LISTEN TO THE TURN ON
Amazon Music | Apple Podcasts | Google Play | iHeart Radio | Pandora | Radio Public | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | YouTube

CONNECT WITH THE TURN ON
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Patreon

​SHOW NOTES
In this episode of The Turn On, Erica and Kenrya talk to writer and geographer Teju Adisa-Farrar about environmental racism, why what we wear matters, breaking the habit of negotiating our worth, how our bodies impact the ways we move through the world, and how racism makes us unsafe—and how we can advocate for change.

RESOURCES

• Guest, Teju Adisa-Farrar | Website | Instagram
• Book, "A Spy In The Struggle" by Aya de Leon| Bookshop | Amazon
• Author, Aya de Leon | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Recommended Books: 
  • ​"Just as I Am: A Memoir" by Cicely Tyson | Bookshop | Amazon
  • "Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton, and Commerce in the Atlantic World" by Anna Arabindan-Kesson | Bookshop | Amazon

The Turn On participates in affiliate programs, which provide a small commission when you purchase products via links on this site. This costs you nothing, but helps support the show. Click here for more information.

TRANSCRIPT
Kenrya: Come here. Get off.
 
[theme music]

Kenrya: Hey folks, today we are talking to Teju Adisa-Farrar, pronouns she and her. Teju is a Jamaican-American writer, geographer, facilitator, speaker, researcher, and poet from Oakland. For over a decade Teju has worked to connect the dots between environmental, social, cultural, and ecological issues. Her focus is on environmental and cultural equity, circular fiber and food systems, climate justice, Black geographies, urbanism, and decolonial futures. Having lived in several different countries, she uses a transnational lens that is informed by history, art, and activism.

Kenrya: She spends her time consulting with progressive organizations, facilitating intersectional conversations, supporting community initiatives, working on creative projects, and giving talks on urgent topics. Teju is based in Oakland, California, but often she's in other places because she goes where she's called when there's not a pandemic. Thank you so much for coming on.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Thank you, I'm happy and excited to be here. When my assistant sent me this she was like, "I don't know if you do these kind of things, but just let me know if you want to do it." I was like, "I don't know if I do these kind of things either, so let's just do it and see what happens."

Kenrya: Well, we're glad you said yes.

Erica: Thank you for testing the waters with us. I find it's interesting, we introduce ourselves as a sex/erotica podcast, and then we go out and ask people for interviews and they're like, "What the hell? How is this sexy?" We get to it. So what did you want to be when you grew up?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So many things. I remember looking at an old notebook and it was like, "Professional soccer player, Indian chief, fire chief, singer, dancer," so many things. Whenever I got that question when I was younger I was like, "But does it have to be one thing?" I always wanted to be many things. And so often when I think about little Teju I'm like, "She would be proud because I'm like seven different things." And they're all connected in some way to me. But I remember for a long time being an Indian chief was something I really wanted to do. Not only because I love Pocahontas, but also because my parents took us to the Thanksgiving, sunrise, on Thanksgiving sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz Island every year if we were in town for Thanksgiving, which is where Indigenous folks from that land come together to say, "This is not a Thanksgiving. This is about colonialism and violence and erasure of our people."

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so I always remember being so moved by those spaces, even though we had to get up at 3:30 in the morning to drive to San Francisco to take the ferry to the island. And it was so cold, but it was so important. And I remember just seeing these Indigenous people dancing and having ritual and everything that they did, and I was just so enamored by that. And so I think part of my desire to be what I thought was an Indian chief was just remembering that experience growing up. And I still love dancing to this day. I definitely am not in the position to be a professional dancer, but that's still also a big part of what I used to really destress. So I wanted to be many things when I grew up, always, there was never a time where I could ever choose one.

Erica: Okay. So we asked you to come on the show because last week we read this book called “A Spy and a Struggle.” And it was interesting when we first started, because like I said, we read erotica and this is based, in an environmental justice space. So how did you get your start in that space? I think a lot of times we think about environmental justice being a white kid thing, or at least I did growing up in the Midwest.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Right. And it's also the way that it's defined has been so narrow that sometimes we don't even know that that's what we're doing when we're doing it. So I grew up, the first place I ever lived was in West Oakland, California. And at the time it was the third most dangerous neighborhood in the country and also had the highest rate of pollution in Oakland. Kids in my neighborhood had asthma rates eight times higher than in other places in Oakland. My brother and I grew up with asthma and I also have a lot of environmental allergies. Luckily for us, my parents had PhDs, they worked at university, so we had good healthcare and inhalers and we could go to the doctor and get breathing treatments. And although there were no grocery stores in West Oakland at the time, my parents went to farmer's markets and went further to make sure we had healthy food.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: We had a very limited amount of times we could go to the corner store every week because they were like, "There's nothing there that is good for your body." And so our experience growing up in West Oakland, although similar in some ways to the kids around me, was very different because my parents had social capital and had the ability and time to create an environment for us in our home that was resisting the environment outside of us. And so soon my dad moved to East Oakland, and then eventually my mom moved to East Oakland where air quality was a little bit better. But when I was 17 I started working for an organization called Grind for the Green. And it was started by Zakiya Harris and [Ambesa Cantabe 00:06:01]. And the idea was to bring urban kids of color, Black kids from the Bay area, from the margins to the epicenter of the environmental movement, because we experience environmental pollution and toxins at a higher rate.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so I was like, "I need to work here," because that was my experience. And I was able to understand it and talk about it because I had a very political upbringing because I went to private school, because I had this environment that my parents created that was healthier than the actual environment that we grew up in. And during that same time I also did an internship with Greenpeace. And Greenpeace was in downtown Oakland, and they had me working on a campaign about the polar bears. And I was like, "Ten minutes from here there are kids who have asthma at higher rates because of the port of Oakland and because West Oakland is literally in the center of three major highways and they started adding onto those highways as the Black population increased. And you're talking about polar bears? What are you talking about?"

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so I was having this dual experience of being in this very white organization that said it was an environmental organization and simultaneously was like, "Environmental justice is not the same as environmentalism." And I'm like, "Well, if the ice caps are melting because the globe is warming and the pollution we're experiencing is adding to the globe warming, then it doesn't matter if the polar bears are saved if kids in West Oakland are dying. It actually is the same thing, and separating it is part of white supremacy." And then simultaneously we're doing hip-hop events, peer education. We did a bike-powered concert with Dead Prez to get these kids of color in the Bay who were my age interested in the environmental movement in the early, mid-2000s. And that was something that really wasn't happening.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so that was my first official experience of being in an environmental justice organization. And then when I got to college at Wesleyan I took an environmental justice class, I started studying urban sociology because I had already been interested in what we called urban issues that mostly impacted Black folks and our environment in a variety of ways was unhealthy and violent for us. And so pollution was just one of many things that we were dealing with. So that was my official entry. And then over the past decade I've worked on all kinds of issues that ultimately I think have to deal with racism and our environment, and landed back in the environmental and sustainability space in the last few years after completing my masters.

Kenrya: Great. Wow. So you mentioned in your bio that you apply a transnational lens. Can we talk about how the places where you've lived inform your work?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Mm-hmm. So my junior year in college I spent a year in Galway, Ireland. And everyone was like, "Why do you want to go to Ireland? You care about Black people and Black stuff. You don't even like the cold because you're Jamaican." But I just had this urge to go to Ireland. And there were several Irish, I think, in the 18th and 19th centuries who were brought to Jamaica as indentured servants, because they also were a colony of Great Britain. And I went to Ireland and had an amazing time. It was so beautiful and green. And while I was there I was doing research and working with their traveler population, which some people call gypsies, but they're really not gypsies. There are some theories that they are the descendants of people who were left houseless during the famine and just have created this life of living in trailers and being in endemic poverty.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And the way that Irish people would talk about the travelers was sort of the way that white people talked about Black Americans. They would say, "They're inherently aggressive, they're lazy, they're not educated." And they were systemically discriminated against. The community center and where they lived was literally at the margins of Galway. It was at the edge of the city, and most people in Ireland at that time didn't want to live near them, so there were certain neighborhoods they could not live in. They did not go to secondary school at higher rates and all of this because of poverty that was not inherent but structural, but people talked about it as if it was inherent. So I was able to draw these connections between the ways that Irish people who were travelers were spoken about by Irish and Black people who were Americans were spoken about by white Americans, and this idea of inferiority.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And that made me realize that this sort of colonial structure exists in multiple places and impacts us in multiple ways. And then for my masters I returned to Europe and I did a program where we lived in four cities over two years. So we started in Brussels, then we moved to Vienna, then Copenhagen, and Madrid. And the idea is that we would understand the different urban geographies of different capital cities in Europe. And so over that time I was focused on Black artists and activists in Europe and the way that the environments of European capital cities impacted their mobility, their sense of self, and essentially their livelihoods and how they were able to live in the world. And so in addition to spending time in Jamaica and Panama and Brazil and several countries in Africa, it occurs to me that there are so many human experiences of violence and exclusion and environmental racism that are happening to Black people and other people who are marginalized around the world.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so it's not just a West Oakland issue or a Brooklyn issue or a Brixton issue or a Cartagena issue. It's actually a global issue that we're dealing with. And I feel like in knowing that it can feel a little overwhelming, but also it shows us that there are so many opportunities for solidarity, because really people of color are the global majority. And so if we come together across the world, then there's no stopping us. So that transnational approach to me just feels necessary because we're dealing with human issues and there are humans across the globe who are experiencing similar things despite living completely different lives.

