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James III. And we're the hosts of

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Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood. It's a

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comedic podcast that reviews films with leading actors

0:13

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Put on a happy voice. Just

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every Friday. Sign up now to

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listen at slate.com/mood. Hello

1:01

and welcome back to Big

1:03

Mood, Little Mood. I'm your

1:05

host, Daniel M. Lavery and

1:17

with me in the studio this week is

1:19

my wife, Grace Lavery, a writer and

1:21

academic who lives in Brooklyn. More

1:23

specifically, she lives with me in Brooklyn. I

1:26

don't suppose that necessarily needed to be included in

1:28

your bio. Grace, welcome to the show. Did I put

1:30

that in my bio? I mean, it just says you're

1:32

a writer and academic who lives in

1:34

Brooklyn. Right. Yeah. I added the specificity.

1:36

That's right. But what's strange about that

1:38

to me is that I considered including

1:40

that exact same joke and then decided

1:42

not to, which is the

1:45

same page as it comes to like cheesy

1:47

one liners that we deploy and

1:49

then feel immediately self-conscious about. That

1:51

feels right. I usually don't feel

1:53

self-conscious about patter, but

1:56

maybe I make you feel self-conscious. I'm a

1:58

born vaudevillian and I think we would have had. a really

2:00

good sense of like give and take. I

2:03

say, I say, I say. I don't know that

2:05

that's exactly the kind of Audavillian we would have been.

2:07

What kind of Audavillian are you? I

2:13

wanna say like George Burns and Gracie

2:15

Allen, but I don't actually listen

2:18

to enough of their stuff to know if that's

2:20

true. I just like the idea of the two

2:22

of them. It seemed

2:24

like they were both really famous and everyone sort

2:26

of liked them for being married, which

2:28

is the sort of like easy, soft cred

2:30

I want. You want cred

2:32

for being married. Well, it just feels like such an

2:34

easy, like, to me, their careers

2:37

just seem like a series of layups. Like

2:39

people just really seem to love them for

2:41

making some very light jokes. Yeah, like the

2:43

power couple of an essentially powerless environment. Yeah,

2:45

exactly. That's what I hope for. Yeah, I

2:48

can see that. Well, I'm excited.

2:50

It's been a while since we got to have you on the show,

2:52

but I think some of my favorite episodes have been the ones

2:54

that we have gotten to do together, both

2:57

before and during our marriage. So I'm

2:59

excited too, especially because we're continuing the

3:01

overflow from the Dear Prudence mailbag. So

3:03

Jenny has once again, very kindly provided

3:06

us with some really top notch

3:08

questions. But she gave me some crickets this time. She did.

3:11

She said this time, she said, I'm giving you a lot

3:13

that I've been like saving because I couldn't quite figure out

3:15

how to answer them. These may

3:18

be a little bit more complicated than

3:20

usual. And this first one I think

3:22

especially feels like just

3:24

such a perfect test

3:27

of like, who do we

3:29

wanna like assign sympathy to? Is

3:32

there a way for these two people

3:34

to think about their childhood that's not

3:36

who was victimized, who wasn't, who deserves

3:38

sympathy, who doesn't, that

3:40

I think there's kind of getting in

3:42

the way of the possibility of even just sort of like, I

3:45

think maybe the best goal for the letter writer and

3:47

her brother would be like peaceful,

3:50

neutral, acknowledgement of one another's

3:52

existence and then kind of mostly going their separate

3:54

ways. But I would like that for them.

3:56

Yeah, for sure. So hopefully we can help them

3:58

get there. The subject line. just bizarre brother, which

4:01

again, just really lets us know where the letter

4:03

writer is coming from. I'm

4:05

a year older than my brother. Growing

4:07

up, I was the quiet, mousy girl who ate lunch

4:10

alone. My brother had to be the center

4:12

of attention, whether good or bad. He

4:14

would act out in random and bizarre ways. He'd

4:17

pretend to be a vampire and try to fake-bite

4:19

people, or he would pretend to have

4:21

Tourette's syndrome, or he would go up to a

4:23

girl and suddenly start talking about her ass in

4:25

a cartoon voice. Something that

4:28

my parents or the school counselor said seemed to

4:30

make a dent in his behavior. He

4:32

was constantly in trouble and a target for bullies, and

4:34

I got tarred with the same brush. No

4:37

one wanted to be friends with the sister of the school freak. My

4:40

first year of high school, I was finally able

4:42

to reinvent myself and at last made friends. I

4:44

didn't need to hide anymore. Of

4:46

course, my brother had to ruin it. I told

4:48

him to leave me alone at school. Instead, he came

4:50

up to me in the cafeteria while I was eating

4:52

with my friends, said, "'Oda, darling,' and tried to sit

4:54

on my lap and kiss me on the lips. I'd

4:57

never been more humiliated. I pushed him off me and

4:59

punched him in the face. We both got into trouble."

