Daz It, Daz All
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Daz It, Daz All
Adultification of Black Children
Imagine the weight of society's gaze compelling children to forfeit their innocence before their time. Joined by Maiya and Nadege, we grapple with the realities of adultification bias and its impact on black children's right to a carefree youth. Through personal narratives and a mother's fierce advocacy, we uncover the discrepancies in how black youth are perceived and treated compared to their peers. We confront the systemic pressures that force premature maturity, hindering natural mental and emotional growth and explore how environmental factors can shape physical development and societal perceptions.
Host KC Carnage (@iamkccarnage), Maiya Sykes (@maiyasykes) , and Nadege Ndjebayi (@nadege_ndkebayi)
Daz It Daz All is written by KC Carnage (@iamkccarnage) and Produced by KC Carnage and Rick Barrio Dill (@rickbarriodill). Associate producer Bri Coorey (@bri_beats), Audio and Video Engineering and Studio facilities provided by S.L.A.P. Studios LA (@SLAPStudiosLA) with distribution through our collective for social progress and cultural expression, SLAP the Network. (@SLAPtheNetwork.com)
If you have any ideas for a show you want to see or hear, email us at info@SLAPtheNetwork.com and as always, you can go to dazitdazall.com and sign up there to make sure you never miss a thing...
See you next show!
three cheers for Beyonce and everything that she does, but she still had a diamond sparkly thong on and had to do that. Even in this day and age, she cannot be a woman who at some point does not be in a diamond sparkly thong, and even she is victim of this, her counterpart Adele, who can go in a full length actamundo and just sing there.
Speaker 1:Isn't that wild? Isn't that wild? We are still in an era where most women of color received their wealth from hyper sexualization of themselves. That's it, that's all. That's it, that's all.
Speaker 2:Black excellence at its finest. How that skin glows, she's a true diamond, with the world right out back. She's still smiling. Never left that crown till she stays thriving. That's it, that's all. That's it, that's all. That's it. That's all, that's it, that's all. Is that really it, though? What up, what up, what up? Welcome to that's it. That's it, that's all, that's it, that's all. Is that really it, though? What up, what up, what up, welcome to. That's it, that's All, y'all. I'm your host, kasey. Today we got Maya on the show and Nadege Hi, and today we're gonna.
Speaker 2:This is actually a part three episode through Slap, the Network, on adultification bias through black children. We felt it was necessary to keep the discussion going because clearly it's still super prevalent, it's still happening and we want our kids to be kids and be able to develop in the way they should be developing and not push faster than they have to be. So let's just jump right into it. Let's just say cheers y'all, cheers, salud. I can't reach you, the judge, but you know how that works. I'm going to be the bridge. Be the bridge, trouble waters, honey. Before we jump into it, for those who don't know what adultification is, I would like to read you guys the definition, so you guys are aware of what it is. Adultification bias is a form of racial prejudice where children of minority groups, typically black children, are treated by adults as being more mature than they actually are. So let's just jump right into it. Let's hear some of your thoughts about adultification, and has it actually directly affected you at any point of your life? I think it's destroying.
Speaker 3:It's destroying and it's killing our children. It's destroying and it's killing our children, right? And it's destroying our developmental stages as kids, right, we all go through developmental stages. When you make a child an adult before they're ready, you mess with their brain chemistry because they're not going through those developmental stages in an appropriate way. They're not getting to explore, they're not getting to develop their defenses, develop their thinking, develop their problem solving in a way that is specific to children. They're developing it in a way that is expected of them as an adult. So it impacts us for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1:And it also impacts. If you don't have the tools to know how to navigate through these waters, then the expectation of you suddenly, because you're of a certain age, but at this age you're a larger size than your non-black counterparts, so you therefore should automatically be given the key to how to navigate. This is a lot to put on somebody who's 10.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by larger sizes? This is a lot to put on somebody who's 10.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you mean? What do you mean by larger sizes? Like, as well as we genetics are still genetics. Okay, you brought black people here on boats and only the strongest of us survived. We tend to be a little larger in size, a little larger in size, a little larger in stature, right, and we tend to develop, you know, a little more rapidly because of this, because you brought people here and only the strongest of them survived, so you made super people.
Speaker 3:Pretty much, pretty much. You know I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but systemically also. Look at the food deserts, look at what foods we're eating.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Look at the water quality.
Speaker 1:Look at what foods are available and what foods are encouraged.
Speaker 3:So we have significantly more hormones in our bodies.
Speaker 2:So we absolutely, absolutely. I agree with that because, like I was telling a story about, like I was living in once and the first month my intestines was fucked up. It was bad and I really thought it was something that I was eating there. I really honestly thought it was something eating there. And I went to the doctor and, as the day progresses and what was happening, it was just like my body was releasing all the hormones in American food, all the preservatives in American food, because over there they make everything fresh, they wake up in the morning, they're churning their spices, they're going, they're cutting fresh, like they do it every morning.
