BACK ISSUE
That Time We Literally Looked Back at It 🍑 (feat. ✊🏿 Nikki Giovanni, Nichole Perkins, and Savala Nolan)
In our final episode of season two, we had to “end” it just right, by doing what we do best—looking back at it (aye!)—so we’re backing thangs up with a conversation on booty. That’s right, Tracy and Josh are investigating the history and trends around round, plump posteriors, butts, dumps and humps. They invite writer and podcaster Nichole Perkins to help define terminology around Black women and girls’ bodies and sexual agency. We learn from author, professor and speaker Savala Nolan, who teaches us about the body as a site for learning. Finally, we witness wisdom in action, as we hear from Civil Rights activist, educator, poet and writer Nikki Giovanni, who shares her own body journey and some affirmations that we could all live by.
Simone: Hi, I'm Simone Moore. I'm 58.
Krystella: My name is Christella Jones. I am 62 years old.
Viveca: My name is Viveca Sims. I'm 57 years old.
Virginia: Hi, my name is Virginia Ousley. I am 63 years old
Carrie: My name is Carrie McDaniel. I am 57 years old. When I think of my butt.
Virginia: The first song that comes to mind is.
Carrie: (singing Body my Megan Thee Stallion)
[CLIP from Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body”]
Virginia: Back that thing up.
[CLIP from Juvenile’s “Back that Azz Up”]
Carrie: I think of the song by Nelly, I think my butt getting big.
[CLIP from Nelly’s “Hot in Herre”]
Virginia.: Baby Got Back. There's a line in Baby's Got Back, "red beans and rice didn't miss her." And I love red beans and rice.
[CLIP from “Baby Got Back”]
[CLIP from “Da Butt”]
Simone: Doing "Da Butt".
Viveca : Of course, doing "Da Butt".
Christella: Christella got a big old butt. Oh yeah.
[CLIP from “Brick House”]
Christella: "Brick House". She's a brick house. Mighty, mighty, built like an Amazon. So, that sons is all about me.
Viveca : That's the one that gives me the power now.
[CLIP] Voice: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross.
[CLIP] Voice: Ho, but make it fashion.
[CLIP] Voice: But you ain't heard that from me.
[CLIP] Voice: Fierce
[CLIP] Voice: Call ‘em
[CLIP] Voice: You see, when you do clownery--
[CLIP] Voice: ‘Cuz we won’t stop.
[CLIP] Voice: Can’t get no sleep ‘cuz of y’all--
[CLIP] Voice: the clown comes back to bite.
[CLIP] Voice: Y’all not gonna get no sleep ‘cuz of me.
[CLIP] Voice: It's Britney, bitch.
[CLIP] Voice: [Voices overlapping] We were rooting for you, Tiffany. We were all rooting for you [overlapping voices crescendo]
Tracy: Who said that?
[Intro music starts]
Josh: Welcome to Back Issue.
Tracy: A weekly podcast that revisits formative things, people and moments that we missed, and that changed us.
Josh: This week, (singing) let me sit this ass.
Tracy: Damn. On you. (laughs).
Josh: On you. (laughs).
Tracy: That's right, this week we are talking about the booty. Which is rocking, rocking, rocking everywhere. (laughs).
Josh: (laughs).
[CLIP from “Have Mercy”]
[CLIP] Voice: So what does bootylicious mean?
[CLIP] Voice: Beautiful, bountiful and bounceable.
[CLIP] Voice: Now see, that's just too much ass. See now, if a plane crashed, we could eat for days.
[CLIP] Voice: What you want? A barbie? What about all of this? You just want some (bleep). What about that (bleep)?
Tracy: Each week, we'll go back into the past and revisit unforgettable moments we all think we remember.
Josh: And learn what they can teach us about where we are now.
Tracy: I'm Tracy Clayton and I got a big booty.
Josh: And I'm Josh the Gwynn, the stallion.
Tracy: Oh.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: Josh, the pony. (laughs).
Josh: (laughs). Hey Trace.
Tracy: Hiiiiii
Josh: Today's a big day for us.
Tracy: It is. Tell the people why it's such a big day.
Josh: It's the last episode of this season, of season two!
Tracy: Whomp whomp.
Josh: I know.
Tracy: Yeah. It's bitter sweet. It's bitter sweet.
Josh: It is. Because like, you know, us and change. (laughs).
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right, right, all right, all right.
Josh: Because this is the final episode of the season.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Let's use it to talk about something that's really dear to our hearts, you know?
Tracy: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Josh: We're going to talk about the booty.
Tracy: Okay.
Josh: Why are we going to talk about the booty, Tracey?
Tracy: We're going to talk about butts, because they're such a huge part our culture. And by our culture, I mean black culture. And by black culture, I mean American culture, because American culture steals all of the black peoples'.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: Even booty.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: It's a very complicated issue and relationship, I think.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I think it's complicated with this idea of the fad.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Things come in and out of culture, and they are in and out of season.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: And in and out of style. And right now, the booty is in. Right?
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Like, (laughs) everyone's talking about butts.
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: Everyone's thinking about butts.
Tracy: The children are eating the booties like groceries (laughs).
Josh: (laughs). But, I just think it's really interesting how, like, the zeitgeist can change, and all of a sudden a body is in trend.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: Like, that's so weird.
Tracy: It's weird. And it's also a problem, because how you gonna tell me a body part that I was naturally born with, and I'm going to have the rest of my life, is just like, not in. Like, a body part can't be, like, in or out. Because some people have them, some people don't. That's fucked up. It's really, really fucked up.
Josh: It's hard for me to think about this. I think it's hard to think about the booty without thinking about a relationship to the body.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Oprah hands. (laughs).
Tracy: (laughs). Very great Oprah hands.
Josh: (laughs).
[Music fades]
Tracy: So in that vein, we want to just warn y’all - this episode touches on a lot of sensitive topics about the body, like diet culture and fatphobia and all that generally stressful stuff.
Josh: So if that’s something you’re sensitive to, maybe take some space and revisit this one. Take your time, we’re gonna be here in your podcast feed, ‘cuz that’s our job.
Tracy: Also, we live here.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I'm really, really excited to have this conversation, though, like, in all seriousness.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Because, I think that you and I have very different experiences.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And histories, and relationships to our bodies, and our identities. But, there's still some common ground to the way that we relate to them, and our bodies in general.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Mostly thanks to patriarchy.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: So, it should be fun to (laughs)...
