Transcript - Episode 13: Bring Your Whole Self, Including Your Hopelessness
Hey, It’s Me
EPISODE # 13
Hosts: Mike Sakasegawa and Rachel Zucker
Transcript by: Leigh Sugar
Transcripts formatted after those from Disability Visibility Project
Please note: transcripts are transcribed directly from recordings of live conversations; as a result, quotes and statements may be approximate and there may be unintended memory errors.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, it's me. So, yesterday, I got your message, yesterday was the election, and I got your message that was telling me that you were at home, alone, you decided to take the day off, feeling like, in whichever way it went, you wouldn't be able to focus on anything at work, but you said you were wondering if that was a mistake because now after you'd taken the kids to school and you were at your house by yourself and it didn't feel good and you were wondering, like, what the fuck am I going to do now?
And you also said to me that this is when you, you know, that you would want to talk to your ex wife, like to connect with her at a time like this. And, you know, just having a lot of feelings about the election and not knowing, as I understood it, like what was going to make you feel better - to be with others, to be by yourself, who you wanted to talk to, why you wanted to talk to those people.
And when I was listening to your message, I really just kept wanting to say, yeah, let's record, let's record a conversation about the election, not because it's kind of like a necessarily meaningful activist thing to do, but because that's what Hey, It’s Me is for. It's for these moments of wanting to connect between the two of us and wanting to like talk our way into feeling… into understanding what we think, or who we want to, who else, other than each other, we want to talk to, or why, or whether we want to be alone or with others. Because I think Hey, It's Me, is this kind of like in between alone and with others space, and our relationship is somehow in this liminal space between… online, disconnected, virtual friends, and something very deep and, and long and connected and, and grounded.
I think that we made this podcast Hey, It's Me, out of instinct and intuition, but I think that it's there for us now. This is the platform. This is the place for us to talk about this and, and everything and anything that we want to. So, let's, let's record something. Let's talk about it.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So I -
RACHEL ZUCKER: I - You start.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Okay. I think one of the places I wanted to start was actually, I don't know if this is appropriate for the actual episode, but you love it when things are meta. So, I thought we would just go there. We've been having a discussion about when to release this episode, whether to release it out of order or to just wait.
I believe that, so, you know, we are recording this the Saturday after the election. It's November 9th. And so, this coming Monday, we do have an episode coming out, which will be Episode 10. I don't have time to, to do this one before then. And then after that, we have two more episodes recorded, which means that this one would be scheduled to be coming out probably around Christmas. Also your birthday [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh, thanks for remembering.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And you know, there's an argument to be made that, you know, that this, you know, one of the things that you said in some of your messages to me is that we're not doing activism here. We are not necessarily like talking about things in a, in terms of the news cycle. We're not trying to be timely. And I, I hear that. When I, when I think about what this show is, right, I think about it in terms of you and me, but also I think about it in terms of these listeners that I'm going to try to stop calling hypothetical, because we do know that we have at least a few, right? And something that has been on my mind a lot, not just because of the election, but certainly more since the election, but I've been thinking about it a lot for months, is the idea of togetherness and community.
[5:02]
And I think that what we do on this show for each other is an extension of our friendship. It's a space that we're carving out to be together, to share our time. And I think that in a lot of ways, if anybody gets anything out of this podcast, because we are, we are for the most part, not really talking to an audience, right? We're not, we're talking to each other and making that available to the audience, but we're not really talking to them in the way that even a show like, like our other shows like Commonplace and Keep the Channel Open, are a lot more aimed at a listener, even though we're talking to a guest, right?
And I think that what we can provide to a listener here is something similar to the space that we have for each other. And to me right now, it feels very strange to just go about our business as though nothing has changed. And so, If I'm thinking about listeners, I'm not necessarily thinking about this in terms of being an activist, or organizing, or anything like that, but I am thinking about it in terms of a community, and holding space for each other, and acknowledging that we are not just the two of us, right?
All that said, it's definitely also on my mind that the show has always lagged behind real life by several months. The episode that we're planning to put out, in two days, is one that we recorded back in August, and among other things, we are talking about Abram’s situation, and even at that, the previous two episodes that we put out were both, those were the breaking format episodes. And by the time those episodes were released, you had already been living in that world for months, but we just shared it with the audience. So it's also on my mind that that weirdness of not acknowledging what's going on has always been present in this show. What do you think about all that?
RACHEL ZUCKER: First of all, I might just add, yes, I don't think of this as an activist space or primarily an activist impulse, but I would also maybe suggest that it's not outside of activism. And I might just insert the words slow activism or soft activism. I don't even know if those are like a thing, but I'm just making that up. And I think the reason that I even, I particularly like the idea of slow activism is, is an acknowledgement that it's not direct activism that we're doing, but it's also, there's something like, yeah, I mean, from my perspective, and I think this is probably going to be something we talk about, like, I kept forgetting that the election was even happening because the big shocking shift in my life was Abram getting sick.
And so I think it's also important to acknowledge that this election, as huge as it is, and as critical as it is certainly is hitting me in a different way than it would have before Abram got sick. And my participation in politics and in all of these things has really shifted in part, but not only because Abram got sick, like I'm also seeing him, a big shift in the difference between this election and the 2016 election for Moses, my oldest son, who has done a tremendous amount of direct and I guess, slow activism. But also, like, I don't know, we don't know what this election means to the listeners, you know, I can't imagine that somebody is listening who is pleased with the outcome of this election. I mean, I just can't, I can't quite imagine that.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I hope not. Cause I don't, I don't want to be talking to them [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, I don't know if I feel exactly that same way, but I feel mostly that same way. But what I really feel is, because we have no idea what is going on in those other people's lives, like we don't know what the timeline is for other people. We, we don't even barely even know what the timeline is for us. Like, something so magical and wonderful, like if you fall in love tomorrow with someone and you know, you're going to go back and listen to this conversation and it's going to seem you're going to be in a different space. Like so many things affect, like, what are the breaking points for us?