5:02

My brother whined and claimed it was just a joke.

5:04

I told my parents that I refused to go back

5:06

to school with him there. They ended

5:08

up sending me to live with my grandparents out of state. Since

5:11

then, I rarely go home or see my brother. He

5:14

ended up getting expelled and didn't graduate. He

5:16

moved from job to job while living off of our parents.

5:19

Recently, he sent me an email about how I, quote,

5:21

bullied him as a kid. It

5:23

was a nonsensical ramp full of self-pity

5:26

and exaggerations and excuses for his behavior.

5:28

Do I respond to it? How should I respond to

5:31

it? Yeah.

5:34

Yeah, you know, two really straightforward

5:37

questions. Do I respond to it

5:39

being the first? Straightforward,

5:41

but addressing objects that aren't

5:43

necessarily included in the lead-up.

5:47

For example, if we decided that your brother was

5:49

a dick, that would not mean

5:51

that you had to not answer his email or answer

5:53

his email or say this or that. It's sort of

5:55

not relevant. The question that is relevant when wondering whether

5:58

or not you should respond to it is response to

6:00

the email is, do you want to continue a relationship

6:02

with him? And if so, on what

6:05

terms? But at this point, I'm not at all

6:07

sure that you do, or that the

6:09

lesser right it does, I often find myself doing that

6:11

flip. But yeah, I'm not entirely sure the letter right

6:13

it does want to

6:15

continue a relationship. However, family

6:18

estrangements are hard, and they're especially hard

6:21

if you establish a boundary

6:23

or draw a line that you're not really able to

6:25

keep or that you don't want to keep. So

6:28

in this case, whatever you do,

6:30

I would only send a message saying, please don't

6:32

contact me again, if you

6:34

really are fairly confident that you'll be able to hold

6:36

that line. Otherwise, I think you're going to be borrowing

6:38

trouble from the future, as they say. And

6:42

so that's my first thought about

6:44

that. I mean, the question that

6:47

seems more ambient here, which

6:49

is not a question that you ask, but

6:51

seems to be the question that you are

6:53

framing or building towards is, does my brother

6:55

have a case against me? And in

6:58

what court room, the courtroom of mom

7:00

and dad, the courtroom of public opinion,

7:02

the courtroom of dear Prudence

7:05

or a podcast, in

7:07

what courtroom could such a case be made

7:10

and articulated, and then

7:12

responded to and defended against. And so

7:15

more than most other letters

7:18

of this kind that I've seen or heard

7:20

coming through this show, this one really does

7:23

feel like the opening statement of a trial.

