You're Not Like Those Other Black People: Confronting Othering feat. Nick Daily

[00:00:17] Chris Angel Murphy: Well hello there. My name is Chris Angel and my pronouns are they/them. Welcome to Allyship is a Verb, the LGBTQ+ podcast that explores and humanizes practicing allyship for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond.

[00:00:37] Nick Daily: Hi, friends! My name is Nick Daily, I happen every day. The pronouns I use are he or they.

[00:00:43] Chris Angel Murphy: You know what time it is. Wait, [Chris Angel laughs] why did I say that? You don't know. It's time to acknowledge a new monthly supporter, Sarah! Sarah, I appreciate you so much, and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I sat down to calculate how much money has been going into creating each episode and I nearly fainted. So, [Chris Angel laughs] having your support means a great deal to me, so thank you, thank you, thank you again for helping me to make this sustainable. And shout out to my poor neighbors who have to hear me record all of this in the first place and scream out random names for being a monthly supporter for my podcast. So thank you, Sarah. Thank you, neighbors.

[00:01:27] Chris Angel Murphy: Um, okay, this is getting awkward. Let's move on. Listen, I promise this isn't a podcast where I only interview educators or trainers. I promise! But if you've been listening a while and remember my episodes with Shane and Laura, Nick is another awesome human I met at Camp Pride back in 2009. We really get into some deep topics within our conversation today, of which I am so grateful we got to explore and just go there. To tee this up a little bit, this was recorded at the end of October in 2021. Some of the top stories of that time were Lil Nas X and his album release from the previous month, R. Kelly being found guilty on all counts, and Dave Chappelle's new Netflix special being accused of transphobia and antisemitism.

[00:02:21] Chris Angel Murphy: Nick is a beautiful soul who offers diversity and inclusion training through his business, Luv Served Daily Consulting. They have been leading and facilitating workshops, training, outreach, and consultation for over a decade. He has a great deal of professional and lived experience. Seriously, Nick's offerings cover a wide range of topics, so there's lots of reasons and opportunities to hire them. I hope you'll join me in following Nick on Instagram to see their daily reminders, and you'll know what that is by the end of this conversation. I know that I look forward to seeing them every day, and if you're someone who could use a boost, maybe you'll find them helpful, too.

[00:03:03] Chris Angel Murphy: Here are three self-reflection questions to think about while you're listening, and be sure to stick around after for three more before you go. Number one, what do you think queer leadership means? Number two, have you ever called someone in or called someone out? Number three, have you ever been told that you're "not like the others," "others" being a particular group you may identify with or belong to? Now, we don't have a lot of time, so let's go.

[00:03:37] Chris Angel Murphy: You are a black, queer person, a nonbinary man, a mama's boy, an identical twin, and a lover. What do those mean to you?

[00:03:49] Nick Daily: Being a black, queer person for me is really how people engage with me, right? It's about the perceptions that people have when they encounter me. The reason why that's what - those are some of the first ways that I describe myself is, is, you know, race is frequently on the outside and a part of that perception. And my gender, the way that I perform my gender, is easily read, I find. Even prior to my knowing my queerness, others were able to pick that up. I had a sixth grade teacher who described it, how she told the difference between myself and my identical twin, and she said "Nick walks with a bounce," with a little smirk. Um, and that was - that was, you know, that was an acknowledgement of the way that I queered even, like - or that I existed as a queer person in a, in an embodied way.

[00:04:49] Nick Daily: Um, I am a mama's boy! I'm the fourth kid out of five, the youngest boy and the favorite. That's how I describe myself, and I'm the younger twin. And so a lot of my history is using "we" and "us," because my identity shift from being a twin to being an individual really kind of solidified when I was, like, 21. Um, and when I was 21, for the first time I had six weeks where someone didn't call me my twin's name. And then serendipitously, a supervisor called me Rick, and did not know my twin, but - but called me Rick at 21. And then a lover - I live my life through love. My life motto is love served daily, which is also the name of my consulting company, and I'm just looking at a letter that was written for me from a colleague. And the first sentence of that letter is "When I first thought of thanking you for being such a beacon of love," dot dot dot. And so I, I find that people often use that word, whether or not they know about the way that I describe myself or the - or my life philosophy.

[00:06:07] Chris Angel Murphy: Well, yeah, the - the branding for your business is chef's kiss, [Nick laughs] muah, you know. You post daily (trademark) reminders on your Instagram page. And some have included: "Be your own anchor, trust your process" and "Your story is more than sorrow." Some are quoting other accounts and people. So how did these come to be? And where did you get your inspiration from? Because you've been doing this for a long time now.

[00:06:39] Nick Daily: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. I'm so glad that you asked that question. So, Luv Served Daily, uh, was gifted to me by a friend in college. Um, I don't know if you remember back in the day, when you sent text messages, you could put a signature, um, [Chris Angel laughs] and it required 17 letters, you could not have 18 letters. And I was asking my friends, like, "What should I do? What should I put?" And one of my friends, his name is Kevin Jamison, said "You should put 'love served daily'." And I was like, wow, that is so great, because you know, play on words, but also it - it really is how I try to live my life. And I couldn't spell love, "L O V E," and get "served daily," um, on - on the thing, because that's 18 characters. And so I spelled it "l u v" served daily. And then people started calling me Luv Served Daily. So that's where Luv Served Daily came from.