Speaker 1:It was the reason why I told you, because I had done the job. If you are a singer, you've done in any capacity. You've done this Shanghai Beijing, trying to freaking, drop so and learning to survive. It's kind of a weird situation because the air quality alone you're like what?
Speaker 2:People are blowing smoke in your throat as you're hitting the highest note you could possibly have and there's like an air quality like index that you have to watch to be able to go outside.
Speaker 1:It's real deep. So the one thing that I told you, I was like that's the reason why the tea is expensive. Go and get the price of your tea. And you were like really, and I said get the price of your tea.
Speaker 2:Did it work? It worked, she saved my life. She gave me this little pack of powder. Saved my life. But going back to the actual topic, when you're talking about developmental stage and you're talking about how we are bigger, the over-sexualization of black children, especially black girls, you know going into, like you know because they may look like a woman. They may have the features as a grown woman. They're still 10 years old. They're still 11 years old. So and when?
Speaker 3:you, when you are developing as a sexual being? Right, there's stages, right, that starts fairly early, right? So when you're, when you, when you are going up to a 10 year old black girl and telling her, you know, you act and grow, and you being fast, you're doing all these things.
Speaker 3:She's not, she doesn't conceptually understand what you're saying, but what you're doing is you're introducing these things into her space before she even has the ability to get developmentally to a space where she can actually conceptually understand that and the way that she's being approached in the world. And so, instead of healthily developing her sexuality or healthily developing her tools to manage people around her, sexuality, she's forced to already know. So then what's happening is is that she's creating what she thinks is the appropriate way of being, and what she thinks is how you manage men or how you manage women or how you manage people. She's developing, she's creating ways on how you manage spaces, and what we see is where she's getting that information TV, what you're saying to her, how people are treating her, and she's not getting to develop that healthily in a safe space.
Speaker 1:And let's keep it a buck. We're still in an era and this is not to downplay these women at all, because I think that they are all fabulous, but we are still in an era where most women of color received their wealth from hyper-sexualization of themselves. And that's that, like I don't, you know what I mean. Three cheers for Beyonce and everything that she does, but she still had a diamond sparkly thong on and had to do that.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing with Beyonce. I'm going to take Beyonce out of that because Beyonce going in Destiny's Child, those were appropriate outfits she developed.
Speaker 1:No, but I'm saying even in this day and age she cannot be a woman who at some point does not be in a diamond sparkly thong.
Speaker 2:And even she is victim of this, absolutely Because you got, you know her counterpart, adele, who can go in a full length A gown.
Speaker 1:Exactamundo and just sit there, and isn't that wild, isn't that wild?
Speaker 2:And a full length.
Speaker 1:No butt, no titties, all the grammys and all the things and the thing, but beyonce gotta still shake it for dollars and you still won't give her and you still won't give her the grammy.
Speaker 3:It seems a little rude, right so and and I think the thing is, is that like when, if you can develop healthily to get to that point, it's empowering, right? And that's where we get confused. It's very empowering if you get to develop healthily or you develop a healthy relationship with your sexuality, with your body, with whatever right. That's empowering. If you don't, that's dangerous. Well, let's talk about this too.
Speaker 2:Segueing to this. So they talk about adultification is what happens on the outside. When I was reading a lot more on this topic, they talked about parent. What did I say?
Speaker 1:Parentification right, where it happens in the home, whether it's a divorced parent or it's a single mom right, and they're usually the oldest black female child.
Speaker 3:So what we call it is a parentified child right Now. Parentified child that happens across the board right In a very specific way, but it is.
Speaker 3:It is very it can be very damaging to the way in which you relate in relationships. Right, because you don't get to be a child but you're responsible, you're emotionally responsible for adults, but you don't have the developmental skills to be that available. And so then when you become an adult which is what I see a lot with my clients is that then you have a lot of like, and what do you do?
Speaker 1:I was going to say can we talk about that a bit? Yeah?
Speaker 3:what do you do? I'm a psychotherapist.
Speaker 1:Hey y'all, and not just any psychotherapist. Can we talk a bit about the specifications of your practice, because I think it's really fascinating very different for different clinicians.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm more. I use my body in my practice, where there's a lot of somatic therapists who use their use the client's body whereas I, my body informs me on how to work with you and I address what's happening in your body as well.
Speaker 1:Now I, just as a person who has a lot of respect for holistic practice and Western practice, I am seeing this great marriage that's happening lately of even if we're introducing medications, it's a yes, and it's not just we're medicating and good luck.
Speaker 2:Well, because people are knowed up. Now People are getting knowledgeable. It's just like you can give somebody a medication for something. There's also a direct root or a direct herb or a direct synthesize.
Speaker 3:You know, like it's from a root, everything, everything you know. Greatness happens in balance. I think in a lot of times we were leaning to Western right Like an overcorrection yeah.
Speaker 3:And we were just like OK, you know, it was like it was like all, if I, you know, stick a rock up my ass, my hair will stop falling out. Not gonna work right, but maybe if I connect back with nature and get all of these chemicals out of my body, my hair will grow back right, like it's. Like there's, but there's a balance. We went all the way left on one end and then all of a sudden, everybody went all the way right and everybody was like I'm, I'm just going to eat grass forever now, and then people were getting sick. And now we're finding this place where we're coming back to center, where it's like you need a good balance of both, and that is different for every single person, and the work is finding the balance for you.
