00:01:51.660and you can take that any which way you want.0.99
00:01:53.680You can be like, you know, you're not going to disrupt my piece because you're going to fuck around and find out, right?0.98
00:02:04.260There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.0.98
00:02:12.380I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:17.640So we talk a lot about media on this podcast, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
00:02:22.120And it's really important to me because I think that everyone deserves access to thoughtful, accurate media that tells them the truth.
00:02:29.800And when people are not nourished by good stories, it creates a gap that grifters and bad actors are more than happy to fill with lies and junk.
00:02:39.100And this is especially bad for people that are already marginalized, like women and communities of color.
00:02:45.620It's a real problem, and it's something that Danielle Moody has spent her entire life trying
00:02:50.620to combat through creating digital content that meaningfully centers the kinds of people
00:02:55.020who are traditionally left out in ways that are thoughtful, nuanced, and most importantly,
00:03:00.180honest. I am Danielle Moody. I am the host of Woke AF and co-host of Democracy-ish,
00:03:08.160both our political podcasts. One is daily and one is weekly that I do with a co-host.
00:03:12.880I'm also a columnist for Zora Magazine, which is a property of medium and a political commentator
00:03:21.480using the, I don't know, the internet to try and make some sense out of nonsense.
00:03:30.320I mean, that's actually a great place to start.
00:03:32.160You know, I'm so familiar with your work just as a dynamic person who has interesting
00:03:38.900opinions, particularly about politics.
00:03:41.160And I guess I wonder, what has the intersection of technology and the Internet and politics looked like for you?
00:03:48.440Like, I know that you're someone who, both on your podcast and on social media, really do a lot of the work of breaking down, making sense of the world and the people who are making decisions around it on the Internet.
00:04:01.120You know, it's really interesting because I think that I have had a different vantage point into politics by virtue of my age and when I came into doing the work that I was doing.
00:04:13.960And, you know, it was before we used to just have, you know, three news sites, three news stations, right, that the world was paying attention to ABC, CBS and NBC.
00:04:27.340And you had these reputable or at the time we thought neutral, reputable, you know, white men that were delivering the news to us.
00:04:35.980And, you know, the advent of the Internet and creating an entire social universe, creating the, you know, the metaverse allowed for us to take, you know, the power away from these institutions and actually create a more democratic understanding and makeup of who is reporting on politics and what kind of analysis that they're offering.
00:05:03.280It democratized politics in a lot of ways that I think I have seen through my origination of my first podcast, which was in the early 2000s to now.
00:05:17.060um it's it's incredible the amount of people the amount of diverse voices and the the amount of
00:05:23.940eyewitness reporting that we that we use and we use firsthand accounts as opposed to just putting
00:05:30.420all of our um all of our belief system into these institutions that have kind of been the gatekeepers
00:05:38.060the gates have been able to open up wider for people that look like me because and look like
00:05:45.200us because of the internet yeah that's something that i've really seen a lot of and i think
00:05:51.760you know you and i are probably very much aligned on this but when you see people
00:05:56.440typically white men who are saying things like oh you know it you know these days you can't say
00:06:02.280anything cancel culture all of that nonsense i i've always thought that what they're actually
00:06:07.780responding to is this new paradigm where actually marginalized people can have platforms that they
00:06:15.120build themselves, actually marginalized people can put their ideas and their opinions and their
00:06:19.080perspectives out into the world. And those perspectives will, you know, people will have
00:06:24.280to contend with those perspectives. I think that, you know, traditionally marginalized folks have
00:06:28.700always had, we've always had our perspectives, but because of the internet, those perspectives
00:06:34.640are, you're able to have a platform that you built yourself or, you know, or have the conditions
00:07:03.620Yeah, I think that they're responding to,
00:07:05.700you know, something crazy called accountability,
00:07:08.400that there are actually going to be people
00:07:09.920that are going to push back against the things that you're saying. And that while we have become
00:07:15.140so accustomed and so ingrained with centering whiteness in the way that we see the world,
