speaker-0 (00:00)

I grew up in a missionary Baptist church that people likened more to a cult than an actual Baptist church, and I cannot allow the things that are harmful to be excused because I have a couple of good memories.

speaker-1 (00:17)

I was raised Pentecostal and if you didn't speak in tongues, you weren't really saved or you didn't get you hadn't had the full baptism of the Holy Spirit. I like I I felt like I was physically and emotionally dying in this place.

speaker-2 (00:33)

I was a devout Jehovah's Witness. I can honestly say I do think that religion played a paternal role in my life.

speaker-1 (00:43)

My fate left me and I think a lot of us who are Pentecostal very, very judgmental. And I remember being raped on Saturday night and showing up to service on Sunday where this man was preaching.

speaker-0 (00:59)

Purity culture makes us ⁓ perfect targets for sexual assault and rape.

speaker-3 (01:07)

So why are why are black women, you guys, so attracted to the church? What do you guys want, black women in particular, to know who are questioning, who are on the fence, who are struggling in this area of their lives?

Hey everyone, welcome to the Coffee No Cream podcast. My name is Erin Braxton, and I'm the host of Coffee No Cream. Here on Coffee No Cream, we are unapologetically dedicated to Black women and we share what I like to call Coffee No Cream moments, those things that happen to us black women in business and in life just because we are black women. Today I have a panel of three amazing women. We have Abby the attorney.

Returning, we have Tammy Triolo returning, and we have the unpunishable woman Ashante returning. We're talking about religion. And this has been a topic that I have wanted to discuss on the podcast for a while now. ⁓ this is not going to be our first conversation about religion. These three women have walked away from religion, and we're gonna talk about why, we're gonna talk about their backgrounds, we're gonna talk about the trauma.

That they experienced while in their different religions, because all three come from different religious backgrounds. And we're gonna talk about why black women are so supportive of the church and religion. And, you know, I I encourage you to come to the conversation with an open mind. I encourage you to watch and listen with the with the intention of understanding. Now

I get that a lot of my viewers are still very much a part of the church, but after my interview with Unpunishable Woman a couple of weeks ago, I realized how many are not. I realized in the conversations that I'm having just in my personal life and online, how many black women are struggling in this area. So I wanted to start off this conversation with this panel of women. I think it's a good one, whether you agree or disagree. It's it's somewhere

Where you could at least get an understanding of the way some black women are feeling about religion right now in 2026. So before we get into it, I want to ask that you guys please like, please share, please subscribe. ⁓ I hear there's a way you can send DMs as well ⁓ on YouTube, but I'm not quite sure. If you can figure it out and you wanna message me, feel free.

You can always go to coffeenocream.com and and contact me directly. if you have any questions or something you want to discuss, or you can always email me. I'll put that link below. ⁓ and I think that's it. So ⁓ let's just get right into the episode. I'll see you there. So welcome, ladies. How are you today?

I'm so excited. I'm I just wanna start by letting each of you take us through how you grew up in religion. What religion was for you growing up. And I'm gonna start with Abby the attorney. And ⁓ tell us what religion was like for you growing up.

speaker-0 (04:51)

grew up in a missionary baptist church that

People likened more to a cult than an actual Baptist church. We had a separate decorum that you were supposed to follow. It was written out and given to every member. And if you violated any part of the decorum, you had to come to conference, which was every third Wednesday. And ⁓ if you had a significant violation, they would take away what was called your right hand of fellowship. And you would have to do some things to get your right hand of fellowship back.

I had difficulties in this church the entire time that I was in it. ⁓ I had several times that I got into trouble when I was a teenager and had to be called in to speak to all the deacons. I was forced to apologize on several occasions. ⁓ I actually paid attention to the sermons and I would point out when things were contradictory or didn't make sense, either internally or against the Bible, and they did not like that.

And I was always on my way out. ⁓ I just didn't effectuate it fast enough. And then they finally kicked me out when I was around 20, 22, 23. ⁓ they came to my house, to my mom's house before they kicked me out to have like a conversation. I have no recollection of this conversation, but my sister says that I was belligerent through the entire thing.

And she found it hilarious. My mom was embarrassed. But I literally I remember seeing the van pull up with the church name beside it and I remember nothing after it. After that, I thought that my issue was the that particular church. And so I did try going to different churches. And I did get like very involved with the last church that I went to. I was extremely involved. I

Participated with the teens, putting together college fairs. I went to that church had different Bible studies that you could attend, like that had different titles. I would circle through the different, you know, educational options listed, but I would call myself an atheist today. I teetered along the agnostic atheist border for a long time. But I would call myself atheist today because there are things that I simply cannot reconcile. And I thought that I could just

Allow it to exist. You know, it it can exist in my life and it can be a part of my memories, it can be a part of my music, it can be a part of my culture. I don't have to reject everything until it was necessary because I have a transgender child and I cannot allow the things that are harmful to be excused because I have a couple of good memories.

speaker-3 (07:39)

Mm. Mm. Alright, we're gonna come back to that. ⁓ Tammy.

speaker-1 (07:46)

So I was raised Pentecostal. ⁓ Pentecostal is a little bit more, I feel, more fervent than Baptists. In fact, we used to say that the Baptists weren't really saved, ⁓ that the Pentecostals were. And so I grew up in a fire and brimstone kind of church. You had to be baptized with the Holy Ghost, with evidence of speaking in tongues. And if you didn't speak in tongues, you weren't really saved or you didn't get

you hadn't had the full baptism of the Holy Spirit. And so I was raised Pentecostal in the Caribbean. ⁓ and I think Pentecostals in the Caribbean is like Pentecostals here on steroids. ⁓ my I grew up with a mother that didn't wear pants, didn't she was not allowed to wear pants, she didn't wear jewelry, never wore make up. I think the only thing my mother allowed herself to do was to perm her hair and that was almost a scandal when she permed her hair. So we grew up very

mo you be dressed modestly. And at that young age, you just you you get what your parents give you. You don't have real thoughts. And I think when I was young, I I went to church because we had to go to church. I don't think I was ever really paying attention to church ⁓ at a very young age. And then I moved to America and moved in with a cousin who nobody knew was gay. And she came out to me, well she was forced out of the closet 'cause she started dating a woman

And it was this woman's first experience in a lesbian relationship. And so she told me my cousin was gay. And I remember my cousin being afraid that my mom would pull me from her house because my mom was so devoutly Christian. But my mom didn't do that. And all through like ra being raised Christian, even with my mother, there were some things that were like contradictory. Like my mother, we were taught that homosexuality is gay, transgender would just blow their minds, really. But we were taught that these people were gay and they were going to hell and they needed to repent and all these things.

But yet the neighborhood gay person was always at our house, drinking tea with my mom, gossiping, right? Like it's like the thing that Christi a lot of Christian women do. They like to have like pocket gays that they hang out with, they do things with, but behind, you know, when it's done, it they still believe these people are going to hell, which is such a weird way of thinking. And so I was away from church for a little bit, from I was fourteen till eighteen. And I don't know what happened at eighteen years old.

Like Abby said when she left, at 18 years old, I got back into the church and became fervent. Not homophobic or anything like that, because I just I I was still trying to reconcile homosexuality with this faith, right? But I w could compartmentalize that and deal with that later. But I was very fervent in church and I was a devout Christian for probably eight years. And I just remember one time sitting in church and thinking.

I'm dying in this place.

speaker-3 (10:43)

Mm.

speaker-1 (10:44)

Like I I felt like I was physically and emotionally dying in this place and none of the messages were hitting anymore. It didn't make me hoop and holler. It didn't make me shout. I didn't feel inspired. I was like, something's off here. It was almost like my body and my spirit knew before my physical body left the building. And I was sitting in church at the time with my husband and I said out loud, music was playing so nobody heard me, but I'm like, I'm dying in this place.

And I swear on everything I heard like somebody say, and I thought it was my husband, but I heard some somebody say, Then leave. So I looked up at my husband and I said, What did you say? And he goes, I didn't say anything. I said, You didn't say then leave? He goes, No. And I sat in the rest of that service and I never went back.

speaker-3 (11:34)

Hm. Okay. ⁓ Shanti, we I know a little I know y a little of your story, but we didn't go back to the very beginning when you were on. So tell us how you grew up.

speaker-2 (11:45)

Yeah, I was a devout Jehovah's Witness. I grew up in the religion. ⁓ I was about thirty-two when I ended up leaving. It was never ever an option to leave in my mind. I was devout. I never imagined a life outside of the religion. my immediate family is in mother, sister, aunt are in the religion. I didn't have friends outside of the religion really. so my entire life

My identity, my faith, I genuinely believed it was the one true religion because that's what you're taught. In fact, internally they refer to it as the truth. So my upbringing was very much that this ⁓ religion is based on scripture. Everything we do, everything we believe is based in scripture. And for me, I can honestly say I do think that religion.

played a paternal role in my life because I grew up with my mother. And actually I can reflect back and think that the structure, the legalist aspect of the religion, played a father role. And that also deepened my attachment because I enjoyed the structure. I enjoyed the rigour. And in a weird way, yes, you are surveilled and you're taught to surveil each other and yourself. But I think that played a very fatherly role.

in my life, actually, which deepened my attachment to the religion, which is why when I ended up leaving, it was so traumatic, so painful. It felt like an identity crisis because it had played this fatherly role in my life and in many ways probably like a second heartbreak. Right. I thought I was well over the fact that my own biological father was absent, right? But actually I think leaving the religion

it was deeper because that was the replacement for the role for me, ⁓ in terms of its function. Yeah.

speaker-3 (13:50)

Abby, you said when you did something wrong w the right hand, can you explain what that was?

speaker-0 (13:59)

Yeah, so ⁓ for example, many young ladies, if they got pregnant out of wedlock, they would have to come before the church and you'd have your right-handed fellowship taken away from you, and you could only come back to the church after the sin was over, and then you could apologize for the sin and you could

kind of be accepted back. You were not fully accepted back because they would still punish you in other ways. So for example, ⁓ one young lady that I was very close to, and I took this I still take this personally to be quite honest. ⁓ She married the person that she got pregnant by and they forced her to get married in the gym behind the church. She wasn't even allowed to have a wedding in the church, even though she'd gone through their whole process of getting her right hand of fellowship back.