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Dip our toes into that pond.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Also, I think that we should talk to the one and only Nichole Perkins for this episode, because...
Josh: Ooh.
Tracy: Yes. So, so relevant. So timely. She just wrote and published a book that's so good, you need to get it. It's called, "Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be." And in it, she talks a lot about desire, and how it intersects with the body, and the black female body in particular. And like.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: All of the challenges to that happiness, and that pleasure.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And just like being here and in a body in general, (laughs).
Josh: It's complicated.
Tracy: It's very complicated.
Josh: Okay. I think there's a lot to unpack, so I'm super down. I also think we should talk to Savala Nolan.
Tracy: Ooh.
Josh: She's the director of the Social Justice Program of the UC Berkeley School of Law, and the author of "Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body."
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: So we’re gonna talk to Savala. And then, we’re gonna revisit some super special voices - the ones that you heard at the top of the episode - of some very special Black women all over the age of 55, talking about their bodies, like you heard up top.
Tracy: Yes, and I LOVE that. I’m excited to spend this episode hearing from women speaking about their own bodies. I love it!
Josh: Especially women who have had enough time to see our bodies as fads come and go out of style, and have created themselves beyond that.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Also, me being me, and my Capricorn spirit.
Tracy: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Josh: I did some extra credit, and I have a surprise for you later. I talked to someone who I honestly never thought that I would ever get the chance to talk to, let alone for this show.
Tracy: Beyonce?
Josh: (laughs). Don't. No, no.
Tracy: Oh. Okay. All right.
Josh: But, I'll surprise you later.
Tracy: Yay. I'm excited. I can't wait.
Josh: But, before we do all that, we're going to get into everything booty. Everything body.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Everything butt. (laughs).
Tracy: (laughs). Everything ody? Ody-ody.(laughs).
Josh: (laughs). And because this is Back Issue, I think I know where we should start.
Tracy: Um, is it, way back? Way back when.
Josh: It's way back. It's way back.
Tracy: In history? Oh my gosh.
Josh: So, in doing my research for this episode, I stumbled on some articles from, like, 2013 and 2015. And to say that these articles are very white...
Tracy: Woo.
Josh: Is not an understatement.
Tracy: Uh-uh (negative).
Josh: I want to walk you through it.
Tracy: Like, I just... Before you give me all of the horrible news, I just want to tell every publication that has done one of these articles, I hate you, and you fucked up.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: Money on it. Money on it. Let's see if I'm right about these. (laughs).
Josh: Okay. Probably.
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: So, there’s this Health.com article from 2015, and it's called "9 awesome moments in butt history."
Tracy: Okay, just to clarify: you mean health magazine, right?
Josh: Right, as in these people supposedly care about health of your body.
Tracy: (Laughs) It’s wild to me that this is coming from a health publication.
Josh: Literally that!
Josh: So, number one. Do you know what number one could be?
Tracy: Well, this is a historical timeline, right?
Josh: Yeah. It starts around 200 BC.
Tracy: Um. Greek sculpture.
[Ding sound effect]
Josh: Absolutely.
Tracy: Ding, ding, ding.
Josh: That's like number one. Number two. Bustles, 1880s. We jump all the way to 1880s.
Tracy: Question. (laughs).
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: What?
Josh: Right. So, this tradition of wearing wire mesh, steel, or even straw under dresses to make an exaggerated silhouette.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exaggerated. I d-I wonder where they found the silhouette that they were trying to copy.
Josh: Hmm.
Tracy: Hmm. Interesting that this article don't say nothing about that.
Josh: Okay! Then we jump to 1971.
Tracy: Oh.
Josh: Hot pants.
Tracy: Hot pants. Like, extra short shorts?
Josh: Extra short shorts.
Tracy: Huh?
Josh: And then we jump to 1980s, aerobic videos, Jane Fonda, Buns of Steel.
Tracy: But didn't Buns of Steel try to make your butt smaller?
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: I'm, you know what.
Josh: And then we have 1999. J-Lo.
Tracy: There she go. Here she come. That's, that's...
Josh: White peoples' favorite.
Tracy: White peoples' booty mascot right there.
Josh: (laughs). Right.
Tracy: Oh lord.
Josh: We jump to 2005. Fergie and the release of "My Humps".
Tracy: All right.
Josh: I feel like this is a joke.
Tracy: I don't know.
Josh: And then we jump to 2011, Pippa Middleton upstages sister Kate at her own wedding, showing off her bump in a form-fitting white bridesmaids dress.
[CLIP] Voice: J-Lo's behind step aside, there's a new bum in town that everyone's talking about. Pippa Middleton's.
Tracy: So, I had to google this to see if it was actually a thing that people talked about--
Josh: Like, that is wild to me. This one, because the next point in the timeline is 2013, Miley Cyrus twerking on that stage with Robin Thicke.
Tracy: Ohhhhhhh...
Josh: And it says, "Miley Cyrus launches a twerking craze."
Tracy: How? Where?
Josh: Though the frenzied dance move has been around since at least the early 90s.
Tracy: If it's been around since at least the early 90s, then how's she launched it? How she did that?
Josh: And, if you're doing it right, it doesn't look frenzied. It's actually very organized.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: You would think it was frenzied if you were looking at that performance.
Tracy: Oh, that was definitely frenzied.
Josh: The last moment on this timeline, and I have to read it for you.
Tracy: Oh no.
Josh: 2014. This is the first time that a black person (laughs) is on this timeline.
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: Fans can't help cracking up over the booty-centric cover art for rapper Nikki Minaj's new single Anaconda.
Tracy: So, once black women are mentioned in history of booties, it’s because people were laughing at them.
Josh: It's a joke.
Tracy: It's a joke.
Josh: It's a joke.
Tracy: Wow. I'm physically angry. I really, really am. Like, how could nobody look over that and be like, "Oh yeah, we should maybe mention race about all of this shit."
Josh: (laughs). And like, maybe.
Tracy: Because it heavily informs what we think is sexy, what we think is cute. Like, the, the things that we're chasing, the things that white people are chasing.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: All of that is informed by race.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Gender, class. All of that shit.
Josh: It feels like a willful omission. Like, it feels like it's on purpose.
Tracy: Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Josh: It feels like a reconstruction of history.
Tracy: You have to go out of your way to cut black women out of a conversation like this.
Josh: Right. I think that we should throw this timeline away. We should make our own.
