Welcome to the Black Women Amplify podcast where we celebrate the brilliance, resilience and artistry of black women shaping the world.

I'm your host, Monica Wisdom, and today we have an incredible show where we're going to talk about all the things happening in the world at this moment.

If you're like me, the past week and a half has been a up and down of emotion between checking what's going on and shutting down my social media, hopping back on and all the things I have really been trying to assess what happened, how it happened, and why is it happening.

We are two, almost three weeks out from when Kamala Harris did not win the presidency.

And black women have taken a step back, which I'm right there with them.

But I think we're all at the point where we're settling into the realization of what's going on.

Not to engage, but to really assess our own lives.

A bit of a journey of self discovery and getting out of the shock of what had happened.

What had happened was I was listening.

So on my front, I have, I think I told you this.

I'm trying to recalibrate everything with black women amplified.

And I really didn't.

This is just an honest conversation.

I really, really, for about a week, contemplated changing the name of everything because of the climate that we're about to go in.

And so I've been praying about it, you know, talking to myself about it and, you know, trying to get back to the center of why I started this and the center of why I started this whole platform.

Personal development, women's empowerment, the podcast, the blog, all of the things building this brand, building this platform was to amplify the voices of black women.

And the title is a clear sign of who this is for now, it's for everybody to listen to.

There's nobody excluded from listening, but you're going to hear from black women, hear about black women and hear our perspective of life.

So it's black woman centered, but anybody is Welcome.

I mean, 18% of our listeners are men, which I'm incredibly grateful for.

And the number keeps growing, even on social media where we have thousands and thousands of people.

Men are joining every single day.

I can see everybody that joins.

More and more men are coming onto the platform.

I think that.

Here's what I think is happening.

There is a, and this is a sidebar from what I wanted to talk about.

But there's a growing number of these BRO podcasts that are toxic, misleading, misinformed.

And we saw the onslaught of that during the political season.

Where we saw, you know, young white men come up, come out who listen to their versions of the podcast that I'm talking about.

There's arguments about men against women.

And you know, what women need to do to get a man, What a man needs to get a woman who's high value.

Who's this?

Who's that?

Who cares?

You know, it's just.

It's very toxic.

It's very demeaning.

And it will.

If a woman is.

Has insecurities that will heighten them, it will bring out your anxieties, it will make you feel insecure, because no matter what they say, nobody lives up to those imaginary standards.

You're human.

You make mistakes, and you're trying to get to the next day just like everybody else.

And there's nothing wrong with you.

There's nothing wrong with the way that you do things.

And if you need to improve yourself, you go to professionals, you hire established coach, you go to a therapist, you see your minister who is versed in your situation.

You get into a community of women who are in places where you want to go so that you can lift yourself up.

But the place not to listen and the places not to get advice from are these Toxic Brothers podcast.

It's just not.

It's just not.

And I think that men are feeling the same way.

They don't want to hear it either.

They want to hear positivity.

And that came out.

And I'm always gonna.

I see.

I'm gonna keep referencing the election, but when black men stood up after they had been told they're not gonna support black women.

They're not doing this for black women.

They're not doing that for black women.

They.

The ones that do got real loud, and it was like, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

They were like, yes, we do.

We don't have a problem with black women.

Our mamas are black women.

Our grandmamas are black women.

Our sisters are black women.

Our cousins are black women.

And they tell us what to do every day.

And you know what we say?

Okay, honey.

Okay, sis.

Okay, I got you.

That's what we say, and that's what they do.

And that's just the truth of the matter.

I think about the men in my family, and people ask me, why, how come you never get married?

I said, well, if you have met the men in my family, I'm spoiled.

Like, the men in my family are so dynamic.

My cousin Jack, my Uncle Harry, my cousin John, my cousin Greg and Steve, who are married men who love their partners.

My in Law cousins, and they're my cousins, Ernie and Mark, and all these dynamic men that are in my family.

And it's very, and let me say this, I got all kinds of men in my family.

But here's what I know for sure.

I'm a whole lot of woman.

I'm a whole lot of woman.

And it takes a very secure, compassionate, empathetic man to be in relationship with me.

So I know that about myself because I've done the self discovery work.

