On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day episode of Messy Liberation, Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown start with the “where are you really from?” question and follow it into who gets to look and who gets looked at. Taina, who is Afro-Latina with Taíno roots, explains the difference between race and ethnicity, what separates Latin from Hispanic, and why self-identification is a form of resistance. It’s an intersectional feminist conversation about objectification, colonialism, and letting people name themselves.

In this episode, we get into:

• Why “What are you?” is never okay, and how to tell real curiosity from nosiness
• Taina’s PT appointment, and a lifetime of being mistaken for Egyptian, Indian, Dominican, and Middle Eastern
• “Clarity is kindness”: why a blunt question can be better than a covert one
• Intent vs. impact: how treating someone as a puzzle to solve strips their dignity
• Becky’s confession about staring at a trans woman in an airport 30 years ago, and what she’d do differently now
• Who gets the privilege to look and who becomes the spectacle, from Shane Gillis’s SNL “spandex” joke to the history of slave auctions
• Oppositional looking: refusing to look away, and why white women should stare at cops, not at the people they’re harassing
• Jordan Peele, Get Out, and horror that doesn’t center whiteness
• Latin vs. Hispanic, explained through Brazil, Guyana, Mexico, and Puerto Rico
• Race as a social construct that still shapes real lives, plus the “file folder” metaphor for identity, gender, pronouns, and reclaimed language

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Hispanic Heritage Month & Filipino American History Month
• 02:42 – Being mistaken for everything: growing up racially ambiguous
• 07:00 – “It’s really none of your business”: lessons from college
• 11:40 – Objectification, intent vs. impact, and human dignity
• 17:47 – Shane Gillis, SNL, and who gets to be the object
• 21:00 – Ways of Seeing, Stuart Hall & oppositional looking
• 25:01 – Stare at power, not at the oppressed
• 26:40 – Jordan Peele, Get Out, and horror that doesn’t center whiteness
• 29:41 – Why travel (or a new neighborhood) can radicalize white folks
• 36:10 – Race as a social construct, from slavery to ICE sweeps
• 40:41 – Latin vs. Hispanic: what’s the difference?
• 47:48 – How perception changes race: New York vs. Florida
• 49:17 – The Hyphenated Life, file folders & gender as a construct
• 53:02 – Capitalism and the myth of limited categories
• 56:50 – Refusing the file folder: queer identity & she/they pronouns
• 1:00:05 – Messy Liberation Circle open house (Oct. 15)

Resources mentioned:

• "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger: https://link.amazon/B05cwPa5S
• “The Whites of Their Eyes” by Stuart Hall: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.psu.edu/dist/c/4578/files/2015/04/Hall-Whites_of_Their_Eyes_Full_Text.pdf?bid=4578
• “The Oppositional Gaze" by bell hooks: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduates/pgmodules/femlit/bell_hooks.pdf
• "The Hyphenated Life" by Han Ren: https://link.amazon/B03IkAQOr
• Messy Liberation Circle open house, Thursday, Oct. 15: https://bit.ly/4yjbTVW

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Content warning: This episode discusses SA and r*pe culture.

Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown of Messy Liberation unpack the Cornell sexual assault case, the group chat of 50-plus men who joked about it, and the rape culture that made it possible. This intersectional feminist conversation covers victim blaming, fraternity culture, consent, and why staying silent when your friends say harmful things makes you complicit. It also covers how misogyny hurts men too.

