This week’s discussion on the pod was about censorship. The conversation was spurred by the ever-growing list of books being banned in our children’s schools. Young learners are being denied access to important works of art and the critical discussions that follow. Being able to think critically about ideas, history, social and cultural issues is the bedrock of a functioning citizenry so what does all this censorship mean? What will it cost us in the future?

Censorship is a product of authoritarian rule. The burning of books, the tightening of internet access, and the management and curation of a particular message about a country are all behaviors we expect to see in other places, and not the U.S. Yet, censorship is alive and well here today, and it is especially virulent when it comes to racism and sexism. We have talked alot about the power brokers, the ones for whom our systems work without question. In most cases, it is these same folks who are making decisions about what is and is not “age appropriate” for young people in schools.

We discuss the far reaching consequences of withholding information from young people. The question we ponder is whether this omission is tantamount to a lie being fed to young people by parents and political leaders who subconsciously try to maintain their power and the status quo. As we continuously grapple with how to make endurance sport more inclusive, we should remember the children deprived of a deeper understanding of U.S. history and the legacy of white supremacy are the athletes we train with and coach. Many of us have been deprived of forums where we can learn to think critically and engage about an issue. This lack of training can lead us to being scared of topics like racism. When we are repeatedly told not to talk about it and ignore it, it is no wonder white people struggle so. We don’t touch a hot plate because we learned it will burn us. It is the same with discussions of racism, sexism and homophobia. Don’t touch them because they will leave a mark. Are school boards and white parents across the country deciding their kids are not smart enough or resilient enough to understand the legacy of racism? Or is it that they are fine with racism leaving a mark on Black and brown kids, but not on white ones. 

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[un]phased Episode 72

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

censorship, people, lisa, banning, taught, thinking, books, endurance sport, disney, parents, silencing, part, children, divisive, podcast, teachers, white, topics, kids, adults

SPEAKERS

Dr. Shaunna Payne Gold, Dr. Lisa Ingarfield

This morning Shaunna and went on a really long walk with my new puppy Comet. And I was listening to a podcast about the fashion industry. And in particular, it was about Andre Leon Talley, who recently passed away and he was the Creative Director at Vogue, African American queer men. And, you know, I don't know anything about the fashion industry, I certainly would not be one of those people that folks would consider fashionable, I don't think. But it was very enlightening, just to learn a little bit more about him, but also to understand his role in the fashion industry and how poorly he was treated, and how silenced he was in terms of the ways in which he could communicate his positionality his experiences the racism, that homophobia that he experienced, was pretty awful.

Mhmm. Well, you know, I think this whole silencing piece is a major theme for certain groups. I mean, we've got so many examples of this in past in recent news, I mean, I'm, I'm even reflecting on a former Miss America that was silenced in her role. And now we have, you know, basically everyone kind of saying, No, you can't talk about certain issues or certain books or certain writing. So I think there's something we need to explore about this whole silencing piece because it's, it's very problematic and it only seems to happen to people who are not white or not male. So we I think we need to take a look at this. So let's dive in. I'm Dr. Shaunna Payne gold and I go by she her her pronouns.

And I'm Dr. Lisa Ingarfield. And I go by she her hers.

Welcome to unfazed a podcast to disrupt your normal and challenge your brain to go the distance. So, yes, Andre Leon Talley, I was very saddened to hear about his passing, I wasn't a huge follower, but I knew exactly who he was, as soon as I heard the name. Apparently, he passed from a heart attack as well as some COVID-19 complications. And so I don't know what his vaccination status was, but that really shouldn't matter. He's not with us any longer. And so for me, I think it's really interesting. Of course, whenever anyone passes, we find out more and more about their life, things that they may or may not have wanted us to know that type of thing. But, you know, this is one example of someone who has multiple oppressed identities that was being silenced in his work. And now we're seeing it all over the place Lisa. I wasn't sure if you saw the most recent book banning once again, here we go. Oh, someone's Yeah, yeah, banning, Toni Morrison's, The Bluest Eye, and then Mouse, which was a book written about the Holocaust by a young person for young people. And so, you know, for me, I'm just, this just flies against my sensibilities on a lot of different things when it comes to censorship and the control of censorship that really bothers me because I am always deeply interested in who's making the censorship decision because there that wants to hold the power, right. Yeah. Yeah. bothersome.

