S1 E52 Shit2TalkAbout Raised as a Lie with Dr. Naeema Olatunji
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Jenn Junod
Hey, Doctor Naima. Thank you for joining. Shit. You don't want to talk about. Please introduce yourself in the shit you want to talk about today.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
I am so excited to be here. I think I love the title of your podcast more than I'm willing to admit. I, I think it's super dope. Thank you for having me. I am a brand new published author. I am a doctor of chiropractic and a entrepreneur and a brand new creative. I think that I would have said prior to writing this book that I was not a writer, I wasn't even a journal and that I, I was not the type of person who could sit and create a project that somebody would then hold in their hand at one point.
And so I am probably the most excited about becoming a published author that has been a very secret, great dream of mine that I shared with nobody until I actually wrote the book. Then I actually told people, yeah, I, I've always wanted to do this, but before I, I wouldn't share that, that was still so personal for me. And I didn't think that I could get it done. And then when I got it done, I was like, yeah, I always wanted to do it.
Jenn Junod
That is amazing. And out of curiosity, how did you get started on writing your book? Like I've had to hire a writing coach in the fact of I don't know how to dig deeper sometimes and I get really stuck on like facts instead of the story behind it. It was that your experience or were you able to, just start writing?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
so if it was not for having a friend who had just gone through a similar, experience where she had become a published author and I didn't know her skill set beforehand. Like we weren't like that. Like we weren't besties, we were friends. And, and I knew her in a different, perspective, from her profession, she is a, fashion consultant, wardrobe executive presence.
you know, person who works for, you know, big companies and helps, you know, people really dress the part. And what she had found is that, you know, there were all kinds of worthiness issues, especially as they came to women, but certainly men as well. and how they showed up in the world in terms of, the clothes that they chose and were wearing.
And, so I knew her from that perspective and when she had completed the book, I got an opportunity to interview her on my podcast and that led into me emceeing her book launch and I was so excited for her and I just thought, oh, that's so great. And then I had a complete emotional crisis and breakdown. Oh, and I was 49 and I didn't understand why this was happening because these things should not happen at 49 because you should have it all figured out.
and because I believed in the shooting on yourself, you, I should be this far. I should, have these, you know, sort of accouterments to my success and I should not have these, you know, long standing, you know, emotional issues. so when that did happen, I was, it, it felt like something broke inside of me and when I finally could see my way clear, I remember calling her and saying, hey, do you have the information, you know, for the person?
But I totally couched it like, yeah, I have a friend who's interested in writing a book. I wouldn't even admit it to her in that moment. And she introduced me to Professor Eric Custer who has this entire institute called the Creator Ins. And essentially it stemmed from him being a professor at Georgetown University. And what he wanted to do was to give his students something that they could tangibly hold in their hand.
That was theirs at the end of the semester versus just a grade, right? And so he helped them start writing books, you know, creating manuscripts. And by the end of the semester, they had this manuscript, it was a really rough draft, but it was a manuscript. And then he ultimately grew that into an entire program, essentially that was so structured so that people like me, a non university student could sort of step in.
And what he did is he partnered you from the very beginning with an editor that would literally hold your hands and the title of the editor was a developmental editor. And so what they would do is they would give you writing assignments and just like a regular class online, we'd meet once a week and then he'd give us, you know, tips on writing and, and how to develop a story and those sorts of things and character arc development and creation, all things that I was not familiar with.
And so that hour we spent at class was very helpful. But the thing that really was the turning point for me was working with an editor every single week and having an assignment. And so the answer very long way to answer your question was what I had the opportunity was is to just write stories. I didn't have this overall context of what the book, my book was going to look like, you know, at the end how it was all going to sort of come together and it's a lot like my personality, meaning I'm a
good beginner of things, but I don't necessarily have the full vision or the details to how that's going to get done. But what I do have is this idea and I'm an I idea person. So the editor kept having to bring me back, right? Like no, come on back, come on back your way out here in left field where what we are looking for are stories that then relate to what I had was a title and the title came to me a little bit like how you shared about your tattoos, that it came in a dream.