Kenrya: Right.

Erica: Okay, so just to go back a little bit, Kenrya said in your bio that you focus on a number of things, most of which I understood. However, circular fiber and food systems, what is that, and why is it important?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Yes, fiber and food are things that we use on a daily basis and take for granted. Food we understand because we eat it. Fiber is literally fabric, textiles, washcloths, sponges, anything made out of fabric, anything made out of fiber. And unlike food, where we have this more immediate idea of what we're consuming and whether it's organic or not and if it's good for us or not, with our clothing we don't necessarily think about the fact that a lot of clothing is made from plastic. And in addition to the products that we use that are fiber based, in communities of color there tend to be less natural fibers, less organic fibers used. And so of course there's offgassing from our clothing. There's offgassing from anything that is petroleum based, that's plastic based, and a lot of clothing these days are made that way. Not because it is better, but because it is cheaper.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And plastic pollution, petrochemical companies are polluting Black communities at higher rates. There's a place called Cancer Alley in Louisiana where it has the highest density of petrochemical plants, and people think of plastic as bottles, but actually spandex, polyester, all of those types of synthetic fiber fabrics are made from petroleum products. And so this thing about fiber systems is that not only are they destroying the environment because they're made out of plastic, but actually we have enough natural materials to only make clothes organically with sustainable natural fibers, but also in that process to pull some carbon down from the atmosphere and to not be putting toxic products on our bodies, on our skin if we don't have to just because they're cheaper. And so the idea of circular fiber systems is that from the seed, the cotton seed that is used to grow the cotton that becomes fabric and a textile in your t-shirt, to when you recycle that, that it can go back to the earth, into the soil without poisoning it and become new soil for more cotton seeds to make the fiber that makes the fabric that makes your shirt.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so the idea is that we're making things higher quality using natural fibers within bioregions that are simultaneously pulling down carbon from the atmosphere, and carbon emissions are what contribute to climate change. And simultaneously those of us who live in communities where we don't have all of the organic natural fibers are not further putting toxics and plastics on our body just because it's cheaper. So that is something that is seemingly very niche, but also very mundane because we all come into contact with fiber all the time and don't usually think about how it's affecting our health or the environment.

Kenrya: Yeah. That was an awesome explanation. So you've written, I was combing through your articles, your published articles and blogs and whatnot. And you've written about the experience of being embodied as a Black woman on this very colonized, very greenhouse gas covered land. How does your body impact the way that you move through the world?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So much. You know, just the other day I was thinking of how much of what I choose to wear is determined by how far I have to walk because of the type of attention that I get largely from cis heterosexual men and how my getting dressed, although it's not about them, I feel like I have to think about them to keep myself safe and to keep certain energy out of my space when I'm walking for long distances. And so I have a very curvy body. I developed very young, had my period very young, when I was 10. And so from a very young age I started getting a lot of attention from men that made me feel very uncomfortable and made it very hard for me to simultaneously deal with the fact that I loved clothes and I love getting dressed and I love looking good.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And we had to go to church every Sunday, so we always had to dress up for that. And I really liked my body, but I didn't like the types of attention that I received from men. And so I think in some respects there were only very specific spaces where I would embrace my sexuality and my curves because I just wanted to feel safe. And I didn't always feel safe walking through the world. And even now as an adult woman I still make some of those calculations. And there are some days where I'm like, "Look, I'm wearing what I'm wearing. People are going to respond to me and feel how they feel. And if I need to punch some people in the throat, then I'm prepared to do that."

Teju Adisa-Farrar: But I don't want to always have to feel on guard like that. And I think as I, especially in the last couple years, have been really just embracing my body and the way it changes and the way that it looks, I still feel a little bit of attention with my ability to just walk through the world unbothered by people who are on the streets, on these streets. And so I'm not sure if that's something that I will get over or break through, but it is something that still impacts my life a lot. Because I love walking and I walk almost everywhere that I can. And I do think every time I'm about to walk somewhere about how what I'm wearing is going to meet the patriarchy that is outside.

Kenrya: We're just out here trying to be free.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I mean ... Always saying shit. And I'm like just, "Why can't you ... I don't care what you're thinking in your head, but the fact that you feel like you need to ..."

Kenrya: Keep it to yourself.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Why do you have to bring it into my energy?

Kenrya: Why have you got to say it out loud?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Like, I'm good.

Kenrya: Yeah.

Erica: Shutting the fuck up is free.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I was living fine without your comments about who I am. So no, thank you.

Kenrya: Exactly. Yep.

Erica: What's your favorite thing about your work?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: When people tell me that there was two things that I said that they knew, but that they didn't see how they were connected. I think that's the most rewarding, because I don't feel like I am ever sharing new information. Although especially when I have older white women that who are in the orgs that I'm consulting with or in my workshops, it seems like it's new information. But I'm just really connecting the dots between information that I've gathered and continue to gather over time. And so when I see people say, "Oh, that makes sense." And then the next question is, "Why didn't I learn that connection in college, high school, this job," blah, whatever the list of places they could have learned it at, that is really for me and that's why I call myself a connector.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And that's why I say my work is about connecting the dots, because that is what I hope that people are able to do. Just hear some things that they know or have heard of, and then put them together and say, "Oh, right, this is a system." And I'm like, "Yes, that's why we've got to change it." And they're like, "Oh, okay. I get it." I'm like, "Great."

Erica: Hm. Okay. So on the other side, what is the most challenging part?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Trying to figure out how people should pay me, because people don't want to pay you on time. And also as a younger looking Black woman there is always a discrepancy in what you know your value to be and what you should charge for that. And also as a independent self-employed person, there's not always manuals, especially for the type of work that I do, which is largely made up from all of my experiences, on how much you should charge for things. And because I feel like this work is necessary work, I have to remind myself that it is still work. So I should, I'm trying to navigate, I always find ways to be like, "Well, I should give them more for less, so then they know I'm really good at what I do." And I'm like, "That's not how they know I'm good. I'm good because I'm good. And that's why they are hiring me."

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So the hardest thing is the money part of it, because I know that what I'm doing is valuable, but there's not a specific industry that it fits neatly into, so I don't know, I have to make up what I think those compensation standards are for myself and feel good about it. And so much of the work, it's hard to put it into a timeframe. Because when I'm creating these workshops and designing strategies, it's from like 10 books that I've read over the past five years and three workshops I went to and two I facilitated, and all of that culminates into a two-hour workshop that they then listen to or whatever. But it's hard to sometimes quantify that. So the money part is the most difficult for me, actually.

Kenrya: So yeah.

Erica: That's real. That's super real, because I think, sorry, I apologize, Kenrya, for butting in, but yeah, that's super real. Because we have to, I'm independently employed now, and one of the things that I struggled with a lot was, how much do I charge? And I'm working with a business coach, and the first thing she said, she was like, "People don't trust cheap shit. You can be amazing, it could be a legit Chanel bag, but because it's cheap, we doubt it. So don't be some cheap shit that people don't trust or don't value because you don't value it." That's real stuff.

Kenrya: Yeah, that's also something that I struggle with. I've been working independently since 2008, but I did not do a rate card and stick to it until this year. And a lot of that is because so much of what I do is, it's consulting. And so everything is on a case by case basis, right? And I was in therapy earlier this year and I was talking to my therapist about how I was stressed about trying to set a rate for a project. And she was like, "You have to stop doing this." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And she was like, "By you not having set rates and figuring it out every time somebody reaches out to you, you're not negotiating your rate, you're negotiating yourself. Every time you are figuring out what is your worth and you are going back and forth with yourself and lowballing yourself and everything else, and it feels terrible."

Kenrya: So my homework became that I needed to set up a rate card and I needed to stick to it. And so part of it also is that I give different rates depending on the industry. And she's like, "All right, well then, let that be your guide." So for every line item of work of the different types of consulting that I do, I have a base rate, I have a corporate rate, I have a nonprofit discount rate. That discount is a set percentage that works across every line item in terms of the different work that I do. And while I have still had some moments where I had to hit up Erica and be like, "Oh my God, I need to give them this rate and I'm worried that they're going to be like, 'No, thank you,'" it has made it so much easier.

Kenrya: And I did, only once have I had somebody come back and say, "We can't do it," but it was only because they wanted something last minute and I have a 50% markup for rush projects. And so whatever, it wasn't important enough for them or they didn't have the budget to be able to meet the rate. And it was fine, I didn't have time anyway. But what it has reminded me is that it's okay to ask for what we want. I also do hourly rates a lot of times unless a flat rate makes the most sense, because of all of the stuff that goes into consulting. Or I'll do a base rate, but if it goes over this certain amount of time or this date, then this rate kicks in, that kind of thing. And it has been incredibly helpful with taking out that anxiety of that rate setting.