Yeah, and I think we do see censorship in the endurance sport field in a number of ways. And certainly we can circle back to that. But what is interesting to me is, what is being censored? So you mentioned a couple of books, there. The holocaust narrative just blows my mind.Like, what could you possibly want to withhold there from children who really needs to learn about it? But as in what in Washington, there was a high school that actually voted to ban To Kill a Mockingbird. But the reason for that was there are a number of teachers of mixed racial identities, I believe, who felt that the narrative in that book, perpetuated notions of the white savior, which we've talked about on the podcast before as the criticism in the book was too much in terms of what it could do, what message it could send to children who are reading it, even though perhaps a critical dialogue might be useful. They felt that the negatives outweigh the positives from it, which was not a reasoning I was expecting. You know, we're not seeing that as reasons for banning books, we're seeing that the banning of the books is Oh, my goodness, children can't possibly learn that racism exists, because that will make white people look bad. And that wasn't the reason in this particular instance.

Right. Right. And, you know, I wonder sometimes Lisa, whether, you know, white and or male dominated thinking folks are afraid that if their kids find out what great, great, great, great whoever did in their family that they might just burn this whole thing out. I mean, like, I would, I'm imagining, I'm imagining, I know, I can't put both feet in fully, but I'm imagining, if I found out that my great, great, great, great, whatever, was an active part of disenfranchising certain people, I'd be pissed off at the whole world. I'd be embarrassed, I'd be, but I would be more so angry, because I know, I'm not an active part now. But I've probably benefited a whole lot from it. And so therefore, you've kept the secrets away from me that I need to know, period. And that. And I don't know. And forgive me if this is going to be controversial, I don't know. But I'm just imagining and putting analogies together. It's kind of like being that kid that may have that you thought you were adopted into a lovely inclusive family. And you find out that great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather did some foolishness, or, you know, they were part of the slave trade, or they were part of what have you? And then you realize who you thought you are isn't who you really are? And I'm like, No, that's that's not okay, that the silencing of history is not okay.

It's not, it's curious, because as you're talking, I'm thinking, so, you know, censorship is, you know, the withdrawal or glossing over or papering over. Right, like, to x to be shared. So it's an omission. It's not a lie. Right? And then I think about the book that you shared, people should read teach it the lies teachers, told me, I think, is what you had said, it's called, guess banning? Is the banning of books tantamount to lying to your children about history? Or is it just not sharing parts of it? And I'm not necessarily saying one is worse than the other. But when we think about kids about being truthful and honest, and you know, and then our than adults in their lives are withholding information from them? What do you think about them?

Well, I love that question. Because here's, here's what I hear, as a fellow parent, listening to other parents, because I think I shared with you this is a well, last year, I was on vacation with some my girlfriends who all have school aged children. And I'm thinking this is a group of black women that I'm sitting around the table with, I'm thinking that we all are, of course, different. But yet we have a similar framework of how we think about educating our children. And I'm thinking, Oh, we're pretty liberal around this table, not even politically liberal, just open to difference and hearing people out. And I found that I was extremely conservative, extremely liberal compared to their conservativism. Because the intention was to answer your question, the intention was not to avoid teaching their kids about these topics. It was they wanted control over when that happened. And so for example, when we, we started talking about, we were specifically talking about LGBT lived experiences and perspectives and so forth. And they weren't anti LGBT, they were how can I say they were thinking through when it's most appropriate, and they wanted to be the ones to do it? And so, and I don't know, what will be the end result of that with my girlfriends. But what I am saying is that, I think it's a common feeling of, even for those who agree with these particular voices being heard, they want control, and they have the best intentions of oh, let me come back to it with my own kids, and they never come back to it. That's my problem with it. Is that, okay? Well, your kid is in second grade, you don't want to introduce pronouns to them. So I want to have control over that. And I'll get back to it later. And the parents never do. Even the best intentioned parents never do.

Do you think though that most parents are actually thinking they're going to circle back to some of this information?