I have a community of women who tell me about myself.

I have family that tells me about myself.

So I'm clear on who I am.

And it took a lot of work.

It took a lot of personal development work, it took a lot of self discovery work.

It took a lot of intimacy thoughts about my life.

And it took me really getting into forgiveness, letting go, and just really soon seeing who I am outside of what the world tells me that I am.

And in that self discovery, I realized that for me to marry someone, they had to have certain qualities.

I never wanted to be married or in a relationship just because I felt lonely or I felt peer pressure or I felt obligated that this was supposed to be my path.

That's not the path for everybody.

But at the end of the day, I think that men come here because it's a soft place to land and they want, they need doses of positivity just like we do.

And I thrive to make this podcast a dose of positivity.

And it's.

So the information, like I said, is for everybody, but it's from the perspective of a black woman built for black women, about black women.

So black women be black women over here.

And so as I look through the landscape of this election, podcast made a very important impact on the results.

I was listening to, I've been listening to Joy Reed and she happened to be in town for a conference that has to do with diversity and inclusion.

And my cousin came in town for it and oh my God, I'll tell you about that in a minute.

We had the best time, the best time.

But I was able to hear her conversation with Alicia Garza.

Somebody recorded it and sent me the recording.

It was an excellent conversation.

And prior to that, I'm a part of Win with Black Women, which I encourage each of you to join, to go on their website and get on their mailing list and join the calls.

They start back in December, but you get a lot of really on the ground information that pertains to us specifically.

And listening to Joy Reid came out on there I think I talked about it last week, but she talked about the stats of the stats of the election, and people were saying that it was because of brown people, it was because of the Arab people, it was because of all of these people.

Well, she being a professor and just an intellectual, she broke the numbers down.

And the numbers came down that white women are 30% of the electorate.

Black women are 7% of the electorate.

So even though we voted at 92%, there are not enough of us to shift unless the numbers are super tight.

But 54% of white women, and this white woman is not broken down into political parties.

It's of all white women and all black women, 54% voted for, not Kamala Harris.

So because of that, they were the biggest deciding factor in this election.

And I think what hurt when black women saw these numbers, what hurt the most is that so many of them said, we're here with you.

And what we said back was, don't disappoint us again.

And y'all played in our faces.

And I know I talked about that before, but I think that that is what is the.

Was the core of what they're calling now the big step back.

Right?

Because y'all played in our faces.

We believed it, and now we're like, find somebody else to do it.

But my point is that looking over the situation of what's happening, this administration, the regime.

I'm not even calling them an administration.

The regime that was elected is not here to help anybody.

It is absolutely not here to help anybody but themselves.

But at the end of the day, they're going to hurt themselves because everything they're doing is based off of ideology and putting in place philosophical regimes that happened in the past.

This ain't the past.

So no matter what they put in place, there is a different.

This is a different era.

And so while people might be silent right now, there's also an understanding of we know what to do because we've been here before.

And the issue with why people say, listen to black women, listen to black women and watch black women.

Because here's the thing.

We have been through this before.

Every other demographic has not been through what we've been through in this country.

What they're bringing in is Jim Crow 2.0.

We went through the original version.

We're the Macintosh of apartheid.

You know, where people are getting the apple 16.

We're over here in Macintosh world, where we've been through it before.

And because of that, we know what's about to happen.

And here's the illusion of the conversations, that everybody thinks it's just about us.

We're the last people on that list this time, the Asians and Latinos and other groups, women and other groups of people are first on the list.

Because here's the thing.

There's a woman named Dr.

Cressley, Frances Cressley.

She wrote a book called the ISIS Paper, and you can find her lectures on YouTube.

But she talked about this moment when white people are on the precipice of becoming the minority.

What will happen is primal fear, and primal fear will send them into a tizzy.

So white nationalism is the tizzy that they are in.

Right.

So what we're going to do as their thought process is, it's not very intelligent, but it's not fair, and it's very detrimental.

But the thought process is, if we just get rid of you, we force our women to have babies, then we'll have more people.

So we'll have.

So we'll still be in power and we'll still have the majority.

Here's the problem, which is why they want to get rid of people.

