Black Women Taught Us: Love Letters, Liberation, and the Courage to Tell the Truth with Dr. Jenn Jackson

[00:00:01] This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. What's good, family? I'm Nikisha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast and the author of the forthcoming novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860.

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[00:01:18] They're how we process, they're how we heal, how we find ourselves in someone else's story. That's what this show is built on. Hey y'all, I'm Nakara and you're listening to Dot Dot Dot But Make It Books. A podcast where we're bookishly healing through life, one conversation at a time. Every episode, I'm sitting down with the authors, booksellers and book lovers who are shaping the literary world. The people behind the pages and the passion that keeps this community alive.

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[00:02:19] Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of Dot Dot Dot But Make It Books. A podcast where we're bookishly healing through life and I am your host, your bookish host in all things, Nakara Campbell. And I am so blessed to be in this space with the doctor. Because we gotta put respect on people's names, okay? Because when they go and get those degrees, you gotta put the DR where it belongs with a period. We are here with Dr. Jen M. Jackson. How you doing? I am so excited about this. This is so long overdue. This is so exciting for me.

[00:02:48] So I just, I'm fangirling myself a little bit. Just a little bit fangirling. Oh my gosh, well I'm fangirling you because you, not a lot of people know that not a lot of black women have, you know, PhDs in particular in political science and an area that we're in right now in this country. And so I am just so blessed that you wrote this book and you've highlighted a lot of my sheroes.

[00:03:13] So what we always like to say on the pod is actually how are you doing? I appreciate this question. You know, I went to a book talk by my dear friend and I'm gonna plug her book as well. Tara Pringle Jefferson. She wrote Room How You Must. And I went yesterday and it was really a very healing and generative space because of all these black women in there and we're talking about how we actually are.

[00:03:41] And collectively we are not okay. Right? I think that it's hard to be okay when so many of us are not okay. So I'm, I'm, I'm actually really good. Probably the best I've been in a very long time. And even with that, I am still struggling. Right? Because the world is on fire. There are so many folks who, you know, look like me, love like me, you know, who are struggling to just exist every day.

[00:04:10] So my, my being okay is contingent, you know, it's conditional upon the fact that, you know, collectively we are in a difficult place. So I'm gonna be nosy. How do you fill your well in this time? Yeah. I mean, conversations like this have been so wonderful for me. I just moved to the DMV and I moved away from the Northeast. I moved away from upstate New York.

[00:04:38] And that has given me access to so many incredible people and like the ability to just hop in my car. I just came from a lunch with my friend, Disha Dyer, who wrote the book, Undiplomatic. Right? Like, I can just do that now. I can just like, hey, Disha, let's go get something to eat. You know, we'll just sit over croissants and matchas and talk shit, you know?

[00:04:58] So I will say like, that's how I'm filling my well right now is connecting with my author friends, connecting with my queer friends, my academic friends, folks who for a very long time I have been geographically displaced from and not able to just be in community with and see them and hug them and tell them I love them. That has been life changing for me this past seven months since moving here.

[00:05:21] No, I really, really, really love that. And I totally understand because I also feel like I've been the best I've been in a very long time. I'm in the midst of planning my wedding and it's so exciting and amazing. But I'm like, oh, yeah, the rose is on freaking fire. And how dare I be happy in this time? But as I always remember that we are such a resilient people that we always find happiness with even in the darkest of times.

[00:05:48] And so we have to find joy because that's the purpose for such joyous people. So I'm like, whatever, I'm gonna find joy because we need some because I'll see this world. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been doing especially black women. I'm like so many systems and institutions are set up to steal our joy, to extract our labor, to tell us that we can't rest. I'm like, anytime I see a happy black woman, I'm like, yes, like, yeah, some joy.

[00:06:18] Like, you know, I just it just it makes me so happy. And also, congratulations. Planning a wedding ain't no joke. Great. I have amazing wedding planners that I knew I was going to hire because I'm not about to be stressed out with all these RZPs and planning and doing all these things. It's really just me saying yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. My whole decision was getting my dress. Yeah, that's the heart to me. That's the hardest decision.