Speaker 2:Well, they talk about, like even in the adultification process, the mistrust in health care providers, like I know a lot of black people that don't go to doctors, like they just won't do it.
Speaker 1:Ok, listen, I can attest to that because I have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's and when I first started experiencing the symptoms of what it was, my hair started falling out. I was having neuropathy in my hands and feet. I was having really a hard time standing for any period past like maybe 20 minutes I had to sit down. I had chronic fatigue all of the time and in like a two-month period I put on like 35 pounds and I wasn't doing anything differently. So I cut out wheat, alcohol, sugar. I maybe lost like five pounds, but I still my feet would swell uncontrollably. And I was going to all of these doctors. I had a food journal. I was writing down my symptoms, what I was doing.
Speaker 1:I went to seven different doctors before I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and three of them prescribed me antidepressants. Three of them suggested that I was lying. One said well, if you're doing everything that you say you're doing then, and I was just like, why would I come in with an entire journal that I've been keeping for the last two and a half months saying this is what I've been eating, this is what I've been finding, this is what I? Why would I be saying that? To lie to you. But I realized that A because I think these things are indicative of a larger problem to come. Nobody would listen to me until I finally paid out of network $600 to some specialist, and that's the only time that person ever answered my queries, asked me questions that were relative to me, and that's when we found my diagnosis. But it took seven tries.
Speaker 1:So I can't even be mad at people of color when they're like, yeah, I don't trust doctors, I wouldn't either, and I had pretty decent insurance and I was paying.
Speaker 1:It's not like you know. I was going to and I'm not even disparaging people that are going to free clinics like those people must have such a hard road. But I was going to this out of network, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and paying the money and going online, and I was still treated like a damn criminal for saying this is what's happening with my body, and I've looked it up and it seems like it might be these things. May I be tested for them? What are your thoughts? Everybody's like there's no way you have this. It was so dismissive and so condescending and when I started going down the rabbit hole, I started meeting so many women of color, not just in the United States, but in the UK, in Australia, that were having similar experiences about health care. This is when I looked up what adultification means, because I think that this is happening to women of color globally and I think that it's a call to it's a crisis?
Speaker 3:Well, it's, it's. I'm going to get on my soapbox real quick.
Speaker 2:Girl do it. That's why we got microphones.
Speaker 3:I actually wrote my grad school thesis on something similar. Um, there's a history, there's a reason, there's a history behind this right and not to be that guy, but if we go back to slavery, um, if you ever have the chance to read dr joy degru's book, um my hero, oh, and I got to meet her when I graduated. I cried oh, my god, I love her so much, I, I love you so much. But in her book Intergenerational Slave Trauma, she speaks about the development of gynecology which was this piece of shit?
Speaker 3:dude was basically abusing black women to figure out our reproductive organs and in his writing, systemically, he was being given carte blanche to these women. Yeah, and in his writing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Systemically, he was being given carte blanche. Oh yeah yeah. And there was no sedatives. There was no medication.
Speaker 3:There was no nothing. And what in his writings what he said was is to justify his action is that black women have higher pain tolerance but we're more hysterical. I'm not going to go into it, but that has been proven through research that in the medical system that people still believe that and it is taught. It was taught. It was taught up until recently, not only is it taught recently?
Speaker 1:okay, my university celebrates him as the father of gynecology, so in Yale I'm going to put Yale on blast right now. But at the Yale Medical School, this man's photo is huge. His beginning of surgical tools are on display. The women that he operated on are not described by their name. They're described by subject number and their pictures are in display through this hall and you have to go there and get an education and see that and it's so traumatizing absolutely, and the fact that it's still.
Speaker 3:It's still. You know, as somebody who also has an autoimmune disease. I have endometriosis and I had the same experience. It wasn't until I fully leaned into the stereotype and started cussing motherfuckers out.
Speaker 1:That anybody helped, that people started listening to me.
Speaker 2:And the crazy part about it is that you leaned into a stereotype that was placed because they always give us a reason to be there. Exactly, they always give us a reason.
Speaker 3:It's a snake eating its tail Right. So if we're we're, we are seen as hysterical, we're seen as aggressive, we're seen as angry. Right, we're seen as having higher pain tolerance. And so when you show up Right and so imagine that as a child, as I was diagnosed, I was very lucky. My gynecologist was my mother's doctor and so she listened to me. But when I went to other doctors, I was 14 when I got diagnosed with endometriosis. They prescribed me with Oxycontin oh my God and Percocets at 14. Could you imagine if my parents didn't have the way with them.