The problem is everybody's all together now.

In most communities, rural communities are dying.

And the people that are moving to rural communities are blue people, Right?

Red people are older groups of people, which is why they're trying to indoctrinate people now, which is why they're trying to change the educational system, which is why they're getting rid of any information about the true history of America.

Latino history, primarily black history, indigenous history.

They want to get rid of all of that and rewrite the story, making them the heroes.

They want to be the John Wayne of America, right?

And we know all about John Wayne.

If you don't know, Google it or ask somebody.

That's a boomer.

John Wayne was not nobody's hero.

He was an actor.

This is all an act.

But the problem is that people believed the act that they were presented.

They spent over $200 million to talk about trans people specifically.

There were horrible ads, and the fear that it created was completely false.

Trans people are 1% of the population.

1% of the population of the United States.

States of America that identifies as trans.

1%.

Here's the thing.

Unless you know a trans person, you don't know who's trans.

You honestly do not.

So there's only one way to find out, and that is unconstitutional.

Okay?

So you have no idea if your neighbor your.

So it makes it setting up this paranoia that is just not real.

It is not a real problem.

But because of people's bigotry and ignorance, Bigotry and ignorance, they believe the people that were talking to them.

That's a whole nother story.

But at the end of the day, people's bigotry and ignorance ushered in a regime.

A regime.

A regime that is going.

That is intended to hurt everybody who does not believe what they believe.

I've been deep in my Bible and.

Sorry, my phone is going off.

I've been deep in my Bible.

I've been reading Galatians and I've been reading Galatians, and it has been very enlightening.

And it talks about people of the world and people of God, and that's the choice, I think, that we're in right now, whatever your belief is that we have to go deeper into our faith and move away from the misunderstandings of the world so that we understand that we do have innate power.

You know, we do have the power to speak up, fight back, get louder.

And when it comes to these podcasts, they're using their power to get their perspectives out.

And that's why I encourage everybody who has even a desire to start a podcast to start one, but don't start one.

That's another podcast about shenanigans.

If you have an expertise, if you have a, you know, a message, if you have a perspective, we need the version of a Joe Rogan on the blue side.

We need a version of whatever they're listening to on this side that puts out information about our lives.

You know, I pray one day that this particular podcast blows up so that people have a soft place to land that is honest and with integrity and empathy.

Sharing information not just from my lived experience, but from what I've learned from others.

And if you listen to the interviews on this podcast, you know that these women are sharing their lives in a very powerful way.

You know, that you don't get in most places.

And they're often voices that you don't hear.

I talk about often that Everybody's not Viola Davis.

Everybody is not Cheryl Lee Ralph.

Everybody is not, you know, Megan Thee, stallion.

Everybody is not Beyonce, everybody.

There are people in between those layers that honestly have powerful information to share.

You know, whether they're a wildlife ecologist or a Broadway star or an entrepreneur, they have nuggets of information to share with us.

And those are the people that I talk to.

Some of them are entertainers, and they're having very authentic conversations.

But I'm saying All this to say is that we have choices of how we feed our soul, what we listen to.

You know, we often talk about a diet, but we also have to take a negativity diet.

You know, we have to cut out the negativity, the rage, police, the.

The constant idea that everything's in a panic.

It's not good for us.

It's not.

Not that it's not good for our.

Just not good for our soul, but it's not healthy to be in a state of panic all the time.

So we have to turn that stuff off.

You have to turn the media off.

You have to be careful who you listen to, be careful of the music that you listen to, because at the end of the day, it's just that that nonsense is going to get louder and louder and louder.

Yes, Be informed, but also be aware that there are other voices, there are other spaces, there are other ways to get the information that you need.

So when I was listening to Joy Reid talk with Alicia Garza, it was very.

Joy is going to give you worst case scenario, but from a very smart perspective, it's not to terrorize, it's to inform.

So that's why I listen to Joy, because she's going to give you.

She's going to give you the information.

No fluff.

And she's just.

She just is who she is.

I think she's authentic, and I just think she just tells the truth as she sees it.

And we also have to understand that there are people out there that are spreading misinformation.

We keep talking about misinformation.

What is misinformation?

Misinformation looks like truth.

