SUMMARY KEYWORDS

equity, privilege, folks, space, conversation, black, talk, dni, podcast, inequity, point, recognize, community, experience, ways, part, call, labor, culture, long

 

SPEAKERS

Amber Cabral, Ifeoma Ike

 

Amber Cabral 00:00

Three. Privilege is all around you. It shows up in your clothes, where you live, the places you frequent, your network capital, and even how you spend your money. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. Welcome to guilty privilege. Welcome back to an episode of guilty privilege. My name is Amber Cabral, and today I have the privilege of talking to ifI EK, she is an artist, author and an activist, and today, on our conversation, we’re gonna cover what equity actually means. And one of the things that we’ve done in this podcast is try to bring you conversations around equity, but this is gonna get to the root of how this work really shows up. So lean into the conversation. I’m looking forward to y’all feedback. Hey, friends. Hey, I am so happy to be sharing a couch with you.

 

Ifeoma Ike 00:58

Same with you. I’m so proud of you. Congratulations.

 

Amber Cabral 01:01

Listen, what are you congratulating before? I haven’t even done anything yet,

 

Ifeoma Ike 01:04

whatever

 

Amber Cabral 01:06

I should be congratulating you. But we’ll get into that in just a moment.

 

Ifeoma Ike 01:09

Okay, we congratulate each other.

 

Amber Cabral 01:12

Okay, so I’m gonna jump right in, because you know you are the person I call when I need to talk, when I need to have my privilege checked, when I need to evaluate my perspective about something, I call you and I say, did you see blah, blah, blah. Now, what were your thoughts about it? Because what I saw was and we have these phenomenal conversations, and I always value your perspective, because you do a great job of making sure to ask me and hold me accountable, and also be honest in your own disruption, when we’re having moments where it’s like, Ooh, what is the best way to approach that?

 

Ifeoma Ike 01:52

Always honest about my problems.

 

Amber Cabral 01:53

I love it.

 

Ifeoma Ike 01:53

Always

 

Amber Cabral 01:54

I love it. It means so much to me. But because I consider you to be the person I go to about equity, I would love for you to clarify one thing, you make a very pointed effort, and I appreciate this too, to make sure that people understand that you do equity, you do not do Dei, right. Can you explain the difference in why it’s important that you call that out

 

Ifeoma Ike 02:13

for me, and you know this, I come into equity work, not from a perspective of looking at it as a workplace issue come into it, looking at it from a legal issue and from a research issue? Yes. So for me, equity has always been described as something you measure. It’s always been described as something that has a historical significance to marginalization, and you know, having experience in human and civil rights law, it always centers the intersection of non white communities and especially black communities that at one point in time were legally declared not to be human, exactly right. We have yet still reached full humanity for blackness. So for me, equity is not achieved until that has actually been both the priority and the center of this work. So when I see DNI, DNI has a necessary function and is also an extension of, if we’re going to be honest, so many different remedies that have tried, especially when it came to labor to remedy the disenfranchisement of specifically black people, right? And the frustration that I have about DNI light is that DNI light is often not centered on the failed attempts of our civil rights laws, the failed attempt of affirmative action, the failed attempt of individuals getting out of the way and letting those who have experienced the harm lead the work correct. So as long as it’s called DNI and it’s led by people that don’t center that I don’t do that work, yes, that’s why I make a clear distinction as to what I do versus what is out there exactly, asterisks as you know, DNI has also evolved because of black femme folk that have been doing this work. So I’m also always advocating for those such as yourself, and at times an extension of some of the work that I have to do, to call out that those who do DNI work through a justice and equity lens are very different than those who do DNI because they want to celebrate somebody for a month,

 

Amber Cabral 04:30

correct. So I appreciate you making the distinction, because throughout this podcast, I’ve made a point to use the word equity, because I want folks to understand the conversations we’re having are about bringing equity to a something, whether that’s equity in education or equity in information or equity in whatever, whomever the expert is that I’m speaking to. And in your case, I was like, Well, is it equity of equity? Because I but it’s tricky, because equity is one of those things that to your point, because we. Haven’t achieved it, and it’s so messed up from the law standpoint, from how we define it, how it does, or in many cases, does not, show up in the spaces that we frequent, in our black bodies and whatever identities. Honestly, I do think that it puts us in the position of wondering who is. Where does equity education begin, right? Does it start at home? Is it my teachers? Where should I have started to get this? Where should I be expecting to learn about what equity is? Because I know that the people I talk to say they are learning it from me, and I would imagine that that’s what’s happening a lot of time for you. But where should it be like? What does that look like?