Well, that's my point, though. I think they're kicking it down the street with this best intention of oh, well, we'll get back to it. And so here's my question in response to this question, is okay, you don't want your kids to know about gender neutral pronouns in second grade. But then you're still pissed off when we circle back when teachers circle back in ninth grade, for example, well, how long are you going to kick the can down the road? You know, at that point, you're now telling me that okay, you're feigning interest in sharing it. Even the best ones, the best parents parents that are most interested in diversity, but yet still Don't do it. And so if you're not going to do it, and trained, educated, I'm not going to speak for all of them, but they have a certain level where they have to be certified in their state to teach certain topics. And at a certain level, if you're telling me as a parent, that's not in a professional educator, that you're going to get back to these difficult topics, I call bullshit. Because even if you do, who says that you're giving it the appropriate treatment for your child in that grade? Right? You are not a K through 12? Teacher for that very reason.

Yeah, some of the stuff I've been reading, is that part of the motivation, I mean, obviously, the motivation is white supremacy when it comes to race. But the other part of the motivation is, it's not developmentally or age appropriate to teach certain topics, right. And it's the parents who are making that choice, which is just, you know, sharing kind of what you had said, and I'm thinking, the decision about what is or is not developmentally or age appropriate, is gonna vary wildly, right, based on your lived experience based on the way that you see the world. So it should I think it should really lie with educators, just as you're saying, because, you know, I don't know, I'm thinking like, I just because I didn't grow up here. It's hard to put myself in a position of a child, a white child, who maybe never got taught properly about racism. And then I find that out later in life, that lack of exposure is obviously going to beat to my denial, right? But am I going to feel betrayed by the education system by my parents that no one thought to tell me that, you know?

Look, I was born and raised here in the United States have been black for all 43 years, and still felt betrayed about stuff that wasn't taught to me about my blackness. So because I didn't learn about that until much later on in college where, you know, they're talking about to banning To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. Hell, I'm not worried about them banning it in K through 12. Because I didn't get to in any way until college, I mean I truly didn't. And so some of these titles weren't on the table for various reasons, and you don't know what you don't know, until you're exposed to it. And then you show up to college and your, your college friends have already read it, and you've never heard of it. So, you know, I do think that there can be that I love that you use the language around betrayal, that feeling of betrayal of why didn't someone teach me this? And so you don't want to call out your parents because you love them and you feel like they did the best they could. And so of course, everyone blames everything on underpaid, under resourced teachers, right. Here we are getting Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my sense is these books that are being banned, are being banned by predominantly white communities, predominantly white school boards, and there isn't an intention to circle back, right? They just see these books as inflammatory and divisive. And it is teaching our children that they're different from each other and that is appropriate, right? So they are essentially peddling a position of colorblindness. Right, that that's the appropriate way to go gender blindness, color blindness, that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and that's where I think. Okay, so Lisa, we've, I think we've somewhat answered the question. You get colorblind adults, because you have colorblind children that you choose not to educate, right? So when you have an adult that shows up to work that says, oh, I want to treat everyone the same, and I want to be equal and not equitable and ignore history. That's how you get them. Because we didn't say anything when they were kids.

Right.

And so you know, so then here we are, and we wonder what uh, why is this adult so insensitive to XYZ identity groups, they've never been required to hear their stories to learn more about their experiences much, much less to think about how their own identities have clashed against or intersected with those and so therefore, they have never in life had a critical thought around these topics. And we wonder why they're so ignorant when they get to work. Of course they're ignorant because no one is brought this up. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised.

We shouldn't be Yeah, it's just it's to think about our an episode couple of weeks ago. It's a bit Kumbaya, right like that. That whitewashed way of, we just want everyone to get along. And that's always an articulation from people. in power, right, because ultimately that maintain their position of power. So colorblindness made room maintains white supremacy, right? Gender blindness maintains male supremacy. And so I think that it is, oh, I'm just pausing here because I'm thinking about color blindness and gender blindness. And whether or not the using the term blindness is ablest and I think it might be so.

