Dr. Joy DeGruy: Years of trauma, illusion of inclusion and healing can not happen without justice

But you talk about the impact of American chadow slavery they go well how do I understand how do you connect slavery with contemporary African-American Behavior I said how can you not 339 years of trauma this is the kind of push back you get when you talk about slavery well I was I wasn't there I didn't do it and that was look at how long ago that was you know but what made it unique from any other form of Enslavement the length of servitude the treatment of the enslaved the rape the pillage the destruction of of

people European systematically turned the capturing shipping and breeding of other human beings into a business that would become the backbone of an entire economy the other myth is that slavery ended and the playing field got leveled and that's just not true because after slavery came the multitude of lynchings all the way Up through George Floyd 339 years of trauma was there any therapeutic assistance nobody showed up you've been harmed and that requires more more than medicine and talk therapy that requires Justice healing cannot happen without Justice you know Malcolm X said if you stick a

knife 9 in into my my my back and you pull it out three that's that's not progress even if you pull the knife all the way out that's not progress progress is healing the wound and America hasn't pulled out the knife I believe that we are the pupil of the eye surrounded by a sea of white but it is a pupil that contains the sight it beholds what is before it that's scriptural that is what the greatest fear is welcome to VA empowers talks where we don't just scratch the surface we dive deep into the

lives of some of the world's most influential changemakers I'm your host Brandy Harvey now I am so excited for this one today y'all y'all Are in for a treat this is like a history lesson this is the PHD version Dr Joy degu is a nationally and internationally renowned researcher and educator for over two decades she served as an assistant professor at Portland State University School of Social Work and now serves as president and chief executive officer of Joy deg grw Publications Incorporated Dr degu is the author of post-traumatic slave syndrome America's Legacy of enduring injury

and Healing Dr deg's research it focuses on the intersection of racism trauma violence and American Shadow slavery Dr degu hold S A Bachelor of Science degree in communication a master's degree in social work a master's degree in Clinical Psychology and a PHD in social work research she has over 30 years of practical experience as a professional in the field of Social Work Dr Joy degr believes the opposite of ignorance is not knowledge the opposite of ignorance Is truth B empowers talks welcome mental health clinician social scientist educator speaker author and consultant Dr Joy degr to

the show now you know I'm excited for this one today I'm excited too and I I mean I this has been long time coming I mean 2016 I reached out to you to come and speak I I became aware of your work I got the original book I should have brought it in here for the taping but I got the original book of post-traumatic slave syndrome in 2015 I Was introduced because you had a video that 35 million other people saw and I was one of those 35 million people that watched your lecture on post-traumatic

slave syndrome you gave me the permission slip to go to go to uh to get some therapy wow yeah wow that's amazing yeah so welcome to the show well thank you it's wonderful to be here and to be here with you in particular because I I remembered I remembered meeting you us talking on the phone that's right yeah Yes but everything in Divine timing absolutely everything in the right time so I I'm I mean we got to dive into it because in watching your lectures you always start your Keynotes with a with a certain activity

and you ask people to close their eyes yes yes um and I actually added that uh and the reason why and I'll I'll actually do it with your audience if that's okay yeah um but the reason I added it is because sometimes you know it's everything Becomes so cerebral everything becomes intellectual everything becomes and folks really come in with this idea especially when I ask everyone do you have a standard that you live by and and most of us do we have some sort of a standard right and so we have a perception of ourselves

we have a perception of our beliefs but what I wanted to help people know is why it was necessary for us to go beyond just what we think we believe to go deeper and That's why I say let's let's go inside now let's go in inside our own bodies each individual so I would ask your audience if they are watching I would ask them to close their eyes and I'm going to walk you through a guided imagery yeah it is nighttime and you're in your car you could be the driver or you could be the

passenger you look ahead and as you approach you're noticing that they're Blinking lights and as you get closer you see that these blinking lights are police cars there are police cars blocking you there are police cars lining either side of the street Beyond uh the police cars is a yellow tape Beyond The Yellow Tape there are three young men they're on their knees their hands are handcuffed behind their backs and They don't have shirts on now open your eyes and and I ask them what they see now normally I don't ask it to of adult

audiences but I can see it um sometimes when they flush because I said I don't know what you saw but I'm going to guess it wasn't three blondhair blue-eyed boys yeah on their knees yeah and I do that because I want folks to know what has been embedded in our psyches and I said that not only have I have I asked that Question of adults I've asked it of of high school students and they see brown and black boys and I asked it of middle school children N brown and black boys and I dared not

ask it of elementary school children because you see those images have been etched into our Consciousness doesn't matter what your values are what you think you believe this country has told you who The enemy is yeah they have they have engraved it in your psyches this is the dangerous one this is the one to be feared this is the one that we have to lock up this is the bad guy and that's what I want folks to understand it's not even conscious to us it's in the unconscious and so what happens is you begin to

get those images and you begin to believe them even when you live in the skin and that's the point and the Point Beyond that is you know when I when I do my presentations I show a whole Litany of other slides I show the slides of the young man who dove in the in the Mississippi to try to save uh a three girls and a police officer who was trying to save them he dove in 16-year-old Coran Evans you know and he didn't even think about his life and he had no shirt on and he

was a black boy but we don't see him yeah we don't see his images we don't see the images of Tenderness between a a black father and his child we don't see the unity of black men or scholarship we don't see the thousands and thousands of young black and Latino and latinx and Asian folks graduating every year thousands of them the historically black colleges bursting at the seams with Scholars we don't see those images and that's deliberate that's intentional and when we don't show the images I mean not not only does does America not show

the images we don't show the images right right right that's why I appreciate being here I appreciate being in this space with you because you're going to show those realities absolutely you're going to tell them you're going to demonstrate them I mean American Shadow slavery I mean you you delve into this you are really you give historical facts that many of us did not even we've never learned learned about when we read your book right and I was a African-American African history major Studies major at Ohio State and so there are some some scenarios that

you give there's some there's some language that you use in this book that I would have never known before 2015 when I got a copy of this book but you talk about the impact of American Shadow slavery 339 years of folks who got unpaid labor and what separation right that created what divide that created but really 339 Years and we're still here With no help we are a miracle yes we are we are a miracle because I think what what people don't understand is that how American Shadow slavery differed from other forms of slavery that

preceded it so if you think about you know and and this is a kind of push back you get when you talk about slavery well I was I wasn't there I didn't do it and that was look at how long ago that was you know and they cannot seem to connect the dots on that but what made it unique from any Other form of enslavement was a manner in which a person became Enslaved the length of servitude the treatment of the enslaved and how they were perceived as human beings before the European slave trade began

most people who became enslaved became so as a result of War Two societies went to war winners Enslaved the losers so on and so forth but Europeans systematically turned the capturing Shipping and breeding of other human beings into a business that would become the backbone of an entire economy yeah you see that's different and it was situated around a belief in our intrinsic uh dehumanization our lack of humanness we were not perceived as full humans and therefore because we were not full humans we didn't have to be treated like humans and while that you may

