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