[00:06:46] Like I'm I'll get the dress. Y'all show up. I don't care if three of y'all come. You know, that's been waiting for 20 years. I'm coming up on a 20 year anniversary in May. And that wedding, that wedding was hard. You know, that was people. People have feelings, you know, people don't want to sit next to someone. So and I had to do a lot of check and like, hey, listen, not your day. Not your day. Not your monkey. Not your circus. This is not circus. Okay, I'm ringleader. Call me Britney. Come on. That's right. Please.

[00:07:17] So as you guys see, we are yippity yabbing today. But I want y'all to know about who I am interviewing. Our guest today is the Dr. Jen M. Jackson, PhD award winning professor of political science at Syracuse University. Columnist for Teen Vogue's Speak On It column and a queer gender fluid androgynous black woman whose work sits at the intersection of black feminism, racial trauma, gender, sexuality and social movements. They've written for the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, essence, the root and more.

[00:07:46] Black women taught us, which is what we're going to talk about today, an intimate history of black feminism is their debut book, a collection of 11 love letters to black women who built our liberation movements and taught us how to fight, how to name the fight and how to imagine a freer world. It was a finalist for the pen open book award. So Dr. Jackson, again, welcome to the pod. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:08:10] And I don't know if you know this, but you are my last podcast on the black women taught us book tour. This is it. This is the last one. Oh, my God. I feel so honored. Thank you for sharing the space because as again, as an indie book podcast, we've been in these trenches. I am so appreciative and especially to talk about this right now.

[00:08:32] And so you said black women taught us is your offering my offering, my love letter to them into us before we get in the book. What were the black women in your life, your everyday life that this letter is also for because book opens up with gospel singers in your home. And I think that's just so amazing. And there's something about gospel music that just hits it hits it hits something it scratches something in the back. So, yes, let's talk about them.

[00:09:00] Yeah, I love this question. You know, I at each of the bookstops in the first in the first leg before the paperback, I made sure that there was a practitioner in the room who did somatics or body work or mediation, meditation, those kind of things so that we could call the ancestors into the space for every single one of those talks.

[00:09:23] And, you know, that was intentional because I wrote this book to make clear that when we talk about black feminism and what we think that is, that it must include a deep love for the black women who are already in our lives. Unfortunately, there is this habit, right, of pedestalizing, valorizing and romanticizing our black feminist elders and ancestors, people who we don't know.

[00:09:52] Right. But then the ones who are in proximity to us, we treat them as if they're disposable. We take them for granted. Right. And so I wrote this book to suggest. Right. I start with my mother and my aunts, my grandmother. I start with those women because those are the women who taught me my first lessons on black feminism. Right. When I talk in that first chapter about my auntie Donna Faye, who I just recently got to go home and see and tell her, auntie Donna, you're in this book, you know, and give her a copy of the book.

[00:10:21] You know, like she sang my favorite songs in church. She was a taller black woman who told me how to move in my body. I'm six foot four. I was over six feet tall at 10 years old. And she was like, you're going to need some assistance. She was like, your mom, everybody in your family is five, five and under. No one's going to be able to tell you about how to navigate this body in the world. And so she just took me under her wing. And this book is for auntie Donna Faye. This book is for my auntie Barbara, who told me how to make sure my chicken was cooked all the way through.

[00:10:51] You know, my grandmother, who, when I was six, she would make me top ramen with hot dogs in it. You know what I'm saying? Like this, this is, this is about the women who raised me just as much as it's about the Audre Lorde's and the Angela Davis's because my black feminisms started there. My black feminisms started with people who hadn't read these scholarly texts and didn't have access to college campuses. You know, I didn't come from a place where people had college degrees. It just wasn't a common thing.

[00:11:18] So the language of black feminism was taught to me in, you know, this is how your food should look. This is how you should move through the world. This is, this is what's expected of you, but you don't have to do it right. Like here are the boxes and you can step outside of them. Those are my black feminist lessons. And that's who I wrote this book for.

[00:11:50] I love that question. When I, when you see me this question, I thought to myself, I said, Hmm, I was like, Oh, did my course, was there something my course couldn't hold? And I had never thought of it until I saw your question. And it, it, it absolutely is true that, you know, I teach in a conservative, predominantly white institution.