Tracy: Let's do it. You know, I love me some history. Also, there is a story that I feel like all of these articles, every timeline, should begin with.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And it's the story that I was fairly obsessed with in college. We're going back in history to talk about race, that's never a fun time.
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: But, very, very important to this conversation and to the episode. Joshua, might I take your hand and lead you back through history?
Josh: Let's do it. (laughs).
Tracy: (laughs).
[Time machine sound effect, fades into music]
Tracy: So, we're going back to the late 1700s, okay?
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: And we're going to South Africa. This is around the year 1789 or so.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: There's a woman named Sarah Baartman, also known as Saartjie Baartman.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Saartjie is like the diminutive version of the name Sarah. Right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I've heard this story.
Tracy: Yeah, it's fucked up.
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: So, Sarah Baartman was a woman of the Khoikhoi people in South Africa.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And of course, you know, like, the Dutch, and like, colonialism and all that shit, they in South Africa minding everybody else's business.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: So, Sarah was a South African woman, and as such, she had ass. She had hips. She had thighs and legs. And like, she's, she had a body-ody-ody-ody-ody, as we would now say today.
Josh: Right, right.
Tracy: The white people, they of course were fascinated, obsessed with her and her body. So she’s taken from South Africa to Europe, and literally put on display. Now, I don’t want to mischaracterize her story, or the terms of her quote unquote employment because if you sign a contract and you don’t speak the language the contract is written in, does it count? I don’t know about that one. The bottom line is she was a person in a context and a time where she didn’t have a lot of agency, and was fetishized and objectified by colonizers. So, I want to spend a little bit of time right here.
Josh: Let’s do it. I don't think we can do a booty episode without spending time right here.
Tracy: You got to. You gotta to have a good foundation, otherwise the booty building that you're building will fall.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: Right?
Josh: The booty building?
Tracy: The booty building. So, that is where this form of fetishizing comes in. Dutch people, white men came and they were like, "Oh shit. I'm obsessed with this black woman. This shit is just like, wild. Nobody will believe it." And this is what gets left out of those booty histories. Right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Just plainly say, white Victorian wore bustles and corsets to look like the women that their husbands were obsessed with and wanted to fuck. Period.
Josh: Period.
Tracy: Like, leaving that out is irresponsible. It's not like they just woke up one day and they were like, "You know what? I want to have trouble breathing today. Let me put on this fucking corset."
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: "And heave my tits up to my chin. And have a fake ass, lacy booty." That's not, it's not how it happened. I just - I have no sources for this, but it feels spiritually like the co-opting of black bodies and styles that continues to happen to this today. Anyway, speaking of things that happened forever, the fetishizing of Sarah Baartman, unfortunately, never stopped while she was alive. And you know what? It didn't even stop after she died.
Josh: Are you serious?
Tracy: Swear to God. She died around 25 or 26, which is wild.
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: But, even her body was on display at a museum in France.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: It just fucks me up so bad to learn this story. Because, the first thing that I thought when I saw the picture of her, and like you can google, and you can see, like, all the scientific drawings.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And shit like that.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: The first thing I thought was, "Oh my God, she looks like me."
Josh: Right.
Tracy: And the second thing I thought was "Oh my God, she looks like my mama." And thought of that just broke my heart. That they thought that this human, this person, was so different just because she had a big ass? Like.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: It's heavy.
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: But, there's some fun sprinkled out throughout the timeline. So let's see if we can get to that-
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: ... quickly. So, we're gonna skip from the late 1700s, you got Sarah Baartman-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... and how she change the Western World's idea of what is beautiful and sexy, whether or not anybody will admit it, that's what happened.
Josh: Right, right.
Tracy: So now we're gonna jump to the 40s, 50s and 60s, right? Because this is when you start to see black bombshells and like-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... actresses that we're actually allowed to be beautiful. I'm talking about like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge.
Josh: Right, like film had taken off, and you’re starting to see black faces.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative), but they are all a very specific type of black face that you're seeing, right?
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: Because remember, the standard was still white women, so there's most of the black stars that you saw were all light-skinned, so there’s still this pressure to be the "right kind of woman." Except for the actress, Joyce Bryant who was browner skin than the norm right, but still kind thin, but there's still this pressure to assimilate, this pressure to be the “right kind of black woman” according to dominant beauty standards of the time. So now, we gonna fast forward to the 70s when black people was like, "You know what? We're gonna take our shit, the fuck that."
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And I am talking about Pam Grier in the blaxpoitation era. So I love and am fascinated by blaxpoitation-
Josh: Same.
Tracy: ... so, so much. This was a big, big fucking deal for black people.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Especially those who are looking to the silver screen to see themselves represented in some way. So blaxpoitation's whole shit was we ‘bout to bust up through out this racist shit, like blaxpoitation-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ...was like, fuck that, fuck you and fuck you and fuck you. We are gonna do what we wanna do. So that's when you see darker skin, curvier stars-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... like the one and the only, Pam Grier. Uh!
Josh: Pam, the Grier.
Tracy: So bam! Here comes Pam Grier just in movies like Coffy, Black Mama, White Mama-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... which is my favorite movie title ever.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Foxy Brown, like... And all of these movies or most of these movies, she's in this big ass, like can't miss it, black Afro.
Josh: Ugh.
Tracy: Still a little bit on the lighter side, you know? But the thing that I find fascinating about Pam Grier is that in her roles, she didn't just like hit at the body-ody-ody right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Like her titties is in like everything, like-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Mama was out here. And like-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... I don't know how she feels about those things in retrospect because why we haven't see-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ... Oh my gosh, I love it. Because if she didn't like it, then neither do I.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: But I know that like just looking up at a woman with like big, dark areolas, had to be like-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... be like, wow!
Josh: Having a fandom, yeah.
Tracy: Yeah. I'm like, yes, I am here. Here I am.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: This is me. See you love me.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Um, so of course, Pam is a success, blaxpoitation movies were a success. But through all of these, Pam herself still felt pressure of not being in like the "right type of beautiful." Right?
Josh: Right, right.
Tracy: She said to Vulture in 2018, " I didn't feel that I am attractive enough. I didn't have the perfect Diahann Carroll look. I have craziness happening on my face and body, lanky basketball arms that'll reach across the room. I just felt like I wasn't Annette Funicello."
Josh: Wow! Annette Funicello! (laughs)
Tracy: I guess that was the shit in [inaudible].
