46. Healing, joy and returning to your authentic self with Inemesit Graham

Written By Surabhi Veitch

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Surabhi Veitch interviews repeat guest, fitness and nutrition coach, and anti-racism educator, Inemesit Graham, for a conversation all about healing, joy and returning to your authentic self. Inemesit lives Audre Lorde’s message: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” We get into how reconnecting to her beautiful Afro hair has been a way to celebrate herself and to heal from years of being bullied for her hair. We also discuss white supremacy and how it plays out with Karens, double standards, tone policing and immense pressures on Black, brown and racialized peoples.

We discuss:

  • How treading water can be just as hard as swimming against the current

  • The history of white supremacy, slavery and arbitrary rules for segregating Black people

  • Prioritizing self-care as an act of self-love

  • Healing through reconnecting with and celebrating her Afro hair

  • Connecting with her kids and herself via art

  • How white supremacy culture shows up in clothing, loss of cultural languages, pressure to assimilate and double standards

  • Queen Elizabeth’s death and why we don’t mourn it

  • What the term “Karen” actually means and why any white woman can be a Karen

  • The Civil Rights Movement, the violence of white women, and Emmett Till's murder

  • Tone policing in the workplace

  • Defining empathy and why so many people have trouble with it

  • Being African is not a monolith. Being BIPOC is not a monolith. Being Asian is not a monolith.

  • The pressure for exceptionalism as a way of survival

Inemesit Graham Bio

Inemesit is a personal trainer and nutrition coach specializing in pre and postnatal fitness. Inemesit's goal is a decolonized approach to fitness based on body liberty and not body oppression.

Links/Resources

Connect with Surabhi:

  • Please note that the time-stamps are slightly off since the transcript time starts once the intro music finishes. I apologize for the inconvenience.

    Surabhi: [00:00:00] Hi friends, and welcome back to another episode of Mom Strength. This is Surabhi Veitch, and I am so pumped to have on a repeat guest, Inemesit Graham. She was on episode 10 A and 10 B, and we were talking all about improving the diversity and representation in fitness, decolonizing fitness, body image and diastasis recti healing after having a child, having three children. And today we're back to chat about so many things. We wanna talk about healing, joy, and returning back to our authentic selves, returning back to our homes.

    So welcome Inemesit. I'm so happy to have you back.

    Inemesit: Hi Surabhi. It's good to be here.

    Surabhi: So can you tell me first of all, who you are and what you do to refresh our audience?

    Inemesit: Okay. I am a personal trainer and a fitness nutrition coach, and I work online And in person, helping people find freedom in their [00:01:00] body and freedom in the movements that they find enjoyable.

    [00:01:04] Salmon swimming upstream as an analogy for white supremacy

    Surabhi: So I wanna start today by chatting about one of the things that you shared in your stories, uh, in the summer. And it was an analogy of Salmon swimming upstream.

    Yeah. And could you please could you please share that visual with us.

    Inemesit: Yeah, so I was on vacation. I had the opportunity to see some salmon getting rebreeding. So we went into a river and it was upstream. The currents running down and the salmon were swimming against the current, which I've known that salmon do. I've just never seen it. And just watching them and often I was recording them and they would just stay in the same position though swimming.

    But the current is pushing them back and they're moving, but they're not moving forward. And then every once in a while one salmon would jump over, jump over a rock and move further upstream and watching them, one of the guides came over and he said, um, it's interesting cuz the smaller salmon have an easier time navigating these [00:02:00] rocks and the larger salmon.

    And people often think bigger salmon will have an easier time. And it just kind of made me think of. This is an analogy of white supremacy. White supremacy being water. And the story is, I can't remember who said it originally, but it's a story of two fish swimming side by side in an ocean and an older fish comes along and swims past them, and he looks to the two younger fish and he says, morning fish.

    How's the morning sun? How's the water? And the two fish continue swimming forward, not really thinking about it. And a little while further up the water, one of the smaller fish looks to the his friend and says, what the heck is water? And so that. Kind of analogy was for white supremacy. What people don't understand, they're trying to look for it in certain places, and white supremacy is water and we are the fish swimming in it.

    And we're all born into this system. And so it's normal to us and it's not, when someone else recognizes it, it can consume something foreign because it's what we're swimming in. And with [00:03:00] water, it's not until you come to the surface and you look and you see that it's not the only thing there, but it's, it's literally everywhere. And so thinking, bringing back to the salmon, I'm seeing these salmon swimming against this current and as a black woman, I often feel like I'm navigating a system that's pushing me back and I'm trying to move forward and it's pushing me back and it can feel exhausting. And you look at the salmon, it's like if it's they're working so hard, why wouldn't they give up?

    But the reason salmon swim upstream is because they breed upstream and they breed in the same place every year. And if those salmon don't swim upstream, they won't breed. And if they don't breed, their population will die. So it's not that they're swimming upstream because they enjoy going against the current or that they're super strong.

    It's that they have to do this to survive. And Black women, the world often paints Black women as strong as enduring. But Bell Hooks, she said a powerful thing. She said, often when people think of Black women as strong, [00:04:00] they don't recognize that enduring oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression.

    Surviving something is not the same as being transformed by it. It's not that Black women are stronger than white women. It's that black women have to, and black, brown and people of color constantly have to move against the current in order to survive.

    And so it's recognizing that it's the current that is challenging, that is pushing them back. But also for me, sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel like I'm moving forward fast and I'm able to overcome other challenges. And sometimes I feel like I'm just staying in the same place.

    And I feel like it takes every effort for me just to stay in the same place and that gonna feel as failure. But watching the salmon, it's like, Them staying in the same place when they're being pushed back against the current is it's forward progress. And I'd had a good conversation with you and you said that treading water is moving forward.

    And that was really powerful to me. Like sometimes staying in the same position when everything is working against you is powerful. And that is change and that is survival and [00:05:00] moving forward doesn't always have to look like moving forward. Sometimes it's just staying in place and not letting yourself sink beneath the current.

    Surabhi: I love that analogy, and there's two really big parts of it that, you know, you don't have to be the big fish in order to make that progress. You don't have to be the loudest or the strongest or do the big things that are shown on TV by celebrities. You as a small fish, as a regular human being doing your part can make more progress than sometimes the big fish. Right? And that's one, I think that's one part of that analogy that's really powerful.

    And then the other part is staying in place is progress. In a world that is constantly trying to push us back as someone for you, you know, who's Black. For me I'm brown. And for people of color, I think a way we have learned to survive is to go with the current. But when I really look at it, that's not survival to me. That is [00:06:00] me surviving as someone else. That's not being me anymore. That's being me for someone else, living for someone else, instead of living in my authentic truth of who I am and coming home to myself.

    And you know, as I have been in this journey to dismantle white supremacy in my own life and in my own family, which is hard when I'm also married to a white man. To help him discover how whiteness has benefited him. How the power and privilege of whiteness has benefited him as a white person and as a male.

    Cuz there's patriarchy on top of that. You know, it's really been about how can I continue treading water if that's all I can do and letting it be enough.

    Inemesit: And something that you said. Yeah. not letting. Not letting that struggle define you, because that's something, even without knowing anything about salmon, I know that salmon are known [00:07:00] for swimming against the current and versus every other thing that could describe salmon as a fish that are described by their struggle.

    And it's often the same, but for Black, brown, people of color were described by the struggle. And also the struggle for us too is we're described according to our proximity to whiteness. And so like going with the flow is is letting yourself be pushed away by the current of whiteness and letting everything that separates you from that forced identity be lost.

    And also, and the irony of working against the current is going against the current is just allowing yourself to exist in your own identity or allowing yourself to find who, who you are. Because what White supremacy does is it, it tells all of us who we are. And when we talk about Black and white and people of color, it's like black people don't decide that they're black. I didn't decide I was black. I was told I was black.

    The history of white supremacy, slavery and arbitrary rules

    And a great example of this is Megan Markle. She did an interview recently where she described how, cuz she has said before in [00:08:00] previous interviews, she's biracial, she identifies as that her daddy is white, her mom is black, and she identifies the biracial person and she's light-skinned and she's moved through the world as a light-skinned, biracial person.

    She has never said that she was Black. When she moved to England and she experienced the racism that it is part of the British media. The British media called her a Black, and so from that on point, she was called Black, but that wasn't something that she had identified herself as. That was white.

    What white supremacy is, and that's what white supremacy does for all of us. It puts a set of rules and it says that this is what whiteness is and if you can exist within this framework, then those parts of you are acceptable. But everything else that exists outside of this is unacceptable. And what Britain did is, although there is whiteness in Meghan Markle. There's this idea of this one drop rule, which is something that was used in the US. It's a born of slavery to say that if your mother, it doesn't matter who your father is. If you are born of a Black woman, then you are Black. If there's [00:09:00] one drop of blackness in you, then you are Black. You can't be part of white.

    And this is what pushed slavery forward. When slavery began, all the enslaved people were being taken from Africa, but it was around the 17th, the 18th century, that there was laws put in place that you could no longer transport slaves from Africa. And so for slavery to go on, they needed to produce their own slaves.

    And so the US enslaved, um, holding states enacted laws that if a child was born of an enslaved woman, then the child would also be a slave and. Rape was rampant within slavery. So lots of enslaved women were raped by white men and they had biracial children, but because they were slaves themselves, then their children were also slaves.

    And it's this mixing of ethnicities continued people became more and more light-skinned. And so that was how people were identified. It was like looking back, if there was any African heritage in you, then that one drop of rule meant that you were, that one drop meant that you were still black. And it went into things like the US [00:10:00] Had the brown paper bag test. So as people became lighter, they started using a brown paper bag to identify what race you were. And if your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, then you were black. And if your skin was lighter than a brown paper bag, then you were white. So again, it's not about ethnicity or blood quantum,

    Surabhi: or anything.

    Inemesit: Or culture It's about physical appearance. And then in South Africa, when they enacted apartheid, because there were a lot of biracial people there, they used the, pencil test. And so the pencil test was putting a pencil in, children's hair in people's hair.

    And if your hair could hold a pencil in, Then you were black and if your a pencil fell out of your hair, then you were white. And if anyone understands Afro hair or labeling or dark hair, it's, the coils are very tight and you can, I can stick a pencil in my hair, it would hold. And so that was another way of identifying people.

    So again, it's not about their genetic makeup, it's about [00:11:00] their physical proximity to whiteness. And it also becomes about how they behave in proximity to whiteness.

    Surabhi: And when I hear about these like brown paper bag rule and the pencil test, the one drop rule. This happened not that long ago, right? And, so many of us don't know about these things and it's important to understand the history of how these rules came to be.

    So we understand why these systems still exist today because this is where these systems began from. Oh, you are this skin color, you have this hair type, so you are therefore treated like X and you are this skin color and this hair type, so you're treated like this. And it's so funny when I heard that, I heard that same podcast with Megan Markle and I think with Mariah Carey.

    And I was shocked too because I had no idea that she didn't see herself as Black until she started being treated like a Black woman by the British media. And she started to realize what other black women in the US may have been going [00:12:00] through, and, you know, I'm not biracial, I'm Indian. I've always seen myself as Indian because I'm an immigrant.

    I think maybe if I was born here, I see a lot of Indian people who are born here. They don't see themselves as Indian anymore. They're like, I'm Indian. Canadian. Or I'm. Of Indian background, but I'm Canadian, whereas I still see myself as Indian. I was born in India. I lived there till I was eight. I lived in Bahrain till I was 10, moved to Canada when I was 10, and though I went through puberty here, my value system isn't Canadian either.

    Right. But it's not Indian. I'm kind of like that. You're probably similar to you where we're like, we have our own values.

    Inemesit: yeah, I mean it's different cause I was born in Nigeria, I moved to England when I was five and

    Surabhi: So you were a lot younger

    Inemesit: only, Yeah. but it's only now I'm really embracing being Nigerian because going to England there was a lot of, it's also how people like treat you. And so there was a lot of negative connotations about being from Africa being like, quote unquote off the boat.