Speaker 1:Were your doctors white or black, white, okay, and I think that I just I mean, I don't know about you, but this just makes me cry and I feel like it's almost an ancestral pain, like I'm crying for all of the women, like because I remember going when I was in college, seeing that whenever as I had a job at the med school and I would have to go through this particular hall to deliver reports for the person I was working for, and I just remember seeing that every day and I remember reading a study about it and they were like, well, there's in the last blah, blah, blah years and they pointed to people like Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates and Kathy Cohen who pointed out like how racist this was and whatever, and there's still this belief that it was still a justified means to an end.
Speaker 1:So I'm like how do we even talk about an adultification bias when you still believe that this is a justified means to an end? And I'd even be willing to accept that if there was an apology or an acknowledgement of Well, there's not going to be an apology, because they would have to acknowledge what they did and they'd have to acknowledge those people and if they acknowledge it.
Speaker 2:That means they have to technically rewrite history and rewrite the actual truth, because they're not going to do that, I'm telling you they have, like.
Speaker 1:I mean, if I'm wrong, I think they did a study on like something like 130 something women I don't remember In the library, right, because you have to go past this hall and I don't know if it's on display at the Yale Medical School anymore.
Speaker 3:Oh, he did yes. Oh, I call bullshit. He probably did it on hundreds and hundreds of women.
Speaker 1:Okay, those are the women he recorded. Yes, but even those women, there are pictures of them, oh yeah, and there's no record of their names, of course, anywhere. So it would say subject 37. Yeah, some one of the most famous Distended uterus, and then list so, but they would have this woman's picture Extended uterus and then list so, but they would have this woman's picture, and you know that she showed up in the best outfit that she had, hoping that this man was going to help her, because many of the things that he was studying is at the time when women would become pregnant. They would become incontinent because of the medical procedure that was done at the time. So a lot of these women came in because they could no longer work, because they were now incontinent. And these women were coming in for their help and rather than saying this woman's name is Sadie or whatever, subject 37.
Speaker 3:And I would almost say that the women who came in well-dressed were the ones who probably got treated the best. Because he was, he was doing tests on his, on slaves. Yeah, one of the most famous picture, and I it's burned into my mind. I can. I, if I could draw, I could draw it for you. And it's a. It's a woman. She has a rapa on her head, she has a like a dark skirt with like a little bit of a like a like an apron, and she's sitting on her knees on top of the table and it's just these white men around. That shit is burned into my mind.
Speaker 1:Subject 52.
Speaker 3:And I remember I was doing research on endometriosis because I wasn't getting help, I was suffering, I was whatever. And that's when I went down the rabbit hole and I saw that. I remember I was sick to my stomach and that image is burnt, it's obviously burned into my mind.
Speaker 2:Now, mind you, they have these images. Okay, so you're talking about adultification in younger children. You're in college, what are you like? 18, 17?
Speaker 1:And the fact that they would even have something like that displayed is still like you're not even, but there was so much of that in college, but at every college.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I consider myself still a child in college and listen 95% of the time.
Speaker 3:let's be clear we are the only ones who know the story.
Speaker 2:They don't know.
Speaker 3:So when we're walking by crying or angry face, red, nauseous, and people are like what's wrong with you? And you're like get the fuck out of my face. They don't know why you have an attitude. They don't realize that you're watching somebody who tortured people who look like you being glorified.
Speaker 1:They don't even know that history because they looked at you as a lab rat, right, and they still do so. When you have any idea or you've had any wherewithD at your symptoms and say these are the seven symptoms I have. I've looked and the research points to these five things, how dare you?
Speaker 3:How dare you think you know more than me?
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. Now we have to circle back to the school systems and educational systems, right? So I remember there was the town hall you're in a suburb, you're in a township and they were going back and forth about whether they should get uniforms right and the reason why they was getting uniforms because it was a lot of black children, black girls, specifically being sent home because their skirt was a little bit shorter or whatever the case may be. So all the black parents were like, okay, let's rectify it, let's get uniforms. Do you know, most of the white parents, most of the white parents, they voted against it. They was like, well, that's going to take care, that's going to get rid of our children's individuality and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And whole time it's like, well, we're trying to rectify the situation that does not pertain to you, because your daughter, miss molly, is over here pretty much ta-tas, pointed crock and trying to doing the same stuff that we're doing and doing the same thing watching the same rap scene that we're doing and the development of, like you said about the black body is just, you know, just how we are developing, how genetics are. It was looked at like why, why is why? Is this girl upset? Um, is it acceptable for her to wear this and her not worth it? Let's just rectify the whole situation.
Speaker 3:Put everybody in uniforms and no yeah, of course not because they don't recognize the experience. I have a. I have a quick story. It's. It's not, it wasn't about my body, but I was a bit of a problem child in school. I was a little rowdy, a little bit I mean you're still right.
Speaker 2:You're still right. You're still routing the dead.
Speaker 3:I am um, I don't have a math brain at all and my father is a, an engineer mathematician, like full math brain, and I was failing math constantly. And I was in middle school and mommy forgive me for telling this story um and I, I got an a on my math test and I was fucking stoked. You understand me. I was in class, just happy, just like just happyo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, just happy, got the A. The little white boy sitting next to me gave me some Skittles. I ate some Skittles, proudy excited, having the best day of my life. You understand me, I'm about to make my father proud. Like I was in there.
