Race, Sex and the Ummah

Speaker 1 00:00:06 Welcome to on the square. A special podcast brought to you by SAP yellow square in collaboration with the Dan. I am Dr. <inaudible> senior editor of SAP, a little square and curator producer of this podcast, where every month we get on the square and into some real talk about race at a slam in the Americas. Speaker 2 00:00:28 On this episode of, on the square, I'm talking to sexual health educator and expert Angelica Lindsay, Allie, better known as the village, auntie about race sex, and the OMA. I found my like, how are you? Good, good. I'm really excited to talk to you. Um, I follow you on social media and I've seen, you know, the different things you've done and I've been really excited about it. And so I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today to, um, here on, on the square. Um, real talk on this real talk on race and Islam in the Americas. So my first question is how did you become the village auntie? Like how did I get that name or how did I get to this place? Let's start with the name. Cause I also want to know, is it a U N T I E or a U N T Y? Speaker 2 00:01:30 What are the differences? Let's do that part first because I get people all the time will tell me that I'm spelling it wrong or people who are like, I can't find you on social media or I sent you an email and I'm like, well, you spelled it incorrectly. Both are informal versions of aunts, right? Or an depending on where you live in the United States. And I did a bit of research because so many people were arguing me down about it. And what I found is that generally there's a geographical difference in terms of what term people choose. So a lot people from who speak English and are from a Southeast Asian background, they use Y um, there are some people from some parts of the UK who use Y and a lot of people who would be considered generation Z or whatever comes after that. Speaker 2 00:02:25 Younger people use Y when I went being the Virgo that I am and check the, the, the most proper form of the improper form of aunt is I E and that's how I always grew up spelling it. I've always only seen, seen it with I E you know, in the African-American community, in the United States. And apparently even when I go to check the Cambridge dictionary, it redirects you. If you type in auntie, it will redirect me to I E so I'm, you know, I'm comfortable with it. I haven't, uh, uh, consulted a linguist yet, but that might be, but yes, that's why I in that, why? Right. Cause I actually was thinking about that because I often pause before spelling antique or auntie cause I'm like, oh, my black, I don't want my black card revoked and was like, I'm like, so how do black people want me to know? I is the way. Yeah. Yes. And you know, and I went and looked up, auntie fi I looked up, Hey, auntie, I looked up all the, you know, colloquial uses of it. And I'm like, okay, we firmly on the black car train. So we good. Speaker 2 00:03:42 How did you, how did you get here? Like how did you, how did you end up, um, sort of becoming the village? Okay. So the name really came about through a conversation with a friend and she's like, you know, I feel like you're like our village auntie, like you're the person that we can go to. And we have questions about things that we can't talk to our mom about or things that we didn't learn in school, don't learn in the meshed it or in the church or what have you. So that's really where the name came about. And it's really a role more so than a name. It's like a title for a woman in the community. You find, you find her in lots of traditional, especially west African communities, but really all over the continent of Africa in the Caribbean, uh, in my community, in Detroit, we had somebody who we would consider a village artsy, several actually. Speaker 2 00:04:29 And I really got started on this work as a way of healing myself. So when I was in my early twenties, I was dancing professionally. I was doing African dance. I was with a company and I was experiencing really bad cramping outside of my menstrual cycle. And we had caravan down to Cincinnati from Detroit for a dance conference. And I was doing, taking a summer class and I was holding my side because I was cramping so bad. And the teacher said, you look like your uterus is probably tipped. So you need to tie a Lapa around your waist and drink kink Lipa tea, which is a kind of tea that you find in Senegal. And I'm like, you know, you're a good dancer, but you're not a doctor. I didn't say that. And she's much older than me. So I didn't, you know, I was not going to dare let that come out of my mouth, but I sort of, you know, took her advice, just, you know, in a respectful way, but I didn't really heat it. Speaker 2 00:05:27 And then, uh, a few weeks later I was at my annual gynecological appointment and the doctor said I had an inverted uterus. I needed to wear some kind of base to brace. And I, you know, if I didn't want to use any pharmaceuticals, I could use some type of herbal remedies to help to tone the uterus. So I called her, I went home and I called him like, how did you know all of this stuff? And she basically said, she, you know, she said a lot of things, but one of the things that stuck out is she said, I'm a woman who knows myself and a woman who knows herself can teach other women to know themselves. So I sort of took that as, um, a sign that I needed to get to know more about my body from a holistic standpoint. And I, you know, I took her on as a teacher, you know, call her and ask her different advice. Speaker 2 00:06:12 And I just started learning mostly for myself. Then when I left education and entered into the public health field, a lot of our work was centered around women and girls. And I saw the lack of sexual and reproductive health education that especially black women had and especially Muslim women, uh, women who will say they never knew what their body parts looked like. They didn't know what certain parts of their reproductive system were for. And these were women who were married with children. So I started just really small with talking with friends. I will talk to their daughters when they started their period. Oh, my, my daughter's getting married or my daughter just had a baby, what can I do? So it really started in, in living rooms and, you know, on cell phone conversations. And it just kind of grew from there to where I started, uh, the social media platforms in 2018, just to, just to reach a wider audience, just to see, you know, if there were people who needed this information and it kind of blew up from there, but it, it started back in 1998. Speaker 2 00:07:17 That was when I first took the first steps towards starting this work. Oh, wow. So that's 19 98, 20 18. That's 20 years. Right, right. That's 20 years. Wow. Right. So 20 years of experience before you, before you sort of broaden the audience for your work. Right. And so who is the village? So the village for me, the village is any woman, regardless of religion, who wants to seek out a deeper version of herself by connecting with her anatomy in different ways. And by de-colonizing her mind, especially as it relates to how her body is supposed to quote unquote supposed to function. So the village is primarily very much centered in blackness. And I was nervous about that at first, because I didn't want anyone to say that I was excluding