Josh: Shout out to the, to the-
Tracy: Mickey Mouse Club?
Josh: ...Mouseketeers, exactly.
Tracy: The Mouseketeers.
Josh: I feel like being the first is always hard.
Tracy: Yes, yes.
Josh: Like you always feel the brunt of why you're the first. There's the reason you're the first, and you're gonna run up against all that stuff.
Tracy: Yeah, and you're forging this path, and you're like, "I don't know where the fuck I'm going." You know?
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Like with someone else has done it first, you're like, "Okay, I'm just following these footsteps." But she's like, "I don't know. I'm out here, here's my titties."
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: So that's the 70s, that's blaxpoitation. Of course, you have [inaudible] in the 80s with do- doing his fuckin' shit, like we need-
Josh: Yes.
Tracy: ... cleaner images of blah, blah, blah.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And hiphop is like, fuck you Bill. Don't nobody need...
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ... your black ass anyway.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And the great thing about giving black people their own microphones that you can finally figure out exactly how we feel.
Josh: Okay!
Tracy: You know what I mean? You can see what we think about, what we like, what we don't like. And what we liked was ass.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: So much ass. And of course, there's always been songs about booty, right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Like there's the, um, KC and The Sunshine Band, shake, shake, shake.
[CLIP of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Shake Your Booty”]
Tracy: You know, they have a whole lot of salz, but they was out there, you know?
Josh: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Tracy: There's Tina Turner, uh, Shake a Tail Feather, which actually [crosstalk].
[CLIP Tina Turner’s “Shake A Tail Feather”]
Josh: Jam.
Tracy: There's just like ass, booty everywhere-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: ... every song. (laughs). And it was like, "Okay, all right." You had E.U.’s “Da Butt”, which came out in ‘88.
Josh: Mm.
[CLIP of E.U.’s “Da Butt”]
Tracy: And you had the dance, which y'all is literally just been and over and shaking your butt in a circle.
Josh: Ugh, love it!
Tracy: You put your ass in the air and that's the dance.
Josh: Love it.
Tracy: I love it. Then you got stuff like Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back, which white people are doing their best to make me hate if I hear one more acoustic version.
[CLIP of “Baby Got Back” cover]
Tracy: Like get out, get out of my house.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I wanna invite you over to my house just so I can kick you out. Like I need that to happen.
Josh: Martin?
Tracy: Yes, it is me.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Get to step in. Also in 1992 - it’s a big year for blacks, apparently. There's Rump Shaker by Wreckx- N-Effect.
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: And then of course, in the 1999 and 2000, you got, um, Back That Azz up, which-
Josh: I, d- I love that song 'cause the beginning of it just sounds like a warning.
Tracy: It is.
[CLIP of “Back that Azz up”]
Josh: (singing)
Josh: It gives you enough time to be like, it's like, "Girl, this is your song."
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: It's like, "Everybody, come and eat." Like-
Tracy: Right.
Josh: ... (laughs) they're like-
Tracy: It's like, are you getting on the dance floor, or are you getting out of the way?
Josh: Right! It's so good, that drop.
Tracy: You have to decide before these strings are over. (laughs)
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: You have a whole lot of time.
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: So yes, hiphop gives bigger shit, hiphop loves booties. It goes mainstream. And then you start to see all these black hip hop fashion type shit and hairstyles on other people. And when it goes mainstream, that means that the people who created hiphop and the people that it was made for, the people who listened to it, also went mainstream. And that included black women.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: So basically, this is another situation of elements of black people, white women becoming popular. But black women do not become popular. Black women get punished for the things that these thievin' ass white folks get celebrated for.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: And like, again, we'll talk more about these frustrations, but it sucks.
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: It really, really sucks. It does some shit to your brain and to your mind.
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: So the bad news here, Josh, is that all of this is definitely still going on right now. (laughs)
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And it very well could keep going on until the end of this world as we know it, which might be sooner than later because eventually-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: You know? Who knows? But-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: (laughs) ... it should be-
Josh: For real.
Tracy: ... this life or the next 12 days.
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: Who knows? But, in addition to Back That Azz Up, the '99 and the 2000 gave us something else that we desperately needed. Do you know what that thing was?
Josh: Beyonce.
Tracy: [King Beezus] herself. Beyonce's ass became famous when she was like, "My ass is amazing."
Josh: Right.
Tracy: "My ass is everything. My ass is literally bootylicious." Right?
Josh: She was on that plane. She heard that sample from Stevie Nicks. And she said, "It sounded like my butt."
[CLIP of “Bootylicious” Destiny’s Child]
Tracy: Yeah (laughs).
Josh: That's literally what she said, exactly. (laughs)
Tracy: "You know what? I'm gonna celebrate me because if I don't do it, who else will?"
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: And I'm gonna celebrate my sisters, who I know are looking at me. You know, like I've got this platform, I got this stage. Y'all's booties are bootylicious too.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: So we're gonna do this for ourself. And that's exactly what we did.
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: So that my friends is what a historic timeline of the booty should look like. So when you see health.com right here on the street, tap her on the shoulder and say, (singing).
Josh: (laughs) Hearing your timeline of the butt versus health.com's timeline of the butt-
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: ... makes me really think about the way that we accept the narratives that the media gives us about ourselves and our bodies.
Tracy: Unconsciously.
Josh: Unconsciously, like without even trying.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: So we’re gonna hear from Savala and then we’re gonna revisit these super special voices, they belong to very special Black women all over the age of 55, talking about their bodies, talking about their identities, how those things are tied together.
Tracy: Yes! I’m so excited to hear from women speaking about their own bodies, and it’s from a demographic that we rarely hear from!
Josh: Yeah! Because I think that having enough space and enough time to watch these trends come and go out of style, and being able to establish yourself beyond that is something we should honor.
Tracy: For sure, absolutely.
[Short music break]
Voice: I don't get why we're obsessed with booty right now as a society.
Voice: As for Megan Thee Stallion.
Voice: She looks good.
Voice: She looks like the ideal image that the young ladies are going for nowadays. Big butt.
Voice: A true big butt is what black women have. We have true big butts.
Voice: Now with Grace Jones.
Voice: She doesn't have booty, she's slender.
Voice: It wasn't as big of a deal to have a big butt.
Voice: Back then, beauty was skinny.
Voice: Nothing to hide.
Voice: Now you know Beyonce killing the game, them look like two watermelons sitting up there.
Voice: Everyone wants the Beyonce booty.