say well that was alone that was so ignorant I believe it was over 300 no 222 I think 222 medical students this was a study that was done in 2016 uh that still believed that black people didn't feel pain on the level of white right right okay so we're looking at those beliefs that have matriculated into contemporary Society the other myth is that slavery ended and the playing field got leveled right everything was okay and that's just not true because after slavery came the multitude of lynchings all the way up through George Floyd Briana you

know it goes all the way when did the actual injury and assault stop you know Malcolm X said if you stick a knife N9 in into my my my back and you pull it out three that's that's not progress even if you pull the knife all the way out that's not progress progress is healing the womb and America hasn't pulled out the knife I me that's where we are and you talk about America not pulling out the knife because America doesn't really Want to own up to the truth that's right of what how inhumane slavery

in American child slavery really was well again uh that is a door that no one wants to open because it creates cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance occurs when you are simultaneously holding contradictory ideas beliefs habits you know and often you know I of tell people what I was in Portland and in Portland Oregon God help me when I was in Portland um you could if you cough somebody's gonna offer you A herb tell you how much eonia you should have and they wear they say it's a place where nice clothes go to die um because

people wear you know socks with birken stocks I wish it weren't true but yeah it is and these are the same people if you ask why I'm vegan okay good that's wonderful I jog at least you know three to five miles a day um okay I also smoke crack on the weekend now you see this would then be a contradiction and what they do to deal With the distance associated with that is you do all those other things yeah and see America's dissonance is we have a country that has prided itself on Democracy on send

us your poor you're tired your huddled masses yearning to breathe free one nation under God and all of those great wonderful pronouncements would be great if at the same time you weren't enslaving right African people and committing genocide against indigenous people how do you Reconcile that conflict and again here's the thing that's so deep they say well you know uh you know it's so upsetting and troubling we can't we can't teach African American history we can't well it's not it's history right okay first of all but we can't we can't teach that it's going to

upset the little children they're going to feel guilty they're going to you know be cowering in the in the corners well my niece recently this Is very recently that you know the last year or so she her job was to go around the state of Oregon you know and uh share history and she shared the history of Thomas Jefferson oh boy and you know Wheatley and then she would give them these questions afterwards and one of the things that Thomas Jefferson said was that black people weren't smart and could not be creative they could not

produce art right right these are the things that that he said you know and in My presentations of course I I show things that really you know really contradict that whole idea but she asks her students these are sixth grade predominantly white students she asked him why do you think Thomas Jefferson might have said that black black people weren't smart and couldn't be creative and one of the kids said well when you objectify people it's easy to look at them as lesser than you another one said because if people thought that black People were smart

and black people were creative then they wouldn't want to make them slaves right and then that would lose him a lot of money right the another one said well he's racist the other one said you know over and over again I said do these sound like children cowering in a corner afraid no they're clear and they're not going to adopt those perspectives of their parents that's why they don't want it taught you know and you know what's the Problem they can't Rosa Parks Martin Luther King all of it and so when you think of that

if we're eliminating Rosa Parks come on you think I'mma let you talk about American Shadow slavery the rape the pillage the destruction of of people the the experimentation all of those things yeah no but this is a truth and I believe that truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtue without truthfulness you cannot attain the other virtues you have to first tell the truth Yeah and that's fundamental as an educator as a clinician when people come to me for therapy when I was you know doing one-on-one therapy inevitably they come with a presenting problem well

it's my 14-year-old she's Act now and I'll start there but there's always a secret and the secrets make us sick I want you to get into this because even when you talk about in the book which your book is on the band book list yeah your book they you can't put this in the schools Oh no you know and I I I was telling my my sister I was like I think we need to make our book club a band book club because we have to be able to make sure that our children that our

friends that our cousins that our sisters know this information because it's hiding Right In Plain Sight yes because you talk about the secrets keeping us sick and how many of us you know when we look back from a cultural ens right at our own lives and our own families and we see how sickness And disease plagues black people at alarming rates and you really give voice to that because you talk about I mean we can look at harri Washington's medical aparti you talk about the experimentations I want you to talk about how we have allowed

the secrets to keep making us sick so um one of the things that uh I did um is I began to my my family is from Louisiana my father only went to the sixth grade the Asiatic black man Asiatic black man he was Serious my dad you know but my father used to make he make this statement he he'd say you know if a if a a a white man has a cal than the black man has pneumonia right and so part of the injury The Assault on on on black people is them beginning to

believe some of the myths the other thing is to understand uh because inevitably someone always asks me they go well how do I understand how do you how do you connect in uh uh connect slavery with contemporary African-American Behavior I said how can you not how can you not how can you not 33 years of trauma and survival and adapt adaptation I mean you learn how to survive in in hostile environments and surviving isn't always pretty it isn't always pretty but it's very functional so I have to give examples of how that shows up so

one of the things I do in my audience is I'll say well if I shoot this person that's on the front row is everyone in agreement that They're traumatized yes and everyone goes yeah I I think we can we can go with that yeah right um I said all right so now the person that's seated next to the person that's shot they too are traumatized cuz they they saw it someone in the hall hears the shot later finds out who it is they're traumatized they call the person who's been shot they call their family that

are in Oklahoma and tell them what's happened they're traumatized now at the same time you may Have someone that's just maybe one aisle away that saw the whole thing their interviewed well what Happ oh it was awful you know there was blood everywhere and it was so sad when's lunch not traumatized so everyone's not traumatized by a traumatic event because we have a differential response to stressors as human beings but we talk about slavery we're not talking about a single stressor we're talking about lifetimes of stress and Trauma lifetimes It is not plausible that you

can escape that with no injury right now we are all familiar with postmatic stress disorder right and what happens to people um you know exaggerated startle response right um difficulty falling and staying asleep feeling of foreshortened future triggers based on things that resemble the original of it all of these things happen by a single trauma that could be experienced directly like the person shot or the person that got the phone Call in Oklahoma are you follow me all of them could end up with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder requiring medication and people talking to

them softly twice a week right that's you weren't even there right so what do you think happens when you have been there and you have been born the Brun of that right and then people go well then didn't y'all get free oh yes so now let's do the math 339 years of trauma get any help with That when uh and again this is difficult to hear but when someone decides that you're 8-year-old they're going to pass around to the evening men because that's their proclivity or they take your wife or your friend or they sell

your baby from your arms did we get any help for that was there any therapeutic assistance no not for 339 years we did the best we could to heal under hostile environments and then you got freed great any help Then where anybody have any data that SU that we said well you know we know it's been deep we know you know we've sold away your family we've beaten and lynched people you know let's do some group therapy no no no no nobody showed up nothing nobody showed up so now 339 years of trauma no help

freed no help did the trauma continue absolutely you bet it did all the way up to 2025 so what we have to unpack now is what what does how does that show up What does it look like because then people are like I don't understand you know well if you can't see the economics of this right so here's one you know during during segregation now here is especially when I'm doing you know work in all of these major cities and I said we we eliminated segregation right everybody goes now it's like the hand I don't

