Speaker 1: Sometimes life can be complicated and messy, and inner society,
Speaker 1: made up of so many rules and expectations, being yourself
Speaker 1: can be seen as an act of rebellion or bravery. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Zach Stafford, and this is in the deep stories
Speaker 1: that shape us. Join me as our guests black and
Speaker 1: Latin X men unraveled the complexities and struggles they face
Speaker 1: in a place that doesn't always see them, all of
Speaker 1: them for who they really are. I sit down with
Speaker 1: the people, the athletes, community and thought leaders that have
Speaker 1: struggled with the traditional ideals of masculinity, religion, and family
Speaker 1: the society often imposes upon them. Each episode, we explore
Speaker 1: the fears that make up the Black and Latin X
Speaker 1: male psyche, understanding the effects of stigma and masculinity on
Speaker 1: self identity. We'll talk about how these common themes of discrimination, culture,
Speaker 1: and economics factor into the struggle, and yet how these
Speaker 1: hardships aren't enough to stop these men on the road
Speaker 1: to health and healing. I want to start off our
Speaker 1: very first episode by talking about something I'm incredibly passionate about. Stories.
Speaker 1: Stories we are told by family members, stories we tell
Speaker 1: ourselves to make sense of the world around us. And
Speaker 1: even the stories we tell ourselves to stay alive. I'm
Speaker 1: so passionate about storytelling, not just because of my background
Speaker 1: as a journalist, but because I always say that the
Speaker 1: one thing we all do besides eat and drink each
Speaker 1: day is tell each other. Stories. Is how we all communicate.
Speaker 1: But what we rarely talk about is how these stories
Speaker 1: shape our entire lives, maybe more than anything else, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to understanding the good and the bad
Speaker 1: that happens to each of us. Today's guest, Frederick Joseph,
Speaker 1: is special because he teaches us how to take our
Speaker 1: own stories and swap trauma for love in a really
Speaker 1: beautiful and expansive way. He's a New York Times bestselling author,
Speaker 1: activists and philanthropists who isn't a stranger to heartbreak, and
Speaker 1: I think his own stories of love and loss or
Speaker 1: something we can all relate to, especially when some of
Speaker 1: his own stories weren't always the truth as he now
Speaker 1: knows it. But before we get to the heavier stuff,
Speaker 1: I want to hear from Frederick. Where did his story begin? Frederick,
Speaker 1: it's so great to have you today, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to begin our conversation for the listeners just to like
Speaker 1: locate who you are and where you come from. So
Speaker 1: tell us where did you grow up, what was your family,
Speaker 1: like all those good details about your past. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I grew up in Yonkers, New York. And for those
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with Yonkers, all of us like to say, well,
Speaker 1: that's where like Mary J. Blodge is from, and that's
Speaker 1: where DMX is from. So Yonkers is interesting. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, frankly, I grew up in the projects right,
Speaker 1: raised by a single black mother, and I had a
Speaker 1: ton of family in two places which also helped shape me,
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia and in Columbia, South Carolina. So I spent
Speaker 1: you know, weeks at a time in South Carolina every
Speaker 1: few months, and then just kind of a being the
Speaker 1: Philly and things like that. So those all are just
Speaker 1: ingrained in my DNA, you could say, Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: had a like the inverse of that, I grew up
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, but would go to the north, to Baltimore,
Speaker 1: to Iowa, to Chicago to see family. And you know,
Speaker 1: people don't like to think of us as black men,
Speaker 1: as particularly mobile people in the world that we have
Speaker 1: families all around. But it's a big part about being
Speaker 1: black in America because due to the great migration, our
Speaker 1: families are all over. What was it like for you
Speaker 1: to go back and forth between these two places that
Speaker 1: I know, personally, blackness the masculinity animates itself very differently
Speaker 1: in these places sometimes, you know, I think that's an
Speaker 1: excellent way of putting it. The manifestations of of patriarchy,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, are different in all places. So like in
Speaker 1: New York, you know, there's this culture of art. I
Speaker 1: would say, men and boys, especially black men and black boys,
Speaker 1: can practice art, but specific types of art. If you're
Speaker 1: going to be in music, it had to be hip
Speaker 1: hop or wrap or maybe like extremely you know, for
Speaker 1: lack of better term, like swagged out R and B