Speaker 3:I went home, I was taking a luxurious bubble bath, mommy, forgive me. My mother came in there and whooped my ass in the bathtub. I didn't even know what I was getting whooped for, I was getting fucked up and all of a sudden she goes how dare you get drunk in school? My excitement translated to my teacher that I was drunk. Oh no, I'm getting emotional thinking about it. I actually confronted him and he profusely apologized as an adult. I confronted him but I got the whooping of my life. I didn't even know what I was getting whooped for.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's the thing, because I was excited for getting an A, but they thought I was drunk.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing. That's crazy, but here's the thing. Some experience like that happened to your mom in a different way. Absolutely, and it was much more punitive to her. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So in her mind.
Speaker 1:What she was doing was protecting you Absolutely. She was horrified. What she was doing was conditioning you Absolutely. She was horrified. What she was doing was conditioning you. And I'm so thankful for my mother because my mother had that experience and did not pass it on to me and worked very tirelessly. Because I'll tell you a story right. So I was in the eighth grade and I went to the same school from seventh to twelfth grade. I went to a very ritzy private school where rich people send their children and movie stars send their children. So I was waiting to be picked up after school and the kids around me, all white, got a photo cleaner and they were huffing it and their responses were hilarious. So I'm sitting there laughing and they're like do you want to huff that? And I'm like hell, no, I don't know what the hell that is, Because she be black and we don't know about huff, that's not anything that we do, we're not doing that we know cognac, Hennessy weed, you know, classic, that's not it.
Speaker 1:That's it, that's not it, but I'm sitting there being, you know, thoroughly entertained while eating a Starburst whatever. The security guard comes up rounds us all up, calls our parents, calls my mother and everybody's parents, and they're like and. And my mother says okay, first of all, you owe me um the cab fare that I spent to get here, you owe me retroactive um tuition and you owe my daughter an apology. Did you look at all of these children? And then did you look at my child? Did you see how all of these children have red eyes and goofy expressions, while my daughter does not? Yet she lumped her into this experience when she is not in the photo class, does not have access to $89 photo cleaner, but she lumped her into this experience. Apologize expeditiously.
Speaker 3:Maya, are you okay? And I was like yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, but I'm sitting there like 14 being like, yeah, I'm okay, and she's like, it's okay, we'll have a discussion about it at home. You did a great job and it was wonderful that you kept your composure, but I'm lucky that I had that mother who saw through the bullshit, because the bullshit had happened to her and my mother. This is the reason why I wanted to carry this episode across the network. Adultification is something that, because black this is the reason why I wanted to carry this episode across the network. Adultification is something that, because black women have been experiencing it for generations, we're passing it on to our children.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's got to stop with us. Well, I got a story. I'll tell you guys a story.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, I just want to follow up, because that is a beautiful ending and, in my situation, because for the mothers out there that did jump in the bathroom and whooped their daughter's asses, I'm going to tell you this what my mother did do that I will always honor her for is that after she got out of her own trigger and whooped my ass, she listened to me, she absolutely listened to me and she believed me.
Speaker 3:And she corrected, she corrected, she apologized. And when I tell you she walked up into Murray Hill Middle School and shut that motherfucker down.
Speaker 1:They never called her again. They never called her again, even when they were triggered by their own responses. They corrected and they protected, and that's important. Tell your story.
Speaker 2:We had a festival in our town, the African American Day Festival. You get the little gag gigs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And so I picked up a fart spray because it's just funny, right. I took it to school one day and I sprayed a little under this thing and it came up and of course all the kids like, hey, what's up, what's up, you rat, ass, ass kids. But they ratted on me it. So we go down to the office and they call my mom and they're like, they call my mom. My mom came down, she's like, yeah, she was disruptive in class and she looked at the records and it was like, oh, they tried to put on my record that I had contraband in school.
Speaker 1:No, and my mom said absolutely not.
Speaker 2:I said you're not going to tell my child, my black child, that she had contraband. This is fart spray. If you want to in school, suspend her because she was disrupting class. That's one thing To put on her record. She has contraband and when you look at contraband, they are dangerous materials. They are weapons.
Speaker 3:You're not going to put that on her over fart spray.
Speaker 2:So my mom was the same way. And why would you do that to a child?
Speaker 1:Because they don't care, but this is it.
Speaker 3:They don't say it to children and that's like why are?
Speaker 1:and that's what I realized, especially after the shooting of what was that child? Ralph? I can't remember his last name, I apologize, but I saw. I was like, oh, this is reiterated to me over and over and over again, generation after generation after generation, that they don't see us as children. And I told the story the last time but, I remember when we moved from Ralph Yarl, ralph Yarl, ralph Yarl, I was like Yard, that ain't right. See, I knew to trust my mind.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that I believed in myself, but I knew that they didn't see him. What was he? 15 or 16?
Speaker 2:at the time 14.
Speaker 1:14. Okay, what they saw was a 20-year-old.
Speaker 2:They saw a man.
