Air Date: 10/2/20

The Root Presents: It’s Lit!

Ep. 2 - Getting Crunk with Brittney Cooper
Danielle ​Hi, welcome to ​It's Lit!​ Where all things literary live at ​The Root​. I'm Danielle
Belton, The Root's editor in chief, here with the managing editor of The Glow Up, Maiysha
Kai. And today we have as our guest author, academic, Crunk Feminist, and 2017 Root
100 honoree Brittney Cooper, author of ​Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her
Superpower,​ which has been on must-read lists since it was published in spring of 2018
and recently made it to the bestsellers list this June.

Maiysha ​You know, Danielle, I have been a huge fan of Brittney's since pretty much
forever, and I got to interview her about Eloquent Rage back when it was released in 2018.
But, you know, I think this is such a special book and I'm so thrilled that it reached the
bestsellers list. I think it's long overdue and well deserved.

Danielle ​I definitely agree. It's about time more Black women, especially Black female
authors, got their shine. And Brittney is someone who I've been following for years, and
she's incredible with her wit and her insight and all of her musings. So I'm so excited that
we're going to have her with us today.

Danielle ​So, Britney.

Brittney Cooper ​Hey!

Danielle ​Welcome to ​It's Lit!

Brittney Cooper ​Thanks for having me. Let's get lit.

Danielle ​I know that's right, let's get lit. All about that literature, literally. That's what we're
about on ​It's Lit.​ And I want to congratulate you on your new bestseller status.

Brittney Cooper ​Thank you. Thank you. Pops the collar.

Danielle ​To kick things off, we have our first question that we ask every guest of ​It's Lit​.
And the question is a simple one. But, you know, it might not be so simple if you're a lover
of books like we are. What is a book that you read that either blew your mind or changed
your entire perspective on everything? A game-changer book.

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah, I've been rereading this book, actually, so I was in college. It was
James Baldwin's ​The Fire Next Time.​ I love that book. I loved it so much that I had an
assignment for class where I was supposed to write a five-page paper about a novel, and I
wrote about ​The Fire Next Time​ and the professor gives it back and he's like, "this is a
good paper, but it's not a novel. You didn't write about a novel." But he let me redo the
paper. But I loved that book of essays and I still love it to this day because, you know,
most writers, most Black writers have a love affair with James Baldwin and I am among
them. So.

Danielle ​Very understandable. He's among the greats. He is the great. He's the GOAT, I
would argue, Maiysha.

Maiysha ​I would also argue that James Baldwin is the GOAT. And you know, Brittney, I'd
say that you are right there behind him. You know, when we first spoke about ​Eloquent

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Rage​, it was early 2018 when you just published the book, I believe. And at the time, I'm
and I'm proud to say that ​The Root​ was one of the many outlets that considered it a
must-read. And obviously a lot has changed since then. You know, we are now not only in
the midst of a global pandemic and an election year, but we're also in the midst of a new
wave of protests against racial injustice. And once again, your work is proving really, really
relevant right now—and that also includes your two previous books. So I have to ask you,
how does it feel to unexpectedly have a bestseller on your hands two years after the fact?
And why do you think ​Eloquent Rage​ is resonating? Like, why is it so important right now?

Brittney Cooper ​I mean, it's a good question. And even though it was exciting, it's
bittersweet. I mean, you know, as I said when I learned that I made the bestseller lists, I'm
very happy to be on the list with everybody Black. You know that I was on the list the week
that, like all the race books, began to make the list. And that's because George Floyd had
been killed and the country was on fire with people's rage about that. And then we, you
know, tuned in to the story of Breonna Taylor that had happened a couple of months prior.
And so it was just rage upon rage.

And so part of the thing that I always am thinking about as a writer is that so much of my
public writing career has taken off in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin being killed and his
killer being let free. That's when I really started writing for a broader public audience
beyond the Crunk Feminist Collective, where I wrote for a number of years, pretty
exclusively. And so what does it mean to be a writer and an artist in the moment when
you're being called to testify on behalf of Black people who are being killed? Right. And to
bear witness to the story of that and the trauma of it and the rage of that. But I've tried to
do that with, I hope, a level of integrity.

