Africa Brooke: Leaving Wokeness for Tolerance

 Africa Brooke is coach and author of The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. I’ve been smitten with Africa for years, after I was one of the 12 million-odd people who read her Instagram manifesto, “Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness” in 2020. There, Africa gave voice to being part of a culture that was supposed to be tented around diversity and inclusion, and yet, she found herself sounding and behaving in an increasingly intolerant way, a way that resisted diversity of thought. Originally from Zimbabwe, Africa lives in the U.K. and had already amassed a following for documenting her path to sobriety online—a path that anticipated the sober curious movement that’s become more mainstream today. She’s well-versed in spotting patterns and recognizing the way culture was working both on her and in her, in ways that were separating her from herself. 

I loved this conversation, a conversation I was very excited to have—it’s a vulnerable one. I’m grateful to Africa for saying what needs to be said and conscious that more of us need to join her. As she explains, people quickly finger her as far-right—and the far-right would love nothing more than to co-opt her—but she’s more of a social justice advocate than ever. She needs people in the center, and people on the left to join her in pointing out how our cancel culture is, to use her term, actually “collective sabotage.” And how we abandon our highest principles when we turn on each other so quickly and make each other “wrong.” I think this conversation speaks for itself, so I’ll stop talking now, and turn it over to Africa.

MORE FROM AFRICA BROOKE:

The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance

“Why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness”

Africa’s Website

Follow Africa on Instagram

Africa’s Podcast: “Beyond the Self”

Loretta Ross’s Episode: “Calling in the Call-Out Culture”

TRANSCRIPT:

(Edited slightly for clarity.)

ELISE LOEHNEN: I think people are desperate for this book and for your voice. I remember when your sort of viral moment erupted on Instagram and so many friends and I will say people who I highly value their opinion, therapists And people in that space, We were all ricocheting it around the internet because it was like, Oh my God finally, like there's relief. Like you spoke right into something that hadn't necessarily broken through. But was at the edge of people's conscious awareness of like, something's happening. And this feels like it's not actually what we profess to want. But can you take us back to this moment where you just broke through and said the truth?

AFRICA BROOKE: Yes, absolutely. You know, what's amazing to know how long someone has been connected with my work for because if we're talking about the open letter that I wrote and the open letter was titled, why I'm leaving the cult of wokeness, and I even write this on the first page in my book to be like, if, What I just said and that title evokes some kind of reaction, stay with me. Okay. That is the whole point, right? That was, wow, three years ago, three years ago. So the conversation that I was trying to have and I'm so proud of myself for doing it at that time, because it was a very frightening time to be saying anything that wasn't in alignment with what was deemed the correct way to think what a good person is supposed to think, especially someone like me, a good black left leaning woman, you know, I was supposed to apparently think in a very specific way and the thoughts that I was putting down, which I'll go into, completely weren't against that, but actually not as much as I thought. So I wrote this letter probably in about two hours, but actually it was three years in the making. I had found myself, through my sobriety journey, I got sober in 2016 when I was 24 years old. And I've always been someone that writes. I've always been someone that shares publicly in some way. And after relapsing so many times, I turned to the internet. I started somewhat of an anonymous journal where I was just sharing reality of what it looks like to be an addict, the reality of not having anyone in your life that is sober, the reality of being an African girl who's from a culture where you're supposed to pray your problems away. You go to church and you keep them to yourself.

And I just started writing, sharing my story. And my story was picked up pretty quickly by the UK media because of how young I was at the time. And also my background as an immigrant, I think it was just a compelling story, especially because sobriety at that time was not, it wasn't kind of this sexy, brandable, marketable thing that it is now, and I'm very grateful that it is that, but it was still in the shadows. It was still in the AA rooms. So I understand that the story that I had was very compelling, but it was also helping a lot of people. So, I started sharing, continued learning about sobriety, learning about the ways in which, let's say, the alcohol industry markets alcohol to women. That was something I was so curious about. The romanticization of wine, for example. So my work quickly got labeled activism. And I know I never said that it was, but that's exactly what happened. And I was okay with that, you know, to some degree, because it felt like what I had to say was being taken very seriously. It allowed for me to take myself very seriously and it moved from me just sharing my personal story into something more objective, something that was supporting other people. So what happens when you have the label activists put upon you? And I think that's a good thing. You end up connecting with other people that are also activists, other people that are also advocates for different types of things.