00:07:20.500that when you have diverse voices that are here, we have a totally different articulated narrative
00:07:26.120right than the one that has been force fed to us. And I think that in this state where we are right
00:07:32.520now, you know, I've heard white men say like, oh, I'm just scared. And I'm like, you have no reason
00:07:37.480to be scared if you're not, if you're not a creep, you have no reason to be scared. If you're not a
00:07:41.940racist, if you're not a misogynist, you know, like you should, you should not be worried. You
00:07:46.960should have wanted things like this, um, to exist. And the fact that people are being held
00:07:51.440accountable for the things that come out of their mouths. Um, it is not risk-free, right. To, to
00:07:57.080offer up your opinions. And I think that people need to be aware of that. And just because you
00:08:01.820are cis and white uh and straight does not mean that you are neutral and i think that we are
00:08:08.060finally at a place where we're moving a moving away from that perceived uh that perceived norm
00:08:15.060like oh if because i'm a black lesbian then that means that like i can't be neutral and i'm like
00:08:20.980neutral neutrality is false no one is neutral right and so that's that's the thing that we
00:08:26.180need to understand from the jump and then we can have real honest conversations about cancel
00:08:31.180culture and accountability oh my god this comes up on the show i'm time and time again time again
00:08:37.740this idea of the the lie that we tell ourselves particularly in journalism but i think across
00:08:43.880media that new that that anybody is neutral and i think that neutrality is really just code for
00:08:50.900like a white male cis heterosexual perspective and so anybody who falls outside of that and i
00:08:57.640But I also say like middle class, able bodied, like that like that is considered to be, quote, neutral.
00:09:03.640And anybody who happens to fall out of that perspective there, the idea is that they can't write about their own experiences or their own communities because they're going to be biased when, in fact, there is no such thing as neutrality.
00:09:16.080We have just coded the idea along these incredibly racialized, gendered lines and had that dictate who gets to have a voice for a very long time in our media.0.82
00:09:28.660Yeah, and I think that it's problematic because, again, what we are saying is that they're the default, right?0.60
00:09:35.140That white, cis men are the default and everyone else falls outside of the quote unquote norm.
00:09:41.500And it's like, why do we have this understanding of what is normal and what is not? Why is it that when you're seeing, you know, you're listening to broadcasters and you're watching shows and they're talking about, oh, a man was shot today. But you know that by virtue of how they said that, that it was a white man. Right. Because they don't say white. Right. So but if it was a black man or an Asian man or a Latino man, they would articulate that fact.
00:10:08.540And so we have to move. And we saw this and I think saw it in a really disheartening way. But we saw out loud what black people have known for so long and people of color have known. As the war in Ukraine broke, you had journalists on a multitude of stations and networks saying, oh, my God, you know, we've never seen something like this in, you know, in Europe.0.99
00:10:35.020This is so heartbreaking. I mean, they have Starbucks and Instagram. It's not like this is Syria or Afghanistan. And you're just like, so your assumption is that the people in the countries that you just named shouldn't have safety, right?
00:10:53.440That we should have expectations of violence in these areas, yet Europe, who was the perpetuator of violence around the globe, colonization and chattel slavery, which originated in these places and the Hundred Year War and all of these things, like somehow the fleeing of blonde hair and blue eyed people should invoke more empathy than the fleeing of brown hair and brown eyed people in various parts of the world.
00:11:22.100And it just, it was that moment where it's just like, you need to be really careful about the language that you use and what you are saying, right? With saying what you said and with not, right? Like we're used to and have been sensitized to violence in certain areas of the world because we sell it that way, right?0.73
00:11:41.380And I think that that is incredibly problematic. And that's why I like, I'm so grateful to be a part of this kind of wave of, you know, podcasting and technology and how technology mixes with media to move outside of the quote unquote mainstream.
00:11:58.800Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up. And a lot of my work, both in the podcast and in my nine to five, focuses around things like media accountability and media trust. And I think you just really nailed it. Right. I think that there are so like it pains me when I see people who fall prey to things like conspiracy theories or disinformation or misinformation online.