 

Ifeoma Ike 05:43

That’s a That’s a great question, because I don’t know. So Let’s hypothetically say it’s supposed to start at home. Yeah, but the problem, and, you know, I lived in West Virginia for seven years, right? So the thing is, Can I really, if we put the responsibility in a particular setting or space, or even with a group of people, they fall short. Right then, what does that mean for the individuals that a maybe saw that space as the space that gave them all the knowledge that they should have? And that could be problematic, because I think right now, and this is across all communities, including our own, there are folks that feel like they don’t need to investigate deeper around equity because, like, they’ve experienced certain harms or oppressions. They themselves have been marginalized and disenfranchised. They themselves have been white and poor, right? Like, I can list all the different combinations. So it’s really important for people to understand that experiences are important, but that is not the fullness of what equity is, right? And also that there’s many layers to how you can understand somebody else’s experiences that are related but different than yours, right? So, you know, I’ve shared with you, like, what it was like to, you know, grow up in poor in Trenton, New Jersey, first of five kids, immigrant household. Go to West Virginia. First roommate, Otis, of five, white girl from West Virginia, Cole family, right? And we both looked at each other and have said to each other, I don’t want your report. I want your report, your version of poverty. I’m not interested, not interested in that type of poverty, right? But that’s also because what I learned over time is that each of our understanding of each other was not just about our poverty, it was also about our understanding about race. It was also about culture, culture and also preference. Like she didn’t prefer to be me, right? And on a rich or poor day, wouldn’t prefer to be a black woman, right? Right, right, understandably, right, right? And hearing that from her perspective, or hearing the questions from that perspective, I don’t think I had the language to call it equity chats the way I would call it now, but I was able to inform her as to like the differences of what our experiences were, not to one up. Her to be like, I’m more Yes, down, and or whatever. But it was really like, you know, she, I remember we had a really interesting conversation about, like, how can you be poor and you have Tim’s right? Real talk. Real Talk

 

Amber Cabral 08:17

It does sound like a failure of culture exposure, in that case, to me,

 

Ifeoma Ike 08:23

I mean, right? And some of it was what I do recognize that she was getting towards, is this trope right, that a lot of communities have, right? So, like, if black people are really that poor,

 

Amber Cabral 08:33

that’s right….. hair always done? Why are your nails that long? Why do you blah, blah, blah, exactly.

 

Ifeoma Ike 08:41

And so I think that when we talk about where’s the responsibility, I don’t all lives matter this. I don’t think that it’s like all of us should be educating each other about dot, dot, dot. Like miss me with that. But I do think that over where the conversation needs to lie is the fact that, you know, as I like to say, the reward for equity is more equity. That’s true. There is no destination in a colonized structure where it’s all about, I gotta do X, Y and Z, and then I’ve got to achieve this, and therefore I am the master. I mean, we literally have degrees called masters, right? That you were supposed to know it all. Equity, I don’t think is about knowing it all, but I do think it does require certain foundations. Yeah, and we’ve talked about this, like, certain standards of like, if you’re going to move forward and say, You do this work right, there is a heightened responsibility that you know certain things exactly. So I don’t know if it’s about the space, but I do think for those that do hold that E, whether they hold other letters of the I, the B, the J, the whatever you hold that E, and to an extent that J, I do think that you are responsible for a level of knowledge that could be beyond your own experience. And that also means, for me, as an equity practitioner, learning about other cultures and how the laws have impacted them is also important. Right, so that I’m not also in the space of ignorantly trying to apply my experience

 

Amber Cabral 10:05

exactly. I do think that the thing that you’re calling out, that I think is really valuable is that equity isn’t just about what you have seen. It’s also about what you’re willing to expose yourself to correct so that you’re able to, kind of to get back to my question, educate, yeah, because I don’t, I don’t know. And when I, when I wrote this question, I thought about it. Like to use your words in a perfect world, if everyone learned about equity, where would it happen? And I couldn’t figure that out, right? And I think that the reason for that is because of exactly what you described, that we learn how to people with each other, and what equity requires is us to people with each other.