[00:07:36] Nick Daily: The kind of foundational philosophy has changed over time, and I think we're in a cycle of changing the "what" of Luv Served Daily, what it means, what it means to me, and how it manifests. But Luv Served Daily currently is the consistent pursuit of happiness for self and others. And so much of the way that I move through the world, including the work that I do professionally, and the way I try and build relationships, is, is seen through that lens, right? Love is the core, uh, whether we're talking about things that Cornel West said or bell hooks or you know, others, love is the core of seeking justice, seeking peace, and getting to peace. Right?

[00:08:20] Nick Daily: The daily reminders - to be honest, I had a friend who was struggling with finishing their PhD, um, in STEM. And so my solution to try and support them was just to send them messages every day. Right? "You can do it." You know, "you are enough." The immortal words of Rihanna, "don't let the bastards get you down." [Chris Angel laughs] And so, so I started doing that I think in 2017. And then people- I started posting them on my Facebook and people were like, "We need a calendar, we need an app, we need - you know, we need all of these things." And I was like, "Well, I don't, I don't have app making skill." So I tried to make an app, couldn't figure it out. At the same time I was working on trademarking Luv Served Daily. I've been using it for I think 10 years by then. The only person you found was Nick Daily when you typed in Luv Served Daily, but I was like, "I think this is turning into something else." So I trademarked it.

[00:09:17] Nick Daily: And then I started playing with, "Okay, well, let me see if I can get an Instagram because at least it can show up in a different way than it does on Facebook." Started doing that, and people started resonating with it. You know, I don't always get a whole lot of communication or interaction on the posts. But when I do, sometimes people ask "well, what do you mean 'be your own anchor'? Like, anchors slow people down or anchors-" you know, um. But most of the time people say, "Oh, I needed this today." In my experience those daily reminders are serendipitous for myself, because they really speak to something that I need to hear. And so I started documenting them and saving them, and I kind of have an order - so I have them listed in order on a Notes app. And then when I get inspiration from other people, or I - or I say a phrase and I'm like, "wow, that is, you know, that is perfect for a daily reminder," [Chris Angel laughs] I'll add it into the list kind of right below wherever I'm at, so that I can still use it. Um, and I can, I can know what order I'm in. And so my hope is that one day, I'll get to 365 reminders so that I can actually create that calendar for people. But sometimes I'm getting -

[00:10:31] Chris Angel Murphy: I'm requesting that right now.

[00:10:32] Nick Daily: [Nick laughs] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I mean, it also might end up being a book or chaplet, where I'm able to do the reminder, but also have some exposition about what it means for me. But I do want to be able to spread a little bit of love and joy, especially on the internet, which - and social media, which is not, those aren't really super great places. And I guess I should say, it's not Facebook anymore. It's meta.

[00:11:01] Chris Angel Murphy: June is your birthday month, and it happens to coincide with Pride. And because y'all can't see right now, Nick totally just like raised the roof. And it was incredible. [Nick laughs] And if I could have made a gif, I would have, and I apologize publicly right now for not having this capabilities in this moment. But all of that to say, you wrote a post in June and said that you had a Black joy and restoration sabbatical. You took intentional time off and it was one of the only times it's been a post of you, because it's mostly been those daily posts that we were just touching on. But you know, it's a - it's a big month for us as educators and consultants, and we get lots of LGBTQ+ event requests. And also a lot of them are very last minute. Please, people, reach out much sooner than June for your Pride events, but -

[00:11:58] Nick Daily: And Black History Month, too!

[00:12:00] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah! [Nick laughs] So like, you and I had a private chat about this semi-recently. But what does it mean for you to say "no" to doing these kinds of events for Pride Month? And why the "no" for you?

[00:12:13] Nick Daily: Oh, that's such a hard question. Just saying no - that's such a hard question. I'm actually in the process of trying to create some kind of academic documentation of the art of Black refusal. There's also legacies of Black people saying no, right? Just completely refusing to be a part of spaces that are unhealthy, things that don't bring us joy, things that don't validate and value our life and time. For me, I was leaving a senior level position at a large community college, and I knew that there was healing I needed to do after the summer of, um, I want to call it - it used to be called the summer of racial reckoning. I want to call it the summer of white fragility. I don't know, like, right after that summer, it just seemed like people were like, "Okay, well, now we're in election season, we don't have to worry about Black Lives Matter anymore." And now we're starting to see, you know, a decline in the actual resourcing of diversity efforts. People are hiring individual people to try and bring their institutions or their organizations or their churches or their corporations closer to what they say their values are. And so they're not necessarily bringing in additional support, particularly as it relates to consulting.

[00:13:37] Nick Daily: Anyhow, when I quit that job, it - I knew I didn't want to, well, I don't work on my birthday. I do not. I do not work on my birthday. Uh, I have, I even signed myself out of high school when I turned 18 in high school, because I was like, "I don't want to do that anymore, um. I don't want to work on my birthday." So, someone asked, "Well, what if your boss tells you you have to?" And I was like, "Well, I won't have a boss anymore." Like, this is a personal value. This day is mine. I will not be at work, figure it out. Anyhow, so I knew I didn't want to do that. I was leaving this job, I knew I didn't want to do that. It was long distance for my partner. And I knew I was gonna go full-time into consulting.