[00:12:21] I am teaching black feminist politics in a department that has never had a black feminist politics course. I am the first person to teach it on that campus. And, uh, I got a lot of pushback about that questions about that. And then it ended up being one of the most popular courses on, on the campus. And even within that, I found myself pulling away from telling the absolute truth, right? About what these lessons taught us.

[00:12:51] So in particular, Toni Morrison, right? People, people like to sterilize Toni Morrison's legacies as if she was just writing these frou-frou little books about black people in the Midwest. And it's like, no, have y'all opened a lot? Have y'all read jazz? Right. Have you read Song of Solomon? You know, and I think I was not able to really investigate Toni Morrison's work as much in the classroom because frankly, people were not ready for it.

[00:13:17] And they could not understand how it was inherently political to write a book that is fictional about Margaret Garner, which is who Setha in Beloved is based on. Someone who was escaping slavery and ended up, you know, trigger warning, you know, harming and unaliving her children in the process. That is a hell of a motivational topic, you know, to inspire a text.

[00:13:46] And a lot of times when I'm introducing these works and these writers and these scholars and thinkers to college freshmen, they're not ready, if I'm being honest with you. And I understand because I wasn't either as a freshman in college. I wasn't either. And so there's a lot of things in the book, including Fannie Lou Hamer's experience with a Mississippi appendectomy, you know, a non-consensual hysterectomy.

[00:14:09] You know, those are things that I don't even teach in my class fully because unfortunately for a lot of my students and these campuses, they don't even have the capacity to hold the truth of black women's actual lived experiences. So I usually have to take it back a step and teach portions of the book, but I can't teach the entire book because they're just not, they're not there yet.

[00:14:34] I think about that too, because even now they're like, Tony's still hard. Tony is still hard. Like, I love her in the answer because I'm like, sometimes I just want to be like, girl, what, what, what was the what? But then I also know a lot of Midwestern baddies, that's why I call them Midwestern baddies. They, I always say, they are kind, but they are not nice. Yes. Yes.

[00:15:05] And Toni Morrison was an Aquarius. People forget, like a lot of our faves are Aquariuses. Audre Lorde, Aquarius. Nina Simone, Aquarius. Angela Davis, Aquarius. Aquariuses are not known for being nice, right? Like, they love you down. They'll be, they'll be loyal, but they will also tell you about themselves. And I think, you know, I think about the fact that, you know, Bell Hooks, a Libra, both of my grandmothers, Libras. I take this stuff so seriously.

[00:15:32] Like, I see so much of the women in my life, my mothers in Aquarius, reflected in these women as well because they're just so human, right? Like, part of what I wanted to do with this book as well was to say, you know, we have to allow Black women to be human beings and not objects for our consumption, right? That's really why so much of my work is around that. So let's talk about that consumption because you have a chapter called Fannie Blue Hamler taught me to be unrespective.

[00:15:58] I need you to talk about respectability politics because I feel like that conversation is everywhere right now, especially at this time. We are, we're on the 250th year of America's empire destiny. We'll see most empires crash and burn under 200 years. And we're all trying to figure out how to navigate and find our identity.

[00:16:26] I think, I think as Americans, we probably haven't had our identity really clear since, honestly, the Civil War. If we're being completely honest in my opinion. What does Fannie Blue Hamer actually teach us about the cost of respectability and who paid? I love that.

[00:16:47] You know, respectability is one of the hardest concepts for me to teach because I think people want me to jettison respectability wholesale as if, you know, like I'm going to say it's awful in all respects and don't worry about being respectable. But I actually don't feel that way. One thing I've had to teach my students and one thing I try to also convey in the book is that respectability is about survival. Right.

[00:17:15] And you can only be unrespectable truly when you know that you are safe enough to do so. Right. And there are people who, you know, for their own safety, they pass because that's one way that they're able to navigate anti-Blackness and white supremacy. They have, you know, this culture of the semblance, which is what we refer to as Black feminist.

[00:17:42] And that is what protects so many Black women from the violence and the ire of outside community members. Respectability is something where Fannie Lou Hamer, she never had a choice. Right.

[00:17:58] She grew up poor and destitute in Mississippi in a time where, you know, folks were trying to make money just simply just doing sharecropping and having their dollars and cents stolen by previous plantation owners. You know, so respectability didn't actually do anything for her. And not only did I do anything for her, she didn't have access to it. And so one of the things that she would often say is like, you know, I'm poor.