When she rejoined the choir, they made her sing God of a Second Chance. ⁓ and she couldn't ⁓ sing any of the songs that she used to lead. And so they continued punishing her. And I I still take that kind of personally because the one of the last conversations that we had, because now anyway, that's a different subject. But one of the last conversations that we had, she had expressed discomfort in her.

marriage because her husband still wanted to be ⁓ active a lot. I don't know on this platform how much you can say. So I hope you guys understand. And she was quite uncomfortable with it because of the way that we grew up. She was not comfortable with being able to even do that with her s now spouse because of that church trauma and because the way that she had been treated. And she has done everything to try and redeem herself and you know

reconcile for that in her mind that she could, but yet they continue to punish her. And I blame them. I don't blame her for staying. I blame them. And I don't even remember what the question was. I'm so sorry.

speaker-3 (16:06)

⁓ I was the right hand was out of

speaker-0 (16:10)

Yeah, so that's that's what it is. And it could be something very minor too. Like my sister also was kicked out of the church, and hers was because she was driving with a suspended license. In Georgia, they don't tell you when they suspend your license. But anyway, her name was in the newspaper. And so because her name was in the newspaper for being arrested, they were forcing her to come before the church to repent. She refused to do it, her right hand to fellowship was taken away.

speaker-3 (16:37)

Tammy, I saw your face when you

speaker-1 (16:40)

Okay,

so I I'm having a a thought here, right? Because I grew up Pentecostal and in the Pentecostal faith, there is no like you you don't get punished, you don't have to come before the church and repent and ⁓ with Jehovah's Witnesses, the surveillance and all of the punishments. Like that doesn't happen in the Pentecostal church. You could backslide and come back and backslide and come back, and nobody's looking at you like you did something wrong. There's no apologies needed.

Everybody's just happy that you you found your way back to Christ. And I'm listening to the diff both of these young women's account of how their religion punishes. And I was thinking, okay, well, maybe my religion wasn't so bad, but the way that Pentecostals, the the jail for us, happens here. So there's no punishment that we have to go through. There's no repentance that we have to do in front of the church. None of that. So you got pregnant out of wedlock. It was a shame to your parents.

But you could come back to church and everything was forgiven. Nobody treated you any differently. None of that happened. But the way that we imprisoned ourselves was how we thought about the world around us. And when ⁓ Abby was saying that her friend is having an issue with being intimate, I think a lot of Pentecostal women struggle with this too. Because

You're you're told to be chaste. You're told to hold yourself until marriage. You're told not to do any of these things. And then they expect you to get married and turn into a slut. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. And so our punishment wasn't in the way that you had to like your right hand of fellowship would be taken away. But the way that we thought about ourselves, the way that we self ⁓ surveilled ourselves. We didn't need the church to do it because the doctrine made you do it. And my fate left me

And I think a lot of us who are Pentecostal very, very judgmental. We were happy to send people the we l listen, we sent you to hell right out the gate. Even if the pastor didn't do that, I would be looking at Abby and I'd be like, Mm, okay, well, she's going to hell. You know, like like one of those things. So for us, it wasn't like this ph physical punishment or humiliation in the church, but the way that we're indoctrinated, we are so judgmental and we create our own cages.

For ourselves. So you don't need the pastor or the deacon or anybody surveilling you because you've been indoctrinated so deeply you will surveil yourself.

speaker-3 (19:11)

Was that that the case? Ashanti I was gonna ask you, 'cause you're nodding. You're nodding.

speaker-2 (19:16)

Yeah. It's a mixture of both. Jehovah's Witnesses are very good at both. So it works on that double layer. So there's that punishment that comes through the elders in the congregation. Very similar to you, Abby. So you can be marked, for example. Other people will be made aware that you're a bad association. ⁓ depending on what you've done, it will be announced from the platform. ⁓ so people will come to know that you have received either a private

reproval as they call it or public reproval or you've been disfellowshipped. The disfellowshipped one is when nobody can talk to you. So you are it's the equivalent to excommunication. ⁓ and then you have what you described, ⁓ Tammy, which is the social surveillance. So somebody could see you talking to a man or sitting in the car with a man and they will go and tell the elders. The elders will come and ask you, what were you doing in that car? ⁓

They rely on the scripture that talks about if you see a man about to make a false step. So what that means is if I see you, I need to come up to you and say, You've got twenty four hours to go to the elders and tell them what you've done. If you don't, I will go. So that's how the system really works when it comes to the different layers of surveillance and then punishment. But what they call it is discipline and counsel.

But it's the same, very much the same kind of result. And if you do get disfellowshipped or publicly reproved, that stain can stay with you for quite some time, actually. ⁓ even if you are reinstated and your privileges are restored, people will know that you were disfellowshipped and that can stay with you for years.

speaker-3 (20:54)

Well so Tammy, when I ⁓ spoke to you before, you know, and you know, we were leading up to this, you said a lot of people who leave the church are called out. Can you talk about that?

speaker-1 (21:08)

I think those of us who actually make our way out of the church, whether we know it or not, we're called out of the church. Because much like Ashanti, much like Abby, you couldn't fact I like no like how we get on TikTok now and you see deconstructing TikToks and there's so much I would have never clicked on any of those videos. I wouldn't have watched them, right? 'Cause again, that's self-surveillance. You're letting evil in, you're letting the devil in, all these things.

And so I feel like the people who make their way out of the church, whether they know it or not, I feel like universe, source, God, whatever you believe in, calls you out. And no amount of facts you can give us, no amount of, you know, biblical history you can share with we wouldn't believe any of that. Because for me, religion is deeply emotional. It's an emotional attachment to a thing more than it is

your brain. Now, because Abby is a lawyer and I think just the way that she thinks and the way that she weighs things, she probably had a different experience coming out. But those of us who are emotionally tied to this religion, Christianity, and whatever form or f font you do it in, it's such an emotional attachment that you feel like you can't let the devil in. So you can't let doubt come in. You can't let naysayers come in. And so we're so conditioned

to turn that off, to not listen, to not watch, to not engage, that if you make your way out of the church, I really believe your higher self, whatever you believe, is calling you out of that place. And one thing I've had to be very patient with, because I feel like in the way that Christianity has made us so ⁓ judgmental and hard on people, deconstructors can be the same way about Christians. And I've had to learn

That for some people in this life, their walk is going to be really with religion. And there's you you're not gonna talk them out of it, you're not gonna ration them out of it. That is their walk, that is their journey here. And for some of us, it's not. Some of us make our way out, and when we start talking, I believe the people who listen to the deconstructors, because the faithful are not. I promise you, the faithful are not clicking on those videos, the faithful are not reading those books.

The faithful are not watching the shows. They're not watching the interviews. We we don't let it in. But I feel like the people who have seeds of doubts are listening to us. Right? They're listening to the conversations that are being had on TikTok. They're listening to us. And that is their that is their small calling out of the religion. And I feel like until you have that, because I said to you, I didn't leave the religion because ⁓ somebody convinced me that it was a cult, that somebody convinced me that the way that I was thinking about faith was wrong.

Nob nobody was doing that to me. It was just me having a conversation with me and being honest with myself. Because another thing that Christianity will tell you is when you have doubt, when you have questions, it's the devil. It's not Christ. It's not godly like. And you're supposed to go to your pastor or go to the deacon and talk to somebody about that. And I don't know. I was just wise enough to just sit with myself and say,

What is going on with me? Because somebody outside of me can't tell me what's going on with me. I have to know what's going on with me. And I feel like I was called out of the faith. And I feel like those of us who have doubt are being called out. Nobody's gonna you're not gonna convince a Christian. You see devout it's funny because I have so many devout black women that follow me that are devout Christians. And I just go, Are y'all glutton for punishment or are y'all questioning? Because I don't mint how I feel about like

And I say this, you know, Aaron, I say this too, that religion and white supremacy is hand in hand. You can't separate these things because white supremacy used religion as the bludgeon to get us to submit to white supremacy. And a lot of us as black people, that's how we wield white supremacy. We wield it through religion and we don't even understand that. And so I I feel like the people who sit and listen to us, doubt is there. Doubt is there. And th they're they're being called out too, and maybe they're just afraid to leave.

They don't know what it's going to be on the other side of that. Because another thing I told you, Aaron, is that relieving religion is not just rel leaving religion. You're leaving community behind. You're leaving community behind. And for ⁓ Ashanti, who is Jehovah's Witness, you're leaving family behind. Like and people want to stay connected to that. I feel like a lot of people are still in whether they're Jehovah's Witness or ⁓ Abbey's Baptist or me Pentecostal.

I feel like a lot of people are just staying in that because they don't want to lose community. They don't believe it anymore. They just want to be with in community with the people they love and know.

speaker-3 (25:57)

And and that's why I really wanted to have this conversation because you know I'm a believer, I believe, but I'm not religious, right? And

speaker-1 (26:10)

That's how it starts.

speaker-3 (26:12)

I know you told me that. You told me that. And ⁓ I feel like this is you know, it's it's like it's going around. I feel like what you're saying, you got a lot of ⁓ people who are watching you who are interested, who are questioning. After my episode with Ashanti last week, I mean, that was a lot of the commentary underneath. I even did a poll about did you leave and never look back?

Did your faith never waver? Are you thinking about it but have guilt? Are you still there? And overwhelmingly it was like I left and I I never look back, right? I did it in the Facebook group, I did it in my ⁓ YouTube community. So I understand we are not we are not like our grandparents when it comes to this right now. Go go ahead.

speaker-2 (27:05)

I think there's a few sorry.

Yeah, I think there's a few things, Tamiya actually when you were speaking really made me think because I think sometimes there's push. Sometimes there's push or pull or maybe a bit of both. Because for me it was not doubt. I literally was devout probably up into a year after I was punished for being raped. But what I think was the pull was the clarity. It wasn't the doubt. I became very clear on

the organizational aspect of religion because what that experience taught me was that religion is a system of power, whereas I'd been taught it's all about faith, spirituality, love, and God's relationship with you. So I'm very similar some ways to Abby because I actually studied law and I was very kind of legalistic in my mind. And I remember thinking, hold on a minute, this organization has policies and processes that they don't want to tell me. And because I'm a woman, I'll never know them. And so it was more so clarity

That started to pull me away than doubt. There was a clarity about, well, if everything's based on the Bible, they should be able to tell me where in the Bible this process is. Where is this reflect? Like it was very much a clarity pull. But I think some of the things that also keep people in is that obviously that scripture about do not lean upon your own understanding. And so of course, when people start to discover things, when they start to think, whether the information is presented to them or they find it.

speaker-1 (28:26)

Yeah.

speaker-2 (28:34)

your instinct because of conditioning and program that's linked to your salvation do not lean upon your own understanding. And then of course you add in spiritual bypassing. So even if your life is miserable, even if you've had terrible experiences, you are in the habit and the practice of spiritually bypassing and you're around other people who are doing the same thing. So actually it's not easy at all, as you were saying, to leave. Because

Everything the gravitational pull of those things, that's what I used to call it. It was a gravitational pull that kept pulling me back in despite the reality of what I was seeing and what I experienced.

speaker-1 (29:14)

Yeah. I saw that interview with or the clip that Aaron put up on on TikTok of you talking about your rape and I was like, my god. Because the f the thing is I was raped by a minister and I I think about this now. I was seventeen years old and I I think about this now and I was like, What was happening to me? Like like 'cause at at this point I was really getting myself back into church.