I think it might be. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

I just, yeah. And it's so it's, it's self perpetuating, isn't it? Because you don't have those children who grow up with that same philosophy having never been taught to critically think about their racial identity and how it intersects with past and present. And then they just pass that then down to their kids, and so on and so forth. And so you continue, that's actually more divisive, I think, right? Because then you never end up with racial healing racial dialogue, you know, an integrated understanding of the complexities of history and how that affects who you are today, because it's that separation, to say, then, to talk about race and color is divisive is itself divisive.

Right. Right, exactly. And that's why we ended up continuing to kick this can down the road. And, you know, I just feel like there's a better way to do things. Because, you know, Lisa, on one hand, I don't want to exclude important parts of history. And let me be clear, I also don't want some of these very difficult topics. In the hands of some teachers, I would not say the majority, but some teachers who are not prepared to teach or facilitate on those topics. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm kind of in both. And so the reason why I bring that up, Lisa, is because I think many, many, many podcasts ago, we brought up at the time, I think this was last year when TMC was they were actually re airing banned movies. And they had very enlightening discussions, why some of the classics that all of us really liked, are now no longer appropriate, and what's problematic about them, in fact, and so that whole silencing piece, I'm just wondering, I'm wondering if something similar can happen with books with other types of media that we really need to discuss. I even saw Nicole Hannah Jones, who, who curated the 1619 project, she said that, you know, what would it look like if my second leg of my book tour was to bring all of these banned books with me for discussion? Right? Well, I trust those discussions of those very difficult books in the hands of someone with the brain of Nicole Hannah Jones, because obviously she's equipped to do that. But what would it look like if we had that happen? You know, there has to be a way to make sure that some of these conversations, books, multimedia, are presented earlier. So that we don't have I think it was Frederick Douglass that said, I rather I rather educate a child than a broken adult, something to that effect. I feel like that's where we end up if we don't do this stuff earlier. And then we end up swim, biking, running beside people that don't understand who people are, and have no consideration other because they've never been forced to do so.

Yeah, I also think it's like a such an underestimation of the resilience and capacity of children in the way that they conceive of the world, right? Because you're going to make my white kid feel bad. And that's not appropriate. Well, maybe feeling bad, isn't such a bad thing, right? Because, you know, we've talked about white guilt can be really troubling and problematic. But we've also talked about how some guilt is needed, because then it creates an emotional and empathetic connection that can spur you to action. So yeah, handled with the right level of facilitation and care. You know, I think sure your white kid is probably going to feel a bit crappy about it. But that's, that's useful, right? If channeled effectively, if not avoided, let's not censor it, because you think that your child is not capable of handling the reality of the United States history. And it's, you know, tails into today.

Well, and you know, I have an associate of mine that runs this program that called it's called Social Justice Kids. And Molly is She's a PhD as well. She does a great job as a white parent, helping folks to rethink how to educate their kids. And what I think is really crucial is that, you know, through programs like hers, and others, it gets really interesting because you're right, I think we always question whether kids can handle it. I mean, we did the same thing. I know this is controversial, too. We did the same thing with masking you know, everyone and walked around and said, Oh, the kids aren't going to comply. Well, the kids are happy to comply with the adults that have the problem. The kids are just fine with it. And I do think you're right, we do underestimate the resilience of kids to take in information. Because we don't have these. We don't prolong these conversations, when it's about any other group. That's what's bothersome to me about it, is we don't prolong these conversations when it's about any other group. And so, you know, I think sometimes these stories are left out because people paint them as divisive. Sometimes they're left out, because maybe people are identified with the fact that maybe I'm not equipped to have this conversation. But I do think that, you know, we keep kicking it down the road, and we never have any intent to get back to it. And so we ended up having kids that are really ignorant adults later on in life. And that's what I don't want to happen.

Right. Yeah. Because they're the folks who are in our run clubs and triathlon clubs, as cycling clubs. You know, and it's so much harder, I think about learning a language, right? And it's so much harder to learn a new language when you're an adult, as compared to in childhood. So is a new language is a completely different way of thinking, particularly if you're learning a language that doesn't even have the same alphabet, right? So how so then you're then introducing issues of racism and sexism and homophobia on the ways in which kind of the patriarchy operates. How do you re to integrate that information into your worldview is much more painful. Because you have to unlearn so much that these conversations that might be happening in endurance sport clubs are just like monumentally bigger and more difficult if this stuff hadn't been censored in the first place when all these people were children.

