Naomi Osaka & Taylor Townsend Black Tennis Players’ Lunch Hit the Right Nerve

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:01][singing] [music] [music] >> Welcome back. Welcome back. You are listening to L'Oreal Daniel Favors on Sirius XM's Urban View. We're talking powers and becomes action. I want to talk about private blackness today. And the reason I need to talk about that is because one of the challenges that we have experienced in our community has been question as to how much we keep to ourselves versus how much we share. What do we invite them to versus what can they never come to like the cookout for example. We should never ever have that mistake made again. And several years ago I'd written an article entitled dear black people it's okay to have private black meetings. And I talked about the fact that a lot of white allies and definitely white, you know, enemies.

[00:00:49]People who are are full opponents and proponents of whiteness culture.

[00:00:53]Many of them find it problematic when they are excluded from private black meetings. In fact this weekend when we were on the real black Wall Street tour that's a private tour. It is a paid private tour not just it's not just something that's open to everybody you can just come in and see. And there were several moments where people who were clearly not from our community came and they just started listening and then one of my colleagues was like look at this. And I look up and here here they go just a smiling and a grinning and just and not even so much smiling and grinning at the knowledge being shared because had they paid attention to the knowledge that was being shared they would have known there was nothing smiling about it. There was nothing to grin about. They were just smiling and grinning at seeing all these black people that they just got a chance to talk to and and not even talk to observe.

[00:01:37]Observe. Cuz they we we weren't engaged.

[00:01:39]They were staring at us as we were watching the men. Now I was standing somewhere on the outskirts. And so the idea was that they were they were observing right? [laughter] They were observing as we were learning. And so the director the chief basically said this is a private meeting. You you're not a part of this body. And basically waited until they went and it took it happened a couple times, right? It happened a couple of times because there were people who were quite frankly really wanting to see what was happening and really wanting to be a part of what was happening even though it was not for them. It was specifically for us. It was specifically for us and they could not take it. They could not tolerate it and so they basically acted in ways that that made us realize y'all not for us and y'all ain't about us and and this was a problem. This was a huge problem and so it reminded me of this conversation that I wanted to have last week about Naomi Osaka doing something very similar and not necessarily setting up a private tour but having a private space where she and her other her friends the members of the black tennis communite were able to gather. It was a lunch. It was a private meal, a breaking of bread for people to come together. It was an opportunity for people to be able to gather and for people to be able to to to build people who were dealing with the depressions of being black and in this field and and they took a picture and they shared it. And then here came the whines and whites. They were very upset.

[00:03:02]They were very concerned. They were not very happy about this at all. They were very bothered. They were very upset about it and that was because they weren't invited. They were upset because they could not participate in something that was not designed for them, something that they would not have been prepared for, something that was not intended for them, something that was quite frankly not anything that they should have been interested in. You know what I'm not interested in? I am not interested in the private meetings at the Korean rocket scientists have.

[00:03:27]Korean rocket scientists having a meeting, I don't need to be there. I am neither Korean nor am I a rocket scientist. I don't need to be in that meeting. I'm not even concerned about what's happening in the black rocket science meetings. Shout out to Dr. Chris Jones. Dr. You I'm sure y'all have private meetings for black rocket scientists. I am not a rocket scientist.

[00:03:42]So I don't need to be in that meeting.

[00:03:44]And there is this desire to constantly be in observation of what black people are doing and to take offense when as a white person you not allowed access and entree into those spaces. Now, that's not something that is just sort of out of nowhere. That is a part of the Remember when I spoke last week about Bacon's Rebellion and how there was this period uh when poor white people and enslaved Africans were working together against the interest of the wealthy white planter elite and there were a lot of whites who were very concerned about that and they were very upset about that because those people working together uh the the black enslaved Africans and the indigenous people were I'm sorry, not the indigenous people. They were actually working against the indigenous people. They were under the leadership of this crazy white man named Nathaniel Bacon who wanted to be able to do more in terms of taking more land from the indigenous. So, he organized poor white people and enslaved Africans to work together. They weren't necessarily on the same page about what all of that was happening. So, we always got to tell like the full story so it's not just a whole bunch of heroes riding to the day, but we have some understanding as to what's actually going on.

[00:04:38]And uh what basically ends up happening is that we we were in a situation where um oh, hold on. Let me see. Can I do this? Yes, okay. I can do that. I just did a I just did a little thing. I'm on YouTube, y'all. For those of you who are listening on air didn't know that. Ding ding ding ding. But, you would have gotten if you're following and subscribed. Um but, I wanted to see what I could do with this little layout situation. So, it's kind of dope.