And I remember being raped on Saturday night and showing up to service on Sunday where this man was preaching.

speaker-3 (29:55)

Mm.

speaker-1 (29:57)

And I think back now, like like I think about that now and I go like what kind of conditioning has to happen to you that the man can rape you on Saturday and be in the pulpit on Sunday preaching?

speaker-3 (30:14)

Abby.

speaker-0 (30:15)

Purity culture makes us ⁓ perfect targets for sexual assault and rape. And the the issue that kept happening in my mind was the legal system offers us the least amount of protection available. And even within the legal system, spousal rape is not allowed. But yet,

I go to church and they tell me it's perfectly fine all the time. I'm in Sunday school where these women are constantly telling me that if my husband needs it, then I should submit to his desires. And if if the law outside of church offers me the least amount of protection, then why can't the church do the same? I unfortunately joined the ranks of both of you, and when I went

To church for reprieve and relief, the overwhelming consensus was this was your fault. This was your fault because of a of a variety of things, because you haven't been chased, because you need to concede to the demands of your partner, because you didn't pray enough, because you weren't pious enough. There were so many ways for it to be my fault.

I was able to look beyond that because no matter how much I had questioned church up until that point, it still had a hold of me. You know, ultimately it took a threat of harm to someone else for me to to feel like I'm important enough now that I can leave. And there was also I I had logic issues with church for the longest time.

But surprisingly, it was dinosaurs that really like really logic me over the edge. I was in a class, a Bible study class that was called Sharing Jesus Without Fear, because this particular church allowed us to have six-week-long classes with like different topics. And I really loved that about it. I was like, well, this is an educational church. And we're sitting in class, and one of ⁓ the members was sharing how she had attempted to share Jesus with somebody at her job.

The first red flag that went off in my head was nobody wants to be subjected to that at work. And then the second thing was she said, because could you believe she believes that dinosaurs walk the earth and that we evolved from other beings? She doesn't believe and I I had always logic myself into the Adam and Eve story by believing it was simply like a a s a story, like, you know, a a Greek mythology, if you will, like a a way that people

Conceptualized the world at that time because they just I did not know that people literally believed the story of of Adam and Eve. And so she started I was I'm writing in my book, like writing my little notes, and she started saying that about the dinosaurs, and I looked up and was like, no. ⁓ no. She, ⁓ I said, my goodness, what have I done? And then I started going only to church for praise and worship and leaving.

And then well at first it was like just going to Sunday school and praise and worship. Then it was just going to praise and worship and then eventually I just wasn't going anymore.

speaker-1 (33:40)

Yeah, that was me. I d I wasn't going for Bible Bible study. I was just going for praise and worship. When I left, when I left the church and stopped going regularly, I did go back a few times because I was missing community. ⁓ I was missing praise and worship. I was missing how that communal praise made you feel. ⁓ and so I did go back a few times. I never told anybody. ⁓ I think the first time I talked about being raped.

in in church was probably five, six years ago. I told nobody. I told nobody ⁓ that I was and to Abby's point, purity culture shames you because I was always like a very curvacious I was curvy from the time I was young. Right. So I had T and A and this kind of sex appeal about me anyway where people thought I was doing things that I was not doing at all.

And so people had this perception of me of being this like sex pot when I wasn't doing nothing. There was no sex and no pot. None of that. And so when you have that when when the men in the church think you are something you are not, and and you're raised in purity culture and you're raised to respect authority. And you're raised to give honor to the pastor and you're raised to give honor to the the minister, whoever it is, right? And so I was thinking, I don't want to harm him.

I hadn't even considered the harm to myself. It didn't even come as a part of an equation for me. I didn't want to harm him. Because I already knew how church operates. If you say it, you're probably not gonna be believed, and they're gonna believe the man of God. So why would I try to harm him and then by extension only harm myself in that?

speaker-3 (35:34)

So how do you heal from that? Like you just just didn't start talking about it until five years ago?

speaker-1 (35:39)

Yeah, I didn't start t when the thing about trauma, ⁓ a lot of us are living with a lot of unresolved trauma. Sure and the brain has a beautiful way of protecting you where it'll almost as be as if it didn't happen. Like you almost have to go back in the recesses of your mind to say, Was this real? Did I imagine that? And I remember having an ⁓ a same experience when my mother died. I would have periods where I would say, Did I even experience her? Was my mother

Was this woman ever alive? And so when you have that level of trauma, the recesses of your mind can really it can lock you out or it can let you in. It just depends on where you are in your life and what you need to do and what you need to get through.

speaker-2 (36:23)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (36:23)

Tammy, you said that you went back to church because you enjoyed like the music and having that fellowship. ⁓

Really missed the music too. And so I got into some artists that I'd never listened to before. ⁓ one of and I wrote a story about when I was raped, or not a story, but I wrote a journal entry of when it happened, and a friend of mine happened to read it, and she asked me if she could publish it, and I said, absolutely not. But then I started like finding other music that I liked, and I went to my very first Beyoncé concert. This is gonna sound so corny, you guys. I went to my first Beyonce concert. I felt so empowered that I called her and I

Said publish it. She published this the ⁓ journal entry that I wrote at the time that I was raped, and I felt so free. Now, the journal entry isn't completely true to who I am right now because the first half is the situation, the second half is the prayer that I prayed to help myself. ⁓ obviously the prayer is not in me anymore, but

It made to to feel music again that moved me as much as praise and worship music had moved me, gave me the strength to confront this thing that had happened. And once she published it, and I posted it on my Facebook page and it was out in the open, I felt the most free that I have ever felt in my life. I was on cloud nine for almost a year.

Just feeling like nobody, nobody can ever take anything away from me because I'm willing to expose the worst thing that happened and you cannot make me feel bad about anything.

speaker-1 (38:11)

Yeah.

speaker-2 (38:12)

Yeah. There

is something powerful I think about w however you get there when you do choose to talk about it. And it doesn't have to be publicly and online, but I think there is something very ⁓ the way I describe it is that experience of me changed me on a cellular level. Yeah. And when I was able to begin healing and go through recovery, it's like the cells regenerated themselves again.

I literally felt like a different person after that. And, you know, this is why it is so powerful, however, you choose to do it, to be able to heal. And I understand it's a privilege. You know, sometimes I sit and when I talk about these things, I understand that not every individual who's experienced this gets that opportunity to be able to say, I have done the healing and the recovery. Do you know? I understand it's a privilege that I can talk openly.

about my experience and I don't have to go to bed for three, four nights. Right? It's I'm okay, genuinely. which is also why I realized that I should talk about it because I have the capacity to. And it was only when I started talking about it that I realized how many other women ironically have experienced it too. Because I think the part of the problem when you are religious as a woman is that because you're taught not to lean upon your own understanding.

Your authority is taken away from you. And so you don't own the experience. Did happen to me. It was real. And it's okay that I know it was wrong. And it's okay that I don't believe I was wrong in the situation. Because your authority is taken away from you. In the religion I come from, the elders decide whether you were raped or not. So the authority, my agency is being taken again.

So not only has the original perpetrator taken my agency, you go and speak to the elders and they're telling you, Well, actually we decide. We've been ordained by God to decide whether you were rape. So once again, your authority and your agency has been taken away. And I think that has a massive impact on whether you ever really go on to heal or not.

speaker-1 (40:22)

I agree. I agree. I I like I said I didn't tell anybody for years. I I just put it in the back of my mind. Then I got married really young and you know, ⁓ but I it did show up in my marriage probably year year five. And you know, me and my husband had a pretty regular sex life and then it was like something switched in my head. I remember having a memory but I just could not, did not want to do it, felt pressured to do it.

felt like I needed to do my wifely duty and do it. And it took me some time to ⁓ recover from that in in terms of my marriage. But I don't think I ever truly recovered. I don't think I ever truly recovered because it felt like it felt like not just a f physical rape, it felt like an emotional rape. Right? Like you know the thing is happening to your body, but what is happening to your spirit is

almost unbearable and you're constantly trying to regain some kind of power, right? And I and I think some women who are raped who then become promiscuous. I think that is about trying to get some power back. Right? Like I can control my body. I can do it. And I didn't I didn't become promiscuous, but I did become way more chaste. And that doesn't work when you're supposed to be in a marriage with

a young man and you're a young woman and you're supposed to have a healthy sex life. And so I I think religion really damages women in in so many different ways. And I think like Abby said, the purity culture sets sets women up for rape and abuse and sexual abuse and to protect the perpetrators.

speaker-0 (42:13)

Mm-hmm.

speaker-2 (42:14)

Yeah, and sorry, I was just gonna say this is one of the things that I often talk about. The fact of the matter is, when you think about the way religion teaches obligation and duty sex in marriage, of course it can't acknowledge sexual assault outside of marriage because it's sanctioned in marriage. So the interest is not that they don't recognise it's possible that a woman might do something when she doesn't want to. They know that's true because that's what they encourage when you're a wife. Yeah. So that's why they can't possibly honour

the experience as it were and acknowledge that you were harmed because when you get married, they're gonna say that actually that's God's way. And so you know it gets sanctioned actually in a different context. But also I just want to pick up on one really important point I think you said Tammy because when I talk about this, I never realized that I wasn't the only one. I I thought I was going crazy. The injury to the soul and the injury to your identity. Because for a long time after that rate, I

didn't feel like I could trust myself, my own judgment. And also, because of the nature of my job, like CEOs are asking me for my advice. And I tell you, there were years where inside I'd think, I don't know why you're asking me. I became an imposter in my own profession. I became an imposter in my family. I was the eldest daughter. People relied on me, and sometimes they'd ask me for directions for something, and in my head I was thinking, Well, I got myself raped, so I don't know why you're asking me for advice. You can't trust it was an identity injury.

And it took them years to get to a place where I felt like no, you can be trusted, even at work, where people are rely on me for expertise. And so people don't realise how multifaceted that impact and that injury actually is it's not just your body at all.

speaker-3 (43:59)

Yeah. I know you were trying to say something, Abby. Did you

speaker-0 (44:05)

Just gonna talk about the way that you lose community in when you leave the church, ⁓ in terms of not just leaving the church, but because you're speaking out about sexual assault. Because I mean, your situation is different, Ashanti, because they're not allowed to speak to you. But ⁓ when I went public about being raped, one of the really disheartening refrains that I heard a lot was.

But my husband does that to me too. And and they were trying to work out with me, try to give some excuse to their husband that was different than what happened to me. Because they would read my story and the situation was so similar, they would they would come to literally be asking me, no, differentiate this for me, please.

speaker-1 (44:44)

Why it wasn't

speaker-3 (45:03)

What was your I'm sorry, let me ask. Was your experience within your marriage or

speaker-0 (45:07)

It was not it was not that it was with a long term partner. Okay. And so people were having a lot of trouble with that. And I felt like these people didn't exclude me because I've left religion. These people have excluded me because there's no way to continue on their relationship or their marriage and still have me be anywhere in the periphery of their life.

speaker-1 (45:32)

Right, right. You're reminded what's happening to them.

speaker-0 (45:37)

Exactly, because it it's very clear, I didn't know it at the time, but it was very clear that I was holding up a ⁓ a mirror of the relationships that the majority of us were in. And so I lost almost every single person that I was friends with from high school over this decision. But I

speaker-1 (45:51)

Yeah.