Oh, you. Okay, we I just had a mind blowing moment here. Am I okay? Okay, share the the reason why that's a mind blowing moment for me, I'm with you. 100%. It makes me recall, even my censorship of swimming, right. Because most people know, I didn't learn how to swim until I was what 35 years old and very pregnant with my youngest son, Kendrick. And it was a censorship process of my family saying, No, don't go near water, all water is dangerous. Things can happen to you, be afraid of water, this is going to harm you. So stay away from it. And so fast forward from being a child to 35 trying to learn how to do all of that, which is the hardest thing ever. I think if you put a baby in the water, compared to putting my 35 year old self in the water, I didn't want to put my face in. It was it was ugly, it was painful. I spent countless mornings on the side of the pool crying because I could not string any strokes together to make a lap. It was extremely painful to learn later on. Whereas when I talked to my other friends that were in triathlon, or others that were I'm not even saying they were competitive swimmers, they were just, you know, swimmers that could survive in water on vacation. And the simplest things to them were the most difficult things for me, like putting your face in the water or taking a breath, or even the trust of flipping on your back to float in the water, which seems to be the easiest thing on the planet to do, unless you're 25. And I've been told or 35 and been told your whole life to stay away from water, right. And so water was censored for me for many years. And it was a struggle figuring it out. And now that I figured it out, I love it. I do it all the time. I had to spend a lot of time reckoning with that. And the fear of water never goes away. We even when you got to rack the metals on the wall, because you still have the roots of censorship there. And so I'm just wondering how that compares when you're dealing with all the isms that nobody ever tells you about. And now you got to face it when people gave a major concerted effort to keep you away from those topics. All of that just exploded in my brain here.

It is it will it's a major concerted effort to censor information that is I think, critical to be a full and aware human being. So your fear of the water doesn't ever disappear completely. You've learned to manage it, and now you're unable you're able to engage in swimming in a way that you never were before. But it's still in the back of your brain, right? Because it's so engrained.

Yeah, absolutely. That it's so ingrained and it's, it's part of who you are. It's it going back to your language analogy, analogy. It's almost like it's your native language to stay away from Water. So facing water and going out in it is the exact opposite of everything, your body, your brain, everything tells you that you should do, because you've spent years staying away from it. Right? And so, you know, given that it's your right, it's not. And I would imagine, we could, you know, string that analogy on a little bit further with the isms to it's that, yes, those isms may always be there in you, but you're having to manage those isms. Like I manage fear, every time I do a swim, it never goes away. It's there, and I manage it appropriately, and I have steps that I use to manage it. Maybe that could be the case with some of this responses to censorship, where people actually finally are exposed to this information, then, how do you continue to manage what you used to know versus what you now know?

Right? So okay, so I'm gonna jump back, the women for tri Facebook page that had blown up, right, because there was a, you know, mass kind of silencing of, in particular black woman's experience training as a triathlete, which is one of the impetus for this podcast, obviously, but it's that silencing behavior that quote, unquote, sport and politics is a separate, which we have, hopefully debunked for everyone by now. So, it's, it's learned, right? I'm not not excusing it, but it's a learned behavior, because presumably, many of those white women who came up with that have their whole life been told to stay away from race, right? As a white person you're raceless, right. You've never been taught about racism, you've never been taught about the complex history of racism, or you know, maybe you have snippets of it, but you don't have like a kind of like a through line. And so therefore, it's divisive to bring up race, in the, in the sport context, because I've always been steered away from it. And I have no skill and no tools to manage that. I'm just going to continue to censor. Right. So the act of censorship. Yes, the act of censorship is more divisive than the conversations that might come out of discussing these, quote unquote, controversial narratives.