I say I don't don't know I don't I'm going just sely say I don't know I said well let's just take a look at it You know we elimin ated segregation in America officially and then I asked the audience is there a hood does anybody know what a hood is all the hands up I said so you you know that there's a place where black people are okay but there's no sign on the freeway that says next right Hood right so we pretend that's not true we pretend that segregation doesn't exist in America and it

exists everywhere in America right so that's the LIE when people are wanting To see it up front then what is the symptomology of post-traumatic slave syndrome because the truth of the matter it's not a diagnosis it's not post-traumatic stress disorder which is treated with medication and and talk therapy and any number of other things post-traumatic suggests that not only have you been harmed physically you've been harmed emotionally you've been harmed spiritually you've been harmed Economically right you've been harmed politically you've been harmed and that requires more than medicine and talk therapy that requires Justice healing

cannot happen without Justice because we'd love that to be it because all they do is put a code in the DSM and figure out how to get paid for injuring us are you following o o doc I'm just saying you know and so when I think about it on a practical level for for those of that are your listeners or your viewers and I Want people to start looking at everyday behavior that we've normalized that is adaptive Behavior it is survival Behavior you you give this example of being at the bank and you got the

little little children at the bank the mother standing there with her with her little son at the bank and you know in the line in the line yeah in the line so what I don't know you know I am 67 years old and um I knew where I was in the bank and when I asked black people to this Day I said when you were little and you were in any place of business not just a bank but particularly in the bank where were you in proximity of your parent you are right next to him

if do not move and you try get get get you I don't know what the snap is but the snap is in there get you right child can't move that child cannot move they sometime they holding literally holding on absolutely um so this is the bank the mother the father with the little kids In the same bank they're white children they rolling around they sliding down the aisle rolling on the Rings coming up to you saying oh that's pretty hair I like what's your name that's a kid rolling around now the black children are adhered

to their parents but you see something this is a non-verbal communication now there's something that both sets of children are learning both sets of children are innocent they're just children but They're learning and the black children are learning anger fear and shame absolutely right there nobody said a word and it is reinforced I mean what's so deep about it is they can't move now the white children are going H they can't move I something must be wrong with them because they can't move and then the black kids look and say it's their world not mine

then when we look at the social Constraints because you see this is not just an individual and one family we've all been socialized so now in the back of the line is another black person they don't know this black mother or father and their children they get to the counter now the kids are little they're actually lower than the counter and they're under the counter now let me explain something there is a something called secure attachment and there is a a level of of comfort in exploring one's Environment that's a normal human developmental phase for

a child to have a level of autonomy that says I'm I'm free to move right so now the children are underneath the counter the parent is distracted dealing with the teller and the children are trying to escape so they're sliding they're trying to slide down because they're trying to actually fulfill that developmental task right You see it's in them to do but the person in the back that doesn't know the parent sees the little Escape EAS and they give them the eye that only black people can give it's that's there you know right you and

the kid goes oh man you know and they start moving back over so here is a stranger that got your back now yeah now let's ask the question why why is everyone behaving that way if you ask the parent they go well they Don't need to be running around they give you reasons you know that's where I was when I was in the bank and what that has to do with the survival yes we saw what happened when emit till strayed just a little too far just being a kid didn't even do what they said

did he didn't even say hey baby none of that happened she the woman who who claimed that wrote about it in her book right that it was all a lie and they killed him and so what we have Learned is that we aren't safe and that behavior even when it is safe it is locked in to our DNA that says we don't get to do that do you you see what I'm saying it's so real doc because I look at it even with my nephew I have a 8-year-old nephew and he has grown up as

a free person a free thinker and so he has autonomy we go out he needs something he will go up to the server he's going to get up he's going to make sure right but then there are moments Right when he's at school right and my sister is like I know you better not had a wife folks calling me up there like you know you don't have them them white folks calling my phone about you so as much as he's been given Freedom there is a part of him and there's a part of you even

in this day and age that says but hold on now I'm going let you explore I'm going to let you be free I know you are a thinker I Know you got freedom but there's a part that I still have to be vigilant hypervigilant about to keep you safe that's right and here's what's interesting about that right when I talk to uh black parents and I actually have a 10we graduate level course that I teach online and I actually have have done that that that particular course in the community with just parents and my only

rule is if I show up you better show up cuz I'm doing it free right um And what I've learned is you see we have trauma associated with schools as adults there black parents don't feel comfortable going into schools my my my daughter did research on it right we're triggered we're triggered walking in there because we remember what happened to us so when I'm in audiences and I say to parents I said you have a child let's just you know Middle School whatever age doesn't really matter how what what age The child is and you

see the child has got got a C on their on report card and you say to that child why do you have this C and they'll tell you that's cuz my teacher and I don't say the answer it's because my teacher and the audience all at once says doesn't like me doesn't like me my teacher doesn't like me we are relationship based people that goes all the way back to our ancestors we're relationship based yes that's why when we walk down the street all we have to Do is that nod mhm and everyone knows what

the nod means perfect stranger in the grocery store mm what does a nod mean the nod means I see you I see you I see you it means I see you yeah right so that is embedded in us our children grow up calling I I was calling people Auntie and Uncle I didn't know till I was fully grown they had no biological connection to me you better put a handle on it that's your that's Auntie that's it if my grand were here they'd call you Auntie yes or miss on or Miss that's right cuz my

sister be like uh she don't eat lunch with you at the school that ain't your friend they ain't your home girl that ain't your little friend that ain't your little friend that's Miss on that's Mr that's Mr that's right you're going to because it's a it's it's respectful right so our children grow up in that and they go to school and they're ignored and it hurts them and they don't Have no they don't even have the words to articulate they're only four four or five years old and all they know is I'm reading you because

that's the other thing that people don't understand about black children black children can read you before the developmental charts say they can they may not be able to articulate it but they can tell when you're not being sincere right and then they get punished for it o they punish them for that and so I you know again I Work in the community I work with parents I give them the language I help them deal with how they're triggered because when they were in school they were they felt like they weren't you know they weren't smart

enough teacher didn't call on them or they were always looked at negatively another study uh Yale child study um looked at oh a huge number of teachers I think it was 126 teachers they they looked at preschool and what they wanted to know They told the teachers that we want you to to to look at the these this room full of children and we want you to to point out any potential problem you might see there any potential problem where the deception is there was no problem problem Behavior going on they wanted to look at

the trajectory of their gaze they wanted to know where did they look when they expected bad behavior and of course it came out the same way we understand of all these kids That are getting expelled or kicked out they look specifically at the black boy absolutely they look specifically at the black boy even when there were two children off task white and black not only both off task doing the same off task Behavior they only saw the black boy absolutely and of these over a hundred teachers some they weren't all white teachers do you see