    [00:13:00] Being not white and throughout my life, I'm now understanding it is microaggressions. People would say stuff that made me feel like bad from where I was from. I had like a per, a colleague that I work with and she suggested that I see The movie District nine, and she was like, Oh. but there's a part in District nine where Nigerian people are selling body parts.

    And she was like, how does it make you feel that the rest of Africa just looks down on Nigeria? That was her question to me, and I was like, my head was like, the rest of Africa looks down on Nigeria. And so that's what I took away from me and people would always make like negative comments, and so I became like just ashamed of saying that I was Nigerian. and so from a young age, I wanted to be British and I was like what can it make me to be British? And I remember my two younger sisters were born in England, and I remember wishing that I had been born in England so I could feel as British as them. But that wasn't about wanting to embrace British culture.

    It was wanting to distance myself from being Nigerian. And there's a lot of negative things about Nigeria, like, it's Joke you're being scammed by a Nigerian prince or a Nigerian princess, which the irony of that scam is it [00:14:00] originated in the US from a white man.

    A white person was the one that started that scam, but this, the Simpsons made jokes about it. It's everywhere. So there's a lot of negative views on Nigerian. So I, I absorbed that and I took that on to be like, I don't want people to see me as all the negative things they say about Nigeria. So I wanna distance myself from that.

    And it's been a lot of unlearning to kind of just really embrace where I'm from and embrace my heritage and understand more about it as an adult.

    Surabhi: and like you are, I don't know how old you're, I'm assuming you're in your thirties, 36. We're the same age. So how, what is it, what has it been like for you to relearn your culture in your thirties? Because what are some ways that you've been able to connect with you, know, that part of you and feel a sense of healing?

    Healing through reconnecting with her hair

    Inemesit: It's my hair is a big thing. Cause if anyone follows me on my social media always, my [00:15:00] hair's always different. Colors different. I've just really embraced expressing myself through my hairstyles. But that's been something in probably the last three years I've started doing. Growing up I wanted to have white hair , and so like my, the way I styled my hair was based on making it as close to white people's hair as I could.

    So it's something that for me that I've really embraced in the last couple of years is braiding my hair and it's the most consistent start I've had growing up through my life, but it was always. Doing my hair for at the beginning was about making my hair closer to my friend's hair, making my hair look more European.

    So I grew up in the city. I grew up in England. Norridge England was dubbed by one of the political parties at the time that we moved there as England's last white city. So when I went to first school, middle school, and high school, I was the only Black student in all three schools. I remember starting middle school and I would wear braids and my [00:16:00] mom would star my hair In these traditional Nigerian twists.

    And the kids would say that it looked like I had snakes in my hair or that I had spiders in my hair. And so I remember like begging her to stop doing the twist that they said were spiders. I asked her to stop braiding it. And so for a while there's this chemical, it's called relaxer. It's a chemical straightener that Black people put in their hair to straighten it. It's a very powerful straightener and oftentimes when I had it, it would burn my scalp, but it was the sacrifice to have straight hair. But it's chemically straightening your hair weakens it. And so it would make my hair start falling out.

    And so my mom would look for different ways to style it and she'd try to go back to braiding. And I did for a while a style called pick and drop, which is you braid just the roots of the hair, the first about three inches, and then you let the rest of the hair fall. So I would cut my hair short so I could put extensions and braid the roots of it and let it look more like European hair, but.

    All through those years, I really just because it wasn't about doing, treating [00:17:00] my hair in a way that was appropriate to my hair, it was about making myself get closer to being white, even though I recognize I wasn't white. I'm like, maybe I can make my hair look more like my friend's hair. And so I've really struggled with it for years.

    I didn't like my hair. It was something, it was always felt like a burden. And what helped me as an adult, and the thing with braiding is it's, it's not a quick process. Braiding takes hours and I always felt resented that, oh, my friends could wash their hair in the morning and just go, but if I wash my hair, Four hour process braiding will take 10, 12, 16 hours.

    Um, then I read the book don't Touch My Hair by, she's biracial, I believe her mom is black and her daddy's white. Don't touch my hair by Emma Zabiri. But she has what's described as like 4C Afro hair, like the thick coils that I have. And she said that she, she grew up in Ireland as the only brown person in her community.

    And so she really struggled with her hair too. And so she started researching the history of West African [00:18:00] hair and she brought it back and learned that her roots go back to the Yoruba culture, which is one of the tribal groups in Nigeria. And that Yoruba braided hair because braiding is what's known for us as a protective style because the way the texture of 4C hair, the coils are very resistant to water.

    Which helps if you're working in the hot sun, it means that water doesn't soak into our hair and our hair won't get wet and fall flat to our necks. Our hair grows up and not down like European hair because it sits like a crown on your head, which is resistant to the heat. So our is great for living in hot countries, go figure that's it's African hair.

    Surabhi: Makes sense. Yeah. It makes so much sense when you describe it.

    Inemesit: like, braiding helps, helps holding the moisture, braiding helps, um, stop, prevent the hair from breaking. And there were so many benefits of braiding the hair that I was struggling because I was chemically damaging my hair from all these years. And then into the time because one of the most consistent memories I have as a [00:19:00] child that I didn't appreciate as an adult.

    I would sit, my mom would braid my hair for like 10 hours, so I would sit between her thighs for 10 hours. We'd watch tv. We'd have conversations while she was, braiding my hair, oiling my hair, parting it, doing it love lovingly. And it was this time, and I'm one of four girls. And so having one-on-one time with my mom was that the only time was really when she was doing our hair.

    Her full attention had to be on the person's hair she was working on. And even as I grew older and my sisters started learning to braid, we'd get together and it would be two, three people to help it go quicker. Sitting around someone's head doing their hair together. And so it's a really time that you are just together and it's something that you do regularly.

    Cause I have to do, we do my hair every six to eight weeks. So it was this regular family bonding. And so Emma wrote about that in her book how it was like a community thing. But she also talked about how idea of the urgency of time, this idea of time is money. She said that's a very European white supremacist idea.

    This capitalism. She was [00:20:00] like in Yoruba culture, it wasn't about how long how long it took to do something. It took the time it took to do. She was like, they didn't believe that we worked for time. They believed that time was there for us. So it's not that it takes 16 hours to do my hair.

    I'm like, if it takes 16 hours, it takes 16 hours. This is the time it takes to do my hair. And it was this shift from like having to rush through to do my hair. I'm feeling like I was a burden because I'm not doing all these other productive things for my family because I'm taking this time to do my hair to being like, I deserve time to sit and enjoy my hair, to sit and care for myself, to sit and style myself in a way that makes me feel good, but also the power of embracing braids for braids, like, doing braids because I like braids because it's a good style for my hair and not trying to make it look like my white friend's hair is.

    It gave me the freedom to just express myself so much more. And so now if you look at my pictures as a child, my hair, like, I always had like brown braids, brown pick and drop braids. So they would kind, [00:21:00] it would kind of look like it was growing out of my hair, like my white friend's hair. But now I'm like, I can do anything with braids.

    I realized. It also helped me appreciate my hair cause I'm like my white friends when they want different colored hair, they have to go dye their hair, which is very bad for their hair if they braid their hair. For most European people, it will make their hair fall out because my hair has a different texture.

    My hair is very tough. It's very, it's a more rigid style, so it doesn't break easily under braiding as European hair does. And so I'm like, I have this freedom to do my hair any color. I can have my hair green this month, red next month through the next month. I can make it long. I can make it short. I can make the braids big, I can do twists.

    And I realize if I embrace my hair for what my hair is versus comparing my hair to white hair, I can love my hair and I can appreciate it. And it also highlighted that I don't have to exist in contrast to whiteness, which is what I was doing. And also realizing that this isn't just my story, like my sister is a [00:22:00] school teacher and one of the things, she will change her style before she has to go like sh.

    She has, feels like she has more freedom over her hair in the summer than during the school year. During the school year. She's trying to make her hair look professional, which means closer to white hair.

    Surabhi: which is defined by,

    Inemesit: like, yeah.

    She doesn't braid her hair usually during the school year.

    She'll do different stuff to fit. It's, it's just that powerful, and it's not just in our heads because people treat us differently. Like I'm treated differently when I have, because I have.

    Surabhi: of course.

    Inemesit: I have different.

    Surabhi: Because the assumption is that if you are a black woman who wears your hair like a white person or closer to whiteness, that your behavior, the assumption is that your behavior is more in line with whiteness, right? That you're more appeasable to whiteness.

    versus if you're wearing your hair in braids, it's like, no, I am proud of my hair and my culture and how my people care for my, our [00:23:00] hair. And you shared this to me a while ago about how it takes as long as it takes and how this time is not wasted. Cuz I used to think the same.

    We used to coconut oil my hair every week. Full body coconut oil massage. This is an Ayurvedic Indian tradition and every week as a child, your parents oil you up. You sit in the oil, like you just soak for an hour, oil up your hair. My hair right now is like so damaged, but naturally is very curly, very textured.

    and the oil helps your hair not dry out more. And it also helps your hair give some weight. So in Indian hair, south Indian hair, it's two braids is the traditional like hairdo. I hated braids. I hated oiling my hair since I moved to Canada because I thought it made me look too Indian. Right? And how iron ironic is that, I obviously am Indian.

    So like what? Like what other way could I look? But [00:24:00] It's because people treat you differently. I absolutely see that, and I see that even more for Black women and you, what you said there though has made me reconnect with oil masks and oiling my hair since then, about a year ago, I think, or six, no, I think it was close to a year ago or 10 months ago that I started doing it consistently and for the first time involved my daughter too.

    And I never thought that this was important to me until I did it. And it was so, it just felt like this is what I am meant to do. Her hair takes like literally two hours to wash, comb out all the tangles with the curls, everything, oil, and that's okay. That's

    Inemesit: like crazy. Yeah.

    Surabhi: And thank you for that because if you hadn't made that connection, it wouldn't have helped me make that connection. I used to resent that it took me longer to maintain my hair. I used to resent that I couldn't just get outta the [00:25:00] shower and walk out cuz it would be a poofy. Frizzy as if, those were all bad things, right Where our hair is labeled, frizz is bad, poof is bad.

    You know? Oh, your hair's so big. That big is bad. It's like, this is my hair. This is normal. I hate on the shampoo bottles, it says, for normal hair. I'm like, but what is normal hair? What is normal hair? And even , like there's many white people with curly hair. And then what? What? Then they're not normal, right?

    It just serves to make people who don't fit that Eurocentric norm feel like they are abnormal for whatever they're doing with their body or hair and. When I moved to Canada, I lived in an area that was very like black, brown, Asian. There was like barely any white people, but whiteness was still the norm.

    Like that's how powerful it is, is it was still better to have straight hair. There was still Black women straightening their hair to come to class because they probably felt that

    Inemesit: Yeah, exactly. And I [00:26:00] think it's. Even things like that, it reinforces the need for us to care for ourselves. And like looking at, cuz I'll often, I mean, that's a comment you get like, oh, how long does your hair take? That must take hours. How do you do it? And from white people often. I'm like, the history of that too is that there has been a lot of history like with black hair because enslaved people weren't allowed, weren't given the time to do their hair. And so there's a history of black people that are only seen for their production. And so as you were saying, it takes like this seven hour process. Like why is it okay for me to go to work and work for someone else and have them make money off me for seven hours, but for me to stay and do something for myself and care for myself for seven hours, that seems wasteful.

    And enslaved people, their hair was shaved. They weren't given the time to do their hair. And when, say their hair starts with stigmatized and even after the end of slavery, it's gone. Black and brown people have been refused the time to care for themselves. There's something else that my mother does is she.

    She's [00:27:00] always, she gets out of the bath and she moisturizes from head to toe, and she's always done that. And I've always known her to do that. And as I grew older, I started thinking like, it takes like 10 minutes to moisturize your whole body fully. This is like 10 minutes that I don't have. And you go out and your skin is dry and your skin cracks and you get different skin reactions.