other people because I don't, anyone can be a part of the village, but you're going to get blackness, whatever I teach, whatever I do, you're going to get a dose of blackness because that is who I am. Speaker 2 00:08:24 That's a foundation of my work is, is really a pan African worldview. Um, but the village is comprised of women. I'll say between the ages of 15 and maybe 80 years old, these are women who don't know, want to know or want to know more about themselves who want to connect to women around the world, who wants to engage in intimate conversations about very deep issues, some sexual, some spiritual, and they want to do it in a way that utilizes technology to cross, to cross that, that digital divide and that geographical divide. The village also includes, uh, uh, an increasingly more vocal cadre of brothers who are basically sitting on the margins. They want to get this information because they said we don't, we don't, nobody teaches us about a woman's body. Nobody teaches us how to teach our daughters. And, um, one of the, one of the most vocal supporters, and I hadn't realized this Amir Sulaiman, the poet, okay. Speaker 2 00:09:34 He sent me a DM. I've been a fan of his for years. He sent me a DM one day and he said, you know, sister, I just want to thank you for the work that you do. I say, I send my daughters, your videos. I send my daughters to your page. You just helped me so much as a father of daughters, there is that there is a disconnect in terms of like, what do they need to know? And I'm glad that I have you as a resource and just literally came out of nowhere. And I've heard him on more than one occasion, tell the brothers, like, you know, you need to, you need to be tapped into this information too. So the village is by for and about women, but the men are also there. Right. And can you, and can you tell us what happens in the village or does what happen in the real estate in the village? Speaker 2 00:10:20 So some of that stays in the village. There's things that I don't talk about on social media either because they're too intimate to discuss, or they're too nuanced. Like the masturbation issue. I don't discuss that on social media at all, but the village, we, you know, we dance, like literally we dance, we sing every class. I have somebody cries. Uh, we pray a lot and we, we there's, no, there's no question. That's off limits. So this is a space where anything you want to know about your body. I encourage a level of vulnerability. There's a, there's a sense of spontaneous community that we form in each class where women know and understand the questions that you have. This is the space that you can ask them. The issues that you have, this is the place where you can discuss them. So I think people kind of don't know what to expect when they take one of my classes, but it's always like a mixture of workshop slash block parties slash sleep over there. Speaker 2 00:11:23 There's so many like elements to it. Um, it's a lot of fun, but, but the, the, the, the things that are more private happened in person. So, right. So if someone wants to become a part of the village, join the village, the first step is to take a class then is that they are no, you can. I mean, I think the first step is to like follow one of the platforms. So either Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, because there's a lively community, especially on Instagram, I go live, you know, a couple times per week, I have posts and I encourage people to engage with the post. I have videos that I have there. You don't have to take a class, but I think once you take a class like being on social media, you're in the village, but you haven't actually entered a home yet. Speaker 2 00:12:08 Once you, once you take one class, then you're sort of invited into a home you're invited to, you know, pull up a chair or, you know, sit around a big table of, of, of rice. And, and, and in me it's a different level of community building, but there are some people who consider themselves tried and true villages. Who've never actually taken a class. Hmm. I love that image. You just created of like sitting around the tables. It reminded me just like that kind of that space, like as a woman and growing and being raised by women and grew up around it, you know, and this, that, that, that kitchen table, right. And this kind of, you kind of sit around that table and he's like, as a little kid, the things you were here, right. You know, you just kind of sit in there, you know, but there's this, there's this really sort of vibrant sort of conversation and this exchange of knowledge and knowing right. Speaker 2 00:12:54 That's happening at this space. I really, I love that image. I see that. And, um, for me even being sort of far from home in many ways now, like I love the idea of this kind of you creating this kind of virtual space, but you can still have that. Right. You can kind of had still sit around this kind of kitchen table in a way. Right. And learn from you, but also from the other women, right. Who are a part of the experience with you? Um, you mentioned, um, uh, when you talked about who's in the bill, as you mentioned, this term, the word, the term decolonization, and I recently, I follow you on Twitter too. And I saw you had this tweet and you described your approach, and you said for the last 18 years in public health, I have worked to bring together the areas of spirituality, sexual, such sexual health, education, trauma, informed care, decolonization, and community healing. Speaker 2 00:13:43 And I was like, whoa, there's a lot going on there, but I appreciate, I appreciate, like, there's a, you know, there's some, you'd be real specific about what you're trying to do and you're bringing a lot of things together. So I was wondering if you could kind of speak a little bit about what those terms mean and why is it important to link them? You know, like I was thinking, you know, what does sexual health education look like when you're using a trauma informed care approach or an investment in decolonization? Um, I think the first time that I thought to link those few areas was back in 2010. So I was a part of the Institute for HIV prevention leadership, which was a joint partnership between the CDC and the university of south Carolina's Arnold school of public health. And one other government funder that is slipping my mind at the time, there was this really rigorous, intense program where we would fly to Atlanta four times per year. Speaker 2 00:14:40 And we would engage in this really deep, um, authentic and very intentional public health practice. One of the things we were charged with was how to find innovation in our work. We had to create these research projects and, you know, come, uh, present these, you know, long facilitations about what type of program we want it to get funded. And one of my colleagues in the cohort said, you know, Angelica, you have such an interesting mix of experiences. It will be so dope if you could figure out a way to create a behavioral health intervention that could link Islam, African dance, HIV prevention, and put it all together. So that was a very first time that I started to see that there was a connective tissue between all of these things that were important to me that I could possibly put into practice. And so I set about looking at the different areas of my life, where I was already