Speaker 1: or whatever. Right, um. But then in the South it
Speaker 1: was very sports and labor intensive. I would go down
Speaker 1: to South Carolina and that's actually where I learned to
Speaker 1: play football, you know, just like yeah, like I learned
Speaker 1: to play football in the South, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like why I did so well in the norm. So
Speaker 1: I think that the way masculinity and then patriarchy kind
Speaker 1: of manifest in the South. For me, we're just like,
Speaker 1: why are you doing anything pertaining in music? Why do
Speaker 1: you care about anything pertaining art? Why are you not
Speaker 1: more physical? Why are you not you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like more aggressive. It was very very interesting how that
Speaker 1: played out. You know, a word that would come up
Speaker 1: really easily for us to say is code switching, you know,
Speaker 1: cud switching, the very academic word where we usually refer
Speaker 1: to that in like white versus Black spaces, Like you
Speaker 1: go to your corporate job as a black man and
Speaker 1: you act certain ways. You go back to your community,
Speaker 1: you act one way. But we never talked about an
Speaker 1: intra community about how our masculinity is changing. Do you
Speaker 1: relate to that? Did you find yourself changing between black communities.
Speaker 1: I was a surrogate for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign and
Speaker 1: twenty and I would get sent to the South all
Speaker 1: the time to meet with black people in various spaces,
Speaker 1: whether that was barbershops or hair salons or churches. There's
Speaker 1: like these recordings which my fiance laughs act She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: whenever you go to the South, you become a Baptist
Speaker 1: preacher whenever you're speaking publicly, And I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because I do code switch down there. Down there,
Speaker 1: I get very I get very Jesus five in the North.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, hey, do you have the Restaurant'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have any kale and grilled chicken down there?
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you got you know, you've better green,
Speaker 1: but you know, make sure the rings. I got too
Speaker 1: much vinegar exactly. So there's definitely this code switching within blackness,
Speaker 1: and I think that that speaks to the dynamism of
Speaker 1: the black community, which is oftentimes a race through the
Speaker 1: white lens that is the media, the white lens that
Speaker 1: is entertainment and publishing in all these different spaces, as
Speaker 1: if we're a monolith, but it's are from the truth.
Speaker 1: Much of what Frederick talks about reminds me of this
Speaker 1: idea I've heard before that a stereotype is just a
Speaker 1: chapter in a book you haven't fully read. And as
Speaker 1: a black man myself, I know the realities that come
Speaker 1: with so many stereotypes constantly thrust upon us. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear from Frederick what was that moment, that
Speaker 1: aha moment that made him realize that blackness wasn't a
Speaker 1: one size fits all. I had the privilege of going
Speaker 1: to a performing arts elementary school in Yonkers, and you know.
Speaker 1: I went to my first Broadway show when I was
Speaker 1: about eight years old. I saw a Phantom of the
Speaker 1: Opera I'll Never Forget. My grandmother and I went, and
Speaker 1: I had to be quite frank. I don't even think
Speaker 1: I had ever been to Manhattan, let alone to a
Speaker 1: Broadway show. I see this play and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: awe struck. I'm like, oh my god, like, what is
Speaker 1: this right? Because the world that I come from, it's
Speaker 1: just completely different. So what ends up taking place is
Speaker 1: I'm walking out and there was this other play happening
Speaker 1: at the exact same time it was Aida, and Aida
Speaker 1: at the time was the star of Aida was Heather Headly, phenomenal,
Speaker 1: phenomenal actress. And I had just came from seeing this
Speaker 1: like brilliant show, like starring a cast of full white
Speaker 1: people or whatever. But I'm like, there's a black show.
Speaker 1: Black people don't have shows like like this, right, So
Speaker 1: that moment switched something in me because one, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that this world existed, and I didn't know that
Speaker 1: black people, if this world exists, were allowed to exist
Speaker 1: within that world that I didn't know existed, right, So
Speaker 1: when I went home, it made me question all of
Speaker 1: the constructs of blackness that were imposed upon me everywhere
Speaker 1: I looked. Right, it was like, oh, black people have
Speaker 1: to perform this, or have to sing this, or have
Speaker 1: to sing that, or have to only get to do
Speaker 1: these certain things. I'm like, well, what about Heather Heavily?