So I started to connect with people that were pushing back on various injustices, whether that is racial injustice, whether that is things in the realm of gender equality or violence against women, I would say in 2017 is when we started seeing more of the gender identity conversation kind of become more mainstream and I was very much a part of that because I thought and still think that it's very, very important to start having these difficult and nuanced conversations,

ELISE: hmm.

AFRICA: but I started to notice maybe about a year and a half into it, that In the groups that I was a part of, social justice, activism groups, groups that are for progress and liberation, it was very difficult, even just energetically, to put forward anything that didn't align with what was deemed to be the correct way to think. It was very difficult to point out contradictions or things that didn't quite make sense or things that felt out of line because it was when all out culture was kind of the language that was used that if you see injustice in any way, or someone using the wrong terminology, you have to call them out or you have to call them in, but something just didn't feel right. But I didn't feel that I could say anything. I felt very terrified because I'd seen what happens when people ask questions or when people get something wrong, or when people use the wrong language, or when people have a view that has been considered or deemed outdated in some kind of way, you get punished for it, whether it's publicly or privately.

And I would say for me, that's when I started to notice the self censoring happen, but I didn't really think of it as that. I thought there are just some things you keep to yourself, you only bring forward things that are going to be useful to the movement. You only bring forward things that are in support of what we all think is correct. But what was happening there is that my curiosity was being squashed. I was making myself believe that I had wrong thoughts. So I would say 2017 to 18 is when I started to feel something change. Even in my own mind, the self editing started there. But what was so interesting is that I really considered myself, even then, a very outspoken person. I was already bringing things, especially publicly. I was already putting forward ideas that people were resisting, especially around sort of alcohol. I was putting forward ideas that made people question their own behavior, question industries, question governments or whatever it might be. So I always, Considered myself to be outspoken, but in the groups where I was supposed to feel the most safest, to feel as if I can explore ideas in my curiosity, I felt so terrified to step out of line because it felt like the punishment would be so grave. So I slowly started journaling. Journaling is something that I've always done. I was journaling and just putting my thoughts onto the page because that's what felt safest instead of sharing it with the people around me, I felt like I can write about this and be curious about it. By the time 2020 comes around, that was the turning point for me. That was when I realized just how much I had been self editing, how much I had been policing my own thoughts, but to a point of starting to police other people too.

ELISE: Yeah.

AFRICA: And I think for most of us, and I would love to know your experience, but I think 2020 was very emotionally brutal time for a lot of us having to adjust to the reality of the pandemic, being at home. I would say most of us were being glued to our phones, being not really having the outlet that we might've had before, but suddenly being attuned to everything that was happening in the world. And it was also the year that george Floyd's passing, which was very, very unfortunate and very sad and something that sparked a lot of important conversations, but I started to notice the conversation around race sort of morphing into something that felt extremely uncomfortable for me. That's why I felt the pressure, the most pressure to pick a side. But I found it very difficult because I could see the nuances in all of it. And I didn't believe that all white people are racist.

I could acknowledge and understand where the frustration was coming from. I could acknowledge and understand that there were big conversations that needed to be had, but I really was not comfortable with going to every single white friend that I had and asking them to speak about this situation, or to prove their goodness to me, or to question them for past interactions that we might have had, but to look at those interactions through the lens of race, to maybe sort of dig out some, some racism within them that I hadn't previously identified. There was something religious happening there. This sort of thing of the kind of original sin that I had to look at white people as if they have this original sin of white supremacy and they have to declare it and own it and then start atoning for this sin. That's what it felt like.

And having have been in a fundamentalist religion when I was growing up, I really could see those patterns. It was a very bizarre time, but it's when I started writing that open letter, Why I'm Leaving the Cult of Wokeness, it's when I made the public declaration that whatever this game was, whatever this thing that we were all experiencing individually and as a collective, I really was opting out of it and I was willing to be misunderstood. I was willing to be called every name under the sun. I was willing to admit if I was wrong in some way, but I was giving myself the permission to ask the hard questions. I was giving myself permission to be confused out loud, giving myself permission to point out the contradictions and to go back to people that I had discarded because I've been told that they were problematic. I've been told that they were wrong I've been told that they had Opinions that might corrupt me in some kind of way and took accountability for that I took accountability for my own reactivity for my own self righteousness because there was a lot of self righteousness that I had to face. I truly believed in some of my interactions that I was on the right side of history, the so called right side of history.