[00:14:15] Nick Daily: A little bit of context, I was doing consulting on and off since 2014. And it started increasing after George Floyd was murdered. And then it got to a point where it was clear, my husband and I, we can probably survive with me doing that work. And a lot of times I find that consultants are heard louder and better as outsiders than people within organizations. So I decided to bet on myself, and a part of betting on myself was saying, "I don't have to make income for a month," which is super scary as somebody who has experienced housing insecurity. I do not have generational wealth. You know, I have a savings but that's because I'm dual income and no children, you know, so it was scary. And that was our decision that we made together, my husband and I. And during that time I read You Are Your Best Thing by - edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown. And I took naps. And I hung out with friends. This is subsequent to being fully vaccinated, so I was able - I felt able to reconnect with humans as an extrovert and you know, a people person, a person who wants to serve love daily, I also need to be around humans. And so for me saying no, is so - it was so hard. I had so many people reach out and say, "Hey, we want to do a Pride Month, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "No, we can do it on July 1, because July 1, gay people still exist." [Nick and Chris Angel laugh] You know? We're still here on July 1. And they were like, "No, it really has to be during Pride Month." It's like, okay, well, like, there's a billion people that you can go talk to.

[00:15:58] Nick Daily: Typically when I say no to people, I put them in contact with people who I think are strong, who can do the work. Another thing is, I'm not good at saying no, in my professional life. I don't like disappointing people. I don't like letting them down. I often - you know, this has got to get deep - I often act from a place of trauma related to financial security and related to disappointing people. Right? Oh, the other one is that, uh, we're supposed to love this work, right? We're supposed to give ourselves fully to this, maybe to our detriment, because this is work that shows that we're committed. And it's okay for us to take pennies. And it's okay for us to work long hours. And it's okay for us to get asked last minute to do stuff and not charge extra for that.

[00:16:43] Nick Daily: And I decided that I was going to spend that sabbatical on trying to figure out, what do I need to do differently so that I don't end up doing these same cycles, you know, where somebody is asking me to do professional development for their whole organization for $500. Like, that's not, that's not reasonable. If you have 40 staff, and you're asking me to do training for $500, that's like $11 per person. And the return on your investment is what? $10,000? Because you're actually able to retain your staff, you're able to advertise yourself as somewhere that is more inclusive, you're able to start developing policies that support trans employees getting the health care that they need, right? So the deeply undervaluing of our work, I wanted to push against that.

[00:17:33] Nick Daily: And so I was very grateful to have been - excuse me, fortunate to have been able to be in that space. And I've been trying to practice it since then, um. There's a, an artist Kendrick Day, who is on Instagram as Kendrick Day but also as BLK Queer Tarot. And Kendrick just came out with this, with another art- uh, artist, the Black Queer Tarot, and their kind of slogan is "Imagine a world where Black queer people are thriving." And I really think that that is the foundation of what, what I was trying to imagine, but also how I've been trying to operate in this consulting space. Like, I want to be able to pay my bills. I want to be able to go, you know, to go on a trip if I want to. I don't want to have to work 40 hours a week. I don't want to live to work anymore. And there's no judgment for people who want to hustle. Like for me, I am all about the people who want to hustle! Please go get your coins. But I have done that for over a decade, I have been very successful in the hustle and grind world, and I have zero desire to continue to do that. I am fighting the impulse for, you know, credentialing, and, you know, all of the different kind of adherence to the written word stuff that makes it so that we can justify our existence in this space.

[00:19:07] Nick Daily: You know, I've been telling people I have decades of experience in the DEI world, even though I've been alive for three, um, because I do. Because I have decades of lived experience. And so when I, when I show up to these spaces, I'm not just showing up with the credentials I have, right, or the trainings that I've gone through and all those things. I'm also showing up as somebody who was - knew that they were clear and articulated that at nine years old, and you know, learned very quickly that even though some people said "you're not like those other Black people," you were still Black. Um, right? And so those types of experiences also shape the approach, and I think sometimes people undervalue the qualitative research that we do throughout our lives that make us exceptional at what we do. That was answering a question you didn't ask, but, uh - [Nick laughs]

[00:20:06] Chris Angel Murphy: That's okay. And I'm, I'm also just sort of reeling from what you shared. Because - what a messed up thing to say to you, too. I haven't heard that phrase myself, especially since I'm not Black. I'm very much white. Right? And the way I connect with it is when I would hear, like, something like "you're not like the other women" or whatever. And it's like, okay, you think you mean this as a compliment, but it's actually having a very different, negative impact, because then what are you trying to say about this whole community?

[00:20:38] Nick Daily: That I'm a part of!

[00:20:39] Chris Angel Murphy: Right?

[00:20:39] Nick Daily: I mean, so, for me -

[00:20:40] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.

[00:20:41] Nick Daily: Though that was something that was easy to digest, because it allowed me to survive in these white spaces, primarily educational spaces. One of my cousin's neighbors was, was our best friends for years, maybe like five years. But once we got to middle school, my cousin started hanging out with predominantly Black people, and her neighbor was white. And so she was hanging out with them, I'm hanging out with the neighbor, like, we've known each other for five years, whatever. And there was one y- one, one day where the neighbor says, "oh, where's your cousin?" You know, like, we used to hang out. It's like, oh, she's hanging out with her other friends. Like she, you know, she has other friends from middle school, so she's hanging out with them. And she's like, "Oh, she's hanging out with those hoodlums."

[00:21:29] Chris Angel Murphy: Hmm.

[00:21:30] Nick Daily: Now, there's no way for her to know anything about the kids that she's hanging out with, besides the fact that they're Black. Right? They're Black, and they hang out on the basketball court. And I know that that sounds like a stereotype, but it's also true. [Nick and Chris Angel laugh] I mean, like, that's, that's the truth, right? But their Blackness, made it so that - their Blackness and lack of proximity to white people made it so that they were Black. They were hoodlums, criminals or, or pre-criminals. And my cousin was maybe not one of them, but was becoming like them. Right? And so that was a moment of rupture, really, for me with that - with these people. And I still spent time with primarily the daughter, who was a year, year older than me, still spent time with her. But it was a point of rupture, where my identity development started to shift like, oh, like, how do I - how do I help people understand that that's not something to be said? You know, that's not something to be said. And also, if you think that, you're wrong. Like, I'm just like these Black people. [Nick laughs] I don't play basketball, and I'm just like these Black people, right? Because I'm also Black. So.