Voice: I feel that the obsession with booty is when folks are really gear, trying to be close to the black culture.
Voice: And when you get it done, you can't duplicate that.
[Music break]
Voice: When I think about images that affirm me, I think-
Voice: Diahann Carroll.
Voice: Oprah Winfrey.
Voice: Ruby Dee.
Voice: I heard Oprah say, "Hey, if you can't be a banana, be the best plum that you gonna be."
Voice: Late teens, early 20s, my butt was, was round.
Voice: I always describe myself as hippie. I have a dunk.
Voice: It's round and it's not fake. It's perfect.
Voice: These are my measurements were 38-28-39.
Voice: I feel like I had just a right amount of butt. It was proportion with the rest of my body. It wasn't too much, wasn't too small.
Voice: In high school, my butt was flat. It didn't have whole much of curvature or to it. But it does now.
Voice: I mean she's very shapely.
Tracy: I love it so much. First of all, it's refreshing to hear black women talking about their own bodies, instead of white people or men, you know?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And what do you, how do you feel about your body? What do you-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ... think about it. I wanna listen to more people talking about their bodies and their butts.
Josh: Well, we- we're going to throughout this episode, Trace.
Tracy: Yes!
Josh: Ahh!
Tracy: So excited.
Savala: The Sir Mix-a-Lot song came out,
Josh: That's Savala Nolan, she's the director of the Social Justice Program of the UC, Berkeley, School of Law and author of Don't Let It Get You Down, Essays on Race, Gender and the Body.
Savala: I Like Big Butts, and I had like Oakland- face, LA booty. I'm like (laughs)
Josh: You know, I love me a JSTOR moment-
Tracy: All right.
Josh: Like give me a bibliography and I am happy.
Tracy: Come on [inaudible].
Josh: (laughs) Dewey decimal!
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: But her work isn't just academic, Savala's. It's insanely personal and it's really about unlearning.
Savala: Little in the middle but she got much back like got fake in the middle, and not a lot of ass. So, to this day, that song still s- kind of hunts me. Like when I hear it on the radio because I really wanted to feel celebrated by that song, and I just didn't 'cause I still didn't have the look that that song was, was praising, in terms of asses or anything else. I mean, one thing my body has taught me is that I can be fat and I don't lose anything that matters to me.
Tracy: Um, that is so fucking poignant because media, music, commercials, all this shit will have you thinking that if you're not thin, if you’re not skinny, perfect then you bring nothing to this table, you have nothing to offer anyone.
Josh: And learning is, like, such a process.
Tracy: Uh.
Josh: I mean, I love learning (laughs). But I wish we lived in a world where we could just learn something once.
Tracy: Right. Can we just learn all the right shit? (laughing) That's a good point.
Josh: So, I'm so happy that Savala's here doing this work of examining our relationship to the body and the culture's impact on it. She, like the rest of us, found herself in the space with messages about how she should feel about her body being told to her, like, shown to her and not really constructed by her.
Savala: I do remember longing for the bodies of the people that I saw in (laughs) movies and television and film, and they were, for the most part, white. Maybe I’m aging myself by referencing Top Gun. I was in first grade. I was in first grade when Top Gun came out, and I saw the movie. And, you know, she was this, like, thin, live, small butt blonde. So that was the body that I clearly understood to be desirable to the dominant culture.
Josh: Culture's really clear about who's hot. (laughs)
Tracy: Oh, oh, oh, there's literally lists everywhere. The-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: ... 83, 84 hottest celebrities, and, like-
Josh: The sexiest people alive.
Savala: I feel like the body that's on trend is the kind of fictionalized Kardashian-type body. You know what I mean? The slim, thick? That's not my body. I'm just fat. So, I don't think that I benefit, really, from the shift in the norms. And I'm also not someone who has like a huge butt. (laughs) You know, like it's cute. It's got a little thing going for it, but it's, it's not like gonna break the internet 'cause I'm balancing a glass of champagne on it.
Josh: I remember that moment-
Savala: Oh, I do too.
Josh: ... so clearly, and I remember everyone being like, "Oh my God! Like-
Tracy: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Josh: ... the butt, it's in." And I was like, "Wh- where have you all been?" (laughs)
Tracy: Right, right.
Josh: Why is this your messenger?
Tracy: This is such a timely reference because the first time I saw that break the internet picture, I thought of Sarah Baartman because she's exactly-
Josh: Oh my God, me too!
Tracy: Yes, she's in profile.
Josh: The first thing I thought about-
Tracy: Mm.
Josh: ... was Sarah Baartman.
Tracy: Mm. I mean it's just, ugh, it's sad the way it all comes full circle sometimes.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: So remember all the times where I was, like, um, later in the show we're gonna talk about, um, the tension between being-
Josh: Ugh.
Tracy: ...punished for, the way you look, but also desire for the way you look, this is where I would just like to vomit all of my feelings because it really is one of the greatest frustrations of my black girl life, you know? Because it's just so unfair, like it hurts, it sucks, it impacts you, you know? Like you turn on the TV, you go catch a train if people still take trains. I haven't been outside a long time, guys. I don't know what's happening.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: But you see advertisements and shit, so e- e- you're told that wide hips are beautiful, quantum rose are beautiful, big lips, hell yeah, they're beautiful. As long as they're not on people who look like you, as long as they're not-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... on black women. Or shout out to the Kardashian's, they're beautiful as long as they are on women who are exotic enough to carry them-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... sort of, you know what I mean? And like, through all of this, like the Kardashians are chillin'.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Chillin', makin' millions, bars.
Josh: And allowing white people to think that they're, like expanding, the idea of what's beautiful.
Tracy: Ugh.
Josh: That's the biggest, that's the biggest part.
Tracy: You know? And I have a confession. One of my worst habits, and I need to stop this, looking at old pictures of me, and just being like really unkind, you know? Just ng like, "Wow, I thought I was fat when I took this picture.” And I don’t say that to say that there’s something wrong with being fat, there’s not, but it was the language I used, the mindset, and it reminds me of the fact that I was hardly happy in the body that I was in while I was in it, you know?bei
Josh: Tracy, I do the same, thing-
Tracy: How do we stop that? It don't help-
Josh: I do the same thing.
Tracy: ... nothing or nobody. Like just appreciate your shit now, you know?
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: So you don't have to be like, "I wish I appreciated this body." Like no, do it now. But way easier to say (laughs)-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ...than it is to do, you know?