I truly believe that. So without realizing I was looking down on anyone that didn't hold the worldview that I did and I had to confront all of that. And I did that through this letter. And it was the bravest thing I've ever done besides getting sober, but it was also the most frightening thing I've ever done. I remember not being able to sleep for about two days because I felt so activated. I felt like I had betrayed so many different communities which as I say it out loud now, I feel how disturbing a lot of this is, which is why I push back so fiercely on self censorship because that self peace is so important. You start to surveil yourself in your mind in a way that is so sinister and it spills into every single aspect of your life if it goes unchecked. So that's kind of the shortest version of what led up to that letter.

ELISE: and I can imagine the energy coming at you in all directions, you know, it's funny, one of the few encounters I have shame about was right after 2020. And I had been, you know, interviewing. people about race for many years before and talking about things like systemic racism and so I felt primed or I understood the conversation and the words and, but as a white woman who also is progressive leaning so much additional anxiety around and post Trump of this, like need, I need to like lead with the fact that I'm an ally and that I'm not, you know, a nefarious, whatever it is, right? Like this had become built into my own consciousness of any interaction, I need to make sure that people understand that I'm like, conscious of myself and I'm not harmful and I'm not problematic. I mean, it's so much work. And then guarding against the Karenification of our culture, which I have a lot to say about because I think so much of it is just blanket misogyny. It's like, let's just dump on women and let them hold the cultural shadow while men just keep doing their thing. But women somehow need to be accountable for all of society's ills. And I recognize that, yes, of course, there are concerns.

AFRICA: Yes.

ELISE: At my kid's preschool, right after George Floyd, you know, in the height of the pandemic, there was, I guess, a parent in one of the classes who was a policeman and a mom, and these are all very progressive pretty white families. And this mom wrote a letter about enlisting all of the kids to make signs to support the local police department, because this is when there were protests happening in LA. And I just unleashed on her in a way that is not something that I typically do over email. And it was so self righteous, and I thought I was being protective of teachers, and I found her sort of insufferable, but still, it was like, what did, what? Like, I still have shame about that one encounter where I'm like, what was I doing, and why did I feel like I needed to police her, to use your words, in part, to be like, I'm not like her, and I don't want to go back to it and re engage this conversation, but I probably should. But I'm just awfully tired, like you, of needing to assert my goodness before I feel like I can enter any conversation.

AFRICA: Yes.

ELISE: And that self censorship that you write about. So thank you. Cause I feel like for many of us, it was like, okay, you write about sort of the intolerance for diversity of thought. I'm from a rural, more conservative state. There are a lot of people I love who do not share my politics. I refuse to discard them or assign them to this idea that they're just bad people, clearly, because they don't have the same beliefs as I do.

AFRICA: And thank you so, so much for just sharing this in such a human way, because I think it's so important. Something that led me to that point and tiredness is such a great way to put it, because I think my own just exhaustion with myself and what I had created around me contributed to that letter. I had nothing left to give because when you're in that environment of just extreme policing of behavior and speech, you will never get it right. I think that's what I realized. And it was so freeing when I realized that, you will never get it right. You could, you could modify your language. You could put all of the disclaimers and the caveats and whatever else and cover all the bases for every single experience before you put forward yours. And it will never be enough because a lot of the time we're trying to do this, especially online in an environment where there are no boundaries, there are no boundaries, there's no agreement on how to engage, anything you share or post or an opinion can land in 10 countries away from you.