 

Ifeoma Ike 10:43

And in addition to that, I’m also want to push that if and when I have children, or they have children or future generations, imagine equity that it’s not where we’re at today, correct, right? So I think that there’s also something about equity being the space of living what was once imagined, living, abundance, living living liberation. The problem I have with a lot of the equity work right now is it doesn’t imagine us free. It does not it doesn’t even see freedom as imminent, no requirement, or a requirement, which still then separates us from the birthright of freedom as human beings, right? And so, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right that I also don’t want to necessarily center just the oppression and the pain of marginalization. I would love for there to be, to be the balance of even if you don’t know enough, because you know people are supposed to be free, then what needs to change Exactly? And if you see that people aren’t free, then what is your lane? What is your role to like in this world, in this space, and then leave it alone, right? Like you ain’t got to speak to nobody. You ain’t got to teach nobody, right? You know, you could cuss a little bit. You could be a little rough around the edge exactly. We do a lot. You know, I’m holding back the fact that I haven’t said a curse word right now is actually not my authentic self.

 

Amber Cabral 12:00

I want you to be your authentic self.

 

Ifeoma Ike 12:02

I understand that you got big clients. That means

 

Amber Cabral 12:05

they all know that I’m human, and they have probably heard me curse, correct. So

 

Ifeoma Ike 12:11

I almost cursed this, though it’s okay.

 

Amber Cabral 12:13

You’re here with me on this couch. It’s so great. You made me think about, you know, just as you were kind of going through that, like I had this moment where I was like, we have the privilege of being able to joke about and play around about a thing that people struggle to understand, and that’s, in and of itself, is a privilege, but also, like as I was playing around in my brain with us laughing at the things that we have been laughing at here, but also in the past, what also ran through my mind was like, what’s happening with equity. To your point about freedom is that we’re having conversations about equity within structures, and to a degree, I am a participant in that, and have to be to get the conversation going, which is part of the reason why it’s sort of funny, because we’re not actually at equity at that point, right? But we have to introduce it somewhere. So in this capitalistic building company, school, etc, here is how equity shows up. Is how we have the dialog. But I think when you introduce the concept of freedom, the thing that ran across my mind is, I have a lot of conversations with some important people in my life about AI and how AI is going to change the world. It’s going to take jobs, and it’s going to do this. And I asked the question, what happens if AI could do all the jobs? Like, what if we could free ourselves from work with AI, right, like, and I thought about that as we were talking about equity. And I think it led me to the point of that we partially can’t get to real, true equity discussions because we cannot fathom the freedom from work. Sorry, I was trying to make this like,

 

Ifeoma Ike 13:59

I mean, you shouldn’t you, I don’t know if you should have brought AI into this. And I say AI like that, because when common, remember, in common, yes, like he didn’t think we’re gonna understand those two letters. So but, but the work piece, absolutely, I feel like we could dive into this work. So So, as you know, like with this space of like pink horn rose and the two areas that I mentioned, research and law, and that’s how I came to that space, but the other lane was really like the parts of the lived experiences, even in consulting work, even in policy work, even in black spaces that I didn’t realize I was probably low key, like high key, ashamed of yes, even though it was my fuel, right, right? My mom came to this country with what would be considered a sixth grade education. Yeah. And, you know, was basically told all her life that the only thing you were qualified to do was clean toilets and change beds, right? In fact, cleaning toilets was to start changing beds was an elevation, right, right. Then when she got into the kitchen, that was an elevation, right? And now, you know, she’s a nurse now, but even seeing that struggle, um, and constantly telling myself, I don’t want to be my mom, right? Right? Because you are not you. You a child knows enough to know what’s not free, right? Exactly that wasn’t free, right? And um, but when I think of all the different ways that the quote, unquote, you know, and I’m gonna say it, I’m gonna get some people upset, I’m looking, I don’t know where the camera. Is it you? Is it you? It’s you. It’s you. But then the issue of, like, being the 80s kids and black excellence is that, like, I also always knew as a creative that, wow, that doesn’t fit for me either. But guess what? It’s almost like, you know, the Huxtables are saying it, my parents are saying it, and I, it’s just me and my little brush, and I’m trying to tell y’all, I’m the next Picasso, right? Everybody’s like, you better get out of here. And so what do you do? You fall you fall in line. Yeah, I think what we don’t talk about with equity is not all the like it’s we know this. It’s not all the anti CRT stuff. It’s not all the ways that even we are, you know, stressed out in almost every space that we’re in, from healthcare to the workplace to education, those things are actual and factual. But if we really stop to think about all the times, we miss inequity and that those are actually, like, just called Monday, right, exactly, or the day, right? Then it’s like, Oh snap.

 

Amber Cabral 16:59

And that’s what I’m saying. Like, freedom from that that’s hard, that’s hard to imagine.

