Get In the Mix | 1
Show Notes:
Host Julia Washington is joined by Christina Kay to talk about their mixed experiences living in California and how pop culture played a part in their identity.
Transcript:
Hello friends. Welcome to the very first episode of Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous. I'm your host, Julia Washington.
It's no secret to anybody who knows me that I am mixed. My dad is Black. My mom is Italian. Growing up in a predominantly white community in California, it wasn't always easy seeing myself and fitting in because I watched television so much. My parents instituted this system where you had to earn what they call TV tickets.
Every TV ticket was worth 30 minutes of television, and there were different things around the house that you could do to earn a TV ticket. Not only did I not successfully earn TV tickets, I also secretly watched television whenever I could. So clearly there was a problem from the beginning that I loved to TV.
One of the things about television that sort of became my first introduction to pop culture, was the lack of representation, but when you're 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, you don't really realize that you don't really think, "oh, nobody on TV looks like me." For me, it was a matter of enjoying the shows. I grew up watching the Cosby Show, Family Ties,
2 2 7, A Different World, family Matters, you know, TGI Friday night on ABC. In addition to that, we also had family film night, the family member of the month got to pick whatever that family film night movie would be. So we grew up surrounded by television shows and movies. There was music throughout the house as well.
You knew, Dad was home, when Soul Train was on some sort of music video, Dr. Who Star Trek, any sort of old movie, black and white monster movie, like that's how you knew Dad was home. And my mom was a reader, so we read a lot and a lot of books and she worked really hard to find books that had characters that looked like us, but in the late eighties and early nineties, and even into the late nineties, it really was hard.
So I found myself being a little jealous of these fictional worlds that were being created. They looked like they were having fun. They had a solid friend group, everything was wrapped up in 30 minutes or an hour or an hour and a half, depending on what it was. There was always some sort of message about it that we could sit around and talk about as a family.
And then as I got older and started dissecting a little bit more and a little bit deeper, I realized I could never play Diana Ross in a movie. I could never play Julia Roberts' daughter. Like these are things that I started thinking about in junior high. And I started feeling jealous of actors and actresses who were able to play these characters.
So starting to realize that as I started embarking on my own interests and ideals, which I. Theater, writing, music, painting. I started to notice there's a whole place in this pop cultural world where I don't fit. And now here I am in my mid to late thirties, which is a hard thing to admit to whomever is listening at this point and we are now starting to see better representation.
Sure. I'm still jealous. So it's just turned into this lifelong. Examination of what pop culture is, how does it make me feel and who can relate and identify with what we are seeing? What is it like to watch a TV show and not think this isn't representative anything I understand, or that person doesn't really look like me, so I'm going to check out. Or that person it looks like me. That's kind of cool. Like, okay, go on girlfriend. That's why I'm jealous of pop culture because I watch it and I can't always see myself in it. And I'm so jealous of the people that came. But the world is changing. Representation is starting to become more on the forefront of this entertainment industry.
And I'm so excited to see where it's going. I am so thrilled that you are willing to join this journey of examining pop culture through the mixed lens. My entire life has been examining the world through a mixed lens. So that is why we are here to examine pop culture through the mixed line. Because there are so many layers and so many experiences within the mixed community that can feel very isolating and very lonely.
But then at the same time, there are things that are universal. So I'm really excited that you're joining us. I hope that you sit and subscribe and download and follow us on Instagram and just join in the conversation that we are having, especially if you were also a mixed person. Want to hear from you too.
I want to hear your experiences. Is there a TV show or a movie that really touched you deeply or really bothered? You let's have a conversation about it. I look forward to them barking on this journey with you. I have never shied away from talking about my mixed experience. I've never shied away from talking about pop culture.
In my younger years, I dreamed of having a career in Hollywood, whether it was a screenwriter, television writer being in front of the screen. It didn't matter to me. I wanted to create visual arts in some way. We are going to talk about how these movies and shows music impacts us in ways that maybe is a unique experience because we're mixed or maybe it's universal.
That's what we're going to find out. So without further ado, here we go to the show.