So that's why I think ​Eloquent Rage​ resonated because I think that our people have
been—we've been in the house for months and months, basically waiting for this
onslaught of a terrible thing to happen, which is a terrible thing to do to anyone,
psychologically. And then we are given a front-row seat and plenty of time to watch the
police then just snuff out Black life. And given those two things, I think people felt wells and
wells of rage. That is always our constant condition if we talk about Baldwin saying
something similar. But we felt it acutely and I think people wanted language and a place to
kind of process that. And I think ​Eloquent Rage​ is a book that helps people to do that.

Maiysha ​Well it's a favorite for sure, of mine. And, you know, again, we were saying this is
a pretty pivotal moment. Don't you think Danielle?

Danielle ​It's definitely a pivotal moment. I mean, there's so—like, 2020 is a year of so
many, like, moments is the nice word for it.

Brittney Cooper ​Right.

Danielle ​More like complications and tragedies.

Brittney Cooper ​And entanglements. OK.

Danielle ​And entanglements. This is, this is the year of entanglements right now. But I
want to talk about something that was actually positive for a lot of people that unfolded
yesterday, even though this won't be a big—well, it's it will still be a story, but not as big.
By the time our podcast airs, you know, we're having a historic moment in American
politics less than 24 hours ago, your fellow Howard University alumna.

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Brittney Cooper ​You know!

Danielle ​Kamala Harris was announced as the running mate for Democratic presidential
nominee Joe Biden. How did you react to the news? And what do you think this reflects
about Black women and their political power?

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah, it's a good question. So, look, I think it is historic. I mean, I'm
proud that a Howard alum is out here kicking butt and taking names. You know, the whole
Biden thing, him being the nominee has been fairly hard to take because I think that we
had an opportunity to really be more progressive. And so I haven't been super excited
about him as a candidate, but I am very happy that he took the...That he listened to Black
women. So I did sign onto a letter in the summer, back in the summer, asking for Biden to
choose a Black woman as his V.P. because Black women are the most loyal voting
constituency of the Democratic Party. And so I think we needed this win.

And so in that regard, like, you know, I think it's celebratory. You know, I have critiques of
Kamala. I think we should all as good citizens, folks or politically engaged have critiques of
candidates. I also think that people are hard as hell on Black women. And so I'm trying to
balance our right to have a critical perspective with the way that we allow white mediocrity
to proceed unchecked all the time. And then we hold Black women to an unreasonable
standard. And I'm uninterested in doing that to Kamala. So, you know, at this point, I'm
interested in surviving the pandemic and doing so in a way where there's like a kind of
social safety net that can actually protect people. I think Biden and others will do that. And
so I'm all right about it. You know, notwithstanding really picking other candidates in the
primaries, I, you know, I have made my peace with this. And, you know, and I think
Kamala will take good care of us for the most part, you know?

Danielle ​Yeah. I feel like a lot of people have...they have had to make their peace with
(laughs) with this and with Joe Biden. I agree. Like, there was such a wide Democratic
field that was offered to us. You know, there was much—there was a deep bench. And the
fact that, you know, Biden just happened to be the one that rose to the top, really, it was
more to me more reflective of Black people, particularly Black women, being like hardcore
pragmatists. Yeah. As we are, we voted with our minds, not necessarily with our hearts on
this one.

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know, I like the sort of hot take
about this that said like, ‘this is white people telling us what we think that white people will
allow Black people to have as opposed to what we would choose if we were free and clear
to choose for ourselves.’ And that rings true to me. I also think that we have to realize the
thing that Kamala actually signals. There was a great piece in New York Times by my
good friend and colleague Melanie Price, Dr. Melanie Price, who said, ‘look, like Kamala’s
also the culmination of lots of Black women gaining political power in this moment, though.’

And so, if we actually believe that, if we believe that all of this sort of behind-the-scenes
organizing Black women have been doing, plus our very sort of step-by-step rise in politics
over the last couple of decades means that we get to make demands on the Democratic
Party, then now, let's actually make some demands, right? Let's not play small, because
once you actually have power and leverage, which we have positioned ourselves to have,
let's use the leverage. And let's not only use it for kind of representational politics, as like,
‘get somebody that looks like us,’ but let's really use it for pushing a policy agenda.