what I'm saying when you close your eyes the image the same thing comes up so here You have these children that aren't doing anything wrong being children and being children they're being children and then they get punished for it yeah and so it's really important for us to understand that these behaviors are transferred not only you know it's like I asked people in audience I said how many of you know how to cook and I tell them if you Louisiana everybody raise their hand cuz everybody in Louisiana I know will is probably like you know

he He's will is over here come on everybody they don't claim it right and then I ask them who'd you learn to cook from you know mama big mama daddy sometime you learned that from someone okay who you think they learned it from they probably their mama I said so that's called social learning theory we learn from the significant people in our environment learned beh Behavior if the people you're learning from have been harmed if the people you've learn You're learning from have experienced trauma never addressed then you unwittingly take that on you know I

remember growing up um and you know my mother was so funny whenever anybody it wasn't permissible for someone um you know we didn't talk about mental illness or mental health that wasn't something we talked about my mother always everybody black had and talked to a black psychiatrist about this was hilarious I said we had one did We only had only one diagnosis as black people if there was anything mentally going on they just had a nervous breakdown they had a nervous breakdown because that was acceptable to have a nervous breakdown there's no such thing as

a nervous breakdown it's not in the dssm but the bottom line is they they just have bad nerves right they just had the bad nerve my nerves is bad nerves is bad my nerv my nerves is bad right and those were things that were acceptable But there was no treatment are you following me there was no you know there was no space for it and so we you know inadvertently took on behaviors let me tell you my husband to this day when we go into a restaurant any place he is going to be seated so

he can see the door see the door absolutely it's 2025 absolutely you know uh and I understand matter of not just him and not just of his generation the brothers are somewhere where they can see the door Right and these are these are and I'm not that's pretty innocuous that's not going to hurt you that particular behavior is not going to hurt you I would like to share one that will that does hurt and hurts to this day and it's adaptive and matter of fact I traced this back to slavery how did I do it

I read slave narratives I found it there and then I I interviewed elders and on one occasion um Adela Sanford who is still alive I think she's 99 she might Even may be hundred now but she called in I was on a radio show in New York and I was talking about the Adaptive behaviors and I tell them the story that she heard that she experiened with her grandmother that had been enslaved she was sitting at her feet when she was told the story so what so I give the example in 2025 you have a

black mother you have a white mother the black mother and the white Mother know each other they both have sons maybe about eight eight or nine years old and they're at a meeting you know maybe a school meeting you had a black mother the white mother and both of their sons are on either side of them black mother leans over to the white mother says to the white mother you know I've noticed that your son is doing quite well he really is doing quite and she goes oh thank you so much for noticing you know

he's quite the man uh He's in the talented and gifted program that would be tag and he won the science fair just last week you know his uncle's an astronaut this one she is oozing with enthusiasm and I'm not mad at her she sits back she feels good and as she sits back she realizes that the black Mother's Son is excelling her son so she leans up close to the black mother and she goes wait a minute you're talking about my son is really coming along you your son is the one that's really coming Along

and the black mother girl get out of here you should have seen that boy yesterday oh my you he works my nerves look girl stop it and then I ask my audience how many of you you have seen that behavior yeah typical Behavior very common not not everybody but it's definitely common so the question then becomes you know you've seen the behavior some of you even do the behavior the white response to that behavior is gosh they're so Negative no wonder there's negative now you remember I said earlier that it's the secrets that make us

sick everyone right now in this studio anyone in earshot of it knows the secret we're all big people we're all adults and the secret is even though that black mother could be a blackf father and they oh get out of here oh that boy oh he's a handful that behavior while the parent is saying it they're proud now that is I mean it's such an Amazing subtlety of Black Culture where we're hearing you say oh stop it and while I'm saying it I'm proud of the fact that you you know praised my child so the

question becomes why now we justify we try to figure out a way because it doesn't make sense right they go well you know we don't want the kid to get a big head we get all kind of stuff about right but let's roll it back 300 years and then we can understand why you have a black mother or a black Father they're working on a plantation they're enslaved so also are their children black mother black father they working hard in the fields and a white slave owner comes through male or female they come through and

they see that black mother or that black father they said that's your CH that's your boy there that is that your boy H that boy sure coming along that boy is sure coming along what is that parent gonna Say oh no no no no he him he can't oh he's stupid he he can't work he's shiftless because I don't want you to sell him yeah if it's my daughter I don't want you to breed her Iden them to protect them and we see it DOC we see it in our families we see it with our

grandparents we see it with our great-grandparents but you see that was once appropriate yeah that is called appropriate adaptation when living in a hostile environment we never unlearned It and we never unlearned it because we were told get over it and we never even were able to talk about what it is we're trying to get over to get over yeah right so I didn't ask anybody's permission to look at me I didn't and so when I think about it how how do you stop that behavior very simple say thank you yeah that's all that you

you can confound the whole problem because why is it an issue why is Dr Joy talking about it let's roll back to those two Mothers sitting next to get together and their sons on either side Timmy and Trey and Trey looks at his mother and he he says why why can't you be proud of me like she's proud of her son because you see Trey doesn't know the secret yet and by the time he learns the secret he's already been injured by it postraumatic slave come on Doc come on and do you know how many

of those there are unexamined behavior that are adaptive I'm not mad at my people I get It but we don't have to do that anymore yeah you know when my grandkids were in were little and they were in the bank the Only Rule I had was I just need to see you and that's it that's me that's how I am with my nephew they would go roll it around they go Emma and they will wave at me I go it's all good because they're children and they get to and there' be black people that give

me the side eye I doc I literally took my nephew and his and his friend Daryl out Um BJ and darl and I love them they are just like but they're tall they're both very tall they're very athletic all those things too so of course they got all energy they're in a class together they've been together since kindergarten Daryl's mom was their kindergarten teacher they go to a very Progressive school right so wonderful learning environment and as a former educator I just I know right like you need some Freedom so when they're with me I'm

like Go ahead we we went out to lunch I took them to a little spot they had a little outdoor SP I said I'm reading my book recess is 15 minutes 20 minutes I said going out there I don't care what y'all do long as I can see you in that window good and one of my friends was like girl you had them out there like little white kids I said no I had them out there like kids oh man I had them out there like kids cuz I'm trying to read my book and y'all

y'all got some energy that y'all Need to get out baby go ahead and get it out yeah but it's that level and I and I see how often we don't teach our children that because we are still held to this belief right that we don't get to explore the world we don't get to experience experience have experiences like white children yeah we'll get in trouble it'll be dangerous for us you know and like I said I do understand it so this is not about um you know pathologizing folks because this this is It's intelligent adaptive

behavior when you're living with folks that'll take you out for just being in the in in the wrong proximity of them all you have to do is go go to Alabama and go to that lynching Memorial and you will see all the accounts of why the lynchings happened 4,400 those were the ones they had names for and very often it was you know startling a white woman looking menacingly at someone white um having a Picture of some I mean it was just unbelievable stuff that you know and and again living like that for so long