 

Ifeoma Ike 17:03

It’s it’s it’s daunting. And I get why people are like, this is why I don’t want to do this work. I get it right. I don’t. I am not one of those people that are like, I’m running out and I’m marching, so you got to march. And if you don’t March, you ain’t, dot, dot, dot. I’m not one of those people. But I do think that there’s a part of me that’s like I do march out of the recognition that there are so many other times I should have right, and there are so many times when so many should have right. And as long as when it’s unconscious, it’s one thing. But when it comes to the consciousness, what do you do? So I think when it comes to work, work is a very interesting dialog as being being black, being femme, and, you know, colorism, all the other things, all the other intersections that people hold, like the labor conversation as it relates to to equity, is one that I think is just very hard for us to hold collectively as a community, because I do think there’s some intra community ways we speak to each other about like, what success looks like or and again, success is not, it’s not the it’s not the excellence of black excellence that I have an issue with. It is the fact that for far too many. In my opinion, in my opinion, is my opinion. It is a very small, yes, it is an expansive of who we are. Yeah, it’s even a small image of what excellence really, truly is. But it also, in many ways have it has been carved in the imagination of non black people. So that is also a standard. It’s the standard. Some of them think they’re actually helping us correct when it’s like, actually, I don’t want to work that hard, that’s I don’t want to actually be that great, right? Right? Like, and not that version, and not that version of greatness, right? A lot of my works, when I used to paint, I used to struggle with, why is it that it’s hard for me to sell my work? And it’s because I just never saw, for me, art as being connected to monetary gain. And that’s not to say that selling work isn’t important. It’s to say that I just never got to the place of like wanting that type of achievement or success connected to my work, right? The flip side is I also felt like my labor should be appreciated, right? So I think that there’s always this struggle.

 

Amber Cabral 19:20

One of the things I we’ve had some conversations about this, there are times when privilege and equity do this for us personally, okay or this, and as people who are committed to teaching this and talking about it and highlighting it and elevating the importance of it, and all the things that we do to bring equity into the spaces that we inhabit and into the lives of those that we are in community with. How do you navigate the moments when the privilege and the equity go like this?

 

Ifeoma Ike 19:58

I love this question. I know, I know you my specialty, my one of my favorite lines in Kendrick lamars, we gonna be all right. It’s really just right at the beginning, like, I’m fucked up. You fucked up. But if whoever you worship or don’t worship got us, then we gonna be all right. Like, I think that the entry point into doing this work is like understanding the fuckery, yes, but the funniness of the fuckery of humanity, right? Like we actually try to fix it, and I just want us to pause on that for a second, like, we actually believe we can fix a thing, and in a binary world, that means that we feel like there’s only one way to fix it. And I’m only laughing because, as we’ve had this intimate conversation so many times, like binary thinking is so funny, as somebody who used to code and just thought of like, you know, 1110010011, likely, when you think about like, what binary really means, that means that if, like, nobody thought beyond like, Oregon Trail correct or Atari, yes, we wouldn’t have like, Sonic, right? Or we wouldn’t have like CGI and like little NAS X wouldn’t be able to turn into like, we wouldn’t have certain things, right? And so I feel like at some point in time, it’s it’s got to be the mess ups that give people permission to do like better, right? But on a more serious level, like, I think this is why so many of us have moved away from this kind of expert space to like practitioner. It’s just, it just frees me up. It frees me up so much more because you practicing equity is very different, in my opinion, than being an expert,

 

Amber Cabral 22:01

I agree.

 

Ifeoma Ike 22:02

For me,

 

Amber Cabral 22:02

I agree,

 

Ifeoma Ike 22:03

and I don’t want to take away from the fact that, like, I know a lot of shit, right? So, you know, we don’t let nobody that’s fact fuck with knowledge, right? But at the same token to practice that knowledge, yes, is where

 

Amber Cabral 22:16

in this environment, it’s this environment, environment.

 

Ifeoma Ike 22:19

When did you want to

 

Amber Cabral 22:22

listen So I mean, and this is Lex, we do. We have choices, and to a degree, because we are so far from what equitable really looks like. A lot of times, those choices are good ones to make for the long haul. So it makes me think about when I used to work at Walmart, when I used to work at Walmart. There was this remark that they would say about how when they used to print out the numbers, they would print it out all the way to the penny. And someone said, Well, you know how much paper we would save if we didn’t print the pennies, so we’ll just keep the whole numbers. And Sam Walton was like, Uh, no, the pennies matter. I need to know what the pennies are, right? And so, you know, they had to go back to printing the pennies, because the idea was like, I need to be able to pay attention to all the details, because it helps me to make the better decision. And I think there are times where the privilege I have right gives me an opportunity to open a door that’s going to create equity elsewhere, right? So I am leaning into sort of an inequity to create equity. I have the benefit of being able to create this podcast situation so we can talk about this, right, right, that, in and of itself, is immense privilege. Right, costs money, all kinds of time, right, all of that. Right, folks coming across the world to come sit with me and talk to me so that we can have a podcast. And there is inequity infinitely in just that, but the point, the goal, the objective, the meat behind it, is in service of Yeah, and so I think it’s worth especially because we’ve done this before, and we call each other out on it in our own ways around Yes, that’s inequitable, but I still know, and I am practicing awareness, and I am trying to still do the part that I am responsible for in bringing equity to life,