So my family makeup is, you know, my, my mom, my dad, my dad is the one who was Black, my mother's Italian. And then I have two siblings. I have a brother and my sister, they are significantly older than me in age. And we all, you were Italian. Yeah, my mom's Italian, but not, uh, I don't know, but she's not the kind of Italian that we all assume like the Godfather Italian or the Goodfellas Italian.
It's a totally different type of Italian culture, which also isn't heavily represented in pop culture either. Right. So that's, that's really crazy to actually, yeah. Now that I'm realizing that neither side of my family has ever been represented in the way that I know them. In pop culture, same. And so I'm the baby of the family, which is a unique experience in the sense that I'm the baby.
But I also grew up kind of like only child because my siblings were out of the house. By the time I was like 12, I resonate with this a lot. And you know that. Yeah. It's funny because we have such like a similar experience with it being so different. Except my mom's the one who's Mexican and white. That my dad's just, you know, good.
Like, I don't know. I think we're like Norwegian and Irish in there for sure. Because my cousins celebrate St. Patrick's Day, like it's, it gets his religious holiday, but then I have two older brothers who also like, knew like were out of the house. That was in middle school or like going into high school.
So I didn't really grow up with them fully in the sense of like my adolescent years and there they have a different dads, so they're Mexican and Italian. So I have that. I would say Godfather Italian. In fifth grade. I remember very distinctly one time Joe to pick me up. I was 10, so he was almost twenty.
He had already had like a couple of tattoos by this point. I think he went, I think he had Corcoran rows. If I'm not mistaken, he worked in construction at the time. So there's cornrows are nasty. Anyone's made me take them out, but he's like six, four. And he's like, uh, like he just looks like a, an angry Italian man, honestly.
And he comes to pick me up and I'm just like this 10 year old kid have, these can be that my brother's coming to get me and everyone the next day was like your brother's so scary why? Because he's normal to you because to me, that's my big brother, but to everyone else, it's like, who is this Italian mobster coming to pick you up? Should we be worried. Do we need to call your parents? Yeah. These don't, these are neither of your parents and what has happened. Oh my gosh. Pin in it, but I have actually a really good story of when my child was in primary school and my mom and my brother went to go pick him up.
So we'll talk about that. If not today. Why tell me no, go for it. My brother's the darkest one out of all of us. He was, you know, he's the first born and he got the green eyes. So we kind of hated him for that. And he's got, he's got a lot of, um, like goldish yellow in his hair. And I did too as a child, but he.
Yeah, his more, his maintained more than minded like mine. You really have to look at it and you really can tell him that some of the other school than there, but in the winter, you can't really tell anyways. And my mom is like the L like, she is like the color of paper and she has dark hair. And so, and then, so my child, my child is like me ethically ambiguous
I forget why my, my mom and brother had to pick him up from school. I, I forget why they did that. But anyway, so, you know, it's the afterschool program. That's on the school campus. They call, call his grade room and it's like, "Hey, send this child." Well, then this adorable, mixed kid comes into the room, but he's not my child and my mom.
And he's looking like you said, my parents are here. And like my mom and my brother looking at her like this, isn't our, like, where's our child. Like all these other children are coming, but no one of them are ours. And then eventually like some, I forget who, which if it was my mom or my brother, but eventually someone says, "Hey, we're still waiting for this child."
And they're like, "oh, this isn't your child?" . And my brother was like, no. So there was some shame because there weren't a lot of brown kids at my kids' school either. So there was this assumption that this brown child belonged to my brown brother as a nephew. My grandma came to pick me up from elementary school.
When I fell off the stage, uh, at band practice one year, because whatever it's funny, they sent her, they sent her home with a sheet about concussions, but they sent it home to her in Spanish. She doesn't fucking speak Spanish.
In the way she looks literally based solely off the way she looks mind you. She had to go in and say like, you're for Christina Johnson. So I don't know what it is that made them think that she doesn't speak English. She doesn't have an accent. You know what it is. I think it's when people like there's a fear about asking. Right? Because remember we just had that moment of like, don't ask me what I am. It's so offensive. But then on the other side of that coin, it's like at the same time, you're also setting you up. We're setting you up for failure because we didn't create space for you to be like, I'm not clear on what, how I need to support you.