[10:00]
And I just, I don't think it's just me who has become maybe more local than I felt in the 2020 election and in the 2016 election, and I think there's good things about that, there's bad things about that. This morning, I was doing some sound editing on what I hope will be the next episode of Commonplace, which is a conversation that I recorded back in May with Sabrina Orah Mark, and I'm way behind on Commonplace. And that's both very frustrating for me, but also when I heard, part of the conversation is about whether writing about our children creates a garment of protection for them. This was a phrase that Sabrina used, or whether it exposes them in ways that are dangerous. And on the one hand, I'm so frustrated that like, I haven't put this episode out, but on the other hand, like, it speaks to me right now where I am, in a really important, meaningful way, because I'm trying to think about writing about Abram. I am writing about Abram. I'm talking about Abram right now with you. You know, that's a kind of exposure that I want to be a garment of protection, but I don't know if it's a garment of protection.
And Sabrina is also saying things about Grimm's fairy tales and about her own life that feel so connected to this election. So I think I'm just trying, I'm, I'm in this kind of like woo woo kind of almost speculative space where I'm not sure that I even believe that time is linear, that, you know, I really don't think that we're all experiencing this election in the same way. I'm very aware of the fact that like, everybody has a different, not different political view, but a different way in which these global events, national and global events, affect everybody differently.
And so I guess I just feel like in a way it's a little bit of hubris or, or something for us to be like, well, no, we have to skip this episode to the front because it will just feel too weird for us or for the listener for it to lag three months behind. I mean, I'm fine with doing that. But I, I'm just not sure. I feel like we're doing something different, as you said, with this, with this podcast. And, I think that the time feels different to me. And I think it's not just me. I think it feels different to other people.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. I, have we ever talked in any kind of detail about what my engagement with politics was after the 2016 election?
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, I'd love to hear.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So, like a lot of people, I was pretty distraught in November of 2016, and I was looking around for something to do. What I felt very strongly at the time was I need to get off the sidelines. Like I, I can't in good conscience just leave this to other people to deal with. And so I, I looked around to see if there was a movement that I could join. And the one that jumped out at me really quickly was Indivisible, because it was, you know, this idea that we're going to take, we're going to look at what the, the right did during the Obama years, and why were they as effective as they were? And what can we learn from that? And what can we, what of their tactics can we adapt? You know, what, we can leave aside, we can leave behind all the racism and the misogyny and the bullshit, but can we be a thorn in the side of the Trump administration? What's that going to look like in terms of organizing protests, in terms of contact like, you know, consistent contact with elected officials, regardless of their party?
All of that made a lot of sense to me at the time. And so in January of 2017, right after the inauguration, I had looked around to see if there was an indivisible chapter that I could join in San Diego, and I couldn't find one, so I started my own. And it was also one thing that was very attractive to me about that movement, that it was very distributed, that we could all sort of take this playbook that they have and, and have chapters that are in communication with each other and in coalition with each other, but we're all independent and we're all doing our own thing as we see fit.
It turned out that over the course of the next month or so, about a hundred different chapters sprang up in San Diego, and mine was always one of the smallest ones. And what I realized over time was that I was not very good at being a leader because I was not very good at getting people to show up to things.
[15:02]
I had a group. It might've been about 80 or 90 people in terms of online participation, but in terms of people who would actually show up to even just our group meetings, let alone actually participating in the work, it was about 5 to 10 people. And so what ended up happening was that we created, we created sort of a coalition of local chapters, and I joined working groups with other of the local Indivisible leaders, and really what I ended up doing was participating more as an individual contributor to those efforts. So we did a lot of things, you know, we organized rallies, we organized marches. We met with our congressman, who is a centrist Democrat. He's one of the most right leaning Democrats in Congress still. He's no longer my congressman because of redistricting, but he's still in Congress. We met with him about once a month.
For all that, I don't know how much good we did. You know, I don't know what we actually accomplished as a group, but it felt good to be in community with those people, and it felt good to be doing something. And over that time, I became really disillusioned because there became, there, there was a lot of internal politicking within our coalition, where not so much the people in our groups individually, but between the different leaders, there was a lot of disagreement. There was a lot of backstabbing and backbiting. It became really stressful for me. And it just happened that the 2020 election coincided with the pandemic lockdowns and the dissolution of my marriage. And shortly after, you know, I had a friend die, my dog died, and my grandmother died all in rapid succession. And it was just overwhelming to me and so I had to step back. And I have tried to maintain my contacts with that community in the past four years, but I haven't been as active in it.
And I think one of the things I've been thinking a lot about, you've talked about just now, slow activism or soft activism. And that's been on my mind a lot for the past years, four or five years about, you know, what was it that I accomplished during that time? I ran myself ragged, I spent so much time and energy on all the things that I did and I don't know if I accomplished a single thing other than maybe making the people around me feel nice, you know, feel like they were doing something? But what did we accomplish with all of that?
I was talking, I had lunch with two of my friends, the two women who I'm still most in contact with from that leadership coalition a couple weeks ago. And one of them was saying that no matter what happens in the election, she's going to be in DC in January. The other one said, are you going to go to the Women's March? And the first one she said, no, because that doesn't do anything besides just make White women feel good about themselves. Mind you, these are two White women that I'm talking to, right? And so she had been spending all of her time on election stuff, on canvassing, on Get Out the Vote stuff in lots of different phone banking, tax banking, postcarding, and organizing lots of people. And we did a lot. And I, I participated in her efforts. I personally sent out probably maybe three, four hundred postcards. I went to several phone banks, you know, I tried. We all tried.