yeah you become hypervigilant yes you you begin you have this heightened sense of of concern all of those things that happened not to mention you know we can go into dietary things all of the things that we did to survive and we are in a in a situation where people say oh no you don't get to talk about it that's the part right and that's the part that We're living in right now we look at the climate the culture this illusion of inclusion the illusion of inclusion the illusion we bought it yeah and here's the

thing that's ironic about this whole thing about segregation right cuz when they told us we just don't want y'all around just get get out just we don't want you around and so we did and in Tulsa we built a a town we owned the banks we owned the businesses we had our own schools our own churches Our own hospitals we our kids were doing parades down the street we wern't bothering you we got away from you and we prospered and they went in and they beat burned looted and then bombed Tulsa they said we wanted

you away but we didn't want you to pray we didn't want you to prosper and we bought the illusion of inclusion oh no come on you know we want everybody because we want your America has always survived on a slave labor Force whether that was enslaved individuals whether that was undocumented individuals or imprisoned individuals we need a we need a cheap labor force and again you can come in and we thought oh yeah you know it's you know there's no segregation anymore oh but you can't you know you somehow can't rent in that area somehow

your kids aren't your District isn't this District I mean let's just do you know come on that's the reality of what it has been And with that illusion we have never been able to gain the economic footing we did all by ourselves and what I often say to black folks now in this climate of extraordinary hate um is we did it before and we can do it again yeah and we had far less okay we had far less to work with and we had much greater tragedies confronting us and I believe in that I believe

that we are the pupil of the eye surrounded by a sea of white but it Is a pupil that contains the sight it beholds what is before it that's scriptural and I believe that that is what the greatest fear is is what I see you and I can see through you yeah and we have to remind our children that they were born with the right to be treated with respect and and integrity they didn't have to earn it every human being was born with the right and we need to infuse into them their intrinsic nobility

their intrinsic Greatness that's what we have to infuse in our children regardless of what anyone else else does I'm not waiting for someone else to educate listen children I I I think that's what's so important right and you tell the story about uh the Statue of Liberty and as a former history teacher you know I just love these historical facts right yeah that we cannot negate we cannot skip past so you tell this story of the Statue of Liberty being Commissioned in 1865 by the French artist and the original drawing right of the Statue of

Liberty and and you know that story I had no idea that it resonated the way it did with folks because I was experiencing it right so it's actually the whole story is in the in the book the revised book I actually put it in there so uh it was about 2007 2008 um a friend of mine called me and said to sent me joy and and this friend uh Floyd Meyers brother of Heavy D um he called me he says joy uh you know he lives at uh Mount Vernon and our are really close he

said I got a new job I said what's the new job he said I work for the Department of the Interior I said really he said I'm over all the national parks for the state of New York right so Forestry Department all these F he said I'd like you to come to the Statue of Liberty I said no he said no why why not I said I'm not Go I'm not going Floyd it's it's gonna make me mad I'm not going he says what why is it going to make you mad I said because well

you know I've been to France I'd actually seen the original drawings of th who was the you know the the architect who did the sculpture um and uh I knew that the Statue of Liberty you know and everybody knows in her right hand she's holding a torch and I always ask my audience what is she holding in her left hand right and when I was at the sexual Liberty because I eventually agreed you know because Floyd was insistent and he said I can give you a pass we can go up in her eye and everything

I said okay so I when I go there I'm going there with the knowledge that the Statue of Liberty was holding originally in her left hand broken chains again commission 1865 pretty important date end of slavery end of the Civil War all of those things were why she is a statue of what Liber which Makes sense so she has broken chains in her left hand now she's holding a rectangular object with a Roman numeral on it that's what she's holding so I'm telling Floyd I said I know for a fact this is a historical document

I I know what it is so we first thing that happens when you go to Statue of Liberty and I actually went to the first time with a friend of mine and her name is Faith Holmes and faith is white very white white white blonde hair blue eyes She almost got his thrown out of the place she had a meltdown right I'm going look you can't be melting down here okay we we're not having it you know news at 11 so I'm so we're there and I'm the really really very very the ranger who was

you know you get taken together and you get put in these groups you're assigned a ranger and he was very enthusiastic he really was a really enthusiastic man he says so now you know I am going to be Ranger today and they Tell you more about the Statue of Liberty than you ever want to know they tell you why it's it's green cuz it was copper and it oxidized they tell you how they got it over there they tell you how they changed the torch a couple of times uh they tell you that they even

show you how thin it is right just just how how thin the whole thing is right um and he says and if you have any questions so of course excuse me my head shot up right and I said I was wondering if you're Going to um Talk talk about the chains right so now you got to understand every 20 minutes thousands of people are getting off that Ferry coming to Ellis Island coming to Statue of Liberty so I say something about chains and now you got people translating it into different languages think she says something

about chain chains right so because I knew that she was holding you know those those broken chains so now at this point I'm like you Know they got to be here somewhere so Floyd and I are now looking for the historical document that I said the picture of it I said got they can't not have it it's a Statue of Liberty they got to have it there so we go into the basement of the Statue of Liberty this was so crazy to me we're in the basement of Statue of Liberty we find the document encased

in glass behind figurines facing a wall in a hallway H so here we have the truth hidden in in Plain sight so I'm sitting there going so Floyd I take a picture of it the picture is in the book right so I took a picture um and I said this is insane I said this is really insane that you know here I you know we have that picture well I then asked my audience you know who won the argument because bartholdi insisted that the chains remain he really did he was adamant he was an advocate

for abolitionism he said the chains got to stay and I asked Audience who won did bar s win or did the United States win and they always say well you know the United States won I said no they didn't baroldi won the chains are actually still there and they have always been there the entire time at her feet where it is impossible to see them under any circumstances those broken shackles are on both sides on her as she's as she's looks like she's walking they're are broken shackles at her feet so the agreement was we'll

We'll we'll keep the chains but we'll make it so no one can see them yeah because if she's on a pedestal Statue of Liberty if no one who's ever been they sometimes they don't realize because we always see her like she's standing flat on the ground but she's in a huge pedestal so you can't see over to see the the chains and if you're inside you can't see them so they're there and they're hidden so now I'm feeling some kind of way right but I'm thinking Floyd just got the job you know what I'm saying

the man I can't I can't let him you lose his good black job the man I can't get the man so I took Floyd in Floyd being Floyd he said go and bring it Joy go and bring it so I spoke to his supervisor I said you know I would like to pay to have a picture of the chains at her feet so that they're on display and they're explained and he said No I said tell you what I can do I said I'm sure that I can get a just cross the the water a

black scope that will just sculpt that part cuz God knows they show you every aspect of Statue liberty and he says yeah no said okay I'mma tell on you and so I travel all over the world yeah for a living I travel all over the world and I told this story and I show the pictures all over the world so I get this call from the Department of the Interior they Said we'd like to talk to you Dr degu and I'm going you know I'm not scared I'm from South Central you know I did tell