Speaker 1:And this is the problem, and I remember when we moved from the USC area which was around like 36th and Figueroa and like Expedition around there to Hancock Park, my mother had me make cookies and brownies and we took them to the fire department and to the police department and I realized that my mother was getting these people to see me as a child and not just a random black kid, and I realized that my mother was doing that to protect me.
Speaker 1:But I didn't realize that until I don't know, two decades later I was like, oh, my mom's a G.
Speaker 2:Because it's important.
Speaker 1:Let our kids be kids, but the things that we have, to do, to tell our kids or trick people into seeing our kids as kids is wild to me.
Speaker 2:Well, they're also doing a lot of things to make us not be kids. You go back to like we're talking about being more mature in the household, right. Then you have to go back to them taking our black men to jail over something as silly as weed and separating families and disbarring families. They've been literally detaching our black men from our families since the test of time. So now you've got your mom and you have the oldest child and they need help. They're looking at their youngest son to be the man of the house. Now he has all this pressure to be the man of the house and so when he wants to be a child and he can't, that forms, you know, resentment, because he can't go and play, be on the soccer team on a Saturday morning because he has to be at home.
Speaker 1:So it's a lot more it's a yeah, it's a systemic thing that has so many tentacles and I think, especially I don't, maybe I'm, I feel like, especially in this I'm in my 40s. I have a lot of friends. I have three friends in the last 48 hours that have died under the age of 50. Black men, giants in my industry and were successful by all accounts. One died of colon cancer. I don't know what Aaron died of, but Aaron Spears was a juggernaut and an amazing human and at 47 years old he's gone. James Casey there's so many Eric Parker. I'm seeing so many black men not make it to 50. And I think this adultification bias has something to do with it. Absolutely Because there's a stress that's happening, an underlying health current.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, it's the stress and it's been weighing on my heart because I'm even seeing in my own community. It's been weighing on my heart because I'm even seeing in my own community. Look at all the black rappers that we've lost under the age of 55 in the last five years. It's an extensive list. I think something's wrong. Well, listen, if you don't allow a child to be a child, you disrupt their development and neurological pathways.
Speaker 3:Absolutely that's decision making. That's stress management. That's love. How neurological pathways? Absolutely that's decision making. That's stress management. That's love. How to love, how to care, how to nurture, how to be nurtured, how to take in love. You're disrupting the entire way that we are supposed to develop when you do that. So then you're trying, you're consistently trying, to catch up. Think about running a race where you're constantly trying to catch up with everybody else. You're taxing your fucking body, you're taxing your mind, you're taxing your heart, you're taxing your spirit. So the amount of mental health, the amount of self-care, the amount of work we have to do on ourselves is double, triple everybody else, because we didn't even get to develop properly, Right, and we keep pointing and saying, hey, we're having an issue.
Speaker 1:I feel like, especially I'm just going to say this and y'all can feel however you want to feel and however you are out there but I feel like Black people especially are the only group that have never gotten the opportunity to properly address their trauma and properly get the remedies that we would need to move forward. And the minute we keep saying, hey, we need help, we're the only group that you're like, we'll help you, but the conditions are so hefty and I'm just wondering, after all this time, what's the point? Why do you need to do that?
Speaker 2:Right, it's like I mean, yeah, and you know, they keep telling us oh well, that happened so long ago. It really hasn't been that long ago. You're trying to make us believe it's been that long ago, but it hasn't.
Speaker 1:But you're also talking about what is that long ago, when we're still seeing people that look like us being shot on a monthly basis, and we've been seeing that for the last you know, 70, some odd years.
Speaker 3:Not even that I have a friend whose grandmother her grandmother was a slave. So she has record, like she has, the recollection of a person who was alive and was a slave when she was a child. There are people here who have talked to people who were slaves.
Speaker 1:My great grandmother's father was a slave. On my father's side, the white people that owned us as slaves still own a great deal of the town and they have the last name that I have and they look like us. They just look like the white counter, but they have the same shape, they have the same nose, they have the same butt, they have the same facial features and you're like. These people are clearly related to me, not just in ownership because of name, but I can see the ancestral rape from this person who owns the barbecue chain in the town. So I'm like this isn't that far away and I'm like I'm not even. Why can't we acknowledge that every country has some bad beginnings and some weird history? It doesn't negate the country itself, it's just a part of the tapestry of the country. But when you choose to say that, the telling of my truth makes you feel bad, because that's what the whole we're barring critical race theory is about.
Speaker 1:You're saying that my truth makes you feel terrible, so I don't get to say it out loud and I'm just like, ok, well then, where do we stand? Where do we go? So let's put this in some positives, because we don't want it just to be this pity session. You are making strides in the community through a holistic and psychotherapeutic approach. What are the aims? What do you see as the possible solutions for people, just to even begin.
Speaker 3:If any of my clients see this, they're going to know exactly what I'm about to say. Right, they're going to know exactly what I'm about to say. I'm not fully answering your question, but I want to say this is play, play, play, play, play that's a wonderful response play, that's wonderful. Play with your friends, play with your lovers, play with your parents, play with your siblings. You didn't get to play, so play. My main focus in my practice is quality of life and the importance of play. Because we don't get to play, we don't.