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And I do think that's happening. But I also try to remind myself the policy agendas don't
typically actually—they're not radical from the top-down. They're typically radical from the
bottom up. And so some of the things we want, we're going to have to build the
groundswell for them in local electoral politics plus our movements. And I do think that they
will make their way into our broader kind of presidential politics. That's my hope.

Maiysha ​You know. I think that's that's really—I actually do think that kind of drives home
why ​Eloquent Rage​ is so...still so very relevant, you know, two years after its publishing.
Because, you know, you wrote in the preface and the prologue, or you said “this book is
for women who know shit is fucked up. These women want to change things but don't
know where to begin.” And, you know, as you just acknowledged, like Black women have
been—we have begun. You know, we saw this in 2018, by the end of that same year, you
know, we saw this huge blue wave, many of which were Black women. Again, we're
seeing that with this upcoming election. This like, kind of like a record number of Black
women running for office, because, as you acknowledge, Black women are the backbone
of not only our own communities but America and its democracy itself. Right? So do you
feel that the world and specifically America, the America that we live in and are now
somewhat trapped in because of Covid-19? Do you feel like it's finally awakening to that
fact and taking us seriously?

Brittney Cooper ​You know, it depends. I mean, I'm not a cynic. So the optimist in me is
like, yes, Black women are having a moment. But really, what I actually think is that
America loves to hand us the country and say,’here, you fix it’ when everything is going to
shit, right? So this is what happened with Barack Obama. I mean, he inherits the country in
a moment when we're in a terrible financial crisis. And then they're like, ‘well, this ship was
sinking, so maybe you can bail us out.’ Then he does. And there's resentment about it so
deep that what the response is this to Trump. You know, is Trump. And while I think that's
an oversimplification of a lot of complicated things, it's not untrue.

And I also think that that is part of what's happening now. I mean, the country is on the
swiftest descent into fascism that we've seen ever, I would argue, thinking historically. And
so now the party is like, ‘well, let's go ahead and be diverse.’ You know, let's see. Let's see
what you can do with the, with the party. Sure. A Black woman can be second in command
to this all-white man that, you know, who may last one term. Of course, like I think right
now institutions do Black people—and I specifically think that's how they do Black
women—in the sense that America has this deep sense of Black women as people who
come in to clean up the mess that they make. That has historically been our position. I call
it us doing the custodial work of democracy. And what I hope is that Kamala will...

Maiysha ​And you say that. Yeah.

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah. I hope that Kamala will not be constricted by that. And then she
will be able to do the thing that Black women typically do, which is that we clean up the
mess and then we, we make some new possibilities. So I believe in that posture or
approach from Black women, even though I typically just think America gives us shit and
then tells us they gave us a trophy.

Maiysha ​Yeah. I mean, they tell us to clean it up. And then, your options are to either do
so or become the scapegoat. Right. Like that. Those are your two...

Brittney Cooper ​You know it's like if we win well that's because you went out to vote. But
if we, if we lose, "y'all didn't vote!" It's like, we vote. We're not the problem.

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Danielle ​Exactly. Exactly.

Danielle ​Speaking on the power of Black women, you unapologetically—and I love you for
this—call yourself a Black Feminist, capital B, capital F, and we are all familiar with the
refrain that feminism is for white women. Why do you feel it's so important for women of
color, specifically Black women, to be able to claim that title and space for themselves?

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah. Look, I mean, I always kind of say this to this question, which is. If
you look one hundred years ago, Black women have always made the argument that our
race and our gender matter. That's everybody from Maria Stewart to Sojourner Truth to
Anna Julia Cooper. Those are all Black women who did the bulk of their activism in writing
in the 19th century, and all of them said that race and gender matter together and that we
should be trying to think about the particular condition of Black women. So this idea, first,
that people have gotten that white women are the only people who ever thought that
gender mattered or gender was a sign of oppression clearly just haven't read.

So I—one, because I think patriarchy is a system that deeply shapes Black women's lives.
I think that if we're talking about freedom, that we've got to get rid of all the systems that
beset us. So that means that I feel compelled to be a feminist. But I also recognize that
white women do things that are terrible and that they are untrustworthy and often
treacherous and duplicitous, in part because of their proximity to white male power and
their desire to maintain that power. And so what I like to point people to is that there is a
Black feminist tradition, a tradition of Black women who have written and said ‘here is how
we think about gender as being relevant to our lives’ or what have you.