Mm hmm. Absolutely. I'm so glad you brought that up. I was thinking about that earlier and forgot to bring that up. But you're exactly on it. You know, that became more divisive. And you're right, it's the first thing I thought of because I'm about to make dinner y'all for the boys. And the first thing I thought of was, if you don't know how to use the tool of discussion and facilitation around these topics, most people shy away shy away from it. So if my sons don't know how to use a sharp knife, I tell them don't use one at all right? Versus practicing the skill of getting used to them. And so my boys have those little plastic knives that still cut, but they're not dangerous. So they've been practicing with those, then we work with a little steak knife, then we work with the next one. We don't do that at all. We just tell people don't touch the knife. Don't go there. Because you can hurt yourself. Yeah, well, you can. You can hurt yourself, if you don't know what the hell you're doing. And if you don't have someone around you, who knows what they're doing? So, you know, I think, you know, yes, this is one of those things where it? I feel like the targeted populations hurt quite a bit in the moment. But everyone hurts down the line. Everybody does, because there isn't a discussion of it.

Yeah, yeah. And so that lack of exposure, then leads to adulthood, or adults who are ill equipped to really engage in these discussions, and it becomes painful and avoidant and such and we see that so we see that coming up in our sports environment, right, because we are engaging for an endurance sports and we're engaging with people who have constantly been told, don't talk about X, don't talk about Y, it's divisive. And you end up with big disputes and arguments in Facebook groups in your leadership team around how should you move forward? What should you do? And you know, I'm thinking like some of the big sports like the NBA and the NFL and the WNBA and such and how they're approaching their athletes wanting to kind of join the conversation, and the you know, with notes or names or social justice messages on their jerseys, and there's they have been fairly flexible around that. Which actually, I'm just thinking about kind of dress and professionalism and whiteness, but that's a conversation for another day. So, I right, we are seeing a little less censorship in sport. Yeah, you know, when I back back from in the 60s and 70s when governing bodies would be like, you can't do it. You can't protest you can't do anything related to the civil rights. Next movement, you know, that's not allowed, you'll be disqualified, etc, etc.

Right. Right. Exactly. Well, and look, Lisa, we didn't even really define it. And I'm glad I looked up the definition because I think everything we've said has been in alignment with what it is. Censorship is the suppression or prohibition of any part of books, films, news, etc, that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. Isn't that interesting? Aand, and, and there's been so many things in history that have been deemed threats to security. So for example, when I looked at, I've mentioned it several times before on this podcast on one of my new favorite books, The Black Butterfly that speaks of redlining in the city of Baltimore, the maps of the cities of the major cities across the country, they were actually called Security naps, those redlined maps were called Security maps, because they were meant to keep the security of who white folks. We know who they were trying to keep security of. Right. And so but but given that the whole point of censorship securing who, will always be the question, right? Yeah. Yeah. Who is it security? Usually, it's not people like you and me, Lisa that's all I'm saying.

No, no, it's the foot. Yeah. It's always I mean, you think about authoritarian governments around the world where their censorship, it is protecting the folks that have the money and the power, the political influence, right? It isn't protecting the average person who's going about their day, you know, trying to make a life for themselves. That's, you know, not not relevant. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. There you go.

This is this is good discussion. And I think I would encourage folks who are in endurance sports communities to think about where and how do you see censorship? pop up in your teams in your clubs? Do you feel like you are yourself perpetuating this don't talk about blank because of censorship, maybe you experienced in school, and how a lack of discussion, you know, from a younger age, might be affecting the way you engage in these discussions now with your friends and colleagues and training partners?

Absolutely. So Lisa, I know we always have a Hell yeah, and a hell nah.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Hell no. And we usually have more held Nahs Than Hell, yes. But do we want to jump into Minnie Mouse first? It's such a controversy, right? Yep. Why are people so upset about Minnie Mouse? What's going on with Disney?