It's presented with confidence, but it is a complete fabrication, period.

The whole scenario could be made up.

Like somebody could come on a podcast and give you information, and they have literally made up the entire scenario.

How do I know?

Because I've listened to them.

And then what I do, I go do my own research.

Like I tell everybody, if I say something, you're like, what does that mean?

Google it.

Get the information.

Find out for yourself.

Do your own due diligence.

Just like you try and find the best purse or the best pair of shoes, or you research hairstylist.

I need you to do that for information as well.

It's very, very, very important that we seek truth, not sensationalism, that we seek truth, not nonsense and more.

The more that we move into this regime that's coming in, we have got to find truth.

And it's just, like I said, the nonsense is just going to get louder.

And so when I was thinking about should I change the name of this podcast at this time, the answer is no.

Because I know that my sisters need to see this, my sisters need to feel this, my sisters need to understand that there's a place for them to land with somebody who sees them, cares for them and acknowledges them.

And it's important that we all do the same for each other to build community.

So like I said, I'm going to find a space where we can have these conversations off the podcast and out of the public.

I still haven't decided that's, that's going to come up in the next few days.

But I hope that you support it and you share it because it's, it's about, it's not just about you, it's also about me.

I need community and I have some great communities.

But I also know that there's some things that I'm going to want to share, but I'm not going to share on this podcast.

So I encourage you to join the email list so that you know more about it.

Go to the website, get on the email list and really get into what I'm offering.

Because this is, this is my heart song.

This is my assignment from God.

And you know, when I prayed about it, God said, just keep going, just keep going.

And my message today was God told me to feed the people, continue to feed the people, meaning feed them soul food.

Food for your soul of positivity and understanding that we have to, as we're going through this great step back.

We have to unlock our powers that have been oppressed by other groups of people, by other people, by media, by sensationalism, by all of the things that are the illusion that don't show us who we are.

Right?

Cardi B Fun.

She doesn't represent me at all.

Megan Thee Stallion.

She is what she is.

She doesn't represent me at all, at all.

And I'm not giving shade on any woman.

But we have to recognize and go to the places that, where we see ourselves.

And I hope that you see yourself here because I have an open wide space for black women of all walks of life to come and black men to come and anybody who wants to feel seen, heard and acknowledged.

But I'm saying all that to say, yeah, get engaged wherever you are.

Find community.

Don't stay in your silo if you're introverted.

Find community of people that are like minded, that you know will care for you, that you can trust.

Because as we go through this turbulent time, it doesn't have to be all turbulent.

It doesn't have to be all panic.

There are spaces of love that are ready to welcome you, and I suggest you find them.

You know, this is going to be a space of love.

And I'm not going to talk about the election much more, but I will talk about the power of black women that was displayed during the election.

And you can go back to the last podcast where I was talking about.

I think it's entitled Get Somebody Else to Do It.

From that meme.

Get somebody else to do it.

Because here's the thing.

We're not fighting for anybody but ourselves anymore.

Every other group of people does it.

They fight for themselves.

They fight for their people.

They fight for their generations to come, and they honor their generations from the past.

And we have so much culture, texture, love, light, and all the things that we can be giving to ourselves.

And it's important more than ever that we are really intentional about that.

So I invite you to be intentional with your life.

I invite you to be intentional with the decisions that you make and be very clear and conscious of why you're doing it.

It's important that if you don't know which direction to go in, what to do, that you ask yourself, why?

Why is this important?

Will this matter to me in five years?

Will this matter to me in a year?

You know, from making a purchase to choosing a friend to choosing a mate, you know, choosing a partner, choosing a decision to start a company.

Is this important?

Why am I doing it?

And what impact will it have on me in five.

A year, three years, five years?

All of those things.

I think that's a beautiful thing.

But I don't think we just need to step back.

We also need to step into ourselves.

You know, this is a great time to have your own renaissance.

You know, tap into the things that you've always wanted to do.

Because what you don't need to do is try and fill up this.

You know, take that cape off and then put a different cape on.

The idea is to take the cape off and fall in love with yourself in a whole new way, discover yourself in a whole new way, you know, really understand who you are in a whole new way, and then play and have fun.