But more and more what I, I kept thinking over the past several years is, that what activism and organizing really needs to be about, if it's going to be something that's actually sustaining rather than just a way for me to burn myself out, has to be about relationships. It has to be about one on one relationships, and it has to be about finding ways to actually take care of each other. And what does that look like? And over the past year, I've been spending a lot of time trying to get people together, you know, trying to invite people to things, partially because I'm lonely, and partially because I keep thinking like, you know, even if Harris had won, we're still facing huge problems from climate to politics to whatever right? And we need to have networks of people who can actually provide care for each other, who can show up for each other and support each other. And so I'm trying, I'm trying to do that.
And it's been real hard because people, everybody is tired and everybody is busy and nobody wants to show up for things. Nobody even wants to show up if I say we don't have to do anything, just come spend time with me and I'll feed you, you know, people don't even come for stuff like that. And then on the one hand I get it, but also it's very discouraging, you know, even that. So I'm still trying to think about, what am I going to do next in those terms, you know, because right now it feels like what I need to focus on in the next, you know, four years at a minimum, is how to survive this rather than how to fix it, you know?
[20:18]
And again, that's going to look like, who are the people in my life that I can take care of? What are the things that I can do that I can provide to other people that helps them? And, I think something like this podcast is a, a small thing I can do, and I don't know if that, if, I don't know how that helps, and I don't know if it helps, but I know I need to not feel alone through this.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, I have so much to say in response. I first, I just want to say thank you for the activism that you did in previous years, even if you don't feel like you accomplished something concrete, I think it's really important. So I, I left you a message about this, I think, but I taught the Wednesday morning after the 2016 election, and the 2020 election, and this election. It's my NYU class. It's an undergraduate advanced poetry workshop. And I can talk more if you're interested in like the differences between what I saw on that Wednesday class, but in this most recent one, there, you know, there were a bunch of students who were absent. I really did not want to go to class. I really felt, I mean, it's, it's really, it's really a stretch for me to be teaching right now at all. And to be teaching this age group, ‘cause they're the same age as, you know, there's just, they're a little bit younger than Abram, but it's too close, you know, it's painful for me sometimes to be in a room with 15 healthy undergrads.
But I also feel like, a lot of responsibility for them. And I remember so vividly the 2016 election when Moses was the age that Judah is now. So he was 17, about to turn 18. You know, it was, Moses already had mental health issues, but it, it really intensified in a very terrifying way. Trump's election and the rise of fascism and, you know, all of these, these things intensified Moses and Abram’s mental health issues, particularly Moses's at that time. So I'm very sensitive to how these elections are affecting my undergrads.
And so I sent out an email after class saying, you know, it's fine with me that you weren't in class to those of you who didn't come, but could you just check in with me and let me know how you are? And most of the students who weren't in class didn't write to me, but one student did. I'm just going to read, it's very short:
“Professor, I'm very sorry I missed class on Wednesday. I could not get out of bed that morning. I am depressed and despairing, not for myself, but for people who cannot afford groceries, and for undocumented immigrants, and for documented immigrants, and for trans people, and for so many other communities whose members do not have any safety nets like I do.
Even during the Biden era, I have watched methods of legal recourse be continually stripped from the underprivileged by Donald Trump's court appointees, both in the Supreme Courts and in the lower courts, and it will only get worse over the coming decades, and I do not know what to do. Everyone wants to overthrow the system, and I do not imagine that that would be effective, and it's 80 degrees in November, and it used to snow on Halloween.
I'm sure this is old information to you, but I am stuck on it. I promise to be back in class next week.”
It's like so sweet and, you know, heartbreaking, like, even like, I'm sure this is old information to you, you know [laughs], and in class, I, I, I sort of, we had class, but I also sort of gave a whole speech about, you know, the importance of literature and also, but how I have no idea what's important anymore. And I really don't know what to do and, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, and so I, I said to the student, despair seems like a completely sane response to this election, but I hope it's not where you stay, you know, emotionally. And can you please zoom with me today or tomorrow. You know, I just need to make sure, you know, that the student is okay.
[24:51]
And, you know, I, I imagined zooming with the student and like telling her, you know, whatever thing about slow activism and soft activism and a bigger picture and all this stuff. And I just, I just heard myself as I imagined her to be hearing me and thinking like, yeah, you're just old, you know, like you just, this is like so typical of a certain middle aged person who becomes kind of conservative or more conservative or less political, you know, and so I asked Moses if he would respond to her as well, because he's somebody who has not been able, you know, for from 2016 until somewhat recently, has not been able to not hear the call to direct action. I didn't know what he was going to say exactly, but I thought hearing it from somebody who's 25 would mean something very different, whatever he said, than someone who's 52. So Moses wrote:
Dear student, this is Moses, Rachel's oldest son. She asked me to respond to your email with some thoughts.
First of all, I hope you are able to take care of yourself in a meaningful way today and that you're thinking about how to take care of yourself and the people close to you in the days, weeks, and years ahead. It's important. I'm not sure there's anything I can say that will be the source of much comfort to you. I was already struggling with deep depression when Trump was elected the first time, and then things got much worse.
Since then I've had mental health challenges off and on. I've also done some organizing work that I'm extremely proud of on electoral campaigns and around issues of climate change and prison abolition. Organizing can be one of the best cures for the feeling of hopelessness. Not because it ever seems like you're likely to win more than you lose, but because it feels fucking great to do something meaningful and to do it with people in your community.