Josh: But you know what I feel when I look back and I'm like, " Oh, you were doing it in this picture." And but-
Tracy: Listen!
Josh: ... at that moment I didn't feel that.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: I feel pissed off-
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: ... 'cause I'm like, "Oh, I could've just been enjoying life."
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Like I could have been living, like you know what I mean? I don't think that our culture gives us a place to put that anger.
Tracy: That is so true, and black women in particular are kept from and divorced from this anger, which is something that Savala Nolan talked about in a way that took me out.
Savala: Women and black women are not allowed to express retribution and rage, we're just expected to take the crap that the culture throws on us, and somehow experience anything but anger in response to it. I have had that anger in me no matter what my body has been like, 'cause at times, I've been incredibly thin. But I still haven't been allowed to express, um, the anger that accrues when you live in a world that wrongs you chronically and persistently, without atonement or empathy.
Josh: Hooh!
Tracy: Yeah, when she's put it that way, like-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tracy: ... we are treated horribly and expected not to be angry about it.
Josh: Expected to be anything but angry.
Tracy: Feelings and emotions are physical events. They're not just in our heads-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ... and not making 'em up. Like they take a toll in our body and our-
Josh: And our nervous system.
Tracy: Hoh!
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: My nervous system tries to leave my body once a day.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: It's just like, "I can't do this shit no more, I can't do it!
Josh: (laughs) The wa- it's too damn [inaudible].
Tracy: (laughs) I'm out.
Josh: Yeah, being in a body is complicated, like it is-
Tracy: It's complicated. I did not sign up for this.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I would like to opt out, please. Where's the-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: ... unsubscribe letter.
Josh: Okay. Savala also got to one of the culprits of this dissonance and this frustration that we feel around conversations around our body and how we feel about our body. Diet culture?
Savala: Imagine if the place where you lived right now, like every part of it was constantly being renovated. You'd wanna leave, like you would not enjoy, and, and you would never experience satisfaction because you were always pursuing some newer better end game.
Josh: I have always felt this, Tracy, and I've never been able to put it into words.
Tracy: That is an amazing way to put it.
Josh: I've always felt this and I, I, I feel like... Name a diet, I've done it. Like remember when Beyonce did that master cleanse for her Dreamgirls-
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: ... and she lost all that weight in three days. I did that.
Savala: And I think it's the same with the bodies that, that we live in, you know, the home of our soul and our experience, it's like if it's constantly under renovation, it's no fun. It's no fun to be in your body when you're constantly trying to change it, and for me, that took the form of dieting, whether I was pursuing kind of more of a white beauty ideal or a black beauty ideal, it involved changing my body. So just getting off that truly endless treadmill hamster wheel, um, has been the most powerful liberating thing in my life.
Tracy: Does she leave directions on how to get off with this hamster wheel because-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: ... mine won't slow down long enough for me to get the fuck out.
[Music fades]
Voice: Growing up, it was really bad for me because maybe like at 10, 11, you know, I had boobs, I had big legs, I had a butt, you know, and when you're a kid and you're trying to have fun, you know, that's very disruptive because men think you're grown, you know? Then, everybody's questioning you during winter months, "Why are you walking around with a jacket around your waist?"
Voice: I want people looking at my butt, I was self-conscious.
Voice: Sort of looking at myself a little differently.
Voice: My dad wouldn't let me wear mini-skirts when I was a teenager. He always want me to wear skirts that went just below my knee, I guess because I was so shapely.
Voice: Mm-mm (negative) Baby.
Josh: Back at you, we're back.
Tracy: Everybody back.
Josh: We've thought a lot about the booty.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: The booty throughout time.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: The booty as represented in media.
Tracy: Historical booty.
Josh: So we're gonna talk more broadly about the (singing), but I don't think that you can do that without talking about the way you came of age to your body.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: The way that you arrived.
Tracy: Yes, like how did you realize that you had a big butt or like-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... a body that stood out for one reason or another?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: When I think about that, I don't know, I swear like I knew that my butt was big when I was younger because my family and friends would joke about it, you know, and also, like I have eyes and all the women in my family, my mama's side-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... have big asses. My brother's nickname in high school was Big A, Big A-
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: ... I mean, you know, some just like, "Oh."
Josh: My mom would always talk about it when we went like shop for back to school clubs.
Tracy: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Josh: And she would always be like, " Ugh, we gotta get a size bigger 'cause that thing back there.
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: But you know what I mean?
Nichole: The worst thing a little black girl can be is fast. As soon as she learns her smile can bring special treatment, women shake their heads, and one girl's mother.
Tracy: I think there is an awful lot to unpack with regards to our childhoods and our bodies and who better to do that with than writer, Nichole Perkins.
Nichole: They caution the mothers of boys, "Watch that one." When adult men hold her in their laps too long, it's because she is a fast ass little girl, using her whiles. She's too grown, she tempts men and boys alike.
Josh: Nichole's a poet-writer and podcaster. And she read us a passage from her book, “Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be.”
Nichole: Eve, Jezebel and Delilah, all in one. The click of her beaded cornrows, a siren's call. Fast girls ruin lives.
[Music starts playing]
Josh: Ugh, that word: so fast.
Tracy: Mm.
Josh: There has to be a black word, right? Do white people use that word?
Tracy: I don't know, and this is the thing that I've been wondering. I think it's a, it's a black thing and also an older black thing.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: You know, like I've never heard a girl my age call another girl fast.
Josh: Me either.
Tracy: You know? It was never like my mama and her sisters, that was my grandmama and her friends, you know?
Josh: What did they mean when they said that?
Tracy: You know, let's let Nichole tell us.
Nichole: Being fast means you are sexually mature, too sexually mature that you are a sexual being. And not just sexual, but that you are using sex to get something, so that you are using sex to be manipulative or to your own benefit. Women and girls are not supposed to have sexual knowledge of themselves.
Tracy: Fast is a thing that men forced them into.
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: These little girls living their lives.
Josh: Mm.
Nichole: I think the first time I heard fast applied to me, I think I was just talking to a boy, you know, or maybe laughing with him, and just being like, "Get your fast ass over here." That's the first clearest time that I remember, just having this fear that talking to a boy would get me in trouble, some kind of way.
Josh: This sort of gender pleasing, what effect does all of this have on like, how you think about yourself?