[00:22:50] Chris Angel Murphy: Taking a very different direction.

[00:22:53] Nick Daily: Yeah, let's go.

[00:22:54] Chris Angel Murphy: There's a term I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I'm not sure how to define it, because perhaps it's an umbrella term of sorts? And I thought you'd be a good person to ask about this, but the term is queer leadership. So, so far, there's a part of me that says it has to do with someone being queer and being in some sort of a leadership position. Not necessarily that it's a queer group of sorts, but just, they are queer, checkbox, they're in a leadership position, checkbox, be it formal, informal. There's another part of me that says it's an intentional way of leadership, maybe through specific lenses. Is this something you've even thought about? And what do you think queer leadership means to you?

[00:23:46] Nick Daily: Thank you. I'm laughing because I have an experience where I was, I was talking with D'Lo, um, or D'Loco Kid, who's a writer, and a author, um, an actor, and I was - we were talking and D'Lo was like, I said something about being in the gay community. And D'Lo was like, "Are you gay or are you queer?" Or, being in the queer community - and it was like, are you talking about the gay community or the queer community? Right? Are you gay or are you queer? I like that, like, simplicity, right? Queer people exist all over the world, all over leadership roles, right? But that doesn't mean that they are queer "TM," right. Or capital Q "Queer" maybe, uh, where the politics is also there, right? Where we're shifting norms, expectations, behaviors of what it means to be a leader, what it feels like to be a part of that organization, and, and how to manifest aspects of queer liberation and freedom within that organization. Challenging dynamics of power hoarding, in particular.

[00:25:05] Nick Daily: So to me, I think of queer leadership as something that is collective, attentive to, right, the person who is - who maybe isn't even queer, right, but attentive to that person who's not having the fair shake. The person who's maybe more vocal in the leadership team, saying, "Don't you think-" This was me. This was me in my last job, just to be clear. "Don't you think we should just say that? Instead of trying to find some way around having to communicate that, right, to the community, to the person that, that's involved? What if we just took one second and said, what would be the negatives that could come from just telling the truth?" Right, that - to me, that's queering leadership, because it's challenging these structural dynamics, particularly power hoarding, which I attribute to, you know, patriarchy, which I attribute to sexism, homophobia, and so many others of the, of the structural oppressions that we see in leadership spaces. And so that's where I will - first of all, I'll leave it at that. But when I think about queer leadership, I think it's closer to the second one. Right? And I think when people are articulating, you know, "oh, we, you know, we really value queer leadership," I always think of that quote, from D'Lo, which is, "are you gay or are you queer?" Which I think points towards a political and embodied difference, not just who you love, or how you love or who you are.

[00:26:46] Chris Angel Murphy: It also reminds me - having a gay president or a queer president. Sure, but like, are the other qualifications there? I'm not going to tokenize someone, just because we need that representation if they don't have that experience. Nick is gesturing at me. [Chris Angel laughs]

[00:27:01] Nick Daily: Well, that's a whole rabbit hole. That's a whole rabbit hole. And I str- you know, I struggle right now. And, you know, this is unpopular Black thought. And when I say thought I mean "T H O T." [Chris Angel laughs] But here's an unpopular Black thought, which is, um, just because somebody has an identity doesn't mean that they are capable of serving in a capacity to advance in organizations and institutions, departments, equity agenda.

[00:27:31] Chris Angel Murphy: I would like everyone to just take a moment and snap with me, because I think we needed to hear that. [Chris Angel snaps their fingers while Nick laughs]

[00:27:38] Nick Daily: I struggled so much because since George Floyd was murdered, it is politically unpopular to hire somebody to do DEI work who is not a Black person. I know this, because [Nick laughs] it's the work that I do, right? Um.

[00:27:58] Chris Angel Murphy: Mhm.

[00:27:59] Nick Daily: I love it, because it is beneficial to me.

[00:28:03] Chris Angel Murphy: Sure.

[00:28:03] Nick Daily: Right? I think I get contracts because of that dynamic currently. And I have talked with people who have asked for mentorship from me to do DEI work, who are Black, and their sole qualification is being Black. And they're like, this is a growing market and I know I can make money, so I want to do that work. And I'm certain that those people are being hired, even as they have distorted views of what it means to be Black. The impacts on Black people of white supremacy, or the delusion of white supremacy, as Sonya Renee Taylor says, right? So, you know, the, the person in question was talking about how Black immigrants aren't as lazy as Black nationals for the lack of a better term, right? The people who were formerly enslaved are lazier than Black immigrants. And so this person comes from a Black immigrant background and wanted to go into diversity working, but like, one of the last sentences they said to me was, oh, well, you know, we work harder, and that's why we're able to be successful, unlike that, you know, the descendants of, of African slaves, and so - enslaved Africans rather, and so -

[00:29:20] Chris Angel Murphy: Hm!

[00:29:20] Nick Daily: Right! And so, so to me -

[00:29:22] Chris Angel Murphy: The othering.

