 My thesis is that women have to learn how to properly perspectivize and empathize with men's experiences without centering themselves when they listen. What does that look like? A miracle at this point. But I feel like within this whole conversation about the impacts of feminism on black women and whatever else that has caused this whole men versus women thing, where we end up landing is somehow on the side of superiority complex or this whole deal of I don't, as you often say, I don't need a man, I want a man, and how devaluing that is. And I don't feel like we didn't mean it to be devaluing. We meant it to be empowering of ourselves because of all the times when you couldn't even get a bank account as a woman or vote without being attached to a man. So I think it's kind of like the dark side of having the ability to do things now, but it's imbalanced. Imbalance looks like just trying to understand. And that's a whole journey because you have to literally, you have to literally retrain your brain. Because I'm talking as somebody who genuinely believes this and I still every day have to ensure that the coding isn't reverting back. Like it's that much of a lifestyle change. What's the consequence if nothing changes? The dating and relationship realities that we're in right now continuing to the point to where there's a complete breakdown in our community. We're already approaching and have been for several decades now, but when it becomes unsalvageable, when the effects of it become irreversible, I don't think that that's a what if that it behooves any of us to find out. So we need to fix it. And I guess because of that, we need to talk. Why, what is talking gonna do about this, man? Because you got what, 687 videos? You, we've been talking. I got a couple of videos. We've been talking, man. What is the importance of conversations? Do you think that could be enough? Do you see it as a first step? There are logic behind it? For me, I think the more than talking and communication, for me, it's about understanding. Because to your point, I think a lot of people talk, but if they're not being heard and if they're not approaching it with the right energy, it's not gonna be productive. So for me, a lot of these conversations that I'm curating, it's less about whatever's being discussed and it's more about the optics of black men, black women, or black men, black women having conversation in a way where the men are open to understanding the female experience, that women are open to understanding the male experience and people can see that we can do it. Even this, the goal of this is for black men and women in whatever settings that they find themselves in, maybe cosplay what we're doing, like find a couch, whether it's blue or whatever, sit down and talk and ask questions and center the other person and listen to a perspective that you might not understand, you might not agree with, but it gives you a more well-rounded idea of what we're up against. So I thought that question back to you, what is the thing or things that you feel like men misunderstand, dismiss or minimize about the black women's experience with us? Okay, so when I get to talking about how much black women need to take a moment to reflect and understand men as human beings, there's always that pushback of, but how we like this is because that whole thing and the truth is there's absolute 100% validity to that. For every woman who clenches at the idea of submitting to a man, for every woman that is problematic or has an attitude, there are usually not women, but several ranging from her father to her uncle, to her first boyfriend, to her last boyfriend who are a part of the cause and effect of why she reacts that way. As Dr. Joy DeGruy would put it, it's a appropriate adaptation to a traumatic experience. I think men have to realize that there is a such thing as toxic masculinity, the same as there is a such thing as toxic femininity, and we end up retaliating from our toxic places when we've been hurt by each other. And we have to be aware of that and find a way to short-circuit the process, because if we don't have a way to start off with a clean slate for everybody that we have identified as toxic femininity, properly identified is worthy of that, then we're not gonna be able to get out of this through it that we're in. So that's what I think it looks like. Here's a problem that I see. Oftentimes that empathy that you're asking for and other women are asking for is one-sided, right? So it's, I want you to be cognizant of empathetic of delicate with what happened to me when I was three, four, five, the colorism that I faced as a black woman, the texturism, maybe some assaults, bad parenting, absent parenting, and I am still worthy of love. However, I require you to be delicate in your approach to loving me. While simultaneously dismissing men who have similar experiences, right? So the guys who, for instance, the whole nice guys finish last thing, the even the concept of the red pill, when guys grow up and they realize why women have been putting them in the friend zone, realize that women aren't sugar and spice and everything nice. The response to that is not similar to the response to women who've been through a lot. The response to it is more so you're an adult now, you're grown, why are you still holding those grudges? Why haven't you gotten over it, right? And while you are catering to my hurt, you need to know how to put your