It's not going to your neighbor or someone that understands you and your experience. So something that was freeing outside of the in person environments, especially online. In that year of 2020, which just completely changed everything. I was like, Africa, it will never be enough. You could modify yourself as many times as you want to and change the way you speak and you know, instead of writing out the word women, you could put an X on the E and someone will still think it's wrong. Someone will tell you that it will never be enough. And I found that to be so, so liberating, but also it was because a lot of it doesn't actually reflect real life. The reality is that, especially for me as an immigrant, there are so many people in my life, aunts and uncles, even my mom, a little bit, people that I absolutely adore, and sometimes they will say the wildest shit that I'm like, auntie, you can't say that. I don't find it a bit funny, but they don't realize that what they're saying, the generational differences, language differences, something is acceptable in Zimbabwe Igueru, but it's not here. There's so much, you know, and all of that gets flattened online, but we all have people in our lives that think very, very differently. But I've realized that those echo chambers made me find it very difficult to exist in the real world, because in the real world, people disagree with you. In the real world, someone will say something so wild, in the real world, you might walk past someone with mental health issues and they're just going at it and saying all... it's that is the way of the world. It doesn't mean we have to accept whatever is being said, but it means we accept the reality of being human. And I found that again, in those echo chambers, when I would then be around family or around people that I'm just meeting, everything would feel, and I rarely use the word triggering, but that's exactly what it would feel like. I would be one question away from crumbling, you know, even the ideologies that I was holding so firmly, that would be one question away from crumbling because I was in environments where we don't ask questions. We don't ask questions. We all have a script that we abide by. And the right thing to say, you call people out. If someone says the wrong thing, you stand up and you send that email and you say the thing and you have done your work, right? You don't hold that discomfort and allow someone to be them. You don't hold the discomfort you feel when, you know, you say some kind of mantra, silence is violence. And someone says, well, Africa, what do you actually mean by that? How dare you question me, it would have to be that response? Because I don't actually know what I mean by that and why I'm really saying it. So I think the exhaustion was also because I just had So many stories about how open minded I am, how confident I am, whatever the thing is. But actually, I was making it very difficult for myself to exist in the real world. And I saw that very, very clearly in 2020, that I was struggling to hold opposing views and I just, I hadn't realized just how much it was.

ELISE: Then it becomes this like, when you're also observing yourself in that way or in other people's company where you're having heartfelt conversations with people about policy differences or whatever it may be in your real life. And in your mind, you're like, Oh, I'll be attacked. I'm somehow making myself complicit through friendliness with someone who doesn't necessarily Venn diagram with my beliefs, but actually shares most of my values. And so then there's this extra layer of critics. And, you know, one of the first guests I had on this show, after I left my job was Loretta Ross. I don't know if you've ever been in conversation with her, but She's amazing. She's a professor at Smith and she talks about calling in rather than calling out, but is similarly, very opposed to this whole idea of canceling people. Cause I think her parents were voted on the Republican ticket and she is like I can find agreement with 90 percent of people. There are enough overlapping commonalities we generally want the same things. We might want them in different ways. But you know, she's like, apart from the people on storming the Capitol or marching for the Klan, like, as a black woman, I I still think I can get on side with most people. And we just have lost that capacity. I actually think you're, and I think you're part of this, I think people are waking up to how insane it is and are coming more towards the center and like, let's get some real stuff done.

AFRICA: Why do you think that is? Why do you think that is? Because I feel that so strongly. It's why I remain so hopeful and excited about this conversation and why I don't have the conversation and the work that I do. My message is not from a cynical place. And actually, I really think it's so important for people that are either in the center or especially left leaning, progressive, liberal, whatever the label might be. I think it's important that we lead these conversations because I think the anti cancel culture conversation has been co opted by the right. And I think It's so easy for people to hear or to assume that those people that are pushing back on cancel culture or wokeism, whatever you want to call it, I think the assumption is that, oh, you're right wing, you know, I think people have always said this but people would have known what to do with me. They would have found it easier to take in my message if I was someone who was leaving the left and slotting very neatly into the right, you know, if I was like a Candace Owens. And you can imagine, of course, people try to make those comparisons because if someone's black and they're pushing back against cancel culture, it's a good thing I don't have a Bob haircut. Otherwise that would have just been perfect.

ELISE: No, but I'm sure they see you, they're like in conversation with Jordan Peterson. Like, Oh my God. Yeah.

AFRICA: Instantly, but I actually think everything that I do has made me even more progressive. It has made me want to really push back against injustice. It has made me think with so much clarity because I do see that it was a permission slip for so many people. So I feel very hopeful because of that, but I'm curious to know from you, why do you think people are more open to even the conversation we're having now?