Kenrya: So for you or for anybody else that needed to hear that, I hope that it's helpful. It's helped me a lot, a lot, a lot to be able to have my work set up in that way. And so far everybody has said yes. Or one group negotiated and they were still above the minimum that I would have taken to do the work. So hey, everybody wins. It just took getting out of my own way about being afraid that people will say no, or reminding myself that the worst thing is that they say no. Okay, I didn't have the money to begin with.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And that's that sense of scarcity that I think especially Black communities and Black women are forced into, where it's like there's never enough. There's never enough. So what if they can't give me ... And then it's like, okay, but then they weren't the right ones in the first place.

Kenrya: Exactly.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: You know, we shouldn't just take crumbs just because we think that's what's there. You know?

Kenrya: Yep.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so thank God for therapy and business coaching. Because I have a therapist and I did business coaching, because I also was like, "I'm causing myself anxiety and stress that is not mine." There is money in the world.

Kenrya: Just trying to make some money, yeah.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I mean, there's money in the world, and lots of it. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I want all of it, but it means that if I'm living from a place of scarcity, that is literally false because we know that there's so much abundance in the world.

Kenrya: That's right.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So I also, part of that money challenge that I've been dealing with is getting out of that scarcity mindset and just being like, "Okay, this is something I'm outsourcing to my assistant because I don't want to be asking for money because it causes me anxiety. And so that's something that I was like, "I need to get help with this." Because if I'm focusing, it takes me an hour and a half to send an email just to say, "This is what you're supposed to pay me for something," that's not the work. That's not effective to what I'm trying to do. So I also like, if you can afford to get help and you can get help, get help. Because we don't have to do this, can't do this by ourselves.

Kenrya: That's real shit. Yay. Awesome. Oh, and I also remind myself that white man ask for exorbitant amounts of money to be fucking ...

Teju Adisa-Farrar: For nothing.

Kenrya: Mediocre or terrible. Yeah. So fuck it. I'm going to ask for it because I'm fantastic.

Erica: Yeah, look at their rate card one good time. If you're ever doubting yourself, because a lot of times people don't share their information, but if you're ever doubting yourself, go to a public agency's website and look at contracts. And you will see what these motherfuckers are charging. You're like, "Oh, shit, I could easily do ... I can do it at a cheaper rate and still be like them." Although you shouldn't. So yeah.

Kenrya: So in the book that we read, the activists, the environmental activists, they're labeled as Black identity extremists, which of course we know is not very far off of what happens in the real world. And they're specifically targeted by the FBI. And I'm not saying that you've been targeted by the FBI, but I am wondering, how does racism impact your ability to do your work?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: It is my work. I'm always saying, "Black, Black, Black, Blackety Black," because that is the world that I have been raised into no matter where I am in the world. And the fact that we just can't be human means that my life goal has to be to remind people that we are first and foremost humans before we are Black. And that's because racism is literally embedded into all the structures and all the environments of the world through all kinds of environmental racism, redlining, zoning in the US, residential segregation, immigration in Europe, colonialism through unequal trade policies on the continent of Africa and in the Caribbean. Literally racism impacts me in every way. And I think part of what happens with my work on the lowest superficial level is that people assume that I am going to teach them about microaggressions, or that I'm going to define what racism is, or that I'm automatically a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant just because I talk about Blackness and our relationship to our environment.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And on a higher level, if I'm going to a protest, if I want to go out into these streets, I have to always think about what happens when and if the police comes, and if my body is going to be safe and what I am prepared to do. And so during last summer's uprisings I was being very COVID isolated and safe, because some people in my life have cancer. And there was a moment where I decided I needed to go out into the streets, and I had to really make a lot of contingency plans to make sure that whatever went down that night, I was going to be as safe as I could be while still being in solidarity with the folks who were on the streets. And that night it was fine, the police didn't come. There were some snipers on the roof, but there was no police presence. The protest happened, it was good, it was energizing. I went home, didn't have to use any milk because there was no mace, but I was prepared for all of those things.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And that's the same with just stepping outside every day. Similarly to thinking about how men are going to enter my space, I think about what happens if police enter my space. I also think about what happens when and if people find me online who are conservative, who are trolls, who are whatever, because the amount of threats, death threats, name calling that women of color activists get on the internet is very real. And so those are all sorts of things that I have to think about specifically because I'm Black and cannot pass for anything else. And also because I am a cis woman and have a very gendered looking body. So it definitely impacts my ability to not focus on safety.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so during the pandemic when white people would be like, "Safety, safe, we need to be safe," I'm like, "We're not safe every day." Every day we are not safe. A virus is not safe, the police are not safe. We are prematurely close to death at all times, so this virus is just a symptom of something that we have already experienced. So now white people were feeling like they weren't safe because of COVID-19, but that's an experience that I feel every day as a Black woman, and especially in doing work that is adjacent to, supportive of activism. There is a real threat of just the different ways that we could be made unsafe.

Erica: Right. Okay, a little bit more from the book. It's actually interesting when you talked about the organization that you first got started in in the book. They're based not in Oakland, but definitely Bay Area, California. And it's a youth organization that's run by some adults, and the protagonist, one of the protagonists gets kind of plopped in there by the FBI. So she finds love in the movement and it's all, you know, but anyway, she finds love in the movement. Have you, and I personally, definitely not as high stakes as what you have been doing, but I've worked on political campaigns, and I equate it to summer camp. We're all stuck together in this little space, and then the nigga that you don't really, well, the person that you might not normally think is fine on the regular street, because you're all stuck together all the time, you're like, "Mm." So now we're getting juicy. Have you ever fallen for someone you've been working beside that you can share? Because we don't want to reveal no secrets.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Yeah, I don't know.

Erica: Really?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Working beside, because I've been mostly freelancing since college. But definitely in doing research for some of my work with Black activists and artists, I am in spaces with really amazing, beautiful humans of color and Black people, men and women. And there have definitely been moments where what I call community, you get involved with some of the community. And that has definitely happened to me a few times. And especially in Europe, where it feels like there's even less people of color, you want to get underneath each other and be as close as possible because you feel like, "This is where I belong." And there is this sense that we're all we've got and there's not an understanding from people on the streets.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So definitely in Europe, the overlap of political activism and being in community in political activists, artists, usually artivist spaces, definitely got involved with some people and had to really consider what that meant for me as not only a researcher, but also as someone who wants to continue to be in community in a healthy way. And as someone who knew that I was go going into communities for a period of time and coming out, that also has to deal with how I want to be perceived and if I want to go in and be messy and then leave or not. And so I did have to think a lot when I would be in these situationships with folks or would be in sexual intimate relationships with folks, had to consider what that meant for my bigger relationship to community. So that is definitely ... Oh, that is, it's like ...

Teju Adisa-Farrar: It feels like it should be possible not to do that, but we do do that. And that's why so many Black love stories are trauma bonding. People are just bonding through straight up trauma. And a lot of people's relationship to Blackness is trauma even as much as it's dancing and joy and music and food. It is also really centered in trauma. And so when you are in those spaces where you're constantly thinking through about trauma, even if it's not the word that we're using, I think those are the ripe opportunities where we're like, "Hm, is it tension or love? I don't know. Let's just do it anyways."

Kenrya: Real shit. I am in there. So what do you wish that more Black people knew about environmental equity?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: That is such a good question, what I wish more people knew. I think that we don't have to live in the environments that we live in. That we live in these environments by design and that they are kept unhealthy by design, and that our separation from nature and gardening and plants that is not even true to who we are is by design, because the more connected we are to nature and the more healthy environments we have, the more we're able to strive and be resilient. And so I really hope that Black people can know that. And there's a phrase that we use all the time, "It is what it is." And I'm like, "No, actually it's not." It is never is what it is. All this shit is by design, and it is structured so that we cannot thrive so that we don't love each other so that we don't love ourselves so that we're not healthy so that we can't think about why we're working for people who don't care about us.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: All of this is designed so that we feel less than, so that we don't ask for our value in the world. I think all racism is environmental because in order for it to be effective, it has to be in every aspect of our environment. In our home, in our neighborhoods, in the city, in the nation, on the streets, on the bus, there's no place where you could really be Black and safe fully. They will come into your house and shoot you. They will shoot you on the street. They'll shoot you in Grandma's yard. They'll shoot you in the store. They do not care. And so racism, I think, has to be environmental for it to be so effective. So what I hope that all Black people know is that it is not what it is in terms of where we live, how we live, what's around us, what we have access to, what we don't. It is by design.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And so when we understand that fully, we can really change it and demand that it be changed and take up the space that we need to take up, because it will not be given to us.

Kenrya: Right.

Erica: So what is one thing you wish we would all start doing today?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Going to therapy. I love therapy.

Erica: Same.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And I wish that there was a program that would pay Black people to go to therapy. Because sometimes we cannot immediately change our environments, but we can change our minds and heal. And if we cannot heal, even if we live in the best neighborhood, we are going to keep producing environments in our households, with our friends and our communities that are not healthy. So I wish every Black person could not only go to therapy, but that the government as part of reparations would pay Black people to go to therapy, pay for therapy for Black people in addition to eliminating all of our debt, education, credit, medical, all debt for Black people. That would be my reparations plan, if anyone was asking.

Kenrya: Dig it, love it.

Erica: I'm here for it.