[00:18:26] I grew up with no shoes on my feet. And she said, no matter what happens with me, there will still be poor Black Mississippians walking around with no shoes on their feet. What are we going to do about this? And I always kind of respected Fannie's approach to the work because for her, it wasn't about status and clout and class and her achieving. It was nobody should have to live like this. Right.

[00:18:53] And that is an inherently unrespectable place of being. Right. Where I see myself reflected in the most vulnerable. I see myself reflected in those people who are seen as disposable. And I am elevating them. And that's where I think I really learned the lesson around being unrespectable. Right. Is that you could, for example, myself, I have a whole PhD, but the work I do does not censor people who are in these elite spaces intentionally. Right.

[00:19:22] The work I do is inherently unrespectable because these institutions don't respect people who look like me and come from where I come from. Right. So rather than contend with that and feel challenged by it, I accept it. And I love this about me. Right. I love that I'm not legible to these institutions. That they're like, you have a PhD and you went to these elite universities. Why are you out here in the streets taking it? Because I actually am a black person first. Right. Like, black, vulnerable people. Right. Most marginalized people.

[00:19:52] That's who comes first for me. And I think that's something that I could not have learned had I not really dug into Fannie Lou Hamer's life and her choices. You said something very interesting. Your response about the respectability of access to respectability. Go a little deeper in that. Because I know where you go, and I agree with you. Yes. But for those who don't, who are listening, who don't really understand the access to respectability, can you expound on that?

[00:20:22] Absolutely. So in political science, respectability politics is credited to Hazel Carby. She wrote a book called Reconstructing Womanhood that gave us this concept of respectability politics.

[00:20:40] And what she argues there is that there are ways that black Americans can leverage their proximity to certain ways of being social norms around professionalism or, you know, the behaviors of whiteness. This whole thing where they say you're so articulate and, you know, you dress so well. You look so respectable. Right.

[00:21:02] And she argues that those types of behaviors and that assimilation with social norms is a mode of survival, but it is inherently anti-black. Right. It's rooted in anti-blackness that, you know, if your hair is not looking at like something that is legible to those people, then it's unkempt. It's dirty. Right. It's unrespectable. Or, you know, if you come from this come from the Daniel Patrick Moynihan report of 1965, if you come from a single parent household,

[00:21:32] where you were raised by a matriarch, that you are somehow part of this broken part of society and you are not as good as everyone else. So when I say the accessibility to respectability politics, what I'm suggesting is that there are some folks like Fannie Lou Hamer, who she said her body doesn't even let her, you know, participate in whatever this respectability politics is. Right. She was a larger, dark skinned black woman.

[00:21:58] And she doesn't have the same features as these kind of Eurocentric, you know, normative ideas of what you should look like. Right. And she was very clear on that. And not only was she clear on that, she embraced it. Right. She said, I actually don't care what y'all think about how I look or where I come from. It actually doesn't matter what you think. I still have a right to survival. I have a right to live.

[00:22:22] And that's what I mean about access is that there are some of our bodies that simply don't conform. I am a six foot four inch tall black woman who is misgendered every day. I get called sir all the time. Right. My body does not conform to the ideals of gender. Right. My body transgresses inherently.

[00:22:42] And so seeing Fannie Lou Hamer's lessons and her way of being helped me to give myself permission to move in this unrespectable body. I really love that. I love Fannie Lou Hamer. She's definitely top of the list to me because I don't think they are, but they are.

[00:23:12] And the things that they believe in inherently, and it's so funny because we just talked about the Texas rodeo, like the dress code. And I'm just like, y'all, like, they're like, well, they shouldn't be wearing these clothes. There's kids around. I'm like, y'all are beliterate drunk falling out of the... I was just at rodeo last year. There are people who are guzzling tequila, guzzling beers, and they are falling off this way, that way, all across the floor. The police are coming in.

[00:23:41] I picked y'all up because y'all drunk. What do you think that does to a kid? Exactly. This person's butt. Exactly. Not the same. So sorry. But they were like, it's a family event. Y'all drinking that event? No, it is the same. It is the same. It is the same. And that's the thing that's also important, too, is that there are so many Black people who enforce, respectively, politics on other Black people. Right? And this, unfortunately, is often a generational thing. Right? You young girls got your legs out.