When did you realize that your family was different from other families? I think I realized it really young because I, uh, I, a lot of the friends I made had stay at home moms and my mom was a working mom. And I say that lovingly, of course, but I mean, like she was a working mom from the second that she could go back to work.
So I was raised from. Zero to the time I started school within nanny, her name was grace and she S she was full Mexican. She spoke Spanish and she taught me Spanish and English at the same time. So I actually grew up like my first couple of years of life, like a Mexican child, really like, and I went home on the weekends and that's where I learned all my whiteness because my P- my mom would always tell Grace, like, Grace, I get were Mexican, but I don't speak Spanish. And then each communicate with my child. For me. I don't know if I ever realized in childhood that we were different. We went to a predominantly white school. So you would think that it would be obvious that we were like the darkest children on campus and it was a private religious school for that matter.
And then, um, you know, and then that's a whole conversation about that. And we actually, we lived in a predominantly white community. I didn't think anything was weird about my family until like we would leave sort of the bubbles that we lived in, you know, like school was a bubble and people understood that they have racial prejudice, but I didn't know to identify it at the time because when you're.
You know, you don't know what's happening, you just know something's happening. And I think for me it was, I, you know, honestly, I think I was probably in high school when I realized like, oh, I don't, there's not a whole lot of, like, I don't have a lot of friends who have a dad or a parent that looks like my parents.
There was another family though at the elementary school that was also, and this maybe is what normalized it I'm willing to bet as I'm thinking about it, the mom was black, the dad was white. They also had three children. The oldest boy was maybe my age or a year younger. So seeing that starting in like first grade, I was like, I guess an early version of normalizing a mixed family because we weren't the only mixed family.
We were one of two mixed families, high school. I really did have a hard time. High school was like, Some serious racial identity issues that were hard to deal with. I think racial identity is just hard to deal with in general, but then you add adolescent hormone changes and you're just like I think too it's different.
Uh, I always knew our family was different because from the start my brothers had a different family than I did. You know, if you think about it, I grew up in a family. It was normal that our family was not a hundred percent. One thing, you know, it was very normal for me to know that. My brother is have another dad or another set of like family members that not necessarily aren't my family, but they're not.
Yeah. I have a question. Did you guys do the whole with you because you were the product of your parents, but your brothers have a separate dad, did you guys do the whole. Siblings family members of your brothers. Did you, were you encouraged to refer to them as like grandma, grandpa, uncle, auntie. So say that, um, my brothers dad's family has always been like really inclusive and like, they ask about me and they check on me and they check in with me.
And like, as an adult, I have him on like Facebook friends and stuff, but yeah, my, my brothers. I don't know if they just, it wasn't like an encouraged thing either way. It was more just like the bonus, like if they asked or whatever, like we were cordial and nice and like, but I would say that that kind of gave me an upper, like from the beginning, realizing that not every family is.
Black and white thing, like from the start, I understood that families were gray area and my family is great area because we had all these mixed parts already and it didn't make sense. And then we all look so different. Like my brothers looked so different from each other, one's 6, 4, and one's five seven. If you really look at my siblings and I, you can see it, you can see that we're related.
We have similar structure. You can definitely see that. Yeah. And then, but when you, if you were to meet a separately, which a lot of people in town have, because again, the age gap, you may not necessarily put it together. Like I have a recent, new-ish a newer friends that I posted a picture on Easter, or sibling's day on Instagram.
And she DM'd she was like, I had no idea that that person was your brother. And I'm like, that's crazy to me. Because
he's 100% my brother, but we look so different when you, when, in the context of like, when you're trying to categorize people. But when you really start to look at our features, Mannerisms the way that we talk. It's just like, yeah, we're all the same person. No, I know. Whenever I'm around my brothers, I get that too.
I'm like, oh, I can see like our eye shape. I can see like our mouth. I can see the bone structure, how we all get like certain things from my mom or my mom's side of the family. It's just wild. How genetics work. But yeah, I think that that definitely helped play a part in me, understanding mixed experiences from a super young age in different types, like I mean we're both different ethnicities and then we're also different, you know, family setups and then they have the setup of having.