[00:29:22] Nick Daily: Right. That's - and I don't - they believe that because likely their parents believe that because the exportation of global antiblackness and white supremacy, right. And so, I'm not - I don't want to target that specific person, or even people who are in that space. And! I don't want those people to be leading work and be seen as people who are doing the same work I'm doing, right? And so often I see in organizations, people just picking somebody who literally just has the identity and saying hey, can you help us figure out how to be more inclusive to Black people, women, trans people, what have you, which leads to burnout, which leads to overwork. Usually those people are not paid for those roles. Usually those people have a learning curve.

[00:30:16] Chris Angel Murphy: Yep.

[00:30:16] Nick Daily: Right? And so so many of those dynamics I like to try and - it's, it's a point of contention right now, and I'm sure it's one of the reasons why sometimes I don't get contracts, because I mentioned that is something that is a pet peeve of mine of organizations. And I know that there are organizations that do that, um, often, so.

[00:30:38] Chris Angel Murphy: Absolutely. Something I'll briefly share is a lot of why I got into this work is because my senior year of high school, someone was running to be the president of our Gay Straight Alliance on campus, and she was notorious for outing people. And even though - yeah, exactly. Nick is like, "what?" right now. [Chris Angel laughs] So even though I had different experiences in leadership roles, going back to even like middle school and stuff, I didn't feel prepared at all to lead a GSA, I had no idea what I was doing, and I was still awkward, baby Chris Angel, trying to figure out how I identified and stuff. I knew it was somewhere in the community, but I was still working through that. But ooh, I fought like hell.

[00:31:23] Nick Daily: Mhm.

[00:31:24] Chris Angel Murphy: And I, I had the audacity - and this was so unlike me, because I was so shy and awkward - that I remember even going up to her and just saying, I just need you to know I'm running against you and I'm gonna win. And I did. Thank goodness, [Nick applauds] because I can tell that story now, but that's all it took. Because I was like, "No, we can't have people like you in leadership. This is going to cause so much harm and you cannot out people in our community." I just, like, how - no, no one - anyway.

[00:31:50] Nick Daily: I mean, I've seen queer people in leadership who made it to leadership and their leadership style is silence. Being under the radar, right? I can be in the room, and I'll just agree with whatever's said, not gonna push back, not trying to make waves. And I'm not gonna judge, right? I don't know what, what, how - you know, what your life experience is that got you there. But that's not that's not queer leadership.

[00:32:18] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.

[00:32:19] Nick Daily: In my mind, so - sorry, I know, I'm bringing you kind of back to [Nick laughs] different concepts. Talking about that, like, yeah, there's, there's like, kind of over, you know, I want to say violent aspects of leadership. And then there's the other ones of just, like, "I'm just gonna sit here, and I'm gonna get my paycheck, and I'm gonna go home, and I'm gonna go on my, you know, trips, with all the money that I got from being quiet."

[00:32:44] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah.

[00:32:44] Nick Daily: And then the organization gets to benefit off of my "leadership," in quotes, by saying, Look, we have a gay one.

[00:32:54] Chris Angel Murphy: Right.

[00:32:54] Nick Daily: I use "gay" intentionally, as opposed to queer. [Nick laughs]

[00:32:58] Chris Angel Murphy: Right!

[00:33:00] Chris Angel Murphy: Okay, that was a lot. Hang with me, and let's chat through it for a moment. I am not going to fault someone, especially if they're from multiple marginalized identities, for quietly collecting a paycheck. At that kind of intersection, you can have a lot to lose, especially when we start thinking about the "model minority myth." That's with or without people knowing all of the identities that we may carry, because not all identities are visible. This comes back to personal values, and sometimes we don't get to live our values at work. As a white person, it may be safer, and I may be able to lean on my privilege. So when a white, cisgender, gay man in a leadership position pats himself on the back, other folks within the broader LGBTQ+ community can be very critical of the leadership. What did he do? Did he get the company logo to be turned into a rainbow for Pride Month, or get pronouns normalized within the organization? Did he order everyone rainbow stickers, or make sure that the company-wide health insurance includes trans affirming care? There's a difference. Some of it can be nice, though if we're not also doing the more intentional, deeper work, the surface level allyship or milestones have no meaning or value.

[00:34:25] Chris Angel Murphy: I say this as someone who has been at various places of work and has seen it with my own eyes, especially with folks doing the frontline work being the most visibly diverse, but folks in leadership positions were primarily white, cisgender, and heterosexual or maybe gay, and men, so many men. So this is a bit of what we mean when we talk about gay versus queer. There's so many more dynamics and nuance I could dive into further, but let's go back to the conversation for now and hopefully we'll be able to pick this thread up again very soon.

[00:35:03] Chris Angel Murphy: I think you and I are coming from a similar place in terms of not wanting to gatekeep, it's more that we just don't want there to be harm. And so there can be different styles of leadership, but is it also causing harm? And so that actually I think segues pretty nicely into a pretty crunchy topic that I think has been very challenging as of late, and possibly more specific to the United States is this concept of "cancel culture." And it gets lumped in with other terms such as accountability, calling out, calling in, so people can fear saying anything, because they don't want to be quote-unquote "canceled." Now, there's a lot there. I wholeheartedly believe in accountability, though I've had some concerns with how this has been playing out, especially in our LGBTQ+ community as of late. I also believe there's confusion about how these terms are defined, and what the actions look like and what the intentions are. I'd love to help clear up what all of this means and how these concepts relate to each other. So Nick, how do you define accountability and cancel culture? Just starting there, and who are they meant for?