I'm

religious. Was your mom super religious too?

speaker-0 (46:07)

⁓ I really don't know what to say about that because I think that my mom likes performing religion more than she actually believes it. Yeah. I also think that her community is only in in there. And I I have so much sympathy for my mom because she didn't really get to live out any of her dreams. My mom was valedictorian of her high school, she's really smart, she loves to read, but

Her entire life took a backseat to be wife and mom. And she did not go. I'm her last, I'm her youngest child. She did not go off to school until I was in middle school. And then she got her associate's degree. and I really think that she struggles with having any kind of identity. I don't want to say there's how do I?

Think she got to explore everything that she would like to explore. And so a lot of the energy that I think that she would give to other things that she loves go to church.

speaker-1 (47:12)

Hm, hm.

speaker-0 (47:14)

⁓ she had actually left the church at one point because she didn't like how we were treated as her children. And then after my father passed away, she went back because she was bored. And she enjoyed the ladies that she cooked with and took trips with and she already knew them and they had their their you know, their their schedules and their

speaker-1 (47:28)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (47:39)

So I would not characterize her as like super like devout. She has no problem with the way that I live my life or my child, but I think it's more of like a routine for her. Does that make sense?

speaker-1 (47:51)

Yeah.

It does. My mom was super religious and I remember when I was having and I I I think about my mom a lot. I said to my sister the other day, I said, We knew her as a mom, but we never knew her as a woman. Because I think religion taught that generation to keep this separation, the power dynamics. Like religion it's all about power dynamics, right? So the the

Husband is over the wife, the preacher's over the, you know, supposed to be have the covering for the family, all of the families in the church. The father rules over the the mother, and the mother rules over the children. And so your children weren't people to like we weren't people to her. We were her children. And that that's a separate thing. Like there's my children are people to me. I talk to them about their life. I talk to them about their fears. I talk to, you know, my my daughter will FaceTime me.

While she's getting ready to get in the shower, I'm like, put a towel around you. I don't need I don't need I don't need all of that, right? But I try to get have them know me as a woman too, because I never knew my mother as a woman. And my mother, I think my mother got into religion when she got pregnant. Because my mother got pregnant out of wedlock. And that was a secret we did not know. Until one day we was looking at her picture, her wedding picture. My mother just looked blunt.

And we learned then she was looking so sad because she she suffered from morning sickness and she was pregnant in that wedding photo. And so then my mother became super duper religious. And I remember when I when the rape was coming up for me, my marriage, and me and my husband were not intimate, and my husband and my mom had a really great relationship. And so he called her and he was like, I don't know what to do. And I remember my mother calling me and telling me, You have to. Because she spent I think all of her marriage

Having to. Right? And because he was my husband and we were married, that was my wifely duty. And I don't think my mom said that out of because I I hadn't told her either. So I don't think she said it out of like dismissing me and what was but that was just what she was raised with. She stayed with an abusive man. My dad used to beat my mom. And I remember her going to church and praying and tarrying

For God to save her husband, to save her husband, to save her husband. And that never happened. And even as she was tarrying for God to save her husband, which was to save her from the abuse, that never happened. And she it never was evidence for her that maybe this thing isn't real. What that was for her was to be more devote. Maybe she is doing something wrong. Maybe you know she is causing the blessing not to come.

And so I remember my mom calling me and saying, Well, you ha you have to, that's your husband. You have to do that. You can't you can't not do that with your husband. And I wonder now, if my mom had known I was raped, would that have changed anything in terms of what she would have said to me? And was she violated?

speaker-3 (50:59)

You know, I I wanna go back to this whole cult conversation because Abby mentioned the a cult. ⁓ you mentioned it, Tammy, and Ashanti you didn't say Jehovah's Witnesses were a cult, but that came up quite a bit, ⁓ you know, when people talk about Jehovah's Witness and I'm I'm I'm just curious when you talk about it being the cult how

In what way? Like because a lot of people don't see it as that. They see it as, you know, this is my faith, this is my what I believe in. And I kinda wanna talk about

Abby, you had said something about the way you see people who are in that faith still, the way you look at them now. Do you feel like they are in a cult? ⁓ is that what you've and you see them from the outsider looking into the religion?

speaker-1 (51:50)

Feel bad.

speaker-0 (52:03)

So that's really hard because there's no physical barriers for them to leave. I don't know like the what the technical definition of is of a cult, but ⁓ when I once I decided that I was leaving or once they kicked me out, it it was it was fine, like it was over. ⁓ so I don't know if a cult requires that you have some physical barrier, but if it doesn't, they are absolutely in a cult of their mind. I mean up here.

speaker-1 (52:28)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-0 (52:31)

Up here, they are locked up. Even though they have been so poorly treated, ⁓ the pastor not that long ago, who you know was in charge of all these different things that happened to all of us, was having a retirement and they asked the our youth choir to come back and sing, and of course I said no, but the majority of them went and sang happily.

before this man who humiliated us time after time. This man has called my name from the pulpit to humiliate me because I was sitting beside a young boy who was my friend without with no thought about what any of you gross old men are thinking about.

speaker-1 (53:18)

It's always projection with the men in the church.

speaker-0 (53:20)

You know, and and so the I the idea, you know, that it could potentially be classified as a cult, I think is there with all the different like rules they have. The rules are different for men versus women. ⁓ a lot of the women are used for excessive labor. ⁓ so I think you know, the markers are there. That's how I feel about it.

It's the only way that I can conceptualize why somebody would continue to return to abuse.

speaker-2 (53:51)

Yeah, I think the word cult carries a lot of weight in general. Okay. And I think therefore a lot of people aren't necessarily going to readily associate their religion with being a cult. What I think I've observed over the years is that I think the definition and the working kind of application of cult has shifted over the years because I think maybe if it was twenty, thirty years ago you'd think about a group of people who've gone out into the woods, they live off grid.

They don't talk to anybody else, they don't interact with anybody else, that's a cult. But actually, I think there's been more modern models like the bite model that has been developed to describe some of these indicators, Abby, that do emerge in more mainstream religion, but have very similar ⁓ themes, very similar behaviors, and a lot of this is also defined by consequence. So, what happens if you try to leave? How easy is it to leave?

if there's going to be consequence and punishment, then I think you're probably starting to move into that place where it could be considered a cult. Or the other term that probably I use, and this has taken me a long time when it comes to language, is high control religion. Because I think that term sometimes is easier for some people to use than actually just rightly saying it was a cult. and I believe the bite model applies to both. The idea about it is to be able to check

⁓ to look at what the indicators of an authoritarian religion actually is.

speaker-1 (55:25)

I think like I was saying, I don't think Pentecostal people who are Pentecostal would classify themselves with a cult 'cause like Abby said there's no physical barriers to you leaving, there's no humiliation that you have to go through, there's no repentance that has to happen in front of the church, none of that. The way that in the Pentecostal faith is either you are backslidden or you have a devotion to God. And they're always going after the backslidden.

my family group chat is a literal hell for me because everybody is still deeply ⁓ entrenched in religion and it's ironic because I didn't really raise my kids with religion and two of my children I see becoming very religious. And I know that that's the influence of of my family because my ex-husband is an only child.

So all of their aunts, uncles, cousins are on my side. And so they're close to all of their aunts. All of their aunts are Christians. All of their uncles are Christians. All of their cousins still go to church. Right. And so I think for my children, it's a way for them to be connected to their family. That's something a a point of reference for them with their family. And I remember I was literally in the bathroom sitting saying, How? Like I I didn't raise them with religion. Their father is not religious. Like how?

And then I had to tell myself that was your walk. You had a walk with religion and then you walked out. That that's gonna be their walk. Because I wanted to raise my kids to be free thinkers in no matter what w way they thought. And so if they choose religion, I gotta let them have that. But I wouldn't say Pentecostal, the faith that I grew up in is a cult, but I think all religion is a cult. I think all of it is a cult because

It traps you here. Like Abby said, you are trapped here. Before Jim Jones got those people on their plane to Guyana, he got them here first. He had to capture their minds. And a lot of Christians, you see it, like you see the way that sometimes Christians engage online. You're like, you really believe Noah put every animal, including roaches, on a boat. And it landed, and we have like the things that

You know, I sit now and I go, ⁓ I'm so embarrassed I believed any of this.

I'm so embarrassed I actually believed that a woman was made from a man's rib. Nowhere in history, nowhere in biology has that ever happened. That I believed that. And I believed that God had to do it this way. Because I remember saying to my sister, Why would a God, a loving God, create humans to enjoy the earth, to enjoy the land? Why did he why did he need to introduce sin?

Remember this is his game. He's in charge of the game. So what was the purpose of introducing sin? And everybody screams, Well free will. But if sin doesn't exist, they can have free will without sin.

What is the game about?

speaker-3 (58:42)

When you in your book are are you addressing this one? 'Cause this that's a tough one.

speaker-1 (58:49)

What why why did he have to kill his son to redeem his own creation? Because either he's an all knowing God or he's not. Did he not know that they were going to sin? Did he not know they were going to disobey? Because he created them. So if he knows everything, he sees everything, he knew these people were going to fail. And he could have, as a loving God, forgive them. I say to people all the time we have a higher moral code for humans than we do God.

If your child if my child, any of my children, had cancer and I actually had the physical, eternal, spiritual ability to heal them, do you think I would let my child suffer with cancer?

speaker-0 (59:34)

One of the things that I got in trouble for as a youth was saying that I would I would not want to be friends with God.

speaker-1 (59:41)

I I I wouldn't either. This guy is is like cruel for cruel sake. If

speaker-3 (59:48)

even thought about that. That's like the fact that you asked that question though. But go on, you guys. Like

speaker-0 (59:53)

Like

as a TV.

speaker-1 (59:54)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (59:58)

I was just like it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't make sense. I said l let's say that heaven and hell actually do exist. I don't want to go hang out with that guy. He's just cruel for absolutely no reason. I wouldn't treat anybody, I wouldn't treat a dog the way that he treats humans.

speaker-1 (1:00:15)

that treats his creation that he loves so much.

speaker-0 (1:00:18)

So w why would I you know, but then I you know, I got scolded and logic myself out of my own mind and but yeah, as a as a teenager I sat in Sunday school and I was I was I remember I was mad that day because it was cold and I had on a skirt and we also had to wear crinoline. That was high. Do you remember crinoline?

speaker-1 (1:00:44)

Yeah, what you did just.

speaker-3 (1:00:45)

You said

I said was it heiched up in the back?

speaker-0 (1:00:47)

It was yes.