ELISE: So I think and what I've observed and I very much feel in alignment with you. As a white woman, I just have to tread still more carefully because we're still so culturally focused on that white women are the enemy of all people or fair targets. I think it's all cultural shadow stuff and that really it's just like, we're the only acceptable place to dump all of everyone's anger, resentment rage, like leave it with the white women. That's too tidy. But you know what I mean. I think what's happened recently here, too, with what's happening in Israel and Gaza and with Hamas has been, at least amongst many of the people I talk to, a real eye opening thing. event in terms of the left being as potentially dangerous slash certainly insufferable, but the way that the left is starting to weaponize and become as deeply intolerant and violent in some ways as the right, and that I think people are starting to see the horseshoe of extremism in American politics. And that's not where anyone wants to be. Most people are capable of holding multiple perspectives and having a nuanced take. And people do really well with nuance and complexity, actually. But most people are also not like dark triad personalities taking over Instagram, right? So most people are not saying anything. They're watching and saying, Whoa.

AFRICA: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

ELISE: I feel energy, collecting, and you could call it the political center, you can call it whatever it is, I think it transcends politics, which is, Like the Ken Wilber idea of like transcend and include or include and transcend of I do not want to be in this discussion. There is no juice in this for me. Yes, I want to change. I want to be hard on structures and hard on systems. These, this isn't holding our current cacophony. We need, To move our government better and like what's happening to abortion in this country is a crime, which most people agree with. Most people want better gun laws. But the people are sort of saying this is not where the conversation is. I need to be up here. And I think people are getting above it in the sense that they're just seeing it and they're not wanting to engage in this back and forth anymore.

AFRICA: agreed. Oh, I'm so with you. Yeah, you articulated that beautifully and I think it's exactly the same here in the UK as well. And it's that idea, right, of the silent majority, it's that silent majority, but I think that also the reason why for me it comes back to self censorship is because it's the silent majority, right, but everyone experiences what's happening culturally from an individual perspective. So they're seeing that people get punished for asking questions. They're seeing that people get punished for having some kind of opinion or worldview. And at this point in time, it doesn't even need to be controversial anymore. I think we're beyond that point where you needed to actually say something that is truly controversial to receive that amount of pushback and dogpiling. But now you just need to, even not saying anything gets you the exact same result as saying the wrong thing. That's insane to me.

ELISE: Yeah. Well, it's interesting with, you know, going back to Israel and Hamas, and I wasn't particularly vocal because I am not an expert on that region. And there are far better people to listen to on this. And I'm good at commenting on sort of what I see as underlying dynamics and patterns, but what was scary to me, Africa, is the number of people who are, I don't have a massive following either, who are following me around Instagram to see what I had liked, and then DMing me about it, or that I hadn't liked something else. And that was scary. And or the people who were emailing me, full of feeling, but saying, essentially, like, you are not on the right side. Now I need to discount everything I've ever learned from you. Every podcast I've ever listened to, your book, this idea that the world needs to Venn diagram or coordinate so closely with your beliefs, that if someone has any variation or deviation from what you hold to be true, then they are worthless. And so that was really interesting pattern, obviously minority, but still like interesting pattern to see that we're getting to a place of so much fragility psychologically, that we're scared, like, oh my God, if Africa is talking to Jordan Peterson, and then I have a conversation with Africa, people are going to think that I condone and agree with Jordan Peterson about everything he says, or that there's nothing on the flip side, that there's nothing of value that is ever said that I could find. I'm sure I could go through Jordan Peterson's books and be like, oh, this is wise.

AFRICA: Right.

ELISE: Instead, it's this wholesale rejection, acceptance, rejection, acceptance, and there is no room in some people's minds.