my family where I was going so they call me and I come over and uh his boss I think it was his boss's boss who s to me Dr degree we want to one apologizing and we want to acknowledge that we've been negligent and we want to correct this uh we want to immediately correct this and the first thing we want to do is um well we want to hire you to Train all our Rangers I said okay and we're going we're going to correct correct you know this this negligence we've shown so I didn't

believe them so I went back undercover right CU I wanted to know a couple of things I wanted to know if they were going to first talk about the chains unasked because I had asked right chains and um we I was assigned with my little group this is 2013 2014 I'm I go back uh and I and I want to know if They've actually changed that and my third visit I go back and I have a great range the ranger not only tells the story of the chains turns to me and says this is American

history I'm sharing it is your history and it is my history and I am proud to tell the story it's a white ranger right so I'm thinking great you know this is this is wonderful and the next thing I know well on that on the second visit I had seen the picture displayed and all that was great but Then in 2019 May 23rd the Washington Post they now have a museum that wasn't there and they have a huge Museum now at the Statue of Liberty and it says the Statue of Liberty was designed to celebrate

freed slaves not immigrants its new Museum now recounts and it goes on explain that the the immigration came later right years later it came it was literally commissioned to celebrate the end of slavery but when black people walk Through you hear white people say oh well you know my great great and I great great but black men women and children feel no connection to Lady Liberty but how much prouder would they be if they knew that their ancestors that didn't come through aliside and that came chained together in the belly of ships that she was

standing on those shackles how much prouder would those young people be how much honor would they display in understanding who paid for Them yeah you erase the chains you erase me H so why don't we show the chains and that was the whole point because you see once you show the chains you've got to explain them you got to explain them and do you understand every black man woman and child can literally say oh no that's mine that's mine that's mine and all of this time America lied to its people and to the world the

most recognized symbol probably on the planet and we've never told the Truth DC I first of all I get I get so emotional in having these conversations because how can you not right because when we think about our journey as black people in this country we think about the Legacy the trauma that we've all endured and to be to be cast aside to be told to shut up to be told that that's not important enough for us to talk about we critical race Theory that's out of here we don't need to talk about that slavery

was was an Internship okay these people came for a a work program a work program a unpaid internship and we are not delving into the truth of this right but if we were to if we do then it changes how our children show up in the world AB it changes how we stand up and walk into rooms it changes how we walk onto jobs into our educational spaces that we have a moment of Pride we get to stand up wait a minute let me p my chest out a little more cuz my history did not

begin In no cotton field it certainly did not and that's the other thing that has been dismissed I mean youve you've got the dynasties right all of these dynasties where folks were trading in in gold and and in Goods I mean it's not hard this is not obscure when you start looking at all the African dynasties but somehow they didn't make it you you you cited my degrees I have four degrees three Advanced degrees none of them taught me what I used to write my book none of Them it wasn't in there how could it

not be there in the same way we cannot show uh the what Africa has brought to the world we cannot honor those things it would destroy the myth of superiority and in inferiority it would destroy that myth so I can't let you do that and when we we don't understand that I think when we don't allow that truth to come out right like you know in all the feeld oh no we can't it's just too depressing you know that that always got me cuz see I Am an evidence-based person I believe yeah okay can you

show me the evidence how you know this is going to cause harm and frighten children because if that's the case don't read the Bible the Bible got stories that'll curl your teeth you know I mean really is that what we're saying you know so it's it's one of those where we buy it we just go okay it's not true and and again um it's always the secrets that make us sick but we have to and I think all People and particularly people of color we cannot wait I mean you know Martin Luther King said we

can't wait why we can't wait we can't afford to not now and I and I'll tell you this you know this is recently this was just few months ago I I was um in Tennessee Memphis and um I told my audience I was there for three days I told the people who hired me to come in and work with administrator schools I said I want to talk to students I want to talk to young People please get me put me in front of some young people and they found 150 and gave me half a day

and I met with them in smaller groups and you know I didn't lay on them all of post-traumatic it's pretty intense I don't even allow certain age groups to be in my uh lectures because my interest is certainly not to traumatize them right or re-traumatize them and so I talked a little bit about myself and then I decided to I decided to do something Different I decided to uh asked them about something I knew they could all answer and these were 11th and 12th graders and I said how many of you have ever been in

a relay race almost all of them raised their hands I said what's the most important job of the first leg of the race hey you got to break out as fast as you can I said why is that because you want to make certain you can get that baton and pass it to the next person I Says tell me what the worst thing you can do in a relay and they all said drop the Baton I said My Generation drop the Baton we bought the illusion of inclusion and I'm here to put it back in

your hands and that's what we have to do because not only are they unaware of the issues that are facing them the reality that they're inheriting they Don't even know there's a race and that is where we have to step in and insist we have to step in and insist upon the truth and not wait for someone else to to do it right so afterwards these they were they were so lit they were coming up to me after each session because I had to do different sessions to get get them all in and they were

going oh man I didn't know that I shared the Statue of Liberty a couple of tidbits from the book and they were like Man yeah we want to they were lit so a week later the the director of the program called me matter of fact I still have the the text it just I can't tell you she said I don't know if you know the guy ritar the guy who who whose mother gave him the assault rifle and he went in it was black and he killed people right and he was exonerated he was completely

exonerated killed people matter of fact when the SWAT team drove up he had the Assault rival around and he threw his hands up he immediately threw his hands up in the air and they asked him where's his shooter and he pointed and they walk drove right by him SWAT te right and then later he was exonerated killed people was underage had a rifle his M all of that left well he spoke in the same place that I was a week later and they shut him completely down when people know better they do better Right they

didn't they weren't violent they just stood up in the audience like everyone else invited and he and his whole Entourage left cuz they said oh not here we're not having it so doc I want you because so many of us we're in spaces that we may be one you know we is is is one of us we the token you know we're in corporate spaces we're in neighborhoods because we wanted to move our children and have have a better way a better way of life and so we Experience a lot of microaggressions and so how

did the microaggression show up and how does that lead into the the dissonance well you know anything um like in our own life your life my life there are times you know there there are things like you know I have family and friends that lost their homes in the fires right um and I'm working with uh a group called the global Circle and I you know sent in names of black Psy psychiatrists black you know mental health people because nobody's talking about the black and Latino population that lost everything and they had inherited their houses

right so I was dealing with that you know um other issues going on people sick in the family these these are things that happen in our lives right but cumulatively what happens when cumulatively you go to work um there's a brother uh his name is John Graham he Wrote a book called Plantation Theory really recommend it because he worked in Corporate America very tiptop corporate America and he talks about the cost of that climb and what it did to him so he gets a call this you know every time I I it's a story I

don't know what else to do I gotta tell you story real true story though always a true story so he gets a call um from his wife saying our seven-year-old just asked a question that stunned me and I don't know what to Do I don't know how to answer it so when he gets home she tells him that her seven-year-old says you know how come you and Daddy change the way you talk when you talk to people from work M right you know that's the code switch right he said tell her the truth we do