[00:04:55]Anyway, so back when I was talking about Bacon's Rebellion, the reason that mattered is because after Bacon's Rebellion, where the poor white people and the black people who were working together again nefariously reasoned, but they were working together. They were so successful that they were able to burn down the capital of Virginia, which was the colony, one of the largest colonies at that time. And so, white people then first of all began calling themselves white because up until that point they really hadn't. They were still Europeans. They were you know, the Dutchman, the Brit, the German, what have you. Then they began using phrases like white. And that's when we begin seeing poor white people sacrifice and and give up their their nationality and give up their their home cultures to be a part of whiteness culture, which basically meant you gave up everything else in order to be here and to be a well-paid slave as that Polish woman uh said a couple years ago or a couple of days ago, which I shared on the video a couple weeks ago. The reason this is important is because after Bacon's Rebellion happened, what did I tell y'all all that wealthy white people did?

[00:05:48]They began employing rules that said we will never allow this to happen again.

[00:05:52]They stopped importing poor white people and turned almost entirely to enslaved or to race-based enslavement, which meant that they said we are no longer going to bring in any more poor whites.

[00:06:01]Even though they're our cousins, they're our little brothers and our little sisters, they're technically our family and our neighbors and our friends, and they know us better because we share the same culture, we're not bringing them no more because they being in here is going to make it hard for us to make as much money as we want. We're going to just go into slavery. And the poor white who are here, we're just going to tell them, "Yes, we know slavery is directly in opposition to your economic interest because if we are not paying labor and you are coming here to get labor, you can't compete with free labor cuz we ain't paying them, but we will let you be white. You're no longer going to be Dutch or Scotch or Brits or French or whatever the hell it was the hell you were before you got here. We're going to let you be white, which means you will be in charge of the blacks and you'll never be black, so that's always going to be a benefit for you."

[00:06:40]In addition to that moment, they began deputizing white people to be able to engage in a hyper-vigilance around black people. This also happened during Black Wall Street, right? Because those 25,000 people who came, who remember that white man who said in the first in the segment that I just did a little while ago, he said it went from 2,000 to 25,000. They were just if you got a gun and you're white, you're deputized. That's all you needed. Kind of like how now all you need is to be white and entitled and you get [ __ ] That's all you needed to be was white and and have a gun. And you were deputized in this effort. And even beyond Black Wall Street, from the beginning of the race-based of the shift to race-based enslavement, watching black people, monitoring black people was always a part of the process. The when we talk about the slave patrols, they weren't just going out to catch runaway enslaved Africans. They were also going out into the woods to break up meetings of enslaved Africans who were meeting about how to get free. They were also used to break up uh all sort and this is why they end up at becoming very good at union busting. The police became very good at union busting once we shifted out of enslavement and into more industrialized America. But the idea of constantly being in monitoring and watching, it was your duty and your obligation as a what? To be in observation of black people. So when we're standing there at Black Wall Street and the real Black Wall Street tour and all these people are coming in trying to watch, didn't pay, weren't really that I mean I'm assuming they from there, they weren't really like didn't do anything to get access properly to the information. They just wanted to watch us.

[00:08:09]That's historical. They are their ancestors wildest dreams. And so what we have is a as a reality where quite frankly, anytime black people are doing whatever it is that they can to try to do anything private, it triggers something in white people. The same way when we see the police it triggers something up. You could be driving MISS DAISY. YOU COULD BE DRIV- You could be driving perfectly normally well, not breaking a single rule, but as soon as you hear woo woo, it does something. In fact, I apologize to those of you who are driving who just heard me make that sound effect because I know it triggered some of you. My apologies.

[00:08:39]part of enslavement meant that you could not have private spaces. White people stayed worried. This is what I wrote years ago. White people stayed worried that if black people were able to have private meetings that we would use that time to plot slave rebellions or freedom plans that would interfere with their right to enjoy white privilege. So most states in the north and south implemented rules that prohibited groups of more than three black people gathering without a white person present. Whites were so freaked out about the things that blacks discussed when whites weren't present that they passed laws requiring black churches to have their sermons approved by trusted white people. In many states a white person had to be present during black church services so that black pastors or God didn't encourage enslaved black people to fight for freedom. GOD FORBID GOD ENCOURAGE YOU TO fight for freedom.