00:12:22.040But the reality is people, particularly black and brown folks, have legitimate reasons to be very skeptical of some of our media, media that constantly otherizes us, media that constantly, you know, shows us every day that the Ukraine example that you just gave about the way that they were speaking about, you know, how folks in Ukraine have Starbucks and they're, quote, just like us and how that was different than, you know, sets up this dynamic where it's different than other countries.0.80
00:12:49.160It's like very clear to me what they're trying to say. I think that we have not fully contended with how deeply unserved so many traditionally marginalized communities are by institutions like traditional media.
00:13:04.540And that because that is true, because these institutions fail us every day, it sets folks up to be susceptible to disinformation, conspiracy theories, bad actors, people who are selling them, you know, nonsense, because it feels like that our only other option is also not serving us in a meaningful way, not centering us in a meaningful way.
00:14:26.900When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.
00:14:32.760I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:14:39.120I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.
00:14:42.820I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.
00:14:50.920Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:14:55.140I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:14:59.920I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:15:07.520They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:15:11.420But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:15:14.840They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:15:18.500Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:15:26.280If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:15:33.180This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:15:45.340I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:15:52.480I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:23:33.480If you are not intentional and if you are not really mindful from the very beginning,
00:23:39.140it doesn't matter what revolutionary technology or revolutionary thing that you have that's
00:23:43.940the democratized tech or democratized media, you will just be reinventing those same isms,
00:23:54.720racism, sexism, all of them in this new space, unless you are intentional from the very beginning.
00:24:00.540And that's, I think that it's, I will always be like a tech optimist. I will always be
00:24:05.660excited and hopeful about the promises that new technology will bring. But I'm also a realist
00:24:12.320Because I do know that people can get so starry-eyed and excited about new technology, and they think, you know, oh, we won't need to have, like, these considerations won't be a problem in this new realm, in the metaverse or in Web3.
00:24:26.740But then I know that is not true, because racism, like, that train is never late.
00:24:41.460But it's totally true. And I think, you know, I had watched the documentary Coded Bias a while back and it blew my mind. I was just like, my God, not even can we think about relieving ourselves of racism?
00:26:12.000Yeah, it was just, it was just disgusting. But you, you know, you listen, you know, when we see
00:26:18.540TikTok and we see Black creators on TikTok, you know, pushing back and saying, okay,0.88
00:26:24.760So now these white creators come in, they bite our videos, they bite our work, they slap on their name to it, and then all of a sudden they got millions of followers and millions of dollars worth of endorsements, right?0.99
00:26:37.580And so it's like, yes, we have all of these platforms that we can readily access, but it's like who's able to monetize, who's able to break through?0.82
00:26:47.620They're still the gatekeepers that are largely white men that get to say yay and nay.0.80
00:26:54.760That's such a good point. And I think it goes back to, I mean, something that a mentor once told me is that you should always be really careful building your house on someone else's land.0.99
00:27:04.460And I guess when I think about the platforms that I think of as platforms that I have built myself, and in a lot of ways I have, but the powers that be at Apple could decide that I don't belong there and kick me off tomorrow.
00:27:17.900You know, if you have lots and lots of Instagram followers or TikTok followers, it's like, it can feel like something that you have ownership over. But while our tech platforms and internet platforms are all so, you know, in the hands of, you know, powerful tech leaders who all kind of happen to be white men, you really don't own as much as you think, I guess I would say.
00:27:42.560And so I've always tried to be very mindful of that, that like as cool as it is to try to build your own platforms, to tell your own stories yourself, it is a good reminder that while so much of the owning class is, you know, white, straight tech leaders and tech bros and all of that, you know, what can you what can you really own?
00:28:03.540What can you really have that's yours?
00:28:04.860You know, and that's and that's one of the reasons, you know, why I became independent.