7:26

The facts as agreed by all parties are

7:28

as follows. And so yeah, again,

7:30

my question would be, what

7:33

is driving that need for recognition

7:35

for some sense of justice? And

7:38

again, those questions to me seem primary to

7:41

the question of does my brother have a case? It

7:43

seems that they seem logically prior to the question, does

7:45

my brother have a case against me? Because

7:48

we don't really know until we've heard

7:50

what he has to say, you know,

7:52

we simply can't know. Yeah, I

7:55

think my sense reading this letter

7:57

was the letter writer underlying

7:59

the case. this sort of list of

8:01

grievances, which I think are completely

8:05

powerful. I don't mean to dismiss

8:07

it as a list of grievances, was a sort of

8:09

sense of, these are all the things that

8:11

my brother did. He

8:13

mostly seemed to get away with

8:16

whatever he wanted to do, even though he also, I

8:18

think the letter writer seems pretty aware,

8:21

I don't think he was happy,

8:23

I don't think he was enjoying

8:25

himself exactly, but he was allowed

8:27

to act without thinking or without

8:29

considering others in a way that

8:31

I didn't get to. And

8:34

that sort of was okay-ish, as

8:36

long as we could avoid each other. But

8:39

now that I've gotten this email, it felt a little bit

8:41

less to me like, do I have

8:43

to respond to this because I want to

8:45

try to relate to him differently so much as

8:47

like, and now he's taking away the one

8:49

last thing that I had. Yeah, my feeling

8:51

of having been victimized. Exactly. And now the

8:54

idea that he thinks he was victimized by

8:56

me feels unbearable. And

8:59

so part of me wants to write back, maybe saying

9:01

all the things that I've said here, here are the

9:03

ways that you harmed me. And after

9:05

this sort of came to a head, I'm

9:08

the one who had to change schools. It seemed

9:10

to me like that was potentially part of the

9:12

grievance there as well. It wasn't even that I

9:15

was allowed to stay with my friends, I was

9:17

sent out of state. And

9:19

now he's going to go around thinking or potentially

9:21

thinking that I agree with his assessment if I

9:23

don't write back versus the sort

9:25

of fear of if we just get

9:27

into a fight about this, where I say, well, here's all the

9:30

things you did to me. And then we both

9:32

just yell at each other about how we're mad at

9:34

each other. And then I don't get anywhere. Would that

9:36

have just been a waste in my own time? I

9:39

mean, can you live, I wonder, with the

9:41

possibility that this person sees your childhood fundamentally

9:43

differently to the way that you do. This

9:46

is something I have some experience of, I guess,

9:48

in the sense that I don't have

9:50

siblings, but I do, you know, I did have people

9:52

in my family growing up, obviously. And, you

9:54

know, at some point, a while back

9:56

now, over a decade or so, I had a real

9:59

conflict. When I realized

10:01

that my understanding of what my childhood

10:03

had been like was fundamentally Contradicted by

10:05

the experience of another person who was

10:07

right there and it

10:09

felt extremely

10:12

disorienting extremely bewildering

10:15

because it seems as though if Nothing

10:18

else we should be able to agree

10:20

on the basics the facts and

10:22

I think ultimately the facts are Much

10:25

more difficult to agree on than one thinks

10:28

For a variety of reasons there are a

10:30

couple of things I want to sort of say, you know

10:32

about the behaviors themselves The first is and

10:34

just to echo what you said Danny, but

10:37

those behaviors are damaging and harmful

10:40

It looks to me what what you're dealing with here is

10:42

a kind of You

10:44

know, it's sort of menacing physical behavior

10:47

verging onto sexual abuse and sexual assault

10:49

in a couple of different moments not

10:52

I think of You know

10:54

the very most egregious kind but certainly

10:56

of a kind where you deserve to

10:58

have those Experiences and those

11:00

traumas taken seriously. It also sounds as

11:03

though you were punished for them It

11:06

also sounds as though the way you internalized What

11:09

happened was that you know, your

11:11

family had to make a choice between your brother and you and

11:13

they chose your brother And

11:16

I don't know don't know enough about your family

11:18

to know whether that's true or not It could

11:20

be it might not be and even even if

11:22

it came down to your parents Just felt like

11:24

no one else can handle your brother. Yeah, we

11:26

have to keep tabs on him Yeah, but so

11:28

it would still make sense if you experienced that

11:30

as being cool way But it could very well

11:33

have been on their end a sense of We

11:36

can't give this trouble kids to this other

11:38

person So, you know, I

11:40

really want to underline that these behaviors

11:43

are serious. The harm you describe are

11:46

Significant and and I hope that whatever else

11:48

is happening as a result of all

11:50

of this work that you're doing around this right now Because

11:53

you are the left there itself is a kind of work

11:56

That you find a way to

11:58

talk to professional and friends

12:01

about those experiences which strike me

12:04

as potentially profoundly traumatic.

12:07

The other thing I want to say, which I

12:09

want to be clear doesn't contradict any of that,

12:11

is that the behaviors that you

12:14

describe also seem like

12:16

they themselves might on some level

12:18

be associated with various forms of

12:20

neurodivergence or various forms of mental

12:22

distress or even trauma. To

12:25

that extent, it

12:28

may be that now as adults,

12:30

once that grief work has happened,

12:32

once that the mourning

12:34

that is necessary, once that rage that

12:36

you rightly experience is

12:39

out of your body and in the world and being held

12:41

by other people, it may be

12:44

that you might bizarrely discover that

12:46

you and your brother were not

12:48

ultimately antagonists in this, but

12:50

in a sense coagitance.

12:54

There's a concept that the anthropologist

12:57

Gregory Bateson developed nearly

12:59

a century ago that I find extremely useful

13:01

for moments like this, and it's

13:04

the concept of the designated

13:07

patient. To me,

13:10

that's a little bit what your brother sounds

13:12

like here, but it also sounds

13:14

a little bit like what you sound like. Basically, what

13:17

Bateson says, and this was taken up and expounded

13:19

a little bit later by other

13:21

kind of radical anti-psychiatric,

13:23

radical mental health thinkers

13:26

of the mid-20th century, R.D.