    And like for my skin is dark and so you get what is called as ashy skin. You can just see the lightness because it's dry. And I live in a dry climate too.

    Surabhi: I have, Yeah. I have elbows And knees like that. Yeah.

    Inemesit: all these skin elements because I wasn't taking like this extra 10 minutes just to moisturize my body and thinking, these are the things my mother taught me, but I've been brought in with white supremacy.

    It's negative for all of us. So white supremacist culture is capitalism, which teaches us that. It's about what we produce for other people. And so taking the time to do something that is not producing externally, moisturize your body, do your hair, and all those things, it's looked down as on as like selfish, like self-care, [00:28:00] seen as selfish, and so, yeah.

    Surabhi: It's so interesting to me because that, that also reminds me of motherhood. And this is something that I felt is like, okay, I would see moms all put together and come to mom group, and partly I felt like they had this pressure on themselves that they had to look perfect all the time. But some people would say, but I feel better when I do this.

    I take the time for myself to put on my face, to do my hair. and I started to realize, wow, I don't take time for myself to do anything like that for myself, even though, Yeah. I would probably feel better too. And it's capitalism that I have to produce for other people, for my child, for my family, for my work, but not do anything for myself in return.

    Right. And it's,

    Inemesit: And then it made me.

    Surabhi: there's so many parallels there

    Inemesit: Made me understand Audre Lord said, caring for myself is not selfish. It is self-care. It is, self-preservation, which is an act of political warfare. And just like the more [00:29:00] I live and understand this, and the more I see how powerful and the truth in her words is because choosing to take the time to care for yourself.

    Even though it takes X amount of hours, it's so looked on as negatively. It is a, it's a revolution. It is a political warfare. It's you saying that despite all these pressures, I am worth the time.

    Surabhi: I'm choosing

    Inemesit: like now braiding my hair.

    Surabhi: and I think that's a great, I was gonna say, how about, cuz you have three sons and they're all different ages. How do you find passing on your own relearning of your own cultures to your kids?

    I know it's a hard question

    Inemesit: I mean, kids, they learn what they live, and so the more I've been taken, and kids are very, they're very naturally selfish and I think that's just for all children because they don't know otherwise, they're very self- focused. And so for me, it's not letting myself be kind of swept away in that.

    And sometimes telling my kids, like this morning I woke up [00:30:00] with my, my four-year-old. I gave him a bath. I gave him breakfast. He finished eating his breakfast, and then I went to make myself some tea. And he said like, he wants more food. He is like, can I have this now as I'm making the tea? And I told him, I said like, no, I've given you a bath.

    I've given you breakfast and I'm gonna do something for myself. So you can talk to me after I have my tea and I sat down and I drank the tea and then I got him more food. But I'm like, that's something that a learning list, cuz with my first two, I really didn't, I was rushing around after the mess. Like I have to make sure all their needs are met before my needs are met.

    And it's finding the balance between being like, I'm a mother and I'm gonna care for you, but I know that you are okay in this moment. You have food in your stomach, you're clean and I don't have any food in my stomach and I've been doing stuff for you for the last hour. So I'm gonna give myself 15 minutes to sit down.

    I think that's how kids learn that it's okay to set boundaries and it's good to help people, but you also have to make time for yourself and you have to know when to say no. And that's something that I really struggled with my whole life, was being a people pleaser [00:31:00] and trying to find what I needed to do for people to like me.

    And really learning that the most powerful thing is me liking me. And so what do I have to do to like like me?

    Surabhi: Yes.

    And what, and I feel like when you show up as you, fully, authentically, the people who naturally like you for you are gonna be your people, right? Where you don't have to pretend you're someone else or pretend you're less you. And I feel like that is a powerful message to teach your kids too.

    Maybe your oldest, how old is your oldest? he's 11. So he would've probably maybe even seen you change over the past few years where maybe you're embracing more getting back to braiding your hair, And getting back to celebrating parts of your culture, cooking more foods that you grew up with.

    Um, you know. that's a huge lesson for him as well, growing up in a place where he doesn't probably see a lot.

    Inemesit: to know. Yeah, you don't have to be the same as somebody [00:32:00] else to be able to celebrate things about yourself. And so celebrating the things about ourselves that are different, I think is powerful. And just, yeah, learning how to lean into that instead of running away from it.

    Surabhi: One of the things that my therapist and I have been talking about is, my kids will not learn Indian culture just because I'm Indian. So that that was. What, like, I was shocked by that because now it makes sense, but I had always thought, well, I'm Indian, so my kids are gonna relate to being Indian.

    Right? Like I just assumed that I was like, we're in Toronto. Of course they're gonna think they're Indian too, right? Or like, I thought maybe they'd identify as more Indian because I don't know. I, because I do. But then I realized if I am not partaking in Indian culture, living it, they're not going to learn it because they live what they, they learn what they live, like you said, right.

    I always thought, okay, but we eat Indian food, that should be enough. But it's not just that. I love it with your hair and even the same thing we're starting to, especially in the fall and [00:33:00] winter, are the dryer months getting back to weekly. Oil masks. Even if it takes time, right?

    Like that's okay for it to take time. That's okay for it to leave a mess in the bathtub and then have to clean the bathtub, wash all the oil out. It's okay because that's, we are worth doing that for . I think that whoever's listening to this, you know, whether you are Black, you're brown, or whatever your background is, I think you can learn from that is just taking that time to celebrate you.

    And I always think about like my ancestors would've been shocked if I said, I didn't have time for like oiling my hair. They would've been like, what do you mean you don't have time?

    And we were talking about hair and how we're returning back to your cultural values and appreciation for self-care, for taking time for yourself to, for your needs, for your hair, putting lotion on your body. All of those things are way to reclaim yourself and your identity.

    And these are things that [00:34:00] maybe we did, you didn't get to do as a child. And do you feel like in some ways it's kind of making up for that?

    Inemesit: I don't know if it's making up. I think I'm just seeing these things in a different light, like being able to. Appreciate my hair in the context of West African hair. Makes me enjoy the process of doing my hair. I look forward to different styles. Like even I did my hair now and I'm like, oh, well what should I do it?

    What styles should I do it next? I'm already researching how I'm gonna change my hair next month versus my previous mindset of, "how can I make my hair more white?" Really limited my, the way as I could style it and really made me dislike my hair because I was trying to make it something that it wasn't versus, embracing it for what it was.

    And that's kind of been the theme of my fitness journey in general because I went on social media through fitness and my initial, I got into exercise to try and fix my diastasis recti, to try and make my body look different . I spent a lot of my life. I was born with an [00:35:00] umbilical hernia wishing I didn't have an a hernia and thinking how my body would look or be if it wasn't like this.

    And that really made me resent my body and made me see nothing good about it. Um, versus my mindset through exercise, discovering that I couldn't do things. At first, I felt like I can do things despite my body, but now it's not despite it. It's like this is what my body is and these are the things that I can do with the body that I have, and this is what this body allows me to do.

    And it's kind of about appreciating my body for what it is. And like my tagline on my website is Your aesthetics don't determine your athletics because it's about separating who I am from, what my body looks like, and the things that I wanna do. Not feeling trapped in my body. Just seeing it as like a vessel not feeling trapped in my hair.

    This is the hair I have. In what ways can I celebrate this hair? This is the body I have. In what ways can I celebrate this body? In what ways can I adapt my training strategies so that I can do the [00:36:00] things that I want to versus feeling stuck in this is the one way I can do it and my body can't do this so it's broken. And that's what I connect with a lot of people on. Everybody has a context and that's what white supremacist steals from all of us. It steals our context and my context isn't within a white framework. The context of my body is within a cultural framework.

    Yeah. My own framework. And yeah, that was really what has been liberating for me. Just not trying to be anything else and learning how to embrace what I already am.

    Surabhi: That's awesome. I, one of the things that I find so hard is, Like, sometimes I will be like, oh, I can't believe I behaved like that in high school.

    Or, I can't believe I was so ashamed of my culture. Or I would try to hide the fact that my mom wore a pottu, which is a a red dot or different colored sticker that you put in between your eyebrows, often signifying a married Indian woman, [00:37:00] or it can just be for style. It's just pretty, you wear it, you match it with your sarees and your outfits.

    I used to be so embarrassed that my mom wore one of those, cuz it was a visual reminder that not only were we Indian, but we were also not Indian Canadian. We were like that fresh off that boat, I felt like it gave that vibe. And now I look at her and I'm so proud of her that she has persisted and continued wearing it despite, I'm sure she has faced her own racism.

    I'm sure she's faced her own prejudice because of that, but she's like, no, this is who I am. And I've always been like, but why wasn't I like that? Why didn't I know who I was? But then I have to remember that she was 40 when she came here. She, she'd already lived her like, you know, good portion of her adult life in India, whereas I was 10.

    And so I was just getting to, you know, learn who I was. And of course I wanted to emulate what I saw as being appreciated and popularized in society. And, and I really want to say that like I have nothing [00:38:00] but empathy for, you know, little me now instead of shame like I used to.

    Inemesit: Yeah, absolutely.

    Connecting with her kids and herself via art

    Surabhi: What is something, tell me about your art cuz you just recently drew your sons and I had no idea that you could sketch and draw like that. That's like huge. Like it's beautiful work. I'm not creative like that. Let's put it that way. So tell me about when did you start sketching and drawing?

    Inemesit: Um, I've drawn my whole life. It was one of the disciplines in the last two years in England. In high school you have, um, when you're 16 and 17 you have a set of exams called your GCSEs and you pick 10 topics for it. When you are 17, 18, you do your A levels and you pick. Three to four topics for it. And art was the topics that I picked for one of the topics I picked for both.

    Um, and the freeing thing about art is that's the one space that it's not about emulating someone else. You'll get marked down if you copy another artist's style. It's about looking at them, [00:39:00] appreciating their work, learning your own style. And so that was a small place in my life that it was about discovering what I liked and having my own, because others about having your own signature style, they're a good artist.

    You can see their work anywhere and you can recognize it's their work. And so that's a way that I kind of learned how to lean into my individuality a bit and express myself a little bit on a small, small scale. But that's also something that I haven't said that you didn't know. I can draw because I really haven't done anything in about 11 years since I had my first son.

    Surabhi: You've got three kids, your own business, like Yeah, that is, that makes total sense. It's interesting with art that you say that it's about being yourself. I remember the opposite in art class, and I used to be, because I didn't draw it perfectly the way the bowl of fruit looked like.

    I used to be marked down. But then, isn't art supposed to be about how you see it and not like perfection, but even the way art is taught in some schools by [00:40:00] some teachers is very much, this is the right way. And if you don't do it the right way, you get marked down. And it's unfortunate because it, I feel like it helped me.

    It turned me off of being creative. It turned me off of wanting to explore what, what kind of art I wanted to create, and I just tried to kind of more fit into that mold. And this was in Canada. This was not in India. In India it was like that too, but this was also in Canada.

    Inemesit: It's interesting cause I have the same thing kind of too.

    Cause I used to actually sell art professionally when I first moved to Canada and I was struggling to get a job. I would paint all the time and I would sell, I had my art at different galleries and do a lot of commissions, but I stopped doing it because that doing commissions, that is what sucked the joy out of art for me.

    Because doing commissions was about meeting other people's. Expectations, what they wanted it to look like, what are others' aesthetic expectations? It kind of, it took everything. It's about your thinking, what will please them? What do they wanna see, what will make, and then that's not what art is. And so that started really making it just not enjoyable for [00:41:00] me.

    And so it was a combination of having my son and just not having the time to have art supplies everywhere, because all have paints everywhere. But also just not enjoying having to be rigid and only having to do art a certain way, because that's what people wanted. So I kind of went to the extreme of like not doing it at all.

    And the reason I drew it the other day is cuz my son, which I thought it was cool, my 11 year old likes drawing and it's something he just, he has never really seen me sit down and do art, but it's something that he likes on his own. And so it was cool to see in genetics work that way.