I've also spent a lot of time doing things that don't feel politically significant, like living in a Buddhist monastery and tending to my own mental well being in a deep way. The truth, I now think, is that the world isn't ending any more or less than it always has been, and that despair is always on the table, but so is doing something meaningful, and so is having a joyful, great life. I hope you're able to take some time for all three. Include despair and joy, and remember that the thing you want is a peaceful, safe, free, and joyful life for everyone, yourself included.
Not only is there nothing wrong with that, it's the thing we're actually fighting for. Take your time when you need it, and also challenge yourself to sometimes show up to places that don't feel good. Bring your whole self, including your hopelessness, to these places.
We're all in this together.
Love, Moses
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Did you, did you send that to Alyssa?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I did.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: She was posting about it on social media today.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. I mean, I think it's important for people in their forties and fifties to kind of know what the kids are doing and thinking, you know, I mean, not that Moses is all the kids or the student, you know, and it's, it's a little weird of me because I've done a lot of direct political action, not as much as I could or should have done.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: None of us have ever done as much as we could have. Nobody has.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right. Right. I do think that like, I do idolize Moses a little bit because he was, you know, sleeping on the ground in front of the ICE vans, you know, to, to block them with other people and like, you know, outside Chuck Schumer's place and went, you know, moved to Virginia to try to, you know, work on the election there and moved to Miami to work for the ACLU. And, you know, for a lot of reasons, I feel like part of the most important political work I've done has been to support the political work that he's done, because I had two other kids and teaching and all this other stuff. I wasn't able to do as easily the things that he was able to do, but I was able to pay for him to do those things. I was able to support him financially and emotionally.
And so there's something very meaningful to me about seeing that he is also turning towards exactly what you just said, about trying to make one on one connections with people, to take care of himself in a really deep and meaningful way. Sometimes he says to me, care is care. You know, I have I think so much guilt as a White woman in this country that I am like part of the problem and, you know, that I, that I'm just, taking and taking and taking and exploiting and exploiting. And this whole like self care thing, you know, I feel guilty about it. And I'm moving away from that guilt in part with Moses's support and help in part, because just as you described at a certain point in your activist life, like everything fucking fell apart in the rest of your life and you just couldn't; everything has fallen apart in my life and I just can't.
[30:07]
I wanted to say one other thing though, which is, and this is also from Moses, but I'm seeing this in a lot of my friends, which is I think that in 2016, leading up to 2016, and then very much so afterwards, there was this sense, and tell me if you have a different feeling about it, but there's this, I had the sense that like social media and the internet was going to change the landscape completely. And it was going to make it impossible for like, fascism to succeed or for Trump to get elected or for him to stay elected or to stay in office, because it was going to enable… everything was going to be so global. And we were going to, you know, people all around the country and all around the world, we're going to see each other and understand each other and feel connected to each other. And it was going to be this organizing tool that we'd never ever had before. We were going to be able to get, you know, like the Jewish Voice for Peace protests, right? Like they, they're, they were able to get all these people to show up at Grand Central Station because of social media and because of texting and all this stuff. And like, it seemed like it was going to be this effective tool that would like, almost like democracy itself, like it was going to be this tool of democracy that would never be able to be overcome.
And like we, I think we know a lot more now about how Facebook and Twitter and the, those platforms were actually working during these elections. But also it's not just that. It's like we're all, especially the teenagers and 20 year olds and even 30 year olds, but us too, had become so addicted to social media and to this kind of connection, that is not a real connection. And now I sound old again, but I really do think this. I think that right now, it does not seem to me that it supported solidarity. In fact, it kind of untrained us to be able to go over to somebody's house and eat dinner and play a board game or hang out or, you know, talk in a kind of one on one, undistracted, uninterrupted way.
And I think that, I don't know, I think that there's something really, so many people I know have either completely gone off social media or have radically diminished their engagement in social media since this election. A lot of them had doing it beforehand, but that's like a response that I'm hearing a lot. And instead, they're not saying I want to be isolated from everyone. They're saying, I want and need to be connected in a different way than social media has been providing for me. And I, I do without being paranoid, you know, and imagining it's all a conspiracy theory, I do feel like. you know, we, we, we got fucked by, I mean, it's, it's crazy for me to say that because you and I would not be friends without Twitter and WhatsApp. And, you know, we can't go to each other's houses. So I love that our relationship and the way that, that, you know, the technology and social media has, has made it possible.
But I do feel like there's something really damaging that happened to us that we are trying to rebuild in a certain way with podcasts like this with talking to each other with, you know, all the things that you're saying, you're going to kind of give more of your energy towards. I think those things are really important and significant.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I, I hear what you're saying about social media, and I don't totally disagree. The thing I do disagree with is that the connections we make via social media are not real.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. I don't mean that. I just mean, because they are real. Look at us. And at critical times in my life, you know, I'm not on X really anymore, but like Twitter was really important to me, and the, and so many of like my very, very important relationships right now are with people that I met through social media. So I'm not saying they're not real.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I do think that social media incentivizes certain ways of engaging, and that those ways of engaging are not necessarily healthy. But I also don't think that, I don't think that social media is primarily what is responsible for the breakdown of in-person relationships.
[35:04]
If I had to pick one thing that would be the sort of foundational problem, it would be capitalism. Because, like I said before, I've been trying so hard to get people to come over, you know, to just, to just show up and spend some time with me. And the thing that is the most difficult that stands in the way of that the most is everything else that they have going on in their life, not social media. It's, you know, the fact that, you know, my one friend, for example, is going through a particularly nasty divorce with a husband who is probably bipolar and has narcissistic personality disorder and is emotionally very abusive, but they still have to live in the same house for a while. One of my friends just went through a divorce and is, he just doesn't have it in him to get up and go do things on my schedule, and a lot of times when he does have the bandwidth, I'm with my kids, so I can't.