So like I was mad already and then we were having to sing that song, Jesus is my best friend or best friend I don't remember how it goes now, but and I s I was like, I don't wanna be I would never wanna be friends with this person. This is this is you're upset with me and so you send a flood, you send locust, you like you can't even have a conversation.

speaker-3 (1:01:11)

So why are why are black women, you guys, so attracted to the church? You know, I Ashanti, you mentioned ⁓ you know, the paternal influence and that's why you were you felt drawn to it. I mean, do you think that's what it is? I'm just curious what you guys think.

speaker-2 (1:01:32)

Yeah, I think look, I do believe that religion is a system of power and it is embedded in everything. If you think about the laws of most countries, there is usually a religious root in some kind of way. When you think about culture, there's lots of things that are norms in culture that come from religious beliefs. I think, you know, religion and politics very closely linked. So it is embedded in day-to-day life in many ways, whether or not you identify as religious or not. And I also think that

religion is a great way if you link religion to morality. And it's funny actually, Tammy, I think you were talking about the fact that humans have a higher moral code, for example, than God. I think no, women are expected to have a higher moral code than men and God. And so when you think about morality as a control mechanism, of course religion is one of the strongest ⁓ enforcers of this morality on women. And so

I think that's why it is so ⁓ pervasive, it's appealing and attractive, especially if you are traumatized, if you have a hard childhood. Like if you think about the way a lot of preaching and evangelism is done, it is usually pushing on people's wounds, right? When people lose a loved one. That's the great time to talk to them about God, for example. So

I mean, religion is one of the best sales and marketing programs you can be a part of. hence why I think a lot of people who have been religious end up going into sales and marketing because it's very similar. ⁓ so I think it's embedded in everything and the con the choice to be religious isn't always conscious. It can be is something you're often born into. And like I say, it's closely linked to morality, keeping you safe, your sense of belonging. ⁓ if you think at some like ⁓ if you think about something like Islam, it's culture and religion.

There were pe you know, so it's deeply in the so many things. Yes. Judaism exactly.

speaker-1 (1:03:26)

It's culture and religion. I think if I had if I had to answer your question, why are black women so attracted to this religion? And I see this contrast in black Christians and white Christians. And this this is my ⁓ hypothesis about why I think black women specifically are so tied to this religion, especially those of us who were brought here, whether you were b you know, you ended up in America, the Caribbean, Latin countries or some part of Britain, right?

When you are being systematically raped, when your family, your husband, is being taken off the plantation away from you, when your children are going away from you, right? Like you don't know if you wake up tomorrow if your child's gonna be there. And this master is telling you about this God. And you're looking at what God is doing for the master. God is giving the master a big home, God is giving the master land, God is giving the master wealth, right?

And your life is constantly about survival. You have to believe in something. You have to believe in something. Like, I I don't think we appreciate how brutal slavery was to black people and more specifically, black women. How brutal it was. And so when you're in that kind of environment, you have to believe in something. You have to believe in something.

Right. And so if religion is what our ancestors use to get out of circumstances, even if even if it was working or not working, even if it was sprinkled in with a little bit of African spirituality that we we pretend doesn't exist anymore because that's demonic and all that stuff, then we're tied to this thing. And that gets passed on like inheritance to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. And we know that black women tend to be the most devout.

Christians. White women go to church. Black women are Christians.

speaker-2 (1:05:26)

Hm. Are you I wonder just as a question, because I guess for me I

I wonder if there's a separation between faith, spirituality, and religion. And whether that's a possibility. Because I think that

Some people might push back on the belief, and I think you covered both aspects, that the belief in God stems from trauma and survival as opposed to people looking out into the universe, looking at nature, looking at creation, the process of pregnancy, although, yes, really challenging, and that's an understatement for women who are enslaved, that they would have

Looked and and observed other things and thought there must be a God, right? I think there must be something about the human spirit that recognizes there is something bigger than us. And I know for people that can mean different things, right? And so even in the midst of that, the gravity of that, they still believed that there was a god, right? I I and somebody who

was looking out for them, I suppose. Right. Maybe the the evidence of their existence for them were also evidence that there was still a God, even though you're right, your master believes that you have been given to him as as as a favor, you know, from God. It it is very convoluted. But I also think about people pre enslavement or that type of enslavement, they must have believed they s they obviously did believe in a God, right? Yeah, they yeah.

speaker-1 (1:07:08)

There's so many different African spiritualities and African religion. But when we got here to the Americas and the Caribbean, that was stripped away from us. And this religion was given to us by literal force. You know? And so if you're given something

By force, you're stripped away from your language. You're stripped away from your practices. You're stripped away from your idea of spirituality. Now I do believe some of some of the enslaved black people, and this is why we have hoodoo to this day. This is why we still have voodoo for those who practice that. And for women who, you know, read the stars or the moons or whatever. I do think some of our ancestors held on and and passed that down almost in secret because you had to be Christian. You had to be a Christian. And I just think

It gets passed down as an inheritance from how we were given this religion. We weren't we we weren't invited to it. You know, like when you go to church, maybe you I don't know, Abby, if you guys did this at your church where you have altar call at the end of every service, you have altar call and there's this rousing speech about come to you know, the song Come to Jesus, come to you know, all that other stuff. And so when you when you feel like the people you come from

Your grandmothers, your great grandmothers, your great great grandmothers had this faith. There's a belief that something good is here.

speaker-0 (1:08:35)

So I I think historically that is true. I think modern day black women, whether they realize it or not, turn to religion as proof of femininity. And I I think it's so easy for black women to get characterized as masculine that some of us do things on purpose to try and avoid that label.

And it may be something small, like I used to resist working out my shoulders too much so I wouldn't be too wide and boxy. And for some people it's more extreme, which is the ritual of getting dressed for church on a Sunday and showing up in your Sunday vests so that you can, even though you worked a full, you know, 40 hour job and you're a CEO and you're, you know, a high powered professional, that you perform this femininity on Sunday so you can be acceptable in the community.

You know?

speaker-1 (1:09:29)

I

speaker-3 (1:09:30)

I I have never that I've never heard and I I find that super fascinating. Like what you just said right now. Because

speaker-2 (1:09:39)

Think the femininity piece is also connected to legitimacy and it's also connected to purity. And I actually think it's very similar even to marriage because those things are quite linked, right? You're trying to legitimize yourself as a black woman. And again, if you look at the history of black women, especially in the West, you're not viewed as a human being and you're not legitimate as a woman. And I do agree with you that religion and marriage is a type of legitimacy. There's some credibility that you can acquire.

by engaging in these systems of power, religion and marriage, so that, you know, in the hierarchy, you're not too at the bottom because you're a pure black woman, you're a clean black woman, you're a godly black woman as opposed to you that black women are, right? And so and even remember that it carries some social cachet as well. If you are wanting to mate and attract a partner as a woman, if you can present as feminine, pure and legitimate

speaker-1 (1:10:20)

Yeah, us.

speaker-2 (1:10:34)

Then of course that increases, so to speak, your chances of being chosen. Yeah.

speaker-1 (1:10:39)

Yeah. I I agree. I totally agree with that. And that's evident what Abby is saying in look at the cogic. ⁓ the the dresses, the pomp and circumstance that black women do. ⁓ at like these are some of the best dressed black women you will ever see during church. Pentecostal, right? Like my mother used to go to conventions and my sister now goes to conventions called Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. And so we would come to the United States every year.

for convention and it looked like a fashion show. I mean, black women were they were always dressed, always dainty, and probably in a way that they weren't during the week. But on Sunday, like Abby said, they could perform femininity. They get to perform that. And they get to be soft black women, pampered black women, taking care of black women. So yeah, I I do I do think it's a way for black women, more modern day black women to

perform femininity in a culture that tells us we're not feminine. ⁓ and I think we gotta pass down generations ⁓ as a a way of survival and then we move that from survival to legitimacy. My great grandparents survived with this religion and now I'm gonna make myself legitimate with this religion.

speaker-3 (1:11:57)

I think there's so much guilt though when you're thinking about or considering this isn't this isn't right to me, or I don't believe in this, you know, and that's that's what I'm that's what I'm seeing. That's what I'm observing, you know, and that's what I think as somebody, you know, you say, Tammy, this is how it starts, as somebody who is not religious.

But believes in something, you know, believes in God, yeah, you're just like

For me to even s form the words is just like no if I'm ready to do that. Right? Mm-hmm. It's it's really hard because it's really hard. And I think a lot of black women are are feeling that way because it we are so entrenched in this Christianity thing. And of course you're a Christian. Of course it's like it's it's what

It's almost kind of what what binds us together because we've all been, you know, black people are just especially in America, I would say, we're similar. You know, we know if our religions are similar, and maybe not your version of Christianity is exactly like hers, but you believe and, you know, you come from a family and you've experienced and we can start singing the songs and w it's what so it's it's really

speaker-1 (1:13:32)

liked black American Christianity. It was far more permissive and liberating. In the Caribbean, Christianity is so strict. Yeah. I'm I'm talking about so strict and repressive. So when I got to America and I saw black Americans, I was like, Yeah, let me let me yeah, I think we do this. I went to a black American church. I listen, I it somebody said, ⁓ Caribbean, no thank you, ma'am. I'm an American now.

I'm going to my cousins' church. And I liked Black American church because, you know, outside of like certain denominations, like Abby was saying, that can be restrictive and have their own cult like feeling. But like Baptists, usually Baptists here in America or even the Pentecostals here in America, like you could wear pants. Unheard of. You wouldn't you could never go to the Caribbean and show up to church your pants. When I say never, never. The the mothers would meet you at the door.

You know the the wraps they put around you when you fall out with the Holy Ghost. Mother's gonna wrap that around you. That's gonna be your skirt, honey. Yeah. That is your skirt in church. You don't come to church in skirts. You don't come with too much makeup. You don't come with too much jewelry, right? Like you have to be appropriate for church. So when I got to America and and Americans was wearing pants.

speaker-0 (1:14:52)

Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:14:54)

We were touching upon this just before we started recording about some of the stereotypes about Caribbean people and you know, it is on they are religious, I'm Jamaican. So sometimes when people are talking about Jamaican people as if we're all immoral and loose, I'm like you don't really know any proper Jamaicans then.

speaker-1 (1:15:13)

No, no, no, no. I I think of all the Caribbean people, y'all, y'all take your Christianity. Y'all ratch that up. I wouldn't want to be a Jamaican Christian to save my life. Yeah, pull the plug. Yeah. Y'all are some of the strictest in the Caribbean with religion. And Jamaicans I I find fall into three categories. They're either gonna be Pentecostal or holiness, right? Like fire, brimstone, holy ghost, blah blah blah blah.

speaker-2 (1:15:19)

Yeah.

speaker-1 (1:15:41)

They're gonna be Jehovah's Witness or seven day adventists. Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:15:44)

Yeah, those tend to be the three. or nothing at all, right? ⁓

speaker-1 (1:15:48)

All

gonna be a Rastamond. Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:15:51)

Yes,

even if you're nothing at all, you do believe in God.

speaker-1 (1:15:54)

believe

in God. What would you say? Abby says she ⁓ considers herself an atheist. I'm like I I I still sit with agnostic in that I don't believe in this Christian God we were given. I think that was a way to keep us oppressed. And you know the more that we believe in the God and pray to this God, these folks that did the things to us ain't gonna never see judgment. Because we're covering them. But that's a whole nother show for a whole nother time. So I would call myself

more agnostic. I believe something is here, something is here, but I I wouldn't call it the Christian God. I like when I think about God, cr the Christian God does not pop into mind for me. Yeah. Where would you place yourself?

speaker-2 (1:16:37)

I do still believe in a God, but my before I had a very clear image of God, and I'm not talking about like physically, but I have this clear image of God that I identified with and I connected with that isn't the case anymore, but I do still believe there is a God and I'm not religious. I wouldn't describe myself as religious at all. ⁓

speaker-3 (1:16:57)

Yeah. ⁓

speaker-0 (1:16:59)

Give you more description of like how I orient myself. So I believe in a god of the gaps. Have you ever heard that before? So so it kind of goes like this. Once upon a time, we people, I mean, thought that the sun revolved around the earth.

speaker-1 (1:17:04)

Okay.