    Surabhi: Yeah.

    Inemesit: And he was, yeah, having a, an afternoon where he just, he had a disagreement with a friend and he was feeling sad and I was thinking of ways to cheer him up and I was throwing out all these things and he was like, no, no, no.

    So I just said, do you wanna draw together? He was like, oh yeah. And he kind of got excited about it. And so it was a reason that I could. Justify cuz I'm always trying to think of how can I be productive? But I'm like, it was because I was trying to cheer up my son. I'm like, we can sit here quietly and just do nothing [00:42:00] else but draw.

    And so that kind of started it and I thought, oh it is, I forgot how nice this was. But it was also, there was no pressure. I was like, we're going to, we can draw what we want. He said he wanted me to draw him, so I'm like, sure. But it wasn't, I knew whatever I drew that he would be happy, happy with it because he's, he has no expectations of me.

    And so there was a freedom to just express myself how I wanted to.

    Surabhi: Which is so funny because if I was to draw my kids, it would literally be a circle with two eyes. Like, totally like stick person, like. So he must know that you have some skill and some talent because

    Inemesit: Yeah. I mean his, like my, his dad will say, like, my husband will say, oh, you know, when he sees him draw, it's like, oh, you know, your mom can draw.

    And people have told him, oh, you know, your mom was a, was an artist, but he, I was not something, he hasn't really seen it.

    Surabhi: Oh my gosh. He must have been like, Whoa. This is like, it's beautiful. I can just see like their eyes, like, yeah, it's just beautiful. It's, it's stunning. I also think that art is [00:43:00] very, like, you have to be present.

    You have, it's similar to the, the hair, right? Doing your hair sometimes. I used to think that coloring for kids was a waste of time. Like, what do they need to keep coloring for? They already know how to color, like let's, let's teach them math. Like this is the mentality I grew up with, right? Because it wasn't productive enough.

    So do something that's more productive and then you're like, but art, it doesn't have to be productive. It can be, maybe the productive part is just being present and you know, being immersed in it and not

    Inemesit: That's a good connection! because with art there's no, it's gonna, it takes as long as it takes.

    There's no, like, when is this gonna be done? It's like, it's gonna be done when it's gonna be done, it's gonna be done when I feel like it's done. Yeah. But there is no set end point. And so that is very, like, the same with doing your hair. It's like, it's gonna take how long it takes. It might take four hours, it might take four days.

    Like that's what art is. And so there's a freedom in, again, you're not working for time, like this is, this is the process.

    Discovering the joy of cultural clothing like the Nigerian headwrap or Indian sari

    Surabhi: I've really started to look away from like, [00:44:00] okay, I wanna do this hobby. How long is this gonna take? And instead like, how much joy is this going to bring me? Like what, how is this gonna add to my life, to my kid's life in ways, for example, putting a, sari on.

    I don't know if you know what a sari is. It's a long piece of fabric that you wear in. There's many ways to put it on, and it used to take me a good 30 minutes to just put it on. Right. I would be struggling, and over the course of the past couple years, few years, I've been wearing it more often and often.

    So now it takes me probably like 8, 10 minutes. And it's not perfect. It's not like how my mom wears it, you know? But I'm so proud of myself for learning it and like just even dressing myself. It's like a, it's not art, but it's. It's soothing. It's soothing to just spend that time instead of being like, rush, put your sweatshirt on, put your pants on, get out the door.

    Or like, you know, get to this because so much of our life as mothers especially, is busy. It is tending to their needs. We can't always move [00:45:00] slowly through every single thing because, you know, kids are selfish. They're, they have high needs and you have to kind of give them breakfast and this and that. But when I get the chance, if I can just stop and pause and, and that's something I've been talking to my therapist with, is like, you know, wearing a sari, having my children feel the fabrics, having them feel even play with it in a different way.

    Maybe they're not wearing it, but even just having it out for them to play with it and immerse themselves in it is learning about their culture. And for me, that's given me a lot of, um, freedom and like taking the pressure off me having to like, I've gotta sit them down and teach them Hindi as a language. Right.

    And I, I like

    Inemesit: that. You said like, even though though you said it's not perfect, but I like, I embrace it cuz that's, cause I had the same experience with, head wraps. Like Nigerian, when you are a Nigerian style is, or any, anybody, your style is when you are dressing up, you wrap your hair and you have those different styles of head wraps.

    And I started trying to embrace that and started wrapping my hair for different [00:46:00] occasions. And one thing I'd say to my mom, I'm like, I'm doing it wrong. How do you do it? I can't get it perfect. And she would say, she was like, there is no perfect. She's like, everyone wraps it different ways. It's just an expression of your style.

    It's a way to express yourself. She was like, however you do it is the right way. And like with the, sari. I'm like, I'm sure there's an aspect of that, that every way is, everyone doesn't look identical. Everyone's not wrapping in identical ways. It's just, it's how you do it and it's expressing yourself through it.

    How white supremacy culture shows up in clothing

    But that's another, like, that's another product of white supremacist culture is this idea of perfectionism. Yes. Because it's about, Whiteness being the perfect standard. That's what white supremacy is. It's above everything else. And there's all these ways to be better and to be perfect. And there was a lot of things excluded.

    It's um, excludes, you know, people with disabilities, excludes. Um, L G B T Q I excludes, trans excludes Black and brown, because we're all supposed to exist outside of this idea of perfection. I mean, everyone exists outside of [00:47:00] perfection. Yeah. And so I think learning to embrace imperfection and learning to wear your, sari, even though it's not wrapped perfectly or, it's not wrapped the way that you think that it should be, or me embracing wearing a head wrap, although it doesn't look like the way this other Nigerian woman does it, it's really powerful because it's embracing that.

    I can express myself imperfectly. There's beauty imperfection. This is who I am. And it doesn't have to fit any rigid standard because norm, there is no norm.

    Surabhi: There is no norm. And that's, I'm always afraid I'm gonna go to the temple, for example, and that people will judge, you know, oh, you're, you know, but nobody judges.

    Nobody says anything. And then I, for once, we are selfish too, as humans, right? I think we are all just innately look at, think about ourselves more. So I was like, let me look around and I'm looking at all these women and their sarees aren't perfect either. Some of them have wrinkles here, some of them have pleats here, some of them have this showing.

    And I'm like, oh my gosh, we're so worried about this perfection. Only because we have been taught that [00:48:00] perfection even exists in the first place. It doesn't exist, right?

    Loss of cultural languages due to pressure to assimilate

    Understanding that has helped me embrace my culture more. Even though my like Tamil accent is horrible. I don't speak most of the language.

    I just speak a few words here and there. I'm like, it's okay that I'm trying and that's still better than not trying at all. I remember you were talking about you've lost a lot of your language because you moved when you were so young. Is that something that, how do you learn that? Can you learn that?

    Inemesit: I, that's something Cause I don't have anyone that speaks near me to practice. That's the thing. Yeah. So I don't know. It's a challenge. I've looked at like books and stuff, but yeah. I don't know that I'm going to, I think it's a shame. I feel like it's something that I lost, but I don't know if I can get it back unless I was in a community with people that spoke it all the time.

    Does your mom still speak? I think she does.

    Surabhi: And how about at home? You never spoke? Is it Ibibio?

    Inemesit: Yeah, it's Ibibio because we, it was the first language I spoke and [00:49:00] I spoke it. It was the only language I spoke until I was five. Ah, and we moved to England and I didn't speak English. I knew some English words.

    I didn't speak it fluently. But we moved to England and I went from school in Nigeria to going to first school in to year one, grade one in England. And then it became problematic because I didn't speak English fluently. I'm trying to learn a new, language and accent language, make friends be it this.

    And then there was a lot of negative because what white supremacy is what it was. The teacher not considering the fact that I'd moved across the world and I spoke a different language is my main language would refer to me as stupid. The kids wouldn't. I was just so different from my peers. I find it really difficult to make friends and my mom in attempting to bring me closer to whiteness because that's what she thought. She tried to make us assimilate because, and that's what a lot of people of color are taught, black, brown people of color. If you assimilate, you'll be accepted. And so she was like, go with the flow, you'll be accepted faster. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, so you can [00:50:00] understand this language faster.

    She's, we stopped speaking Ibibio at home. We only spoke English, so I only spoke English at home. I only spoke English at school. And so just over time, I just forgot, I forgot Ibibio and English became my only language. Yeah. And so now it's, and the weird thing about it is I have memories of going to school in Nigeria and all these memories of Nigeria and memories.

    I know that I was speaking Ibibio, but the brain is a amazing thing and it will translate it into English. I can remember exact phrases in English that I know I did not say in English. Yeah. But that's how my brain has it now and it's very frustrating.

    It's so, I feel like it's one of those things that it.

    Surabhi: Locked up knowledge and you could untap it probably if you were immersed in it. But it's so hard when you're not immersed in it to learn, relearn the language. I feel like that with like Hindi, I will watch Hindi movies or I'll speak Tamil with my parents a little bit, but it's hard to be fluent in it.

    And because we speak English at home, it's just easier. But I feel like there's still other ways that we can reconnect with our, our cultures and celebrate [00:51:00] being us without always having to retain every single part of our cultures. Cuz some of it has been lost, you know, and it's, I feel like it's okay.

    Yeah. It doesn't mean we are any less, you know, that I'm any less Indian because I don't speak perfectly fluent Tamil and where a pottu every day. Right. Um, and you know, that brings me back to that analogy from the beginning, how "going with the flow" is sometimes what our parents help us do for survival because they want us to survive too.

    You know? And they know that if we are those fish who are fighting against the current, that it will be really, really hard for us. And parents want things to be easier for their kids. We don't want our kids to have to endure hardships like, you know, we have, but at the same time and learning that whatever resilience I have, my kids will have it too.

    You know, it's, it's not just that they inherit struggles, they inherit our resilience and we inherit our parents' resilience.

    Inemesit: And I [00:52:00] think like a lot of, cuz a lot of white people will say as a phrase, a lot of white people that could consider themselves not racist will defend that by saying that they don't see color.

    And I think that's something that our parents became very aware of. And the thing with not seeing color is, I fully believe that. But when we're talking about the norm and the standard is white and people that are not white are seen as people of color's saying that you don't see color means you only see white and you're only looking for whiteness.

    And that's what our parents recognize. And so they were like, they only see you as fully human if you, if you adhere to whiteness. So these are things we need to do. White, like your adult teacher can look at a five-year-old child and call her stupid because

    Surabhi: a five-year-old, she doesn't see Yeah. What?

    Inemesit: So I'm like, because she, so she's like, and if you speak English, if you bring yourself, she doesn't see your humanity. . Like when she looked at that black girl as an adult, I realized she doesn't see your humanity. She didn't see me as a child. But if I could my, my what my mother probably saw without understanding that [00:53:00] that's what was in those words, she was like, if you speak English fluently and if you speak English like them, she will see the whiteness in you and then she will see your humanity.

    Cause we went as far as my, my sister had elocution lessons. It wasn't just about speaking English, it was about speaking English the way that English people do, making it sound like them. And then our peers teased us for speaking Queens English to speaking too well. So I remember my parents being frustrated that after my sister went to elocution lessons, she was trying to undo it by speaking, drawing out her words to sound more like a Norfolk accent.

    And these are all things we're intentionally doing to move ourselves closer to whiteness.

    Silver linings of oppression [although obviously we wish we weren't oppressed in the first place]

    But you had talked about, cause it was interesting when you talked about, um, not just looking at the oppression. and I was reading a book recently called Black Magic, and it's about a lot of different CEOs and successful black people talking about how their experiences under white supremacy has led to the qualities that have helped them.