My title came to me in that way and I knew that the title of the book was going to be raised as a lie. And because it was so provocative and because I, I wanted the stories then to be, to lend themselves to giving credence to this title, the editor really did help sort of rein me in when I go off, you know, on a tangent, a writing tangent. And he'd say no, that's not quite it. And then, you know, he sort of helped create the framework and that's what ultimately ended up being my secret
ingredient if you will, that was the thing that allowed me to be successful was somebody who was so much more knowledgeable to to your book writing process while it's a what's called hybrid publishing, which means that all of the content is mine. Nobody else wrote it. What they do allow is, or, or rather give you is the framework so that you can place your material like the sink goes into the kitchen, right? We're not gonna put that in the hallway, that sort of thing.
Jenn Junod
I absolutely love that. And I will say to the audience because you mentioned your friend about fashion. I don't even want to mention her book because I don't want it to distract us, but we will link it in the episode details because I was like, well, that's a book I wanna read and it sounds like your experience has been very similar to what I've been going through as well with working with a writing coach.
Her name is Mimi Hayes and she's doing something very similar of giving me assignments and then asking more detail as she's reading through or, and like, hey, dude, that doesn't make any sense. And now I do want to go back to the title of your book because it is provocative. And could you tell us a bit about your book?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji, Jenn Junod
And because your life story because it is I, when I first learned about it, I was like, this is a Yeah, what what?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
Yeah, I think that the cool part about becoming a first time author for me is that what I would have not said about myself is that I would, I am a creative, right? I said that because I truly meant it. And what I also know to be true about each one of us humans is that we normalize our experiences, our life. If you live in a place that's cold in the winter time, it's just cold.
You know, it's cold, you don't expect it to be anything other than cold and you then acclimate and accommodate accordingly. And what I believed about my life was that it was normal because it was my normal. What I believed was that there was not anything unique, so to speak about my life. But I did have a lot of shame around, shame around how I felt internally and I internalized that.
And so I did not speak about my life to other people. And as I was, you know, older and an adult and raising a family, this was just not conversations that I had because I didn't realize how much of the trauma that I was actually carrying around that I had either swept it under a rug or as my therapist has pointed out something that the military does for the soldiers and training soldiers is that you during crisis that you ignore and override, you don't have time to be contemplating
about, you know, what you're gonna do on leave or what your family is doing back at home when there's a crisis, you're ignoring everything else and you're focusing solely on the task in front of you. And I think that, that I did that throughout my life. And I have come to realize that even as an adult, I was living from childhood traumas. So I am a brown girl who grew up in an all white family.
We lived in all white neighborhoods. I went to all white schools and I was told that I too was white. And for any of the folks who were watching the video as opposed to listening, I have brown skin light but brown skin and very curly hair. My siblings are blonde haired, blue eyed and with very straight hair. And you can look at any picture to include the picture on my cover and you can see instantly who is the person who does not belong in this picture.
And it was always me, of course. Right? And so I, I grew up feeling very invisible and when I was visible, what it felt like is that I was either being tolerated or that there was an issue with some physical aspect of me. Now, I knew that I was loved. So let me not say that I grew up in a home without love. I did not, I knew that there was love. There was also abuse. There was also violence. There was also a a failure to communicate that I me being me growing up was worthy just the way that I was as
opposed to you should be more like if only your hair was more like if only this wasn't such a problem. And and as I said earlier, all of that came to a head as a 49 year old. And I didn't even realize that that was an issue until I truly got into therapy and started pulling back those layers and lifting up the rug and digging out all of the shit that I had shoved under that very decorative rug. I'm very fashionably conscious that way, but it was a rug. No, nonetheless.
Jenn Junod
There is a lot to unpack there. Something that I, I do want to call out and ask a question about because I think that especially for those listening instead of watching it, you identified yourself as brown instead of black. And I'm a bit curious about that in the fact of maybe it's me not knowing, you know, being a bit naive about this as well as I do want to say to you and our listeners that it, it is a choice for you to answer those type of
questions because we cannot just walk up to somebody that's different than us and not and expect them to put on that intellectual burden because that is not right to anybody at all.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
I understand and that and I certainly appreciate that and I'm happy to have the conversation. So when I say brown, I am referring to my skin color, I as opposed to my very pale siblings. and mother and the man that is on my birth certificate is blonde haired, blue eyed. He is clearly not the biological dad. And I and what I write about in the book is, is coming to that truth, but I didn't find out until I was almost 18.