doing work and not getting paid for it. Speaker 2 00:15:37 And that, because that, that let me know, these were things that I was passionate about. And at the root, you know, I'm, I'm a staunch Pan-Africanist. I was, you know, raised by people who were a part of the, you know, all African people's revolutionary party, the Republic of new Africa from Detroit, where the nation of Islam was born. So that idea of decolonizing our minds and decentralizing the Western gaze was, has always been extremely important to me for my entire adult life. And I was looking at the ways in which that colonized thought, especially as it relates to black women's bodies affected the ways in which we moved about the world in these bodies and drama that we face the epigenetic trauma that we carry from our great grandmothers who were sexually assaulted. And, you know, we never knew, but we still carry that trauma in our bodies. Speaker 2 00:16:27 The fact that every workshop that I was doing, even as a part of my day job in public health, I would ask the women, you know, what was your first sexual experience like? And invariably, every single time, the majority of the women talked about an instance of sexual trauma as their first sexual experience. So I knew that a trauma informed approach was important, and I'm also for me as a sexual assault survivor, that was important. And then I looked at, what are the ways how, you know, how can I decolonize my mind? How can I deal with the trauma? I do that through spirituality, through my connection, to a loss of parental with Ella and my understanding of how Islam is not just a religion. It's a Dean, it's a complete way of life. And there's literally an answer there for every malady. And there is an embodied sense of practice in the way that we pray and how we fast and how we, you know, come together, that human connection of standing shoulder to shoulder and prayer as a form of healing trauma. Speaker 2 00:17:27 And then I said, okay, but how does this relate to sexual health? What relates to sexual health? Because a law created our bodies and he created them to work in masterful ways. And a woman's body is very complex. Some people call it complicated, I call it complex. It's a difference difference in vocabulary changes. And so I started to look at ways that I could infuse these things that were very important to me in my personal and professional life and to the work of village auntie, because it will be easy for me to talk about, here are five sex positions that you can do if you're a curvy girl or, you know, top 10 ways to reignite foreplay. But I really wanted to talk about something deeper because I really think that sex is just the entry point for the village. It's really about a recommendation of womanhood and a reconnection reconnection to our ancestral pathways. Speaker 2 00:18:20 That was, that was also really important to me to make sure that we reclaim the ways of our form, others, you know, how sex was not always viewed as this taboo subject in black communities. It was not always viewed as a taboo subject in Muslim communities. So I wanted to find ways to just, you know, little by little, you use the conversation with, um, prompts that that will cause people to think more deeply about how they approach sexuality and relationships. Okay. Thank you for that, because that really helps them in how these different things come together for you. And one of the things you've mentioned a couple of times now is like being a Pan-Africanist and, and having this kind of background, and you were saying, you know, whatever you do blackness as a part of it. And so what is blackness mean to you? Speaker 2 00:19:04 Like, what does that mean to you? Like what does that mean for that to be a part of it? Know, I think for me, blackness is acknowledging that root of it's hard. It's hard to put it. It's hard to put a word to it is that it's that spiritual connection that connects me to other highly melanated people that I have come across across the globe. It's the fact that you, my, my great grandfather was born in Mexico, but he wasn't from Mexico. He was a black man who carried an Arab name, who came from Spain. How did he get here? How did he get there? And how did he have a son who wound up in Detroit who married my grandmother? You know, I call myself a Pan-Africanist and not a black nationalist because I think black nationalism is great, but I did not want to limit my scope just to the black American experience. Speaker 2 00:19:59 I understand that that as a woman who I see remnants of blackness in that are common to people in Detroit, people from Mogadishu, people, from jewel people from, you know, port of Spain from all of these different places. So for me, blackness is that essence of ancestral, connectedness, and belonging that we, they try to root out of us and sever us from, but it is still exists. It exists in the genetic, um, muscle memory that we have. How do we know move a certain way? Um, how can I, you know, go and enter into a dance circle in Dakar and looked like I was raised, you know, right down the street, but I had never been there before. A blackness to me is, uh, an acknowledgement of those things that other people see as being harmful, but that I know are powerful. And I think me standing firmly in my blackness, it gives other people permission to stand firmly in whatever they are. Speaker 2 00:21:01 You know, I'm not so black that I exclude you, I'm black. And I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of my experience and the collective experience of black people, but I also want you to be proud of wherever you're from too. And also do some examining. It's not, I don't look at blackness as being something that, you know, everything black is just perfect and good, but embracing the wholeness of our experience as black people, I think gives me a space to examine those parts that could, that could use some work and can use some healing, you know, your point about ancestral kind of knowledge and reclaiming that and severing, you know, like, you know, are the subtitle for our podcast is, you know, real talk on race and Islam in the Americas, right? And this, and this idea that, you know, when it comes to race and when it comes to the black identity and black people in the Americas from Canada down to Argentina, um, that break or that severing, right, the transatlantic slave trade has really have impact. Speaker 2 00:22:00 Of course it also had impact on Africa, but it had, it's deep, deep, deep impact on, um, those who made it through the missile middle passage, right. And survived and thrived, um, in the Western hemisphere. And I know that, and I want to ask you about rites of passage, because I know that you have an Institute, right. And you have a rites of passage program, um, that you do through that Institute. And I want you to talk, tell us about that, but also like why our rites of passage is important and you know, what is it that we may have lost, but also what is it that we retained, right. Like, you know, sort of like, you know, you know, despite right. The severing that you talked about, I love this question because a lot of people don't ask you about it. And one of the things I want to make clear since we started with like, what's the correct spelling, a lot of people say rites of passage, like R I G H T like, this is my Rite of passage. Speaker 2 00:22:56 