00:28:11.860Like for the longest time I was doing the tap dance and the jig for networks for, you know, to see me, see me, see me and like show my work by virtue of how many hits on television that I could get. Right. How many people were calling into my show when it was still on Sirius XM. Right.
00:28:31.420And so one of the reasons why it was important as a Black queer woman to go to a podcast company that is run by Black people, right, was because, one, I did not want to have my voice shrunken, right?
00:28:50.940I didn't want to have to shrink myself to fit into other people's ideas of me, but then realizing that even in being independent, I still need the Apples and the Spotify's and, you know, the Stitcher's and all of those places to put my independent work on, right?
00:29:09.060So it goes back to what your mentor said about building your house on other people's land, because it's like, yes, I built this house. Right. But I still have to put it someplace. And I don't get like by, you know, unfortunately, don't own the the the the apples and the and the Spotify's and those places.
00:29:29.520So you're still going to be beholden to those people who get to determine your worth and your value.
00:30:59.920Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:31:04.460I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:31:08.900I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:31:16.520They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:31:20.440But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:31:23.880They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:31:27.000Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:31:35.960If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:31:41.880This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:31:54.360I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:32:01.480I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:32:05.000From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:32:11.000It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:32:18.480Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:32:28.080Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:32:44.080I really identify with what you just said about going independent.
00:32:47.880And there was a time in my life where, this was several years ago, where I thought the path for me, the path to be where I wanted to be in my career and in my life was sort of, quote, being seen by a big traditional media outlet.
00:33:02.180And I worked for a big news network whose name you definitely have heard of, but I'm not going to say here.
00:33:17.560And no shade to them. I have no shade to them at all. But I thought I had really bought into this idea that the path forward was somebody at that network liking me or seeing me. And so I was sort of always auditioning, even for a job I already had.
00:33:36.400And when I look back at all of the work I had to do to sort of not just let go of that job and let go of that mindset, but do a lot of like internal work of saying, you know, I know that I have value.
00:34:01.940And really, you know, you described it as like doing the dance.
00:34:04.500that was all I was doing in that part of my life and it didn't get me anywhere and I look back and
00:34:10.000I think all of these things that would have been that would have been for me like the height of
00:34:14.900success I don't even need them anymore let alone like want them I don't even need them anymore
00:34:19.420the height of success to me is is having a platform to say what I want to say and feeling
00:34:24.200good about it and and not having to have the pressure of like oh I hope they like it I hope
00:34:28.780it goes viral. I hope this, I hope that, you know, how exhausting that was and how much of myself I
00:34:34.400spent on that, on that dance. I guess I really identify with what you just said. Bridget, I was
00:34:39.940like, you know, it, I felt like I was on a hamster wheel for like 10 years, right? Just, you know,
00:34:48.300my entree into media was around, uh, same-sex marriage was in, you know, the, you know, the
00:34:56.0002010s. And doing everything for those outlets, just trying to get on television, chasing the
00:35:05.780producers, chasing these things, making sure that my social media was just right because I didn't
00:35:13.060want to be too offensive and too this and too that and too much. And then finally realizing that
00:35:19.460what the hell am I doing? I have contorted myself into a watered down version of myself
00:35:25.800so that I would make myself digestible to the white sea sweet. And I just decided I don't want
00:35:33.360this, right? What I want is to share my thoughts and my message unfiltered, right? And if you don't
00:35:39.540like that unfilteredness, if you need your politics with more sugar, then I am not the one,
00:35:46.160Right. Because I'm going to give it to you straight. So it was, you know, the recognition for me. And again, this came really through the pandemic of looking around and realizing that everything was shifting, everything that you thought was was no longer and saying that this was an opportunity for those of us in a privileged space.
00:36:05.340This was an opportunity to reinvent and to say, you know what? I'm dropping all of the precursors. I'm dropping all of the caveats. I'm actually just going to say what the fuck I want to say and how I want to say it. And if you want me on air, book me. If you don't, I ain't chasing you and I'm good, right? Because I'm going to say what I want to say, how I want to say it and miss me, you know, with everybody else's interpretation of how it should be.