You know, split parents and a new parent. And I have the set up of only having my parents my whole life. So it's like, I've had to be very understanding from my whole life of different situations. And I think that's what's helped me, but it also is what makes me feel so like, it makes me feel like my experiences...
I don't want to say valid, but it's hard to call myself mixed because I am so like, feeling like there's a lot of imposter syndrome too, when you do sort of come out shaded lighter, right? Like I'm the lightest one in my siblings and I can. I can say this without hesitation, because we've had these conversations.
I probably struggled the most with my racial identity out of all my siblings. Like when you see my brother, he looks mono-racial for the most part. Like I've always struggled. If people at home can't see this because we're on audio, but like my hair is big and curly and stuff. Flowy. And my sister definitely got black girl hair or what we call 4 curls and my brother and I have similar hair, but on him because he's male and he keeps it.
Sure it does. Yeah. Look ethnic one way or the other. It's crazy. When you think about like, like you said, the genetic size, like you never know what's going to come out. Like when, oh my God, I know you haven't watched the Harry and Megan interview and I'm not digressing on purpose, but I will tie it back. I promise, when Megan Markle said that there were conversations with prince Harry about how dark Archie skin was going to be when he was born and Oprah was shocked.
Like yes, Oprah. I get that. You're shocked. But also like nobody who comes from a mixed background was shocked by that statement. Yeah, no, because I, one of the things I learned in the aftermath of that interview is that it's pretty universal, that we all have this experience, or the majority of us have this experience where we have a family member of some kind who doesn't understand why we came out, looking the way we look.
And then they make, and you're just playing
really, really irritating and damaging. And we're still asking, what are you. I know, I'm like, God, what are you? Um, so you used to tell people, yeah, people who are like, oh, what nationality are you? Which I think was a theme, very popular in the nineties and early two thousands. And they don't, I haven't heard that lately because we've evolved as a culture, but I would say things like, well, because of the 14th amendment, I'm an American.
No, no, no, no. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, what are you like, what's your, like, what are your parents. One of your parents, uh,
to put the responsibility on somebody who's 12 years old to try and answer that question. If you think about it, it's kind of fucked up. Because it's like at 12, you're still figuring out your own identity. I mean, you're freaking out your identity until the day you die for some people, but at 12 you're figuring out your identity you're in junior high.
So that's real stressful because junior high is stressful and there's this, all these things. And then to have people you don't know. Say things like that to you now, as an adult, I can be like that. Shit's not going to affect me. I don't know you. So I'm not going to let that ruin my day, but between the ages of like 12 and 20.
Nine. It was like, stop invalidating my existence, just stop. And it's not putting the responsibility on me to explain my existence to you. I'm just going to be real adorable.
That's part of the mix. It's part of it. It's part of survival. It's part of survival. Like, I always wonder why I be so like big personality if I wasn't trying to deflect from the fact that I don't want people to ask me what my racial makeup is like, I'm going to give the big shiny show when we're engaging with each other.
So that way we can avoid you asking me questions. What are you, which segue that into? I went to a predominantly white high school. I think I had one other friend at my high school that was like, oh no, I had a couple, there was a couple of friends that I had that were black, but there was also only like 15 black kids in my school, 15 and a half.
If you counted me.
Oh, we have like three and a half people in this room. I'm like, cool. So I'm assuming I'm the hub. So I don't know how to take. That reminds me though, a conversation I had with my cousin, Trina. I remember being like, I don't know, I was like seven or eight and I remember telling her, like I had just found out that my brothers were my half brothers.
Like I didn't understand it until then. And I was like, trying to explain it to her. I was like, So like, like they said the, like, they're just my half-brothers, but like, I don't know what half of me. And she's like, is it like your top half? Is it your bottom half? Is it like your left half or your right
half? Cause she was like 15 and just trying to make me feel better. Cause she's 15 and doesn't know to say, and I'm like, I don't know, but I feel like they're my whole brothers and she's like, they're definitely your whole brothers, even if they're only half of your genetics. And I'm like, yeah. And it's funny.