You know, this is a time where you can.

If you've ever thought about painting, you know, this is a great time to get on somebody's website, order some paint and some Paintbrushes, easel, and some paper.

You know, if you've ever wanted to write a book, order some notebooks and just start writing.

If you've ever wanted to start a business, download some business books and, you know, visit some websites of people who you admire and see what they're doing and how they're doing it and find your own way.

You know, we don't need to duplicate anybody because God has given us innate gifts, innate powers, innate understanding of the world that colors everything we do.

And oftentimes we allow other people's opinions and ideas of what's popular and exciting decide how we're going to act and react.

You know, I just like this podcast.

I could easily talk about hot topics and gossip and all the things, but I'm interested in books and films and travel and, you know, things that are enlightened, enlightening.

You know, I don't like Cirque Tell.

I don't like surface conversations.

I don't care enough about celebrities except for Prince and Michael Jackson to have a conversation about them.

I'm not even going to talk about Beyonce or Janet Jackson, but I will talk about Michael and Prince all day long.

And Kendrick Lamar, you know, I love me some Kendrick Lamar, but that's not even going to be a long conversation.

Just simply, I love Kendrick Lamar.

It's so funny.

Sidebar I mentor a group of kids at a black podcast class at the University of Maryland.

So at the top of each Semester, the professor, Dr.

Brianna, has me come in and talk to her students.

And even though it's a black podcasting class, I love that a university.

More universities are offering podcasting because it such an important medium and I think that people take it for granted.

But it is such an important podcast.

Some of these podcasts are getting more listeners in these cable news networks and then now you're finding these cable news people are getting their own podcast.

So anyway, she brings me in and this was my third semester doing it and I always let her know if they have questions.

So sometimes they send me questions and I answer them and I'm just here to support their journeys.

And I love being able to infuse truth and to tell them to be, to have integrity, don't try and be popular, have integrity and the people will come.

And so at the end of it, they had a.

At the end of my session she did a rapid questions and she asked me what was my favorite, who was my favorite member of NSync?

I don't know who they are.

I was like, I don't even know their names because I always get the boy groups confused.

I know who Justin Timberlake is and I know who Joey Fatone is because he's Greek.

And I love, I love the Greek Islands, but I don't, I don't know the names of the groups that they're in.

That was not my era.

After New Edition, you know, then I'm done.

Then I was into the girl groups, the boy groups.

But the second question, the last question was, what is your, who's your favorite artist?

No, what's your favorite song?

What's your favorite song?

And I couldn't think of a Michael Jackson song.

I couldn't think of a Prince song.

So I said, which is the, which is, which is the truth?

Anything by Kendrick Lamar is my favorite song.

So he feeds his music, feeds my soul.

I think.

I contemplate, I wonder, I research.

I'm like, what is he talking about?

And I do the same thing when I read James Baldwin or Paul Robeson or Nikki Giovanni or Sonia Sanchez or a plethora of people.

Because I want to be informed from a diverse thought process of many different black people, you know, because it's important to be ready to have the conversations.

It's important to be informed through many generations, not just one.

And it's important that we are equipped to have intelligent conversations, not sensationalism and rage filled conversations.

There's no need to be angry every day because there's still so much beauty in the world.

You know, there's still so much light in the world and people are doing great things in the world.

But if we just focus on one element, we get the results that we get.

We get the results that we did in the election because people were fed fear and their fear made their choices.

And now that they recognize that they were bamboozled by fear, fear, they're realizing that everything they said was going to happen is also going to happen to them.

So we also have to be careful of those people.

They're like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't know.

They said the sec.

The highest search on Google the day after the election was, can I change my vote?

No, it's not a practice.

There's no practice in voting.

You vote.

And it's important that more people, like get in your circles and get those people registered to vote and talk about the importance of it.

I hear so many people.

I hang around a lot of creative people and they're so enlightened and they're so airy fairy, like, this doesn't impact me.

If you drive on a road, it impacts you.

If you get insurance, it impacts you.

If you eat out of the grocery, if you're not growing your own food, it impacts you.

We live in a capitalist society that is regulated by a series of politicians.

And some people know how to work the system and some people don't.