So I had spent my entire childhood questioning I say entire childhood. Let me correct. I questioned my mother probably three, maybe four times in my life. My mother was a matriarch from the, probably when I was from six years old on up until then she was married to the man that was on my birth certificate and he was a very violent man. And so there was not a lot of conversations I would have never asked him, before that and she was not the head of the household then post that, separation
and divorce. my mother probably returned to a woman that she had been prior to the marriage, which was a fiercely strong and independent woman. And what I believe in the end is that my mother's choices were based off of a time that we were living in which was 1970 71. And that she made a decision then that she was going to protect me. We lived in a country for which was intolerant of black people.
I would go so far as to say that we have not moved the needle much further than that, although we like to have conversations that we have and, you know, pretend that there has been such great change. And yet we have instances after examples after tragedies of, you know, the Trayvon Martins and the George Floyd's. And what I know to be true in my own life is that we have not moved the needle nearly as far.
But we, it's because we don't have the very honest, very hard, very high, courageous conversations and then take action. Right. And certainly we live in a a, a world that, that institutionalizes thought processes and programming. Right. So having said that I believe that my mom chose to protect me in an environment for which she did not feel safe and she certainly did not feel safe for, for me to know the truth.
And so she withheld that and when I found out I did not have this experience where I was like, I'm just going to embrace the whole rainbow and it's gonna be good because there was not this middle ground that I could find that felt equal footing. I know that growing up, I was always too brown to be white. Although I could not have told you what I was growing up, I just knew that I was different from my earliest memories, I knew that I was very different.
And then as a, as an adult, what I found was that I was too white to be black. And that colorism is a very real phenomena in black culture. And it's tragic, but it's very real and it's real because of post slavery. It is, it is, it is very real because of slavery. It's, it's very real because of the world that we live in post slavery. It is very real that for 12 generations of human existence, black people have been brutalized and terrorized in this country.
And we are only just a couple of generations post legalized slavery. But certainly the mindset has not evolved to the point where we can eradicate what it means to be a lighter skinned black person versus a more melanated black skinned person. And so I say all that to say is that when I came into my new black, you know, Miss, I was so excited. I had, you know, a copy of, Malcolm X's autobiography under my arm.
And I thought I was gonna enter into college. The University of Southern California and black people were just going to embrace me and it was going to be incredible. And I was like, here I come, I've been white all these years and now I'm, and no, that is not what happened and because that's not what happened. I, I sort of didn't not know where and how to show up in the world.
And, and so that was sort of a new level of, you know, how do you identify yourself and how, how do you find value and where you are in the world and turns out what I ended up doing is just shoving more shit underneath the rug and not dealing with that. But what I did decide was that I was a black woman in the world because while I might have been a fair skinned person, I knew for 100% certain that white people did not look at me and go, oh look, there's a white woman like no, nobody says that.
And so I was very, very clear about that. And so I chose to fully embrace black culture, black identity. And I went on a mission to learn everything that I possibly could. you know, in history and what that, where that landed me was an incredible pride because I think that oftentimes what people think is that black history began in this country and it simply did not right, you know, human slavery began in this country, but black people existed.
Africans were in this country long before Christopher Columbus ever sailed to these seas. And, and that was the thing that just gave me so much pride when I really studied, you know, African history and in its antiquity and really embrace something much greater than I had ever learned. And so that was a really great sense of pride for me.
Jenn Junod
Thank you for that. And thank you for going into detail about that. I can only imagine that people that know that their parents and are interracial that this is a struggle for them as well. And the fact of to your example, with your history of a black parent and a white parent of, you know, not being able to fit in on either one of them. And there are so many topics we can talk about, but we only have an hour. So there are a few curiosities that came up with this. But I do wanna say that I wanna
bring it back to your mother here shortly of when you first started going to school and you were wanting to embrace black culture and show up and wanted everybody to, you know, accept you. a few things that I've heard over the years is people, black community to others. But also in all communities that they're too whitewashed or you know, you, you don't you speak like a black person or like code switching those type of things. Did you experience that as well?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
Yes. And so I did not, I didn't know that existed, right? I didn't grow up understanding all of the intricacies and what that meant to be black. And what that meant necessarily to be white, right? We just again, normalize our experience. It is our environment. It is the thing that we know. and it is what we are familiar with and oftentimes that familiarity breeds comfort, right?