[00:09:18]There was going to be a white man watching to make sure that [ __ ] didn't happen. Many making white people comfortable was enforced through strict laws and the use of wanton extreme violence against black people. Those laws and excessive use of force worked so well that even white babies who nursed on black breasts and were raised by black women became adults who inherited their enslaved black nannies as part of their family's estate and proceeded to rule over them accordingly.

[00:09:41]And that is an taken from an article that I wrote years ago called dear black people, it's okay to have private black meetings. The reason this is important is because and I wrote that this is back in the early in the mid-2000s, right? This is a long In fact, this website is really old. You can tell from the way the layout looks that I have not updated it much at all. But the reason that matters today is because Naomi Osaka was not plotting the revolution, although I wouldn't be mad at her if she did. Naomi Osaka was trying to create a warm and hospitable environment for other black tennis players and a lot of whites got upset. A lot of whites got upset. Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend are the two black women who came together for this effort and according to the AP, their success at the French Open, their success comes after drawing attention off the court for organizing a dinner for black players before the tournament started. Now, that is the second sentence of this AP article. The AP article is basically it's not IT'S NOT EVEN ABOUT SUPPOSED to be not even about the dinner. Supposed to be about tennis, but the article is all about the dinner even though it starts off with them at the French Open. Osaka and Townsend's dinner for black players at French Open caused a bit of stir on social media. So much of a bit of stir that the AP decided that they were going to talk about it like in the new You know how much news is actually happening this is what y'all decided to talk about. So what becomes a private meeting amongst friends who then decided to take a picture and share a picture of it, all of a sudden now it becomes a race issue. Because the whites could not be invited. You know how many luncheons and dinners and brunches and happy hours and snack breaks and coffee breaks and smoke breaks and weed breaks and all the other breaks that people could possibly squeeze into a day that black people are never invited in that white people have all day everyday. Nine times out of 10, we don't even want to be with y'all. We be dying to get out of having to socialize with y'all that we're because y'all's socialization ain't well how we do. Y'all do a whole lot of drinking things, I do a whole lot of other things. We do that stuff. No, no, let me not say that.

[00:11:34]Let me not We don't drink the way y'all drink, okay? I ain't trying to say we don't drink cuz, you know, sisters be outside, brothers, we be outside, we outside. We don't do it the way y'all do. And we don't social even when we are in social settings with many of you in the workplace, it is so uncomfortable.

[00:11:50]And it is something that a lot of us have have Let me not give away all the secrets and the recipes, but y'all know what it is to be in one of them places when them people is partying real hard after closing the deal or after negotiating something successfully and everybody is, you know, 10 sheets to the wind and what you have in your glass look sparkly and bubbly, but it's really just, you know, soda water.

[00:12:09]Hey, anybody ever did that? You just get some tonic water and and say, "Make it look fancy." Put a little pineapple slice on it. So, people think I'm drinking with you I ain't drinking with you. You ain't safe to be around sober, let alone when all of y'all is drunk. I ain't drinking with y'all. But, there is this thing that that there is this need for white people to be in black spaces and that's one of the reasons why black people have to get very much more comfortable protecting black spaces. The article goes on to say, uh "It caused a bit of a stir, which I thought was pretty funny because for so long we have been the ones that are the minority in the sport where we kind of stick out."

[00:12:37]This is what Taylor Townsend said in response to all the chatter on social media. "And now, coming together all of a sudden seems like a problem." The article continues, "While Townsend said the reaction from her Instagram post about the evening was mostly positive, there was online criticism. Several comments on their post suggested the dinner was segregation. Another one said, 'When are the white, Latino, and Asian parties?'"

[00:12:58]Did you ask the Latinos where their party was at and why you didn't get invited there? I'm sure the Latinos have parties and lunch You know why? Because they have a culture, even the black Latinos, right? They got a culture, they have a language, they have a rhythm, they have a move. Now, the black Latinos obviously could be a part of black American spaces because we are pan-African, but that's because racism rules are stupid. It's a whole stupid system. Y'all created this [ __ ] we ain't do it. And now, you just get mad when we seem to play the game a little bit better than you both on and off the court.

[00:13:26]It continues, "It all prompted Townsend to quote a lyric from the rapper Finesse 2 Times. He said, "It's cool when they do it. It's a problem when I do it."

[00:13:35]Because the reality is we don't want to We're not trying to be at y'all's meetings. We've been at y'all's meetings. And when we're the smartest person in the room and we have to look around and wonder how the hell did y'all make it this far and I had to struggle to be here and y'all are dumb and just entitled. I had to actually be smart. We ain't trying to be in those spaces. We ain't trying to be Now now those of us who are often ain't trying to be in black spaces.