There's a lot of things like that, and at the end of the day, everyone is tired because they've been working all day, and working for a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, everyone has so many more expenses than they used to. I think all of that contributes to the breakdown in our social fabric, a lot more than social media does.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And COVID.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Yeah.
RACHEL ZUCKER: You know, how that really changed things. I think there's another piece of this too. You said you want to focus more on one on one relationships and helping people feel better rather than necessarily prioritizing fixing things, and -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I don’t know about helping them feel better, but helping them get through this.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yes. Sorry. Yeah. You said survive rather than fix it. And I, I mean, maybe I'm going to listen back to this and I'm going to be ashamed of my self centeredness and -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: When do we ever listen back to any of these episodes and not feel ashamed?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I know it's so true. I mean, I'm so cringe. I'm just so cringe. But okay, what I'm trying to say with a little self love and compassion is, I'm really undergoing an enormous concept shift in my life that has to do with my political feelings and my personal feelings, and, you know, it was inspired by the crisis of Abram’s diagnosis, but it's a kind of anti-fixing stance. And it started long before Abram got sick. And it started long before I, you know, the other thing we haven't talked about is like in every previous election, I always had a lot of fears about how, what was happening in the United States was going to affect people in the United States. But I was also very worried that the United States’ support for Israel was going to go very badly if Israel, you know, if the Israeli government went off the rails. That has already happened! Yeah. So I'm in a particular moment in my life where like, my kid is incredibly sick, and I can't fix it. And my people are, which the Israelis are not my people, but the Jews are, are, it's, it's beyond the worst nightmare I ever could have imagined. It's already happening. You know, we already have, we had Trump, we have him again, it's not just that he's president, is gonna be president again, but it's the swell of support for him. Like these nightmares are in progress. They're real. They're happening. They've been happening.
And so there is a kind of helplessness that has become more and more clear to me, but also it's not just that. I think there's like a, a little White savior Barbie kind of mentality that I have had that I'm kind of stepping away from, where I think in the past I, I felt like, I had to prove to myself that I was a good person, and the way to be a good person was to make sure that I never, that I didn't care more about my children than someone else's children, like, on the deepest level, you know. Or my family versus someone else's family or my tribe or my people versus, you know, that's like, that's how we get into war and, you know, racism and oppression and all of these things.
[39:55]
And so I felt like it was my personal responsibility, and everybody's personal responsibility, to participate to the fullest extent that I could, in fixing this problem; in holding back the badness. And I… I can't. And I think that there's on an individual level, I'm really rethinking, in a way I'm going back to my doula training, you know, like when you're a doula, you don't, you don't fix the situation because the situation, you know, if someone's having a baby, you can offer comfort measures, you can not leave, you can be, you know, and that has a profound effect on the outcome of the birth for the pregnant person and the baby, but you don't fix it. You're not a medical, you're not a surgeon, you're not going to rip out a, you know, scalpel and cut somebody open. Like that's not my scope of practice in the world, or even on an individual level. Like I can't, I can't fix other people. I can't change other people.
I'm also not going to become a nun or a monk and like totally check out from society. So somewhere in between those two poles, of being a monastic who just contributes to, not just, who contributes to the health of the planet and other people through their spiritual work and their spiritual teaching, that's not my path. But also it's not my path, at least right now, to change and fix other people. And that's, that's very new for me. And I'm, I'm, there's a lot of ground to explore there. It's a, it's very uncomfortable. It feels very selfish to say it out loud. I feel worried about, you know, people listening and being like, oh yeah, you're just a rich White person who's apathetic and you know, whatever. But that's, I, I don't think that's really accurate. And I think that's where I am, if that makes sense.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I have, you know, had both an acknowledgement that things like self care are really important, and also a deep skepticism of people who are all about self care. Because it has been my experience that a lot of people, particularly White women, who talk a lot about self care, are using that as an excuse to be checked out and to, to, to only think about themselves. I don't think that there is anything wrong with saying, I care more about my own children than I do about anybody else's children. I think it would be weird if any of us who have children didn't feel that way. But I do think that, like on some level, I think that we do all have a responsibility to care about other people's children. You know? I don't know how to love anybody as much as I love my children, I don't know how to love anybody else's children the same way or with the same intensity that I love my children, and I don't want to, and I don't think that's wrong, and I don't think that makes me a bad person, and I don't think it makes me selfish.
But I do care about other people's children, you know, and I care about other people's children's safety. I do care about people outside of my tribe or my people. To the extent I even have that, I've never felt, in a lot of ways, I haven't ever felt like I have had a people because, you know, even just among Japanese American people, they, I always felt like I was rejected from that group as well for not being, you know, completely Japanese or Japanese enough, you know, never felt like I had a people, but it's, it is important, I think, right.
And I think that having the recognition that yes, it does feel selfish to say things like you have to secure your own mask first. It does. And also to recognize that it's true, you know, I was having a conversation for Keep the Channel Open with Sarah Gailey. That was the episode that came out in October and we were talking about this also about that there isn't just one way to be engaged with the world and to care for people and to participate in these things and that, kind of like what you were describing, like we cannot all be on the front lines.
I'm eight years older than I was in 2016. My shoulder doesn't work. My hips don't work. My back doesn't work, and I don't have strong arms you know, there's a limit to what I can do with my body. And those limitations are gonna increase the older that I get, and that's just life. That's just what happens is that we all decay. It doesn't feel good to say, like, I, I'm not going to be out on, out there on the front lines. I'm not going to be clashing with police or, or counter protesters. I'm not going to be leading from the front of that. But I am trying to take the idea that the ways that I can contribute are ways that maybe do help other people do that work.