I'm like, that is more like driving like right of way. But it's a right. R I T E right. You know, right. Ritual. It's a, it's a, it's a ritualized practice, rites of passage or ritualized practices that usher people from one stage of life to the next. And we have rites of passages, right? We have, I got my license. So you'll see people. Why don't people don't do that much anymore, but they will post pictures of, you know, their, their, their driver's license for the first time. One, one way that black American people have retained a Rite of passage is through the prom sendoff. That's a perfect example of a Rite of passage, the way that we will spend hundreds, thousands of dollars. And I'm not, you know, I'm not, not going to make a comment about, you know, the, the, the, the economic, right. Speaker 2 00:23:44 But the way we will make it a community thing, you literally have the church mother, the neighbor down the street that the waves, every time you drive by the aunties, the uncles, the cousins, everybody is coming out to send this baby off to prom. It's a big event. That is an example of a rites of passage. That will be a rites of passage type ceremony. And they're important because I think one of the ways that we have become disconnected from our culture, and one of the ways that we have not allowed ourselves to ascend to different roles in our life is that we don't have a finite end to certain phases. So, you know, when does adulthood start, you know, black, black people, we say, when you 18, you got to move out, but that's not true for all black people, right? You have lots of west Africans, east, Africans who are like, Nope, you don't stay here till you get married. Speaker 2 00:24:33 You know, you have people who are, who are from, from other families who say, you know, we're going to be a part of the family. So rites of passage are important because they help us to mark those transitions in life. That, and also give us lessons to guide us for what the next phase is going to be. How many times do we talk about childbirth and parenting in black communities outside of you need to get that baby solid foods. Right. You know, there's always that conversation, you know, you still feed that baby milk, you know, three months old, you know, you need to get up, give that baby some cereal, but are there conversations earlier before parenting happens to prepare a young woman, a young man for childbirth, are there conversations to prepare for a change of life? What is menopause going to look like? Speaker 2 00:25:26 You know, what, what different things do you have access to? So I'm really from all rites of passage, because I believe I, the class we did last year, I had a woman who she's a fully grown adult out of her twenties. And she said, until we did this program, I didn't really feel like I was really a woman. She does not have children. She's not married. And she said, I felt like there were parts of womanhood that I didn't have access to because, you know, I just got older, but I didn't yet know if I had reached that womanhood phase. She's not black. You know? And I think that says a lot about the importance of rites of passage. And they don't always have to be formalized programs, but I do think that there should be an acknowledgement when we move from one phase to the next, because now you have people who have access to everything. Speaker 2 00:26:13 We have 14 year olds wearing eyelashes and, you know, acrylic nails, and they have $800 cell phones. And, you know, it's, they have access to things that previously would have said, we're just for adults. There's no separation between the generations. And so you have a lot of generational mistrust and you have a lot of relational divide, rites of passage breaks that because what you do is you create age grade societies. You have the women who are in their twenties are together. The women in their thirties are together. The women in their forties are together. And there is an intergenerational transmission of culture and information. So that one doesn't have to compete with another rites of passage helps you to see the beauty in whatever station you are in life. Wow. That's deep. I'm thinking you got, you got me thinking about when I was growing up, like, what would be a rites of passage is that we had, and I feel like one of the things that for me, that the first thing that came to mind for me were bridal showers. Speaker 2 00:27:13 And I have this thing whenever, um, somebody gets married. I'm like, I have to get them a really nice piece of lingerie. And I'm like, it's my culture to do that. Like, I don't care what you're doing, but whatever, but never really. And I guess in many ways I grew up, I mean, I grew up, you know, I'm black. I grew up in Brooklyn, accurate Muslim. Most of the bridal showers I went to were Muslim bridal showers. Right. So it was black muscle women. And it was very, I guess what the term people use today, sex positive. So, you know, sex was always good as long as it was in a marital relationship. So it was very sex positive. And so, but the bridal shower was this space. If I think about what you're saying, it was like mark this moment. And so as the one who's not married yet, or, you know, whatever, you're like looking, you're seeing, okay, this is what this happens. Speaker 2 00:27:56 Right. You're looking forward to having your own, you know, this kind of thing. Right. And in that way, and then there was also a formal one that, um, uh, one of my mother's friends is silly Abdul Kareem. They did this, um, rites of passage program for, it was like the they're friends of mine now, but they were probably maybe two, three years older than me. And it was like this program. They would meet every week at her house. And they had like research projects to do, and they had a ceremony. And I remember looking at them and be like, I cannot wait for my turn. And then it never had the program again. Speaker 2 00:28:27 So I think I'm going to have to go to yours. So, so when, so when is your next for rice attaches program? Like when did the cookie off or how could, you know, if I wanted to join? Like what, how does that work? Well, you can, you can join. No problem. Just say you want to do it. I mean, you can get in, we did have an application process of the applications are closed now, but we will be doing another one, but not for you. You, you, you, you, you still inshallah. We'll probably do another one. Um, before Ramadan of next year, the classes will start the third week in September, we got hundreds of women who apply in, you know, in order to, to not make it, you know, too much of a, not a burden, but too much of a task to have that many women, we have, some women were accepting and some women were wait listing for the program because we don't want to turn any woman away. Speaker 2 00:29:23 And the application is really not a weeding out process is really to learn more about who the woman is. And the questions are kind of like very metaphysical, like who are you? Who are your teachers and your guides? And depending on how a person answers, it says a lot about where they are in their journey, but it's not something that we use to, to, to judge the women who are coming in. Uh, we're actually coming up on the one year anniversary of our first class. So we're going to send the applications back to the women who already graduated so that they can