00:36:29.280oh I'm so I love how you put that and I think I had the same thing and for me it went back to
00:36:35.040this idea of stopping this dance of trying to be everything for everybody and just realizing that
00:36:42.980like what I have to say is not going to hit with everybody and that's okay and that actually is
00:36:47.420helpful because it allows me to spend time really leaning into my people and like who I am for and
00:36:54.580so rather than spending all that energy trying to be you know exactly the right curated version
00:36:59.200of myself, I'm just going to be who I actually am. And the people who are with that, that will
00:37:04.460resonate with them. And the people who are not with that, who cares? I'm not for them. I'm not
00:37:08.580for everybody. I am who I'm for. And that's who I should be concerned about. People who I'm not
00:37:12.860for, it's not really my business what they think about me. You know, one of the things that I still
00:37:17.340do a bit of, and this is only for, you know, organizations who align with my value set and
00:37:24.540my missions is that I do media trainings and executive coaching for underrepresented CEOs
00:37:30.120and executive directors. And I remember that when I started doing media trainings many years ago,
00:37:36.760you know, it was always about trying to present people's best version of themselves, right? But
00:37:42.440it was also about making them palpable, watering them down. What about thinking about what will
00:37:48.340margin middle America think right like what will this person think now when I do media trainings I
00:37:54.980say tell the truth what is what is the truth that you want to be offering up to you know to the to
00:38:00.780the people do you understand your audience do you know where they are right and then we can craft
00:38:05.600whatever message that you want but at the end of the day this is about telling the truth this is
00:38:09.740not about watering things down we are past the watered down version um of of of America and what
00:38:16.660we need to be seeing and doing. People need to be activated. And I think that, you know,
00:38:21.020one of the purposes of mainstream media is pacification, because if they actually wanted
00:38:26.400people to be, you know, riled up, to be knowledgeable, then we wouldn't see the kind
00:38:32.320of news that we see, right? Like there, it wouldn't just be, you know, the three stories
00:38:37.000that all of the networks are going to cover for a week, and that's going to be it, right? There
00:38:41.500would be more substance that is there. And so, you know, we also have to recognize that we're
00:38:46.300not going to be able to get our education through the people who are trying to actually
00:38:50.980remain in power and continue to oppress people.
00:38:54.320What was it, Audre Lorde, that says the master's tools are not going to dismantle the master's
00:39:38.880I literally just joined TikTok like a month ago. And I was totally against it because I'm like, I ain't going on this children's site, right? Like, it's in my head. That's why I was like, I'm not going on this children's site. And then I started to realize that, you know, it used to be that to be considered credible, you needed to write, right?
00:39:58.680Then we realized people don't actually like to read. Then it was, oh, well, then go on television. And then you realize like, oh, well, people's attention span has actually shrunk. Now I need to figure out a way that I'm shrinking down my 40 minute show that I do daily into just one minute, just 60 seconds of content, because that's how people are getting their information.
00:40:25.720So I couldn't just poo poo like this, this medium that felt uncomfortable to me because I wasn't the age target demographic for it. But then recognize that like, we as content creators need to be adapting to where people are getting their content and how they're consuming that content.
00:40:44.240So for me, the next iteration is just meeting people where they are and making sure that I am as nimble as possible and that there is no no, right?
00:40:54.720Like, no, I don't want to do this. No, it doesn't feel right. If it doesn't feel right, great.
00:40:58.940But I don't want to close myself out of different ways to communicate with people because that is always going to evolve.
00:41:05.100And for a content creator and somebody that wants to wake people up, needing to evolve with where people are.