[45:10]
And that the small things that I can do matter. And to come back to the thing that you were saying about proving to yourself that you're a good person? I mean, I think for me, a lot of the, the, a lot of the last eight years has been trying to figure out a way of being a good person in a way that doesn't sound, that isn't based around trying to perform being a good person for everybody else all the time so that they won't reject me, you know, to say that like I don't have to say all the perfect things all the time because I'm worried that some, that I'm gonna get cancelled, and especially that I'll, that I will disappoint the people who I admire, you know? It's not that I I've ever said anything that I didn't believe, you know, that any of the things that I've professed politically or socially or lies are that that they aren't my sincerely held beliefs - they are - but just that on some level, like most of my life has been, for most of my life, about proving myself to people, and I'm trying to figure out what it looks like if I'd let that go. Yeah. Because ultimately I don't know that that's it's not only putting a lot of stress and pressure on myself, but I don't think that it actually helps. I don't think that it actually does anything.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm hmm, you know, I think that's huge I really do I mean, it's so basic and obvious and I feel like part of me was like, when you were saying this I was like yeah, I think we're growing up, you know [laughs], like really, you know, like I'm not, because I, I think there's lots of reasons why we've cared a lot, both of us, about what other people think, or -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I mean, neither of us grew up in an emotionally safe environment [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right. That's right. And so, you know, I can go on and on about, like, is the kind of self hatred that I've felt in the past few years in particular, an important course correction of like rethinking who White women are in this society, and like, as a White woman, I need to take a good hard look at, you know, the way my Whiteness and my White femininity get levied, weaponized, you know, against other people.
But also like, how much of my self hatred as a White woman is just fucking internalized misogyny, you know? And I could get into the whole thing about this, but ultimately I need to grow the fuck up and be peaceful around what I do and don't do, what I give and don't give, and my choices, and, and take ownership over the fact that I'm, you know, I'm not the best. I'm not the worst. I'm really, I, I'm really, for the most part, doing the best I can, and maybe even slightly better than I can [laughs], you know, and, and that has to be enough, because I don't think that the shame and the guilt makes me… it doesn't make me do worse things, but I think I would still do the good things that I do, the things that I care about, that I'm proud of. I think I would still do those things. I know I would still do those things without all the shame and guilt. And I think it's time to like, just jettison it, you know?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah, that's easier said than done [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Totally. Totally. But it's, but it's work. It's work.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. I mean, the question that I have for myself a lot is, how can I learn the lessons that I need to learn? Because there are things that I need to learn, and that I have needed to learn that I still needed to learn, that in order to be able to take care of people, in order to be able to take care of myself, in order to be able to help, to be part of those solution, or at least part of the survival, does require me to sit with things that are uncomfortable sometimes, and to learn those lessons and to say yes, you you know, for me, it's not Whiteness, although proximity to Whiteness is part of Asian-ness in America, but it is things to do with masculinity and patriarchy. And I mean, we've talked about this. Like I have had such deep shame about being a man for many years now, and I know that doesn't help anybody for me to be ashamed of myself. But it's also like, how do I, how do I take this in without taking it on, you know?
[50:05]
Like, how do I, it's a question that I, that's especially been on my mind the last couple of days because I keep asking myself, like, I wonder if there is a way to bring White men in to the coalition of, of, of people trying to help, you know? I mean, some White men are, but like, just in the same way that, I mean even the ones that come in have still often, you know have work to do on that ,just in the same way that White women sometimes do as well, but is there a way that we could bring those White men in in a way that doesn't coddle them and doesn't fail in things like accountability or responsibility for them, but to show them that there is a space for them, that there is a place for them in this, you know? That's a question I don't know the answer to, but it feels really important to me.
I remember when I was, when I was talking to Sarah, they were pointing out all the ways that I really tie myself into knots, like in that conversation that I would tie myself into knots to try and make sure that I wouldn't be misunderstood. You know, that, like, that I was really all, like, consistently conversationally convoluting myself in order to try and play to someone who was gonna take me in the worst possible interpretation. And I think a lot of that has to do with that, that shame. I do often wonder whether or not there is a place for me in all of this, because so much of the messaging that I get has to do with, like, the way that people like me are the fucking worst, and I can't argue with that, you know, like there is like, I don't think that's incorrect. Like, I think everything, all of the rage that I take in from women of any race, that feels very justified to me.
But one of the things we were talking about is like, if you're not starting from a place where you believe in yourself, then there's no way to, to take that in without, like, either, you have to reject what people are saying, which is what a lot of men have done, and particularly White men, obviously, or you have to reject yourself, and that's not something I've figured out yet, but it feels like, it feels like that's something that I have to do, and it feels like if there's a way to bring the White guys in as well, that it kind of has to look like that too, that it kind of has to look like figuring out a way to say, yes, you do need to take responsibility for these things. You do need to acknowledge these things. You have to sit with your own feelings and figure this out and not put it on anybody else. But also there is, there is room for you here, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: So I'm, I'm smiling, which it must be like a little weird for you to see, but I'm just like, I'm about to pull rank on you in a weird way [laughs]. I think what you're describing, I mean, people get to this point in their lives in lots of different ways. I think that you're describing the shift from parenting children and young teenagers to adolescents and young adults and then independent, to parent adult children, because, you know, even when you, you keep using the word “to take care of other people,” and I think that there's this huge shift that I'm seeing now in what it means to take care of adult children. It's such a different relationship.