see how far they've come from that first application. Yeah. And what's the name of the Institute? The village auntie Institute, the class is called foundational womanhood. Ah, okay. I found this show, my head, the village auntie Institute. Yeah. I think I was listening to, I probably one of your ID lives. Speaker 2 00:30:14 And you were talking about forming the Institute as a way of kind of, you know, sort of taking, so you already had, like before, before 2018, you already had sort of 20 years of experience sort of in community, right. Being the village auntie, and then you kind of broadening your audience by, through the social media platforms, but then also building, you know, creating other village aunties. Right. Let's get the idea, right. The other people can also, um, sort of play that role in their communities, but there's a process, right? You don't just, you don't just call yourself auntie, but there's a process that you going through in that. And the Institute is a part of right. Kind of like creating these pathways, right. For women who also want to play that role in their communities. Right. And I, I think another big reason is I wanted to reclaim the role of women as institution builders. Speaker 2 00:31:06 We, it does not always have to be built by a man in order to be valid. And also I wanted to have a space where we could rely on traditional healing modalities that did not require external validation from a European institution. So it doesn't have to be, well, I went and got the, you know, XYZ Ivy league university certificate in, you know, African women's healing that doesn't exist. You know, we, we that's, that's a part of the decolonization process because I have people say, well, who told you that you could start a school? I said, who told me that I couldn't, you know, who told me that? Who told me that I couldn't, the very first university was in the world was founded by a Muslim woman. So this idea that women not form certifying institutions and institutions to train other women, it's just false because this is the, this is the first, the first education is your mother's lap. Speaker 2 00:32:00 So I wanted to be able to provide a space where women could get education and they could find their own entry point. You know, everybody's not going, I came in with 20 years of experience. Everybody's not going to jump in at the same level that I am in, but some people may want to focus on sacred body care. Some people may want to focus on somatic therapy through African dance. Some people may want to focus on holistic anatomy. I wanted to provide pathways so that women could have that education, but you're right. You have to have the same base of knowledge so that you have first done the work before you go out and teach others. Right. Exactly. And it's a very, that's also a very, again, you know, sort of prophetic principle, right? You learn something and then you teach it to others. Right. Speaker 2 00:32:41 And so you have to learn it first before you can actually go and share that, you know, I want to talk a little bit about this intersection between race and a slam and, and, and around sort of the work that you do. And I'll just share a little bit of a story, a little story of my own in a way. So, you know, I, I, you know, like I said, you know, it was raised as, you know, black and Muslim in Brooklyn, and most of the people in my community were black, Brooklyn. Right. Um, including sort of Afro-Latino, um, people and non-black Latin X folks. Um, and then I started to, um, because of who my mother was and the kind of thing I started to, you know, kind of engage in non-black Muslim communities, right. Particularly sort of Arab American or a south Asian us American communities. Speaker 2 00:33:31 And, you know, I'm a young girl, I'm heterosexual, I guess, with girls. So I see, you know, and I, and I grew up, you know, understanding that we're all Muslim, right. So if I could have an object of desire, right. That was not another black kid. It could be a young black boy, you know, an Arab kid. And I remember I used to go to Mina, Muslim youth, America camps. And I recall having a crush on this like Palestinian kid. Right. And, you know, we worked together cause he knows how you do things as all, you know, various Slavic and everything, but you can do these kinds of things. And I remember having a crush on him, but finding very quickly that that would not be reciprocated and not because of not, not, not so much because of what the, he was attracted to me, but because I was black and the possibilities of where that could lead right. Speaker 2 00:34:23 Were nil. Like they were non-existent. And then like later on in college, I had a similar experiences where there would be a mutual attraction between myself and someone who wasn't black. Um, but again, cause I'm cause they were Arab or something and I'm not, you know, this could happen or when I was still single and looking for, you know, so I was, as in you're on the different, like online programs, you know, like online, dating, whatever they call those things back then, because I think it's different now, there would be this kind of people seeking you out because you were black, but not because they want it to be in a, in a, in a sanctify relationship with you. Right. So this idea of being both kind of undesirable as a wife, but desirable right as a sexual object is something that I personally experienced. And so I wonder about your own work. Like how have you seen this, right? Or what are, what do you think are the conceptions of like black women, right in Muslim communities? And what do those conceptions, you know, how do they, how do they affect a black muscle woman's sense of self? You know? Speaker 2 00:35:29 So the idea that black women are sexual objects meant for pleasure, um, even procreation from other black people, black men has never gone away. I think one of the protective factors for me in this work is that people expect a black woman. Of course, she's talking about sex because I'm not seen as being proper to begin with because I'm a black woman. I don't care how tight my Qumar is. I don't care how much my Avaya drags the ground. My Islam is always questioned because of my blackness. And I, you know, I'm a convert to Islam, but even if I was generations deep into Islam, so the perceptions of black women and the fear of the black sexual body is very much still present in black communities and Muslim communities where hyper-sexualized, and it affects a black woman's sense of being, because what winds up happening is to combat the hypersexualization. Speaker 2 00:36:40 You have women who go to the opposite end of the spectrum. They don't want to engage at all. They don't like sex. They don't like their bodies. They won't look at their bodies. You also have women who say, well, if this is all I'm good for, then I'm just going to go out and do whatever I need to do with this body. So it creates a distorted perception and that's part of the decolonization that needs to happen. And it's interesting because I've been doing this work for a very long time. Now there are other women who've been doing this work, you know, for a while, some who are brand new. And I've noticed that when there's a non-black Muslim woman who starts talking about sex, the reception that she gets is very different than the reception that I get. You'll have people who