[00:24:09] And I will never forget when I was in my 20s, and I have a niece. And she was a little girl at the time. She had to be, you know, between 11 and 13. And she was wearing some shorts. She was at home in her house where she lived. She had on some shorts. And one of the elder women in my community, you know, grabbed her. Grabbed her by her waist and started pinching on her thighs and was like, these shorts are too short. I don't, you know, I think these shorts are just too short.

[00:24:38] And she's like, these men are going to see you out here, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I looked at her and I said, get your hands off of my knees. She don't, you sitting here talking about these men, she's in her house with her family. Everyone here is related to her. The only person assaulting her is you. You're violating her body right now. I said, did you ask her permission to touch her body that close to her private areas? I'm like, do you see yourself?

[00:25:06] And it was interesting because at the time, everyone in the room was kind of like, because they were so used to her doing that, right? They were so used to her touching and talking to these little girls this way. And I'm like, that type of politic is what has our children growing up and thinking that their bodies are not okay, that they can't move comfortably and freely. Because they have to always be afraid of this boogeyman when in actuality, sometimes the boogeyman is their own auntie or their own grandma or their own church lady, you know?

[00:25:34] And we have to work on this as a community. Yeah, I totally agree. The fear and the processing of that fear leads to the captivity of the body. Because we are trying to police for unforeseen circumstances that could or could not happen. When really we should be checking the men. Because why are you looking at 13-year-olds? Right! Come on!

[00:26:04] Yeah, I just read If I Rule the World by Amy Du Bois. Oh! And I was thinking about a girl in the 90s, she's like in the late 90s, early aughts. And I'm thinking about that time. And I'm like, and then watching the, you know, America's a Top Model documentary, I'm like, wow! It's like really a sign of the times. And the older that I get, the more I see the things that are the signs of the times.

[00:26:33] And so when I was reading your book, I was just like thinking, I'm like, wow! Like, even though we have progressed so much, the sign of the times is still a sign of the times. And we have to keep pushing. And that's why we have these influential figures to keep us pushing. And have them today to keep us pushing because we all want to stay set if we die. That's right. That's right. And I think about that too, about Ida B. Wells, who is another one of my girls.

[00:27:01] Because she, she can't stand it. And have a man too. Because like, I also, I'm torching me as attracted to men. So, here I am. And I love my man. But, you know, after man, hang on here. He is a radical fruit teller. We are living right now in a moment where truth feels like it's not. We can play around with it. It's under siege. We've got book bands.

[00:27:31] We've got history being written in real time. If everybody's watching this right now, keep buying physical copies of things. Because you never know what's going to happen. I'm just, you need to be that power. You have to. What does Ida B. Wells, like, teach us in particular about how to move through that? And what would she do right now? Child, Ida would have a shotgun right now.

[00:27:59] She would be mowing niggas down. You know, it's really funny. I'm actually going to bring together the question with us talking about my man, my man, my man. Because I'm a lesbian. And I have been married to a man for 20 years. My spouse is the most incredible person, I know. He's my best friend. We have three children together. He's an incredible father.

[00:28:26] He is just a great person. And part of the truth-telling that I write about in that chapter on Ida B. Wells, I actually write about myself. And about how hard it was for me to tell the truth about myself to myself. Because of all the lessons I was taught about my body. And what I was supposed to belong to someone. I was supposed to be a heterosexual man. And we get married. And we have two and a half kids.

[00:28:55] And I didn't want to do that. Right. When I met him, I thought I was very much a gay person. And it took me really grappling with the ways that so many Black women have told the truth, even at their own peril. Right. Ida B. Wells is a primary example of this. She ends up writing, you know, at this newspaper. And, you know, they white men try to come and kill her. Right.

[00:29:24] A white mob comes into the news office and burns the whole thing down. Right. She has to flee her own town. Right. And she did it anyway. She was writing down her pseudonym. And she's like, this is something I have to do. She wrote this pamphlet on lynching, the one that we all read now. Right. And she writes Southern Horrors and the Red Record. And she does that even as people are trying to murder her for just telling the truth.