AFRICA: Absolutely. And it's that thing, that's why for me the word surveillance comes back, right? There's that internal surveillance that most of us now already have. And I would say that social media and the culture that we've created now is not the sole reason for it. I think a lot of things start from childhood. Someone says something and then it builds some kind of insecurity or you say something that you thought was perfectly fine and you're told that it's wrong, It happens in so many ways. But the bizarre thing exactly you're saying is the Surveillance that is positioned as concern, because I've had this too, so people say doesn't happen anymore, but especially at the time that I wrote the open letter, this was happening quite a lot, someone's saying Oh Africa, I just wanted to say that I noticed that you follow so and so. Do you know that they said this and this and this before? It was always positioned as concern. Oh, I just saw that you liked this post. Maybe you don't know what this person has said. So it's kind of, I'm looking out for you. That's where to me that feels religious as well. Because I remember in the church that we grew up in, which was kind of a cult. It was called End Time Message, if that doesn't tell you something.

ELISE: whoa,

AFRICA: So it was an offshoot of Christianity created by this man called William Branham. He was a British man, I believe like in the 60s or something like that. And he went to Africa as a missionary, southern Africa in particular, and set up small churches. And his church was called the End Time Message. So it was a doomsday church. But you know what's interesting, Elise? I remember, because young child, you have no idea what it is. So we'd always say, if we would go to my grandma's in the country, because we lived in the city in Harare, we'd say we'd be like, oh, yeah, we went to end time message and it was just like the name of the church. Now as an adult me and my siblings laugh. Are you kidding ,end time message?

ELISE: It's perfect. It's no wonder you're like becoming a mythical creature in the culture.

AFRICA: I am always cracking up when I think about that and it's that sort of warning. So All of these little signs that I'd start to see again, the surveillance position as concern, saw it in church with my mom, different things that kind of some of the sisters, some of the women, we call them sisters, some of the sisters would say to my mom, Oh, by the way, Jennifer, we noticed you speaking to this woman, just wanted to let you know, again, it's concern, but they're trying to tell you that this association is dangerous. And if you don't do something about it, there will be a price to pay. And that price is often being exiled from the group. You will still go to church, but you'll be able to feel the energetics that you have been exiled. And it's just the same thing on social media. I've seen that you liked this. I've seen that you're following this person or why haven't you said anything?

This has happened a few times with the conflict that's currently happening in the Middle East. A few people saying Africa, maybe I missed the post, but I was wondering when you're going to speak up. Maybe you missed the post. Really? Why don't you just ask me what it is that you want to ask? But it's again, that thing of you prove yourself to me. And then I will decide what I do with you. And if it doesn't mirror my world view, I am going to discard you. It doesn't matter if I've been learning from you, and you have helped me for the past five years or however long, if this one thing doesn't align so perfectly and so neatly and doesn't slot in just right, you will be exiled.

And I think it's that self righteousness we're speaking about, right? It's that very egoic thing of I can go to a stranger, someone that I really don't know, someone that I have a parasocial relationship with. I think I know them, but they have no idea who I am. And I can demand to know their position. But a lot of the time, which is why even in writing My book, I wanted to bring it back to the self because being online allows us to have this inappropriate level of audacity. And I think audacity is a very beautiful thing, but it gets so inappropriate online where you can go into Elise's messages and say, by the way, I saw you liked this, you should be liking this. Prove yourself to me. When the same person is probably not even able to have a conversation with their own partner in their home, but they can go online and demand people to say certain things, but in your home, are you that courageous to have a difficult conversation? Are you that courageous to have that same level of audacity in your day to day life?

And I just worry that we're performing this very shadowy version of ourselves, especially online, without making any kind of effort in our everyday life to cultivate a strong sense of self, where you're able to handle conflict, where you're able to express disappointment to someone face to face and have a dialogue. I don't know, it's very bizarre, but I do think the tide is turning very slowly, but I do think all of this is so unsustainable that it eventually has to crash in some way. I don't think it's going to end, but I just think there'll be more people, especially through conversations like this, that are maybe sort of jolted awake out of whatever trance they're in and have to face their cognitive dissonance, you know?

