Thoughts on Race, Gender, and why black WOMEN might be the answer to centuries of oppression

Steve Barnes here. And I'm continuing to try to do little mini lectures every week or every day actually, in the morning before I fully get into my day, having my tea, having my morning thoughts, and sharing those thoughts with you. Now, we're focusing right now on the 90 day love feast, the second iteration, which is including the idea of nurturing our inner child. And this connects to the love feast because what I found was that my. I was having some negative reactions in terms of my relationship that did not really match the circumstances of the relationship. In other words, I adore Tananarive. I know she adores me. We love each other like crazy. We have enormous fun together. But there were times when I got angry, and there were the 90 day love fees demanded that I give her everything. And in order to do that, I had to ask myself why I was getting angry. Now, as you know, anger is fear. You know, it's a mask over fear. You never get angry over anything that you want to happen. And, you know, fear is an aversive response to either you, you know, to something's happening to you or. Or someone that you care about. Some people that you care about. That identification makes it happen. So the question of why was I feeling fear in connection with things? And in some ways, it didn't matter why I was feeling the fear. What mattered was that there was a part of me that was fearful and that fear was manifesting as anger. That anger was having a negative effect on my relationship. So I made a commitment to taking care of that fear, of finding the place inside me that was experiencing discomfort and fear. What my teacher, Harley Reagan used to refer to as the needy, wounded, abandoned child. What was my needy, wounded, abandoned child doing? Well, part of it just had to do. Once again, there's a thing called zero content therapy. It doesn't matter what triggered it. What matters is how you react to it. So you can help someone have better reactions, regardless of what triggers or what, where their problem originated. So there could be a dozen different reasons potentially. But the important question was, why am I not taking care of that little boy? Whatever damage has happened to him, whatever hurt has happened to him, whatever disappointments and fears and so forth, resentments that happened to him. I am now his father and I am responsible for taking care of him. And if I can take care of him, then he will be happy and I can give to Denonari without him feeling that he is being deprived. So I put my emphasis there. And the result was that that 90 Day Love Feast was one of the best periods of our lives, and we decided to renew it and do it again. That's when I realized that some of the people who are. Who might want to follow it don't have a relationship. Maybe they don't want one. Maybe they are widowed or widowers. Maybe they would like to have one, but don't have one currently. But I wanted to create something that would be good for all of them. So that question of the child self, it seemed to me that it is congruent with the notion of being a healthy adult who can then have a healthy relationship with another person to deal with that child stuff, deal with the child in order to free the adult. The adult takes care of the child's business. The child then gets to express all of her creativity or all of his, you know, energy and aliveness. And now you have a healthy adult based upon the foundation of a healthy child. Looking at that stuff made, you know, it creates a series of questions, and they are somewhat different questions than you will ask coming from another direction. And it's not that all the questions are valid. It's not, certainly not that all the answers are valid, but they're provocative. And this morning I had one that had to do with Tananari and her burgeoning success and the fact that I take enormous pleasure from that. Whereas, you know, it is. It is. And it being honest to say that there was a part of me that would have felt uncomfortable about it in terms of, you know, the little boy inside me. I mean, it could be. It could be similar to having a brother or sister who is more successful than you in some way, or you perceive it, you know, you. We don't always see ourselves, so we can go into that poor little me thing really easily. And I don't want to do that with Tananariva on a variety of levels. Least of all that this is fun and she is wonderful. I love her and everything she's doing is being good for our family. So how do I clean up my stuff so that I'm not jealous of her? Or, you know, like I could be jealous of a friend or jealous of a brother or sister or jealous of a stranger. How do I do that? Well, I noticed that part of me was having fun with this. That's very different. And I thought to myself that committing to taking care of that kid inside me seemed to have freed up a part of me to see this game differently. And this morning I had a thought and it related to that nexus of race and gender that I've talked about that I feel that black women specifically have a special position in this because those two things, the gender wars and racial identity, are really central to American culture right now. And there's an awful lot of stuff that relates to tribal extinction, fear. And you know that that nexus right there, we got outbreed you. I mean, that's why the farmers beat the hunter gatherers. Hunter gatherer lifestyle is actually healthier, but farmers could produce more babies, which then led to more warriors, which then led to winning their wars. So reproduction and tribal health are very tightly related. And I can relate so much of what has happened in America in terms of gender, race to one of those two things without taking any position that says that one group, white or black, male or female, are inferior or superior to another. It's just the way tribal stuff works out. So I had this thought this morning and I thought I'd share this with you. For some years I felt that black women had a special significance in the current culture wars, that supporting them, if they are awake to the situation, can cut the Gordian knot of racism to a serious degree. And this morning I had a thought about Tananari's current rise. I mean, she's fabulous. Things are happening for her career wise, I mean, just wonderful, just transformative, life changing things are happening potentially. None of this fails to acknowledge that she is a genius because she is, with superb work ethics, because that's what she's got, and off the charts creativity, because that is true. All those things are true. So without taking anything away from those things, allow me to make a comment, put, you know, that stuff in your back pocket and see if you can grasp the meaning of what occurred to me. Here are the thoughts. Quote, if things continue as they are, I can't help the feeling that something fascinating is happening. That all the social linemen of the opposing team, if you were to look at this as a football game, were lined up to stop me or neuter me, cutting off the rough edges or delaying me from rapid advancement, keeping me out of reproductive competition. It's tribal extinction. Fear the males of the opposing team. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But Tananarive is a woman. She's not reproductive competition, but in fact a potential reproductive partner. That's very different. And for whatever reasons, she has a clearer field. There aren't as many linemen in front of her. And she's got powerful allies from black women who have worked their way into the system, black people in general who support her as one of the people who. Who is significant culturally and also is she's just fun. And also women in general. The way women organize is more like a neural net in that sense. The way men organize is more hierarchical. I was supposed to fight my way up the hierarchy at every step, having my ability to make a living, to sell a script controlled by, well, you know, which kind of people those were. And noticing that in this instance, because of these allies she's got, even if white men are not helping her at all, as long as they don't go out of their way to speak stop her, she's got enough allies to make it all the way to the top. Just people of color in general, men of color, women of color, women, black women, especially gay men. Those groups where there's something other than reproductive competition going on. And in certain cases, it's a matter of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. There is enough of that if I back her play, that I can completely cancel centuries of carefully constructed social obstacles. It's like I'm flowing around them, and all I have to do is keep my ego in my pocket and forget the fact that this is not a war between men and women. It's not a war between her and me. It's not even really a war between black and white, Although it is seen that way by certain kinds of, you know, high, highly high testosterone, highly competitive guys and the women who would mate with them, make no mistake. But it's different. And it's enough different that it's starting to get fun. And it's even fun watching some of those highly competitive people, very tribalistic people, not being comfortable by watching their discomfort. It comes out as anger. And it's. I. Is that fun too? You know, I. I have to admit that's a little bit of fun too. That's evil, Steve. That's not the best part of me, but it's honest. So taking care of my child allows me to remove the fear emotions that then allow me to plan and plot and take a look and see what the situation is and make my best moves without going into poor little me, needy, wounded, abandoned child, which leads to being able to make smart decisions, create unless unity, create allies who can then help me, you know, fight for position. And then I turn around and help them. And they're certainly hoping I will, and I will. That's just who I am. I'll make sure that they know that I'm the kind of person who does that. This, I think, shows me a way that almost anybody can make it. If you take care of your own fear so that the negative Emotions don't cloud your vision. Then you can find the allies around you that will allow you to flow around the obstacles and get where it is that you want to go. That's what I believe. And there are people who will attack that like they will attack the magic formula. You know, that you have a map or model of success, how to get there. You're taking constant actions. You know, G is for gratitude, you know, controlling your emotions. I is for clear intention, clear goals. And C is for confidence, courage, that you can and should do this. There are people who will object to this because they think I'm wrong. They think that I will hurt people. They think that. That some people will use the notion that it is even possible to leverage yourself to success as an excuse not to change society, become fairer. Anybody who knows me knows that society, I believe society must become fair, must have a social safety net that is superior to what we have today. By far. That's. I've said that so many times. Anybody who doesn't get that is deliberately deleting the information. Because the other side is the question of why might someone be afraid? If I'm right, if it is possible. And there are two reasons that I can think of. One is personal. If I'm right, then they have. Then there's something about my philosophy and the way I'm talking about this that is challenging to their egos. If they would have to change, they would cause them pain, their ego would die. In essence, if this were true, they'd have to. If they believe, for instance, that they have done the best they could with the resources they have, and I say, no, it's possible to do better. I am having a negative effect on one of the ways they protect themselves emotionally. And I regret that that was not my intent. And I say, start with loving yourself. Start with loving yourself, that you have no fear, that you have absolutely done the best you could with the resources you have. And now we're getting better resources, that's one thing. And by the way, the people who object, they really hate the idea that anger is fear. I mean, really, really, it's like. It's really so much fun. But the other is social. The gatekeepers, anything, whether you're talking about black and white, male and female, gay and straight, you know, immigrant and national, naturalized citizen. The gatekeepers are used to being able to determine the pace of change. If I'm right, there are ways around the hierarchical structure. Call it the patriarchy. That would have to be terrifying because they can't put the brakes on, they can't determine the pace of change or the direction of change. That's a genuine reason to be afraid. It's not unethical, it's not dishonorable. It's real. It's real human stuff. What can we do? You know, all I can really say is, is that pattern of love yourself, love one other person, you know, to force you to open up, develop a sense of how human beings got to this point in the world without guilt, blame or shame. Ignore the trolls and support your tribe, however you define your tribe. I define my tribe as those people who are willing to work together to build a better future for all of our children and grandchildren. And the last step is to win with mercy, win with integrity, to be kind to people that you may be right, they may be wrong, but next time maybe you'll be wrong and they'll be right. And you need to treat them the way you would want them to treat you. So, yeah, there's a lot of fear out there. There are a lot of obstacles and there are people who think that it's impossible to change and grow, that is, who believe that it's very possible. If you were to take a look at what I've said this morning, you will see that I'm describing my route through all the obstacles that have been thrown at me over the course of a lifetime. And a lot of that happened when I found the right allies. Whether those allies were Steve Muhammad or Larry Niven or my first wife, Toni Young, or my second wife and my soulmate Tananarive Due. I'm looking at a lot of different factors here. Working backwards from trying to be the best person I can be, the most successful person I can be, the most loving and joyful person I could be. And frankly, I think this morning's thoughts are on to something. Anyway, talk to you later and I love you guys. If you have any comments, questions or requests about any of this, please put it into the comments. I will address it. I'm not afraid of any question that is courteously asked. Thank you. You take care. Bye bye. Oh, and if you'd like to further this discussion about the impact of the child, join our Saturday meetings. You know, we every Saturday we have a zoom meeting where we talk about the 1% growth per week impact of breathing the morning ritual and now creating the proper alliance of child to adult. Take care, everyone. Go to www.stephenbarnslist. com. Bye bye.