[00:29:54] And so I wrote this chapter to say, you know, it's so interesting to me that I struggled with telling the truth when Ida was willing to do it, you know, and almost got killed for it. I'm like, it made me feel more courageous knowing that there were Black women who came before me who were willing to risk their lives for the truth. Right.

[00:30:14] And so I think about this relationship, this long term spouse that I've had and the fact that I'm a polyamorous person and I'm a queer person and all these truths about me that I suppressed for so long. So I can perform, you know, this identity and solidarity with the people, you know, the Black heteronormative Christian folks that raised me. But at the same time, right?

[00:30:42] And I'm like, I don't, I just don't believe Ida would do that. I just don't think that she would engage in this kind of self-betrayal that so many of us actively participated in the name of solidarity or in the name of being seen and accepted and affirmed. And so that chapter is really thinking about what would it look like if we all had the same courage as Ida, right? If we decided to tell the truth in all walks of life, what would that look like?

[00:31:11] That is something I think about because, as you know, the women in our lives and in the movement and who have been, you know, black Americans in this experiment is something that it's serious to do because it pushes you in places that are fearful because we've been so conditioned just to survive.

[00:31:42] That what does it look like when you live your life for you, for you, but for you. And I think about, I think about Bannon, I think about Harriet, I think about Shirley, I think about all these women. And I'm like, wow, you never, we never admire you when you're here. That's right. You give your flowers in real life in real time. But when you pass, we give them everything.

[00:32:13] And if anybody's listening right now, like just really think about how can you give someone flowers now and don't wait till they leave. It takes a lot of courage to tell the truth and to stand in that and to really push a system because it is hard. It is really hard. And I want to talk about how you said you wrote this book for a new generation of movement organizers and co-strugglers.

[00:32:40] If you want to fix this book and want to do something, not just feel something, especially right now, where do you point them? I love these questions. I try. I think the book is very much structured like my course in that the early chapters are just kind of learning the theory, understanding what freedom is. Why does it matter? Like, why does it matter how we see ourselves situated with regards to other people in the community?

[00:33:10] And then the last few chapters are really like the praxis, right? That's where we talk about Audre Lorde and self-care and Angela Y. Davis and this idea of anti-racism and abolition. We talk about bell hooks and how we can move in ways that are deeply loving with ourselves and with others. And the last chapter is me reflecting on my own lessons, right, on patience.

[00:33:32] And so if I were to direct someone somewhere in this book and then also in the broader world, you know, I think this book is... Someone asked me recently, what do you want me to get out of this? They were a fiction reader. And they were like, I don't really read nonfiction, but I kind of want to read this. So what am I supposed to understand here?

[00:33:54] And I told her, I said, you know, I want people to understand that we all have power in our orbit and in our network to make massive change, right? Like, when I talk about a new generation of co-strugglers and freedom fighters and the idea of reimagining a freer world, my argument is that if you look at each of these women and what they were willing to do, how they were willing to show up, right?

[00:34:23] You can also see ways that you yourself can do something like that in your own community, right? You can talk about the truth, right, at church or with that auntie or, you know, with those people in your community who say you're not allowed to exist this way. You can challenge that. And now you can do it knowing full well that you come from a lineage of Black women who have done that work.

[00:34:49] Like, the whole point of the book is to send folks on their way so that they will keep doing this work. This will not be the end point of the journey, but the starting point. That's why I have a ridiculously long bibliography and I have citations throughout the book, right? The whole point, and a syllabus in the paperback, right? The whole point is to say, like, we each matter, right? Our orientation toward this work matters, and these women don't exist in vacuums, right?

[00:35:18] A lot of them knew each other. They collaborated. They built institutions together. Kitchen Table Press was started from a conversation between Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith, who is one of the members of the Combahee River Collective, right? You know, June Jordan, Audre Lorde had long-term friendship. These people were collaborators. They were co-conspirators. And that's what people should be looking to become, right?

[00:35:43] They should be looking to learn these lessons and then go do and be otherwise. That's what you should always want to do. What am I doing now, and how can I show up differently so that I challenge the status quo? And this book was intended to give those lessons. If you were to put your book with another book and having a conversation with each other, what book would you say? Ooh, my God. A few questions.

[00:36:13] I just thought that. Yeah, I'm like, ooh, that's a surprise question. You know, I read a lot of books. I read about 70 books a year. So, you know, I think there's a couple. So, I'll start with Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider.