And of course it does because it's the thing that we know, but it also I think gives lends itself to the opportunity to be far more casual, I think with people and their emotions to say it plainly, we don't know what other people are going through, have gone through and have experienced. And oftentimes I think that we become far too lax in the things that we say right to others.
And, and I don't know that we have fully realized just how detrimental that our words can be. Right? Words are powerful, very, very powerful. And what I have learned in my life is that they have energy and they carry on long after they have been uttered. And so when I got to the University of Southern California, I thought that I was going to be embraced.
And when I was not, the things that struck me is walking into a room. So the US C is a primarily white institution. Pw I, so their population of black students and brown students at that time when I was there was 4%. And so some people would look at that and think, oh, well, that's so tiny. But for me, I was like, this is amazing. Look at all these black people, right?
And I chose to become part of the Black Student Union and I would attend the Black Student Assembly meetings, which were all the heads of all of the different black organizations that were on campus because that little small 4% made themselves very known and very they were very vocal on the campus. And there was so this is 1992 1 going into 90 in into 92.
This is I entered on the heels of the Los Angeles uprisings, which you know, have been sort of historically named the riots. this was, you know, on the heels of Rodney King's, not only the, the whole beating from the four white officers, but the trial had just commenced and they were acquitted of all charges. The city was up in flames and race and discrimination and oppression and poverty and unequal rights were on everybody's lips.
And this is something that I wrote about in my book because I was so excited to attend because I wanted to be part of the conversation I had been studying. and I wanted my, I wanted to lend my voice for having the conversations around. How do we create change in these environments. And so I was excited to be part of the Black Student Union and Assembly and, you know, having, you know, these conversations because, you know, college students are so ripe with energy and they want and
crave and seek change. And I was, you know, just enthralled to be there and I thought that they were all gonna be excited to see me too. And so what I would hear instead when I walked in rooms would she ain't really that black or she ain't black really? Or I'd watch, I'd watch the girls, the women in these, you know, meetings and whatnot and watch them grab their boyfriend's hands and hold them tighter as if, you know, I was there to get their man and I didn't understand what was happening
and I'm gonna fast forward just a little bit to five. We'll call it 56 years ago. My oldest and I had a conversation. No, gosh, it's longer than that. I don't realize how old I am. This is like seven, seven years, 78 years ago when my oldest had gone to the university. well, it's Louisiana State University. So he's at LSU and he's 62, very brown, very curly lot of hair.
And he was like, I don't, I don't understand why are they crossing the street? So the university is, you know, surrounded by the little town. And so he'd be outside of the university walls, you know, just walking around exploring the town. And he'd say, I don't understand why are they crossing the street when they come, when they're coming near me?
Why, why I, what is, what is happening? And I, I was so my heart hurt so much trying to have this conversation with him. And I remember feeling that way when I would enter a room only that they weren't fearful of me physically, like nobody was afraid that I was going to harm them. But their biases were that this light skinned, you know, black woman walks into a room and she sort of got these gives off these Jezebel sort of vibes, which is a very old persona that, you know, was attached to
black women. They were either the Aunt Jemima or the Jezebels. Right. They were either these old sort of mammy looking characters or they were this, you know, sensual, sexy, you know, female that was trying to steal, you know, other women's men. And I, again, I didn't know about any of these things and, and, and through my own ignorance, I felt very disarmed, and recognized much later that these other women that were experiencing, these feelings were dealing with their own
levels of self hatred, they were dealing with their own, you know, history of being programmed that, you know, that white is best and you know, that they had not been represented, you know, in, you know, in the media and seeing themselves in a favorable light, especially being dark skinned, black women. And then that was a problem. And, you know, and so ultimately, I think that there's a lot that is still left for us as, as humans to be able to celebrate other cultures.
I think that what we do is we allow ourselves to sort of be, you know, hypnotized into believing that, you know, we're so much further than we are. And, and I remember what was it in the late eighties, early nineties, sort of this, this idea that I'm gonna be color blind. But if you're blind, that means that you cannot see me. If you are blind, you cannot love me, you cannot appreciate who I am.