So okay, it's kind of odd that we're having Disney as a hell yeah. Because I feel it's just inherent victory. But Disney, or at least some people in Disney are really trying to make some changes. So there's a couple of things. So Minnie Mouse, you may all have seen has a change of outfit. So she is moving from her dress, to a black and blue spotted pantsuit. And I guess that's quite controversial in some circles, with lots of people finding it offensive that Minnie Mouse would be wearing a pantsuit, which blows my mind, I think a step in the right direction that she is not wearing a skirt that drops just below her butt. And then in addition to that, Disney or at least one of the granddaughters of one of the founders of Disney has created a documentary about the wage discrimination and the enormous wealth gap that exists between the people that run Disney and the folks that work in the Disney theme parks and such and so she is trying to push the envelope in terms of the economic oppression that is happening within Disney and, so you've got this Minnie Mouse change plus this so at least some people in Disney are recognizing that they have some power to change the narrative but Disney Minnie Mouse thing reminds me of when Doctor Who for those who don't know it's a British TV show, sci fi show. Yeah, cost its first woman Doctor Who? Oh my goodness. Did the white dudes have a problem with that.

Yeah, well, I'm waiting for the same thing to happen. That was Black Panther when Black Panther becomes a woman because in the actual, the actual cartoons. Black Panther was the daughter and the sister of subsequent Black Panthers. So yeah, Princess Cherie was always was a woman and so I think people will be surprised those that you know, they hear what they want to hear and they read what they want to read when they read the comics they they will conveniently forget that part about the lineage of Black Panthers. I'm waiting on that to happen too

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how about our held off at this week?

So but held off for this week? Lisa, look, I know people think I just stay on this podcast beating up my home state, but they just give me so many easy targets to hit. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. So Virginia, we got a whole lot of stuff going on. Okay. So no masking. There is they actually had a, a Facebook post in Henrico County, which is the county that surrounds Richmond, Virginia, about peaceful walk ins around the masking piece because, yeah, there's conflicts around who should do what, teachers and principals would prefer for children to wear masks, obviously, the governor said, Oh, leave it to the parents. Yeah, the majority of the state is red, which means they are anti masking, and some of them still are anti everything in relation to COVID existing. And so you know, I'm, I'm sitting back in my lounge chair, folding my arms waiting to see the number spike up in my home state because I know that's what's gonna happen as a result of this. And then the other piece, since we've been talking about censorship in this particular episode is oh, now we got a snitch line. Lisa, we have a tip line where parents can call in and report teachers who are teaching divisive content. He said,

Oh, my goodness, what the heck out?

Now who gets to determine what is divisive content and what's not? If we want to talk about math, and I like science that could be considered divisive, but you know, what's gonna happen?

Oh, my gosh, yes.

If you talk about anything, regardless, with regards to race, etc. And what's going to happen is that now that the governor has has stated all of this and set this tip line up, all the school boards are going to be so freakin busy because every parent is going to be challenging their decision making around curriculum. And I'm not saying I agree with all their decisions. I'm just saying that this opens the floodgates for everything they need to be critiqued teachers to have even more pressure than they already do. Because they're, they've got one foot teaching in the classroom one but teaching at home. If they, which I know they already do. teacher shortage in Virginia, watch it get worse. I'm no longer surprised. So it's to my Commonwealth of Virginia that I have a love hate relationship with. I'm going to pray that the four years go quickly with Youngin. That's all I'm going to say.

Yeah, right. Because didn't he like banned critical race theory that's not even taught in the schools? Because he's so stupid. He doesn't even understand what it is. But I guess it's probably not even about that. Right? Because he just wants to gin up the base or whatever, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I was trying to stir him up, anything to stir them up.

As I texted you, F that guy.

Exactly. That guy, like Oh, incredible, which this is one of the one of the times where in my home state I'm very grateful that there's only one term governors for years. Get the hell out of there. So yeah, I'm grateful for that. Yeah, I am very Greg. We've had some good ones. But when it comes to the bad ones, I'm like, well, for years, get the heck up out of there. So anyway, well, this has been a great episode. Lisa. I know we build a plane as we fly often, but this one was a good one.

Yeah, yeah, it's actually given me a lot of like aha moments as we talked it through so hopefully it has for our listeners to. [un]phased, a podcast produced by Live feisty media and supported by the outspoken women in triathlon Summit.

Edited and produced by the fabulous Lindsay Glassford.

Email us at info at unfazed podcast.com and find us on social at try to defy at Dr. Gold speaks or at outspoken women and try

it I'm Shauna thanks for listening stay unfazed folks see you next time