will say, well, finally, a Muslim is talking about sex and it's like, bruh, like I've been here, you know, for the longest time, um, people who will come in and who will, you know, drill me about what, what is my, you know, religious evidence behind things, because there's still this, this understanding that all black people and especially black women are good for is sex and work we're receptive or servants, that's it. Speaker 2 00:37:55 So it has a big effect on how we function in families, because you have a lot of women who are sexually disconnected from their body. They they're not, they, they engage in a lot of physical dissociation and a lack of love and care for our bodies that we then project onto our young girls. You have, you know, young daughters that you're thrown in jail bag over her head because she sprouted breast for the first time because you've internalized the fact that the black sexual body is bad. So it's not surprising. It's unfortunate that you have that experience. And I think what's more unfortunate is that in 2021, the same thing is still happening. It is it's still happening. You know, brothers we'll, we'll want to test out a sister, you know, test out the goods, uh, but then we'll marry someone else, you know, or they, they will say, you know, you really pretty, but my parents would never let me those, those colonial notions and the hold over from Jahiliyyah, you know, some of these people are from families that the prophet Muhammad Salah label, someone was running your great, great, great, great, great grandfather out of town because of the way that they were acting. Speaker 2 00:39:02 Like we forget that and it's not, it's not doable and it's not considered like proper to talk about, but some, some people still have that same remnant of that, that gross mentality about the body and that has never gone away. So it makes it, it makes it difficult, but I think it makes it that much more important to have spaces like this, where women can talk together because we do process a lot of these kinds of conversations and what that means. I sometimes wonder about modesty and its impact on a woman's sense of self. And by what, by that, I mean like, if, okay, so how do I want to say this? Like, so the sense of a Eurocentric woman body type, right? Um, and maybe not even as you're essentially even other parts of the world, particularly, I guess non-black parts of the world, maybe you, women are small and they're petite and things are really tight, right? Speaker 2 00:40:01 And if you have an idea that a woman is supposed to be covered and she's supposed to be covered because her body is, you know, this thing, that's going to incite, right. Sexual desire. If you're small and everything is small, it's like easier, right. To sort of quote unquote, be modest, right. If you're not small in any of the many ways you could not be small, it becomes much harder. And I sometimes wonder if how that might affect how that affects our sense of our bodies, of our bodies. You know, like, so there's kind of collision between these sort of narrow notions of what a woman should, what a woman is. Plus this kind of sense of the woman is a sexual object. So she needs to be covered. Like, how does that then impact how you feel about your own body, right. If you don't fit in those things, but you're trying to be because you believe as a Muslim or that you're supposed to be modest with dress and other things, obviously too, but you're trying to fulfill that. Speaker 2 00:40:57 But then, yeah, I don't know. I wonder sometimes about that relationship, you know how that might affect people, you know? Yeah. It's interesting because there are some bodies, no matter how much fabric you cover them with, you're not going to cover the body because the body is the body. I had an argument with a brother and I said, and a buyer can actually be a very revealing garment, let a good wind blow, let a good, strong wind blow. It can reveal everything. And I think what happens is we don't examine the intention behind the person looking, we just prosecute the body. We prosecute the person before they've even said anything. You know, you can have a sister who's who's completely covered. Right. Um, but look at her, look at how she's walking. Look at how she's moving. Black women's bodies have been policed for, for millennia, right? Speaker 2 00:41:50 You can just, just walking into the master. Why do you have to walk like that? Why do you have to do that? This is the way that a loss of, on what the hell I made me. And it does affect the way a person looks at their own bodies because a woman can feel like I have to not be feminine in the way that I know how to be feminine. And I have to not be sexy at all, including at home because I could be costing somebody they're asked, you know, I had a sister telling me that once before, well, I don't, I don't want to cost anybody, their Acura by walking. So I just stay at home. I don't like to go out. Wow. So I imagine, yes, she lived in Saudi Arabia. Imagine you're confining yourself as a African-American woman. You confining yourself to your home because someone can't lower their gaze. Speaker 2 00:42:34 The last one on with Ella major in that body, this is the sister who's wearing overhead. Jilbab was the shoulder, uh, by, underneath it socks, sneakers like every day. But she was like, I don't want to go out because I don't want to entice someone. We've just absorbed all the blame and the shame for someone's inability to control their urges. You think I'm beautiful. You think I'm sexy. You think I'm desirable. I'm not enticing. You're not even thinking about you. So it absolutely has an effect on how we look at our bodies and the fear that some women have when their daughters enter puberty is palpable and they pass that fear onto their daughters, you know? Okay. Will you, well, she can't come over to the house because you know, you have sons. Okay. So, so your daughter is 10. Like she's 10, she's 10 years old, you know? Speaker 2 00:43:22 And it's, it's just ridiculous. And I'm not saying that when it should, you know, shouldn't, you know, dress modestly. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that you're right. It's much easier to fit a certain body style and have it be compact, you know, and fit it under, under a shrouded garment then than a body that's full of curves and valleys and you know, um, beautiful lives. It's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not the same. And I, I that's one of the problems that I have with the American Muslim community is that the woman is always indicted. I go to <inaudible>. I go to Ghana, you don't have these issues because a woman will tell you, stop looking. Speaker 2 00:44:06 You, you get, you get one, look, stop looking because you know, you're in a place where women's bodies are known to be just more shapely and that's accepted. I think one of the, one of the problems that we have here is that we want to shield everybody from everything. We don't know how to interact with, with bodies and real bodies. And don't get me started on, you know, how Instagram has also thought it, this idea of modesty and what bodies look like. That's a whole conversation, these unrealistic hip to waist ratios and unrealistic body types and using garments to reveal it. That's a whole nother layer of that. That's uh, that's, uh, that's body dysmorphia. We