    Surabhi: Mm-hmm. ,

    Inemesit: and this is something that we learn as a child, is we learn [00:54:00] that we need to change ourselves in different spaces and we need to present ourselves different ways in different spaces, but this helps in like office spaces. I know how to be in an office space. I know how to be in a school space. I know how to change bits of my personality or how I speak or how I approach a situation based on the crowd that I'm in, which is very important when you are navigating trying to build a business and navigating through things.

    And so these are things that we learn very young. We learn what people are looking for. We learn what, how to dress for an interview because we know the things that they're going to look at negatively because that's something we've. Been, it's our whole existence been, it's our, it's, that's something we have to be taught as adults.

    Surabhi: No, we've been, we've been watching and learning from that, you know, what is acceptable since we were kids. Right.

    Double standards for etiquette for white vs non-white kids

    And I remember my, my uncle and aunt gave me this book on etiquette when I moved to Canada. And I memorized this book and I [00:55:00] practiced where the cutlery goes and how to say please and thank you, not just please and thank you, but like more detailed "may I have this" like super official sounding. And then I went to school and then I started school and I'm like, um, people have their feet on the desk, people are talking back to the teacher. And I'm like, where is the etiquette in here?

    Right? But the etiquette is just for the black and brown kids. It's not for the white kids to follow. Right? They can talk however they want. And it's like, I don't understand. So it's, it's so much easier as an adult, with an adult brain, a fully mature brain to understand these things. As a child going through it, it is just survival and it's just going with the flow, trying to, trying to cope and.

    Treading water and jumping upstream

    Now I do feel like right now I'm in just treading, just treading water, staying where I am, but still working against the current. And then when I go through phases where I have more energy, I'm moving forward. Right. And it's just, yeah, expecting ourselves to constantly move forward, constantly be jumping to go upstream is unrealistic, [00:56:00] but if we can just put our energies to staying put and that kind of helps also with celebrating the joy that's been by a big thing right now is a, uh, 90 festival called Navarathri.

    And you know, the, the stores, they don't have any Navarathri decorations. They've got Christmas decorations already in stores, but they don't have anything for the Hindu holidays. Like the local election is on Diwali, which is the biggest holiday of the year. You would never dream of holding an election on Christmas Day, but it's okay on Diwali.

    No, 17% of the Toronto population is South Asian. Right. That that's not a small number, it's just unfortunate. So I think I've gotten to the point where I'm, I'm not gonna wait for other people to give me permission to celebrate these things. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna do it. Right. Do it.

    And it's, yeah. It's hard, but it is important.

    Inemesit: It is. Holding your ground takes, takes a lot of energy cuz there's Yeah. Takes a lot of energy and I think I've seen that too, just like [00:57:00] recently, with the Queen Elizabeth's death and, there are a lot of people, a lot of commentators that it was. you know, the monarch has died. It's a very sad thing. And then there was this other side that was expressing that they were not mourning Elizabeth, that bringing out all the damage that colonization in the British monarchy has done. And then there was the rebuttal of the wave. The wave of white supremacy condemning everybody that didn't feel the way the white supremacist narrative taught us to feel.

    Why so many of us did not mourn Queen Elizabeth's death and why being upset about that is a problem

    Yeah. And I was in a situation where just talking about, just even standing your ground just is exhausting. A friend had expressed on Facebook it wasn't a Queen elizabeth had died. It wasn't anything about she's sad about the morning she's grieving. The comment she decided to post was, "I am disgusted with everybody that's not mourning or celebrating Queen Elizabeth's death." She was like, "I know the things that she has accused of are terrible, but I'm more disgusted by the people, the way [00:58:00] that people are reacting."

    And so I felt kind of triggered by that, cuz first I thought it was a white woman who had made the pose. I thought, oh, and then there was another comment. She's like, if you want reconciliation and the Northwest Territories today is Truth and Reconciliation day. She said, if you want reconciliation, you have to be nice and teach your children to be nicer.

    It's frustrating cause I thought one, truth and reconciliation is not about being nice. And two, with that statement, I'm like, who are you disgusted with? Because truth and reconciliation is about reconciliating with the traumas that have happened to Indigenous people and the ways that the government have Canada have mistreated them.

    So it's not white people that are seeking truth and reconciliation. Mm-hmm. . It's coming from the Indigenous community. So my first thing is like when you bring up truth and reconciliation, who are you talking to? Right? My second problem is you are not expressing how you feel about this.

    You are angry that other people aren't expressing the same themselves in the same way as you think that they should. Yeah. Yeah. You are gate keeping their emotions without having [00:59:00] any consideration to why they're responding like this. And so I looked at the comments. There was a lot of other white people responding and kind of cheering her on and I thought, this person, I'm gonna see another narrative.

    So I responded saying black brown and people of color in the globe may feel a different way. Yeah. Truth and reconciliation is not actually about being nice. Like, was it nice when the royal family funded the enslavement of Africans because it was funded by the royal family.

    Colonization is a result of the divine rights of Kings, which is the British royal family, believing that they are physically and morally everything superior from the rest of the world. The residential schools was funded and supported by the British monarchy, of which Elizabeth had sat on the throne for 70 plus years.

    My comment was like, was residential schools nice? Like there's a lot of people that have a lot of different feelings about this, and my concern is more about what they're reacting to versus how they're reacting. And then another friend still talked to me in person and told me that MY response was aggressive.

    Surabhi: Of course. Oh my [01:00:00] gosh.

    Inemesit: Yes. And so without seeing the irony of it. And so my whole thought process was like, this person, the word she used was disgusted. So I'm like, I think that's an aggressive word. And so I'm like, this person went on a public platform to say that she was disgusted with anyone that had a different sentiment, alluding that she was disgusted to indigenous people because of her comment about truth and reconciliation.

    But that's not seen as aggressive when this white woman does this. When I respond to the comment that she made to say, this is the other side I'm seen as aggressive, but responding to that. And so I'm like, I feel like this wave is coming against me. Like I'm only allowed to feel one way because that's what white supremacy tells me.

    I'm only allowed. I can respond one way. And when I asked the person, how should I responded? They said, you shouldn't have responded at all.

    Surabhi: That's silencing your voice as well, right?

    What Karen actually means

    Inemesit: And the irony of that, it's this whole, there's this idea of white women being called Karen, which is triggering for a lot of white women. And I understand why. And also the idea of Karen that white supremacy paints is that Karen is like a [01:01:00] whiny, like a loud complaining woman. But this is white supremacy painted. So that's not what Karen is like.

    We're gonna be truthful. Elizabeth II is the ultimate Karen. Because white supremacy paints, and that's what I got, paints black women as angry, as aggressive, as bored, and it paints white women as fragile and innocent. Yes. And so, even though Elizabeth, the second can sit on a throne of the British monarchy who are responsible for a large part of colonization.

    They funded enslavement. They funded residential schools. Elizabeth sat on the throne through multiple genocides. She sat on the throne and funded the genocide against the Biafran people in Nigeria. She sat on the throne and monarchy funded genocides in India. They funded genocides in north America.

    She sat on the throne during apartheid. She was in South Africa the month apartheid began. The royal family, and she sat on the throne during the Kenyan genocide. There's been so many horrific things. Millions of people have died and been supported by the British monarchy, of which she sat on the top.

    Surabhi: [01:02:00] But she's painted as this innocent old lady. Yeah. They just make her seem like, but she's, she didn't have control over. Like, and I'm like, um, unless, yeah. Really.

    The Civil Rights Movement, the violence of white women, and Emmett Till’s murder

    Inemesit: And that's the thing about the violence of white women. It's painted as innocent. And we look at another thing of Caroline Bryant. She was painted as this innocent woman.

    She complained, she's the reason of the civil rights movement. Caroline Bryant claimed to her husband that this 14 year old boy visiting Mississippi, Emmett Till whistled at her. And she was threatened by that whistle. So Caroline Bryant's husband and her brother kidnapped Emmett Till they tortured him and they killed him and threw his body in a river, a 14 year old boy.

    And this sparked the Civil Rights Movement in the us, which is the huge movement. Everything. It came, it was born out of Black people's response at Emmett Till's murder. And it wasn't just his murder, it was just the epitome of it. Black people had been lynched for a decades in the US but this 14 year old boy and his mother had an open casket funeral so the whole country could see what was done to her son.

    Carolyn [01:03:00] Bryant later admitted that she had lied about him, even whistling, even looking at her, she just didn't like his presence being there. She was never charged with anything. Her husband and her brother were acquitted of the murder. And after they were acquitted during trial by an all white jury, they admitted and bragged that they did torture and kill him, and they were proud of it.

    Caroline Bryant is still alive today. She's in her eighties and to this day, she has never faced any repercussions for Emmett Till's murder. And when black, the black community and African Americans call for her, the response is she's just a little old lady. So I'm like little old lady Elizabeth that sat on her throne of lies and destruction.

    We can't be angry. Caroline Bryant whose lie got a 14 year old child lynched and murdered. No, she has no repercussions. We look at, Amy Cooper. And that incident started because she was walking her dog, and she wouldn't, I believe she didn't pick up his poop.

    And someone that was a Black man that was bird watching asked her to pick up the dog's poop. And she was so offended that [01:04:00] he would have the audacity to talk to her and to tell her something. And she used the idea that she was so fragile and so afraid of him. She threatened to call the police on him saying, as he recorded that she knew that that would open up to police violence.

    And so when we're thinking about Karen is these loud, brash women, that's the thing about it. And that's why they're so dangerous. They're not loud, brash women. They're white women that fall into how white supremacists need to protect them. Painted as fragile, painted as innocent, painted as harmless.

    And they exist in contrast to the way that white supremacy paints Black people as violent and as aggressive. And so that, That Karen idea is violence covered in this veil of innocence and covered in this veil of niceness.

    Surabhi: It's like this, it's manipulation, right? It's like this cold manipulation.

    Yeah. Right. And it's like, yeah, colonization. You know, it like in India there was so much manipulation. The Brits arrived and there was a lot of manipulation. India was not of one big country. It was all of these [01:05:00] isolated communities. And yes, there was probably fighting amongst them, but not with guns and machines and all of this stuff that they brought in.

    And then they pit everybody against each other. And the same has happened and all over the world, but yet they're seen as the nice people and the polite people that we're supposed to look up to.

    And I see the word Karen misused all of the time. White women are calling each other Karen's for. Complaining about something, I'm like, that's not even what it's supposed to be about.

    Yeah. And it's so infuriating because it's taken the meaning out of it, right?

    Inemesit: It is. And the huge irony of that is that every single white woman has the potential to be Karen, because it's not about who you are, whether you are nice or not, it's about the power of white supremacist that exists within you and recognizing that power.

    And so it's not that, you know, Amy Coopers, maybe she was offended. Maybe she was annoyed but she wasn't scared. She knew that the power of white, she knew that she claimed that she was scared and she was aggressive the way that white women are painted that she [01:06:00] would be believed over him the way that Caroline Bryant was believed over Emmett Till.

    The way that Elizabeth is empathized and mourned and somebody can go on Facebook and say, I know that some of the things that she did were bad, but people not being angry about it is worse. And it's like, how can you say that? Like how can you say you understand why people are reacting like this, but still gate keep their reactions.

    It's just wild. That's up to me. But this is what white supremacy is.

    Tone policing in the workplace

    Surabhi: Well, and I had a friend recently have a similar experience, um, at her work because she made a comment about something and then had some, she was, someone complained about her to her boss saying that she was too harsh in what feedback she gave, and she was like, what she said was not harsh at all, not even the slightest, but the message that was told, the complaint about her was that she was too harsh.

    And I'm like, again, white folks have so much [01:07:00] power in the workplace that they can complain about someone who's superior to them, to the person who's superior to them. And they know that they'll be believed because they're white.

    Inemesit: Yeah.

    Surabhi: And that person who didn't do anything wrong, did, was not even harsh, will not be believed because of the color of her skin.

    And that's like, that's the whole tone. Policing and gaslighting and like the, there's, this is still rampant in friendships and workplaces. And I think this is an important topic for anybody who's listening who is white, to just listen and just listen and believe. If something offends you, ask yourself, why is it offending you?