Speaker 1:There's this on Instagram we don't. There's this thing, and I love to follow it. It's called Black Men who Frolic Love that. That was one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:It's so good, it's beautiful, and I was just like this is so beautiful.
Speaker 1:And it makes me so happy, it makes me so sorry.
Speaker 2:I also saw another thing. It was just like hang out with girlfriends that tap into your inner child and that's real, I love that Because some of my best friends are the ones I can take a nap with and just be goofy with.
Speaker 1:Goofy and silly.
Speaker 2:And eat sugary shit and it really it's very soothing for the soul because we do go out here with a battle of armor on us all the time, all the time, it's even like I would even say for me as a personal experience, the shit that I go through and the fact that I don't necessarily always can allow myself to ask for help.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the last time I truly cried, To be honest, and I I don't remember the last time I truly cried, like to be honest, Like and I'm not talking about, like you know, like a little tear up here like actually cried, Like I felt like when I even I was packing up my apartment and just going through all the memories that I had, you know, into this new transition, I was like I was waiting for a moment that I, like I would want to break down.
Speaker 1:Wait till you get to your forties. You're going to cry all the time Like I just.
Speaker 2:But I felt like, I felt like there, I do feel like there is a part of me that knows that, like, like subconsciously, what has been taught to me, especially as a strong black woman is that we? Don't cry. Is that not necessarily that we don't cry? Is that if you cry you'll be weak? And if you are weak you won't be able to move forward?
Speaker 3:So I think that I won't survive.
Speaker 2:So, just like I'm waiting for a moment in my life where I don't have to work on survival mode and that has been and then skipping that development process of like this we skip too fast. My mom was a single mom. My mom took care of us, but she's working. My grandmother was working, so we pretty much developed our own.
Speaker 1:Luckily we weren't bad kids and they passed on that same mentality.
Speaker 2:Luckily we weren't bad kids, we were bad kids. Luckily, we weren't bad kids, we were good kids.
Speaker 1:We weren't on the street, but we didn't have the option to be bad kids, Right, but I was working at 15.
Speaker 2:And we could say that in a crazy way. Before you start me and my friends, we say that with a pride thing, Like oh, I've been working since I was 15. But as I'm older, why the hell was I working at 15.? You know what I mean. Why did I feel the necessity to make sure I go to the workforce at 15?
Speaker 1:But I will tell you my mom, and again I think, again we pass on. And this is one of the reasons why I'm so glad we're having these conversations, because I really think that our parents try as they might. Right, we need to give them more credit than we are, Absolutely. Because they were really trying to break some generational traumas that were like the weight of Gibraltar.
Speaker 2:Right, because we got our own problems, but they had another set of problems.
Speaker 1:No, because I remember to your point right. I remember one time I was left outside of a theater and transportation wouldn't get me and so my mom had to come. But it was like a 40-minute drive and it was like midnight in downtown and I was upset because I got left and nobody checked. And I was upset because I'm the only black girl I was the only black performer period and of course I'm the one that's left on the steps of what's now what they would call the Staples Center.
Speaker 1:It's got a new name. What's it now? Crypto? Thank you, them. So I'm sitting there, you know, waiting outside and I'm calling my mom and I'm, you know, saying you know, I can't believe they left me. My mom goes, stop crying immediately. You'll be vulnerable and people might you know you're a target.
Speaker 3:Don't cry.
Speaker 1:And I know that my mother was doing that out of protection, because that is what was necessary in that moment. But I also give her so much grace, because what else was she supposed to give me?
Speaker 2:Right, because she already knew. She already knew what it would look like. And it's a double-edged sword because, in knowing what you, sitting there crying and being vulnerable, would do to you, even though she may have not wanted to give you that response, she knew she had to because of the way that was involved in those decisions and how hard that must have been, and I think that in our stopping these generational traumas, we also have to acknowledge what our parents went through to put us even in a different headspace where we could.
Speaker 1:What are we going to say, Actually?
Speaker 3:I have three things I'm going to say To that. This is what I tell people all the time when you look at the things that your parents have done to you that you look at as the way in which they've traumatized, you, remember that they have healed significantly more than what they've put on you. When you can look at your parents and see them as a human, as a person, and you can acknowledge damn as much shit as I have, as much trauma as I have, that means there's so much more that they healed before they even got to me and that I'm going to heal a significant amount of that before it gets to my kids, but some of it is going to seep through to them. There's a grace that you can offer them Exactly and a love that you can have for them. The second thing I want to say is to what you said when you were saying you're waiting for a moment. Stop waiting for the moment. Choose to have it.
Speaker 2:Because you'll wait forever.
Speaker 3:Because your defenses are brilliant. Your defenses are set up in a way to keep you safe, and they will keep you safe until they know they don't have to keep you safe from that.