hurt aside. And I think a lot of men in our growing kind of general self-awareness are like, that's not fair. It doesn't make any sense. As a matter of fact, one of the table episodes, Ja was talking about his mother. His mother was on drugs in the whole nine. The comment section was saying, ladies, if you ever come across this type of man run, why is he trying to fix other people, right? It was a very dismissive tone of, you are not worthy of love or the patience of a woman who would be necessary to love a man like you, while simultaneously the message is that every woman is deserving of love. So why is that imbalance so popular like popular and nobody actually talks about it? Well, hey, we're talking about it now. And I hope conversations like this are helpful for people to ask themselves that question because the truth is there is no reason why that should be allowed to continue. What you're stating is a literal example that people can go look in the comments and see that this happens and it's not the only place that it has happened. And so that's why I feel so strongly that for women that's where our work starts. Every woman has to ask themselves that question. For me, the answer was because I had to have a wakeup call to realize that I was socialized that way. It's built into the infrastructure of how we relate to men. And I can barely even point to it. I just know that when I read the book, Rights of Passage for Black Boys, I can't recall the author, but in that he details the black man's experience in America, how he's targeted for drug and crime offenses, petty offenses just to keep the prisons full. And that was my first time. I was a freshman at Hampton University. That was my first time coming into contact with that information. So it caused me to say, ah, no wonder our men are in the predicament that they're in, why wouldn't you be? So that's why every woman has to kind of go down a path of research just for the sake of empathizing with men. It's the same way that men have to look up what a woman's menstrual cycle is like. If you're a man and you've never Googled that and how it impacts how you interact with her, then that's the exact same thing just from the male perspective. Like men look into that at a certain point in every man's life, it kind of looks into that so that he will know. You need to know that. You need to know how that affects you and when you interact with her if you want or not want certain things to occur. So it's that kind of thing. We have to get back to a lifestyle of being able to put the other first. And I think that we used to be like that back in the days when we had to be like that. And the second choice was introduced and economics was introduced to black women and depending on black men, then like they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Money corrupts situations. So we all know the ways in which economics has been weaponized to imbalance the relationship between black men and women in particular. But we have to look at that. We have to make a study of history whether the ancient past or like little recent decades ago history and policy in this country contributes to why we are the way we are. And if all we're doing is scrolling on our phone, you may or may not ever come into contact with that information in a usable framework. So everybody got to go on that path for themselves. Like you have to. Are you looking at the camera? No. Am I supposed to be? You're supposed to be looking at me. I don't look at people when I talk to them. It's weird to me. You want me to? You don't look at people when you talk to them. No. Because it's like I'm in my thought place so I have to go look through my files. But then that's gonna come off as inauthentic. I can see you in your thought place. I could try. I would try. Other people gonna see you in your thought place. All right, let me face you. What are you afraid of people discovering if you're outside of your thought place? You're not understanding. It's not a conscious thing. It's just something I always do. But you're conscious that you always do it? It's not conscious in the moment. Because I know, oh, it's bad. So let me try to look, but it just feels so horrible that I always look away. No, I understand like looking away when like you're still forming a thought. But like literally you were addressing. Me and Ms. Island? You were addressing the refrigerator. Let me tell you wrong. Like yo, so here's my theory. Okay, thank you for pointing that out. Let me try better. No, stop trying. That's, stop trying. I can't. Yes, you can't. I don't know what that is. This, what just happened? Both things are still recording. This is not trying. You did it, Joe. So just be my awkward self? Yes. Oh, okay. Say Liz. That's what you had to say. I said that already. And did you? Yes. I have to read a joint degree. What can I say? I'm media trained. I hate media trained people. You know that, right? You said it. That's why I said it. Yeah, I hate media trained people. I'm not really media trained. Yes, you are. Who trained me? Who said do this? Then do that. Media trained more than like having your body trained. Degree in like mass calm is like the right way to do press. I would rather talk about it from an emotional perspective because women are emotional creatures. So I feel like to land this point of why it's important for each of us to do the work of perspectiveizing or centering the other on Thanksgiving Day.