[00:36:26] Nick Daily: So I guess the way that I would start is I don't believe that our way to freedom, our way to liberation is disposability. I don't believe that we should be judged off of the worst thing we've done, or something that we are willing to take accountability, right, and make amends for. And, I think it's important for us to have clarity around what accountability looks like. Um, to me, accountability looks like acknowledging the harm that has been done. It looks like doing personal reflection, about, like, the intentions. Notice I said personal reflection about the intentions. Acknowledging the harm is where the impact is, right? But also, it's important to say, "well, was I being intentional? Does that matter? What are my desires around shifting this, and what kind of repair can I behave in? And how can I avoid doing this in the future, or at least decreasing the frequency with which this happens?" Which I think is an ongoing process. I am a big believer and a dreamer in nuance. So, accountability, um. You know, Mia Mingus says it's about self reflection, apologizing, repair, and behavior change.

[00:37:49] Nick Daily: As far as cancel culture, uh - eugh. I just think about cancel culture, and it was created in response to marginalized people articulating boycotts and verbalizing, right, speaking up against struc- people who had structural power to cause harm. Typically, that resulted in people being made aware of harms that were being caused. I'm thinking the Me Too movement: as a result of that, systems and structures and organizations treating those individuals as individual actors and removing them from the organization in an attempt to absolve the organization, the institution, the structure, from responsibility for creating a culture where that behavior is allowed. So cancel culture is often attributed to the marginalized people who are speaking out against unhealthy behaviors or irresponsible behaviors. And frequently, that then leads to somebody losing a job.

[00:39:00] Nick Daily: And Kevin Hart still ha- still is employed. Dave Chappelle just got $20 million for Netflix special. There are consistent examples of people who have quote-unquote "been canceled," because they lost their jobs or have been held accountable, and then, like, the actual material of what that cancellation looks like, it doesn't actually manifest itself in their inability to continue to make ends meet, to be welcomed back into the culture, into society, unless they're marginalized. Right? It's really easy to marginalize somebody and say, "I can't believe you spoke out against Israel. You can't have a job here." That's easy. What's harder - right, I think the Netflix story right now of the trans employees who have been targeted and fired as a result of them speaking out against something that is actively causing harm to trans people, after Netflix has already put out, had already put out a statement that says trans lives matter here, right, and Black lives matter here, so. And a whole documentary that described the ways that anti-trans rhetoric actually causes harm in the media, actually causes harm to real life, in person trans people, in a personal and a structural way. So.

[00:40:24] Chris Angel Murphy: Quick note here to say that I believe Nick is referring to Disclosure, which was produced by Laverne Cox, and is available on Netflix. I think I've mentioned this on a previous episode, but if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend watching it.

[00:40:40] Nick Daily: I think the way that cancel culture is talked about is, you know, it's the internet mob calling for somebody's job and making it so that people can't apologize. But often people aren't in the apologize world, they're not in the apologize space. They're not in the "I want to be accountable" space. And oftentimes, "calling out" - I'm putting that in quotes - comes after the "calling in" has been unsuccessful. Now, what I also want to say - [Nick laughs] you did not ask for this. [Chris Angel laughs] What I also want to say is what I - a dynamic that I have seen when it comes to canceling within justice movements is a lot of Black women being canceled within community. So, women and femmes, I don't want to - I don't want to give people identities that they don't have. So women and femmes, I'm thinking Adrienne Maree Brown, Patrice Cullors, even Chrissy Teigen, right? And, and to be clear, I'm not speaking up for or about any of these people. But I do want to say, when I see a pattern, I like to elevate it, particularly when it relates to Black women and femmes and women and femmes of color in general.

[00:41:59] Nick Daily: And those calls for cancellation often feel like an adherence to an expectation of perfectionism, and a complete - in my opinion - a complete lack of knowing what accountability actually looks like, when we are going for the call out, or the call in, whatever, whether or not we're going for the call in, right. In my experience, I see these calls for accountability: "That thing you said was racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic." I'm willing to bet that that's consistently true [Nick laughs] in a call out. I'm willing to bet, because we all live in these systems that tell us these things, um, that are inequitable, and, and, and leave us out. And so I'm willing to bet that. But then what? Like, what are we asking of that person? What would it take for that person to be brought in, brought back? And I think that that's an abolitionist frame.

[00:42:55] Nick Daily: And I've got to be honest, y'all, I struggle. I'm not an abolitionist when it comes to R. Kelly. Until we figure out how to get rid of prisons, I want R. Kelly under the jail, because he doesn't feel bad for what he has done. He's convinced that he is still, like, everything he's doing is just fine. I also wonder - and this is connected to what I said about a single person as opposed to a culture - there was an entire group of people who are part of the network who caused this harm. Right? And R. Kelly isn't the only person it - with a lot of power and a lot of money who's doing this, but until we are able to find accountability structures and models, yeah, I'm okay with him being under the jail. And I know that that's, like, a values thing that I need to work on. [Nick laughs] I'm gonna stop talking so you can ask, [Chris Angel laughs] ask more questions, because I feel like I went down a rabbit hole. I'll just say one more thing from Adrienne Maree Brown's We Will Not Cancel Us, which is - Maurice Moe Mitchell says, "we have to have a low bar for entry and a high standard for conduct." And I do believe that that is something that we often forget and miss when we're involved in these conversations about, about accountability, and cancel culture, and what have you.

[00:44:16] Chris Angel Murphy: What I think you're talking about is we're just trying to make sense of systems we already have in place.

[00:44:22] Nick Daily: Mhm.