Cause it's. My cousin is basically my sister at this point in my life. And it's like, it's the same kind of advice. We still give each other. But like, even at such a young age, we're both trying to rationalize. What does that mean? I don't know, but they're still your whole brothers. Ignore what they're saying, right?
Oh my God. I love that story. What was your high school experience like? Because we are in a area that does have a large Hispanic, Latinx population. So, so you know, our county, depending on depending on which sentences you read our counties, either 2% or 8% BLI, which the Hispanic, Latin X population varies between 45 and 49 percent
I would say that part of it, of my experience made it super inclusive. It's inclusive in the sense of like, if you're a Mexican in this area, I grew up in a town where like, They spoke Spanish more than English in high school. It was very much like that. Um, I'm saying that all to get back to the fact that like my high school and all the high schools around here are very like Hispanic because we live in a Hispanic community, but we live in a Hispanic community because live in an agriculture community and that's why I'm trying to point out, like, that's a huge part of the Mexican American. Narrative is the fact that your field workers or your farm workers, but I will say it's a lot more inclusive in the fact that I would say a lot of the people who live here like white people just are so used to the Mexican population, that they're a lot more accepting of it than they are in other states or other areas.
I am very white, 50% of the year. So. I you get that imposter syndrome where it's like in the summer time. I, it. Two Mexican, where the Mexicans are like, they just talk to me in Spanish and then like, I don't know, I'm out of place. And then in the S or like in the wintertime, it's like, they act like I'm the widest person.
Yeah. All time. That actually is a really good segue into representation in pop culture, because as a mixed Black American woman, when I watch television and movies that have representation of other cultures in it, up until. Five years ago. I'm I'm not assuming there's anything wrong with it per se. Right?
Well, I'll think longer than that, I'll say more than five years ago, but we really started talking about these things within the last five years. Like Jane, the Virgin is a really good example. Like I, and I don't know that what they're showing me on TV about the Latinx experience is, is true or untrue because I don't have that experience.
So I'm seeing that representation through pop culture. I may or may not know that it could be harmful or helpful. Um, you know, those types of things, same when it comes to like Asian-American Pacific Islander representation. I don't necessarily immediately know what's harmful or helpful because that's not the culture I reside in.
I can speak to that. To the black experience. So the black experience from my experience, not the black experience, but my black experience when there was like movies that have like banners or Latin next themes. I don't, I don't know if it's bad or good experiences individuals. So my Mexican American experience is going to be different than someone else's because.
Mine is also coming from a mixed mom, you know? And so I'm still getting the trickle down effect, certainly mixed dish, which is a spinoff of Black-ish did an episode first. Firstly Black-ish does a really good episode about colorism that everybody should watch because it's such an important conversation.
The spinoff show mixed dish recently had an episode in their second season where the parents don't realize that the world doesn't see their children the way that they see their kids. And so Santa Monica is the youngest daughter and I'm like, that's, that's like, I feel like I'm the Santa Monica of the family.
Yeah. There've been like, guys I've dated where I'm just like, oh, like six months, three months into it, or two days into it or whatever, have you, I'm like, oh, you're racially prejudiced. And like the worst kind of way. Like you're not racist. Per se, but you're racially prejudice in that you have very harmful views about all of the races that exist specifically Black people.
And I can't take you home. Cause my daddy is a big Black man. And that's going to be a problem for you. I don't know. I don't feel like it's affected my dating life a whole lot. I don't that for me, hasn't been affected just because I'm like, I look like shit. Most of it. But also too, like we talked about, we live in a community that does have a larger Hispanic, Latin X population.
So I just look very normal to me, everyone here. I'm like, oh yeah. One of the mixed people here. Yeah. That's makes sense. I regular here.
I don't know how to tell you that my dad is black. I don't know how many more times I have to say that for you to stop saying that weird ass shit to me. And no, I can't take you home. Could you, do you need to make a book? That says like, "I don't know how else to tell you, man. My dad is Black." He's going to be Black on the stack.