don't want to call it that, but that's what it is. That's what it is, but that's yeah, that's a whole other, yeah. I mean, I think I appreciate what you're saying too. Speaker 2 00:44:55 I think, and I think that, that in the United States in particular, but I don't know about, I mean, I think the different kind of cultural nuances across like the hemisphere when it comes to some of this stuff, but I do think this, I like what you're saying about this kind of modesty and bodies and also the kind of, there's a lack of shared responsibility. So like, you know what, I would call it in the patriarchy, right? Like this is what happens, right. The woman becomes like, she's, she's the reason, you know, right now. Right. We're on, you know that right now there's the news, um, is about what's going on in Afghanistan. Right. And there's all this kind of, um, discourse that's about women. Right. And women's freedom and all that kind of stuff. Right. And the how women become the central point of like how, where the nation is going, right. Speaker 2 00:45:43 How you save people or whatever. Right. And that, and that, and that's kind of on a national or international geopolitical context, but even more locally, right. A woman's honor, all those things, right. There was like, the women become the repositories for all that is good and bad. Right. Any community, right. At which, as opposed to this idea of, of a kind of, you know, a shared responsibility around right. Sharing spaces and being modest and like being able to sort of like, you know, function in the society with people of different genders, right. Without, you know, sort of everything falling apart. Right. So I want to also ask you about sort of like, it's funny when, when I thought up into review, if we, if I had the money, I guess, for the samples I wanted to play like that called me bad song. No, no, not to call me a bad song. Speaker 2 00:46:32 Um, the, the salt, pepper song, let's talk about facts in my head the whole time her parents interview. Oh yeah. We ain't got no money for that, but y'all lift as long as you hear that song. So let's talk about that. Right. Are really more specifically sexuality. Right. I think, you know, sexuality is something that I think, especially in a lot of Muslim life is very private, personal, and also very individual. Right. But it's also shaped by communal or external expectations and pressures and can have very public consequences. Right. Um, and so I said, my question is, what do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities when it comes to race and sex and the OMA? I think that the biggest challenge is that Muslims still think that talking about sexist, Harlem, like you can only talk about it with your spouse, uh, which I, so, which begs the question then, how are you supposed to learn what to do? Speaker 2 00:47:37 We have, we have completely removed sexuality from our Dean, but Islam is a very sex, positive religion. It's very prescriptive in terms of the ways in which we can engage and should engage. So I think that the, the, the that's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity because it invites people to look at a more expansive version of our Dean. Islam is not just, you know, how tight is your Kmar? Did you get your five in today? Have you saved for hedge? It's also, you know, are you fulfilling the rights of your spouse? You know, are you finding deeper ways to engage in this particular act of worship, which sex is an act of worship when it's in the confines of a halau marriage from a racial perspective? I think one of the challenges is we have to untangle the trauma of hypersexualization for both black men and black women. Speaker 2 00:48:29 Cause we talked about black women, but we also can talk about the way that the black male body has been fetishized and how it's looked at as being hyper-masculine hyper-sexual. And another way that can, that can cause people to feel as if black Muslim men are violent or black Muslim men are very brutish. Um, the opportunity is that we can begin to present ideas of black and Muslim, black and or Muslim sexuality as being very positive, very wholesome and very nuanced. It's not just, it's not just one way, you know, we don't approach sex and way and, and causing us to look at the halal and Harambe in a new light. I have someone ask a question about BDSM and as BDSM halau. And I'm like, well, what would make it hot on, you know, it's, it's, it's asking people to look at your religion and using your own understanding as a practicing Muslim to apply it to this area of life that has been so taboo. Speaker 2 00:49:30 And I think that's one of the biggest opportunities is it's interesting that through talking about sex, you lead people back to a law, these talking about sex and beat people back to their Dean, because it's not, what did I say is what did a law say? You know, it's not, what do I think, but what the law, you know, what the, uh, law prescribed for this. So I think that that's, that's, that's, that's my hope with the sexuality conversation and with, you know, different people engaging in it. And that's why I'm glad that we have social media, you know, in technology uses, you know, provides us a way to have that conversation more broadly. I think that's it. I like what you said, you said kind of talking about sex leads you back to a law, but I think it also sounds like it leads you back to LA without shame though, right. Speaker 2 00:50:16 Because people can talk about sex and like, you, you, you know, it's like, like if it's not an opportunity, it's a challenge, right? Like, you know, so it's like, oh, and I can't do this. You can do. And you back to LA because you feel like I did something wrong, even though you haven't even gotten nowhere yet. You're already like all this shame. So this idea of moving back to a law, but without shame, I think it's a really powerful kind of contribution that you're making. Right. Um, I think to, um, to the people, you know, people's lives, even the discourse in the conversation, you know, I know for me, I, I I'm attracted to your work, you know, as someone who is identifies as, you know, sort of heterosexual and someone who would be considered a cis-gender, you know, and you know, this very, like, you know, everything was really relevant in a lot of different ways, but also as a black woman to write your book behind both is great. Speaker 2 00:51:08 And also generationally. Like that's like I there, but I wonder, you know, um, are there folks who wouldn't be heterosexual, wouldn't be cisgender that you found still find value in what you do? Yes. You know, a lot of people don't realize that there are a lot of folks who are LGBTQ, um, intersex questioning who engage with my work. And some, some of them reach out to me. Some of them reach out to say, you know, we have nothing in common. I have one friend, uh, we know each other from the public health sphere. They're non-binary, they are atheists, they're white. And they, and I'm just like, why I don't get it? Like, why do you engage with the work? And they just said, you know, this is the work that you do. And the way that you approach it is very practical. And while we may not share the same sexual demographics, right. Speaker 2 00:52:06 Or sexual characteristics, I find value in it as a human being. Who's engaging in sexuality. So I don't have to, I don't have to change