[00:44:23] Chris Angel Murphy: What would rehabilitation look like for reentry back into our society, right? Especially here in the US, United States, people are just so disposable. We have very different cultural beliefs here where we don't take care of our elderly and things like that. We just kind of like - oh, and, or, or people that are housing insecure? It's like, "well, they're not my problem, but they also need to get off my street." We just - they're just so disposable. We don't want to deal with it. When we talk about calling someone in, or calling someone out, it's gained a lot of momentum especially in recent years. There's also discourse around a white person calling in or calling out a person who's Black, and how that is rooted in antiblackness and that Black people instead need to hold each other accountable. There's just a lot there. So I guess I'm wondering, what are the differences between calling someone in or out? How might someone know which one to proceed with? And where do you land on the discourse that I just mentioned? Recognizing I'm not expecting you to speak on behalf of the entire community, but I'm curious like how you personally feel about it.

[00:45:46] Nick Daily: I am reeling because I think this is the first time I have heard that Black people should be the only people calling out Black people about things that Black people need to be called in about.

[00:45:59] Chris Angel Murphy: Yeah, I've, I've seen - I think I've mostly seen it happen on the internet. So just to, like, give more a little bit more context, if that's okay. It's been this thing where, so, on one hand - and this, this makes complete sense to me, by the way - when someone has caused harm, and they make an apology, and it's specific to, let's say, Black people, if it's specific to Black people, Black people have to accept the apology. When white people start going in the comments section, right, and this is different - when white people are going in the comments section and saying, "Oh, it's okay, we forgive you," like, no, it's not your apology to accept, because you're not Black. This wasn't for you, you don't get to make that determination.

[00:46:41] Chris Angel Murphy: However, I've seen Black people on the internet talk about how white people can't be coming after Black people, for accountability purposes. Like, let us take care of this person, this is an in-community thing. So, like, let us deal with - and I can't think of a good example off the top of my head right now. But I have seen this a lot. And as a white person, I'm sitting here going, what do I do? Who do I listen to? Because then there's infighting about -

[00:47:11] Nick Daily: Right.

[00:47:12] Chris Angel Murphy: Right? So, of, of other Black people saying, "We don't care." And so it just - there's, it feels like then there's just a lot of noise. And when I think about my allyship, and how I want to show up and how I want it to be intersectional, and I want to have a commitment to Black lives in particular so I'll just keep going with that that thread, for me, I'm like, well, then, what do I do?

[00:47:33] Nick Daily: Mhm.

[00:47:34] Chris Angel Murphy: So like, I'll just - the closest example I can think of is Lil Nas X. Love him, love, love all the ways he pushes boundaries, and his creativity and everything. And so there was a lot of discourse then when he staged this whole pregnancy to correlate to him dropping his new album. And so when white folks who are trans started coming forward and saying, "Hey, this isn't sitting well with us," I wasn't in particular called out or called in for it. But I have watched other people. I watched it happen to other white people. And then I was just like, well, crap, what am I doing? And again, it's just like, well, it's antiblackness, because you're not also calling out other people who have done this. And I'm like, James Charles is not on my list. I don't even want to say that person's name [Nick laughs] or give them any, like, right, not even touching that one. I didn't know because they're not on my radar because I don't care for them whatsoever.

[00:48:34] Nick Daily: Right.

[00:48:36] Chris Angel Murphy: The critique of Lil Nas X was coming from a lot of white, transgender, currently or formerly pregnant men.

[00:48:43] Nick Daily: Yeah, I mean, I think - so I, I think for me, like, why - we got to take a step back. Like what does it mean to critique a millionaire? One of the most well known artists. What does it mean? Why am I - I'm not going to stand up for Lil Nas X. I also am probably not going to call out Lil Nas X. Also, what does that call out look like? Is it, "Hey, like, tell us your inspiration, right?" Like, am I trying to get some - or it does it like, on some level not really matter? Right? Like, yes, it matters in the way that media matters, but, like, Lil Nas X isn't gonna respond to my post. So then there's - there could be a larger conversation of, "I wonder what Lil Nas X is going to do with this visibility of being a cis man who's performing pregnancy in similar ways that we have seen from cis women in the music industry, I would say within the last eight years, where their pregnancy becomes a part of the spectacle of their new album, their new project, their new work, and their visibility?" And the complicated dynamic of just being an artist and what it feels like to birth something into existence, right? So there's this this additional layer of artistry.

[00:50:02] Nick Daily: I don't need to defend Lil Nas X one way or another. I don't care. He's a millionaire. We don't - we're not gonna see each other in real life. [Chris Angel laughs] And I think people are allowed to say "this didn't sit well with me." And other people are allowed to say that it did. I loved it. I thought it was - I, because I've been following the artistic arc of Lil Nas X for years. So to me, I was like, this is brilliant. This totally fits in with what he was saying. He said that he had nine months to prepare for people's responses to Montero, his first single from the album. To me, like, you know, hearing that and then seeing this, it's like, oh, okay, this is a part of a very large dynamic.

[00:50:46] Nick Daily: Lil Nas X is also not responsible for the hate, vitriol, and targeting of trans people that are pregnant, trans and nonbinary people who are pregnant and don't fit the societal expectation of what a pregnant person looks like. Lil Nas X is not creating medical systems that make pregnancy unsafe for individuals. And, when Lil Nas X actually released the album, Lil Nas X had, at minimum, three or four organizations that were trans inclusive that he was raising money for. I didn't hear the, like, the walking back, right? I didn't hear necessarily the, oh, this was a part of some larger thing, and because Lil Nas X is who he is, people are going to see this organization in the south that's doing intense work with trans and queer people in spaces where, where, you know, the laws don't necessarily support them in the same way as they do in California.