You know, it's all the things you said about adult White men, you know, can we bring them in? Can we, can we, like, those are autonomous human beings who you are not their parent. And yet, let me say it this way. I'm like, not explaining this very well, but, you know, I'm relearning these things that I learned as a doula with Abram, but of course with my other kids as well, Judah, a little bit less because he's 17 and he's not there yet, but Moses for sure, to take care of my adult children is very different than to take care of younger children or even teenagers. And that's the hardest because, you know, they're doing all kinds of, you know, pull me, push me, pull me, push me, you know, stuff, but there's a way I'm learning to take care of other people and then myself by being with, and really cultivating, radical acceptance, of other people. And myself. And maintaining the connection.
[55:10]
And that I feel like is, is a huge shift. Like as parents, and this is something that, you know, we have so deeply in common, we have trained ourselves to take care of these human beings that we like love so deeply and wildly in a certain way. And that's shifting. Like you're, and I think that if we turn that parenting, you're not quite there yet. That's why I said I'm pulling rank on you, because your youngest is how old?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: She's 10.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. It's just, a 10 year old is a kid, you know, and a 17 year old, your oldest is 17?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: 16.
RACHEL ZUCKER: 16. Oh yeah. You're not there yet, but you're getting there. You're preparing, you’re, you’re, you know, I mean, it just is, it's just different. This is just like the one thing that I think I know more about than you is, is just this part, this shift in parenting, and it's going to be different for you than it is for me and all that stuff. But I think that like part of what you're describing is being with, as opposed to being responsible for, depending on other people, having other people depend on you without being dependent. And like, what that looks like and how, how much power there is in being with someone as opposed to that very hands-on part of parenting that you're still in of like keeping them safe and teaching them how to be independent and teaching them what to think and how to act even when they push away. Like, how do you respond to that?
And I think that you and I, because of the way we grew up, because of all of these other issues, like we have learned to parent ourselves by parenting our kids. And so it's not until we get to this stage of, like, separation and independence, that we're kind of able to, in a way, be less like teenagers, and care less what our parents or other people, not our real parents, metaphorically, what other people think of us, and to, and to be confident and in our separateness and in our connections to other people.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I hear what you're saying [laughs]. I think that there's something to that, that I'm going to have to sit with for a bit.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I will also just say that when I think about taking care of people, I’m not just thinking about my kids.
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, I know.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: For example, I think about how to take care of you almost every day. And I don't think that the way that I interact with you and the way that I try to take care of you, is as you're bad.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Thank god no [laughs], thank God, yes, you're correct.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. If there is, this is, this is weird, but it's always been, I think, part of the subtext and sometimes the text of this podcast; if there's a model that I have for understanding how to take care of you and my other adult friends, it's got a lot more to do with marriage than it does with parenthood.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Or with friendship. I think that you and I, I'll speak for myself. Until recently, I have, I think psychologically and emotionally, I flip back and forth between child and parent, child and parent, child and parent. And this was a problem in my marriage because I sometimes wanted to be the child, but I never got to be the child or be taken care of in that certain way in my marriage. I did a lot of mothering in my marriage. I didn't know how to be equal. I didn't know how to be married as, as like an autonomous friend, as an adult, as a, you know, the way I think you and I relate to each other. We take care of each other. There are moments where we, we are, you know, the power dynamics might shift a little bit, but, but primarily neither one of us is in a dependent role and neither one of us is in a parental role. You don't take care of me, you know, as my father and, or not as my child. And I think that's, I think that's new for me in a lot of ways.
[59:46]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah, a lot of the insights that I've had into grown-up friendships, and even into things like the kinds of relationships I have within the activist community, a lot of those insights are things that I had that came out of couple’s counseling with my ex-wife. So that is just, you know, it's an interesting thing, you know, but you know, thinking about the parenting thing like, I don't like to think of, you know, my parenting of my children as any form of, like, activism or making the world better. Because I don't think that's the same, and I don't think that's what it is. But one thing that I do hope is that, like I said, and like we've said many times, neither one of us got what we needed from our parents. And it is very much my hope that my kids are gonna be able to go out into the world without having to worry about whether or not my love for them is conditional. And I, I think that's true. I hope it's true. But, you know, figuring out how to, like, as you know, like, we haven't talked about it on the show, but I've had challenges with each one of my children from time to time, and sometimes the relationship feels very strained. But finding ways to come back together after that and you know saying things like, you know, I can't let you behave like this right now but I always love you, is just something that I always keep coming back to.
I’m a little, I say, I don't think that's something that I can carry into all of my other relationships with adults, I don't think that it's something that counts as activism, but it is my hope that at least that that is something that can allow my children to navigate the kinds of things that I have difficulty with in a more secure way.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. And, and I think I'll just add that I think that giving them that helps you develop that for yourself.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Well, I mean [laughs], I think the challenge for me is trying to figure out what it looks like to give that to myself rather than like trying to find it in a secure way from somebody else.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I haven't fully figured that out yet.
RACHEL ZUCKER: It's really hard. I mean, this is a separate topic, but very related, and maybe we'll talk about it next time but like, it's a hard moment to be single, you know [laughs], it really, it really is because we're talking about, you know, care for others and for ourselves. And, but I guess what I want to say about that is as much as I wish I had a partner, I might not be ready for those power dynamics in a heterosexual relationship, you know, romantic relationship, because I, I'm not quite there yet, you know, in my separateness, and in my ability, you know, with my friends, I think I really am getting there. And with myself, I'm really getting there. And with my kids, I'm really getting there.
And I hope that eventually I'll be able to have that kind of relationship with a romantic partner, where it really is much more… not egalitarian in terms of who's loading the dishwasher, although that would be nice too, but just what we're really talking about, about being with someone in a, in a kind of radically nonjudgmental, but connected and caring and invested way. Separate and connected. And I think that's, yeah, I'm trying to learn that.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I am definitely having a difficulty with being single right now because I definitely find myself wanting certain kinds of comfort that I can't really have outside of the context of a romantic relationship.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But, you know, then again, I'm also thinking, trying to think about like, well, one, like the fact that I want or need comfort doesn't necessarily mean that that's something that I can be looking to other people for right now, I mean, kind of at all, but certainly, you know, in the context of like, trying to find a girlfriend [laughs], you know? I do hope that at some point I will be able to find a partner with whom I can feel safe enough to have conflict with.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I honestly don't really know what that would look like [laughs].