ELISE: yes, 100 percent it's that. I don't know if you've ever read the work of Rene Girard, the scapegoat, and you would love it. I'm going to send you some stuff because he was this polymath who was a Christian, but he wrote about sort of the foundation of, it's complicated, but how the world, the foundation is on murder and this scapegoat and this idea that we're, we always need a scapegoat. We always need to align against someone or something that can be bad and can be destroyed and then the rest of us are purified. And this is a pattern throughout our time that's deeply unconscious. And I mentioned that he's a Christian cause he talks about how Jesus actually subverts this, and again, it's complicated, but by reflecting it back to us, what we're doing it's like the end of child sacrifice, the end of sending the goat off the cliff, but he shows us our own behavior as a way to sort of stop it. But we just get completely sucked in and it's deeply unconscious. And then I think it's only in those moments, like after I sent that email, I was like, God, who am I? Sure, word for word, this is like a perfect cutting response. And sure, I'm on the right side here, Africa, but like, this does not feel good. And this has solved nothing except shaming another woman. But that was an important moment for me to just be like, chill out girl. Like, chill. You do not need to be doing this.

AFRICA: Right. you just tapped into something and I hope someone listening can be curious about this. I find this so useful, take on the role of the observer, where sometimes, especially when you're in a highly emotional state, especially a reactive one, you see something that makes you feel something and instinctively you want to respond and you truly believe that it's the right thing to do. Maybe you kind of know is the wrong thing to do. I kind of practice zooming out, that's exactly what I had to do in 2020. So I had my moment, my email moment, similar to you. It was In the week of the Black Square, and most people will know exactly what I'm talking about when I say Blackout Tuesday, where it was the square, and I believe this started in the music industry, but I think people sort of lost its origins along the way, but people were supposed to post a black square or were invited to post a black square, I believe it was in protest. It was like a virtual protest of everything that was happening with the George Floyd protest, but also for BLM. And I was one of those people. I mean, I don't have the same shame that I did now, but when I look back, I just cringe because I think Africa, who do you think you are? I was demanding that people post that black square. And you know, what's so funny, but not so funny, I believe. Not long after hours later, people that had posted the black square were being shouted at because the black square was hiding all of the information where people should meet up for protests. I mean, you can't make this shit up, but I was one of those people shouting and demanding that people post this bloody square.

And then I remember a man sent me a DM. This man, he was a mixed race man, and that, that detail is important. He was a black mixed race man. And he sent me a message, and he was just curious, when I look at it now, I understand the message. He just wanted to know, because he'd been following me for a while, and he had noticed my intensity in these couple of weeks. And he just wanted to know if I truly believe that is the best approach to get people to listen, kind of shaming people because that was exactly what I was doing. It's a behavior that I'd never engaged in before, but that two weeks was very enlightening. He just wanted to know if I truly believe that this is the most effective way to get people on board, the most effective way to get people engaged in these important conversations.

And the moment that he did that, I felt this sort rage and anger because someone had questioned my behavior and this I hadn't experienced this before. Sort of like a how dare you and because I had been so tunnel vision and seeing everything from the lens of identity First, he was a light skinned black man, by the way And there was something that would happen in the spaces that I was in at this time where there was this idea that even if you are white passing, so a lighter skinned black person or a lighter skinned mixed race person, you have a closer proximity to whiteness, so you don't have a right to ask certain questions. And again, Elise, as I say this out loud, I acknowledge just how crazy and sinister and dehumanizing it sounds. But this was just the norm, and still is in many ways. So immediately my mind goes into the state of how dare you? How dare you question a black woman? I wasn't even looking at the contents of what he was saying because he was absolutely right. And I could easily have answered that question. Do I actually believe that this is the most effective way as someone that has been, especially up until this time, had been researching and studying self sabotage, someone that works with people, someone that helps people to communicate bravely and openly, but I was going against everything that I truly believe in. I was going against every single value that I had. And this is someone that knew my work. So he really just wanted to know, went into a state of how dare you, didn't even respond to him. I screenshotted the message, posted it on my Instagram feed for everyone to see because my thought at the time didn't even realize it. I wanted to make an example of him, but also I wanted to score social points. I wanted to prove that I'm a good person. I wanted to prove that I was calling someone out or calling someone in or whatever it might be. It immediately got a flurry of likes, thousands, the comments, especially again, think of that timeline.