Kenrya: What's your superpower?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: What is my superpower? I think connection. I was going to be like, "Connecting the dots between all these," blah, blah, but I think it's just connection, period. Connecting with people, connecting with information, connecting with nature, connecting with different cultures. Connection is really important to me. And I think while I am smart and articulate and read a lot of books and all this stuff, that people who I work with over long periods of time, it's because there's some connection, whether it's with a whole organization or a collective of people or individuals that I'm supporting or interviewing. I think I don't connect with everyone, but the folks that I do connect with, it is really special.

Kenrya: Hm. Right. What are you reading right now?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I am reading Cicely Tyson's biography. And it's called “Just As I Am: A Memoir.” And every night I'm like, "Okay, Teju, you need to not stay up reading this freaking book." And I am just hooked every night. And I'm like, "Okay, it's 10:30. I'm going to be in bed by 12:00." I look at the clock, it's 1:07. I'm like, "Really? Cicely Tyson, I'm up until 1:00 in the morning." People were like, "What'd you do last night?" I was like, "I read Cicely Tyson's biography." I'm just so ... And not so much of the story, but the way that she writes her story, Miles Davis is a recurring character. And the way that their relationship is understood is like, he was terrible and beat her ass and she left him. But what she talks about is that she didn't realize she had trauma around her father until Miles kept coming back into her life.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And she was like, "Okay, I know you have issues, but this is my project." And so part of feeling like, even though our lives are different and I'm not trying to be an actress and it's just a different time period, there's so many things that she says that I relate to just as a person who has loved people and who loves people and who also was constantly trying to understand the traumas that I got from my parents, no matter how good they were and how amazing they were. We still get these traumas. And so I am reading that book. And then also a book called “Black Bodies, White Gold” by Anna Kesson. And it is about basically the visual culture of cotton in the 19th century and how that was juxtaposed with Black bodies and predicated on exploitation of Black bodies. And so she talks about the way that cotton and enslaved Africans in the Americas were shown in all this imagery to basically create this romantic idea of slavery for America.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: And it's very ... There are moments where there's a lot of jargon and I have to read sentences a couple of times, but her perspective and the dots she connects, I'm like, "Oh, I didn't even think about it like that." And even just little things like, slave masters would ask for the harshest cotton for the enslaved Africans to wear. So they would wear the refined cotton and they would literally call up factories and be like, "We need whatever the bad cotton is, the harsh cotton is, because that's what our enslaved folks are going to wear." And so even just the idea of fiber to skin, "You don't even want us to be comfortable as we're being uncomfortable in being enslaved." That is so deep.

Erica: And it's not even that they want us to be uncomfortable. They go out of their way.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Right, exactly. That's what it is.

Erica: To make sure we're uncomfortable. It's not just like, it's like, "No, give me what's the worst so that I can make sure I give it to them."

Kenrya: It's fucking evil.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: It's evil, and it's also like, and these are the people who create your wealth and that's how you treat them. So it shows you what people actually value. So yeah, those are the two, those are the two books that I'm reading right now. And it's, yeah, it's good.

Kenrya: Okay.

Erica: What's turning you on today?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: That's a great question. I just feel like in the last few weeks these Black women artists have just been putting out these hot, steamy, sexy videos. Ari Lennox with “Pressure,” Chloe Bailey with “Have Mercy,” even though I don't think they're really taking advantage of her voice, the song's about her ass, so that's the whole point. But these videos, I'm just mesmerized. I'm like, "Get it, do all the sex stuff." I would not have my ass out there, my dad would be like, "I'm sorry, what?" But I just love that sort of freedom and that claiming of body. I really, I'm not that much older than the people, I'm like, "These young people," but I would never be in a video in a leotard, even though I love my body, because I have some kind of respectability barrier that I try to break through. And so when I see it I'm just like, "Get it." I just love it so much. So those videos are turning me on because they're hot.

Kenrya: Yay.

Erica: I love it. Okay. We're going to do a really quick rapid fire word association. I'm going to shout a word, shout back or just say first thing that comes to mind. Okay?

Erica: Life

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Joy.

Erica: Love.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Sex.

Erica: Abundance.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: The first word that came to me was sacrifice, but I don't know if I believe that, but let's go with sacrifice.

Erica: Okay. Future.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Black

Kenrya: Yes.

Erica: Green

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Gold.

Erica: Treat.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Trees.

Erica: That works. That's all I got. See?

Kenrya: So as we wrap up, what's next for you? What are you working on?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So I am in Brooklyn, New York, and I will be here for few months. And a project that I'm excited about, not sure when it's coming out, but I'm going to be doing a podcast on the relationship between Black culture and materials in our environment. Textiles, Black identity, farming, supply chains, Black culture, textiles, all of the various things that I think about. So that is going to be happening. That's something I'm working on this fall. And I'm also, I'm trying to figure out what's next. I was in a scarcity mindset for a long time, and finally this year I was like, "Okay, you can afford your life. You're creating unnecessary stress. What type of work do you want to take on?"

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Because up to this point I'm just like, "Whatever I get." Not whatever I get, but if contracts want to be extended, even if I don't want to extend the contract, I'm like, "It's guaranteed money. Just extend that contract." And now I'm like, "I think I can end some of these contracts and think about what kind of contracts I want next."

Erica: Fuck your contract.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So I'm exploring right now what's next. So I think the podcast will fill up some time and space, and then hopefully I could do some reflecting and visioning on what type of work I want to take on. Especially as the pandemic continues to surge on, even though people were like, "It's going to be over," at every point. So we'll see.

Kenrya: Right.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Right. So we'll see.

Erica: We in this for a minute.

Kenrya: Right. So where can people find you to be able to know when your podcast launches, to be able to keep up with your work?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Yes, my website, which is just my full name, www.TejuAdisaFarrar.com, and really the only social media-

Kenrya: Can you spell that?

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Yes. T-E-J-U-A-D-I-S-A-F-A-R-R-A-R.com. And really the only social media platform that I pay attention to is Instagram, @MissTej, M-I-S-S-T-E-J. And so those are the best places, on my website or through my Instagram. You could sign up for my newsletter, which doesn't come out often, but it'll let you know what I've done over like the last four months, sometimes five months, depending on how often I get it out.

Kenrya: Life.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Right, life.

Erica: It's not that it doesn't come out often.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Exactly, exactly.

Erica: It's just that you do not want to bother your subscribers too much ...

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I like to just be like, "These are all things I've done and I'm doing. Okay, see you in another six months."

Erica: It's a low ... Yes.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Yeah, so Instagram and my website are the best places to find me.

Kenrya: Dope. Well, you all go follow, subscribe to that newsletter that you'll get a couple times here when it may happen. And I just want to say thank you for coming on. This was dope.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: Thank you for inviting me.

Kenrya: Thank you, this was.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: It was less nerve-wracking than I thought.

Kenrya: No nerve-wracking.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: I listened to a couple episodes, I was like, "Oh, they're getting into it. Okay."

Kenrya: See, we try not to push the guests too far. Just because we are comfortable talking about all of the things doesn't mean that everybody else is.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: But the episodes I listened to, I was like, "This is great. This is so helpful." There were things that were resonating, and I really appreciated how explicit people were about the situation. Because we don't talk about this enough.

Kenrya: Yeah.

Teju Adisa-Farrar: So yeah, I'm happy to have learned about this podcast and have been on it.

Kenrya: Yay. Thank you. And thank all of you for listening.

Erica: Thank you, thank you.

Kenrya: We'll get back next week. Take care.

[theme music]
 
Kenrya: This episode was produced by us, Kenrya and Erica, and edited by B'Lystic. The theme music is from Brazy. Hit subscribe right now in your favorite podcast app and at YouTube.com/TheTurnOnPodcast, so you'll never miss an episode.
 
Erica: Then follow us on Twitter @TheTurnOnPod and Instagram @TheTurnOnPodcast. And you can find links to books, transcripts, guest info, what's turning us on, and other fun stuff at TheTurnOnPodcast.com.
 
Kenrya: And don't forget to email us at [email protected] with your book recommendations and your pressing sex-and related questions.
 
Erica: And you can support the show by leaving us a five-star review, buying some merch or becoming a patron of the show. Just head to TheTurnOnPodcast.com to make that happen.
 
Kenrya: Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon. Holla.

LISTEN TO THE TURN ON
Amazon Music | Apple Podcasts | Google Play | iHeart Radio | Pandora | Radio Public | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | YouTube

CONNECT WITH THE TURN ON
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Patreon

​SHOW NOTES
In this episode of The Turn On, Erica and Kenrya read "A Spy In The Struggle" by Aya de Leon and talk about environmental racism, being in community with other Black people, so-called "Black Identity Extremists," Black Republicans, the value of unlikeable protagonists and the glorious intimacy of the word "nigga."

RESOURCES

• Book, "A Spy In The Struggle" by Aya de Leon| Bookshop | Amazon
• Author, Aya de Leon | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• What's Turning Us On | Starfish

​
The Turn On participates in affiliate programs, which provide a small commission when you purchase products via links on this site. This costs you nothing, but helps support the show. Click here for more information.

TRANSCRIPT
Kenrya: Come here, get off.
 
[theme music]

Erica: Hey Killa.

Kenrya: Hey boo.