[1:04:50]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Which is also kind of a beautiful description of like our political landscape right now. Like I think that's, you know, doesn't feel safe right now to have conflict with people who have different political views than I do. It doesn't feel safe at all. But I think I'm moving from a place where I thought that my job was to convince other people to stop with their crazy racist bullshit, you know, and wake the fuck up into, you know, loving kindness and humanism. And I still would like that to happen [laughs].
But I think what you just said, I'd like to feel safe enough with other people, you know, a romantic partner, but I would, I would enlarge that to other people, where I can have conflict. I can have debate. I can have difference, you know, we're always going to have difference where we're, and I, and I, you know, for, for the past eight years, I feel like it's been like, okay, but these differences are, there's too much at stake. It's too much risk. It's, people are too endangered by these differences of, you know, political differences. And I still think that's true. I know that's true. But the goal, I think, is the same, which is to get to a point where we can safely disagree and still be connected to each other. And that's not, I, I, I don't see standing on the street corner with a sign is going to get me there right now.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So to this, I think we need to close soon, to bring this back around to where we started, about when we're going to release this episode and to tie that to the, to what you were just saying, for me, I think a lot of the conflict that I've had has had a lot less to do with trying to be radically accepting of like White men or like my Trump loving uncle or whatever, right?
And a lot more to do with, can I find people 1ith whom I can have a discussion where the dynamic between us isn't the primary thing, right? Isn't it's not like me, like I feel like I can be honest and be myself with that person without having to worry about whether or not they are going to stop wanting to be friends with me, you know, and I think that I probably do have that but I'm just too scared to do that with most people. You're not one of them, but, and with most people, I don't feel like I can talk about things in certain ways because I'm too aware of the difference between us and I don't trust that they will be willing to meet me where I am, especially because a lot of the, my, my experiences have been that people won't, you know, that people will just, they will just shut, shut it down and say, you're not allowed to talk about that, you know?
So can I, can I have a relationship with someone where I'm being mindful of those things, I'm being mindful of not wanting to hurt the other person, of not wanting to dismiss the dynamic between us and my own positionalities, but also where I can trust that they will have enough curiosity about me and about themselves, and willingness to sit in their discomfort sometimes, that we can get through that conversation, you know, and how that relates to releasing this episode has to do with, I think a big part of why I wanted, and maybe still do want to release this episode earlier, is because I am, I am afraid that, because I feel like if we release it in two days, which I, I don't think is physically possible for me, but if we did, then anything that we say in this that someone might take issue with, can still be excused as, well it was less than a week since the election and you know, it's okay for them to be figuring it out. But if I wait two months to, to, to put it out, then I'm afraid the conversation will have moved on and people will be mad at me for how I talked about stuff here.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, I, we can't release it in two days, so that's off the table [laughs]. I feel, if you want to release this one next, or as soon as you can very comfortably, you know, turn it around, I'm fine with that. What I really think is, who's going to be angry with us? Like what, the conversation will have moved on from friendship? [Laughs] From us feeling like maybe our direct activism days are possibly over?
[1:09:57]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It’s just the same thing that I'm constantly thinking about people taking everything I say in the worst possible way. You know, in the least charitable way. And so I think that that would actually be an argument for waiting, for allowing this one to, to, to sit until it normally would come up in the schedule, because I think that's a, an impulse that I need to just get over.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Does it help at all if I say that I don't agree with you about everything, but I love you just as you are? [Laughs]. And I am looking forward to you loving yourself just as you are, as much as I do.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Sighs]. I don't know if it helps [laughs], but it doesn't hurt.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I just want you to do whatever feels comfortable, you know? I feel like that's what Hey, It's Me is for, you know, it's for us. It's for, it's for having a, a place to talk to each other and like sit with the discomfort, but also encourage each other to like, get an extra pillow, metaphorically.
So if, if my assurance that three months from now, yes, we're, you know, two months, one month, two weeks, however long it's going to be, we definitely will be embarrassed about the things that we have said [laughs]. We 100% will. We know that, right? But also it's going to be okay. What's our tag? Maybe that's our tagline.
You say it in the whatever it is, like we're figuring things out. What is it that we say? What's our thing? We're figuring it out together?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Something like that.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Yeah, we're figuring it out together. We change. We talk. That's how we figure out what we think and who we are and you know, if we're okay, and then we figure more stuff out, and then we change our minds. And it is weird that we share the process with other people, not just our conclusions, right? That's kind of what we're doing.
But yeah, I want you to feel the confidence that I feel in you. And I want to feel the confidence that you feel in me until we can feel it for ourselves, which I think would be good for both of us.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah, that would be good. Okay.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay, until next time.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You've been listening to Hey, It’s Me, with Rachel Zucker and Mike Sakasegawa.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, It’s Me is a production of Rachel Zucker and Likewise Media.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Editing on this episode is by Mike Sakasegawa. Music is by Podington Bear, and transcription help is by Leigh Sugar.
RACHEL ZUCKER: You can find more information about the show, including contact information and transcripts, at heyitsmepodcast.com.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: If you'd like to hear more from us, you can find Rachel's other show Commonplace at Commonplace.today.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And you can find Mike's other show, Keep the Channel Open, at keepthechannelopen.com. Thanks for spending this time with us. Take care.