my message or shift my message. I'm very clear that I'm a black heterosexual woman in a very, you know, heteronormative cis-gender relationship. I don't, you know, mince words about that. And I never attempt to speak for a community that I'm not a part of. I don't ever tend to speak outside of my area of expertise. So when I have people who come to me and say, well, I don't know how to come out to my parents, or I don't know, you know about this, you know, act, act of sexuality. I'll tell them this is not something that I have expertise in. You know, this is not something that I can, can help you with. If it's a question of a spiritual nature, then we can talk differently. But I think people resonate with my work because I want it to feel like you're sitting across the table from your auntie, you know, and I can give you advice. I'm only gonna tell you what I know. And that, that is helpful to a lot of people. It's not a, it's not a marginalizing space. It's not a traumatizing space. It's a space that is welcoming. Um, but I'm also very clear about who I am and what approach I'm speaking from. Speaker 2 00:53:17 That's great. Yeah. And I can see that really, that I could see that being really important too, just because it is sex and sexuality are so individual and so personal that you, you need to have a space where it's kind of you're welcome. Right. Um, but you're also not misled, right? Like I'm not going to I'm like, I couldn't, I can't, I can't tell you where I don't know. Right. Um, so, you know, what's next for the village, auntie, you know what, like, I guess w w what's coming down the pike or what is, you know, I guess either what's coming down the pipe or what is the vision, you know, what's the long-term vision. So the long term, you know, I have a daughter who's 13. I have two daughters. One is 13, one is eight. And my, my vision is that, uh, my daughters will inherit this work and have it look very different. Speaker 2 00:54:07 They won't have to break down the walls that I'm, um, um, kicking down or taking down brick by brick. I don't want them to have to dismantle shame and do a lot of the decolonization work because you only shot a love for the earth survives. And the last one with that, that gives us more years. I want, you know, when my daughter is 45, I don't want her to have to still keep doing the same type of work. Um, long-term I want to see the, the village auntie Institute grow into a global certifying institution where we can have centers around the globe where women are providing classes and providing mentorship and education to women in their communities and men, you know, by extension. Um, in the short term, my goal is to continue to branch out and scale the work, uh, labor day weekend. I'm doing my first ever men's and women's workshop weekend. Speaker 2 00:55:00 I've never done a workshop with, with men by myself, right? I've did some co-facilitation, but this will be my first time branching out and doing men and women together. And I eventually want to branch out and do a couple of men's only workshops, not necessarily around sexuality, but around emotional intimacy and how to access different forms of intimacy that are not physical, because I think men, um, when they're given a fertile ground to emote, they do it very, very well. And I want to encourage that from a woman's perspective. I also wants to delve more into conversations about age of sex across the lifespan, and age-ism, as it relates to sexuality, I am getting close to entering into the menopausal years. And I feel like though, that's the age that women just become invisible. And there's so much opportunity there for education and grow some working on, um, some course offerings and some other, you know, um, workshops and talks of specifically focused on menopausal women and elderly women who are still engaging in healthy, happy sex lives and who want to still engage in helping them up these sex lives. Speaker 2 00:56:14 That's that's, that's the next, the next phase of work that I'm doing Shaw. That sounds great. Also sounds like another taboo you're about to, but like, it's so interesting because we like, could they do already a little on her she's right there. She's like, she's right there. Like you have, you, you know, you have Ebraheem and Sada, right. She was a beautiful woman and she was old. Like she was an old woman and she's not like, yo, she is, she fine, like brand crest, chambers. She was old. Like, and we, so, but, but then, you know, in the Muslim community and when a woman is 50, it's like she's, you know, sour grapes like old. So yeah, I definitely want to break that taboo in the community, not just because I'm entering into that phase of life, but because I see, you know, older women are invisibilized and it's really an so much increased body positivity and sexual potential. Speaker 2 00:57:15 I really want to ramp up that, that understanding that listen, don't, you know, don't, don't discount, you know, women 40 and up like we come in for you mean we're not, we're not what you think we are, you know? Right. That's great. And so people, so people and people who want to know about the session on labor day session and then things that are coming up for you in the future should follow you on sort of, you said Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, right? Right. Instagram is probably the one that's updated the most. Um, after that is Facebook also post on Twitter. There are a few people who like want to get, um, fatwas out against me from time to time on Twitter, the reason like some bros just like get so up in arms, but yes, they can follow me on Instagram at village onsie that's I E or at CBA Institute as well. Speaker 2 00:58:11 All right. And so my last question for you is a question. We ask all our guests, right? And so this question is, what is your black Muslim theme song? Ooh, so, so I have one, it's just my theme song period. And because I'm black and Muslim, it's going to be my black for something song. It's not very cool to most people because a lot of people probably have never heard of this song, but it's super cool to me. Uh, it's this space travel is lullaby by Kamasi Washington. It is completely instrumental, so they know, or, um, and so I used to play violin. I played in an orchestra and it plays like an orchestral arrangement. It is, it just unfolds. And these different vignettes of like melancholy and joy and excitement and hope is very, I don't know when I, when I listened to it, I'm just transported. Speaker 2 00:59:08 I literally play that song every single day. Wow. It's called the space travelers, the space travelers lullaby. Oh, I love it. I feel like it also feels very, I mean, it feels very appropriate. It feels very pan African kind of Afro futuristic as well there, but also to do the kind of work that you do, you have to dream, right. You have to kind of think outside of what is already happening. Right. So I could see that. Well, thank you. I think I'm good. I'm good. I'm going to go. I admit I have not heard. I heard it from, I see has Washington, but I haven't heard that sauce. I'm gonna look that up. Let me know. It's the thing. Right. But thank you so much for joining us today on the square. It was such a pleasure to talk to you and to hear your thoughts. And we encourage everybody to obviously follow the village to auntie. Um, yeah. So thank you. Thank you.