    If a white male said the same thing, would it offend you? If a white woman said the same thing would've been you, then it's about, it's, if it's offending you, it's probably this person's skin color. And not actually,

    Black and Brown folks: you are entitled to your feelings

    Inemesit: and letting know that people are entitled to their [01:08:00] emotions and their feelings about the situation.

    Yes. Even Black, Brown and people of color, because I feel like white people and white women a hundred percent understand they're entitled to their feelings. They're entitled to their emotions. They express it all the time. Yeah. But when Black people express it, and there's a good example is that I'm a big fan of The Real Housewives and so I was watching The Real Housewives of New York.

    And in the same season, they had their first black character in 12 seasons on it. So on that season, there was a white lady who had lost her grandmother and the Black lady Ebony had also lost her grandmother. And throughout the season, the white person losing her grandmother was playing out.

    She was getting mad at everyone. She was screaming, she was crying all the time, and she was being comforted, which is fair. She was going through a hard loss. The one time the Black woman got upset about something, she was being told that she was too reactionary, she was too aggressive, and she pointed out, she was like, you know what?

    I'm also going through the loss of my grandmother, who was very significant in my life. I'm also going through all of these things. But when the white lady reacts emotionally because she's going through things in her [01:09:00] life, she's seen with compassion. She's seen as human. When the Black lady reacts as a way to a situation, the context of her life doesn't matter at all. She's just seen for her reaction. And that's what white supremacy takes away from us.

    And like going back to my hair, it takes away the context of our life. It takes away the context of our hair. We, we cannot exist fully. We can only show up as parts of ourselves that make white, the parts that make white people comfortable.

    Surabhi: Yes.

    The origin of the term Karen and why any white woman can be a Karen

    Inemesit: And so it's, with the Karen thing, it's not about. Any particular white women, it's about the fact that white women are allowed to exist in their full humanity and women of color aren't and white supremacy allows that white women to use that vulnerability and fragility to harm people of color.

    And a lot of people that use the term Karen, like they have no understanding where it came from.

    They have no understanding. Yeah. I've, I've seen this used when someone is like, oh, someone cut off in front of [01:10:00] me at Costco and they'll like post about it on a Facebook and then people call them a Karen. I'm like, what? Like this, you don't even understand what this word means. And I feel like

    it's something else that's been taken in. Black people have been erased from the narrative cuz Karen was born of black Twitter. It's a, it's a, yeah, a term created from black people and it's not about, it could have been any name and.

    The reason, like I actually, I know four people called Karen who I think are all great people, but out of those four people called Karen, three of them is white. And it was just picked because it was a common name for white people. And it started, a black person had shared a tweet where they talked about a group of young Black people were gathering outside a park.

    And they were hanging out and a white lady saw them and she called the police to say that they were threatening. It was a group of young children and they were threatening. And so in response to that tweet, other Black people started sharing innocent situations where Black people have been together and a white person has claimed that they were [01:11:00] threatening the same way that Caroline Bryan with Emmett Till, and the Black people have been punished for how a white person responded to their existence.

    Surabhi: Wow.

    Inemesit: And so from that conversation and from people replying this character of a white woman that. Uses her fragility to cause harm to people of color. Became known as Karen, and it was just a name. Like I said, it's just a common name amongst white women. In the nineties, there was the sa, a similar thing.

    It was known as Becky with the good hair. Beyonce talks about it in one of her songs. Yes. And Becky with the good hair. The good hair part, eludes to white hair because black hair for centuries has been seen as bad hair. So when black people talk about good hair, they're talking about white hair. Becky's the common white name.

    So Becky with the good hair is talking about a white woman. It's a stereotype for a white woman.

    The power in sharing your story

    Surabhi: And that's the thing is it's, you know, people are like, oh, I'm offended. My name is Karen. So like, it's not an insult to you.

    It's not the name. Yeah, it's not about the name.

    Inemesit: [01:12:00] It's a character. Every character needs a name. It's a character. So it was just thrown a name.

    Surabhi: And I, I do think it's important that there's so many like brown, black, Asian people who have been racialized and we often feel we can't live in our full, authentic, true selves.

    And I think it helps seeing people like you who are doing that, and it, it's like a ripple effect. I feel like you are a little drop of ink in that water and you being in that water, it starts to permeate. And so other people near you are like, oh, oh, I could do this too. Okay, awesome. Until like that whole water turns, you know, different color or whatever.

    And that's the visual that I have. And I think that that's the, the power of sharing your story and sharing honestly too, because it's not about, oh yeah, I healed and everything's perfect now, and nothing bad ever happens and nobody's ever said anything racist because these [01:13:00] things still happen. But part of healing is knowing that that is still happening, but that is not about you, and that is not about you being wrong or you know, saying something wrong.

    It's about something that's not actually related to what you said at all. It's about this systemic power imbalance that has been putting certain people at a higher reward category than others. And I don't internalize things as much anymore either. It still hurts when I encounter things that are racist.

    It still hurts. And you know, this happened with actually, my mother-in-law the other day. Um, we don't see her that much. And she asked me, how do you see her name again? And I'm like, I've been married to your child for six years and we've been together for almost 10. And you could have asked your son, but you decided to ask me to remind me that I am different, that I don't actually belong [01:14:00] in your family.

    Right. And this is, people don't understand that these microaggressions happen not from strangers. Oftentimes they're within your own family. Yeah. Or your friends. Your close friends. A lot of us have white friends and they unknowingly sometimes or knowingly will make comments that make you feel othered or different.

    And it's been really important to me in the past few years to surround myself with more people who do understand my story and who are, aren't just white friends, you know?

    Defining empathy and why so many people have trouble with it

    Inemesit: It's really like the more you kind of lean into your own story, I think that's, it's really taught me what true empathy is because what I'm under, what I feel like I'm understanding about the world is a lot of people don't under really understand what empathy is.

    And it happens in conversations with white friends a lot. What you're trying to share your experience with them and express to them what you are feeling or why a situation may have been racist. And they try and put themselves in that situation and they say, well, this is what happened to me and this is [01:15:00] how I feel.

    And you feel completely not heard. And empathy isn't sticking yourself into someone's situation and trying to imagine how you would feel in that situation. Empathy is connecting with someone's emotions and being able to connect with the emotion in that situation. And so like an example for loss, you might not have known somebody close to you that has died.

    But we all have an experience of losing something. We all have that experience of loss. And so you can talk to somebody who has lost someone close to them and not be able to relate to that situation. Not even try. Be able to sit with them and understand the way that loss feels and to let them exist in that.

    And just being able to let I see my own humanities, it's opened so many things for me cuz there's a lot of things like my white friends, like I have a close friend that will, she's very homophobic and transphobic and it's difficult to have conversations with her about that.

    But you know, I do. And She talked about like a situation where she wanted some advice about something and she called another friend because she was [01:16:00] like, I knew what you would say about it. , .

    Surabhi: You're like, good. You don't understand. Yeah. But I think like my thing cuz she was like, oh, I was raised, um, you know, I was raised in the church, I was raised this way.

    Inemesit: I don't understand these things, but I'm like, I was raised in the church too. Yeah. And I was raised without these experiences, but what I know of my experience is that I have been searching for a long time to fit in. Right. And I've been trying to find what I need to change to fit in. And I'm understanding that I'm living in a world that was designed to exclude me and that the things that make me unique and the things that make me free are also the things that I'm told I'm not allowed to be.

    And so understanding, trying to navigate freedom in my own body and freedom in the world and understanding what oppression feels like. Now I can, look, I'm not gay, but I can see a gay person struggling. So you know what I understand that struggle. Yeah. I understand. Wanting to show up in the world as yourself and being denied that freedom.

    I can see a trans person and say, yes, I understand wanting to show in the [01:17:00] world is yourself and being denied that freedom or wanting to show up in the world as yourself. You are wanting to speak about your experiences and constantly having that compared to someone else's experiences. Yes. And invalidating what your reality is.

    So while those aren't my struggles, I can empathize that struggle. I know the emotions that go into that

    Surabhi: and I feel like part of it is people are so, um, desperate to. Comparisons almost like, oh yeah, you had something bad happen. I've had that too. But sometimes you just cannot relate.

    Like, I will never be able to relate to so many things if like living in a war torn country, I will not be able to relate to that. I can empathize, but I'm not gonna say, oh yeah, I remember the one time when there was a fight broke out. Like, you're not gonna compare it to something that you've been through just to have something to say.

    Yeah. And I feel like that happens a lot with people who generally, who are white because they want to relate, they want to compare, they want to feel like they understand. But [01:18:00] sometimes the best thing you can do is just listen and, and truly empathize without needing to compare. That experience is something that you've experienced because you've never experienced microaggressions based on your skin color.

    You cannot have, yeah. Right.

    Inemesit: Yeah. , and maybe you don't understand that situation, but you're a human, so can you not understand the human emotion you are seeing from the person sitting in front of you disappointments you not feel like the sadness.

    Yeah. Yeah. You may not have been in a war on country, but you understand fear. Yeah. So can you not see the fear that's coming and it's like can, and instead trying to make it fit into basically your box of whiteness. I don't understand. This is not my experience, so it cannot exist. Having the dual duality of being a black person living in a white supremacist world, I can understand that my experiences don't represent everybody else's experiences. So I'm more willing to listen to their experiences versus being white in a white supremacist world, you're taught that your experience is the norm and everybody else's experience that exists outside of the norm is wrong.

    Each person's humanity istheir own versus vs the collective they [01:19:00] belong to

    Surabhi: I love what you just said too, because you. One. One thing that I think a lot of people, we know this obviously, but a lot of people who think about BIPOC, black, indigenous, and people of color as one, right? We're all one , don't understand the nuances.

    You've shared this before, that Nigeria is not really one country. It's many, many different tribes in different peoples. India's similar. There's many countries that, or like people call us Asian and I'm like, do you know how many different countries, tribes, peoples make up? Asia? It is a big space. You can't just label us all as one. But that's what white supremacy does.

    You know, it's either white or BIPOC, or it's white or other, and it's not, we're not one. Even within your own culture, I'm sure within your family and someone else's, there's different recipes and you know, clothing and accents and everything. And I think it's so important to see our humanity as [01:20:00] individuals, not just as a collective, you know? Blacks or BIPOC or

    Being African is not a monolith. Being BIPOC is not a monolith. Being Asian is not a monolith.

    Inemesit: So this is what white supremacy does and it isn't even figuratively, like this is like literally, this is literally what it does. Um, literally in the 19th century, like European nations, I can't remember like seven or eight European nations got together during the Berlin conference and they start together and they split up Africa between themselves who would go in and colonize where, and Britain came into West Africa and it gathered 400 separate nations and it put them together in an area of land it wanted to control and it called that area.

    It was originally called the Royal Niger Company, and it became called Nigeria. After the group, the 400 separate nations wanted independence. And so this is white supremacy, literally the British monarchy, white supremacy taking 400 different and distinct unique countries, cultures, and lands, putting it together and saying, you are one people.

    Yeah. So it's frustrating. Now when you get the [01:21:00] news media talk about how, you know, in Nigeria, there's so many different ideas. How come they can't come into one group? How come they can't all get along and have one idea? And it's like, this is, it's like they weren't meant, why can't Europe, why can't Europe become one government?

    And why can't Russians and British people live under one rule and be like, they're not the same people. Yeah. Nigeria is not one people, Africa is not one people. Asia, it's like multi, it's . It's not one, there's so many. Unique identities and white people recognize that. They're like, you know, you have Americans, they're not the same as Canadians.

    The French, they're Spanish. They're like, they're so distinct.

    Surabhi: Oh, I'm Italian at this. And it's like, okay. But yeah, you can understand that, but you can't understand how Africa is not one nation, first of all

    Inemesit: the more I understand about Nigeria, like it's hard. Even, cause I was grew up under British, um, education system, and my mom would always, she's always talked about Nigeria going to high school.