[00:13:55]And And what's interesting about that is as I said earlier, I'm reading Tiffany Cross's book Love Me. Really good.

[00:14:03]Really good book. And there's a section in there where she talks about this black woman who played a very key role in her getting the show. And then that same black woman who had a reputation for wanting to only be in white spaces, wanting to kowtow and and negro before in front of white spaces, who was the president of the company at that time, was also the one who fired her. And she talks about the firing after describing all of the many ways that this particular black woman had basically had a reputation for shafting black people and wanting to shaft black people because she thought that it was going to help her to elevate. I'm not saying the woman's name. Get the book. Read the book. Love Me. She names names. Tiffany Cross does. She names names. It's a very good story. It's a very good book and it's a She uses her personal story to explain so much about what's happening.

[00:14:45]I highly recommend it. Get your hands on the book. But the reason I'm saying this right now is because she talks about this black woman who was a part of firing her and who frankly apparently was shafting a whole lot of black people. Got to watch them cuz skinfolk and kinsfolk ain't necessarily the same.

[00:14:58]But she describes that black woman as somebody who did want to be in those spaces. So often for us when we are talking or we're building with people from our community who want to be in white spaces exclusively and then want to be the only one in those white spaces, that is a whole problem. That is a whole problem. But they not like us.

[00:15:15]Okay? So when Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend are having this this lunch where they're able to support each other and bring people together. The idea that there are not white parties. The idea that there are not Latino or Asian party. And I'm going to actually give the Latinos and the Asians a bit of an asterisk here. I feel like people often will add them in when you're really talking about a black white binary. But the idea that whenever we have seen images of white tennis players together, it has never been read as an exclusionary act because white people being together is seen as the default.

[00:15:46]Black people being together is seen as the problem. Going back to these black codes, which again said that black people were not allowed to do that.

[00:15:52]Legally, we were prevented from being able to gather, which is why right now, if you go to corporate America, and one of the things I wrote about in my book Afrostate of Mind: Memories of a Nappy Headed Black Girl, which came out in 2013, was that we have people Oh, was that in the draft of my new book?

[00:16:06]Ooh, which book is that? I'm working on a new book, y'all. It's the same book I've been working on for a little while.

[00:16:10]I can't remember if this was in that book. It don't matter. The point is, there's a story that I tell in one of these books where I talk about the fact that one of my husband's a very good friend was a vice president at a bank, corporate America, you know, Midtown Manhattan, what have you. And he's meeting said friend, and they're meeting for drinks. And then another one of my husband's friends, who was also a vice president at a same at the same bank in Midtown Manhattan, also enters into the location where they're sitting down having their lunch or their gathering or whatever. And my husband says, "Hey, so-and-so, come over." And he's thinking that the two of them are black vice presidents at the same bank. Of course, they know each other. He's thinking it's going to be a three-brother sit-down and lunch. You know, it was going to be a two-brother lunch. Now it's a three-brother lunch.

[00:16:49]They had not known each other. My husband introduced them together, and he was like, "Dag, I just assumed all y'all would know each other. Y'all work at the same space." And then they jokingly say, "Yeah, bro, nah. In these spaces, too many of us together, we That's how we don't last. Most of us end up working in teams fully isolated. If there are two or three of us at the water cooler to this day, it's going to be a problem.

[00:17:08]It's going to be a meeting." And he, my husband, thinking they're joking.

[00:17:11]They're like, "We ain't joking.

[00:17:12]We ain't joking." To this day, there is an issue whenever we want to do anything for ourselves. And so I thought it was very important if Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend are going to be subjected to this, I think it is really important for us to take some time to remind us about why it is so important for us to unapologetically, proactively gatekeep our [ __ ] Number one, everybody else does. Any healthy society, people or community is going to gatekeep their stuff because it's theirs. I shouldn't even call it gatekeeping, it is theirs.

[00:17:42]It is their stuff. It's it's it belongs to them. Why do you have access to it?

[00:17:47]Oh, you don't except if you have a colonizing mentality.