Speaker 1: What about Heather? Yeah? What about Heather? You know, hearing
Speaker 1: that story makes me better understand more than I did before.
Speaker 1: Why you have a book coming out called Patriarchy Blues,
Speaker 1: which explores as us a masculinity patriarchy from both a
Speaker 1: personal and cultural standpoint. So why did you decide to
Speaker 1: put this book out now? And how are your own
Speaker 1: personal stories like the one you should before influencing that
Speaker 1: book right now? So Patriarchy Blues is interesting because when
Speaker 1: I my my personality is very much that like my
Speaker 1: grandmother kind of built in me, this idea of as
Speaker 1: long as you have the ability to use your hands
Speaker 1: for good work, then use your hands for good work, right,
Speaker 1: And Patriarchy Blue specifically is like aimed at myself to
Speaker 1: a certain extent. Right, I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: people do the easy thing of like pointing the finger
Speaker 1: and wagging the finger at people and telling them how
Speaker 1: they're wrong. But it takes something really special to be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and courageous and calling yourself out about how you've
Speaker 1: been wrong, right, And I think that that's the actual
Speaker 1: work that people need to get to. So Patriarchy Blues
Speaker 1: is me saying like, hey, you know, I was molested
Speaker 1: by my babysitter from eight to ten years old, and
Speaker 1: that put a chasm in my heart and actually made
Speaker 1: me develop this anger towards women. And that anger ended
Speaker 1: up evolving into becoming a womanizer in my teens and
Speaker 1: in my twenties. That juxtaposed with living in this heteronormative,
Speaker 1: patriarchal society, right, I was just like, oh yeah, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the right thing. Not only am I justified
Speaker 1: in my pain, but I'm doing the right thing. Society
Speaker 1: is telling me that. But what does it look like
Speaker 1: to be in your thirties and actually say like, hey,
Speaker 1: I've spent the last decade plus unpacking and trying to
Speaker 1: be better than this. But I don't think that this
Speaker 1: is just my work. This is our work, right, Like,
Speaker 1: this is our work as a community. Um, I have
Speaker 1: to ask you, you know, I was like a fellow,
Speaker 1: a person that has moved to the world pretty similarly
Speaker 1: in identity, When did you find this bravery to do
Speaker 1: that work? What I have is my story, right, I
Speaker 1: was like, if I have nothing else, I have my story,
Speaker 1: my story of pain, my story of joy, my story
Speaker 1: of agony, my story of desperate ration. And if I can,
Speaker 1: in my words, use my pen to be vulnerable, combined
Speaker 1: with my understanding of kind of how to market and
Speaker 1: tell stories from that lens, then I think that you know,
Speaker 1: my theory of changes, like people will grow? What lives
Speaker 1: might that save? If I'm willing to do that, right,
Speaker 1: what courage might that bring? And and I think it
Speaker 1: just like honestly came from you know, when I was
Speaker 1: about twenty four, I found out that I have multiples
Speaker 1: gross is and you know a lot of things changed
Speaker 1: at that moment where I I didn't spend all of
Speaker 1: my late twenties drinking and party and I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of my late twenties trying to develop the wisdom
Speaker 1: of a man in his seventies. Right, Like, if I
Speaker 1: was to look back on my life, if I was
Speaker 1: to believe this earth tomorrow, what do you want your
Speaker 1: legacy to be? And I want mine to be a
Speaker 1: legacy of progress and healing. This road to healing reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot about the power of truth. Often the
Speaker 1: stories that are told to us are just as important
Speaker 1: to the shaping of our lives as the stories we
Speaker 1: create ourselves. I relate to this idea of truth stories because,
Speaker 1: like Frederick, I've had an uncle pass from complications due
Speaker 1: to HIV and was told it was cancer. I was
Speaker 1: curious how that shaped his story, his community work, and
Speaker 1: what his uncle represented in his life. Man, that is
Speaker 1: that that's a nuanced story. So to tell that, I
Speaker 1: have to first, you know, kind of talk about the
Speaker 1: matriarch of my family, who was my grandmother, Thelma Forward.