And so, you know, I just I find the bellyaching about ‘what does it mean to be a Black
feminist in this moment,’ you know, to be so challenging because I'm like women are
getting assaulted at every side. We were literally in danger of losing abortion rights
collectively this summer, because and that wasn the case—The Louisiana abortion case. It
came as Supreme Court was rooted in a, in an abortion clinic that's in my hometown of
Shreveport, Louisiana. And we know that Black women need and use abortion services
disproportionately in this country.

And just that alone is a reason to be a feminist, because that's the outgrowth of the
feminist movement building is having reproductive justice. But, you know, even I mean,
when we think about pay inequity, when we think about issues of domestic violence, all of
those things are things that beset Black women's lives, and there are things that don't get
talked about in the mainstream of Black politics. And Black feminism says ‘you are not
going to get free unless you bring everybody. And there is no Black Freedom Project if you
don't care about Black women.’ And you know, I'm on board with that.

Maiysha ​You know, it's so interesting that you were talking about how those issues don't
make it into the mainstream, because one way that they have, albeit through, you know, a
very privileged lens is via Beyoncé. Right? And you have referred to Beyoncé in ​Eloquent
Rage​; you referred to Beyoncé as your feminist muse. And you specifically, you know,
we're calling out the criticism that some other Black feminists have leveled against her.
And it's so interesting that we're talking to you now because obviously ​Black is King​ just
came out and with it, a whole new onslaught of criticism about her as a capitalist and
exploiting the continent. What is your take on that?

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Brittney Cooper ​Look, I still love Beyoncé. And ​Black is King​ only cemented it, you know?
And here's the thing. I'm an academic and I know that I'm supposed to do this performance
of, like, ‘let's be critical. Let's be balanced. Everyone can be critiqued.’ I just think that
Black girls and Black women get to have some people that we just ride for
unapologetically. And that's a Black girl that I've just decided that I'm gonna be out here
riding for. Now, if tomorrow she does some jankiness, then I'm willing to retract it, right?

But like, you know, here's what I like about Beyoncé, and it isn't about our inability to
critique her. I like that she actually seems to me, when I look across her body of
work—and I have literally been a Beyoncé fan since the very first Destiny's Child album, in
1998 when I was a high school kid. Right. I think that she listens to the criticisms and I
think she responds in the art. So she doesn't get on social media and go back and forth
with people. She doesn't give a bunch of interviews where she talks to people. But every
level of the art, she rises to the occasion of the critique. So folks said that in ​Beyoncé
2013, that album, that her feminism was vacuous and it was a gimmick and a stunt. And
so she comes out in 2016 with ​Lemonade​ to sort of deepen that project and with
“Formation,” which has an overtly political message. And then you see her doing
Coachella, Beychella, and ​Homecoming​ and doubling down on her connection to Black
institutions. Because there was a moment in her career where she was doing those
commercials and talking about her like exotic Blackness, that she was native and Creole.
And what was on offer there was the idea that she could sort of transcend Blackness
because she was a pop star and rather than do that, like other pop stars have done. She
actually says, ‘no, thank you. I reject your transcendental race politics, I'm Blackity-Black.’
She sings about it in songs; she doubles down on it in the art. And in case we have missed
it and refused it, then you get ​Black is King.​

So I see a woman who is interested deeply in politics and is trying to figure out how to
make space for herself in a Black political arena as an artist. So she tried to make space
for herself in feminism as a person who did not learn it in elite spaces and learned it by
looking on YouTube, as she said. And now, she is trying to think about herself in the range
of Black traditions, spiritually, diasphorically and otherwise. And I love that Beyoncé
respects her critics more than her critics respect her. That feels clear to me. And it feels
clear because the way you show respect for people is that you actually take the critique
and you grow. And I don't think she gets credit for the fact that every time—I can look at
any project, she has and then look at what the narrative was about that project, and then if
I look at the next project, I see the response really clearly, And so frankly, all of these folks
who are like, you know, ‘she just doesn't have an understanding of Africa, and it's the
Wakanda-fication of the continent.’ They're boring and they don't have anything to say.
And publications have told them that you can get clicks by being, you know, by saying
hateful shit about Beyoncé. I'm like, it's one of the most nuanced, you know, treatments
coming out of African-American culture of contemporary African life that we've seen. It is
not perfect, but no art is. And I just think we ought to get a girl some credit and I'm willing
to give that generously.