[00:17:50]Yeah, if you've got a colonizing mentality, sure, then you're going to feel slighted. But if you were minding your own business, Becky, you would be just fine. But one of the things I talk about in this article was that if you don't understand the the the the primary beliefs that uphold whiteness culture, then it's going to be really difficult to understand why it is that they see anything that we do for ourselves as a threat to them. Slavery, colonization, Jim Crow, these were race-based systems that were supported by two basic beliefs. Number one, that white people, by virtue of their whiteness, have a God-given right to dominate the earth and rule over all the non-white people, and that black people, by virtue of their blackness, are divinely ordained to be a permanent slave class who will forever serve out in perpetuity to white people. Now, these beliefs, as I note, are prompted both by white people who owned slaves and those who didn't. So even those of you who say, "My family immigrated here after after slavery. We never owned a slave." Yeah, but if they were here, they'd want to. They they they would want to. You know how we know that they would want to they would have wanted to own enslave black person because when they came here, they took on white privilege and did not maintain their own ethnic identity.

[00:18:49]Argue with your mom. Argue with your grandma. She helped make those Argue with your granddad. They helped to make those decisions. And so for the enslaved America, there was no such thing as privacy. Privacy is a right. It is a right that white people had that black people did not. Privacy indicates humanity. Privacy and the right to keep something from the person that owns you indicates a willingness to buck the slave system. Think about it this way.

[00:19:17]Let's say you have a pet.

[00:19:19]I know this is going to upset some of the pet owners. I have a cat. My husband is bitterly opposed to us owning animals because he says anything I love you, baby. But he says anything that you open up the door would want to go outside and be on its own without having to answer to you and you don't let that thing go out the door, that's slavery. So he is very much opposed to owning animals or of any sort, but so it's a it's a it's a philosophical debate that we have in our household. But imagine for those of you who own a pet. Imagine you have a dog and imagine your dog does something in one part of the room that he don't want you to see. And you every time you come to the room the dog start growling and and barking and acting real out of sorts, real in ways that you were like very surprised cuz your dog is a loving dog. You have a loving relationship, but you are technically the master of this dog and the dog is trying to keep you from knowing what's happening and that dog got the nerve to live in your house by force, of course, but because it's your fault the dog is there. But but imagine you would feel like you need to investigate. Right? If if you are a typical American dog owner, you would want to investigate. Well, what is fluffy hiding? Come little fluff, let me see what's over there. Little fluffy, why are you biting me? You've never been You would want to know what's I know y'all don't sound like that when you're talking to your dog. I'm talking I'm trying to channel Miss Milly in my head when I'm having this [laughter] conversation. I get it. I get it. I get it. But if your pet had something in a part of your home that they did not want you to access, it would trigger in you as the owner or the master, someone who takes ultimate responsibility for being benevolent, you would want to know what that is. That is how white people thought and whiteness culture, the whiteness culture proponents and even the abolitionists, that is how they thought about black people and our right to keep anything from them. And one of the things that I said was that white people stayed worried that if black people were able to have private meetings, that we would use that time as I said earlier to plot slave rebellions.

[00:21:02]So they passed these black codes that said you had to have all manner of surveillance and if you did not have that manner of surveillance, you could lose your life. You could lose your life. And so these relationship dynamics are still very present in all of the interactional interracial interactions that we still have, even when it comes to whether or not Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend can have a private meeting.

[00:21:22]Now, I'm just going to say with my full chest, yes. It is perfectly acceptable for you to have private meetings, private conversations. And the fact that I have to say that is indicative of as to the the gross levels with which we have been indoctrinated to work against our own best interest. And that what that often looks like is that we censor ourselves. Uh we hold back. We don't say what we really think and feel in the way that we really think and feel it. And if we don't have a private black space where those conversations can happen, then we are forever going to be sequestering our true thoughts. And now we know for most of us, quite frankly, nearly all of us, our survival in this country has largely and continues to largely depend on our ability to make white people feel comfortable. Whether we're at work, whether we're trying to get a raise, uh whether we're trying to get an apartment or a leadership position or a house or approval for whatever, it is largely our success in those areas is largely based on how comfortable we can make our white colleagues or the white person who is in a decision-making capacity in that moment. And that's something else that Tiffany Cross talks a lot about in her book, the white people who were able to make ultimate decisions, even in between her and the black woman who was making who made the final decision, all the ways in which white people are able to and and often, when you are a proponent of whiteness culture, uphold your ability to dictate the the choices that black people have. And and so what again this means is that usually when you all are when we are in a room and then one of a non-black person enters that room, we shift the entire conversation.

[00:22:46]Shift the entire conversation. Now, years ago I when I told you all about the Sankofa discussion circles that we used to have when I was in college um and then had in community uh for many, many years before everything switched to virtual and COVID pandemic and whatnot. In those Sankofa circles, when back in the day, only black people were being those spaces.