13:28

Lang, a major one. What

13:31

the designated patient says, what Gregory Bateson

13:33

says is that individuals are

13:36

not sick, individual children are not sick in

13:38

that way, families are

13:40

sick. Individual members of

13:42

a family figure

13:44

out their relation to the

13:46

collective pathology, the collective dysfunction

13:49

that families sustain,

13:52

and at some point the

13:55

family decides which one of its members,

13:57

and they say that they decide to

13:59

this without realizing they're doing so without discussing

14:01

it without it being explicit they decide which one

14:04

of its members is going to be to blame

14:07

and then that person who

14:09

is to blame becomes known as

14:11

the designated patient or is designated as the

14:13

patient and that person is the one that

14:15

makes it into the mental health care system

14:17

makes it into the juvenile delinquency system you

14:20

know it's essentially scapegoated

14:24

by the family for other

14:26

people's problems I can't diagnose

14:28

your brother with anything here

14:30

but the symptoms

14:32

that you ascribe to him around hyperactivity

14:35

around a kind of you

14:38

know logomania kind of not exactly Tourette's

14:40

but a kind of manic relation to

14:43

speech or hypomanic relation to speech you

14:45

know these symptoms can be associated

14:48

with other kinds of experiences

14:50

and other kinds of conditions not

14:52

that you are in a position to feel compassion

14:54

for this person right now and you're not you

14:57

shouldn't be expected to because it sounds to me

14:59

like you haven't gone through

15:01

the experience of rage yet but just

15:04

to say that it may be that on

15:06

the other side of what must feel like

15:08

an incredibly distressing process now

15:10

there may be something like restoration

15:13

or repair yeah I

15:16

think that makes a lot of sense one of the things that

15:18

struck me in this letter was yeah

15:21

two things felt really clear to me one

15:23

was that the letter writer's brother clearly had

15:27

profound needs that

15:29

might have involved a need

15:32

for restrained behavior

15:34

or a need for being you

15:36

know moved away from somebody

15:38

that he was frankly assaulting yeah

15:40

until he could not do that

15:42

anymore so I don't I don't mean to say like

15:45

he was only suffering and only someone to

15:47

be pitied yeah her says he was only

15:49

acting out and therefore only someone to be

15:51

resented just that it's clear that he was

15:53

both himself suffering yeah and that he was

15:55

acting out in ways that were deeply dangerous

15:58

and frightening and harmful So

16:00

yeah, I again I like you. I

16:02

don't want to suggest any potential diagnosis

16:05

here other than just something was up

16:07

Yeah, and is up Because

16:10

he's still experiencing these symptoms now in one

16:12

form or another the listlessness that is described

16:15

You know the relation to issues

16:17

around work career those kinds of things made me

16:20

wonder whether And again, I

16:22

think from experience here. I'm not speaking from a position of You

16:25

know skepticism or outrage But it just it

16:27

does make me wonder whether drugs and alcohol might be part

16:29

of this story as well the

16:33

Behaviors that are being described or the experiences that

16:35

are being described are fairly familiar to me I'm

16:37

an alcoholic and a drug guy myself So

16:39

yeah, that makes me wonder if that's part of the

16:41

story team. Yeah, but I think that

16:43

the the Part that I

16:46

noticed was just Nothing

16:48

my parents or the school counselor said seemed to

16:50

make a dent in his behavior Yeah So

16:52

again, it seems like there's no reason

16:54

to believe that the parents were not

16:56

doing their best It just

16:59

seems like their best was

17:01

fairly limited. Yeah, and and so I

17:04

suppose what all this is leading up to is letter writer I

17:06

think that there is room

17:08

both to acknowledge that some

17:11

of his resentment towards you in particular seems

17:13

to be Misguided

17:15

but I think one potential way

17:17

that you could respond if you decide to

17:19

like I absolutely think if you just decide

17:22

What works for me and my brother is

17:25

non-contact. Yeah previously that had

17:27

worked really well for me The only reason I'm

17:29

frustrated right now is because I don't like the

17:31

idea that he has this idea about me Yeah,

17:33

which is really understandable, but it's probably not something

17:35

that you're gonna be able to fix by telling

17:37

him No, here's how you should think of me

17:39

instead So if you just decide the

17:42

best thing we can do is not continue like

17:44

our childhood dynamic I'm not gonna respond to him.

17:46

I'm gonna block his email that would be really

17:48

understandable and would not I think be incompatible with

17:52

hoping he Lives as

17:54

good a life as he possibly can right

17:56

not not near you. Yeah, or

17:58

even just for saying. All right, you know really one of

18:00

the last times we interacted, he sexually

18:04

assaulted me in front of the school. Right. Yeah.

18:06

That's what it is. You know,

18:08

and since, since then he has not been able

18:10

to acknowledge why that was harmful or,

18:13

or demonstrate a meaningful apology. And

18:15

therefore it's not really safe for me to talk

18:17

to him just because I think that's

18:19

a good line. If somebody, even as

18:21

a troubled teenager, even having compassion

18:24

and wanting him to be well, if somebody

18:26

sexually assaults me in front of people and

18:28

then never apologizes, we don't have,

18:30

we don't have a relationship because that's

18:32

not reasonable. That's not safe. Yeah. And

18:35

that doesn't mean that he is a monster or should be

18:38

consigned to the greatest pits of hell or that he could

18:40

never get the help that he needs.