No, but

speaker-0 (1:17:23)

And if you tried to make a mathematical equation that would give you the positioning of the sun at any given time, it wouldn't make sense because the s the sun does not revolve around the earth. And so there was a mathematician who wrote in the margins of a book ⁓ where he was trying to do the mathematical formula that this is where God comes in, because I this formula it can I can't work it out, you know? A mathematician comes behind him and at this point we recognize that the earth actually moves around the sun.

And so now this mathematician can solve the problem that the earlier mathematician could not. And he crosses it out. There's no God here because now I I've figured out this equation. So I I think that God only exists in the knowledge that we haven't figured out yet. And as soon as we can figure out the science and math behind it, then that gap is filled.

speaker-2 (1:18:06)

Mm.

speaker-0 (1:18:22)

Now, when my dad passed away, what I looked for was an emotional relief because math ain't everything. I look to different cultures. How do you express your grief? Because I'm grieving. And the only way I know how to express that doesn't make sense to me. How do I what how do I call upon God in the situation that I don't believe in? So the emotional element of that I haven't completely figured out. I did try some things from different cultures. I will I

speaker-1 (1:18:42)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (1:18:50)

I still want relief a lot of days, but I know that is me searching for something that's beyond science and beyond math, that still doesn't need to be a supposed omnipotent, omnipresent being who actually doesn't solve for anything.

speaker-1 (1:18:58)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:19:09)

I could just read the comments now, Abby. I know. Sorry.

speaker-1 (1:19:15)

Yeah, it's gonna be wildin' them comments at me.

speaker-2 (1:19:18)

One thing I will say that I find really ironic about people who are Christian is that there's lots of things that they don't know that the Bible doesn't answer, but they supply answers for. And when somebody like Abby speaks and shares her thoughts and what she thinks about whether there is a God, suddenly you're automatically judged as wrong and blasphemous. And I find that ironic because if you look at rel Christians in particular, they make things up all the time.

That don't haven't actually been proven, right? They they supply things in the gap that you quite you know clearly describe and they supply explanations and beliefs that are harmful. So for me, when I hear you speak, I don't feel offence, I don't think it's wild at all because I'm like, I came from a religion where they literally decide what's true, where there isn't any evidence from the Bible. Does that make sense? And the things that they decide impact real people's lives. So to me, I think it's okay for us to start

You know, think what you want for money. It's because religion gets to decide. They decide things all the time.

speaker-1 (1:20:19)

Yeah. Speaking of the impact people's lives, my neighbor is Jehovah's Witness. And this was the first time I I heard this. And her husband had cheated on her. And they went to the ministers because most religion always will favor the man. Like like I think once we understand that religion really is for men, ⁓ then it is for women. And I wish women would wake up to that fact. And so

Apparently there's a rule in Jehovah's Witness that if you forgive and he enters the bed again that you can't ever leave him. And s and so she forgave him, got back in the bed, and then he cheated again. And I remember her like there was a bunch of elders that came to her house and she said that they ruled that she cannot remarry.

speaker-2 (1:21:11)

Okay. So the rule this is what I mean about rules. So obviously what they do is they take that scripture that says you become one flesh when you marry. And for them within Jehovah's Witnesses, that one flesh is marked by sex. That's the one flesh coming together. So ⁓ if one of the marriage mates has sex with somebody else, and even what the definition of sex is very hazy, especially when it comes to men. If it's a woman, it's very clear. When it's a man, it's very hazy.

If he has sex with somebody else, and then you as a woman, if you have sex with your husband again, that is that is deemed to be forgiveness. It's the sex after knowing about the cheating that is the forgiveness. Now, as you can imagine in practice, that gets very tricky because sometimes people are emotional, they may not have made a decision about whether they want to stay, and if their husband is alive, they might well have sex again. But for that means that you cannot divorce him after that.

You lose your right for divorce in that religion. ⁓ and then if the person repeatedly cheats, of course, you have to supply evidence to the elders that cheating has happened and they have to approve that divorce. So if your evidence isn't good enough, you will not be granted that divorce by those elders. You only have six months to decide. So if your husband cheats and you find out he cheats, you've got six months to decide.

Whether or not you will divorce him and in that six months, if you have sex with him, it's null and void. You have to remain in the marriage.

speaker-1 (1:22:46)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:22:47)

Who has this Bible?

speaker-2 (1:22:48)

Well like I said, it's the rules. It cannot be evidenced by script.

speaker-1 (1:22:51)

Ha.

Sure. Yeah. 'Cause she said she can't remarry. She is bound to him. Right.

speaker-2 (1:23:00)

So the way they see is if there's no grounds for divorce, which the only grounds is adultery. So if they feel that she's reconnected with him, the one flesh, then she loses her grounds for divorce. So even if she wants to divorce after that, it would be deemed to be an unscriptural divorce, which means she's not free to remarry.

speaker-1 (1:23:21)

And I s and and she she's young, she was in her thirties, two small daughters, and I was like, So you have to live the rest of your life without a companion the rest of your life.

speaker-2 (1:23:35)

Yes.

And it within the Jehovah's Witness faith there are more men no, there are more women, sorry, than men anyway. And so what tends to happen is if your husband cheats, you are discouraged anyway from leaving him. And it literally says in the publications, you need to think about who will take care of your financial needs, who will take care of your sexual needs, because it's known that the women do not remarry at the same rates as the men do. You can have one brother who goes and he can marry two, three times, right?

But if if as a woman, particularly if you're over a certain age, etcetera etcetera, they know the likelihood of you remarrying is very low, and that also means that women are disincentivised, of course, from leaving a cheating husband.

speaker-3 (1:24:16)

That's wild. Okay. Last question. What do you guys want black women in particular to know who are questioning, who are on the fence, who are struggling in this area of their lives?

We can just let's start with let's start with Tammy.

speaker-1 (1:24:43)

Top right corner, huh?

speaker-3 (1:24:47)

You're top left for me. ⁓

speaker-1 (1:24:51)

So

what I want black women to know who are questioning or having doubts or as Ashanti said, have clarity is that your walk away from religion is not going to be the same as everybody else's walk. And you may have times where you do go back, because I've gone back. You may have times where you feel like you can't let go of certain aspects. I remember, like for me, gospel music is so deeply entrenched.

In w in my religion, in my faith, choir, you know, all that other stuff. Until I started listening to what I was singing, what I was singing over myself. And I said, I gotta stop singing this stuff. This is disempowering. I'm always kneeling. I'm always begging. I'm always searching. Like it's so disempowering to who you are. So you may like the beat, right? You may like the little jig that happens that we do when we're in church. But no black woman

Particularly, no black woman's walk is going to be the same. And if you have times in that journey of leaving where you go back to give yourself grace, empathy, and compassion. Because nobody, a lot of us don't have a straight walk out. I think social media can make it seem like, especially you're watching a lot of deconstructing videos, that it was a straight walk out of religion and you never turn back. That's not true for a lot of us. That's not true for a lot of us. And some of us go back.

If you even if it's just music, you may not go back to the building, but you playing that gospel music and you feel very connected to that gospel music and you feel very ⁓ comforted by that gospel music. Even the even as though even as the words are dispo this disempowering to you, you still feel connected to it. So if you have doubt, if you have clarity, you don't ha your walk doesn't have to look like every other black woman's walk or every deconstructing TikTok you see or anybody that you're dealing with.

your walk is gonna be your own and to honor the way that we're taught to honor our our relationship with God, honor the relationship with yourself as you leave.

speaker-3 (1:26:59)

All right, Ashanti.

speaker-2 (1:27:03)

Yeah. My main and genuine thought is that you have the authority to decide what you believe. You have the authority to decide what you believe. Whatever it is. Whatever way it falls, the authority belongs to you. I think secondly your dignity matters. There's a lot of things that happen within religion that strips women of their dignity and that matters. And if you've experienced that, you can absolutely trust

your lived reality. It does matter. And you get to weigh up your religion or faith against whether or not you are being dignified.

speaker-0 (1:27:43)

Alright, Abby. I would say there is a community waiting for you. You may feel like you're leaving everything behind. You may in fact be leaving all your friends behind. You may have a time of loneliness, but there is a community that's waiting for you virtually and in person, and you will eventually find that community.

I said earlier I lost all of my friends from high school pretty much when I left and I turned to making friends online in black atheist and agnostic communities and then eventually I I found some in real life as well. So whatever it is that you are interested in, just continue pursuing your other interest and you'll meet people in those positions and it won't feel so lonely anymore, just for a time.

speaker-2 (1:28:33)

Maybe.

Yeah. If I could add as well, I think it's also a very vulnerable time. Yeah. You are actually very vulnerable emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. And one thing I've learned and shared with others who've asked me, do not rush into new friendships, don't rush into new relationships because you are vulnerable. And sometimes when you may be leaving something, you are pulled to other things and you may not realise why. It doesn't mean that everybody is safe.

Even if it seems that we both agree that we've had a hard time in religion, whatever it might be, it doesn't mean that these all of these people are safe. So you do need some discernment because it's still a very vulnerable time. ⁓ and I know some people will read that as me saying that the devil's gonna attack you. That's no, that's not I'm just saying energetically and emotionally sometimes we are vulnerable when we are leaving a entrenched, embedded way of life. And so you can misjudge

speaker-1 (1:29:31)

Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:29:34)

And misassess people on the basis that they're saying I don't believe in God either. They could really be the devil. And I don't mean the devil you've been taught, I mean as people. And it may not be safe for you to be forming these close bonds with just anybody. So I would say I think some discernment is needed. And there's almost like a one of the things I read when I eventually started reading material is that it can take about 10 years for you to really recover from leaving religion. And so if you're in those early years, it can you can be vulnerable.

speaker-1 (1:30:05)

Yeah, I was gonna say I I agree. Don't rush into another thing because you left one thing. ⁓ trying to fill the gap or the void. Cause like Ashanti said, that void may be the absolute void. I'm talking about complete darkness there. So don't feel like you have to replace religion with something else. ⁓ and I think a lot of people replace religion with spirituality, and that's such a broad umbrella, right? Like people are practicing all kinds of different spirituality.

And I think you have to get to know who you are outside of this religion to understand what fits for you. And sometimes none of it fits. None of it fits. It it it's like Abby. When the gaps get filled, the gaps get filled. But I I don't have to fill it with something. That's what ⁓ mutual of mine on TikTok says. She says, I don't believe in God, but I no longer feel the need, she says, I'm an atheist. She says, and I no longer feel the need to fill in the gaps. She goes, For a long time I felt the need that I needed to fill in the gaps.