[00:51:43] Nick Daily: I think because of social media and celebrity culture, we zero in on individuals who have huge impacts, and then we start fighting with each other about whether or not we agree about whether or not this person, who's this big - who's on this big - when really, it needs to be, we need to be having, like, a more localized conversation of "Well, okay, yes, that's an issue. Let's talk about the issues related to people who read as men, who are men, or who fit outside of this societally expected view of what a pregnant person should be. Let's talk about the implications of that in healthcare, socially, in birth, right, in access to medical care." That is a more interesting conversation to me. And again, one way or another, Lil Nas X probably did see some of these comments. Lil Nas X might not have planned on doing this fundraiser. But also, when Lil Nas X released the Industry Baby song, he put the Bailout Project as a link on the song, a fundraiser for the Bailout Project. Raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Bailout Project, right? So, again, it feels like there's some intentionality there.

[00:52:56] Nick Daily: But I think we, we're in this knee-jerk 24 hour news cycle, everybody has to have a take, celebrity culture world, that sometimes those things get blown up and we, and we start to lose, like, we're not doing individual work. What freedom looks like - systemic work. And yes, individuals make up systems and institutions and organizations. And, let's talk about the systemic dynamics that make it so that this is funny to some people, and liberating to others. And how can we live in a nuanced, messy, uncomfortable space that doesn't actually agree? Because like, not all trans people believe the same thing, and not all Black people think the same way, right? And as long as our disagreement isn't built on the dehumanization of each other, can we go somewhere towards freedom and liberation. That was James Baldwin. Um, I don't know if I answered your question, but that, that dynamic and this kind of celebrity callout, let's take two or three weeks to focus on this one person, when two or three weeks talking about why the fuck are doctors not giving Black children the same care that they're giving white children? Why are we having conversations about doing surgery on infants' genitals in 2021? Like, those are the conversations that I'm interested in having.

[00:54:26] Chris Angel Murphy: My friend Nick here is referring to the intersex community. My conversation with Nick was recorded two days after Intersex Awareness Day, which falls on October 26 yearly. The date's significance is that it's the anniversary of the first 1996 public protest against infant genital surgeries in the United States. Most surgeries to change intersex traits happen in infancy, which means it's nonconsensual for the person receiving it. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural body variations. Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, including genitals, gonads, and chromosome patterns that do not fit typically binary notions of male or female. Some intersex traits are noticed at birth. However, others may not show until puberty or later in life. Intersex folks are as common as redheads. Intersex people can have any gender and any sexual orientation, and the gender assigned at birth can also be incongruent to the gender of the baby. If you'd like to get involved in helping to end invasive and unnecessary surgeries on intersex youth, and empowering them to decide if they want to have any surgeries or not in the first place, please do check out and support organizations like the Intersex Justice Project.

[00:55:55] Nick Daily: Not about whether or not Lil Nas X understands the kyriarchy that structures trans people's lives. Because that's an individual conversation, right? [Nick laughs] He may or may not be interested in that, so, yeah. I will say, I truly believe that Adrienne Maree Brown's We Will Not Cancel Us is a strong articulation of when and where to use call outs and call ins. I want to challenge this dynamic of "should we or should we not?" There's an intentionality that needs to come in when we're thinking about calling in and calling out. I would say, do not call somebody in or out unless you have the wherewithal to tell them "so what?" Right? You don't have to tell them why, you can tell them Google is their friend. But unless you can tell them, like, this is what accountability looks like in this context, then I don't know how valuable that callout is, or the call in. It really then feels like "I'm a good one, you're a bad one, I'm gonna walk away from this and throw my hands up." And that is not productive.

[00:56:03] Chris Angel Murphy: What's your allyship tip for everyone listening?

[00:56:22] Nick Daily: I just read this in the book You Are Your Best Thing, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown, and that's having a learner mindset, acknowledging and owning your privileges, and really bravery. Having a learner mindset means engage with people with the goal of growing and improving your relationships with groups that are different than your own. That's active listening. It's also embracing humility, and inviting accountability, which means that when somebody does call you in or call you out, depending on the context, you're inviting that possibility that you did do that thing because you're learning. And as learners, we're going to make mistakes. Um, acknowledging your privileges, about understanding and owning your personal privileges and how they contribute to inequities, um, and that allows you to increase your self awareness and show up differently. So trying to exercise power with instead of power over, and recognizing that impact matters more than intent.

[00:58:09] Nick Daily: And then bravery is about taking action and using your voice to challenge inequities. So it's dealing with behaviors, policies and actions that you encounter quickly, with grace and humility. Right? So sometimes I will say, sometimes I encounter white people who, who, uh, especially white people who get to points where anytime somebody does something racist, they're the angriest in the room, they're the most forceful in the room, and they're the most harmful in the room, right? Because they, they know about all these things, they know what these structures are, and then they just rail on somebody, right, to prove that they're one of the good ones. And I think bravery asks us to do something different, asks us to take a step back, to recognize the humanity of the person in front of us, that they might be a learner, and then try and address these situations.

[00:58:59] Chris Angel Murphy: Whew. We got into some pretty heavy topics, friend. Nick, thank you so much for being willing to have this conversation with me and share out such incredible insights. And to you, right now, listening, here are three more self-reflection questions before you go. Number four, do I have a learner's mindset? If I don't, is that a value I'd like to adopt? Number five, do I know of anyone in my life or follow anyone online who is intersex? Number six, do I treat certain people as if they are disposable? If so, how have I justified that? Visit allyshipisaverb.com for any resources and a full transcript of the episode. And remember, sometimes allyship means having a learner's mindset.