New Advice Podcast Offers Safe Space To Talk About Race

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's like an eye opening advice column except Kq Edis truth be told is a podcast for people of color by people of color. The show examines issues of race in a safe space with inquiries from listeners and experts known as wise ones. Tanya Moseley is the host of truth be told, and she joined us to talk about how her show is helping people embrace who they are. One episode at a time. Tanya, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Jade, you spend a lot of time talking about issues around race. Uh, what kind of issues around race or are we talking about here? That's a pretty broad Speaker 2: 00:34 spectrum is. So our podcast is for people of Color, by people of color. And as you said, that's really broad. So we're talking about black, Brown, indigenous and Asian folks. And we're talking about the day to day, uh, interactions that people of color have, maybe some of the issues that they're dealing with in their daily lives. Um, we're talking about how that all play comes into play, um, in neighborhoods and communities. And so it is very broad, but it's very specific based on the questions that people sent to us. And they wanted us to unpack an answer with experts who we call wise ones. Speaker 1: 01:13 You all pull questions in from listening sessions and from such a large pool of issues and inquiries. How do you decide what gets Speaker 2: 01:21 disgust on truth be told? It's interesting. We had a couple of listening sessions and we, uh, gathered questions from folks who attended those sessions and it's, they all kind of fell into several different categories. Home Life, home and family life, workplace dilemmas, um, societal issues around race and racism. And based on that, there were some commonalities in the questions that people were asking us. So they might've asked us in different ways, but they were the same question. For example, our first episode is about joy and, uh, we received from several people this question, is it okay to feel joy when there's so much turmoil happening in the world? And how do I feel joy when there's so much happening in the world? Let's take a listen to that clip. Speaker 1: 02:07 Uh, my question is, is it okay to feel huge, phenomenal, amazing joy when it seems like the rest of the world is burning. And Tonya, you heard this question echoed by many people in your listening sessions. How is the experience she describes unique to people of color? Speaker 2: 02:28 I think it's a human question. It's a question that we all at some point in our lives have. But for people of color, there's the added pressures of day to day life. Perhaps you're in communities where you're, you're hearing and you're listening to news stories about things happening in your community and with your people. So the woman who asked that question, she's Muslim. Um, she deals with a lot of um, Islamophobia. She's like very touched by that in a deep and profound way. There are systemic issues around racism that people deal with in the day to day, their family issues that people deal with. Perhaps you're doing well in your day to day life, but maybe family members aren't doing as well. And those are things that are sort of unique to the people of color experience. And so we wanted to unpack that and say, you know what? It is okay at a time when there's so much turmoil happening in the world. Speaker 2: 03:21 It's okay to actually be happy and joyful and sit in that joy. Um, you don't always have to be mirrored down by all the things that are around you. It's okay to take that time and do that. And you know, some of these questions and issues are deep. Is there ever a challenge in digging into all of the layers of these issues? I'll say that they're issues that if you're a person of color, if you're a black woman, for instance, I'm a black woman. Um, these are issues that you're thinking about every single day. So it's not a complicated thing because there are on your minds, it's almost like a release to be able to have a place where you can talk about it freely. And in one of your first episodes, you tackle something called colonized desire. Tell me what is that? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: 04:09 So colonized desire is basically when I'm a person of color, uh, maybe desires whiteness. So they desire the colonizer and it goes even a step further than that. Perhaps they think that whiteness is the ultimate, the ultimate in intellect, the ultimate in the physical attraction, and also really to the detriment of their own views of, of their, of who they are. So if I'm a black woman for instance, and I believe that white men are the ultimate, then, um, that is at the detriment of my own sense of self worth. And another subject that you talk about on the show is authenticity. Can you tell me about that? Right, right. So we received a question from someone who's Mexican American and she was talking about her experiences of not feeling enough when she was around other Mexican women. Perhaps because she doesn't speak the language or her accent is different because she was born and raised here in California. And so we take on that idea of am I enough? And I think that no matter who you are, if you're black, if you're Asian, there's been some point in your life, whether it was with other black or Asian folks or with white folks where you're kind of put in this position of having to prove your authenticity, your blackness, your Asianist, your Mexicanness. Here's a clip from Mala Munoz of Los [inaudible] podcast, talking about her experience being a Latin x in the context of what it means to be enough on your show. Speaker 1: 05:37 Parents would not speak Spanish in front of their kids because their kids would get beat in school. I'm put in special Ed, so there's a very specific reason why my dad did not grow up speaking Spanish. And then that trickles down to where we are today. That is a Latin x experience that is a Mexican American Chicano experience. It's not inauthentic. It's not unmet. Second, it's anti Latin x. It is. That is right. So I am and you know, as you said before Tanya, you know, whether it's a Latin x experience or you lost a hand at black card revoked, there seems to always be challenges to if you are authentic or are you enough as a person of color. What did you learn from people about their experiences in that particular episode? Speaker 2: 06:22 Man, I really love that clip by Mala because what it really peeled back from me was um, a deep self reflection on my place in society and my idea of who I am and my blackness. And so when she said like this is who I am, it is a specific experience rooted in based on what my parents went through and my grandparents went through. And so it is unique and I can't really compare myself to other people of Color, for instance, other black people who might come from other places. Like I am uniquely African American. And so like I walked away from it thinking about not only her story, but all of our stories and how sometimes we're put in this place where we're thinking about where we sit and compare to what society tells us we should be when we really should be thinking about like it is unique to be unique in the United States and it's a unique experience as a person of color in the United States that's different from anywhere else in the world. Speaker 2: 07:20 What do you hope people will take away from your podcast? I really want people to walk away wanting to have more conversations with each other around racism and the impacts of racism in our society, and when I say with each other, it is great to have these discussions with white people, but it's also great. I mean, I loved having these discussions with other people of color. It's something I don't do enough. Of course, I talk about it with my family and oftentimes I'm talking about it with my white friends because they're eager to learn, but I love being able to sit down with an Asian American woman and have an authentic discussion about the impacts of racism on desire or being able to talk with Mala about am I enough in her living in as a Latin x woman in California? It was so powerful and it really opened up my world thinking about the experiences that they go through and that I go through and how we can kind of collectively work together to to really fight racism. Speaker 1: 08:21 Very insightful. Tanya Moseley, host of Kq Edis podcast, truth be told, Tanya, thank you so much for joining us, Speaker 2: 08:28 Jay. Thank you for having me.