 

Ifeoma Ike 24:08

I think some so. And one of the things that, even as you were talking, you were talking about, you know, I’m bringing all these people together, and the the privilege of bringing your resources to do something in service of other people. And as you’re talking, I’m like, we could call it privilege. We could call it a pretty dope fucking human being, because, because, and this is the reason why, right, like, we very rarely create good things from nothing, right? Like we like everything is almost like, that’s why I want to really lean into like, the term choices, right? Equity is a choice. Tell people all the time you ain’t actually got to do this, right? You don’t have like people to make. It’s a choice. People to make all the choices you’re messed up in it. I would actually love for you to not to see the model, because we are also responsible for the way we model this thing, right? That’s true. And so you couldn’t. You could do a podcast on like, the dopeness of being from Detroit. You do a podcast on like, Wow. I mean, look at this hair, right? Stunning all the time. You could do a podcast that serves Amber, there’s a choice, right? You could even do a podcast that is about how dope your hair is to blend the word equity. So now you can hit across different platform streams, because, right, right? Because a lot of people that people are saying that, like, are leading in this work. Sometimes we listen, but like, I don’t really see the equity, but it’s shiny. So I say all that to say that like there are so many choices when people attack Black folk, brown folk, immigrant folk, disabled folk, for doing what they do, and at times doing it wrong. I’m like, but do you recognize that we have a choice to not do this at all? That’s right. It is not easy to do this work. That’s right. I don’t have to do this work, and I also don’t necessarily need to do it perfect, right, right, right? And that, to me, I think what you were getting to is that when equity and privilege rub, I do think that when equity and privilege rub as a marginalized person, yes, I don’t know. It’s almost like, I’m not saying that the marginalized erases the privilege. I’m saying I got a choice, right, and this is still an investment of my time, exactly. So like, kudos for you creating a space called guilty privilege. But I also don’t want to take away from the fact that or or have anyone that’s even watching this, or you make the assumption that you are living in immense privilege, and therefore you’re doing this as a form of charity. That’s not what’s happening. You have choices, and you’re making the choice to use your privilege, or to use your time however you use the word, because time is a privilege, exactly. So in some ways, it’s like you’re using your time that could actually be for you, which would be the privilege, and you’re not actually using it as privilege. You don’t benefit, right? In the ways that if it was solely about you, you could benefit from, right? So I always, always hope that people look at the sum total of what people are doing, even when they’re making contradictions, even when they’re messing up, right? Because, you know, and now you’re about to make me tell myself, i It will come out at some point that during Super Bowl, my protest had been broken a little bit because the Philadelphia Eagles were in, you know, the championship, and I had missed them win the championship the first time. So I thought this was the right time, but also Rihanna was performing, and so Rihanna was going to be my reason, like everybody else, as to why I was going to break my protest. I didn’t need Rihanna. I mean, I love Rihanna, and I would do it again just for Rihanna, based on what I saw. But what did I do? Because I called you, I spoke to you right afterwards. I saw I saw them say and mention all these amazing indigenous communities that were going to be a part of this ceremony. And they mentioned this man was going to come out there and sign in native Sign Language America, the beautiful you, how the hell would I have known about the inequity took me the end of the Super Bowl to be like, Damn, I’m really messed up.

 

Amber Cabral 28:34

But I love this I love this conversation, because I think, I think the thing that most people need, that we have is we see it. We see and so we can, at the very least go, oh,

 

Ifeoma Ike 28:47

how many times do we call each other about Dave Chappelle?