it to make white people feel comfortable and of course he left that corporate world but what is the cumulative effect of living inauthentically o of living uh this Charade not being able to be well too black yeah can't be too black see that's where you where people you know I I again there I don't I don't adjust it maybe I I'll definitely adjust for children if I'm talking to Children about things that are difficult but I don't adjust for any other audience because I'm a big grown-up my daughter says I've been black too long that's

what's going on but I I I I I refuse to to not be my whole self right I I refuse To hide who I am which my whole life you know to get that good job to stay in that space What do we do the assault on our Spirits our minds our hearts constant assault you know laughing at the joke that wasn't funny you know listening to people say things and think it's okay to say um because you're not well you're you're a different negro you're the special negro right whatever the case I don't I

don't do that matter of fact you know during black history That's when everybody feels it's you know it's an appropriate time it's politically correct to be nice to you know the Negroes month and you know I just um and and I and I want to tell a story maybe you you you you not heard this story I don't tell it often but it's a story of uh of of one of these black history time and the only thing I'll do and people invite me to do stuff generally speaking I will you know close friends stuff

that's where people are Conscious and sane or children so some years ago many years ago I got a a call and it was from uh the coast of Oregon it was the people on the coast is really very white very very very white and they said we'd like you to talk to youth about Martin Luther King being a drum major for justice right so very reluctantly I said it's kids it's okay I can take my kids it's a beach there you know I'm trying to justify what so I get there got my Computer have my

thing all set up and they're three to six year olds the whole audience are three year olds to six year olds wow wow I when he said youth I'm thinking middle school yeah at least at least fifth sixth grade and so I take my computer I just close it and put it down because that's not what's going to happen and they were all on the rug with their legs floated picking their noses and doing it it's all white except the adopted Asian kids that was kind of in You know white people who adopted that's the

only time you saw any other child so I'm going okay God what am I goingon to do so I said here's the thing I said how many people want anybody want to do a skit I do I do all these skits hopeful they're just just so cute so I took two little girls I said we're going to go upstairs I'm going to be the teacher I told them what the skit was going to be I'm the teacher and you're the student so I had them in uh at chairs desks Facing all the kids with you

know on the on the floor and then I had my back to them at my desk I gave one had a toy and one had a crayon so when the little girl with the crayon she got up and left and the little girl with the toy took a crayon right so she comes to me she comes back to her DK she the girl took her crayon so she says teacher teacher she took my crayon I said she did yeah so I have them we're all standing up front now I Go did you take her cray

she said yes I said say you're sorry she goes I'm sorry I said okay so I turned around sat down and they went and sat down and the little kids were like hey the whole audience is like why you what I said is said problem what's the problem so I said okay let's do it again maybe they didn't hear it I said now did you take a crayon yes say you're sorry I'm sorry I said so she say she's sorry she a three-year-old this is a Three-year-old waving her she's very abset I said is there

a problem she said she got to give back to crayon she got to give it back she got to give it back saying you're sorry n enough yeah so a three-year-old understands Justice it's not just for her to keep the crayon and what we have to insist is that they give the crayon back that's such a great analogy story true life like it's like this is what we need because people think that well it It's not happening to me people think well what but that's not my life I have a black friend my nanny's black

but I I love black people my my coworker you know what's her name right you know and so we think that it's it doesn't pertain to us that's not my my problem that's not my scenario that's not my life but you really make us see and understand that it's all connected we're all connected absolutely we're connected The Human Experience The Human Experience and are we going to wait till you know uh the fire is at our door and you know even in in tragedy I mean Katrina look at all the different tragedies every single time

the differential response to a tragedy to a tragedy they said oh they were just looters right right the other people were finding resources I mean it was the same thing even when you saw some of the images from the fire it just Recently in La that's right people trying to get stuff out of their own homes and they're call they're looters because again that image is seared into our brains and and and again the impact the you know what we we are carrying I always say my people are are a miracle they are you know

and I wouldn't never want to be born anything but black I tell people all the time if I come back in the next life I'm coming back as a black woman be Black I'm coming back as a black woman in the next lifetime too there is nobody like us on it's not nobody like us you know I want to um because when we think that things have changed so many things remain the same yes FBI report in 2023 three the highest level of hate crimes in the United States over 50% of those reported crimes were

rooted in race ethnicity or ancestry in 2023 that is correct well over 11,000 hate crime cases yes and the the the Most significant threat the most significant threat according to Homeland Security and the FBI was white supremacy their words wow white supremacy has many victims you said many many victims yeah you know and I think that um one of the things that really struck me when I because you know I really I spend a lot of time everywhere with with all people of every Walk of Life I just got back from the Netherlands believe it

or not and you know I was asked to come to the Netherlands and I'm thinking you know actually my DNA part of our DNA goes to the Netherlands oh wow oh I'm not proud of that cuz they crazi all get out the people that I came from they they still doing blackface in the Netherlands just saying so um I was surprised because of you those from Surinam slavery you know they they were uh taken and you know colonialism the Whole thing and they wanted to translate my book into Dutch that's how resonating it was for

them but when I think about you know the victims I think about indigenous people from this country and I had now this missed my text I have pictures of this um I don't know if I included it in the book but they're definitely in my presentation where they showed these people this man sitting on top of what looks like a Mountain is this all the Bison that the Buffalo the Buffalo the Buffalo that were killed millions of them for the purpose of starving the Indians to steal their land that that was the purpose of it

and I mean riding corpses that were all people were shooting them from um trains and it was just and I'm watching this and I'm looking at you know there's there's another scripture that says my Earth is weary of you you know we have desecrated now here's the irony about That there's this one guy is standing proudly on top of a mountain of skulls a mountain of them and two people on the bottom another person on the bottom proud Millions now let me just tell you something particularly a place like Oregon but anywhere in the United

States it's a good good time to be a cat or dog can I tell you that they got better health care man they got they got food better food there's even water I went I Went past a place this was what when I had a moment I had a moment we walked past a place uh that and I thought it was you know some sort of a bakery with a dog theme it was was a Dog Bakery and they had Gourmet water in bottles wow and there was a man I I'm not making this up

that was outside digging in a trash can trying to find some food wow I lost my mind my friend was was in the restaurant waiting for me she sees my hands waving and I Was I was just feeling some kind of way about that right so right now let me just say the millions of Bison millions of Buffalo killed I dare you if a puppy rolled up in here right now little yellow lab rolled up and was running around and we took some of the wires and wrapped it around its neck and held it up

till it choked gasped and died you and I would be arrested faster than if it was a black man on the other side of that absolutely what level of hypocrisy Can that be millions of God's sacred creatures Millions for the purpose of starving a people and stealing their land you see that missed your text those pictures Miss missed your text not only that behind that mountain were far as the eye could see were the skulls I never saw that picture and I'll tell you where it showed up um what was that Revenant it was it

was a movie called oh uh right uh and when they Talked about the making of it it flashes for a second the picture that I now have in my in my presentation but somehow now let me tell you I am 7 so when I was a kid in science they said you know that the the Buffalo was hunted to near Extinction this is what I was told right now I am I don't know six seven years old well let's see who do I know hunt the Buffalo oh that would be indigenous people and they allowed

us to believe yeah do you see what I'm saying they Allowed us to believe that well if they're the people that hunt them they're the ones that must have hunted them to ex and the ABS absolute opposite was true and they didn't show us that picture because again we can't show you that we can't because it destroys the image you know I remember this uh I had a man stand up he was hostile and upset okay I'm the enemy right he's just white man he stood up screaming at you know looking at him you know

he says why you Know I'm you know I want I'm the one I'm the bad guy I'm the bad guy so I'm just looking at him going through a tirade right and you know and he says I just want to know who's going to love me and I said 'why didn't you ask me who's going to love me and you'll know that you know there's no hatred flowing through my veins nor anyone in here but you know the truth will set you Free yeah and that is something that you know I think we forget our