Speaker 1: She passed the breast cancer when I was eighteen, and
Speaker 1: it was her second bout with breast cancer. The first
Speaker 1: time she didn't tell anybody. The second time she said
Speaker 1: she had a cold until she couldn't leave the hospital. Right,
Speaker 1: there's this aspect I think, especially of certain generations of
Speaker 1: black people, as she was from you know, once again,
Speaker 1: she was from South Carolina, came up to the North.
Speaker 1: She left the South because her first husband had been
Speaker 1: lynched by the clan. That's the father of my uncle
Speaker 1: who actually died of HIV. So just for some context,
Speaker 1: real quick. She grew up in this hard, hard way,
Speaker 1: like she came up hard. Right. So the way that
Speaker 1: she has viewed not just masculinity, but the way she
Speaker 1: viewed blackness is that it has to be as tough
Speaker 1: as steel or else it will be bent, broken, melted down,
Speaker 1: you know, and then turned into bullets that will probably
Speaker 1: be aimed at up other black people. Right. So she
Speaker 1: was a lovely person who also didn't spend any time
Speaker 1: with the privilege that I have of navigating what it
Speaker 1: means to just be and not navigating what it just
Speaker 1: means to be. She of course to navigate other people's realities,
Speaker 1: such as homosexuality, right, And there was just the propaganda
Speaker 1: of homosexuality, which she surface level was like, okay, surface level,
Speaker 1: this is what I know, this is what I understand,
Speaker 1: and this is what I don't want because she's equating homosexuality.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine with all the things that were the opposite
Speaker 1: of what a black person needs to survive. Right. So, again,
Speaker 1: when you have in the seventies, eighties, nineties, these things
Speaker 1: that are happening in the community, from the epidemic of drugs,
Speaker 1: the epidemic of violence, so on and so forth, you
Speaker 1: get a major usage of heroin. So my my uncle,
Speaker 1: he was a heroin user and ultimately passed by contracting
Speaker 1: HIV from a needle. But with the propaganda, HIV can't
Speaker 1: be contracted with a needle from drug use, right of
Speaker 1: course not, because HIV can only be contracted during that
Speaker 1: time and even now I'm not gonna even just put
Speaker 1: on that time even now. Problematically, the view is that
Speaker 1: HIV is solely contracted through same sex acts. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: when he did have HIV, my grandmother refused to tell
Speaker 1: people that, right, And it wasn't just about homosexuality, it
Speaker 1: was about everything that came along with it, I'm sure right, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: my uncle's name was Butch. This is Butch Jr. Butch Sr.
Speaker 1: Was murdered by the ku Klux Klan fighting back being
Speaker 1: a revolutionary in South Carolina in the sixties. There is
Speaker 1: no way that Butch Senior son is anything but hard,
Speaker 1: anything but tough anything. But you know, the only thing
Speaker 1: that could put him down is cancer, because cancer. Everybody
Speaker 1: understands that. So so I was lied to and everybody
Speaker 1: was lied to it and I found out actually because
Speaker 1: I have three uncles, my uncle Butch died when I
Speaker 1: was a preteen. My uncle Randall died during COVID. He
Speaker 1: passed of complications with COVID. So my last uncle Mark,
Speaker 1: he and I were going up state to collect his
Speaker 1: brother's things and I said to him, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, why is it that you know these things
Speaker 1: happened to our family? You know, COVID cancer. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: who passed of cancer? Like Butch? Right? Like like Butch
Speaker 1: passed of cancer? And he's like, he didn't pass of cancer,
Speaker 1: he had HIV. Who told you that? Wow? Right? So
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with having just lost an uncle of two
Speaker 1: days before being in COVID, And now not only do
Speaker 1: I have a reckoning of this lie in my family,
Speaker 1: but I have to reckon with homophobia and my family
Speaker 1: and unpacking it and just the devastating impact that had
Speaker 1: generationally on my family, and how not navigating those waters
Speaker 1: built systemic cultural, generational homophobia in my family that has