And she goes, I don't feel the need to do that because I didn't do that when I was religious.

speaker-2 (1:31:09)

Yes. And that's important 'cause I think some people, from my observation, they start displaying quite extreme behaviours and they think that that's really who they are, but actually it's because you're in that that dip when you just leave. So they get tattoos, they get loads of piercings. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things. What I'm saying is they're not always necessarily decisions that you would make once things have leveled out and you become more sober minded about your identity in relation to faith and spirituality and religion.

So you do have to be careful about, you know, not mistaking certain behaviours as this is who I always was, because actually you might not want to have sex outside of marriage now, right? You might not want to. Just because you think you can now, it doesn't mean that that's truly who you are. And again, sometimes people in that gap make some big important decisions that aren't really reflective of who they are, but they were, you know, I don't know what the word is, almost like when you've gone cold turkey and then you, you know.

I think you just have to be aware of that.

speaker-3 (1:32:11)

I would equate it to it's a grieving process, I think, for sure. And ⁓ you know, we've all lost ⁓ someone important. ⁓ like when I lost my mom, I dated poorly, right? So ⁓ to your point, Ashanti, that's important, I think, ⁓ just being in search of anything, you know what I'm saying? Just trying to fill the void.

speaker-1 (1:32:35)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:32:36)

Very important. I think this is a great conversation. I I feel I don't know what's gonna happen in the comments. I don't people are gonna say because I got some interesting ones when Ashanti and I had our our talk. ⁓ a lot of people felt the need to one person in particular, it's like they just come in with all caps preaching. It's like, did you hear what she said or are you just here to preach in all caps? What are you doing?

speaker-0 (1:32:44)

Yeah.

speaker-1 (1:33:05)

They just did a preach. Mm-hmm.

speaker-3 (1:33:07)

Yeah, yeah. And I think similar to what Abby was saying before we we started recording, ⁓ to the woman you spoke about who is in religious psychosis and doesn't listen, I think that a lot of times when it comes to conversations about religion with certain women, I think particularly black women too, there there is just no open mindedness.

sometimes. We just like the girls that you said, she she doesn't listen. You know, she just wants to tell you what they know or what they believe or what they've been raised to believe or whatever without the ⁓ without any ⁓ willingness to think about it a different way or consider it a different way. So I just wanna thank you all for coming on and

It's it's a hard topic, you know, and I you know, I might ask you back 'cause like I don't what

speaker-1 (1:34:08)

No.

speaker-0 (1:34:10)

This is the most I've talked about religion because I told you I kind of shy away from it. It's like the final frontier for me.

speaker-3 (1:34:17)

Thank

you. I shy away from it. I'm not I'm not where you are, but I I shy away from it for the reasons that I said. It's it's 'cause if that's what you've known and that and then you don't you don't have that anymore, then what are you? Like what that's that's hard to reconcile that in your mind, you know, it's a it's a big decision. So and I know just based on just sitting up here on this microphone and listening to women and interacting with other black women, I

I know God didn't put me, God, whomever, universe didn't make me the only one out here to have thoughts. Be the only one to experience these things by myself. So, ⁓ you know.

speaker-1 (1:34:54)

And

Can

I say one last thing? Mm-hmm. I think walking away from religion has made me so empathetic to Christians because I know that mindset. I lived it. I lived it. So when they get into the comment section and they're throwing scriptures at me, I I understand that. When they get in the comment and they say things like, Well, I don't I don't care what y'all are talking about, everybody on this new f I

Because I was that person. I absolutely was that person. And knowing how on the other side of it, how indoctrinated I was. When they come into my comment section and they spew that, I j I just read those comments and I remember that girl because that was me. That was me. Now like I wasn't always like I wouldn't come in people's comment section. I don't do that. Like you can search my username. I don't leave ugly comments on people's posts if if

If the the content is not for me, I just scroll. I I don't feel a need to do that. But when they do get in my comment section, I that is that was me. And even if I didn't say it, I believed it. Even if I never said it to you, I believed that if you didn't come to know Christ and you know, all knees are gonna bow and every tongue is gonna confess that Jesus Christ is I like I believed it. And I know when they come into my comment section, just like I thought I was doing it from the

good intention and a pure place and I wanted people to be saved and I didn't want people to go to hell. A lot of them are doing that for that reason.

speaker-2 (1:36:36)

Yeah. And you know, a lot of the time it has nothing to do with you. They are defending your identity. They're defending their own identity and they're so intrinsic. Because I think this is one of the things that for them, their nervous system cannot even cope with fathoming that it's possible that that what they believe is wrong, because then that links to their salvation. Right? This is a nervous system deep thing where their body does not feel safe.

speaker-1 (1:36:40)

Nothing to do with me.

Exactly.

That's right.

speaker-2 (1:37:02)

They will die. I believe that Armageddon was coming. So it was real. It's death that is coming to you. You do not believe this. And so when I see people like that in the comments, I understand that you have to defend your identity. You have to try to stay alive. But equally, what they're doing is what they've been taught to do. Deny, deny, deny. And we see this across many areas of life. When people talk about sexual assault, people don't believe you.

speaker-1 (1:37:21)

Yes.

Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:37:31)

That I literally you will get people in the comments saying, Well that's not everybody. There are lots of kind men. Not my husband, not my ch that is it's deny, deny, deny. And so that's what you are witnessing when you see people put those kind of things in the comments.

speaker-1 (1:37:48)

Yeah. And I If we get a Go ahead, Abby.

speaker-0 (1:37:51)

If we get together again we can talk about what Ashanti just said. I have a lot of religious anxiety or anxiety that came from religion.

speaker-1 (1:38:01)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (1:38:02)

⁓ as a kid and it's affected me in so many ways. Like as a kid I was constantly trying to figure out when I wasn't a kid anymore because we learned that all children go to heaven. And so I wanted I I needed to know when I stopped being a kid and started being accountable for my thoughts. And it gave me a lot of anxiety. Were you w it was not defined and so I was constantly searching myself for any definitive I would ask

speaker-1 (1:38:22)

Tot twelve.

speaker-0 (1:38:30)

different people, I would search through the Bible. I was constantly looking for when when am I responsible ⁓ because I needed to repent for every single bad thought that I had. Yeah and quickly because you don't know the time or the hour. And that has given me a lot of anxiety.

speaker-1 (1:38:47)

We were taught that ⁓ we were no longer children when Jesus I think he was thirteen. ⁓ when he came back so thirteen. So we were told that w when Jesus turned thirteen, he was now the Messiah, the savior, all the things. So that's when we become accountable for our sins. So growing up in church I was told it was thirteen. But yeah, it it has there's so much anxiety and stress around religion. So that's why I said walking away has

Giving me so much empathy for people who are still in it. And I know sometimes like deconstructing people or those of us left the fate can be very nasty and cruel in the way that they talk about Christians. And I I just go, where is your like how how do you miss that empathy piece? Because you were them. You were them. You you know exactly what's in that conversation.

speaker-2 (1:39:42)

One thing I've learned is that not everybody is actually devout, even though you're all sitting in the same room. Do you see where I'm coming from? Because some people are there because it's tradition and it's culture and some people are there because they think it means their life. And so there's been so many people I've met who will say to I never believed it anyway and I'm like, I actually did. I I was I actually wept and

speaker-1 (1:39:49)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:40:03)

Yeah.

speaker-1 (1:40:03)

Those

usually aren't the people in your comment section dropping scripture. Those that devout ones drop scripture.

speaker-2 (1:40:09)

Assume that everybody's level of emotional and nervous system attachment is the same. It is not. Because I actually wept and sobbed, you know, when I had to go through that judicial. I felt it was I I I can't even describe the pain, the heartbreak, the I could not there are still no words because I thought this must be God's wrath. Whereas for other people it might not affect them that way. A lot of people are like, well, just leave the religion, right? And so

I think sometimes we the truth is we don't know people's internal consciousness around it, even though we might all be in the same room on a Sunday. Yeah.

speaker-1 (1:40:43)

Yeah.

I think all of us here were devout. I think all of us here were very, very devout. I mean, I went to church Tuesday night ⁓ prayer meeting, Thursday night Bible study, Saturday night choir rehearsal, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service. And I did that for years.

speaker-3 (1:41:11)

I never went that much.

speaker-0 (1:41:15)

I'm so s I'm so sorry I have to I have to ⁓ leave and go get a delivery. I'm so sorry.

speaker-3 (1:41:21)

That's okay. ⁓ that's it. We can we can wrap it up.

speaker-1 (1:41:27)

Thank How do people find you?

speaker-0 (1:41:31)

You can f

I'm on TikTok, Abby the Attorney, Instagram too. I I'm much happier on Instagram. Yes. Instagram is a much happier place for me. It's a photo place, it's a travel place. On TikTok I'm just telling horrible stories. ⁓

speaker-3 (1:41:45)

Wow.

Okay. I think I follow you on Instagram, but I I've been more ⁓

speaker-1 (1:41:51)

I gotta

I gotta check out Abby on Instagram since she said that she likes that better.

speaker-3 (1:41:55)

Well I'm gonna put all of you guys' information into the description and you know, I'm gonna

speaker-1 (1:42:02)

Pleasure meeting you tonight, Abby.

speaker-3 (1:42:04)

You too. Thanks, Abby. So at this point, Abby the attorney has left us. However, even when I try to wrap up, the conversation just keeps going. And it actually gets super funny and way off track. But just stick around to listen and get a giggle. And and not a giggle as well, but the conversation does take a turn. We're probably gonna have to come back and ⁓

speaker-0 (1:42:04)

Yeah, too.

speaker-3 (1:42:32)

I I just I I just I'm I have no idea what the comments are gonna say, so we'll see how

speaker-2 (1:42:38)

You know what, Erin? It's good when there is polarity in the comments. It's good.

speaker-3 (1:42:44)

for sure. I'm very ⁓ you know, I'm excited. I was excited to meet with everyone. This has been a very interesting conversation and and questions prepared that I didn't you know, I'm just observing 'cause I'm trying to be as neutral as possible. ⁓ because I know I'm gonna end up when I find the right ones, I'm going to have the other side. You know what I'm saying? So ⁓

Neutral.

speaker-2 (1:43:15)

What's interesting to me, and obviously because this is like the stuff that's a big part of my work is about self-authority. I actually don't think there are sides. As long as you are if you are exercising self-authority, you can believe what you want to believe. That's the way I genuinely see it, to be honest. As long as you know as you're as conscious as you can be about the decisions you're making, the same way I have the self-authority to think religion isn't for me.

You have the self authority to decide it is

speaker-1 (1:43:45)

Religion is for you.

speaker-3 (1:43:47)

That's the other side what I mean. Like I mean women who feel like religion has been good for them, who maybe have struggled and come back, you know. This is this is those women I'm interested in hearing from as well because you know, they they're very convicted in what they believe as well. So you know, so

speaker-1 (1:44:06)

Yeah.

Ten years ago I would have been that woman on the other side of this conversation. That's what I'm saying. You know? I yeah, I I I do think I'm with ⁓ Ashanti that people get to decide if religion works for them. And I believe religion like I inherently believe some people's walk through this life is to be with religion attached to them. Yeah. I just believe that people need religion.

speaker-2 (1:44:30)

Some

speaker-1 (1:44:33)

You know, I have family members that need religion. They need the rigidity. They need the structure. They need an authority outside of themselves to tell them how to live their lives and govern their lives because without it, they would be a menace. So some people need religion. And I I accept that. That's why I said when I see ⁓ you know, Christians get in my comment section sometimes and I it's so ironic to me that I have so many black women who are Christians that follow me. Yeah.