And what I bring to the table and to the conversation and to culture. And I think that that is so as backwards like that's, that's not the answer. I think that instead we need to look at how it is that we, we see people we see and appreciate culture, not to be, not to be stolen, not to be covered up, not to be you know, disregarded but see the, the true beauty and the value that each one of us brings
Jenn Junod
all your answers. There's a lot to unpack and thank you and thank you for sharing that experience. A couple of things because I think your, your experience alone can teach us all quite a bit. And what you said, there were, there are two things that I do want to call out just for our listeners. There is a book called White Fragility and it is a very powerful book and I would highly highly suggest listening to it or I listen to audible.
but, you know, reading it or listening to it because it really, in, at least when I read it, it's been a few years, but it really saw how to change color blindness into embracing that diversity. And the other part that I really wanna touch on is you mentioned about your son. And I can't imagine what it is like for specifically black men. I know during the protests there, a lot of the protests say hands up, don't shoot and I've never cried during a protest before.
And it's just so powerful in the fact that as a black man, he had to experience people just walking away crossing the street when they get pulled over. And it's so much of it and the shame that you mentioned of being a black human is there's so much that is generational and we are working on changing yet without having these conversations and without, as you said, without actually making the change, this, this is not going to get better.
And I know that this could be an another whole entire podcast. So, Doctor Rima, I, I do want to go back to your experience growing up and with your mother. I, so you mentioned that you on your birth certificate, it was a white guy on there with blonde hair and blue eyes and that's what your siblings looked like. And then your mother, I'm putting two and two together.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
So, are you the oldest? No, I am not. No, I'm not.
Jenn Junod
So there's a lot to think about.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
There's even more. So, no, I am not. I, my sister, my oldest sister is seven years older than me and my mom was a teen mom and she did not marry, the father, my sister's father and instead when she, I think that her life changed quite a bit, but certainly this is something that I share in the book is I think that it is so important because we can make it, it's very easy to make these judgments about people and their choices because we don't have context.
And that was, that was something that I I very much had to learn about. My, my mother was understanding that her life had huge changes and significant differences in the way that she, the way that her life looked where she was the oldest and she became responsible for all of her siblings at age 11, when her mother had a nervous breakdown and she had to step into this very very significant role for which she was not prepared for.
She was 11. but she did as she was told and as she, as it was expected, my very traditional, you know, Italian family for which that women are expected to be these, you know, domestic god, this is like they just, they, they, they sort of are, you know, the women, the girls are raised to, you know, do all of these things at home and still make sure that the rest of, you know, life still proceeds and whatnot.
And so here she is at 11, taking on this role while her mother is, you know, suffering from this huge mental breakdown and our dad's out working and whatnot and the siblings, you know, still need all of the care and caretaking. And so she took on that role. And I think that, that in that there was AAA lot that she sort of dealt with being burdened with these responsibilities for which, that she would have never complained about.
That wasn't the type of person that she was. She just sort of took it on and I think that she was looking for some relief reprieve and she wasn't a good picker in men. And that was unfortunate. And so the time she gets to the point where she's going to get married, she once again has not picked, a good human and, she finds out she's pregnant with me two weeks before she gets married.
And, I am imagining, although her and I never did have this conversation. And so I did a little bit of assumptions. assuming when I wrote the book that I think that she probably had a really challenged the pregnancy because she didn't know who's the dad was. And, and I think that that probably created a tremendous amount of stress and when I was born, it was well, damn.
she doesn't look like him. And, and so I think that there was probably, you know, a lot of unspoken things and to the credit of her first husband, Jim while he was not a good human being. the thing that I can credit him with is that to his death, She left him when I was, we'll call that six ish, he never once ever said this is not my child and I will not take care of her.
he was an equal opportunity bastard like he didn't treat me any worse than he treated anybody else. and maybe I contributed a little bit to that meaning that maybe the tension was even higher in the house that wouldn't have otherwise existed if it was not so apparent. I was not his child. but he certainly, did not reject me nor my mother out of hand like he just continued to be the person that he was.
And so, I think that my mom's picker did get better and I was blessed very, oh, gosh, I so much so when she did choose her second husband, who was just the most incredible human being, and he entered our lives, and they got married. but then I was in third grade, they were married and it was a huge, huge blessing and I really saw even though he didn't look like me either.