Erica: Okay, so today. Welcome, y'all.

Kenrya: Well yeah, we should say hi to y'all too. Hey.

Erica: Hey, so welcome to episode five of the Turn On. Today. We are reading “A Spy in the Struggle” by Aya de Leon. So sit back, relax, get your wine, your weed, whatever you need, and enjoy.

Kenrya: “A Spy in the Struggle” by Aya de Leon. Yolanda reached for the top button of blouse, but Jimmy stilled her hand and took over. He carefully unbuttoned her top, fingering the baby blue fabric, and pearl buttons. Her shyness dissolved with the undressing and she wrapped her arms around his waist. He leaned forward and tasted her neck with an open mouth kiss that made Yolanda wonder if she could hold out for the shower. As they backed into the bathroom, she slid her hands under his dashiki, her palms gliding up his undershirt, feeling the smooth, lean muscles of his back, his ribs, pulling the bright orange fabric top over his head. Jimmy reached past her waist to turn on the shower, lingered on the way back, caressing the curve of her firm hips, the taut muscles of her belly, running his finger along the top of her jeans.

Kenrya: He leaned down and kissed her as she peeled off his ribbed undershirt, easing her hands slowly up his chest, stroking his nipples, rewarded with a gasp. "Oh no," he whispered, pulling his mouth away from hers, "not the secret weapon." Yolanda laughed and pulled his tank top off, tossing it on the floor and returned to sliding her hands back up and down his chest. "Yolanda," he whispered, "if you don't stop, I'm going to come in my pants." "No, you're not," she said, and unbuckled his belt. The bathroom had filled with steam, obscuring the tangle of their limbs from the reflection of the mirror, a film of humidity coating their skin, making everything slick and moist. He leaned forward to kiss the tops of each of her breasts that peaked out above her beige bra, while he reached around the unhook it. As the bra loosened, he leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth.

Kenrya: Yolanda moaned in his ear, taking the lobe between her teeth, using your hands to undo his pants and letting them drop around his ankles. Jimmy unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, sliding his hands down the back of her underwear, easing the two garments down together. Jimmy squatted down and untied Yolanda's sneakers, sliding them off her feet one after another, and peeled off her socks. She stepped out of the pile of clothes as he took his own shoes and socks off and stood up in his boxers. Yolanda reached and caressed his erection through the dark maroon cotton fabric. He ran his hands down her back over the curve of her ass, and back up the front of her body, her hip bones, her ribs, her small firm, breasts, their large, brown nipples.

Kenrya: Finally, she slid off his boxers, and he lifted her up, hands under her ass, into the shower. She held the curtain rod to steady them, and he let her down slowly to her feet, sliding her body down the front of his. The spray at their sides, she backed him against the wall of the shower, pressing his erection against her belly. Yolanda leaned forward and stroked Jimmy's left nipple with one hand and put the right one in her mouth. He tangled his hand in her hair and moaned, his knees nearly buckling with the pleasure of her.

Kenrya: "Yolanda, I'm serious. I'm going to make a mess." She moved her mouth from his nipple and continued to stroke it with her other hand and kissed him, open mouth and hungry, pressing her belly against him, her hips against the taut muscles of his thighs. "It's okay," she murmured into his chin, "we're in the shower." She reached for the bar of soap and peeled off the paper. "We can clean up as we go along." She lathered her hands and slid one onto his nipple and the other between his legs. Jimmy gasped and fell back against the shower wall. "Besides," Yolanda murmured into his neck as his muscles tightened and he grabbed her waist moving against her in a rhythm, "This is only the first round."
 
[theme music]

Erica: Hey hey, funky monkeys. Welcome, welcome back. Kenrya, thank you for that beautiful rendition. I keep calling them renditions, like they're not excerpts. So thanks for that rendition of a sex scene in “A Spy in the Struggle” by Aya de Leon, written in... Well published in 2021. So quick synopsis of this story. So essentially what had happened was there's this chick, her name is Yolanda. She was an attorney for this law firm. And then one day she shows up to work... And she's like an entry level attorney. One day she shows up to work and they're like, "Hey, go shred this box." So she's walking out with the box and then the FBI bust in. And she was like, "Oh, they told me to shred this. You can have this shit." So she kind of drops dime on the company.

Kenrya: Yeah, she's a whistleblower, officially.

Erica: Officially. So she was a whistleblower, and that caused her to be shunned by all her... By all the law firms in the city. So she ends up going to work for the FBI because she's like, "Look, this is the only job I can find. I need to pay some bills. FBI, here I come." And the whole idea was like, "I'm going to work for the FBI and earn my place back in the law firm world." We'll get into her in a minute. So she's at the FBI just crunching numbers, doing her normal FBI, "I'm an attorney for the FBI" shit. And then she gets a call and they're like, "Yo, you need to go to California. There's this group, this in environmental group that is filled with Black Identity Extremists." And they're in... I don't know if they're in Oakland, but it's like Oakland. And they're like, "We know from your file you're from that community, because you went to school out there, college out there, so it makes sense for the cover for you to infiltrate this organization."

Erica: So she's like, "Nah, I don't want to fucking do it," but they're like, "You better do it." So she's like, "This will help me earn my way back into the firm." So she does it. So she goes out there, she becomes a part of the organization, and hijinks ensue, dot dot dot. And there's a love interest, because that's why she fucked somebody. Okay, first let's say Aya de Leon, she writes a lot of really good books. This is the first that we've read of hers, but she's been on her radar for a while. I've read a few of her books. So she's a wonderful writer, and cool as shit, it seems like. And this is just me looking at her picture and knowing that she's a professor, but I could totally see me myself in her class, like, "Hey, girl."

Kenrya: In her emails too, she's dope.

Erica: Oh yeah, that's why I'm like... I know this isn't completely [crosstalk 00:08:40].

Kenrya: How do you know? Yeah.

Erica: So good ass book. But let's start first with the easy shit. Easy shit. Environmental racism. And Aya does a really good way, a really good job of framing how fucking racist environmental shit can be. So when I think about racism... No, when I think about environmentalists, I think of dirty white kids with dreadlocks that smell patchouli chaining themselves to trees. That's what I think of. But then... And you're like, "No, there's a reason that all these cities are... All these Black neighborhoods and cities are literally in the path of fucking smog, smoke stacks and... Like Gary, Indiana-“

Kenrya: That's all by design.

Erica: Our cities that are predominantly Black, I'm thinking about East St. Louis. I'm from St. Louis. East St. Louis is like... It's literally all the pollution... Look at my nails. But all the pollution ends up in East St. Louis. Or you think about those cities-

Kenrya: I think of Little Miss Flint, about... You know they just won that suit yesterday.

Erica: I didn't know that.

Kenrya: Yeah, but it's not enough money, but it is millions of dollars. It is primarily for children who have been injured by... It ain't enough money, though.

Erica: It's never enough. But they're like, "Ooh, you won millions of dollars." Yeah, for millions of people. But anyway. Or you think about those cities in those little towns in North Carolina that are next to pig processing plants and their water's horrible and everybody has cancer and...

Kenrya: Or Cancer Alley in Louisiana.

Erica: So this book, the setup of it does a beautiful job explaining how... Because I think they're explaining that to Yolanda in her briefing or whatever. And then she goes to a community meeting.

Kenrya: An organizing meeting.

Erica: And they do a really... She does a really good job of explaining how environmental racism is a thing and how it really affects Black people.

Kenrya: Every part of our lives.

Erica: Exactly. So I thought that was just... I thought it was a really great premise. Because we think about... Also we've been hearing the term Black Identity Extremists. Some of us know it a little better than others, Kenrya...

Kenrya: I know that it's some bullshit that they made up to continue to target us in the ways that they always do.

Erica: Exactly. I'm not saying it... By no means [crosstalk 00:11:53] validity into it. You hear about it and you think it's just the government going after Black Lives Matter people on the news. You think they're just going after the... I was going to call out some names, but the first name that came to mind was very problematic, so I won't. Talcum X was who came to mind. But you think of Black Identity Extremists and you think the government has a list of five names. The people you see on the news talking about Black Lives Matter and that's it. When no, it's not that. It is them infiltrating all types of organizations in order to break down what are just organizations that are meant to fucking-

Kenrya: They don't want us to be in community in any way.

Erica: Exactly. And let's be real, if these organizations really were fucking some shit up, I go back to that quote, I don't know where it is, I saw it on a t-shirt, “We could never loot as much as has been stolen from us.”

Kenrya: But also fuck property rights. What the fuck is that? Property over people is literally what this country is built on and fuck them.

Erica: And this story is about that. So there's this organization and it was created... I think it was created out of... I'm thinking of this... Now I'm thinking of it in big tobacco, how tobacco had the lawsuits, and then they had to create these little nonsmoking non-profits.

Kenrya: “We're in the community.”

Erica: So that's what happened. There was this company that was dumping waste and being environmentally a polluter. So as a result, they had to create this organization to save the planet, and the organization's called Red, Black, and Green, which I absolutely love. At first it was a little too on the nose, but then when she explained, I was like, that's not some shit some kids came up with. So it was Red, Black and Green, and they came out of the whatever... And these motherfuckers are like, "Yeah, thanks for your money, but fuck this, we kicking over some tables." And I was like...