[00:23:05]Only black people were being those spaces. Why? Because if we are talking about our trauma and what we have navigated and what we are navigating and somebody who embodies that trauma, whether they mean to or not, they could be an ally, but their physical presence in that room meant that the very honest and raw and cleansing and clearing and healing conversation that we were having stopped. Paralyzed. Stopped instantaneously. So, it is necessary for us to one, realize why it is that there is this tension around black people having access to private spaces. It is important that we two recognize that that tension is really just in the furtherance of allowing a slave culture to perpetuate itself, a whiteness culture to perpetuate itself, a white narcissistic culture to perpetuate itself. And then three, we are going to have to do what is necessary to really say, despite the fact that you are uncomfortable and I am uncomfortable because making white people not comfortable is very uncomfortable for us. Some of us get a little glee out of it, but that glee comes when we recognize that this is something that we have not been able to do for a very long time. There are so many of us when we sense a white person is not comfortable, we will adjust ourselves to ease them many much the similar way that um if you are a proponent of patriarchy and you live in a patriarchal relationship, you have a patriarchal relationship. If you are the woman, the female-identified person in that patriarchal relationship and you sense that there is something wrong with the male, the husband in that relationship, if you are an upholder of that belief in the most extreme sense, you will bend, break, twist, contort, and manipulate yourself to do whatever you Here we go.

[00:24:39]Remember that scene in The Color Purple when in the first Color Purple, when Hakim is meeting his betrothed woman, his betrothed the woman to whom he is going to be married and she says, he's like, "Well, what do you like? What type of it is that you like?" And he says, "What would you like to do? What type of it is that you would like to do?" And he realizes that she's going to do whatever he wants. So then he says, "Bark like a dog." And she goes, "Woof!" Woof! And that that whole scene, I love that whole scene. But that scene, that complete and total deference from her to him is kind of what whiteness culture demands from black people. And you see at one point when he asks her, "What do you like to do?" And she's like uncomfortable by the question because all of her training has taught her to center this man, to center his needs, to center him. What did I I Somebody said, "You mean Coming to America." What did I say it was called?

[00:25:25]Did I still call it Harlem Nights? I did I call it the wrong movie? I meant Coming to America. I don't know what I called it, but I see in the comments, which I can now see on this screen because of this new platform we're using. Apparently, I did not say Coming to America. I meant to say Coming to America. I might have said Harlem Nights. I don't remember what movie I called it. Whatever it is, y'all knew what it was. Y'all knew what it was because we are on the same page because we be having private black communication. The point I'm making is this.

[00:25:45]>> [laughter] >> Yes, it is called I said Color Purple.

[00:25:47]I'm so sorry. I did mean Coming to America. Thank y'all. But you see how y'all knew? Cuz we speak the same language. Mhm. So I'm saying. So I'm saying. The point is this.

[00:25:57]They demand deference. They demand inclusion because their slave master slaves their post-traumatic master syndrome is still driving how they make decisions. How we in Dr. Joy DeGruy's book, Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, we are operating with the remnants of the epigenetic transfer of the harm of enslavement, they are grappling with the epigenetic transfer of the harm of masterhood and the harm of a superiority complex. And I'm saying it's a harm because anytime you believe that you are the best thing to ever do it, you're the best thing on the planet simply because you you woke up in the skin that you're in, there's something wrong with your mind, you're sick. There's a sickness there that you got to figure out. But I need us to recognize that what Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend did in this moment is exactly how we need to move as a people. Not only did they have the private meeting, they were then bold enough to take a picture and show it.

[00:26:45]Now, some of you have said, "Well, if it was private, they should have kept it to themselves." We don't They did keep it to themselves. Do you know what happened in that conversation? No. They did keep it to themselves. I don't know what they were talking about and I guarantee you don't either. Now, they took a picture to commemorate themselves in the moment.

[00:27:00]That was public, but the essence of the conversation, that was not for public ears and and and or public eyes. And so this idea that they had this event and then they posted what they wanted to post of it, meaning they were tapping into their agency and they were tapping into uh to what it was that they determined was appropriate for them, what they chose to share. They revealed to themselves what they thought was appropriate. Well, then, good on them. And then when you add to that fact that they then decided to be unapologetic about it.