He was probably one of the kindest human beings that I've ever known and was very blessed for his time here on earth. There was never a thing that I wanted for. especially emotional like he was always there and very, very tuned in as a man to his own emotions and willing to give out more love than he probably ever received in his life. He just seemed boundless in that regard and I was very, very blessed.
And I think that that was ultimately what helped me appreciate my mother's choices. When somebody shows you by modeling how they live to show up in a loving space, then it allowed me not to be bitter and not to be angry and to find compassion for my mom's choices. Now, I wasn't always happy about it.
Let me not pretend that that happened. But I certainly had a much better perspective because, he, meaning my stepfather was so much of a, a person who would show up into any given situation and be the person of the voice of reason and the person who brought the love to the environment.
Jenn Junod
Again, you explain it so eloquently that II, I, there are a few things that I do wanna touch on. Did your mother ever figure out who your father was?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
Yes. So she knew, she knew who he was. She just did not. So what what I know to be true is that, she even in 1970 she was having sex with her, the person she married Jim. and she also, he went away to Vietnam and, and she had a relationship with another man. And so she knew once I was born, who's who my father was. She just didn't know when I, while she was pregnant if it was his or it was Jim's and it was only when I was born that she must have been like, well, they, right, like that didn't, that
didn't go off the way that I, you know, mean, being her had hoped. Right, because it would have been much easier. Her life would have been not nearly as complicated. but that's, that's not what happened.
Jenn Junod
And ex, especially with that. So, did you ever meet your fa, your biological father?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
It did not.
Jenn Junod
OK. Did not. I do, I would love to dive in deeper on that. But I think, you know, going through your experiences is a bit more important of the of growing up of our time. Now how did your mother learn or I, I don't wanna, I feel like deal with has negative connotation but your hairstyle is gonna be much different. Like my hair is so thin and a lot of white women in general have very thin hair and I've had one of my best friends that I've traveled with, her Children are black and she was like,
you wanna do my daughter's hair, go have fun with that. It'll take you like half an hour. And I, I feel like that was very eye opening to me because I never realized how different it was. How did your mother handle that or like, were you ever allowed to have natural hair?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
So, such a great question. I, some people talk about bad hair days. I had bad hair years. So my mother, even though she had grown up in Detroit before they moved and actually had similar experiences only in the reverse. There were classes that she was the only white kid in the class. So she was very familiar with the differences in black hair, white hair, meaning that there were differences, not that I'm saying she was out doing her girlfriend's hair because that wasn't what was
happening. But by time she had me and she made the decision that the man on my birth certificate was my father and that there was going to be no conversation around it. She had to keep up the lie. I mean, my mother of course, would know that there were black hair salons. Now I'm gonna reverse, I'm, I'm going to to go back or rewind for just a moment.
We lived, I was born on an army base where Jim was stationed in El Paso, Texas when he came back from Vietnam. And right after I was born, he received his discharge papers and we moved to where he grew up and that was in a very rural town in Utah. And by rural and town, I do wanna emphasize there were 300 people who lived in this town, the people who lived in the surrounding areas were Native American because it was sandwiched between two reservations and mountain ranges.
And so, and they were, I don't know, in 1970 but certainly they are, wildlife refuge, refugee areas, refuges. However, that thank you. I was like, what is that word? It's not refugee. and they were preserved lands or at least they are now. I don't know. then, so beautiful, beautiful country. the people were not so diverse and so here we are living in this town for which it doesn't have black hair salons.
Let me just be clear. But when she left gym and we moved to Southern California, there certainly were opportunities, but she did not seek those out because again, that would have not allowed the lie to continue to prevail. And I honestly believe that my, it was my mother's intention to protect me. This was the 19 seventies and although it's, that's not the forties or fifties or even sixties, it certainly is not.
It's not in the rearview mirror, right? Racism and oppression and lynchings were still happening. And so so she kept up the line, the princess. So she'd be the one that would do my hair. And what you originally, the words that you originally were thinking about using is like, how does she deal with? and not wanting to choose it because it did have a negative connotation.
But that was exactly my experience that was everything negative associated with my hair was those are the conversations that were being had around and about me, even though I was standing there as if I didn't exist. Right. So, oh, God, we gotta deal with this mop again and, oh, it looks like a rat's nest and, oh, like always something very bad.