Speaker 1: led you know, me and many instances to separate from
Speaker 1: members of my family. To this day. I relate to
Speaker 1: this so so much, and that you know, the stories
Speaker 1: our families tell to protect us from each other and
Speaker 1: from the world really that we have to sell these
Speaker 1: certain versions of truth to better rationalize why something happened
Speaker 1: to someone or how they aren't in the world and
Speaker 1: why they are in the world. And and what I
Speaker 1: really want to ask you about is like this idea
Speaker 1: of lying. You know, I carried with me for many
Speaker 1: years as a black gay guy that my family lied
Speaker 1: to me by not telling me that my uncle died
Speaker 1: from HIV he was gay, and I had a lot
Speaker 1: of resentment, But lately I don't because I understand why,
Speaker 1: being in like a more rural southern place, why they
Speaker 1: couldn't say that word. So do you in your own
Speaker 1: story and your own family, is calling it a lie
Speaker 1: even useful to say because it sounds like they were
Speaker 1: just trying to survive in this world. I think that
Speaker 1: calling it a lie is useful because I believe in
Speaker 1: what I call radical accountability, right, But I'm also a
Speaker 1: restorative justice type of person. But you can't have restorative
Speaker 1: justice without radical accountability. And radical accountability doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be punitive, right. Radical accountability can simply be stepping towards
Speaker 1: healing for both victims and abusers at times. Right. So
Speaker 1: we don't come from a people you me black people globally,
Speaker 1: Brown people globally, we don't come from cultures before colonialism
Speaker 1: that were ingrained with such staunch homophobia or transphobia. History
Speaker 1: shows that right. Actual research shows that it was capitalism
Speaker 1: and white patriarchal constructs that did this. That's not lost me,
Speaker 1: but you have to call it out and and the
Speaker 1: reality is as assists head black man. What I also
Speaker 1: dealt with as a kid, which played in part, I
Speaker 1: think into this lie, was because I was molested. I
Speaker 1: was never the kid who was like, I really like girls,
Speaker 1: I'm really into girls. That wasn't me. I was very
Speaker 1: like inwardly focused or I just wanted to hang out
Speaker 1: with boys, and I was afraid of girls. So they
Speaker 1: were like in my family until I was probably sixteen,
Speaker 1: there were rumors, oh, he must be gay. So I
Speaker 1: think that they did everything in their power to quote
Speaker 1: unquote make sure I wasn't gay, and then problematically and toxically,
Speaker 1: I counteracted that by being you know, if heteronormativity exists
Speaker 1: on a spectrum of positive and toxic, I went as
Speaker 1: toxic as possible, because that's typically equated with being like,
Speaker 1: you know, in our society, as manly as possible, right,
Speaker 1: So I went that direction and you're like, Okay, he's
Speaker 1: a womanizer. No, he's good right, Like so yeah, so
Speaker 1: that lie actually built the castle of all of my
Speaker 1: pain and trauma and the traumas and pain that I
Speaker 1: inflicted on a ton of other people. Uh. I love
Speaker 1: that you're talking about, Like I love this kind of
Speaker 1: complicated conversation about misogyny. For instance, that you know, due
Speaker 1: to the own pain and violence you felt in your
Speaker 1: own life, you overcompensated by hurting other people's I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my angel Lou says, hurt people, hurt people,
Speaker 1: and that's like the truest thing in the world, which
Speaker 1: makes me think a lot about I think about that,
Speaker 1: and then this idea of radical accountability and it makes
Speaker 1: me think about little Boosey and the baby and little
Speaker 1: nos X. So let's use that as an example for folks.
Speaker 1: How does radical accountability operate there? And how are you
Speaker 1: seeing her people hurting people in that situation? Because that's
Speaker 1: what I see who But you know, I have psychoanalyze
Speaker 1: these men so many times to myself or or in
Speaker 1: my household, right, like, like what happened to them in
Speaker 1: their lives that might have been similar. There's certain things
Speaker 1: that happened to me potentially that they did not have
Speaker 1: the privilege of overcoming or navigating, right, or maybe nothing happening.