 

Amber Cabral 28:50

Listen. Dave Chappelle was a long series of chats because he wouldn’t, he would not stop. And so we had to have the talks, right? So, like that, that’s exactly right, exactly it. So, okay, so,

 

Ifeoma Ike 29:04

but again, some total right? There’s like, the whole point is, like, you can’t, you are not gonna be able to assess somebody from a training. You’re not gonna be able to assess somebody from a social media post. And that doesn’t mean that we’re subject to no critique, right? The critique is warranted, right, right? And I do think that, especially as we’re talking about creating, again, standards and opportunities for us to have a little bit of a shared understanding of what equity is, then that also means I’m putting myself on the on the gauntlet too, right? Hold, hold, multi accountable, but also recognize that it has to be through love, because I’ve also gone through enough exactly to to earn what I’m doing exactly the good and the bad, the good and the

 

Amber Cabral 29:48

bad. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we are going to make this conversation less than an hour. That is not a thing that we do, okay, but we’re gonna manage to get there. Gonna get there. Okay? So I do have a question. And with awareness that we never really have short conversations, and we always say that we’re going to have a podcast together, and we always make a point of saying what we think we’re going to talk about on that podcast. So we have a long list of things and so, but it’s your podcast, right? But you are a guest, and since we have talked so much about that, is there a thing in this conversation that you would love for us to touch on before we wrap up. Um, can we talk about some good stuff? I was like, I have to ask her,

 

Ifeoma Ike 30:28

is there something special? There’s nothing.

 

Amber Cabral 30:31

I have a surprise question.

 

Ifeoma Ike 30:33

Well, can we, can we talk about that? The reason why can we talk about this is a normal voice that we I have, that I use when I’m excited. Can you talk about how part of the reason why we wanted to have a podcast, not that deep, is because we’re there’s so many similarities, but the way the world would look and treat us,

 

Amber Cabral 30:51

that’s it in spaces, literally,

 

Ifeoma Ike 30:54

to be about the divide. Right color ism is a colorism. Futurism is a thing, and I feel like there’s not enough spaces. It’s not that there aren’t like spaces of sisterhood, because we all exist in our everyday lives, right? And I also think that, and you and I have talked about this, that even in spaces, not just with black folk, black, you know, brown folk, Asian art, Asian American comrades. What have you that there’s this, like fear to really talk. This is a form of privilege that within communities of color, within those blessed by, you know, kissed by the sun, we’re so afraid to kind of just like, dissect and and and and break it down. And here’s the thing, I’m not talking about breaking us down, because I think there’s a way, yes, where it can, you know, it could come Yes, you know. And there have been times when I’ve been on the not so privileged side of being the person that you know before I even speak their assumptions made. And then, depending on somebody’s definition of beauty, I’ll be on the other side right and and that’s something that I think we are not as honest about how many decisions are actually made absolutely before we open our back.

 

Amber Cabral 32:14

And I think there has to be some integrity on both sides. I think I need to hear from people who are having the experience that you’re having, and I have to be able to process that and say, Okay, wait. So I have this privilege. Let me figure out how to open this door. I have to be willing to admit that and still also be willing to lean into my sisterhood, and still also be willing to engage in meaningful dialog that still connects to the community. And I think that’s that’s why people are afraid. I think people don’t think it’s possible to be both. I can both be a black girl from Detroit and also be light skinned with curly hair and light eyes, and you know what I’m saying, and then that has opened doors for me, and doors that you have not had opened for you for that reason.

 

Ifeoma Ike 32:55

And then the flip side is like, I also don’t necessarily expect you to do anything correct. I think that the, it’s a very keep the enemy, then that’s it. That’s, that’s like,

 

Amber Cabral 33:08

I’m not the enemy. Me, I’m not the enemy, right? And I think that’s the other thing, is that people don’t realize that the individual carrying the stuff, listen, isn’t the enemy. You are not my enemy. No, I am not your enemy. But I do think that we attach those things to the people.

 

Ifeoma Ike 33:23

I think so, and I want to also recognize that in a voyeuristic society, yes, that continues to determine you, both you and I, are in spaces, sometimes that overlap, sometimes that don’t, but in these industries, being very clear about how they pick and choose who they want to be in certain spaces, right? And the labor that it takes for individuals that have other intersectionalities that you and I don’t even share, yes, the the getting back to that work conversation, the more labor that they have to show just to show that they’re qualified for, the more labor that they have to show because they are not seen as a certain type,

 

Amber Cabral 34:01

and it could be accidents,

 

Ifeoma Ike 34:02

it could be anything,

 

Amber Cabral 34:02

it could be anything, it could be anything,

 

Ifeoma Ike 34:05

it could be anything. But I do think it’s really important for and it’s just my bias for black femme folk, black queer folk, black non binary folk, disabled folk, to lead this conversation, because I do think this is where experience of the impact of especially the labor, I don’t ever want to misspeak for somebody that actually has to work harder correct to get whatever it is that I have right. I want there to be more spaces agree for for that to to to occur, so

 

Amber Cabral 34:35

not to feel like criticism,

 

Ifeoma Ike 34:37

exactly,

 

Amber Cabral 34:38

but it’s feedback, and we need it.