And so when I was, hm, first or second grade, my mom cut all my hair off, in an afro sort of look and only my hair for those of us who can see me, my hair when short doesn't hang in, that's not what it is. It's very big obnoxious sort of wanna be curls, but they don't all go in one direction. They're everywhere. Let's, it's not cute people, it's not cute and it wasn't cute then and you also when you have black hair, their products are everything.
The things that you put in your hair too to define curls to reduce frizz. and the tools that you use are very, very specific and they are necessary to create different looks. But if you're trying to make curly hair straight and you're not gonna use any chemicals that maybe a black hair salon would use because they are professionals and you're my mother who believed that all things were worthy of doing at home.
My mother was a diy or long before that ever became a popular term. And so she just believed that she could do it herself. So we're gonna say all of that to say that I had bad hair years. It wasn't cute. It was not until I got to college at that same university for which a very kind black student who became my best friend said, girl, come here, let me help you.
And she literally transformed my hair like over overnight. And it was because of her that I actually for the very first time and this is when I'm like 1920. I very first started loving my hair. I, no, actually I liked it then she taught me how to like it. It took me probably another, we'll call it 10 years to actually love it. And, you know, here I am at, you know, knocking on 51.
And I can honestly say that I'm so grateful to all of my experiences because I know what it feels like not to love your hair and not to appreciate it. And I can honestly say that while I am of mixed race and while I I don't have, you know, Uber course, you know, very, very tight kinky hair. What I can say is that I've experienced the sort of disregard and disdain as it applies to my hair that, you know, every other black woman has had its some point of in their life, some sort of an
inexperience. So, you know, I, and also I have talked to other other women and now in my age group who other white women who have extremely curly hair and they're like, yeah, I hated it my whole life and I've been straightening it my whole life. And so, you know, there's certainly something to be said that curly hair girls do have a commonality in our experience and I, I do want to add to it.
Jenn Junod
I've always, especially because I have such thin hair. The grass is greener. The concept is something that only until my thirties did I realize I don't want someone else's hair. I just need to learn how to deal with my own hair. And I think that's something that all humans go through at some point. Yeah. Thank you for really describing how your mom worked with your hair, dealt with your hair as you said too and going through that.
And I know we don't have much more time. There's so many more questions and listeners, you have to read Doctor Naya's book to be able to find out how she found out that she was not white. And I am very much looking forward to hearing the answers to that and what people thought. Please reach out to us on social media. I now, is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to cover?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
God, great question. So I, I love the conversation that that we've been having around just this idea of, you know, how we appreciate and how we see each other. And I also think that something that I have come to find out is and learn in my own life and being able to apply it is this concept that worthiness is an inside job. It is not some external experience and or somebody on the outside that gives us our worth and our value and to the degree that we are continuing to look for our
worthiness from the outside. And for somebody to have given that to us is just not realistic. And I think that once we appreciate that we have to do the internal work. The one thing that I, I know now being a mom and trying my very best to do my very best by my Children is that no child escapes childhood, un unscarred, uninjured, un unblemished in some way.
And I used to joke with my kids that I pay for the first six months of therapy because I knew that there are things and ideas that I have that in some way in me trying to communicate to them and teach them about the world and things and how to show up that weren't gonna feel good to them. And there were gonna be some things that I had said un consciously or in moments of anger that were going to emotionally hurt them while it was never intended to be malicious.
And that I always hoped to show up as my best version I did not. And so the thing that I I understand now is how important it is for us all to be able to unpack our stuff, the things and the meanings and the decisions that we gave things and experiences in our lives. Growing up that as adults that if we simply took a really good inventory about who we are and how we show up in the world that we can be more responsible humans because the adage is true, hurt people, hurt people.
And if we want to live in a healthier society where we can appreciate, we can see and we can value and love other people, then it all starts with the person in the mirror. And when you look at yourself and you don't value and you don't love and you don't appreciate yourself. You certainly cannot do that for others. So I think that it is so important for all of us to take our own advice, our own ideas about the worlds and apply them to ourselves so that we can be the best versions of ourselves
and that we can show up to our fullest potential. And I have a belief that the world has nothing for us that we have everything for the world. We have gifts that we have been blessed with. That only us in only our way, with only our voice, our pen, our action can we bring forth that unique gift to the world and that somebody or some bodies are waiting for that they need that and that's how we continue to bless the world, but you can't bring your gifts forward if you don't do the internal work.