He's going to be Black in the back. I don't know.
my genetic makeup isn't changing, like, back to the Megan. It doesn't change back to the Meghan Archie conversation. Like we don't know what color our children are going to come out, so don't make it a big deal. Yeah. I can't predict the future. I don't know. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. And then we did a joke.
Yeah. And then we do a DNA test and there's like way more European on my dad's DNA than we expected. Like, oh, no wonder. I came out so late. Dad's got way more European than we expect. You can't see the audience. Can't see. But Christina is cracking up right now. Sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. I have to keep muting it's to get rid of the static because I realized if I'm giving you my mic.
Clear, but then I try to unmute it so you can hear my reactions, but I'm also, I think right now it doesn't matter. So, okay. It didn't affect my dating life so much. How has it affected yours? Cause I feel like it's affected here. It's a lot. So we, I grew up in the generation where like colorblindness was really promoted, which it fast forward 25 years and we realized that's actually really harmful, but you know, twenty-five years ago we didn't know that it was, or even.
30 years ago, we didn't know it was harmful. It was just a way to, like, I think that generation for their children was trying to level the playing field in terms of like, you can be that person's friend, even though they're darker than you or lighter than you. Um, but now we know that shit's harmful and so I've had a handful of guys that explanation.
I'm sorry, that explanation is so funny. You're allowed to be their friend, even if they're darker or lighter than you imagine, like actually saying that to your child. I feel like that's a thing people actually have said to people, to children because they don't know how to have conversations about race when you're not facing racial issues every day.
You really don't know how to talk about it. Um, anyways, so. You know, we've, I've had some people where it's like, not an issue like, oh, and then I'll be like really passionate about an issue that deeply affects the black community. And then it turns into a thing for them. "Like, why do you care? You don't have to face that issue."
You're not that. Blah, blah blah. And it's like, oh, hold up. We've been hanging out for six months and you're just now fucking bringing this up. Like you just now think that it's appropriate to say that to me. Like, it doesn't matter if I'm light, it doesn't matter what a terrible thing, just as a person to be like, well, if it does it affect you, why give a shit?
Like, I don't use a lot of things that don't affect me that I give a shit about. Yeah. Just because I'm not going to face the same racial prejudice that my cousin's going to face, doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to care or work for towards better equality and equity, um, for my people just because they don't necessarily look like my people. When once those conversations come up, they'll be like, and we're done dating, which is super disappointing because you like totally paid all the time or.
I don't know. Obviously if I had found my person, I would be married at this point, but I, we do talk, we do in our household still have very lively conversations about that seems so obvious. You could just be with them for a really long time. Cause you're very independent and I know you, and if you just didn't want to get married, you just hold off
for like 27 years and then you would do it as like a grand thing. And you're at 65 just because you wanted a fancy one afternoon. Don't tell me, like with fact and dedication, you'd be married right now. If you found your person, Julia. Cause no, the fuck you would not, you would be like, no. I have things I want to do first and also like, I don't want to be like, that's a huge, that's a huge legal commitment.
And I've had so many friends get divorced and watch them and see how much money that costs. And I'm like, we all know that if this relationship ends, I'm not making any efforts because that's a shit ton of work to get divorced. So. When this happens, it's going to be for fucking ever. Cause we all know I'm not making any efforts to find a lawyer.
I can't even fucking call the cable company to get my bill reduced. Right. She said, look, I'm cheap. And too, like just, I don't get about shit to divorce. You stuck. Oh no, here's what it is. I don't have the bandwidth to do all the steps that is required in getting a divorce. It seems like a lot of work and really expensive.
And I ain't got that kind of money. I mean, it just seems like a lot of steps. He might be, you never know. I like that. You're planning your divorce before you plan your wedding, though. Well, you're letting so fast in this conversation that you went straight to the divorce and how much you don't want to go through it.