[00:27:30]Unapologetic in some of the best ways because Taylor Townsend then starts quoting the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. I JUST OH MY GOD, this is amazing. And and she says she quotes Tupac uh when in a post about the evening when she says, "Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. I say the darker the flesh, then the deeper the roots." That's an amazing song. Uh but the reason I'm highlighting this today is because this is how we move forward.

[00:27:52]This is one of the ways that we move forward. Now, yes, there's time for us to connect with the allies. Yes, of course, there's time for us to collaborate with people who are not black and and do collaboration and coalition building. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All of that matters. All of that matters.

[00:28:06]However, like every other community, it is important for us to recognize, to value, and prioritize having private black spaces where we can have private black conversation, private black dialogue to deal with private black issues. So, we can engage in figuring out what is going to be required for us to heal from the very harms that we are navigating and to uplift and support each other. I don't get it I have a lot of Jewish friends. I don't get to go to their meetings and I wouldn't even ask. I I have no desire to be in those spaces. I have frie I when when my uh I say I mentioned Korea earlier, when when my Korean friends would go to Korean school, when we were younger, I didn't go. We were allies. We got along. That's who introduced Shout out to to some of my Korean friends who introduced me to kimchi, a food a food that I love to this day. But I didn't get to go to their meetings, and I didn't ask. Why would I? That's for them.

[00:29:03]And it is important for us to recognize that we have to be able to say, "This is for us." It's not for you. You know how when your kids ask you, "Can you Can so-and-so come over?" No, no. This event This This is a a family time conversation. This is a family meeting.

[00:29:15]This isn't This isn't for everybody else. You can play with them outside later. Right now, this is time for us.

[00:29:20]And the bolder we get at that, the stronger we get at that, the more effective we get at that. Because again, we are also healing from our post-traumatic slave syndrome. It is not comfortable to tell white people, "You can't come in here." In that moment when that man told them white people that they could not continue eavesdropping on the tour and gawking at black people, it was a little I mean, we knew it was going to be fine because we had the ancestors and it was going to be fine.

[00:29:42]But there was a moment of What's going to happen?

[00:29:45]Like, it was a moment of Let's just see how this is going to play out. Because you never really know. You never really know.

[00:29:51]But that man, the chief, he stood on business. He stood on black business.

[00:29:57]Looked them in the eye and said, "Not today. Not though. Not happening today."

[00:30:01]And shout out again to Chief Egwuonwu Amusan. See how much easier I get at saying it now that I've been practicing it a couple times. Yeah. So I want to say thank you to Naomi Osaka. I want to say thank you to Taylor Townsend. I want to say thank you to these black women who young enough to be like, "Nope. Not doing it." Shout out to Gen Z young millennials. Y'all Y'all really have no brought-up-sy, but y'all are really good at helping those of us that got too much to be a little bit more free. So I'm going to appreciate you for that. Just don't tell my kids I said that. Privacy is a right that is enjoyed by whole human beings.

[00:30:32]Privacy is the the legal framework through which we get the ability to have reproductive justice. It is the legal framework through which we get to have the ability the right to love who it is that we want to love. Shout out again, once again, this is Pride Month. Shout out to all the members of the LGBTQIA+ massive. Unfortunately, no shout out to Ghana, which passed a law that basically made being gay illegal. Why y'all are listening in Ghana to these these white pastors who keep coming over there, all these evangelicals who come over there to Ghana, Uganda, and do everything they can, even Burkina Faso, do everything that they can to convince y'all to embrace a white European approach to to homophobia. I don't know why y'all be listening to them. They ain't never brought you nothing good. We're going to talk about that later.

[00:31:10]But, it is really important that we get comfortable saying, "No, this space is not for you."

[00:31:17]And stand on that. And look them in the eye boldly. Look them in the eye boldly.

[00:31:20]Don't No, well, you know, I'd rather you didn't come. It'd be It'd be better if you didn't come. We really wasn't thinking about you. You're not even going to like the food. No, no, no. This place is not for you. I'm sure there are many other communities or or dinners or or towns or locations or houses or anywhere else you can have Go right ahead. This place right here, this one is not for you.

[00:31:38]And I Maybe we should even practice saying that in the mirror. No, not for you. This one's not for you. Oh, so nice. Thank you so much for wanting to come. Yeah, but this one's not for you.

[00:31:46]>> [laughter] >> Not for you. It's not for you. And be okay with that. It is uncomfortable. We should probably role-play and practice a little bit, and you know, get in the mirror, you know, say, look you think about the person that you embodying who's who's trying to thrust their non-community membership into your space, and then look at Think about who they are. Look in the mirror and and have the conversation. Workshop it.