Tracy: Well one thing I think it does, is it keeps men in control, you know-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... of any and everything that's not them, or of any and everything-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... that they may want, one day. Like, the way that our grandmothers grew up, enforcing the same idea. You know, that's, that's their doing (laughs).
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: You know what I mean? But like, on a personal level, it fucks you up (laughs).
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: You know, like you don't know how to feel about your body, because if you feel good about it, and it brings you negative attention, oh my God, what did I do?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Or oh my God, is it always gonna be this way.
Nichole: It makes you have this weird relationship with your body, because you don't know what it is about you that's so wrong. It doesn't put the responsibility on the people who are actually victimizing you, or trying to victimize you.
Tracy: A lot of times, like, that shit gets to people, and they can form eating habits, depression.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And this is something that Nichole talked a lot about, but she also talked about how women are taught, or not taught to seek pleasure in their own bodies.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And where do you turn to if you can't turn inward for that pleasure?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nichole: We want to make sure that little girls only get sexuality, only get approval when it's trickled down through someone else, and not from themselves, not internally. You want me to wear a dress, so that I can signify that I'm a girl, but it also has to be a particular kind of dress to make sure that nobody tries to talk to me like I'm a girl, right (laughs)? Like, so what am I, how am I supposed to dress? How am I supposed to navigate this world where you want me to make sure my femininity is represented properly, but also not enough so that people treat me in the terrible way that people treat girls?
Tracy: So what we just heard Nichole say actually makes me think about Sarah Baartman, which is where we sort of began, right? Because Nichole's talking about, okay, you have this body, and your body-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... upsets people so you have to cover it up.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: But it's just like, when you cover it up, it's still not enough to keep the attention of somebody who has you in their cross hairs.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: You know, like, if they want to approach you or talk to you, or touch you or victimize you, you know, they will no matter what you're wearing.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And it makes me think, like, you know, what could Sarah Baartman had wore, for-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... the colonizers to just leave her the fuck alone? You know, like, nothing.
Josh: It doesn't matter.
Tracy: Yeah, it does-
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: ... it doesn't matter, like her choices, very, very limited. It was a very different time, but like, our choices are still limited for the same reasons. You know what I mean?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: It's depressing and tiring.
Josh: This is so depressing.
Tracy: (laughs) Sorry.
Josh: But, I think I have something that might lift our spirits, maybe?
Tracy: Hooray.
Josh: Remember that surprise?
Tracy: Is it Hennessy? Is it the Hennessy I asked for?
Josh: (laughs) It's not Hennessy.
Tracy: Oh.
Josh: It's better than Hennessy.
Tracy: Oh, okay, I'm in.
Josh: I got it for you, after the break.
[AD BREAK]
[Learn something from this bounce remix]
Tracy: We are back.
Josh: Back.
Tracy: What do we do with all of this? Like, there's a lot of feelings going on, some of them are mine, I don't like that.
Josh: I hate feelings!
Tracy: Especially my own.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: So I suggest that we pull from our show guide, our North Star if you will, Tyrah Banks, and ask ourselves, did we:
[CLIP] Tyra: Learn something from this?
Josh: I think we did.
Tracy: What did we learn?
Josh: Actually, I learned something from Tyra. Remember when she told everyone to kiss her fat ass?
Tracy: I sure do, and then she was like, just playing, I'ma go work out and diet-
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: ... and then never see you again? That confused me personally. I did love that energy though (laughs).
Josh: I need that energy, and I feel like-
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: ... that's what we need. So, I'm going to give you your surprise now.
Tracy: Yay. What, what, what, what?
Josh: Guess who I talked to for our show?
Tracy: And it's not Beyonce?
Josh: It's not Beyonce. Nikki Giovanni.
Tracy: Shut the front door.
Josh: Nikki Giovanni knows who we are (laughs).
Tracy: Shut the front door and the back one. Oh my gosh.
Josh: I was feeling the same way that we feel right now, right?
Tracy: Oh my God.
Josh: I was, all these feelings like, what am I supposed to do with it? And I was like, you know, let's talk to someone who's on their revolutionary shit. Like-
Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Josh: ... someone who's on their fight, you know?
Tracy: Yes. More revolution, please.
Josh: I got the chance to call Nikki Giovanni and ask her if she ever felt uncomfortable in her body, and she told me this story about when she had breast cancer.
Nikki: I had a breast removed, um, because of breast cancer. And so the first time I went to the beach, of course, I don't have a right breast. So, now you're going to the beach in a swimming suit, and the first thing you're thinking is, hmm. Everybody's gonna look and say, oh, where's her right breast?
Tracy: That is amazing and a little bit unbelievable, like I know that it happened but I’m still like “you sure this ain’t fake”? Also though, thinking about her story makes me feel anxious, like I feel a little anxiety ball in my chest because I’m imagining that and I would be terrified, I think.
Josh: Same, but you've gotta keep things in perspective, which is what she was trying to get me to do, and she did that by trying to get me to remember one thing , that I don't think we hear enough (laughs), in this age
Tracy: What's that?
Josh: You're not the center of the universe (laughs).
Tracy: I beg your pardon.
Josh: But other people around you are probably wrapped in their own thing-
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: ... so much to even notice about the thing that you're hyper fixated on.
Tracy: That is so, so true.
Nikki: And then you realize, actually, nobody cares. They're not even looking at you. Nobody's gonna holler, hey lady, you left your breast at home. And it took a minute to say, wait a minute. We removed a breast because it was cancerous and going to kill you. And now, this is what you look like, and you have to be happy that you're here to look at it. And it was dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. It does take a minute, and as I said, I'm not trying to tell you something that I haven't been through to some degree. But, it just takes that next step, this is me. And I'm okay.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative), I feel like that last line, this is me and I'm okay, is, that is my new goal.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative) same.
Tracy: I'm not trying to get to body acceptance nirvana.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: I'm j-, I just wanna be able to be like, you know what? This is me, these are my flaws, this is my amazing ass. Here are some more flaws. And that's all right.
Josh: And that's the goal, right?
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: And I think a big part of the advice that Nikki Giovanni gave me (laughs).
Tracy: What a sentence, Joshua. What a sentence (laughs).
Josh: Is focusing on who you're trying to please.
Tracy: Oh.
Josh: Why are you trying to please people that don't care about you?
Tracy: Message, I don't know.
Josh: She put it historically too. Like, that when she was fighting for our rights, focusing on wasting energy trying to please other people was like, that's wasted energy. I could use it for better use.