Humanity I've never lost my Humanity you know when I was in uh at Ellis Island you know the first part part of that story the first part of it was a Statue of Liberty the second part of it was Ellis Island and that is where yeah it it it didn't go well so what happened was me and Faith are now at Ellis Island and we're going through we missed the tour because there's a tour guy that takes You through Ellis Island and the first thing you see are these rolling pictures of America in the beautiful

forest and then somewhere they start showing you the numbers of indigenous tribes and then it there's a little state that says their numbers were greatly reduced were they reduced or did you slaughter them yeah do you see what I'm saying we just a use of language and so I'm looking at this and now we're coming to a Part we we got headphones we don't have it's a really good thing that there wasn't a tour guide but we have the headphones and you go into a section it goes beep and then it tells you so now

we're moving to a section where the European uh immigrants that came over they were medically checked right right right so they're going through this little thing and I'm looking and I'm going oh I don't please don't I can't I can't cuz I'm looking and I'm seeing the Vaginal speculum from J Maran Sims J Marian Sims invented the first vaginal speculum and he created that after doing painful experiment on black women right cutting them and with no anesthesia no anesthesia nothing right so I'm looking at and I know that's where we're going modern Gynecology is based

off of these practices these practices so I go I'm looking I'm and I'm trying I said ah they're not going to have that and they Show you the his you know his uh peer spoon he made it out of a PE spoon unfortunately probably some people don't know what a speculum is I'm going to have you look it up so you can know all the men um so we get to it and encased in glass are his instruments that he used on black girls and women right who suffered from obstetric fist right that's the whole

another story I don't even go down that road it's very hard to it is cuz even you you touch on It in in the book it's it's it's so horrific and the sister in in um Alabama does a whole lot better she's got a huge wonderful kind of Museum there anyway so I um you know so we're getting close to it and what they're saying to me in the ear in headphones they're saying imagine imagine coming across a rocky sea this is the immigrants to a land you know nothing about imagine being crowded together and

then being being forced to be Examined with these crude instruments and all of this this is what they're saying they're saying imagine and they're asking me Dr Joy they're asking me to have empathy for white women to imagine imagine what it must feel like to be poked and prodded and to wonder whether you'll be allowed to stay or you'll be sent back they're asking me to imagine that and because I have not lost my Humanity of course I can empathize with These women but who empathizes with the sister who is Chained in her own excrement

in the belly of a ship that is repeatedly raped and beaten who says imagine what it must have been like for her my sister the one whose shoulders I stand on where is it anywhere that someone says remember her come on and that is the hard part for me because I have my Humanity I refuse to Let someone take that from me but I also refuse to erase her come on I will not and I will not allow my children or my grandchildren I will not allow them not to understand who pay for them yeah

I won't do it and I don't care what anybody says or does and let me tell you something they don't want our children they don't want any American children to know these stories to know these truths they don't want them to know but they Must not understand children because the moment you tell them they can't come on what are we going to do let me go find out about it yeah you know uh so yeah there are a lot of victims infants the most the most innocent reading your book and then going to read Harry

Washington uh Medical Apartheid you know and you just learned things that you would have never even known how we were experimenting Tuskegee syphilis that's as far as we go yeah and that was Child's Play compared to what was and I'll tell you something you mention that I gives me a segue right now because J Mar and Sims the same man who experimented on all of these women also accused enslaved Africans accuse them for the fact that the children have what we now know as neonatal Tetanus he called it trimis nenti just made of something but

it's neonatal tetanus tetanus derives from from manure oh wow the likely cause of it because of the proximity enslaved Africans were to animal Stables but he said it was because of their indecency of their parents and so he decided he was going to try to correct it with the shoemakers all and it is a pointed object that they poke holes in leather with every Bor child that was born with what neonat Tetanus with people like him cause because of where they had to sleep attempted to reshape their heads and had a 100% fatality rate killed

every single child yeah and they had a statue of him until 2018 when harod Washington myself and others said you g to move that from Central Park Central Park had J Mar and Sims it's now at his grave by the way that's where the statue is but it stood there until 2018 he was a monster and They were praising him because he was he was the uh medical the modern Medical Association he was the president he was the President right and so here's here's what we are are are struggling with right one the lies just

literally outright lies and then the absence of the truth not just the lies that they're saying but the fact that certain things never make it to the text and now even the two pages of black History that you and I grew up with that's gone and one of those was a picture listen so we we don't have and again but shame on us especially now to think anybody's going to lean in if we don't lean in no one will yeah if we don't lean in no one will as we begin to close this you not

going talk to you all day I know they gonna be in the comments like Dr Joy gotta come back Dr Joy gotta come back um I ask every guest that comes on to The show one word that they are committed to in this season of their life one word Man Truth yeah truth that's my commitment why because without truth you have nothing you don't have anything in your marriage if you don't have truth you don't have anything in your in your work in your faith you have nothing nothing if you don't have truth it is

the again The foundation of everything else you know and um sometimes it's hard it's hard but we are renewed we are lifted by truth you know it's like my grandmother used to say and I talk about this a little bit because my grandmother ofilia she used to say you know what you got to do with a boil now I didn't know what a boil was first of all but she would always and it would always be a point in the conversation where she say you know what You got to do with a boiler I don't

know if they had a lot of boils back then I I don't know what that was about and of course she is speaking in metaphor because a boil is something that has to be treated or it will Fester so you sometimes have to Lance it mhm and that is painful but you got to get that poison out in order to heal he and that is what truth is truth is Lancing the boil it's laning the boil Dr Joy negru you are you are so necessary you are so needed I am so grateful that you came

and spent some time with me this has been so Divine it has been years in the making but I am so glad I got to share space with you Vault empowers talks another good one I need you to go ahead and share this with somebody who needs a little more truth in their life uh we're shed in light in this season 3 I'm so excited for what is to come I'm so glad you decide to join Me today I'm your girl Brandy Harvey until next time eat well give a damn move your body every single

day peace