Kenrya: Loved it.

Erica: So they fight environmental racism and it was really great seeing the organization at work, seeing the kids. The kids were smart and well written, because you know I hate those “Merry Christmas Tiny Tim” kind of kids.

Kenrya: I generally hate kids in every... And you know how much I love kids, but I hate the way adults hate write kids. They're always awful in movies and books. Yeah, people do such shitty a job, which I guess is why it always stands out to us when the kids are well written.

Erica: And the kids were well written. They were on some for real...

Kenrya: They were authentic. That baby that came up and said, "What starts with F and ends with CK?" I probably shouldn't have laughed so hard, but I loved that baby.

Erica: I was like, "Yo, this kid is amazing." And then there was-

Kenrya: It's firetruck, by the way.

Erica: And then there were like... There were a couple kids, young girls that were written about, and it was very... It was just a good voice for kids, and we don't see that a lot. Actually I feel like all the books that we have read that have kids in them, they actually have been written well, because I remember saying this before about kids, but-

Kenrya: Yeah, we were saying that about the... The one where he had to go home because his brother got locked up in season four, or was that season [crosstalk 00:15:54].

Erica: That was literally this season.

Kenrya: Was that this season?

Erica: Two episodes ago, two books ago.

Kenrya: I'm sorry. I've reached brain fog o'clock.

Erica: It's okay, because I was like, "Strippers." So yeah, the kids were written super well. I feel like we could spend hours dissecting Yolanda. So Yolanda, to me, the way I see Yolanda, she is textbook Black Republican.

Kenrya: She the bitch that only got white friends and her hair always look fucked up.

Erica: And the kids say that. They didn't say that, but they said that. They were like... There was a scene where she overheard the kids talking... “She can't dress [inaudible 00:16:53], y'all see that?” So yeah.

Kenrya: She's so fucking bootstrappy.

Erica: Bootstrappy exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Bootstrap as shit. That's what I have listed. So here's the thing. Yolanda grew up initially in the South, and her mom and dad were together, her dad was a pastor, and he was an activist pastor. He was an activist pastor loved by the city, by the Black folks, all that shit. But her daddy died. When her daddy died, her mom went to Howard. I can tell this because it's not a huge part of the story, but... Okay, so Yolanda's dad died, and at the funeral, her daddy's mistress showed up and was crying, and her mom was like, "Oh fuck this. I wanted to get out this town anyway, but I'm really getting out this town." So her mama packed her up and they bounce, and they just ride, they just drive out.

Erica: So they leave like... I can't remember where it was. Let's say it was Mississippi. Probably one, if it was, a broken clock is right twice, so anyway. So they pack up the car and mom bounces. Mom moves out to California or something, and this starts this whole transient life. Her mom is unstable and she goes from relationship to relationship, but also from religious community... She also goes from commune to commune kind of thing. So it's this really unstable life, and Yolanda and then realizes, "I don't want a part of this." So she, like all little co-dependent girls, decides, "I am going to bust my ass to be an amazing student." She is. She gets sent to a boarding school and she's the Black girl at the boarding school. So first I think Yolanda is textbook, also textbook, when a little kid sees just enough to build their own story. She had a really fucked up view about the whole activism work that her father was doing.

Kenrya: Because she read some articles that were in opposition to what he was preaching, and then everything he said went out the window. It was very Black and white thinking.

Erica: And I think also... And it is just one of things where I think I... We see it all the time. kids will fill in the blanks and not even ask.

Kenrya: They don't really get nuance if you don't give it to them.

Erica: And I can see how as a parent sometimes you don't even realize that there's nuance that needs to be given. I was listening to this man, I think it was on Instagram or something. He was saying how his son called him and was pissed because he was like, "Mama's a football player. I know she a football player. Tell these motherfuckers that she's a football player so they can quit telling me I'm lying." And she's like, "What the are you talking about?" He overheard his mama talking about, "Let me get my pads before the event." Again, kids will get this much and all of this with the wrong shit.

Kenrya: That is a wonderful...

Erica: And that is what it is.

Kenrya: I tell my partner, because he doesn't have any kids, but he's obviously very involved over here, but he still don't... He ain't had a kid from scratch. So I have to tell him all the time kids are dumb. They don't know stuff if you don't teach it to them. I have to stop and break things down to very, very basic, he'd be like, "Do you have..." I'm like, "Yes, nigga, they don't know nothing."

Erica: “You didn't know this, but it [crosstalk 00:21:21]. You learned it before you can remember learning it, but you learned... Someone told you.”

Kenrya: Exactly. It's just that he's also not used to seeing someone who's very intentional about making sure that you teach them the little things so they don't make up them stories.

Erica: So I think that's what happened with Yolanda. I think she had bits and pieces of her life and she just started filling shit in. So her whole life was built upon shit that she just made up. And then it's one of them things where you find stuff to support that particular view.

Kenrya: Confirmation bias.

Erica: Yeah, that's what it's called. Great value.

Kenrya: When we look for things.

Erica: Great value. So I think that's exactly what happened with her. Oh, because also, when she went in on this thing, she was convinced that these little kids was really doing some shit. Like these motherfuckers are wrong and I am here to help the FBI see they're wrong, and then I'm going back to my spot. It wasn't a woman get in or you know...

Kenrya: It was like, "This is what the FBI told me was going on." She had zero doubt that they were racist and that they were making shit up. It was just like, "This is what they said. Oh that looks like that confirms what they said. Let's go."

Erica: And I think also what I do know about Aya is that she's not that. So it was amazing that she was able to write... Like you could totally see why Yolanda believes the way she... Feels the way she does.

Kenrya: And she wrote her without contempt. I did not like her, but it didn't feel as if she didn't like her as she was writing her. She got in her head and let her be herself.

Erica: I was ready to not like her. I was like, "This lady is a bitch." And because Aya was so neutral about her, it kept me from jumping off the deep end, because I was like, "Bitch is crazy."

Kenrya: I just kept being like, "She going to get there. She going to come around."

Erica: She did, but it was a... [inaudible 00:23:52]. She got there, but it was a thing getting there. So Yolanda went off to boarding school and she got to boarding school and she was the Black kid in a room full of whites. And because of all the shit she went through and her biases, she believed that white folks was okay. So she was just like all up they asses until an incident happened, and then she was like, "Oh, ain't nobody my friend." I read that, her experience in... Because the way that the book was written, there were lots of flashbacks. So when I got to this point about her in boarding school, it reminded me of those conversations we have where we're like, "Is it worth our kids being the only one for the sake of going to a better school? Is a better school really important if your kids having to explain why her hair nappy?"

Kenrya: And you know I went through that firsthand. Unintentionally. I enrolled my kid in the school where in kindergarten there were lots of little Black kids, and then in first grade-

Erica: Not so many.

Kenrya: Was it? Yeah. And then in first grade, everybody got into a voucher program and left and it was just my baby and one other Black kid. And then the racism started.

Erica: And it's crazy because I actually recently had a... Worked with a client, and the client represents charter schools that are run by Black and brown people. So they represent Black and brown single site charter schools. And it was really interesting watching them. I mean, you see the importance of it, but then seeing them doing their work and their mission, you're like, "Yo, this shit is so important," because yeah, I would rather have to supplement shit at home than... Because you can supplement math. I cannot supplement a pack of white girls telling my little girl [crosstalk 00:26:26].

Kenrya: Patting your hair and treating you like a goddamn animal in a zoo all day. No thank you. It's not worth it. And even at the school that my kid was at that I didn't know was as white as it was, I asked in the interview, what's the percentage of Black kids, what's the percentage of kids... All of that. I did all the things. Only to find out that they switched up on me. But I am certain that there are folks that would've gone there knowing that that was the thing because they thought it was going to be a better educational value, and it turns out it wasn't, though.

Kenrya: One of my kid's white friends ended up pulling their child out a year later because he wasn't getting a good education there. So he goes to the school we go to now. Because it wasn't good for him either, and he's a little white boy. We got to examine the things that lead us to think that those places are better. I mean, it's the same thing that leads some people to think that HBCUs are not for them because they think that PWIs are somehow a better preparation for the world or some shit. I don't fucking know. It's racist everywhere, my nigga.

Erica: Everywhere. Everywhere. You might as well just enjoy-

Kenrya: At least get some grounding for a couple of years.

Erica: Enjoy some shit before you really in the thick of racist shit.

Kenrya: Into the thick of it.

Erica: So Yolanda, it was textbook bootstrappy Republican shit. And also this is one of them situations where it's like, "Girl, you ain't got no friends and you can see why." Well, no, not even that you can... I can see why she doesn't have any friends, but I can also see in her decisions, if you had a good homegirl, she would've pulled your ass aside about some of this shit, about a million things. You ain't got no homegirl that can pull you aside? But yeah, it was...

Kenrya: She ain't got no group chat.

Erica: Yeah, you need a group chat-

Kenrya: She got nothing.

Erica: You need somebody to tell the emperor that they ain't got no clothes. And she ain't have none of that shit.

Kenrya: She's naked in this mug.