Everyone is at home. Everyone was on their phones. Things weren't so viral so quickly at that time because everyone's looking in one place, you know? And the sense of power that I felt in that moment, gosh, it wasn't just validation or affirmation. It was something else. There was this sort of stroke to my ego that I don't think I've ever experienced and the sense of power that I felt I was being applauded. I was being rewarded for making an example of this person and it lasted for all of 20 minutes. And then I started to feel sick. I felt so disgusted with myself, similar to you, I was in this trance state of just on autopilot, responding in the way that I think I need to, being reactive and there was no thought. There was no space for critical thought. It was all reactive. But suddenly it's almost like I stopped and I saw myself, but I couldn't see myself. It was not me. It was a very shadowy version of me that was not true. I think that's one of the points, in fact, not I think, I know that's one of the points where I experienced a serious level of cognitive dissonance and I was at that crossroads, because I can continue doing this. Then I actually had a choice and, I realized this now I could, and I saw this happen with a lot of people, based on that moment, I can then make it my identity. I can start speaking about race. I can start speaking about people not speaking out and I can continue getting applauded for that. But I truly felt disgusted and sick with myself which was such a juxtaposition to the sort of feeling of power and almost arousal that I had felt from the instant validation from so many people at the same time. But that was my moment of being like, Oh, okay. This is happening. And I immediately deleted the post and I messaged the man a few days later to apologize for it.

And he was like, no, that's fine. It quite literally just said that. So I have no idea what his experience on the other side would have been, but I just, in that moment, I had directly dehumanized someone and I was applauded for it. And there was nothing unique about that because it was happening everywhere online. It still happens, you know, but that was my moment where I was like, Okay, no, I won't do this or bring myself to a position crossing my own boundaries to the point of feeling that sense of arousal and elation and sort of power from dehumanizing another person and dehumanizing myself in the process, you know, so that was one of my email moments.

ELISE: I love the way you sort of reframed cancel culture as collective sabotage because so often we're working against each other and Making our movements smaller, Harsher and more punitive in terms of who can participate in this conversation and who can't I think that that's such a powerful renaming it to sort of pointing to and you can look at any issue trans rights and see the way that the movement becomes more and more barbed, scary, Meanwhile, if you sort of can back it up and say, actually, how many of us want trans people to be safe and have access to the care that they need and feel like it's really none of our business, I'd say most people would raise their hands. But the way that the movement has become, I don't know why in general these movements feel like that Even though so many masters of this are about non violence, I don't understand what's happened.

AFRICA: me too, it's something I think about all the time and I'm constantly wanting to understand the why. But I think eventually it's one of those, we've said it quite a few times, but I think in all its simplicity, it ends up getting to a point where people are really trying to prove their goodness. And sometimes it ends up being people that are not even directly part of that group or directly affected by the issue because something that I noticed even in the conversations around race, especially at that time, but even now, you will have people getting offended on other people's behalf. So white people getting offended on my behalf because they think maybe I'm just not recognizing that I should be offended in this instance. So they step in and they become sort of the voice. They start to Look for malicious intent in every single thing on behalf of other black people. I think there's a lot of that happening now more than ever, where actually, if you speak to people that are in those groups, whether it's trans people, black person, a black trans person, whatever the identity might be, or the movement might be, you will find that for the most part, people that are firmly affected directly by the issue are very nuanced. They are very balanced. They are able to accept the reality of the world that we live in and still stand firm in the thing that they're standing for, but then you have the loudest people for the most part, the saviourism thing becomes a part of that, where they appoint themselves as the saviour, as the person that is going to detect the injustice everywhere, the person that is going to detect the malicious intent and then speak up on behalf, this idea of the voiceless, which I just, I think that is so patronising,

ELISE: it is, and it suggests like a disempowerment that I don't know if that exists.

AFRICA: Yes, it's the victim thing, right? This idea of this person is the victim, full stop. So I have to step in as the privileged person, you know, to do something about it. So I think that's part of it too. I don't by any means think It speaks to the entire issue. I think it's so intricate. I think there's some things that are just a part of human nature. What happens with group think and mob mentality and that feeling of power where maybe people that have felt powerless for a very long time feel that sense of power and what happens then. I think it's so many things, but I think that is a big part of it now more than ever, and when you throw social media in there as well, you have so many people that, through their own guilt and shame, especially when they feel ashamed of their privilege feel ashamed of the color of their skin, they might appoint themselves as the person that is going to do their absolute best to prove that they're not one of them, you know.

ELISE: Exactly. Yeah, it's so, rich.