Speaker 1: They were just black men in the South, and you know,
Speaker 1: capitalism rewards toxic masculinity and misogyny. But you know, with
Speaker 1: the three of them, I've been hurt, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: also add Dave Chappelle to that, because I have been
Speaker 1: hurt by the things that I've seen from them as
Speaker 1: a fellow black man. Because what they don't realize, especially
Speaker 1: in them saying that they want to protect children and
Speaker 1: be pro black, is that what they're doing is actually anything.
Speaker 1: But they're actually harming children, and they are further degredating
Speaker 1: the black community. Right. So it not only breaks my heart,
Speaker 1: but it is the complete contradiction of all the work
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to do. And then because of their
Speaker 1: platforms versus let's say, my platform, it makes that work
Speaker 1: that much harder. I'm gonna be really honest with you, Zack.
Speaker 1: I wrote about Dave Chappelle years ago, So to see
Speaker 1: him doubling down, I actually started crying. I was in
Speaker 1: the shower, just like tearing up because I looked up
Speaker 1: to him growing up, like he was actually like a
Speaker 1: hero of mine, because I always said that he was
Speaker 1: punching up against white supremacy and classism in many ways.
Speaker 1: So then he's like started becoming, you know, more famous
Speaker 1: and more wealthy, start punching laterally, and now he's just
Speaker 1: punching down at the most like oppressed community in the
Speaker 1: world right, black and brown trans people and specifically black
Speaker 1: and brown trans women. So with that being said, the
Speaker 1: thing that hurt the most though, is that there are
Speaker 1: these moments of potential reclamation, as you said, or radical
Speaker 1: accountability where the people have not said, hey, we want
Speaker 1: to cancel you, Dave. Literally, I have watched transactivists, trans
Speaker 1: organizations say hey, can we sit down and like explain
Speaker 1: to you what you were doing because you're such a
Speaker 1: powerful voice, and we know that you were such an intelligent, brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant person when it comes to storytelling, when it comes
Speaker 1: to getting into hearts and minds of people, and you
Speaker 1: would be a monstrous, devastatingly powerful being to be on
Speaker 1: the right side of things, and Dave, instead of leaning
Speaker 1: into that, has leaned completely out of it, and that
Speaker 1: that hurts. And when you see people doing the wrong
Speaker 1: thing they don't have to. It hurts so so much
Speaker 1: because you're like, wait, you don't have to do this.
Speaker 1: You don't have to make that decision at all. And
Speaker 1: that's what's so frustrating with like the Dave Chappelle's and
Speaker 1: the baby. But I want to bring it back to
Speaker 1: you because I think you have an example in your
Speaker 1: life right now where maybe people are doing the right thing,
Speaker 1: and that's with a cousin of yours, correct who is
Speaker 1: HIV positive. Talk to me about this person and kind
Speaker 1: of how his experience may be very different than what
Speaker 1: your uncle went through. So I actually have two cousins
Speaker 1: who are HIV positive and their experiences are completely different.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, So one of my cousins
Speaker 1: opened up to the family that she's HIV positive in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, and there was still this moment
Speaker 1: of pure ignorance. But I think that at times when
Speaker 1: people don't realize is that a lot of black people,
Speaker 1: all we have is our family. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: that hyperbolically. I mean like quite literally, for a lot
Speaker 1: of black people, we have is our family, and in
Speaker 1: that family you find hope. So in spite of all
Speaker 1: of the victuals he was receiving for having HIV. You know,
Speaker 1: she just kind of took it versus my cousin, who
Speaker 1: is a bit younger than me. He is just a brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant young man. He's just like, you know what, you
Speaker 1: can't possibly love me in the ways in which I
Speaker 1: need to be loved. So I'm going to step away
Speaker 1: from all of you and only talk to those of
Speaker 1: you who can love me for me and like the
Speaker 1: things I'm going through. He's like, in spite of what
Speaker 1: happened for uncle, I am gay and I did get
Speaker 1: HIV practicing sex. He's like, and and that's not your business, right,
Speaker 1: that is my business. You're either going to support me
Speaker 1: or you're not. And what that forced our family to
Speaker 1: do was this moment of radical accountability. Do you lose
Speaker 1: your cousin, do you lose your nephew, Do you lose
Speaker 1: your son? Or do you love them enough to break
Speaker 1: the walls down of your ignorance? Do you have to choose?