Erica: And it had her and in a silo. And again her mom was a piece of work. I can't deny that. But at the same time, this was 13 year old Yolanda looking at her mom as an adult and filling in the blanks when it's kind of like... Maybe if you had somebody there to remind you that your mama's going through her shit and it ain't got nothing to do with you. So yeah, Yolanda was definitely...

Kenrya: Interesting. You know, we've talked a little bit about this before, about the fact that it's pretty cool that we've reached a point where there aren't so few Black books that everybody has to be likable. Same thing like with TV where we have shows where I might not that bitch, but it's good that we get to have that. Everybody doesn't have to be the perfect whatever.

Erica: Yeah, nobody has to be perfect. I mean, I don't think I could kick it with her, but she wasn't all bad. She wasn't horrible. She was difficult, but she wasn't horrible. So it was nice to be able to see a unlikeable character. But let's not act like everybody else was perfect. So Yolanda is in this program and she makes this dude, and Jimmy... She meets Jimmy. Jimmy is her love interest. And one of the things she learned about Jimmy, and I literally have this highlighted. Black girls didn't like me. This negro. He grew up in a situation and a little bit like Yolanda was like, "Eh, Black girls wasn't checking for me, so I ended up marrying a white woman."

Kenrya: This is like a box set, except for they end up [crosstalk 00:31:08].

Erica: You said what?

Kenrya: The bitch with no Black friends and the fucked up hair and the Black girls didn't like me is like a box set.

Erica: Except they usually never end up being together.

Kenrya: Except they don't find each other. Exactly.

Erica: Y'all just be together, make some ashy little babies. Because they're usually ashy too. And they did find each other, which was great. And I mean the cool thing about Jimmy, again, this isn't... He's not completely horrible, but he ended up aligning himself with this organization and really doing good work for the organization. But he was married before and he said, "Black girls didn't really like me. They work checking for me." And I think he actually had like... His parents were Black Panthers or something of the sort. If I'm not mistaken, they were. So then he marries this white woman because Black girls wasn't checking for me. But he realizes when he was married to his wife, he had to assimilate, go to the shit that the family does. "Let's go hang out with our white neighbors, so he did it."

Erica: But then they moved to oh Oakland or wherever they are. I'm going to call it Oakland. It's not Oakland. I'm going to call it Oakland. It feels like Oakland. They moved to Oakland and his wife don't do that shit, and he realizes part of the reason that he divorced her was because he was like... She had the luxury of not having to assimilate, so she didn't. And if I'm doing that for her, she should be able to do that for me. And I find that very interesting. I mean, I've never... I might have fucked a white guy once.

Kenrya: I'm going to say you absolutely fucked...

Erica: No, I'm talking about relationships. Yes, I fucked a white man before, but... Putting all my business out there. But yeah, I think part of that... Part of the reason that it would be difficult for me to be with the white man, white person, is that. I need you to be... Look, I live my life in your world all the time. You better jump in my world and be cool with this shit. Also my family would probably talk too bad about white people. And they'd be like, "Look at that white boy." And then he'd have to be okay with it. But I'd probably burn a house down if his family's like, "Look at that Black girl."

Kenrya: My ex-husband was light skinned, and one of my cousins called that nigga Jon B the first time he met him and called him that. He never called him his name. He called him Jon B for years.

Erica: Which knowing him, that is even more hilarious. My grandpa met this dude that I was dating, and I think I told this story. And he was Puerto Rican. So my grandpa met him, looked him dead in the face was like, "Nigga, you's a nigga." I was like, "Grandpa, we knew that."

Kenrya: "Nigga you's a nigga" is probably one of my favorite sentences of all time.

Erica: "Nigga you's a nigga." I was like, "Yeah he is, grandpa. Let's move on."

Kenrya: I have gone on a couple of dates with white men. Sometimes without knowing they were dates.

Erica: Did you?

Kenrya: I did not. I have never had sex with a white man. Okay, this sums it up for me. There was a meme, and I sent it to my partner because this is the stuff that we talk about it's relevant and it said, "Being married to somebody who can't say nigga don't sound fun."

Erica: Nigga.

Kenrya: And that's it in a nutshell.

Erica: I say nigga too much. Not too much, but a lot I use it for everything. So I'm going to need to be able to look you in the face and be like, "Nigga."

Kenrya: "Nigga."

Erica: “Nigga, are you crazy?”

Kenrya: In all the ways. And you need to be able to pick up on all the ways that I'm using it and why I'm using it, and what this particular "nigga" means. That don't sound fun to me.

Erica: There's so many uses for it. It's like living a life without Lawry's. Well maybe not Lawry's. Without Tony Chachere's.

Kenrya: It is, though. And for years I was one of those Black people who was like, "Oh, don't say nigga. We shouldn't be using that word." Because I grew up... You know I grew up in a Black nationalist household and it was very like, "We don't say that word." So I didn't for years. I was just talking about this with my partner. I blame you and one of my exes.

Erica: You're welcome.

Kenrya: And Kevin Hart for bringing me around on the nigga front. It just feels good.

Erica: Yeah, it's a great word. It's like a fucking secret handshake.

Kenrya: I taught my kid the intricacies of it. When that Solange album came out, she says, "All my niggas in the whole wild world." So we had a conversation. And then remember there was a whole “babies creeping” thing, and he was saying “niggas creeping.” And I would just laugh until one day she was like, "Mama, they not saying ‘babies.’" And I was like, "All right, let's talk."

Erica: I love that there was a whole sit down about it.

Kenrya: Oh yeah. We had a whole conversation. So she's allowed, she knows that she can use nigga, but we also talked about mixed company and the whole nine. She knows when she can use stuff. Just like there are a couple of Solange songs... She's allowed to say “this shit is for us,” but only when she's singing that song.

Erica: “This shit is for us.”

Kenrya: And when the first time she... I've only actually heard her say it twice, and both times she whispered it in my ear while she was singing, because she's [crosstalk 00:37:41].

Erica: They don't know these reasons.

Kenrya: But yeah, we had a whole conversation about that shit. More than once.

Erica: I mean, I just feel like... I've never been the type of nigga to put all that energy... And maybe it's just because I'm like... I am Midwest in the most basic... I am run of the mill nigga. Run of the mill nigga. My granddaddy worked, he was a maintenance man. My granny did work in that... we are run of the mill niggas. We ain't got people in no fucking Howard yearbook back in the 20s. No, we are niggas.

Kenrya: It's just because my daddy used to be a full on, beret wearing gun toting man.

Erica: So I say that to say I've never put that whole like, "Hey, call us..." Okay, nigga.

Kenrya: I'm glad I saw the error of my ways. I came over to the other side. It's just so endearing and so... It honestly makes me feel good. It's just us. It's ours.

Erica: It's just like, "Bitch." If I call you bitch that's because I love you. If you get bitch in an email from me, bitch, you doing some shit.

Kenrya: The only time that it's ever... It seems like, I don't know... Obviously the show is included in my bio. I'm very proud of it. It is a piece of the work that I do. But I just started with a new client and we were supposed to be giving information about ourselves, and somebody else volunteered about this show. And two people were like, "Oh yeah, we already listen." And I was like, "Oh, you know a whole other side of me."

Erica: My oncologist listens to us. I was talking to her one day and she was like, "Oh my God, you and your friend have been in my ear all weekend." I was just like... Because I love what I do, but it's just like... Do you really need to see that side of me? But at the same time, I'm always afraid of myself going in and coming out of sedation... Anesthesia. Because I always say something wild, always wild. I remember one time I was going under and I remember being like, "Goddamn, that's why Michael Jackson liked this shit." And then I woke up. Because this shit is like a warm hug. So I'm always afraid of what I say going in and coming out. So I'm kind of like, "Hmm, if you're my doctor, you've probably seen that all already." It's kind of bad.

Kenrya: It's true. That's fine. I think they're used to people saying whatever the fuck. It's fine.

Erica: They probably have heard worse. So anyway, so this organization, I just have written down, the kids are all right. I feel like an old lady, and these kids, but these young kids, they're really just doing a damn thing and just being amazing little boogers. And it makes me so happy just to see them out being amazing and fighting for what's right and understanding the nuance of these issues. I just think it's dope as fuck. And the really cool thing about this organization that the kids are working for, they didn't treat the kids like they were stupid. They was like, "No, nigga, you running the newsletter. We got to go sit and talk to the cops. You coming in too." And I think it's really cool that they do that... There are lots of organizations that do that now, but I think it was really dope that that's something that they do with the kids.

Erica: Because again, the kids are going to be all right. Y'all are really doing doing what's right. And you're preventing a whole world of Yolandas from coming through. So I thought that was really dope. So in addition to Yolanda and Jimmy... I forgot the man's name. He's the guy that ran the...

Kenrya: The running dude?

Erica: Jimmy is a running dude.

Kenrya: Something White? White or...

Erica: The guy that ran Red, Black, and Green.

Kenrya: It's something with a W. I don't know. Dr. Walter? Don't get me to lying.

Erica: Just wrap it up. So he ran an organization and he was the person that really gave these kids a mission, but also became public enemy number one in the eyes of the FBI. And they were just convinced up and down that these kids were just too dumb to know what they were doing and he was out here brainwashing them. It was actually really interesting also to see how the folks in FBI really built up this... Made a monster out of this guy and this organization, but at the end of the day, it was just trying to live. Just trying to live, trying to do they thing. And it's scary.