[00:36:33] Sister Outsider is a compilation of essays from Audre Lorde that detail mostly her speeches and talks that she gave as she was straddling the kind of poet world, writing world, and academia. Those essays are so critically important. The essays include her essay on the master's tools, her essay on how to raise a Black son in a world that rewards patriarchy, the use of the erotic, right?

[00:37:01] All of those essays are so critically important. Because she is writing in the 70s, a time where we were not allowed to speak about ourselves in honest ways, right? And so, I take cues from her. I take lessons directly from her. I would also say Communion by Bell Hooks, which is an entire book about how we love other Black women.

[00:37:31] And that book blew me away. Everyone always talks about all about love. But I think people forget that that was a series of three books, which included Communion, Salvation, and All About Love. And they are all distinct and they are all so important. But Communion is saying, you know, we have to learn how to love each other in community. And we also have to learn how to treat ourselves like members of that community. We have to love ourselves.

[00:37:59] Okay, and then the third one is Lindsay Stewart's Conjuring of America. I love this book. I love this book. I love this book. And I love this book. Yes. This book, to me, is so critical in this moment because it also is an effort to rescue our history from intentional erasure.

[00:38:26] It's an effort to tell true stories about Black women and specifically Negro mammies, right, who are often minimized to very problematic tropes and stereotypes. And she shows, like, actually, they were better than some of these surgeons and doctors.

[00:38:44] And they were making all types of, you know, remedies and balms and salves that ended up becoming the basis for things like Vicks Vapor Rub and things that we take for granted come from Black women.

[00:38:58] And so I think if I had to choose anything, it would be those three books because they work to me in tandem to do the same thing, which is tell the truth about Black women, even when it's hard, and to rescue our history from the unknowing, the intentional misremembering, and the violence of the archive. And I was reading, and I was just finished reading Seven Daughters of the Creed. And I was like, what is this?

[00:39:27] Because I'm like, all my books are just having conversations with each other at this point. And I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I was like reading. I'm getting ready for the episodes. I'm getting ready for things. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, if I were to capture this season, it's definitely like all the episodes that I've been talking about is love and conversations and all those things that we're having right now. And I really, really love it.

[00:39:53] So what books or books, what more books are you reading or we're reading right now that feel essential to you? Oh, my gosh. Well, I just finished Bloom How You Must by Tara Pringle-Jackerson. Another book that I really, really like that I just finished is called Stop Waiting for Perfect by L'Oreal Thompson Payton. She has a bookstore called Zora's Place in Chicago.

[00:40:22] It's actually a little bit north of Chicago. It's in the suburbs. But I love this book because it is for the high-performing Black girls. Yeah. It's telling us, you know, it's okay to not be perfect, which I was reading it and I felt called in. I felt bad. You know, I was like, oh, I need these lessons. She has a little washing.

[00:40:51] Yeah. But we're socialized to be perfect, right? Because we are told if you're not 10 times better, you know, then you're not good enough. And it's true. It plays out in society. It plays out all the time. So, you know, that book has been sitting in my spirit. I already mentioned Conjuring America. You'll see I have all my books right off the camera. So, I love this book. That's amazing, too.

[00:41:20] I may reread it. You know, I may reread it again. And then another book that I really love that I just finished, and this is the last one I'm going to share. How to Be Unmothered by Camille U. Adams. This, I'm not a poet. I don't think I'm a poet. I've tried to be a poet.

[00:41:42] But this book is written, it's written like prose, but it reads in a rhythm. There is a pulse and a rhythm throughout the entire book that feels like a song. And it's a Trinidadian memoir, and it takes you straight into Trinidad and Tobago as if you are sitting there on the streets. I don't know how she did it.

[00:42:12] Just, I've asked her to explain it. She tried. I still don't know. This book is incredible. And I just think more people need to read it. Okay. Don't worry about the right that old place, but don't worry about the B in the notes so y'all can get it. Okay? So, I know you are wrapping up your paperback tour. So, I know authors coming in, so I'm going to ask, what's that? Is there anything else? Oh!