Speaker 1: Did you ever truly love this person or was it
Speaker 1: all a facade within the constructs of what makes you comfortable? Yeah? Wow, wow,
Speaker 1: wow wow? Did you ever pose that to them, Did
Speaker 1: you ever say those words to them? So I said
Speaker 1: all those words. I literally like convened everybody at my
Speaker 1: house and I was like, this is it. And if
Speaker 1: he feels like he has to walk away, I'm walking
Speaker 1: away because what we don't want to do, Like I
Speaker 1: very much preach from the book of accomplices and co
Speaker 1: conspirators versus allies, right, and allies Somebody who wants the
Speaker 1: world to be better in the complice and co conspirator
Speaker 1: there in the trenches. So if I want the world
Speaker 1: to be better for the lgbt Q plus community, I
Speaker 1: gotta make myself uncomfortable, right, And that for me means like, oh, hey, Darren,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that this has happened. No, no, forget that.
Speaker 1: If Darren steps away, I'm stepping away. This Darren's not
Speaker 1: by himself. So that's exactly what happened. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about all this work you do to
Speaker 1: give back, and like, something I read about recently was
Speaker 1: you sending a lot of kids. I think Sissy Black
Speaker 1: Panther a few years ago, So like, tell me about
Speaker 1: that story, and like, why is it that like love
Speaker 1: and joy at the end of the day, it seems
Speaker 1: to be your driving kind of motive here. Actually have
Speaker 1: the word love tattooed on my back. And that's a
Speaker 1: funny story. When my grandmother was passing, she told my
Speaker 1: cousins and I like, all all of us, what like,
Speaker 1: the one thing we need to focus on was when
Speaker 1: she was going, when she was in hospice, and for me,
Speaker 1: it was love. And I'm like, what do you what
Speaker 1: do you mean? She's like, you know, you give a
Speaker 1: lot of love, but you'll really be able to love
Speaker 1: when you let people love you. And in all my pain,
Speaker 1: you're talking about being a black kid in the eighties nineties,
Speaker 1: without a father, growing up in poverty. My family is
Speaker 1: decimated by the crack epidemic, decimated by the heroine epidemic.
Speaker 1: My mother had me at eighteen. I've been molested by
Speaker 1: my babysitter. I've watched, you know how life works in
Speaker 1: an over police neighborhood. I didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: trust in being loved, right, And when I started receiving love,
Speaker 1: allowing myself to receive love, I'm like, oh, this changes everything.
Speaker 1: And what I want for people is for people who
Speaker 1: I don't even know to receive love. Right. If a
Speaker 1: stranger can do something for you. It doesn't just have
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, if a kid lives in you know, poverty,
Speaker 1: let's give them pencils and book bags and stuff to
Speaker 1: have the baseline fundamental things. If I can also say,
Speaker 1: like I want you to enjoy your life, that could
Speaker 1: be a game change, right, Like this person I didn't
Speaker 1: know at all wanted me to enjoy my life and
Speaker 1: loved me despite not even knowing me. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of like where all my philanthropy comes from. Loving people
Speaker 1: radically even if you don't know them, right, just having
Speaker 1: a love for society and mankind, loving people enough to
Speaker 1: love themselves. How has that changed how you move to
Speaker 1: the world, having that radical love for just strangers. Do
Speaker 1: you see yourself walking down the street differently these days?
Speaker 1: You know? It's interesting because I think that like both
Speaker 1: things are juxtaposed, right, the radical love and the radical accountability.
Speaker 1: You know, So if you do something, for example, that's
Speaker 1: like oppressive, racist, homophobic, whatever it is, I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: you accountable. And it's through that accountability, like in my opinion,
Speaker 1: like you know, where I grew up. You know, people
Speaker 1: just get punched in your face with some nonsense. Right,
Speaker 1: So so if I hold you accountable through like systems
Speaker 1: of being like, hey, like you did this wrong, here's
Speaker 1: the consequence for doing this wrong. Now. Also, you're still here, right,
Speaker 1: You're still with us, And a lot of black people,
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are trans especially don't get
Speaker 1: the privilege of growth because they're not still here with us.