And I'm like, you don't have anyone yet to marry, let alone. You're like, I don't have the time to divorce you today. All that to say, that's how, you know, it's maybe serious when I'm like "I'm getting married," because you know that I'm not, I don't have the bandwidth or energy to get a divorce. That's how you're going to know when I come to you and be like, oh, I'm engaged to insert whatever celebrity crush
here I have, shall we named them right now? Chris Evans, Sam Heughan, Anthony Mackie. So any of those, like if I say I'm getting married to any of those guys, you're going to be like, holy shit should have, because she's not gonna to, to my mom. Cause I don't know you named all
these people. Evans, Captain America, Sam Heughan is on Outlander. And Anthony Mackie is also in the Marvel universe. He is, uh, all that to say like in our household, Very lively conversations have always existed. We've always talked about race. We've always talked about social justice. We've always talked about equity issues.
We've always talked about women's issues. And if you can't handle that, you can't handle that. Like my brother, my former brother-in-law one time we were having a conversation a couple of years ago and he was just like, he just in a separate room, but he could hear us, my sister and I talking, and he just did this big sign and was like, you guys are always talking about women's issues and gender issues.
Sometimes it's not about gender issues. And I was like, spoken like somebody who's, I've never been treated poorly because they're a woman. Spoken like someone who doesn't have a vagina. And I think that's part of the problem too, right? Like if you don't recognize and have empathy for the fact that there's going to be struggles in my life, that maybe that exists for me, that don't exist for you, and you're not going to be able to support me through it and vice versa.
Like, I don't want to be with somebody whose struggles and, and issues. I don't think. Well artists, that's the key word though. So that you said, like, it's just about empathy. It's like to be empathetic to some or sympathetic to someone else's situation, even though you've never experienced it. And you have to, I feel like at some points in your life, you have to just choose to be empathetic, even though you don't understand, because maybe later on in life, you will understand.
But just to be the person who just shuts down, like not, I don't want to fucking deal with it. Yeah. And I see that kind of lack of support in the artist community. There are a lot of people who are dating artists who think it's going to be, I dunno, glamorous, you know, they've, they're dating a guitarist or they're dating and whatever, and then it turns out, creative minds are kind of like, that's it. Good luck surviving us because we've got a million things are happening. We're scattered brains wants to live with a creative mind. We can ask Taylor sitting right here, but I don't think it's like the most like stressless environment. And it takes a lot of understanding because if you are really passionate about. Yeah. If you're really passionate about making your art happen, there's a lot of sacrifice.
And so if you're like 40 and still a musician playing and not making you made it yet, like there's still a chance that you could make it, but then your spouse is now telling you, you need to get a real fucking job. That's not, that's not a winning endorsement for that relationship. That would make me feel like you don't believe in my art.
So why are we together? On the other side of things though, like some people get into relationships with like idiots and they don't go up front and be like, look, we need two incomes to support ourselves. You can't go just pursue all of your dreams and then be your support. That's a big conversation that needs to happen, right?
Like if I was born to be a workhorse nine to five and had the drinks of being a creative content officer of some big company that also takes a lot of sacrifice, it just has quicker rewards and more obvious rewards than being a musician or a painter or a writer, but you wouldn't in turn if I was that person who was trying to be a CCO, you wouldn't turn around as my partner and be like, you know, this isn't happening fast enough.
And I really need you to fucking focus. You know, like I need you to get a real job. That's gonna pay you and give you health insurance right now. I don't, I think it's just, it's just lack of lack of giving a shit. Honestly, I could spend the rest of my life dissecting and talking about being mixed and break all things down in relationship to pop culture, media, art, entertainment, all of it, because there's no.
My entire life there's been very little representation, so I'm always like leaning towards that lens. And then also being mixed. That's just the experience I'm coming from. So everything has that sort of lens on it for me. Yeah, which has got to be super cool. And I'm, I'm curious to know, like, I guess as we go on in this podcast, like what you would have wished for when you were a teenager, like, and how you would have responded to those kinds of shows, if you got them at that time versus getting them as an adult, that's something we're going to need to explore.
Yeah. That's an interesting thought. I'll have to think about that. Yeah. Anyway, we look forward to seeing you all next week. Have a great week. Bye. Thanks for tuning in y'all, this was a first episode, very vulnerable stuff. Lots of things that we talked about that I'm sure will continue to come up throughout the show tune.
In next week, when we discussed the Netflix original Ginny and Georgia. See you, then
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