 

Ifeoma Ike 34:40

And this is why, you know, when you talk about guilty privilege, I mean one privilege that I there was a point during the movement, and I would not say that I was not one of those individuals, but I had, I had been on, like, the CNNs, the msnbcs, the what have you. And then I just started saying no, right, like before, I think it was even a conversation of, like, turn down. Play with I just started saying no, because I was just like, first of all, I built such a strong relationship with so many of the family members of those that people are, you know, using their names as saying, We march for this person, and we do this work for this person. And I’m like, do you even know the state of where that family is? Do you know what they’re going through on a day to day basis? We don’t have a fund or any like so no, but then also recognizing that there are countless unnamed individuals to this day that have done the work that you know, took the risk to pretty much almost lose their families, their livelihoods, to spark what is now in many ways, this heart and center of what people are calling this DNI word, getting paid checks and getting paid for this stuff. They don’t even know the names of a single organizer on the ground, and half of them will even talk shit about organizers, if they’re really honest about it, because they think they do too much, or they too noisy for it’s just unrealistic, but you get and paid off of these shit, whether you know it or not. So for me, the privilege that I have is like, Sure, invite me, right? Invite me. You’d be surprised what come out my mouth. Or I’ma say no, because there are other and I’m gonna give you a list of the people that you should actually be reaching out to, either way, when people are like, well, you deserve, you know, your livelihood is, you know, connected to that I always say to folks, like, it was never my ministry to fight every goddamn day, and that that’s how I get compensated exactly. I have skills. I have talent. I have other things that I rather like to get paid for. If I learn the flute, watch out Lizzo, I got other shit I would like to do. I do not want to go down saying that, like fighting for my liberation, right? Or is the reason why I got to hoard every experience,

 

Amber Cabral 36:48

or it’s the reason why you have profited.

 

Ifeoma Ike 36:53

It doesn’t feel good like forever, like, and I’m not talking about the compensation for the labor, right, exactly, but the reason why we’re having this conversation around why like something so so big, but but in some ways so simple, but not easy, like the colorism and the futurism is so important ableism is because those things tie into the people that actually do get called to get paid, do get put in position to get the promotion. So we have to talk,

 

Amber Cabral 37:19

and I need to talk about it so that we can have some different decisions made. You have something really I’m something really amazing coming. I’d like for you to tell us about it.

 

Ifeoma Ike 37:25

It’s so weird. I feel like if I was 20, I’d be like, Oh, I gotta have a book coming out. I’m fucking 42 that’s okay. There’s a book coming out, right? I got a book. It’s called, um, it’s called the equity mindset, yes, and the subtitle is really important. But it changed. It changed, I think we’re I don’t know, by the time this come out, it may still be reflections through journeys, practices and experiences and and the reason why it changed in the subtitle is, as you know, I suffer from long covid, and it was very hard to to write. I have other disabilities, yes, but this was a new disability, and I don’t have a problem sharing with you, because you were one of the people when I was like, I’m just not gonna do this, that you were you just said very beautifully and simply, you’ve managed other disabilities before. This is a new disability. Figure out how to manage this. That’s right, right? Because we need you. I appreciate it. And, like, Listen, my mama and anybody who contributed is going to definitely pick up the book, right? Like, I am very honest about, like, a book, yeah, it’s like, a toolkit, right? Like, people get tired and read my toolkit, right? So I’m not here. I actually had somebody get upset at me just last week because they were like, what’s your goal with this book? No, no, that’s what I was asked No, and because I did not say I wanted to be a best seller, they were like, but you know, when we worked with this person, we pushed out, you know, 50,000 and we went on a poll because, right, like, and we were before, before the first week, and that’s how this person became a best seller. And I said, I am always going to celebrate. I am a person of faith, so I’m always going to celebrate when other people are celebrating. It does not hurt me when people are celebrating, but when I tell you that, I feel like I’ve already accomplished whatever needs to be accomplished, it’s already done. Long covid, when I think about, when I think about the lies of this pandemic, and I think about the fact that, again, I’m a sucker for science. So if we were the most disproportionately impacted by this pandemic, that means we’re the most disproportionately impacted, most likely by long covid, right? And so many people don’t know what’s going on with them. So when people don’t understand, why can’t I put a sentence together? Why is this paragraph not sounding like me, right? And that was me for for two weeks after I signed this publishing contract, I get covid. And, you know, covid. Covid was one thing, but long covid is so different, and it’s hard to share with folks, like, I have this type of a disability. So for me, I think the book, and I’m so proud to say that, like I’m I’m getting better, but the equity mindset for me two things. The first was, like, I heard you speak in another conversation about like, equity is definitely one of those things with like a bottle of bubbly I could probably do in my sleep. So I had to trust that, like I know enough, right? And and as you know, my work is about like, I really do think that any and everybody can come into equity like you have, you have a lane, you have a purpose. So I had to believe for myself, like I was writing that shit for myself, like, you have enough ways you should write the book, right? Like, what do I need to remind myself when all this like, what are the basics of like, what do people need? But the mindset part is like, there really is this like? What does a person gain? Like? So what if you get the whole world? But what happens if you lose your mind? And I was not going to let that illness take my mind, it just couldn’t have it. So I just through your encouragement, I just had to think differently, and if I needed to lean on other folks to encourage or to support. I did that you were one of those people. And it felt like a definitely a different version of what, quote, unquote, iffy would have shared on my little insights, on my little if he gets some if he calls to say, and then it was just like, if you only got like, two things to say, and then my mama got something to say, shout out to my mom. My mom does the forward to my book. I love that, um, and, like, thanked me. Um, she has this one part in the book, or in her forward, where or when she was done, and she was like, um, basically, basically saying, like, the fact that my daughter would think I’m worthy enough to just, and I I just, was like, what? Like, you’re the reason. But it really made me pause to recognize that, like, you know, I always knew this was not something, you know, I want all the folks to pick it up, but I don’t do this work for the white folks. I do this for people that are really, really interested in being, like, change, like disrupting, however flawed they are. And I don’t know if that necessarily comes across in the name, the subtitle, the color that we’ve taken, but it doesn’t matter, because people go to bars. I’m a Barnes and Noble whore. I pick things up for colors, and I pick things up for like, oh, that’s me, right. That’s, you know, whatever, but that’s gonna happen three sentences. But I do want people to know that it’s really it was written, and I don’t really talk about it, but it was really written by somebody who thought they lost their mind,