    She was like, oh. And there, there was this Fulani girl and [01:22:00] there was this Yoruba person and there was this Ibo person, and I was, my head was like, they're Nigerian. Why you like this, this, this, this, this. They're Nigerian. Yeah. But she grew up in Nigeria. She understood like, these are very distinct different people.

    Yeah. With different ideas, different cultural practices, different heritages. And the people within Nigeria know this, but outside of Nigeria, they pointed me, nobody knows, just Nigerian. And I have that experience. I met someone said, you're a Nigerian, and she's throwing about all these, she's like, I know a Nigerian, she did this, this, this, this.

    I'm like, no, she sounds like she's Yoruba. Why don't you do that? I'm not Yoruba, I'm Ibibio. And she just, but you are Nigerian. I'm like, why don't you, I don't know, run with the bulls in Mexico? Like, why don't you do that every year? Like, it's not your culture. It's, yeah, it's completely different. Yeah.

    Surabhi: And I feel like that's part of the white supremacy too. It removes individuality and tries to wa like whitewash everybody as the same, right. As like, you're all the same. And we see that in school too. Like [01:23:00] we talked about, going back to art, we want creativity in art, but in the school system often it's how similar to this uniform standard can you be?

    And if you venture too far outside of that, then mm, we don't like it. Unless you're one of those really lucky people who end up with a really good teacher who encourages that individualization, which I wish they did more of. My kids aren't in the school system yet, so I don't know how it actually is nowadays, but I know that when I was there, it was like they were trying to remove the individual from me and just trying to make me assimilate to what everybody else is like.

    Inemesit: Yeah. And I struggle with art cuz while I think it should be taught in school. I don't think it should be graded. And I always struggle with like, how do you grade art? Like you can't, what are you comparing it to? It's such a personal preference. Yeah. And that was like taking exams in art.

    I can relate to that. I really, I disliked it after high school, so I was like, what, what are you judging me on? How, what do I need to do to pass?

    Surabhi: Because it's so subjective, right? It's so subjective. How do you, you could draw two lines on a piece of paper and call that art and that [01:24:00] might sell for $500,000 somewhere because it's so and so who created it, right?

    Yeah. But, but then when it's a kid in school calling that art, oh, that doesn't look like this, that I wanted you to draw or this type of art. So I do see that. And I think as parents, that's something that I'm really proud of being able to recognize because now when the school system, like for example, when I was in school, my parents would take it so personally if I didn't get like high nineties and everything.

    But now I can recognize if my kid comes home with an F, I'll be like, if you need support, of course I'll support you or get you support. But grades don't define everything. It's like the, your aesthetics don't determine your athletics.

    It's very similar. Your grades. Yeah. Your hair doesn't determine your worth. And going back to, we're all different people with different hair and skin and cultures and we are not one, you know, the "I don't see color. I don't see this." That's actually removing our individualization, our individuality, yeah. [01:25:00] From ourselves. And I want people to see me for being me. From wholly me right

    The pressure for exceptionalism as a way of survival

    Inemesit: yeah. And the interest thing about the great thing, it's not offered, I mean, you do have some white households that are very focused on grades, but it's more common in black, brown people of color households.

    And that's another thing cuz that was my expectation. You always get As. In Nigerian households, you're gonna be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. Those are your options. Yeah.

    It's usually doctor and engineer. Yeah. But something I'm realizing is, I think it's, it's how our parents try to protect us.

    They try, they push exceptionalism onto us because they think if white people see us as exceptional, then they'll see us as human. And that's like another thing. It's like we, you don't want them, they already think you're stupid because your skin is black or your skin is brown. They already think you are stupid because you don't, you won't come from this country.

    So we have to do everything else to offset that. So you have to get the top grades, you have to get the top marks. You have to show up all the time. Like if you look at the [01:26:00] stats, the top students performing students are, it's, it always comes up every year. It's Nigerian students. There's such a high pressure for us to perform well.

    But my mom is a social worker. Mm-hmm. And a lot of Nigerian students also end up having mental health breakdowns because of this constant pressure. High pressure always be number one, to always be on top, to always be, even that analogy, to always be moving forward. We can't tread water even though we're wor working against the current, we have to always move forward.

    Yeah. And those fish, not one of them swam upstream, unbroken. . They were like, they, they, even after the one fish jumped over the rock, he stopped and he waited and it was probably a mile upstream and they would swim two or three meters and then stop, stop and just stay there for like 30 minutes. And so Wow.

    Knowing we don't always have to be pushing like we need our rest and it's so important. We need our rest more than, more than white people. I have to be honest, because we're under more constant pressure. The research [01:27:00] shows that it shows that Black women have higher mental health disorders, that Black women have higher death rates, not because our bodies are physically uncapable, but because of the stress.

    There was one study done by a cancer research organization that shows that black women have higher forms of aggressive cancer because of dealing with the constant stress of racism. Yeah. And dealing with constant stresses changes your DNA and makes you more susceptible to aggressive forms of disease.

    And so it's not in our heads, there's research. No, it's not in your head.

    Surabhi: Yeah. It's not in our heads. One, one thing too is, is with diabetes. I've read this thing and have you read the book? What happened to you With Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry? I'm halfway through it. It is very heavy.

    You can't read it like from start to end in one go. It's like, read a chapter, let it sit, let it sit, because it's talking a lot about trauma and healing and resilience. But there was some stat saying that people who are diabetic, like for example, south Asians have a [01:28:00] high rate of diabetes. I think Black people do as well, right? Yeah. I'm not mistaken, but things like adrenaline, living on survival mode, living in that also increases your risk of diabetes. It exposes more blood sugars into your muscles and into your joints, cuz it's that flight or fight response is getting your amped from moving. And so if there's always higher amounts of blood sugars elevated in your system, that also increases your risk of diabetes.

    So it's like, wow, it's not, it's not, you know, it's not just physical disease, it's mental health directly impacts our physical health and wellbeing. And the stress of racism is, it's not like, oh, I had a bad day. Oh, someone cut me off. It is not like that. It lives in your body. It eats, it eats away at you.

    And it's really, it takes a lot of rest and joy and making time for these self-care practices in order to actually survive and move forward, you know, once in a while [01:29:00] or just even tread water. Yeah. And I think that there, that's something that only people who have been in our shoes can experience.

    And I'm not, I don't know exactly what your life has been like either. Right? We, we can relate and we can empathize, but we don't know what another black person, another black person's stories. And we can't assume that their stories are the same as ours either. And I think it's important to listen to different voices and different stories for that reason.

    And that's why I really started this podcast is because I want to amplify and elevate voices like yours so people understand that being a mom is not just our identity, it's being a mom and you know, all of these other identities that you have lived in, in your body that you continue to live in and, still push forward and still move forward.

    Final Thoughts with Inemesit

    I have some questions for you. Some final five questions for you. So first question, what's a book or podcast that has been life changing for you? A book, lemme see. I think just, [01:30:00] I mentioned it earlier, it's called Black Magic by Chad Sanders. And it just, its interviews.

    There's a lot of people, I think it interviews like 16 or 17 different people that are CEOs worked for big companies like Google and Apple, just like successful Black brand people of color. Yeah. And talking to them about how, basically how navigating systemic racism and navigating being a bad person in a white world, how it's helped benefit them in business. And so versus looking at all the negative side effects Yeah. Of having to, things like having to code switch, having to learn different cultural behaviors. Um, it's saying what are the benefits of being able to do these things and how has this helped you move forward in business? So I really liked just the flipping of the script cause it can't always be about our trauma. No. There's the Little Mermaid movie that's coming out and a lot of people. . Um, I mean a lot of white people are mad about it cause it's a black little mermaid. But some [01:31:00] of the narrative was why can't you just create a new movie just about you? And I'm like it. Yeah.

    The point of this is, it can't always be about the struggle. The princess and the pee was about her struggle as a black woman in the South in the Antebellum period. We just want a movie about a mermaid. It's not about her skin color. It's just about a mermaid. And it just, it's another highlight.

    A lot of people that don't think racism is real. And you see how angry, like there's more dislikes on the trailer. There was like 1.5 million people disliked the trailer for the Little Mermaid. Oh, that's 400,000 people liked it. Yeah. Because there's so mad that her, it's a black girl playing the character.

    Wow. All those people, if you're one of those people, please stop listening to this and just unfollow me right now. . Um, seriously, like I just, I. People.

    I remember in high school there was a girl who auditioned for Grease, and she was not blonde, she was still white. She was like Greek, but she's dark haired, still white skin.

    People were [01:32:00] furious that it wasn't a blonde who played, um, what's her name? Sandy in Grease. Do you know the movie Grease? Olivia Newton John, blonde hair. And I'm like, who cares? . She sings well, she dances. Yeah, Sandy, right? It's like, who cares? Just let it be. But people get so angry about even just there's nothing color be, and now if you add skin color to it, oh, I can just imagine the, the fury that's coming.

    I, I, I saw a little bit about it online and I'm so excited that there is more movies with black and brown and Asian people in it that I can show my kids. And be like, look, these are the Disney movies that I wish that I had. Because I don't, I don't actually show them any Disney movies because they already are exposed to so much whiteness.

    Oh yeah. And I don't want to expose that to them even more at home. So like, I'm very mindful of the games that we buy. Even the kids, the pictures of the kids on the boxes of all these toys, they're always white. Why? Why does it have to be always white kids playing a game or playing a toy.

    So I love that. So that [01:33:00] book is called Black Magic. I will put that on my list.

    My next question is, what are three things that you like to do for yourself every day?

    Inemesit: I struggle with that question. I'm like, let me see. Brush my teeth, I like to put on make-up,

    Surabhi: that doesn't count. Cause I was gonna say brushing your teeth doesn't count. You like to put on make-up?

    Inemesit: It does. Cause it makes me feel good. For a while I was like, yeah, brush teeth. I'm like, it's self-care. Like I have to like picture Sure. All every morning. If I don't ask my kids whether they brush their teeth, they wouldn't have brushed it every morning for like 11, nine and four years.

    Surabhi: Good to know. To know. Sometimes I feel bad. So tell them like, Sometimes I feel bad. I'm like, shouldn't the kids know by now? But I'm like, oh yeah, they're still very young. That's a good reminder. That's a good reminder.

    Inemesit: I know. I don't think it will all learn. No, but cause the makeup, it takes me about 40 minutes to my main makeup and sometimes I'm just [01:34:00] like, I mean, it is something easy.

    It's like I don't have the time. This isn't important. But it's something, like you were saying earlier, it does make me feel better. It makes me feel like I'm ready for the day. It makes me feel more confident when I face the world. So just knowing, making time for that. Nice. And also, like I was talking about with my mother, moisturizing, it's little things, but just knowing I'm worth the time to get myself ready in the morning and the world can wait for me to get ready.

    So taking the time to moisturize my body after this shower instead of being like, I don't have these 10 minutes. Right. So for me it's like, it's little things. It's not major things. We're just reclaiming little things that is about taking care of myself and presenting myself. And that's, it's something that I took from my mom because one thing I, the memories I have of my mom is growing up is that she was always, she always was made up.

    She was always put herself together. And she's somebody that, she basically raised four kids alone in England. She had a lot of challenges, but she's always taken time to care for herself. And so that's been a consistent thing in my [01:35:00] life. And when I started having kids, I kind of let that fall by the wayside.

    Yes. But now I'm reminding myself that it is, it is important. It is important to remember that you are human and to care for yourself, and not to expect that to come from anybody else.

    Surabhi: I love that. Sometimes I feel like we wait for permission from like someone else like. But we have to kind of reclaim that time for ourselves.

    Yeah. I'm about, I'm two years postpartum now. My son just turned two yesterday and I now feel like I have time or that I want to make time for this again. To just, put in a little bit more care for myself.

    Inemesit: And there was something, one, one Valentine's Day I got upset because my husband didn't buy me flowers.