Kenrya: Giving a fuck about the people in their community. Literally.

Erica: But it's scary to think that this ain't this some wild how did this shit happen type shit? Like, nah, this is some shit that has been happening, continues to happen, is probably happening right the fuck now. That's scary. You know you be talking about the industry plant. Who did they say was the industry plant? I'm sorry. I totally skipped over...

Kenrya: Industry plant?

Erica: It seems like a music industry plant. Because they're like, "This person's popular, but not really, and don't nobody know why." Gosh, I can't... I don't know, it's going to hit me and you probably going to cackle. It was somebody like The Weeknd.

Kenrya: Or I won't even know who they are because you know I don't know nobody. My daddy very much liked The Weeknd's first album.

Erica: Of course your dad did, with his...

Kenrya: But you know he had to clean, Walmart version, and I was like, "What's the point?" I was like, "Daddy, all he sings about is fucking and taking cocaine. What are you listening to?"

Erica: "I thought he was talking about sleeping and cough medicine." I love your daddy so much.

Kenrya: He liked that shit.

Erica: I love him so much "talking about sleeping and cough medicine," how it makes you loopy. He's so cute. Oh, it's scary to think that there's all these... This shit is really happening. This shit is really happening, and listening to the kids talk about like, "Oh, remember when so and so was around?" And then she comes to find out that this person was the FBI person before that, and niggas was dying without telling her, which I think... You know what, now that I think about it, I wonder if... So Yolanda ended up seeing the error in her ways. I'm wondering if she saw the error in her ways because she saw that she was in a fucked up situation, or if she saw how the FBI didn't give a fuck about her. But not that we ever...

Kenrya: Because she realized the FBI didn't give a fuck about her, because people are selfish as fuck and really mostly worried about their own self-interest.

Erica: You hit the nail on the head. But yeah, they were... She learned, and also these motherfuckers lazy as fuck. Her room-

Kenrya: Oh, where they had her.

Erica: Was in the same house as an informant before that. Nigga, y'all really just going to have me out here just...

Kenrya: It's not dangerous at all.

Erica: Yeah, because I'm like, if anybody was really nosy, they would've figured that out a long time ago. Because my Black ass, I'm nosy. So I would've figured that shit out.

Kenrya: They didn't care about her. Any more than they care about the rest of us.

Erica: They didn't. So FBI, environmental racism. Sorry, I have this note that I... I have two sets of notes. And this happened in another book that I was reading, but Yolanda and her dad. As a kid, she saw signs that her dad was not faithful to her mom, was cheating on her mom. But then her mom confirmed it, and that shit... It's tough. You don't want to expose your kids to shit. You don't want them to know that you... You don't want them to expose them to the fact that they daddy ain't shit, but at the same time, your daddy ain't shit. That nigga hurting my feelings. After the funeral, when Yolanda's mom saw this chick show up and Yolanda's getting... She knew that this was weird, but she didn't know that this was my daddy's mistress. And her mama told her everything. And I'm always... When it comes to that kind of. And not that I want to protect the image of any one person. If anything, I want to protect my kid, you know?

Kenrya: Yeah. I tend to let people reveal themselves.

Erica: Yeah. But I mean, her mom is was kind of like, "This nigga dead. Ain't no revealing."

Kenrya: He gone. But in that case, I think... I don't know. I would probably opt to wait until they were a bit older before...

Erica: Before sharing that piece of information.

Kenrya: Yeah.

Erica: Yeah. But her mom was hurt. Ooh, her mom was hurt. You know it's...

Kenrya: But our kids are not the people who we should turn to when we're hurt.

Erica: Exactly. Which, again... Because Yolanda did-

Kenrya: It's not their job.

Erica: Yolanda's mom-

Kenrya: I tell my kid all the time, it's not your job to manage the emotions of adults.

Erica: Yeah. Which will then turn into it's not your job to manage the emotion of other folks. So great that she's learning-

Kenrya: That too. But I'm super clear about the adult part because it's really easy for a sensitive kid to feel like they have to do that.

Erica: Yeah, totally. But again, this goes back to my... I hate to sound all hippy dippy, but having community means everything... You got to have folks... Maybe if she had a sister or cousin or homegirl or somebody to cuss at about this, she wouldn't be turning her daughter and turn her homegirl telling her everything, you know?

Kenrya: Therapy also.

Erica: I've seen that in action, and I know people that tell their kids entirely too much and I be like...

Kenrya: I was that kid. I knew way too much. Not cool.

Erica: See, I was that kid. I was more like Yolanda. I wasn't told too much, but I saw too much and overheard too much, but not enough to put two and two together. So then I just made up stories in my head about why X, Y, and Z. And then years, years, years, years, years later, in therapy, I'm like, "Oh, that's what they meant, and not this. This whole thing I have built in my head."

Kenrya: I both saw and was told I was a confidant, and children should not be confidants of adults.

Erica: Yeah. Codependency. Turning your kid into your-

Kenrya: Into your friend.

Erica: Yeah, girl. Don't do it. Actually, I've had situations where people have said too much to my child and I'm like, "We ain't going to do that."

Kenrya: It's interesting. People have that... I'm not one of your little friends, it's one of those eternal Black mama phrases, but I feel like people use it and think of it in the wrong way. The way that it's often meant is the kindness and the...

Erica: Going up, from the kid to the parent. The parent is like, "I'm not your age. Don't treat me like I'm your your little friend." Whereas parents on the other hand are like... Kids need to be looking at them, "I'm not your big friend."

Kenrya: Keep that shit to yourself, B. Where your homegirl?

Erica: Where is your group chat? Was I talking to you about that or somebody, where I was like, "This person don't have no group chat."

Kenrya: I don't know, other than Yolanda.

Erica: It was a different situation where I was like, "Ooh, this girl don't have no group chat. She need a group chat." Because honey, a group chat will save you. Because I put so much in group chat. I'm like, "Look, bitch. Yesterday, just delete all yesterday. Let's delete it now. Let's just delete it right now." The real stupid shit comes, I just call. Be like, "You know what?"

Kenrya: I don't need no paper trail.

Erica: Last night. Last night. I was on a call.

Kenrya: We ain't shit.

Erica: Kenrya was not feeling well. She was tired. She was low energy. Somebody said something, this bitch damn near there sat straight up and, "What?" She was like, "Nope. Nope. That's not what was meant. That's not what was supposed to be said. None of that."

Kenrya: I had a visceral reaction.

Erica: Visceral. Visceral in the mood. Well, that's all I got. You got anything else for the good of the order?

Kenrya: No ma'am.

Erica: Okay. So we are going to take a break and then we will be back with-

Kenrya: What's turning us on.

Kenrya: Hey y'all. Today's a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, have a message you want to share with the world, or just think it'd be fun to have your own show like us, podcasting is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to expand your reach online. And Buzzsprout is hands down the easiest and best way to launch, promote, and track your podcast. Your show gets put online and listed in all the major podcast directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, literally everything, within minutes of finishing and uploading your recording.

Kenrya: We use it here for The Turn On, and I can truly attest to the fact that it's pretty fucking dope. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners, and the team and Buzzsprout is passionate about helping you succeed. So join over a hundred thousand podcasters like us who are already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Just click the link in our show notes and you'll be able to get your own account set up. And if you sign up for a paid plan, you'll get a $20 Amazon gift card and support our show. Let's create something great together. Sign up for Buzzsprout today.

Erica: Hey so, we are back with our segment what's turning us on. So what's turning me on today is this little thing... Ooh, disregard my nails. I need to get my nails done. So this is a little starfish. I like it because it's a little vibrator. You see here. Can you hear that? It's a little starfish that vibrates. One of the things that I have been trying to do this season is find sex toys that are a little more fluid and able to be used with all types of bodies. I feel a lot of sex toys we use are really made for vaginas and penises, and we recognize that not everyone has those parts or are super comfortable with using those to get off.

Erica: So this little thing here, it's a little starfish. It vibrates. It's absolutely cute as I don't know what. You can't see. Do you see that little smiley face? It is cute as I don't know what. It cups in your hand. You can use it as you rub all across different parts of your body, and I just think it is absolutely adorable, fun, and sexy. So what's turning you on this week, this cute little starfish, we will include the link in the show notes, and with that said, thank you for joining us today. This is Erica and Killa, your two favorite hos making it clap.

[theme music]
 
Kenrya: This episode was produced by us, Kenrya and Erica, and edited by B'Lystic. The theme music is from Brazy. Hit subscribe right now in your favorite podcast app and at YouTube.com/TheTurnOnPodcast, so you'll never miss an episode.
 
Erica: Then follow us on Twitter @TheTurnOnPod and Instagram @TheTurnOnPodcast. And you can find links to books, transcripts, guest info, what's turning us on, and other fun stuff at TheTurnOnPodcast.com.
 
Kenrya: And don't forget to email us at [email protected] with your book recommendations and your pressing sex-and related questions.
 
Erica: And you can support the show by leaving us a five-star review, buying some merch or becoming a patron of the show. Just head to TheTurnOnPodcast.com to make that happen.
 
Kenrya: Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon. Holla.