Right. And I think because I don't speak down to them. Like if I'm talking about the link between religion and white supremacy, I'm just having an academic conversation here. I I'm not making it personal to anybody. Yeah. I'm just having an academic conversation.

speaker-3 (1:45:17)

I think way both of you guys speak is just so compelling. All of you really. Abby's not here right now, but it just pulls you in, you know, and that's why I'm drawn to each of you, like, this really this woman is really talking about something. You know, she's really talking about something.

speaker-2 (1:45:35)

I think also the reality is a lot of women live in cognitive dissonance anyway. I know I keep saying that when you look across life in general, the way you're treated as a woman by men, th you're living in cognitive dissonance all the time because what you see and experience usually is not aligned with what you've been promised. So if you can do that in life, you can do that in a religion. I I actually think a lot of women know that something isn't quite right all the time, but they're willing to stay.

They can rationalize it and they think here's the trade offs. I'll stay. I genuinely think a lot of women know that.

speaker-1 (1:46:11)

Now Aaron, please keep this in. Please keep this in. A lot of people are Christians because and they're there because of fear. A l a lot of people are being held into Christianity on fear of hell.

speaker-3 (1:46:14)

Lord.

speaker-2 (1:46:24)

Mm.

speaker-1 (1:46:26)

Fear of hell, fear of damnation into a burning hell. That's what keeps a lot of Christian because one of the arguments you always get from Christian is, but what if you're wrong? Yeah. Right? So they'll take the risk, they'll take the risk of believing this faith, like like Ashanti was saying, performing the faith because they they don't want to be wrong. It's that what if you're wrong? And that's what Christians always say to me when we have these conversations.

But what if you're wrong? And I said, If I'm wrong, I'm happy to go to this place called hell because the God of the Bible is not a God I would want to spend the rest of my life worshiping anyway.

speaker-3 (1:47:06)

I definitely believe a lot of ⁓ Christianity is performative for sure.

speaker-2 (1:47:13)

And the thing is you can still believe in a God and not do all the performing. This is why I think like it's so funny, Tammy, when you're talking about what if you're wrong. I literally had to get to a point where I thought I'm gonna take my ri my my I'm gonna take my chances. Yeah. Because as far as I'm concerned, I know my character and I also know I still don't live the life the religion taught me was wrong. So really and truly I'm pr I'm basically in the same spot in many ways in terms of my morality as they regard it. I'm still not doing the things I was

speaker-3 (1:47:17)

Exactly.

speaker-2 (1:47:43)

I wasn't allowed to do before. I don't desire to do them now. So the I got to a point before I'll take my chances because even if God does come back, he's gonna find me not really doing the things that I was always told you shouldn't be doing.

speaker-3 (1:47:55)

Anyway.

speaker-1 (1:47:56)

Exactly.

You know,

speaker-2 (1:47:58)

I'd rather put my dignity. That part of

speaker-1 (1:48:01)

You can be around I said, I got divorced. I've only been with one person since since like I I don't like s I first of all, I don't like trading energies with a lot of people. Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:48:12)

Yeah, that's that's a yeah.

speaker-1 (1:48:15)

I I I I don't I don't find people that in compelling when I say people I mean men enough that I want to trade energy and bodily fluids with them.

speaker-2 (1:48:20)

Exactly.

Exactly.

And you know what's so funny to me is that churches will defend and protect people whose morality is in the the the gutter. So I must feel bad? No, I don't think so because you've got people there who are abusing children, you've got people there who cheat on their wives con constantly, you've got people there who like to sleep with underage girls. I can't be convinced that the life I'm living falls below the line of acceptable when in

speaker-1 (1:48:53)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

speaker-2 (1:48:54)

are

harbouring these kinds of people. So again, I'll take my chances actually on the outside. I just will.

speaker-3 (1:49:02)

With that

speaker-1 (1:49:04)

We're taking our chances. Ashanti and Tammy are taking their chances.

speaker-3 (1:49:10)

Well, Unpunishable Woman and Delusional Influencer Tammy Triello. You guys have been awesome, awesome. I can't wait for your book to come out, Tammy. it's coming. And then we'll have to have you back for that.

speaker-1 (1:49:27)

Okay. In the meantime you can get that one.

speaker-3 (1:49:29)

Empathy

gap. And I'm gonna do my empathy I haven't had a chance to do my empathy scorecard. I was I didn't I I I didn't, but I'm gonna try to work on it this weekend. I was I was traveling and then I was catch up

speaker-1 (1:49:42)

But

no, I I want you to be in a place I want you to really sit down to be able to do it.

speaker-3 (1:49:46)

I heard you say that. I heard you say that when I somebody you you said somebody I I think it was on one of your videos, somebody thought they were gonna do it real quick and it's not that. So I knew that I I needed to to dedicate some time to really I mean, I can't wait to do it.

speaker-1 (1:50:05)

I I can't wait until you do it. I will say as we end here, I wanna say to Ashanti she said something and I was nodding my head vigorously. I don't know if y'all notice that. But when she was saying when she experienced the rape, she didn't trust herself. ⁓ even in her workplace, even in her expertise, even what she knew, she didn't trust herself. And I think I I was nodding because I was like

I had periods of not trusting myself in in my own work, right? And I was like, Well, why don't you trust yourself? And when she was saying, like, a lot of people don't have the capacity to really heal from trauma. Yeah. Right. Like I'm I'm just unearthing the trauma of my mother passing. And I haven't really even reached back in the r recesses of my mind about that rape. And

Yeah, there's a there's a and and I think it's another reason why I'm not promiscuous. Because when that happens, you don't trust that you're gonna you're gonna be in a safe situation with this man. Mm-hmm. That's why it always stuns me when women go on first date and they come back and they say, we I I'm like first of all, what man are you meeting so interesting that you want to take them to bed?

speaker-2 (1:51:22)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:51:22)

I just had this conversation with a friend of mine because we were talking about

speaker-2 (1:51:26)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:51:30)

Girls who are promiscuous 'cause somebody had did a and I don't know if I'll keep this on you guys. Somebody had done a video about what happens what what is going through your mind when you get a train run on you? What is going through your mind and it was a stitch and then the girl came in and she said, Well, I'll tell you what happened to me 'cause I had this happen to me and you know, she said she was intimate with her man and then all of a sudden she looked up and his friends were in there.

And she didn't know how to respond, so she let it happen. And so my male friend was like, Well, you know, she must have liked it. I was like, absolutely the fuck not. Okay. I said, you don't know happened to her. Why something happened to her for her to feel that way. Well, she must be as like you don't understand how many women have been harmed and and

speaker-1 (1:52:15)

Why not?

speaker-3 (1:52:29)

and sexually assaulted, so she might not love herself enough. She might have been, you know, thinking this is what

speaker-2 (1:52:38)

Erin, I'm sorry. A lot of this isn't that complicated. Because a lot of it is the fact of the matter is this stuff is wrong. Men will find any excuse to to say that a woman wanted it and desired it. Meanwhile, you never asked her. She's never expressed that interest to you before, for starters. The other thing is a lot of these young girls, the it is I'm sorry to say it is impossible that a young girl has the sexual taste and preference.

speaker-3 (1:52:42)

Okay.

speaker-2 (1:53:07)

For that kind of sex.

speaker-3 (1:53:09)

This what I was trying to communicate because I said at that young age there's no way that this has happened to her and she wanted that. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

speaker-2 (1:53:22)

And I saw that video and because obviously I talk a lot about sex on my I I that stuff makes me angry because it is not a sexual taste or preference for most women. Period. And not young girls. And so men need to tell themselves and each other these lies. Because at the end of the day, it's the same thing when men will think that their wife is enjoying the sex and she is not. Like you can never unfortunately, I'm sorry to say, you cannot trust men's assessment of women's sexual satisfaction.

speaker-3 (1:53:52)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And and and what about the guys who are in there? Like, I'm sorry. You know? So ⁓

speaker-2 (1:53:58)

It's not a

It's

it's absurd when I hear these things because also as a woman I can honestly say I don't have any female friends that can text or call me and say, Do you know what Shanti, we're in a room and there's one person here, come along that that doesn't happen. There's no WhatsApp group for that. And that's why I always I do not hold back when I talk about men because how is it you even have friends who thought of calling you, who thought to text

speaker-1 (1:54:21)

Wait.

speaker-2 (1:54:32)

What kind of person are you that your friend thinks you would even be interested in coming to a room where there's one woman, she's barely speaking, and all of you are doing what that to me says a lot about who you are and who your friends think you are. Because amongst women there's no woman that's gonna text or call me and say a shanty, we're at a hotel in room three one four and I I go. Let's just get that straight. One

speaker-1 (1:54:48)

Absolutely.

speaker-2 (1:55:00)

No. And two, when I get there, there's someone there and hello, no. And when they try to remix these things after, I do not allow it because it is straight barbaric, egregious on every single level that you even participated in such a thing in my

speaker-3 (1:55:17)

He just was like, You don't think so? I said, I know not. I know not. Not at that age. Are you crazy? Any age. Nobody asked for that. That isn't pleasurable for her.

speaker-1 (1:55:30)

That's

that that that woman's profession and she's getting paid to do that and she's consented to that. No regular woman is, you know, enjoying sex and then look up and see her friend's buddy. And what kind of man? That's what I'm saying. This is why I it never like, you know, Aaron, I don't know if you was with me when I was doing some of my dating content.

speaker-3 (1:55:51)

I don't know. No. I've seen a lot of that.

speaker-1 (1:55:53)

So I I I was doing date dating content and by dating, doing content just like, you every now and again I'd go on a date. And I would have girlfriends who was also dating, and they would, you know, go back to the guy's house and I'm like, I have sat across from quite a few men in very nice restaurants, eating very nice meals. The ambience was beautiful because I expect no less. Okay. And never once have I looked across the table and go, We must do it tonight.

Right. Never not once. In fact, I don't even kiss men on first dates. So I'm like, who are these men you are meeting that you find so interesting, so sexy, so compelling that you can't go home by yourself? You must go to this man's house and you must take him to bed. And the answer was always the same. A lot of these girls, yeah, may not make maybe don't keep this in error.

speaker-0 (1:56:24)

Yeah.

speaker-3 (1:56:24)

Right.

Now at this point, Tammy Triello has asked me to not keep something in and the conversation gets really juicy a little bit after darkish. And perhaps at a later date I will air it. I will have to get approval from Tammy and Ashanti. But we had a great conversation and ⁓ I just want to thank everybody for

Joining us today. We are going to continue this conversation on religion. This is the first time we've talked about this in a panel, but it certainly won't be the last. And we will address this topic from all sides. And I will do my best to get the right panel together to facilitate these conversations. So I just want you guys to know that. Thank you guys so much for sticking in there with me to listen and

We will see you in the next episode.