18:42

Just that I think it's useful to be truthful

18:44

about what happened. So yeah,

18:46

I think absolutely very serious, good

18:48

option is to not respond. If

18:51

on the other hand, you feel like the

18:54

idea of saying something possibly

18:56

appeals to you, I think it would be a really

18:58

good idea to think carefully ahead of time, sort of

19:01

what would your goals be? How would you know that

19:03

you had achieved any of your goals and

19:05

what's your exit strategy? Like let's say you say

19:07

something that you've really carefully thought out that feels

19:09

true, but also measured, compassionate, but

19:11

also, you know, uh, prioritize

19:13

as your own wellbeing. If you show

19:16

up, you know, show up as your

19:18

best self and say something you feel

19:20

proud of, and then his reaction is

19:23

still hostile or doesn't listen or

19:26

ignores it entirely. Do you

19:28

have a sense of, I think I'd still be able

19:30

to get out of that conversation. I would then know,

19:32

okay, we're done now. I'm going to close

19:34

the door. Now I'm going to block the emails. Or do

19:37

you feel like I'd feel totally

19:39

out of sorts, totally unable to

19:41

stop fighting, totally like I just

19:43

need to burn it all down.

19:45

And you know, if you can't

19:47

see yourself exiting carefully, even if

19:49

he doesn't behave reasonably,

19:51

then I think that's another reason not to do it.

19:54

But I wonder if one thing

19:56

that might be possible is a potential

19:59

message. both acknowledges like I

20:01

think his real suffering and doesn't even take

20:03

off the table the possibility that like you

20:06

behaved with like real hostility and

20:09

like Unkindness towards him as a child

20:11

like I don't even think you need to worry about

20:14

like no I have to protect myself like to

20:16

just say, you know, I got your message I'm

20:21

of two minds here. One is I know that you

20:23

were suffering as a child I know

20:25

that I didn't always react to your behavior in a

20:27

way that I'm proud of and even further than that like

20:30

If it's possible that you sometimes acted in a

20:32

way that was consciously calculated to hurt him You

20:34

might choose to own that that doesn't mean that

20:36

you are the bad person for only and he

20:38

was the good one but I

20:40

also need to acknowledge that the last time we were together

20:42

in person you sexually assaulted me and That

20:45

there's a history of your behavior that involves

20:47

like biting people

20:50

Bizarre and like frightening discussions

20:52

of other people's like sexual

20:54

characteristics At any

20:56

conversation we would have about our childhood would

20:58

need to involve those things If

21:01

you're able to discuss them I want you

21:03

to know I'm not looking to demonize you or

21:05

to tell you that you know

21:07

You don't deserve to feel hurt or

21:09

deserve to feel safe now Yeah, but those

21:11

things happen and they were real and I was

21:13

afraid of you Yeah, and

21:16

and to maybe leave it there rather than go

21:18

into a lot more and if if there's any

21:20

reaction on his end That's like You

21:22

know Okay, if you can acknowledge

21:25

that you sometimes hated me and wanted me away

21:27

from you and we're cruel as a result. I

21:30

Feel like heard enough that I can now acknowledge

21:32

like I made it difficult to

21:35

be around. Yeah That

21:37

might be you know again the goal

21:39

would not be now your besties now He's

21:42

healed now. He gets a job tomorrow and I see

21:44

each other and it's wonderful at Christmas But it might

21:46

be a sort of like I

21:48

wish you well I wish me well, let's

21:50

go be as well as we can away from each other

21:52

Yeah, but again if you listen to that and

21:54

you're just like that sounds like a fantasy or

21:56

a fairy tale I'm not gonna concede anything to

21:58

him because he will not

22:01

take it as a sort of olive branch, he'll just

22:03

take that as a concession that he is right and

22:05

I am wrong. You know, yes,

22:08

that's very beautifully put. I think there

22:10

are two things I want to underline

22:13

in what you just said, Danny. The first is that one

22:16

of the reasons why families are so challenging, I mean, we

22:18

know that they're challenging, one of them is that no

22:21

one gets to be just the good guy

22:23

or just the bad guy, because in reality,

22:26

nobody is just the good guy or just the bad guy. In

22:28

reality, we've all done things that hurt

22:31

people and we've all been hurt by other people. These

22:33

things are all part of what it means to be

22:36

a person, what it means to move

22:38

through the world. And usually we're

22:40

able to negotiate

22:43

those challenges or those potential

22:45

contradictions or conflicts in extremely

22:47

isolated situations. That is to

22:49

say, if there is one

22:51

person who has a grievance against me who I

22:53

hung out with for a couple of weeks back

22:55

in 2017, I

22:58

can evaluate my conduct during that time

23:01

and the way that I was six months before or

23:03

six months after doesn't really make a difference. And

23:06

I can think about what I need to do to repair

23:08

that situation if I decide that I want to. But

23:11

if someone says, I've known you since before

23:13

you existed, I kind of knew who you were.