Maiysha ​You know.

Danielle ​I appreciate you—

Maiysha ​I do, too. I actually, I appreciate that as well, because I think to myself, I didn't
see ​Black is King​ and see Beyoncé posing as African. I saw her as an African-American
woman on the continent, surrounding herself by African culture and allowing it to inform
her and vice versa, as she already has. You know there's plenty of Beyoncé fans in Africa.

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But, you know, we are also we have another major pop culture moment happening right
now that I think is very relevant to any Black feminist conversation, which is the very
explicit “WAP” that was delivered by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. And obviously,
there's been a lot of debate about this, the conservatives are like losing their shit. Where
do you think this sits in the Black feminist—or in your case, maybe the crunk feminist
lexicon?

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah, I mean, it's crunk and feminist. Like, who doesn't? I mean, if, you
know, if pussy is what you're into, who doesn't want WAP? I mean, that's. I mean. Yeah. I
mean it feels really clear—part of the—I'm actually shocked given how much work
feminists have been doing in the public sphere over the last decade, that we haven't seen
the needle move more on this conversation and that people—you know, it's just a bunch of
posing and posturing and faux outrage.

You know, I'm like, ‘look, people have sex.’ We know that there are some best practices
and there are some worst practices. And best practices typically involve WAP? And that's
what, when I teach kids about sexuality in my classes, you know, I spend a lot of time
talking to them about, like the importance of foreplay and the importance of lubricant, like
straight up. So I don't know what people are talking about. And if they're mad about, you
know, sort of Black women's celebration of their own bodies. You know, I think that there's
a lot of anxiety about, essentially about Black women rising in culture in this moment. I
actually think that that's more what this is about it, that you have a new moment in hip hop
where Black women emcees are really at the forefront of the conversation there. Who's
selling there, who people are talking about. And any time you see women rise in culture,
typically there's a male backlash that involves policing the body heavily—and I don't think
hip hop is immune to that because it's been such a masculine space, save the ‘90s, where
we had lots of female emcees. But the response to the ‘90s was literally to push all of
those women out of hip hop and then to just have Nicki for, like, you know, almost 10
years. Now we're seeing all of these wonderful young emcees and some of them are
queer, which means that they've put sexuality on their terms on the table. And I think
dudes are very uncomfortable with that. I also think holy rollers are uncomfortable with it.

But I do think—I mean, the song is fine. Like, I love Southern hip-hop. I like Meg a lot. You
know, I fucks with Meg, I like Cardi. I could have used a different sample, but like, I like the
song. I like the video. And I just, you know, and I do think that we should always count it a
win when Black women feel the freedom to have robust conversations about their sexuality
in the public. I mean, part of the freedom [project], you know, like we have to read in the
trajectory and the trajectory of Black women's sexuality in this country has been that for
the first couple 100 years of it, we didn't own anything that happened to our vaginas
whatsoever, to our bodies. We don't get to control who we slept with or the terms of our
sexual pleasure. So even though it may feel gauche to other people, to me in that broad
freedom trajectory, Black women being able to say this is mine, I control what I do with it
and who does whatever to it, and I want the best conditions for me to get an orgasm. You
know, I think that's part of our freedom project.

Maiysha ​I love it. I love orgasms as a freedom project.

Danielle ​I love it as well. So your book, Brittney, is more relevant than ever, you know, and
it just covers so much ground from Black female friendships, classism, survivor's guilt,
generational trauma. And you also touch on the often imbalanced nature of protest culture
in which Black women are often displaced as we center the trauma of Black men. Do you
feel that paradigm has been shifting any recently?