Tracy: Mmmm.
Nikki: You weren't asking white America to like us, or to like the way we looked, or to, you know, really go, like, oh, aren't they wonderful? We didn't, and we didn't give a damn. And, that let us march, that let us decide, we are going to break down segregation. That let us decide, we were gonna change America, and we did.
Josh: And we did.
Tracy: And they did.
Josh: You know, one of my favorite things about Nikki Giovanni (laughs)?
Tracy: What?
Josh: She has this tattoo on her arm that says Thug Life.
Tracy: What?
Josh: She has a tattoo on her arm that says Thug Life, and she got it when Tupac died.
Tracy: What?
Josh: To show his mom that she wasn't alone in that moment. But that energy, thug life, tattooed on her arm, like, I'm trying to get more into that head space. Like-
Tracy: Talk about not giving a damn.
Josh: Not giving a fuck. That's where I'm trying to get.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: And I feel like it's so much harder done than said (laughs).
Tracy: Oh yes (laughs).
Josh: So I asked Nikki Giovanni (laughs)-
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: ... for a guide for how not to give a fuck.
Nikki: The first thing I would suggest that you do, is when you wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, hi. You're gorgeous. It'll make you much happier, because it may be the only positive response (laughs) you get that day. This is your body, this is who you are, so why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you like it?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Ah, you know what? A while ago, I was having a sad moment, got kind of sad, kind of tender. And so-
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: ... I Googled how to be mindful when you're sad, right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And one of the things that I read actually helped, and it was just like, this is just a condition of having a human heart and a human body.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And I feel like that explains the way most of the stuff that we get pissed off at our bodies about, you know?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: We experience them because we're thankfully alive to experience them.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: You know? So I feel that.
Josh: And that for me is the goal, is to start experiencing it.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Like, instead of like, always forward planning, like, what Savala said, I wanna stop renovating.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: I wanna start living.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: I wanna be, you know, like, a homeowner in my body (laughs).
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: Give me the deed.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: That's what I wish for myself, and that's my wish for everyone that I love.
Tracy: Oh my God, it's also my new wish for me.
Josh: It's a goal, but it's hard to think about like, the steps to that goal.
Tracy: Oh, it's gonna be a journey, it's probably gonna suck.
Josh: It's gonna be a journey.
Tracy: And you know, I do not suffer a journey well child, I just wanna get there.
Josh: Well Nikki gave us some words of encouragement.
Nikki: No, you don't need to be hem-... you need to love yourself. The first thing you have to do is love yourself. You deserve it, you deserve the love that you can give yourself. And then you'll have a little bit of love left over, that you can give to somebody else. Everybody, this is just common damn sense, is not going to love you. But the people who do, should receive the love that you have. You cannot waste your love on people who always are gonna find something wrong with you. You have to love yourself, and the people who love you. Then you have a community.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: What is it about an older black woman just telling you the fuck like it is? What is it?
Josh: Like, girl, I do not care about your feelings, this is how it works.
Tracy: Don't they give a damn? No, no-
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: That, uh-
Josh: But that all was accurate (laughs).
Tracy: As cliche as it might sound to be like ‘embrace yourself’ a part of me just wants to celebrate this. Like, living in a body will forever be complicated, and that doesn’t go away, but I want to lean into the fact that we can create ourselves, for ourselves, in our own images, you know?
Josh: Bars! All of these pressures and these gazes and oppression. It’s important to sometimes focus on the things you can control - that's the way you can love yourself.
Tracy: Have you been talking to my therapist behind my back?
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: ‘Cuz I swear she just said that to me. But she’s right! So are you. I feel like this is such a great note to end not only this conversation in this show on, but the end of our second season, because Nikki Giovanni told you (laughs)-
Josh: Told you, you now have permission-
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: ... to love yourself.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: And the people who love you, 'cause then you have community.
Tracy: And we wanna say thanks for being our community, and for being-
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: ... our tribe, and for showing up every week, 'cause otherwise we'd just be screaming to nobody in our closets.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: And, we appreciate it, and we appreciate you so much. I hope that you take all of this advice that Nikki Giovanni just gave it, put it-
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: ... into your body, somehow. You choose your orifice, I don't know how you get down. Just-
Josh: Ah (laughs).
Tracy: ... get it in there, take it to heart and make sure it hits the heart (laughs).
Josh: Okay.
Voice: I feel in my body.
Voice: And as I age, I'm like, I'm loving myself even more.
Voice: Because this is who I am, and everything about me is perfectly designed by God.
Voice: I'm just proud of the person that, that I've become over the years.
Voice: I just love me. I mean, you don't have to be, um, a size 10, or seven. Love yourself.
Tracy: Back Issue was a production of Pineapple Street Studios.
Josh: This show was created, and is hosted by Tracy Clayton.
Tracy: That's me, and also Josh Gwynn.
Josh: That's me.
Tracy: Our senior producer is also Josh Gwynn, because he's an overachieving Capricorn.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: And our lead producer is Emmanuel Hapsis.
Josh: Who will be so happy that you got the zodiac signs right.
Tracy: Yes, I'm working on it.
Josh: Our managing producer is John Asante.
Tracy: Our senior editor is Leila Day.
Josh: Our associate producers are Alexis Moore, Xandra Ellin and Briana Garrett. Our intern is Arlene Arevalo, our executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Max Linsky, and our engineers are Raj Makhija, who made the music that you heard at the top of the episode, and Davey Sumner.
Tracy: This show also features amazing music by the one and only Don Will. You can follow him on all the socials @ donwill, and if you give him some money, he'll make you some music too. You can follow me on the socials @brokenmcpoverty.
Josh: You can follow me @regardingjosh on all the socials. You can subscribe to this podcast wherever free podcasts are sold.
Tracy: Do it.
Josh: And leave us a review.
Tracy: Do it.
Josh: Only if it's positive (laughs).
Tracy: Yeah, take your negativity elsewhere. We don't want that.
Josh: That's not part of our community.
Tracy: Okay, Nikki Giovanni.
Josh: We're only here for the people that love us, like Nikki Giovanni said.
Tracy: Rate us five stars, please, bye.
Josh: (laughs).
Tracy: (laughs).
Josh: Bye.
[Music ends]
Tracy: And it so-, ugh, it's sai, sau? Sau? I turned Australian for a second.
Josh: (laughs) Oh no.
Tracy: Oh no (laughs).
-----THE END-----