Cancelling People

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Yemi: Hey, and welcome back. So today I want to talk about the idea of cancelling people. I truly don't know the origins. I don't know where or how it started. And if I was to go in the mind's eye of someone who may have started it with the best of intentions, it would be if people have done things wrong in the world, that we shouldn't continue to glorify them by giving them access to all the things that allow them to continue to prosper.

[00:01:03] And in some instances, harm people, communities, and organizations. Now, one of my, um, not so amazing traits is radical honesty. I personally think it's great, but I appreciate that there are things that I would share that might really take people out of their comfort zone. And one of those things is the fact that we must not gaslight ourselves into understanding the world in which we have inherited and the way in which we operate.

[00:01:33] This is called decolonizing trauma for really good reason that almost every episode, sometimes not very explicitly, will go back to the idea of colonization that really wreaks supremacy, abuse of power over a group of people who were colonized. either the first original custodians in human civilization as we know it.

[00:01:59] So when you have that as the basis of where you live, everything that is built on top of it is questionable. And so if we were to be really honest with ourselves, we would be canceling people who are descendants of colonizers and continue to act in a colonizing way that completely harms First Nations people across the world and continues to harm descendants of that group.

[00:02:29] Now, without taking direct responsibility, I know that I contribute to a number of colonizing acts, behaviors, patterns, blueprints, not because I instigated it, but because I was born into it and to date have not done anything to say, Hey, hold up a minute. This doesn't feel right. And although I am not the cause, Surely, it's part of my responsibility to question it.

[00:02:58] I'm now at a stage that I'm really stepping into this a lot more, speaking about it with a different voice, a different vibration. But one thing we must not do is gaslight ourselves into thinking this is other people's problems and business and not mine. Because we then become part of the problem. So, if you want cancelling people was off of that basis, then we probably really need to go back in history as far back as we can that relates to how we are operating the day to day.

[00:03:33] And I'm not suggesting that this podcast or my immediate thoughts is for that bigger topic. I have no doubt. That I will address that in coming months, years, decades before my time in this body is up. What I do want to talk about in relation to cancelling is this idea that when someone disagrees with us, we cannot share space with them ever again.

[00:04:00] The amount of times I post something or I make reference to a name and someone comes into my DMs or my inbox and says, That person is racist, that person is homophobic, I don't follow them anymore. What's really interesting is, I wonder what they want me to do with that now. Is it that because they've told me with no background, no insight, no even linearity of the story of which I question now, i.

[00:04:28] e. telling linear stories, or seemingly linear stories, is that I think they assume that if they've given me their word, And I trust them, and I don't know, they are my friend, either social media or in 3D, that I am to now cancel this person and therefore not listen to anything they do or say. I have issue with that, because that is how racism started.

[00:04:54] If we look at a lot of the history and documentarians who are putting stuff out to give us a different perspective on why we are experiencing some of the problems we have today, it's the fact that one particular group, in particular white people, told a story on the inferiority of black people. Noting, this also happened with Irish, Jewish, the different groups, cultures can be added.

[00:05:20] And if we do not take any agency to at least say, well, let me just tell you, Let me just check this, or do I need to check this? Do I have another form of filter that allows me to engage a bit more with someone to understand a different perspective? Can we pause before we decide, A, that we are going to rid of A?

[00:05:43] ever getting to know a person, a group, a thought off the back of somebody else's experience. And this is tricky because when we're in a world, especially, um, well around the world where women are talking of abuse at the hands of predominantly men, people who use violence as a method of control, colonization, like I said, we have to go back radical honesty, you know, Sometimes we have this approach of, okay, we're not going to believe.

[00:06:12] Yeah, there needs to be belief, but you also need to go in and check, because some people have abused power. So I appreciate that it is a very tricky and rocky space. Now, even what I have said, you may have heard this and said, well, what does, what does Yemi mean? Does she mean we shouldn't believe people when they talk about abuse?

[00:06:31] Um, no, that's definitely not what I'm saying. And can I just say that we're not going to get that full story from me being the only one who's talking. And you being the only one who's listening, we are going to have to engage in discourse and discord, meaning that there is a possibility we will disagree.

[00:06:48] Can we do it without cancelling each other, i. e. our ability to belong to anything? Now I know, I know that maybe there was one point way before our time that people were kind of Shied away from tribes and community, and that was the punishment for their continuous disregard for humanity and the rules and the laws that were placed.