[00:42:39] Oh, I love this question because I'm a Virgo, so you know I got like 75%. Oh, yeah. So, you know. Yeah, I have another book coming out. This is a very academic book. It's called Policing Blackness. It will be coming out at Cornell University Press next year. This book is an in-depth analysis of the ways that young Black Americans navigate police threat in the United States and what the stakes are.

[00:43:08] I interviewed 100 young Black Americans and asked them, you know, about their experiences. And this book details all of it. It's heavy. It's sad at times. But I think it's part of my work, again, you know, in the wealthy and tradition to tell the truth. So, and then I have a memoir that I recently finished. It's called Maternal. Which is probably why this book is hitting me so hard.

[00:43:37] It's about, you know, my mother. And it's about the mother wound. You know, it's about the ways that so many Black girls, especially oldest girls and only girls, are raised to essentially be the mule of the world.

[00:43:55] And how our mothers are sometimes, as Hook writes in the will to change, sometimes our mothers are also the tools of patriarchy. So. I want it. I want it. That's the underrated hit. The will to change is the underrated hit. And be real cool. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Actually, we were cool, actually, in my book.

[00:44:24] I cite that in my book. So. Yeah. I am working on those two projects. They should both be out in 2027. So, I'm taking, after this book tour ends, I am taking six months. And I am resting. Wow. And then I will be back out there at the beginning of next year. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. If you don't like to hear today, I'm proud of you. Thank you. Where can the folks find you if they don't?

[00:44:56] Child, unfortunately, I'm everywhere. I don't mean to be. But I'm everywhere. So, Jen M. Jackson, PhD on every platform. People are like, you always put a PhD. Oh. It's okay. It's okay. It's horrible. Oh, my God.

[00:45:26] I was going to say, yeah, Jen M. Jackson, PhD everywhere. And, no, people have said to me, why do you have PhD in your handle? And they think it's because I just am that obsessed with having a PhD. And the answer is no. That's not why. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. But also, it's because I have a very common name. So, there are 700,000 Jen Jacksons in the world. So, but PhD helped me to have the same handle on everything.

[00:45:54] So, that's how I help people remember it. Jen M. Jackson, I'm the one with the PhD at the end. That's it. I love that. And you should be happy you got a PhD. Thank you. I love that. I love that. Come on, Morgan State? Yes. Yes. I love Morgan State. So, that's how we met. And he's like a public health dude. Okay. I love this.

[00:46:24] That's his life. Wait. Are you on the DMV? Mm-hmm. I'm in Baltimore right now. We're neighbors. I live in Gaithersburg. You are neighbors. You know, I hate coming to me today. But I will get you up. But you can always come to me. I'm in Baltimore at least. You can keep watching Mama Coco. I'm going to Mama Coco. I'm going to Mama Coco's in a few days. I love Baltimore. Oh. Oh, my gosh. Well, you'll probably see Mama Coco herself. I do. Every time I see her, she's adorable.

[00:46:52] While she in there, being the cutest thing that she ever wants. She's so sweet. She's so sweet. She's so sweet. But, yeah. If you're there, I'll probably be. What are you going to do? Friday. I'm going on Friday. I might be around. I might have hot pits. But I'll be around. So, I'm getting mirror dry, y'all. Y'all are all up in our business. But I'm getting mirror dry so I can stop sweating so bad at least my underarm. Because I'm tired. I'm sweating this bad. And I just don't want to do Botox. I want that. I want that. Report back.

[00:47:22] Oh, I want you know how it is. Yeah. Report back. I will. I will. I will. So, first day, y'all. With our very invasive time and a guest sneak peek. That is the end of our episode. And I want to thank you so much, Dr. Jackson, for taking the time to speak, to be in community with me, deal with my technical difficulties. Because Mercury just got out of her microwave. It happens. Love it. We are here. But thank you for being in community with me.

[00:47:49] And with that, y'all, not even another episode of Dab and Sat, but make a book. And keep reading, but keep healing. Because that's what we do. All right. Peace, y'all. Your Ancestor's Story is proof that strength and dignity endure even when everything else is taken away.

[00:48:15] When it comes to honoring that legacy, your privacy should never be in question. At AfricanAncestry.com, your story and your information belong to you. We destroy every DNA sample and never sell or share your data with anyone. Discover where in Africa your story began accurately and safely with AfricanAncestry.com. What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young.

[00:48:44] Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books.