00:41:11.320that's such a smart way to think about it like that's why that's why I started out as a podcaster
00:41:16.640because it was like an emerging this is you know back in the day it was like an emerging new medium
00:41:21.300and I was just like I'm so excited to see what people do with this and people were doing like
00:41:25.520weird out off the wall stuff with it and so I think like being willing to be nimble and saying
00:41:31.480yes to new places where it feels right for your voice to be where it feels like like there's
00:41:36.200alignment, I think it's really is really key. Yeah, because I'm not trying to fit where I don't
00:41:41.180but you know, I'm not trying to make and I think that that to just going back really quickly to
00:41:45.920to mainstream media, that was the thing is that I was trying to fit myself into a space that did
00:41:52.600not want me and actually was very clear about the fact that they did not want me right but I kept
00:41:57.780trying to fit in fit in. And I think that you know, by virtue of just having been in this podcasting
00:42:03.560space, been in this new media space for, you know, a decade now, um, it is, it's really interesting
00:42:11.380to decide to, to follow your own beat, right. To create your own, like to figure out what works for
00:42:20.260you and then just keep pushing it out. Right. And, you know, and people will bite like they do,
00:42:26.660you know, people, people will bite, but you have to be really steadfast in what it is that you're
00:42:31.540creating and delivering um and then figure out where to put it yeah and it's like i've definitely
00:42:37.400gotten to a place again over years of internal work and sort of like figuring out what my
00:42:43.860perspective i don't want to be in any rooms where it's clear that i am not welcomed i don't want to
00:42:48.500be anywhere where my presence is not a gift a value you know people don't yeah like i just
00:42:55.640have no interest i maybe it comes with getting older but yeah but it's the truth but it's the
00:43:01.380truth it's just like you know and i think it's because the generations that came before us
00:43:05.640fought so hard to get into those rooms right they fought so hard to get a seat at the table0.98
00:43:11.620and i think that the generations that are coming now are just like yeah fuck that room i don't need0.96
00:43:18.400it like i'll create literally i will create my own space like i'm good you know you continue to do0.96
00:43:24.860you over there and I'm going to create something over here. And, you know, that, that is what gives
00:43:31.100me hope about, about new media, about these, the, the ways in which we're all adapting to these
00:43:38.520different spaces is that it's an opportunity for us to show up as our most authentic selves,
00:43:44.380right? It's the opportunity to say like, no, I'm not going to do, you know, I remember when I
00:43:49.360locked my hair, right? This is, you know, 20 years ago, I locked my hair and people were just like,
00:43:55.260and you're going to work in politics. I don't think that that's a good idea, right? Because
00:44:00.000unless I was going to present some Eurocentric form version of myself, some permed pressed form
00:44:06.320version of myself, then apparently what was going to come out of my mouth didn't matter,
00:44:10.240right? So I think that we are still in a place, I mean, we just passed the crown act,
00:44:15.400Like, we're still in a place where, like, we're still having to justify how we look, how we sound. But I think that it's a better place to be in when we're the ones that are owning and creating the spaces and deciding where and when and how we want to be involved. Right? And, like, how and where and when we want to show up. It's a different form of power.
00:44:36.580I love that. And think about this, like, I never thought I'd see the day where we have Judge Jackson about to make history as first black woman on the Supreme Court with braids. I never thought I'd see the day and here we are.
00:44:50.260So I think it goes to show you that, you know, we've come to a different place where I think that we have, we're setting the standard for how we want to show up. And I think that standard is being dictated by us and not external forces. And I love that for us. I hope that we all, I hope that this is like a new normal where we just accept that we are going to show up as ourselves, our most authentic selves.
00:45:18.240and folks can accept that or not accept that.
00:45:21.480You know, one of the funniest things that came out,
00:45:43.780you're not going to disrupt my piece1.00
00:45:45.440because you're going to fuck around and find out, right?1.00
00:45:47.460Like I'm going to continue telling the truth or you're going to fuck around and find out.0.99
00:45:51.100Like, I think that whatever that means for you, but it is it's saying like, yeah, I'm not trying to fit myself into your standards.0.98
00:45:59.680Right. I'm going to make my own. And the more like that you try and place people into boxes, the more that you're going to see people want to burst out of them.