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Brittney Cooper ​You know, an unpopular response to this, which is that, I don't feel that
it's shifted nearly enough. Yes, we have spent the last several months talking about
Breonna Taylor. But people have also been doing this perverse meme-ing of what has
happened to Breonna Taylor in ways that I don't know that we did to Black men and boys
who had been killed by police. So I think that the protest work of local Louisville activists
around Breonna Taylor is to be celebrated. And I think that the level of visibility that that
case is enjoyed even to the point of like Oprah for the first time in 20 years, not being on
the cover of her own magazine, right? I think Oprah had a Breonna Taylor moment in the
way that Barack Obama had a Trayvon Martin moment, right? Because, you know, if you
put Trayvon Martin up against a Barack Obama, it could have been his kid—legitimately,
could have been his kid. Right. And I feel like if you put Breonna Taylor up against an
Oprah, you be like ‘y'all could have been cousins,’ right? Just literally physically. So I get
that way what she resonates.

So that part, I think, is a win. But we've seen, we've still seen—we lost Black women
throughout the summer: Trans Black women. We lost the young woman, Toyin Salau, in
Florida, you know, who was a protester, right? We had Iyanna Dior, a young Black trans
woman who was attacked at a protest in Minnesota by a bunch of dudes who were out
protesting, and they think to themselves,’ let's stop and beat this trans girl up. Because, I
mean, we just out here protesting for Black lives, but her life doesn't matter.’ So I think we
have a lot more work to do.

And I got some pushback from some activists who were like ‘Breonna Taylor means that
we're changing the course of history.’ And then I think about that. And I think, but what
about 15-year-old Grace, the teenager in Michigan on the outskirts of Detroit who was
locked up in the middle of a pandemic cause she didn't do her homework? She was on
probation. And then the judge was like, well, you're not a—you didn't do your homework in
the pandemic. So now I'm going to put you in prison during, during COVID,’ right? There
were young Black women activists, teenagers, teen girls who came out in protest for her.
But there wasn't a mass public outcry for her that matched anything like what we see for
Black people who've been killed by police. And so here's where I am on it: I want us to
start caring about living Black people and fighting for them as hard as we fight for dead
Black people. ​Right? ​And I particularly want—I want us to care for living Black women and
girls h​arder than—you know, and fight for them as hard as we fight for Black girls once
they are gone. Because once they are gone and technically we can't achieve justice for
them, we can try to bring some justice to their families. But there are Black girls who are
here who we can fight for right now, and until we have a more robust conversation about
that, then I just don't think I'm like, well, what are we talking about? You know?

Maiysha ​Well Brittney, this was a fascinating thing to me in your book. And I particularly
think as a Black woman who works on a tremendous Black platform, this stood out to me.
But you call out the myth of Black exceptionalism, which we also know is very linked to this
whole idea of America, individualism, American exceptionalism. And it's a trap that seems
especially pertinent to Black intellectuals and high achievers and activists, you know, those
of us with platforms as you write that "the trap and the burden of being exceptional is that
your entire identity is wrapped up in being the only one." So for those of us who are
empowered with these kinds of platforms, what do you consider our responsibility to be
now?

Brittney Cooper ​Oh, wow. Well, I think we have a couple of responsibilities. You know, I
think that our job is to tell the people the truth as we see it and understand ​it. I also think

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we can't be afraid to challenge our own people because we're afraid of what white people
will think if we do. Because to me, that's a false unity. It's an easy unity. And, you know,
and Black people love to talk about, ‘well, we just all need to come together’ and it's like,
OK. Well, even assuming that that's true—and I'm not sure that it is—you know, that
coming together means that we have to hide our differences and that we can't talk about
these tensions that exist between us, then it's a false unity and it'll fall apart.

So when I wrote about Black exceptionalism, a part of ​Eloquent Rage​ was really me
grappling with the fact I figured out later, you know, after it was written, that part of what I
was trying to grapple with was the fact that even though I grew up a working-class kid and
I came from, in some points of my childhood, very harrowing circumstances, I had pretty
much followed the kind of rules about Black respectability that if you, you know, pull your
dress down and do your homework and, you know, don't get in any trouble, that the future
can kind of be yours. And that script actually worked out pretty well for my life. But there
were so many Black people around me for whom it didn't work out. And I was trying to
grapple with what it means to be a beneficiary of that approach while not getting on board
with the lie at the heart of it, which is that the things that happen to Black people happen
because we're undisciplined and because we don't fight hard enough for ourselves.