23:16

And every single moment of your life,

23:19

I've been watching you

23:21

and I've been fairly close and I've

23:23

seen you do things that

23:26

I find monstrous to contemplate. And I've seen

23:28

you do things I think are incredibly honorable

23:30

or exciting. And that

23:33

complexity just is a result of

23:35

proximity. But then the other part of it that makes it

23:37

super complicated is just that when

23:39

we're children, we usually can't quite

23:42

handle complexity. And even

23:44

when we're acting in ways that are harmful

23:47

to us or to others, we can

23:49

totally exonerate ourselves and have the most morally

23:51

simplistic understanding of what we're experiencing. And it's

23:53

not until we're older that we really get

23:55

to look back and think, oh, you know,

23:58

that was a little... less black and white

24:00

than I thought at the time. This is not so

24:03

much for you. Maybe it's for your brother,

24:05

but it's more just an observation that we

24:08

don't have collectively as a society, we

24:10

don't have good tools for thinking about

24:12

that kind of moral complexity. And

24:15

the sort of juridical courtroom model where you're guilty

24:17

or you're not guilty, you either go with the

24:20

sheep or go with the goats, you go to

24:22

prison or you're freed,

24:25

that depends upon... I mean, I think

24:27

it's obviously... I don't want

24:29

to get into this, but I think it

24:32

is an inadequate way of thinking about human

24:34

relations in general, but it's certainly inadequate for

24:37

dealing with the kinds of human relations that

24:39

are at work here. And there's

24:41

no way forward that doesn't

24:43

involve some degree of murkiness,

24:45

I think. Yeah. Yeah.

24:48

So all that being said, if you think

24:50

about it and you feel like, I'd

24:52

love to have this conversation, but I just

24:54

don't believe that my brother is capable of

24:56

it, that would be really understandable. And then

24:58

I would just encourage you to think about

25:00

who are people that I could have this

25:03

conversation with. Potentially it is your parents, potentially

25:05

it's not, potentially it's a

25:07

therapist, a friend, but

25:10

for you to find ways to talk about this, I think

25:12

would be really good and really useful. Yes. There was one

25:14

other great thing I just wanted to say, which is related

25:16

to that. Just to go back to what I said at

25:18

the start, really, you only need to

25:20

reply if you want to. And

25:22

I want to stress desire here. I want

25:25

to stress the question of want for two

25:27

reasons. One, because it sounds

25:29

as though your needs and your

25:31

desires and your experiences have generally

25:33

been deprioritized in your life. And

25:36

that may therefore be something that you find

25:38

it difficult to inhabit or

25:40

own. What would it mean to say, I

25:42

want a relationship with my brother notwithstanding that

25:45

he did these awful things to me. And

25:48

if you decide that you don't want

25:50

that, or you learn for

25:52

a process of introspection that you don't want that,

25:54

nobody in the world has a claim against you.

25:56

No one is going to criticize you for that,

25:59

I hope. On the

26:01

other hand, you know, you might find that

26:03

there's something more morally complicated about this this

26:05

person did these awful things to me and

26:07

has never understood my Experience

26:09

of them or even you know expressed any

26:12

curiosity about my experience of them and

26:14

yet there's something I can't give up

26:17

here Why is that and you

26:19

might feel and again, you know, I'm sort of

26:21

speaking from experience a little bit here, too You

26:23

might find yourself feeling frustrated at your own, you

26:26

know willingness to give him a shot and

26:28

if that's true, then again, I think I would

26:31

just encourage you to be patient with yourself listen

26:33

to You know what you

26:35

actually want and what what are the

26:37

what is the line you will actually be able to hold

26:39

here Yeah, and I think my sort of final

26:41

thought here would just be It would

26:43

make sense to me that you would feel a lot

26:45

of anger both About how your

26:47

brother treated you when you were growing up and also about

26:50

the adults in your life Yeah who failed

26:52

to protect you and others from the consequences

26:54

of his behavior and again none of that

26:56

is at odds with Also having

26:58

compassion for him as a troubled kid but

27:01

it was the responsibility of the adults in your life

27:03

to make sure that he did not do these things

27:05

and And to you

27:07

know help other kids recover from like the fallout

27:10

of you know This kid just ran up and like

27:12

kept trying to bite me or this, you know My

27:14

brother tried to kiss me on the mouth

27:17

in front of everyone at school. That

27:19

was like humiliating horrifying like

27:22

How does somebody help me deal with that? It's not

27:24

just well, you can go live with grandma and

27:26

grandpa Like that's not a great way to reintegrate

27:28

someone after a harm like that,

27:30

right? And so it just may be that you feel like I

27:33

have a lot of anger at my brother and My

27:35

brother is not the person I can go to to get healing

27:37

around my anger with my brother Might

27:40

be the sort of best way forward

27:42

here. So I realize none of that

27:44

is a Strong yes

27:46

or no or how but I hope that's enough

27:48

guidance around possible outcomes that you feel like you

27:50

have something to start with You

28:05

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up now at slate.com/podcast plus. This