And as for me, I think that I'm still a work in progress, we're all still a work in progress. But as long as we're working to our greatest version and our greatest, greatest evolution of ourselves that we just continue to get better and better. And that's what I'm checking for.
Jenn Junod
I absolutely love that. And it reminds me of a quote. I really should look up who it's by is we are all a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time. And I've always loved that quote and I feel like you already answered words of wisdom in, in your previous answer because it's so powerful knowing that doing our own work is, is what's gonna bring us the most happiness.
And also I like how you mentioned about not being able to get it from outside sources. I will say that therapist books, those type of things will help you dig deeper yet they're not your, they're not gonna validate you. Do you have any other words of wisdom? I don't wanna pick that one and say I did.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
I love that so much. And I'm, I'm so glad that you made the clarification because I am such a huge advocate now for therapy in whatever form that takes, right? It could be just you meditating. It can be, you know, talk therapy. I utilized everything I went to an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, a spiritual reader, a card reader. A I did hypnotherapy.
I did inner child trauma healing, like whatever that looks like for you. I think that it is so important that we do take ourselves on as our own project, you know, so often we try to fix other things and people because it's easier to see somebody else's forest, you know, through their trees. And it's far more challenging to look, you know, i in ourselves and become aware because I, I think that we might be willing, but sometimes it's difficult to become aware of our own habits, our own
lenses, right? That, that we put on these, you know, ginormous lens that we see world from a specific perspective and we're not even aware that they exist. And so being able to peel back the layers in whatever form that that looks like for you so that you can become self aware so that you can begin to, to heal, you know, the areas that are unresolved in your life and they all look very different.
Like we can't say, will this person experience this or even gosh the same siblings in a household, right? Like not everybody walks away from an experience in the same manner, right? We all have, you know, different perspectives and meanings that we take from it but I would like to say something that I have learned and I absolutely love this now.
And this is what it took for me to write a memoir about some very painful shit that happened and to come out the other side and have this perspective. And it is simply this be outrageously vulnerable because vulnerability is not a weakness. It's a strength. It's the moment that you set down your cape, take off the armor, pull down the protective walls that you have erected around your heart. And you choose to come from a space for which is truest for you. And it is your most, I think,
honorable part of who it is that you are when you choose to just share and connect from that space. Because as Maya Angelou said, we are all more alike than we are different. And what I believe is that our stories connect each one of us to each other, that we all have a story and that we all have experiences. And it's through those shared connections that we elevate our race, that we elevate our planet, how we show up and how we engage one another is through vulnerability.
Jenn Junod
I completely agree. And that is amazing words of wisdom. Thank you. And to all our listeners, please, if you're, you know, wanna be a part of the conversation of shit you don't want to talk about and turning it into shit to talk about, we are going to have a lot of the links in the show notes. And also please share this episode like it on youtube, subscribe and let us know on social media what it is you got out of the episode.
I know I would be curious if you wanna have doctor Naima back on the show because we weren't able to talk about everything today and check out her book. And then also in other ways to support is definitely donate so we can keep this podcast going and be able to have other resources built. How do people reach out to you? Doctor Naima?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
I am I'm on social media Instagram at Doctor Naima writes and that's a mouthful. So I'm sure it'll definitely be in the show links and also you can get the book and find out the latest happenings. What's going on in the raised as a lie world at raised as a lie.com.
Jenn Junod
Perfect. Thank you. And what is something that you're grateful for?
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
Gosh in this moment, because I love being, I, I am working on being present and I love being very mindful of what's happening right now. This conversation without wanting to seem like I'm sucking up. I absolutely loved this conversation. I loved having this time with you.
I think that this is such a great example of people being able to come together with very different histories and have this great shared connection. Like my heart is so full. I had such a great time having this talk conversation with you over the last hour.
Jenn Junod
Thank you. And I agree. My, I would say something that actually came out of our conversation that I am grateful for is therapy. And I, I've mentioned on many episodes that I do E MD R therapy and it's really helped me move through items and change them from traumatic memories into just memories. And I am very, very grateful for that. And thank you for being on the show. Doctor Naima.
Dr. Naeema Olatunji
It is my pleasure. Thank you.
Jenn Junod
Bye.
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