folk all around Atlanta. Okay.
Well, I don't know anything about that. That's neither here nor there to me. I do think it's a problem where a married man who is supposedly a relationship expert with the tagline, like Black men, don't cheat, and a book like Hill together has a woman coming forth on social media saying, you've been sleeping with me and then described in detail the wife's bedroom. Okay.
Yeah. All right. Okay. So let me take it from the micro.
Let's go macro because I don't want to do whatever that is. Let me say this. All of us have either been or both and have been a peccinator or a victim of infidelity. All of us know what that feels like.
I'm going to say the tough thing right now that some of us may not be ready to admit not every act of infidelity. I almost want to say it this way. Let me say it this way. It is highly unusual for the act of infidelity to have anything to do with who you like or who you love.
Sometimes you're seeking attention. Sometimes you're seeking validation. Sometimes you're just seeking a orgasm, right? But but sometimes it's just a mistake.
I say that I'll allow y'all to say that. I mean it. Sometimes it does warrant forgiveness. If the two parties are honest about how it worked, they're honest about their expectations of boundaries for the future.
They're honest about receiving therapy or whatever counseling or prayer or ritual ceremony or whatever they need to do to heal. I think all of that is okay. And there's not one answer to how to address infidelity. I want to say that.
I think sometimes we become too judgmental as if we ain't done it before. Okay. I was talking to him anyway. Never mind.
I was like be too honest right now to get not about myself or anything like that. I'm just saying. All right. So it's easy.
Okay. Here's why I want to address it. I want to go back to the to the full or quote until we understand everything about white supremacy will be confused, right? Just like I told you, there is a system that benefits from us being distracted by the real culprit of anti Asian racism.
I want to be careful how you how I say this and how you hear me. I am not absolving a cheater from cheating. That's not what I'm about to do. What I am going to say is that cheating does not occur in a vacuum.
There is a history of black people being over sexualized in such a way that some men think their worth is located between the number of thighs they can get between. I think there is a system in place that benefits from black women feeling like they have to be with cheaters in order to have somebody because all we ever hear about is the shortage of good black men. I think there is a system that benefits from an over representation of unhealthy black relationships. This is one of the problems I have with Shonda Rhimes.
You can like her shows, but I'm a critically reflective piece I'm telling you to do. I want you to watch her shows and figure out just how many healthy black relationships you see. Okay. This is one of the problems I have with her.
But anyway, there's a system that benefits from us thinking that black love is unattainable. Derek Jackson became an influencer, became a pseudo celebrity based on his ability to tap into a narrative of black love pathology. Right? I can be the voice of reason in this narrative pathology.
And I understand it's lucrative to do so, even though I haven't worked on my own stuff. Right? See, it's different. This is how I feel about life coaching in general.
And this is probably why I may be more transparent than I should be as a life coach. Right? I want people to know I'm raggedy. I'm not perfect.
I am growing just like you are I am intentional about my growth. I'm strategic about my growth. I'm reflective about my growth. But I'm still growing.
It's a whole lot of stuff to work through. Right? It's only fair for me to present in that way because I never want anybody to look at one of my mistakes and say, see, she's a fraud. We have to be careful.
I'm taking them again away from him. I'm not talking about him specifically right now. I'm saying in general, we all have to be careful about how we choose to show up in the world. We either show up as our authentic sales and nobody's authentic self is perfect or we show up as our representative who almost always is never as rich and beautiful as we are naturally.
But a fraud in a relationship and love sector is only possible when we buy into these pathologies surrounding black love. I come from, let me tell you about my family. Both sets of my grandparents are married from more than 50 years when my grandfather's died. Both of the wives outlived them.
But they were married from more than 50 years. My parents, 50 plus, right? This is what I come from. That's why I don't so easily fall into the black path.
Do I have that? No. Do I want to? Yeah.
If you're listening, that's what I want. I'm just saying. But I don't buy into the pathology because I understand that the system of white supremacy benefits from me not believing that black love is possible. Because then I don't create black families.
And I'm talking about love in whatever iteration it takes. I'm not being head on normative in this moment. I'm saying find you somebody and build something with them. The family is the primary.
Okay. I'm not even getting into that. I just say white supremacy will con you into thinking the problem is you and not it. Anything that sets up barriers to healthy black love is your enemy.
Anything. Anything. I want to say this. You know how I believe in black love not only because of those familial cases I just told you about but also because as soon as black folk got free and if you don't believe me, you go look at some newspapers from the period, 1866, 1867, you know, so on and so forth, all the way through radical reconstruction, you see in newspapers enslaved people, this is also why you know they were literate.
But anyway, that's a sad note. You see, enslaved people writing letters, posting them in the newspaper to find family. The first thing, one of the first things people did when they got free was to try to reconnect families that have been sold away from each other. I can't know that about my ancestors and believe in the pathology of black love at the same time.
Some of the lowest points in our history, we still believe in love. How dare I not believe in love because Derek Jackson didn't tell the world he had a wife. How dare you be distracted from creating social institution like family that is the backbone of a community and their liberation efforts. You can't create freedom.
You can't get free without other people. Our relationships are an integral part of that. We deserve to be free in all kinds of ways and we deserve love. We don't need a hashtag about black men, don't cheat.
That's just a downright lie because we're human. See this black exceptionalism, you know, I think we magic, but that doesn't mean we don't have regular stuff to fix. And fidelity because of hyper masculinity in US culture is a problem. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.
I wanted to remind you of the public master. Okay. When we pay attention to that, when you are blaming yourself, your community, your people, your problems within your group without thinking about how the system outside of your group shapes it, you're confused. Nearly fully told that so.
All right. I'm going to stop there and I'm going to wish you a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day. If you want to talk back to me, feel free to send an email to Dr. Tippett, tell them to tell you.com.
I've enjoyed you. Make it a good one. Bye. Bye.