30:18

one's a classic. I love the beginning. We

30:23

recently, you and I, and Lily, we recently

30:25

saw the Patty

30:27

Harrison show in Brooklyn. And

30:30

we were talking afterwards about how one of

30:32

the throwaway lines of I have a lot

30:34

more conservative opinions than people expect when they

30:36

see me was in some ways thematically true

30:39

of the whole show. Yeah, well, for me,

30:41

that's what the show was about. The show's

30:43

about Ohio and it's about the Midwest and

30:45

the affordances and the

30:48

terrors of the particular form

30:50

of Midwestern affect. Yeah.

30:53

All of that is to say the first sentence

30:55

of this letter, I think,

30:57

is remarkably casual. I

30:59

have been in a relationship turned marriage for 8.5 years.

31:03

Like as if you just sort of one day

31:05

you woke up and there was like a cocoon around you and you

31:08

had no idea how it got there.

31:10

And I think one of my, maybe

31:12

not surprisingly, but one of

31:14

my potentially more conservative opinions is I think marriage

31:16

is a good thing. I don't

31:19

understand why so many people, especially people

31:21

who get married act embarrassed of it

31:24

or like it's something to be denigrated. You

31:28

may remember I didn't want to move in together until

31:30

we became engaged to be married and I'm glad I

31:32

stuck to my guns because I don't ever want to

31:34

have to move out. I

31:38

don't know. To me, it's like if you're moving in with somebody, you're

31:40

all in. You're putting all your stuff together. You're going

31:43

to have to call movers if you break up. You

31:45

might as well get married. Well, I mean, it seems

31:47

to me like this is the opening onto the narrative

31:49

of how you proposed to me. Yeah, which I shouldn't

31:51

do because we're already a little bit over time. Okay,

31:53

well, fine, but it is a good story. It is

31:55

a great story. But yeah, I think marriage is great

31:58

and I think you don't have to do it. But

32:00

if you do, you shouldn't act embarrassed about

32:02

it. Yeah. We're married. I

32:05

think it's too much. I love being married. If anything, I

32:07

just wish we could also get married to

32:09

more people. Yeah. Like. Yeah.

32:13

Anyways. Anyways. Yeah.

32:16

Subject is maybe Polly. I've

32:18

been in a relationship turned to marriage for eight and a

32:21

half years. We have one school

32:23

aged child who was unplanned and born a

32:25

few years into a relationship. Sorry,

32:27

I missed unplanned. Yeah. No, just

32:30

another at school. A few

32:32

years ago, I told my partner that I

32:34

felt compelled to explore my polyamorous desires. He

32:37

was extremely upset at first later

32:39

agreed that if this was what I needed, then he

32:41

could try several hours into my first

32:43

date. He let me know that it wasn't going to work for

32:46

him. I never had another

32:48

flirtatious or romantic conversation with anybody again.

32:51

Years later, I see polyamorous couples raising

32:53

children and enjoying life on social media.

32:56

I can't help but feel that this is the life I

32:58

want. I don't know for sure. It

33:01

could be something that seems idyllic, but isn't a match

33:03

for me. I haven't ever tried

33:05

it after all. I'm at a place with my

33:07

marriage where I'm starting to feel displaced, questioning whether

33:09

I should be here, whether this should be my

33:11

life. I don't want to leave my marriage

33:13

in many ways, but I don't know how long I can wonder

33:15

about the what ifs, what to do. I

33:19

would say I feel equal amount of understanding

33:22

and compassion for this letter writer as I

33:25

do impatience. Yes. The whole sort of like, I

33:27

guess we got married. I guess we had a

33:29

kid do it or don't, you

33:31

know, you did it own up to it. Yeah.

33:34

And then, you know, I haven't

33:38

ever tried it after all. Felt a

33:40

little like petulance, like the

33:42

line, I never had another flirtatious

33:44

or romantic conversation with anybody again.

33:46

Yeah. It's a little like, all

33:49

right, break out a tiny violin. I'm sorry to hear

33:52

that. You have one partner and a child. That's

33:54

better than a lot of people get better than

33:56

a kick in the teeth. And like nowhere to

33:58

sleep at night. Not too bad.