 

Amber Cabral 42:58

and it was written by somebody with a disability, and we’re talking about equity. That is key. When is it coming out?

 

Ifeoma Ike 43:05

It is supposed to come out in September, okay, in the

 

Amber Cabral 43:08

fall, expecting it in the fall. So my surprise question, we’ve talked about privilege. We’ve talked about, you know, the podcast is called guilty privilege, with the intention of highlighting that our intention is to use our privilege for something impactful, right and highlighting that through these conversations, what I want to know from you is, what is one privilege that you refuse to feel guilty about.

 

Ifeoma Ike 43:30

I refuse to feel guilty about, about my my heritage and my culture. I think that’s been very hard, because it’s as as you know, I, I grew up as a black girl, right? Um, I, I fight, and have fought folks who within my parents culture and my parents community that have tried to make distinctions as to how we’re different than or how they’re different from other folks, and that never made sense to me, because it wasn’t like anything from my parents culture took us out the hood, or, you know, had us go into, if anything, my survival skills, right? And my survival skills came from, like, my survival skills came from what I was around. But I do think that there can get to there was definitely a part where I thought that the the the africanness, the nigerianness, the what have you, the the chasm that ocean was just like making folks on the continent so delusional of like who we were, and really started to get me to like. Resent that. Yeah, and then I think the movement allowed for me to go deeper into the ways and the privilege of traveling allowed me to see how people and other how we’re also misinformed here, as well as to how people are also fighting on our behalf, like people are aware and people are, you know, learning from multi generational Africans with an enslaved, you know, the history of enslavement, they are crediting, you know, folks here for the way they’re doing movements and so, and I’m proud of that. And so I think that the culture and the heritage that I ascribe to is black, yeah, because it’s not, it’s not even just it’s, yes, it’s African, but it is black, and we are black ever it’s no joke that we are black everywhere, and we’re trying to figure it out and and in a lot of ways, we have adopted other people’s imagination of who we are. We are not more pure because we are from, you know, that we are Nigerian, or, you know, South African, or whatever. That does not make one pure, like that doesn’t what does that mean? What does that mean, right? But that also means that there are, there’s a reason why the traditions, the heritage of all of our cultures, somebody worked really a community cultures, colonies, worked really hard to strip that away and understanding like why, or recognizing that it has to be important if you’re trying to kill it that bad, it has to be that great. Right is is a privilege that I’m glad that I grew to appreciate better. Yeah,

 

Amber Cabral 46:41

yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for your time. Friends.

 

Ifeoma Ike 46:44

Thank you great. Thank you. You.