[00:07:14] But I think, humans in today, 2024, depending on if you're listening to this in 2075, we are doing it in a very different way that for me suggests we will firstly have no resilience nor an ability to grow and therefore we will not be sustainable. And I'm not suggesting we need to stay in the same mindset as we are today, but we do need to get curious about the idea that someone could have a view that completely triggers and agitates our own values.

[00:07:46] That the only way we think we can co exist is if they do not exist in our mind and in our immediate sphere. And what makes it even more challenging is when we decide to go and share that unto other people as if that is the truth and the whole truth. Now hear me, as I'm saying this, I'm getting a download that says, But Yemi, remember when Uncle abused his power over you?

[00:08:08] If you went and told others, which you did, And they did not take your word for it or appear to do anything. How is that different? And if you could see me, I've got the pretty much emoji feeling of my hands and my shoulder shrugged up saying, I don't know the answer. But I do know that when I, in my, was it 40s?

[00:08:34] Just before I turned 40s, reached out to my uncle and told him what I believe I needed to say to form part of my healing. was actually, I feel like me saying, look, I'm going to give you a blight, which is kind of like a colloquial term used in London, but I'm going to give you a pause in the hope that I hope that you have restored yourself in knowing that abusing your power over a little kid or anyone for that matter without consent is harmful.

[00:09:12] And although I question our methods of punitive punishment, there has to be something restorative. Because another radical statement loading is that if we paused and just looked within our immediate communities, not only are you going to see, sorry, not even communities, our families, our homes, our schools, our places of work, not only are we sharing space with multiple victims, as the word was intended to be used.

[00:09:40] We are also sitting amongst many people who are the abusers, the perpetrators. I know that's a loaded word, but stay with me. The people who choose violence, the people who reign supremacy, the people who abuse their power. So when you go to a meeting and you say, Oh, this happened to me. And I'm, when I say meeting, I'm not talking in the work form.

[00:10:03] I'm just talking of community. This happened to me as a child. This happened to me as, um, uh, a parent, as a person. There's a possibility you're speaking to someone who was the instigator of the pain you felt. We are under this illusion that we are only sharing space with all the good people. And if we don't learn to get curious as to why someone might have a different thought to you, we will never be able to solve some of the world's deepest problems that are steeped in continuous acts of colonization, continuous pain from colonization, supremacy, racial capitalism, genocide.

[00:10:49] How can we move forward? Because we, what we really think there's going to be a good and a bad. Nah, come on now. We are no longer living in this binary world and I know it is crazy as fuck because my head hurts when I think, damn, now I know why we only use a small percentage of our brain, because doing anything else, yes, we'd be superhumans, which would be great, but because we're so busy just trying to live in the most least humane way, We just feel we don't have the capacity to take on any more thoughts.

[00:11:24] And my invitation is we need to get comfortable with it. So my invitation to you is that the next time someone says something or you hear something that completely agitates you, kind of disrupts the thorn that you've done really well to bubble wrap and put a plaster on. Maybe you haven't tended to it and I invite you to tend to it so that it doesn't agitate you as often as it maybe does.

[00:11:51] But the next time you hear someone say something that goes against your values, I want you to just pause for a minute. Check that you are physically and psychologically safe. And both of those are so subjective depending on how Our nervous system is, because if we are hyper aroused and our nervous system really checks constantly for harm, the way you perceive the world and information in front of you will be different.

[00:12:20] And there is no blame in this, but absolute love is the reason why my message continuously is around cleaning our trauma. So that we can be as close to balance as possible. The work is hard. Living, existing is a risk. And the minute we start to name it and name it in community, then we kind of know that we're not alone.

[00:12:42] And therefore we can start to edge away at some of the real global issues that happen on a micro and a macro level. But when you hear that person have a different view from you and you can make as close to a balanced decision that you are psychologically and physically safe, I want you to try not to cancel them immediately.

[00:13:04] If you can and you have the capacity for grace, I want you to lean in and say, tell me more. I want you to tap on your collarbone, tap on the side of your palm. Just to regulate yourself or, you know, gently sway your body back and forth as you hear them. Try to stay grounded. Try not to completely leave your body if you can.

[00:13:28] And hear them out. Noting that at some point, you will be the person that needs to be heard out. May this land in whatever way was needed for you, and I hope you continue to love me and give me grace because I will do the same for you. I love you.