In this episode, we get into:
• Taina's trip to Iceland for the Wicker premiere, and why the film's nameless characters make it a feminist fable without being Barbie-style feminism
• The pneumonic plague case in Russia: why panic isn't the answer, and why access to antibiotics should be universal
• The Cornell case: what to call it, and why "rapist" sounds like a job title
• Fraternity culture, hazing, and why consent under duress isn't consent
• Kendall Francis speaking out at LSU, and campus-wide warnings to "stay home" instead of telling men not to rape
• Why men need to stop talking about "training their daughters" and start calling out their friends
• How misogyny hurts men: male sexual assault, shame, and the cycle of harm
• The group chat as a permission structure, and complicity in the Nolan Wells case
• Asking vs. demanding: liberal feminism, "hearts and minds," and why willful ignorance is violence
• White educators, unconscious bias, and why "no one's paying me to learn" is an excuse

Timestamps
00:00 – Taina's back from Iceland: the Wicker premiere at the Reykjavik International Film Festival
07:01 – Pneumonic plague in Russia: why we'll (probably) be okay
15:20 – The Cornell case and what to call it (content warning)
21:13 – Fraternity culture, hazing, and consent under duress
24:09 – Kendall Francis and the LSU case
27:05 – Victim blaming: she's allowed to drink, and she's allowed to say no
31:35 – Misogyny hurts men: sexual assault, shame, and silence
37:15 – The 50 in the group chat: permission structures
41:08 – Nolan Wells and why the getaway driver is complicit
44:53 – Asking vs. demanding: MLK, Malcolm X, and liberal feminism
51:38 – White educators and unconscious bias
53:51 – Why we keep having heavy conversations (and a note on consent from the Hasan Piker episode)
55:19 – Join us: the Messy Liberation Circle and our free October 15 event

Resources mentioned
• "More Salt Than Diamond" by Aline Mello: https://bookshop.org/a/93627/9781524871024
• Previous episode: "Is Violence Part of Liberation? Breaking Down Hasan Piker, MSNow, and Palestine": https://messyliberation.com/hasan-piker-palestine/
• Free October 15 author event with Aline Mello: https://taina-m-brown.myflodesk.com/messy-lib-open-house
• Messy Liberation Circle: https://messyliberation.com/community/

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On this episode of Messy Liberation, Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown share their feminist origin stories: how each of them came to see the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and what unlearning and relearning has looked like since. Taina talks about getting fired from her evangelical church and finding intersectional feminism at a women's college. Becky traces her path from "we don't see color" white feminism to Ferguson, bell hooks, and coming out as pansexual.

In this episode, we get into:

• What "unlearning and relearning" means, and why it looks so different depending on your identities
• Getting fired from a church, and how churches run like any other exploitative workplace
• A congregation with "90 nations represented" and white men at the top
• Why "my Black friend voted for Trump" isn't a real argument, and how internalized oppression works
• Taina's move from evangelical faith to women's studies, and the three readings that gave her language for what she'd lived
• Where intersectionality actually came from: Kimberlé Crenshaw's legal scholarship
• Becky's mom, colorblind second-wave feminism, and what happened when Becky brought home a Black boyfriend
• White saviorism, campaigning for Obama, and the disillusionment afterward
• Ferguson, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and starting a feminist reading group
• Being queer before you know you're queer, internalized homophobia, and no longer feeling like you're co-opting a community that's yours

Timestamps:

• 01:00 – Origin stories, and why our journeys look different
• 02:53 – Growing up evangelical
• 04:33 – "I didn't think racism was still a thing"
• 07:15 – Holding an identity doesn't protect you from internalizing oppression
• 10:00 – An intense friendship and the first signs of queerness
• 12:30 – The three classes that changed Taina's life
• 16:34 – Leaving the church: "People are flawed, but God isn't"
• 23:21 – Becky's origin story: raised outside religion
• 26:02 – Second-wave feminism and "we don't see color"
• 29:38 – White savior complex and campaigning for Obama
• 32:38 – Ferguson and the murder of Michael Brown
• 36:31 – Our pansexual identities
• 42:37 – You don't need a PhD to belong

Resources mentioned:

• Paula Gunn Allen, "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism"
• The Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments
• The Combahee River Collective Statement
• "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex" by Kimberlé Crenshaw
• "Feminism Is for Everybody" by bell hooks
• "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde
• "Pleasure Activism" by adrienne maree brown
• "White Feminism" by Koa Beck
• Our interview with Koa Beck
  

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