00:46:10.980And I think that if we can embrace, you know, this new season of life and expectations that we have for ourselves, right, and the brands that we are building and creating, then, you know, it will be a new dawn, right?
00:46:28.080And I think that every day is the beginning of a new dawn.
00:46:31.400Every season offers us an opportunity to try to be better, do things that are bolder, right?
00:46:38.660And I think that that's what podcasting allows us to really do is to be bold, to be big and to exist outside of the box.
00:46:47.580I love that. Danielle, I have one last question for you, a little bit of a curveball question.
00:46:52.500So one of your podcasts is called Woke AF.
00:46:56.180What do you and it's fantastic. People should definitely listen to it as well as democracy ish.
00:47:00.460But what is it like, you know, this idea of being woke, you know, definitely started in Black vernacular, like that was our term. And now I feel that it's almost become a dog whistle, right? Like, you know, speaking of Judge Jackson, I remember before, even before she was named as a Supreme Court nominee and Biden was just like, oh, I'm planning on picking a Black woman.
00:47:22.860And one of the arguments I heard about this hypothetical Black woman who wasn't even named yet was that she was going to be the woke choice for the Supreme Court.
00:47:31.280How did we get to this place where the term woke is now almost like a just like a coded dog whistle for Black?
00:47:40.080And what do you what do you make of that as someone who, you know, has a show that that is, you know, the word that you use to describe your own, you know, your own politics and ideology?
00:47:51.660I mean, for me, being woke is about being conscious and aware of the world around you, right? What does it mean to live consciously, right? Not as ostriches that are burying our heads in the sand and waiting for the tide to turn, right?
00:48:06.600And I think that, you know, what the what progressives and folks on the left have allowed once again is for the right to co-opt the language and turn it into turn something that is very positive, which is about, you know, what what is what is the opposite of being woke?
00:48:22.700And that's the thing that I say to folks, like, why is there no pushback when they're like, oh, they're going to be the woke guy?
00:48:28.640So what is your preference for somebody to be asleep? What is your what is your preference for us to be unconscious? Right.
00:48:34.740And because what does that allow you to do if the rest of us are in slumber, right? It allows for you to run roughshod and have no accountability and no responsibility for the things that you do because ain't nobody paying attention. So like, I think that, you know, you, we have to reclaim words that we allow the radical right to take over. And then what, but what people do, like what, you know, white moderates want to do and Democrats want to do is that they want to run from it.
00:49:01.360Oh, we're not woke. You know, we're just like everybody else. No, I'm not. No, I am not. And that is OK. Right. Like, I don't want to go through my life asleep and neither should you, because I don't know what good comes to anybody when they don't live their lives consciously and on their own terms.
00:49:18.060So I think that there needs to be consistent pushback to that, to the negative connotation that folks have allowed white supremacists on the right to attribute to a word that was birthed out of Black people deciding, right, and recognizing that, like, you know, we live consciously.
00:49:40.660So what about the rest of you? Because while the rest of you get to walk around and pretend that, like, ain't nothing going on, we're the ones that have to look around and make sure that, like, we're as safe as we can possibly be. If Black people were to walk around their lives in a slumber, we would all be dead. Right? Like, so let us, you know, I think that it's important to push back against those negative connotations.
00:50:05.220And you do it every week and every day with both of your shows. And I'm so grateful for your work
00:50:12.140and grateful for your voice. Danielle, where can folks keep up with all of the amazing stuff that
00:50:17.200you've got going on? Thank you. Yes, folks can keep up with me. Woke AF is Monday through Friday.
00:50:23.940You can get that on anywhere that you get your podcast, whether it is on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher.
00:50:29.720If you want the video version of that daily show, you can get that at Patreon.com slash Woke AF, where the video show is up every single day.
00:50:40.480And then you can follow me on Twitter where I am extraordinarily active at D2Cents, D-E-E-T-W-O-C-E-N-T-S.
00:50:48.560And newly to TikTok, Danielle Moody underscore.
00:50:52.360So you can check me out there, too, where I am getting very, very lit.
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