And so, challenging Black elitism is also about challenge—because to challenge Black
elite folks, is to challenge their own mythography about themselves, that they are there
because they're so great, because we're so smart. Because, you know, all of this
stuff—and it's like all of us, if we really are honest about our communities, know someone
who is as smart, if not smarter than us, as talented, if not more talented than us who did
not make it to these spaces. And if we're gonna be honest about that, then we've got to
grapple—and we like to then say, ‘well, I've made better choices.’ And sometimes it's the
case that you had better options, even if they were only moderately better. I just don't like
it when we lord our success over other people as though they could have been us if they
just lived differently. Because even when I read our ancestors' writing about this, so many
of them are so clear: They say ‘you don't judge the progress of a race by its exceptional
man, you judge it by how the everyday folks that get up and go to work every morning are
doing.’ And I take that honestly. And I think I think we have to check. We have to check
ourselves.

Let me say one last thing about this: Part of the reason that we're gonna have to have an
ethics of checking ourselves is because we're at a moment of great distrust of the Black
elite. I mean, you know, one of the things that annoys me about being on Twitter and even
it's have—I just so I have one of the blue checkmarks on Twitter now. Any of us who do
media journalism know that the verification system was literally so people could not hack
your account and claim that they were you. But it has become you know, people see it as
clout-chasing to get that blue checkmark. Now, as the kids say, you know, ‘you're doing it
for clout.’ And then I had I literally got harassed and, you know, had a bunch of hate mail
and stuff for critiquing Trump earlier in the late spring. So I have a Facebook, a blue
checkmark on Facebook. And any time I'm in a space where more people don't have
those, somebody's like ‘how can I get a blue check? Why do you got a blue check? Who
are you?’ And so I think people are challenging this idea that there are Black people with
blue checkmarks who get to speak for them. And I think those challenges are going to
keep coming. And I think we've got to figure out how we're going to handle that challenge
with some integrity, because folks are saying, ‘who the fuck are you? I don't know you.
And why do you get to speak for me and determine what happens in my life?’ And I think
our initial knee jerk response is a lot of defensiveness. Certainly on my end it is.

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 Air Date: 10/2/20

And I think we're going to have to figure out—I think people are pointing out to us, though,
a power dynamic that is interesting and we're gonna have to figure out our relationship to
it. And that means that we've got to be honest about, about class status, elitism and
access and the way that it shapes what happens in Black life. And if we're honest, I think
that then people can trust us a bit more. And trust is what we're going to need to sort of
like challenge this information ecosystem vortex that we're in.

Maiysha ​All right.

Danielle ​Thank you so much Brittney.

Maiysha ​Thank you.

Brittney Cooper ​Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank y'all for having me. I love talking to you
both.

Maiysha ​The Root Presents: It's Lit! Is produced by myself, Maiysha Kai, and Micaela
Heck. Our sound engineer, is Ryan Allen.

Danielle ​And if you like the show and you want to help us out, please give us a rating on
Apple Podcasts. It will help other people find the show, which would be so helpful to us. So
to close our show, I always like to talk about what we're reading right now today. While I'm
reading about four different books at the moment, the one I'm enjoying the most is Mary
Trump's Too Much and Never Enough, which is about our current president's youth and
childhood and his family dynamics. And from a psychological standpoint, it's a very
fascinating read. What are you reading, Maiysha?

Maiysha ​You know, Brittney really inspired me, so I'm diving back into Bell Hooks this
week. Who, you know, I haven't spent a ton of time with since college, but I have all of her
books and I just feel like the time is right as we look at Black women and community and
democracy and our collective power, I think it's a great time to reapproach Bell.

Danielle ​All right. So we want to hear from you and to tell us what you're reading. You can
hit us up on social media. I am at Black Snob on Twitter and at Belton Danielle on
Instagram. Maiysha where can everyone find you?

Maiysha ​I am at Maiysha. That's M A I Y S H A on Twitter and at Maiysha Kai on

Instagram.

Danielle ​All right. Now you know how to find us. Tell us what you're reading. Come back
and check us out on this podcast. And thank you for joining us today with our conversation
with Brittney Cooper.

Maiysha ​Keep it lit!

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