[00:32:05]Practice at it because we got to get better at building our resistance muscles cuz a lot of them have atrophy.

[00:32:10]But, Naomi Osaka, Taylor Townsend, and everybody else who showed up at that dinner, all of you who were in that picture, God bless. Appreciate you. And one of the things that Naomi said was uh growing up, there weren't a lot of tennis players I could look up to that looked like me. Being a minority in a sport like tennis is very isolating, but the positive is that you get to keep tabs on everyone that, being blunt, is black.

[00:32:32]There's a fellowship, a camaraderie that doesn't need words to describe. You just feel at peace knowing that there's another person who's experienced similar things to you and who feels less alone.

[00:32:40]There's a saying, "When you win, I feel like I win, too." And while that's true, I also feel like seeing any of us exist in this space that is so clearly not for us is a win in itself. And she goes on to say many other beautiful, beautiful things. But what I also loved about this was one of the good things that was in this article was that this is this dinner this was not something new.

[00:32:59]Althea Gibson, according to AP, was the first we know she's the first black player to compete at a major tennis tournament.

[00:33:06]And what she talks about is that she also would have these Sunday dinners.

[00:33:10]They would have these gatherings for black people to come together. And hold on, let me see. Oh, yes. Here's the article. I wanted to get to this real quick. I hear you, I mean I know we got to go cuz the man's going to cut us off cuz the show is about to be over. Uh the article says, quote, "The dinner recalls how going back to the Harlem Renaissance, black athletes, entertainers, musicians, and writers held salons and dinners to celebrate the success in a familial space. Such events were not meant as a slight to non-blacks." Katrina Adams, a former pro and then the first black president of the US Tennis Association, said she was pleased to see an old tradition reemerging. "In our era, in the '80s and '90s," she says, "we hosted soul food Sunday in the middle Sunday of Wimbledon when there was no play." And she says, all the black players got together, cooked together, ate, and enjoyed with being with each other. Adams says that players like Garrison and Lori McNeil hosted the Wimbledon gatherings for years and that she passed on the tradition to the likes of Shonda Rubin, the Williams sisters, MaliVai Washington, and Roger Smith. And so this moment that Taylor and and Naomi were able to put together is an African tradition and not just one of resistance but of healing. An African tradition of gathering and breaking bread together.

[00:34:16]One of the ways that we were able to be so successful in our efforts at Penn State has a lot to do and I shared this with y'all before.

[00:34:22]Not mother, sister. Mama Price, one of the elders in that community, would hold Sunday dinners where the community that was around would gather and they would break bread and talk about what it had meant to them to experience what they were experiencing as black people. And we should hold these spaces sacred.

[00:34:37]So, thank you, Naomi. Thank you, Taylor, for reminding us that it is an ancient tradition for us to gather, for us to meet, for us to collaborate, to break bread, to build each other up, to uphold each other, to uplift each other, and to do what is necessary to see the best in each other for our collective good.

[00:34:58]It can't just stay in the realm of Wimbledon or tennis. We must replicate this. This is a a a piece of our This is a piece of our technology. This is a piece of our of our of our success methodology. Like us building in community looks like us gathering and breaking bread. And it has to be able to happen in spaces where we are able to guard them ferociously.

[00:35:20]Cuz everybody else has that. Every other healthy people has that function baked in to how they operate. They just get a chance to do so without the scrutiny because they don't have the legacy of white enslaving to deal with and to grapple with. So, I want to hold it there. I appreciate all of you who are watching on YouTube. I love you all, YouTube. Thank you for being a part of this experience. We have this new platform. I think it's working. I kind of like it. We're we're going to see if we can keep it going. Urban View, we love you. We appreciate you. I want all of us right now to figure out how our purpose aligns with the needs of our community so we can walk in it with our back straight. I want us to tap into our Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Nat Turner love so we learn to love each other harder than we were taught not to.

[00:35:57]Learn to create pathways of opportunity for those who need it and learn to uphold and defend the sanctity of black lives. And then finally, I want us to find as many good things as we possibly can do to make this world a better place. And then get busy doing it.

[00:36:09]Including centering ourselves and normalizing the act of closing the door with only us and our love for each other inside.

[00:36:18]Yeah, I think we'll leave it there. I love you guys. We'll be back tomorrow.

[00:36:21]Peace.

[00:36:22]>> [ __ ] [ __ ] >> [music] >> [ __ ] On my wrist.