But everything is not airy fairy.

There are realities that happen every single day and there are decisions that are made by people who are elected into office.

If we don't pay attention to the people that are running for office, we get the results that we get.

So hopefully it's a clear.

It's clear.

It's clear that elections matter, that your vote matters, that who goes in office absolutely matters, that you have to do your research before you go to that voting booth.

And this is not.

It's important to say, and I know if you're listening, I know that you voted, but this is information I'm equipping you with to share with the young people that say, oh, it doesn't matter.

Vote doesn't matter.

It absolutely does.

And we don't have to give them the conversation.

People died for this.

But that's true.

But practical reasons for voting, just the things that happen in your area code determined by the people we elect, depending just like that.

What is it?

The superintendent in, I want to say, Tennessee, and he's a Christian nationalist, and he ordered Bibles to be put into every classroom.

Well, in America, we have freedom of religion.

Not everybody is a Christian.

Not everybody's a Christian nationalist.

Not everybody believes in God, not everybody believes in the Bible.

And that's religious freedom.

You get to practice how you choose to practice your belief system or not have one, whether you agree with it or not, that's law.

And so for him to begin his indoctrination of those students and not even talking to the parents about it, I smell a civil rights lawsuit.

I'm just saying.

But my point is that people think that indoctrination is the way forward, but we have to fight against that.

And the other thing that's important to fight against it is to put your voice out there to write your book, to start your podcast, to start your blog, to put your ideas into the world, to flood the world with positivity.

And it may not reach the people that you think, but it's going to reach somebody.

I mean, I would have never thought that this podcast would be listened to in Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.

All across the world, people are hearing my voice and hearing my perspective.

In life and are hearing information that is counter to what they see on the media.

And not that this is going to become a news podcast, but it's about amplifying our voices.

And there are many levels to our voices.

There is empowerment, but there's also information.

We have to be informed with the truth.

There is also we have to counteract things that are not true, especially moving forward.

So, like I said, if you have a method, a mindset, a perspective, I encourage you to write your book, start a podcast, or start a blog.

You know, even if you want to use a different name, just get the information out there.

And if you need help doing that, you know, I'm a consultant, and I help people do that.

And I'm more than happy to send you in the right direction if I can help you.

But I think it's super important that we build a network of communication that supports truth, empathy and acknowledgement of truth, empathy and acknowledgement.

So I'm at the end of my conversation with you all, and I hope that you share this with a friend, send it via text to a couple of people to spread the word that there's a soft place for black women to land.

A place that sees you, acknowledges, acknowledges you, and understands from an empathetic perspective that you matter.

Your voice matters.

Your presence matters.

Everything about you has a place in this world, in this nation, in your state, in your city.

And no matter what these folks say, know that is not based in truth.

It is based in fear.

And anything based in fear will not prosper.

That's God's promise.

So understand that there are ways which we can do well.

And one of those ways is to resist with joy.

So paint that picture.

Write that book.

Dance that dance.

Sing that song, whatever it is.

Get deep into art.

Get deep into your faith, and get deep into a community that sees you.

All right, I've been recording all day.

I have an interview coming out next week week with Tasha Laray, who is the lead singer of Arrested Development.

I know I've been talking about this for a couple of weeks, but I've been in my head trying to figure all the things out.

And where I landed is with you.

So I'm here.

Black Women Amplified is loud and alive, and I need you to help it grow and prosper the way that it needs to with God's blessing.

So I'm just here to feed your soul.

Thank you for listening to the Black Women Amplified podcast.

Please visit www.blackwomenamplify.com and get on our email list and you will get a weekly newsletter as well as know about offerings and opportunities that we have, as well as a future membership coming up that will help us be in community.

I'm going to start off with a book club.

I'm making that decision right now.

There's going to be a book club, and we're going to read the books of the authors that have been featured on this podcast first.

I don't know which book will be first, but I will also add in some empowerment books.

I'll make a book list of things that you can read that will feed your soul.

But this is going to be a place where we educate each other, that we enlighten each other, and that we have conversations with each other.

This is going to be the hub of our community.

Black Women Amplified I'm happy that you're here.

Tell your friends and I'll talk to you soon.