    And I was, cause you know, I went on Facebook, everyone on social media, everyone has their pretty things. And I talked to my sister about it and she said, you know what I do? She's like, I go and buy myself flowers. And I think like in the world that you are taught like a woman buying themselves flowers, that's so sad.

    A woman going out to dinner that's so sad. A woman doing things for [01:36:00] herself, it's selfish or sad. And how we're trained to think that we are not worth the time. And I was like, wow, that's revolutionary. I should just order myself flowers like, cuz. Because it would've made me feel special nonetheless. And so it's reminding myself that I don't need to wait for things to do, nice people to do nice things for me.

    Yeah. I can do them for myself. And that's, it makes me feel good. And it's really powerful to be like, okay, I'm like, I can look after to myself and I am worth these things.

    Surabhi: I love that. And I feel like we also, the, we teach people how to treat us what you said earlier, you know, you start treating yourself that way and your kids learn how you wanna be treated.

    You know, your partner learns, people learn. And I feel like that is so powerful. My, my parents bought me flowers every year for Valentine's Day too. So I remember when I first started dating my husband, I'd be so disappointed that he didn't buy me flowers. And I even told him, oh, I like, you know, flowers and chocolate and that kind of cheesy stuff.

    Cause I never had that from a romantic partner. [01:37:00] And he was like, oh, but you know, that just that stuff doesn't mean anything. It's just a day. And, and I'm like, yeah, but it matters to me. That's the point. Right. It's not about. Okay. Yeah. So it could be cheesy holiday, but if it matters to you, it matters to you.

    And I love that you are treating yourself with the respect and love that you want. Right. thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I love that idea.

    Fitness that goes beyond aesthetics

    What are you really passionate about right now?

    Inemesit: I'm really passionate about, I really just wanna change how people view fitness. Um, I work in a gym and there's a lot of, I don't know, stereotypes about gym culture, which aren't untrue. And so I just wanna, it's been my journey just knowing that the power of exercise is not changing how you look and everything that's about changing how we're looking and about how we look Aesthetically, all of that is, it's born of oppression.

    There's nothing that really comes, it's about liberating people. Um, so just knowing that, just. Being able to show people the [01:38:00] power of understanding their bodies versus changing it and embracing where they're at and moving forward. The clients I work with, she went through a really major surgery and it, it changed her body significantly.

    And she, when I started working with her, she was like really challenged by that and how can I go back to what I was, and a lot of the discussions we had were like, you, you can't go back and you are different now and there's space to mourn what you've lost. And so yes, you can mourn what you've lost. You can mourn and celebrate together.

    So we don't have to be one thing. And that's what white supremacy often teaches us all, is that it has to be one, we have to be one thing. We can only feel one thing. We can only show up in one way, having that conversation that you couldn't be sad and you couldn't mourn what you've lost, but you could also appreciate.

    What you have now and you can also like lean into this new body and knowing that there's place for sadness and joy to exist together. And it doesn't have to be one thing and you don't [01:39:00] have to feel one way about your body. And so I think like cuz sometimes body positivity can be like a little bit toxic.

    And she went through, it was basically lifesaving surgery. So her challenge was like, I know this saved my life, but I'm really sad about the changes that I'm navigating. And a lot of people were telling her like, you should be really grateful you are alive, you should be really grateful. You shouldn't be depressed.

    And the conversations that we were having, it's like you are allowed to be sad about this. This is huge. You are allowed to be sad about those things. It doesn't mean that that's the only thing that can exist. Yes. But you can be sad as you can move forward too. And you can, and you can be sad and you can be thankful, you can be sad and you can be hopeful.

    You can mourn what you've lost and you can look forward to what you can have. That's so, I mean, you don't have to be one thing, but I feel like that's so powerful too, because it gives people back the freedom and the, and the joy of moving their bodies for something that's not just shrinking them or, you know, changing what they look like.

    [01:40:00] Yeah. Because, yeah, and for me, we know the benefits of movement, you know, it's, yeah. And my truth is, it's like, I mean, I don't love everything about my body. I don't look at my body and I still have, you know, still pick things apart and there's still things that I struggle with, but it's not the thing that defines me.

    I'm able to have these feelings about my body and still move forward and still know that it doesn't define how I show up in the world or the things that I can do. And so knowing that that's, it's just the complexity of the human experience. We, we navigate a lot of different emotions and making space for it all.

    Surabhi: That's awesome. I love that. And what services do you offer right now and do you have any launches coming up that you'd like to share?

    Inemesit: I do, I offer one-on-one personal training in person and online, and I have one program currently out it is called Get Ready. It's a return to exercise program designed to help you return to exercise, either after having children or when navigating things like, um, [01:41:00] diastasis recti, hernias, pelvic organ prolapse, or stress urinary incontinence, which can often be associated with pregnancy. But the program is like, you don't, you also don't have to go to a, through a pregnancy to use this program.

    Amazing. So if you have a hernia and or diastasis and you are kind of feeling challenged about how you can move forward with movement, this is a foundation program to help you reconnect and rebuild the strength in your body to moving to the ways that you want to continue, um, exercising amazing and that pro.

    Program is out now or is it coming out to It's out now. It's available. It's out now. It's available on my website, mommy fitness.com. M U M M Y. Spell English Way. The, the English Way. I always wondered why it was spelled that way and then I'm like, oh yeah that makes sense. That's the way I was taught Spell, but, so I'm holding on and you know what, it's, that's kind of how it's pronounced.

    We say, mommy, we don't say mommy. Right. Or maybe there're, you can't say mommy. I mean, I [01:42:00] do the people that say mommy, but I say mommy. And that's, I think it's about, cuz that's holding onto all parts of myself. I am Nigerian by birth, by heritage, but I also, I spend a significant portion of my life in England.

    And so I relate to being British. I consider myself British, so I hold onto those things as well. And I'm in Canada now. I've lived in Canada for 15 years and there's things I'm. Picking up. And so I'm not one thing. I consider myself Nigerian. I consider myself British. I consider myself Canadian.

    And I think there's space for all of those identities to exist together. Yes. Versus when I was in England, I was taught that I could only be English and everything outside of that couldn't exist. Or in Canada it's all like the patriotism can get toxic sometimes. You have, you can only be Canadian. You have to be proud of everything Canada does.

    You can never speak out against Canada. And it's like you can be proud of being Canadian and also be able to see outside of that and offer valid criticism. You can be, it's, there's room, the world is not just one thing.

    Yeah. And just knowing that [01:43:00] there are so many different identities, even within a single person. And that's what also

    Surabhi: and it kind of goes back to the same thing you were mentioning with your client and you know, mourning her. Her body and while also being grateful for being alive, right? It's that there can be more than one truth, right?

    It's not one way. There's not one way to be, there's not one identity. You have to have.

    Inemesit: And that's what reconnecting, trying to reconnect back with my Nigerian heritage has taught me too. Cuz one of the books I was reading was talking about, I mean there's a lot, um, talking about in West African culture and in able and Yoruba culture, ethnicity, it was something fluid.

    And so now we understand ethnicity as something rigid. People do the 23 and me tests and like these are, these are the things. These are the rigid things that I'm from. Yeah. Which, yeah, but the understanding was Africa was that your identity was changing and your identity was shifting. And you could be part of the Ibo tribe and marry and an Ibibio man [01:44:00] and decide that you relate more to the Ibibio chief and the Ibibio culture.

    And you could then identify as Ibibio. You were no longer Ibo, you weren't stuck in one thing. Right. It was moving, it was fluid. You could be several different things through during your life and even with gender. There was some of the West African cultures, they didn't gender kids when they were born. They allowed their personality and their spirit to develop.

    And then as children develop and become people, they identify as what they are. So the identity wasn't cemented at birth. It was fluid and it was changed, and they could become who they wanted. And there's a quote, um, I can't think of the, what the quote is from. It says, nobody is born a woman. You become a woman.

    And so it's just kind of that understanding. It's helped me embrace that I don't have to be one thing and I don't have to look one way. And I don't even have to be, have one belief. I can have different beliefs than I had 10 years ago. Yes, I can dress differently than I have 10 years ago. I can do my hair differently.

    Like I, [01:45:00] my identity is fluid and it's changing. And that is, that's humanity. I'm not supposed to be one thing

    Surabhi: I love that. I love that. And I'm so happy that you're at that, mid thirties for anyone listening is a great time. I feel like in our twenties there's still a lot of learning to be done and in our thirties too, but I feel like I've really come into my own in my thirties in a way that I didn't, wasn't ready for, wasn't mature for in my twenties.

    If you could change one thing about the world, what it would it be?

    Inemesit: I struggle with that. You sent me that question before and I was like, what would I change? and I was trying to think of big things, but I'm like, I'm just gonna go back to just like looking after myself.

    I'm like, honestly, if I could wave a wand and change anything about the world, it would be to live in the same city as my sisters. We live in different locations and I miss them all the time. And when I'm with them I realize how nobody really understands you, like your siblings cuz nobody came from the [01:46:00] same place and went through the same experiences like they do.

    Yeah. Like your siblings and I don't have to explain myself to them or the They just get it. The context. Yeah. They just get it and it's easy And so if I could change anything, it's something I didn't appreciate as a child. Like when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to move away.

    Surabhi: isn't that always the truth?

    Yeah. I only have a brother. And when he moved away to university, I thought. Like I, I cried and I missed him so much, and I, I didn't think I would, I thought I would be happy getting all the attention, but I missed him a lot. And now I'm very actually grateful. We live across the street from each other and you're so right.

    When I, when we hang out, I'm just like, Ugh, you get it. I don't have to explain myself and I can be cranky and he won't judge me. You know what I mean? Like, your siblings just get, kinda get it. Well, I hope that you get to see them more often and maybe have like a, just more trips and stuff now that we're coming, hopefully out of the pandemic.

    And your kids are older too, so maybe it'd be easier to travel with [01:47:00] them. Because that's, I think that is a life, life-changing for a person to be able to be with family more often.

    Inemesit: Yeah. And there's a Bass Luhrman quote from the sunscreen song and he says, hold onto the people you knew when you were young. You'll miss them when they are old. And there's something like, be nice to your siblings. Um, there's nobody, basically, there's nobody that's gonna understand you more than them. And I'm like, ill listen to this song came out in the nineties. Yes. Like, I've been listening to this song for years, but as a 36 year old, I'm like, oh yes, I get it.

    I know. You get tired of explaining yourself to the world. You just wanna be around people that just get it. Just get it sometimes.

    Surabhi: So I hope you get more trips in and more memories in, and even just more time with them. Um, and my last question for you is, what do you think is your mom's strength?

    I asked you this before and I know this answer may have evolved, so I'm curious to hear what, what you say.

    Inemesit: I think my mom's strength is my [01:48:00] openness to continue learning. I think that's the one thing is I like learning. I like hearing other people's stories. I like listening to perspectives that I haven't been exposed to or may not understand, and I think that's really helped me. Being willing to expose myself to different situations I think has been really powerful.

    And I realize that there's a lot of people that. will stay in their comfort zone. And I don't think I'm brave. I think I'm just always searching for answers. I'm curious. I have a curious mind. So I think maybe that's it. Curiosity. Curiosity, curiosity. Curiosity is my mom's strength.

    Surabhi: I love that. Well, thank you so much Inemesit. I always learn so much from you. I love how you help me piece things together and make connections. And I love that you have the courage to stand for your truth and speak with courage and authenticity. And whether you know it or not, you are impacting me and so many people around you through you being more [01:49:00] yourself.

    And I hope that whatever you wish for, whatever your thing you could change about the world, spending time with your sisters and your family, I hope that you do get more of that. For all of the listeners who found this conversation helpful. Please tag us on social media if you're listening to this tag Inemesit Mummy, it's Mummy Underscore Fitness. Am I right? Yes, yes. M U M M Y, underscore Fitness and me, of course, at the passionate Physio, and let us know what you thought about it.

Surabhi Veitch https://www.thepassionatephysio.ca
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