Speaker 1:So, instead of waiting for a moment to feel that, choose to have it and set set it up. Not only choose to have it, but set it up for yourself and whatever it looks like for yourself but I don't know, and that's the thing I think that it's like. But here's where the giving yourself to the permission to play comes in into practice.
Speaker 1:Because, play with it. It's an unknown. I know we are conditioned to see unknowns as really scary things, but in this case, an unknown with a permission to play means multiple tries to get it right.
Speaker 3:Like a sandbox that you didn't get to play in right Multiple times to find the tools and I'll tell you, okay, this is a perfect example.
Speaker 1:So I just started working for a new artist. I work as a singer, so I just started working for a new artist and, like you said, my counterpart is my sis and I trust her, and so all day we just make stupid jokes, we make stupid and we laugh all the time, and so for this run we were in Vegas doing a residency. I always have an agenda of 19 things that I'm supposed to do, because now I have free time and for the first time in my damn life, I just went to sleep.
Speaker 1:And for the first four days I felt really guilty about just going to sleep and I was like, maybe this is my body saying, maybe you just need to sleep, because I never woke up feeling like, oh, I slept too much.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh you, and I realized the reason why I was sleeping so much was because, for the first time in a long time on a job, I didn't feel like I needed to fight anybody. I didn't feel like I needed to fight for my space or fight for my voice or fight to be heard or fight for the, the money or fight for any of it. And this was the first time in working in 20 plus years where I felt like I don't really have any battle here. Things are nice, my coworkers are nice, my space is nice, I've been given what I need. It's taken me 25 freaking years to get here. That's a whole nother conversation. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could just go to sleep and there was nothing pressing and the world wasn't going to end, and if people called you know what They'll call back.
Speaker 3:And I think you know, for the last thing that I wanted to say, that kind of leads into that when we're trying to figure out how to heal that part of us, how to heal the adultified child in us, right, and you'll hear therapists say this kind of shit all the time, right, and half the time when they say I'd be like, all right, yeah, we know this, we know this, but I truly believe this. When it comes to us, I truly believe us as black folks, one of the biggest things, one of the things that will offer us the most healing, is to heal our child self, is to go in and look at our child self and see all the moments. We didn't get to play, we didn't get to explore, we didn't get to rest, we didn't get to do the things that children do. Children get to rest. We didn't Children get naps. Children get to explore what feels good, what they need, how to self-regulate Children aren't jockeying for money at 15.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Children get to figure out how to cry, when, to cry when it feels good, when it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Children get to do that, and we're having this conversation because we want the next generation of black children to do that, to get to be children.
Speaker 3:Children, well, I think, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say the last little no, go ahead.
Speaker 3:If you want to figure out where to start, start with your child self and go talk to your child self and see where the wounds lie and start there and see where the happiness lies. Absolutely See where the times are, you're happy, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because the happiness is what we're trying to craft in our adulthood. If we don't go back to the times where we know we were truly happy, how can we shape it in adulthood?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I just want to say, guys, all you guys out there, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation on the adultification bias of black children. You know we have Maya and we have Nadege, and y'all know I like to leave some type of message at the end of my shows, just because I feel like you have to put out in the world what you want to receive. Absolutely. So, maya, nadege, would you like to leave a message about? Okay, so I want to specify this Things that you think can rectify the adultification of children, what would you give a tip for?
Speaker 1:Me personally. I think that I tried to open this box, if you will, because I wanted us to start having conversations, and adultification bias is not a monolith. We all have our tailored experiences with this issue. So my hope for this series and what it's brought to the public and what it's brought to black children now and black people who once were children, is talk about it, just talk about it. Start by just talking about it. It doesn't have to be solved today. It doesn't have to be solved. Maybe it's not a solvable thing, but I think with awareness will change it, because with awareness people will have more of aware with all of what to do.
Speaker 3:so just start talking for me I would say play like the real kind of play, like play with your friends, play with your lovers, play with your family, play with your siblings, play with everybody and talk to and love and hug and nurture and kiss your child self every second that you can Find your child self and love them the way that they didn't get to be loved and treat them like the child that they are. And play, play, play play.
Speaker 1:Also, we want to hear from you at Slap the Power what are the experiences with adultification bias that you've had? What are the remedies that you found that worked for you? Here at this network, we are a community and we will solve our issues by talking about them honestly and by sharing the solutions that work. So we want to hear from you truly. And thank you for having this platform yes, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Like you said, we are a family and it's very important that we do have these discussions. So if you heard anything or you have any more questions, you have any more comments, you can reach my at slap the power you can reach in the dutch as well. All of her information will be posted here. Please like, subscribe and join in, and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's all.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's all is written by me, casey Carnage, and produced by myself and Rick Barrio-Dill. Associate producer Brie Corey. Assistant producer Larissa Donahoe. Audio and video engineering and studio facilities provided by Slap Studios LA, with distribution through our collective for social progress and cultural expression, slap the Network. If you have any ideas for a show you want to hear or see, please email us at info at slapphepowercom and, as always, go to dazitdassallcom and sign up there to make sure you will never miss a thing. See you next show.