Speaker 1: So you still being here is even a privilege within
Speaker 1: our system. So now that you are still here, you've
Speaker 1: been held accountable. Now how are you going to grow?
Speaker 1: And what are you gonna do with the rest of
Speaker 1: your time? So that period is where the radical love
Speaker 1: comes in. I can bunk you on your head with
Speaker 1: the accountability, and then I can like hand you the
Speaker 1: olive branch of love and be like, you know, these
Speaker 1: two things combined will help you change the world. I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that. So before I let you go,
Speaker 1: I want to see if you'd be up for giving,
Speaker 1: you know, the audience of advice, because I think our
Speaker 1: audience is very much people like us and and people
Speaker 1: that like are in our community, but are definitely not
Speaker 1: having these conversations all the time, which is a big
Speaker 1: part of this and something you said earlier about you know, like,
Speaker 1: trusting and letting other people love you is a big
Speaker 1: part of loving others. What advice you have for folks
Speaker 1: listening on the best way for them to begin that
Speaker 1: trust fall for love? Mm hmmm. I would say that
Speaker 1: the advices to unpack the realities of your trauma. Right,
Speaker 1: I think that all of us living in these constructs,
Speaker 1: I don't really I don't care what aspect of it
Speaker 1: you live in, right, Like, whether it's able, is um capitalism, well,
Speaker 1: whatever is um it is or obia whatever, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you are traumatized. And trauma is the direct adversary of love.
Speaker 1: So as you are unpacking, unlearning, thinking about the traumas
Speaker 1: that you not only have face with the traumas of
Speaker 1: just being in your body when you step out of
Speaker 1: your home or you go on Instagram, when you go
Speaker 1: on Twitter, or when you see the news, Unpacking that
Speaker 1: and taking it out of your suitcase allows you to
Speaker 1: put love in that suitcase, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And and and that's been an important work for me.
Speaker 1: And that's why I tell everybody go to therapy, because
Speaker 1: that's where you do a lot of that unpacking. Like, hey,
Speaker 1: take some of this out right, like and patriarch people
Speaker 1: that said to my babysitter, who Lestlian, I wrote her
Speaker 1: a letter and I told her, I wrote, I'm writing
Speaker 1: this letter so that I can let my fiance in
Speaker 1: more right, I literally said that to her. I'm like
Speaker 1: this because you don't own me, So I'm releasing you
Speaker 1: of this space that you think that you occupy. I
Speaker 1: am not confined. You were not confined. We are not
Speaker 1: confined to this moment in time because I'm building other moments.
Speaker 1: But I can't build those moments unless I make room
Speaker 1: for them. Uh. I love that. I'm gonna take that
Speaker 1: with me forever. I think that was like a an aha,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. And you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: what you're saying right there, and what makes that possible
Speaker 1: is due to another thing you said is that we
Speaker 1: are all still here and you're alife and you can
Speaker 1: make a lot of choice is moving forward. So Frederick,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here today. This has
Speaker 1: been an incredible, incredible pleasure. You are just brilliant. I
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be brilliant, and it was brilliant.
Speaker 1: So thank you for showing up for this. Zach. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking the time and making the space.
Speaker 1: This has been phenomenal, and this is it's just been
Speaker 1: something for me going into the holiday season over the
Speaker 1: next few months that I'm just gonna it's gonna make
Speaker 1: my heart full. So thank you. Our lives are collection
Speaker 1: of stories, some that we tell often, some that we
Speaker 1: are still learning, and others that stay hidden for good reason.
Speaker 1: But as Frederick shows us, we are the narrator of
Speaker 1: our lives, and no matter what chapter you are on today,
Speaker 1: you still have the power to control the unwritten. All right,
Speaker 1: until next time, remember to breathe, stay hydrated, and I'm
Speaker 1: positive we can all live a healthier and happier life.
Speaker 1: This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Speaker 1: Find this episode and others on the Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to share, rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: This show is produced by Vane Chien and mastered by
Speaker 1: James Foster. Our show researcher is John and Raggio and
Speaker 1: our writer is Yvette Lopez. A special shout out to
Speaker 1: our guest Predrick Joseph. I'm your host, Zach Stafford