34:02

But all that being said, it's really

34:04

easy to get moralizing and judgmental when

34:06

someone's trying to talk about polyamory. And

34:09

so I want to avoid that, because I know that I can go there

34:11

pretty quickly. What would you

34:13

want this letter writer to bear in mind who's sort

34:15

of like, I guess I got married, and

34:17

now I don't really want to leave my marriage in

34:20

many ways? Yeah. Like,

34:22

I think if anything, this letter writer's sort of

34:24

relationship to choice is really interesting. That's true. I

34:27

will say, yeah, to me, I think I

34:29

have a sense of why that is. And I think

34:31

it's because the question is not, am I polyamorous? Because

34:33

after all, ascribing identity

34:35

categories around these sorts of things

34:39

has certain benefits, perhaps. But I think it

34:41

also mystifies quite a bit. The question is,

34:44

do you believe that your husband should have

34:46

a right to prevent you from sleeping with

34:48

other people? That's what it comes down to.

34:51

And if you believe that, then you're in

34:53

a good relationship. And if you don't believe

34:56

that, then you have to negotiate it. And

34:58

it sounds to me like you have preemptively

35:01

agreed that you do think he should get

35:04

that power, or he is entitled to that power, but

35:06

you don't really believe it. You're not happy with the

35:08

settlement. And there's some part of you that is coming

35:10

out in these moments of resentment, which

35:13

is a resentment at what

35:16

seems to you to be an unfair

35:18

imposition of

35:21

someone else's values. So it

35:25

does seem to me that this is only

35:27

secondarily a

35:30

question about negotiation. And it is a question about

35:32

negotiation. Negotiation is a big part of the answer.

35:35

But I do think it's worth starting with,

35:38

you don't think he has the right to do the thing that

35:40

you have been giving him the right to do. And

35:43

so in fact,

35:45

that part is not negotiable for you.

35:47

That part is not, you don't

35:49

need his agreement that he doesn't have that

35:51

right in order for him not to have

35:53

that right. He either has it or he

35:55

doesn't. You've given it to him, but you wanna

35:58

take it back. I think that's as simple as it gets. Pretty

36:01

hardcore. I realize that might sound a little hardcore. I don't

36:03

know. Well, I think it

36:06

certainly, I think it

36:08

needs play. I think often I will hear

36:10

from people who will, especially in a

36:12

position of I'm coming from a relationship

36:14

that was monogamous and now we are

36:17

changing that or thinking about changing that.

36:20

It often brings up for

36:22

people questions of veto

36:25

power or if I don't

36:27

like someone that my partner is seeing, I want

36:30

to be able to intervene. And I

36:33

think that often leads people into really tricky territory.

36:35

None of that is to say if you

36:38

move a relationship from monogamous to polyamorous and

36:40

your partner says, I want to sleep with

36:42

all your siblings and there's just, that's

36:45

it. But I think

36:47

that when people do try to have veto

36:49

power like that, you've already lost

36:51

the battle. Yeah, exactly. And

36:55

that's a difficult place to be as well. The

36:57

other part of this is that you can't

36:59

compel your husband, you don't

37:01

get a veto on whether he leaves or not.

37:03

He doesn't get a veto on whether you leave or not. And

37:06

so again, this is not,

37:08

you're useful to each other insofar as you can agree

37:10

on a set of shared

37:12

principles for living together, not

37:15

insofar as you can suppress those principles

37:18

or renegotiate those principles in someone else's

37:20

interests. So I think

37:23

that you should make a choice

37:25

and then let him make a choice. I think

37:27

that's basically my thought

37:29

about this and own the

37:31

choice. And the problem, the reason why I

37:34

wouldn't recommend going into negotiations first off is

37:36

it sounds like that's what you've done. And

37:38

it sounds as though you've tried to

37:41

talk yourself out of something that you actually really want

37:43

to do. And one thing you

37:48

could do right now as soon as you hear this or

37:50

whatever is listen to the song You Don't Own Me by

37:52

Leslie Gore, right? And see what

37:54

you think of it. And especially listen to

37:56

her voice when she sings, I Don't Tell

37:58

You What to say,

38:00

I don't tell you what to do,

38:03

so just let me be myself, that's all I ask of you. And

38:06

ask yourself whether that's a situation that,

38:09

if the feeling of sort of like resentment

38:12

and bafflement in Leslie

38:14

Gort's voice is something that you share. And if so, I

38:16

think you know what you need to do. Yeah,

38:18

I think that all I wanna add to that is, letter

38:21

writer, I know I give you a little bit of a hard time

38:23

about the sort of way that you described how you

38:25

entered into this relationship, how you had a kid, and

38:28

now how you're thinking about leaving. And

38:32

I think the only reason that I wanna do that is,

38:35

I'm worried that you are otherwise gonna

38:37

lapse into like substance dualism. Oh

38:39

my God. My

38:42

husband said substance dualism, fuck me, we live

38:44

together. I listen to you. I love you

38:46

so much. You know, I'm

38:48

worried about whether this should be my life. I

38:51

see couples, polyamorous couples,

38:54

which is also funny, like do you mean truffles?

38:56

Do you mean just the core couples? Polyamorous couples

38:58

is an odd phrase. Yeah, yeah. But

39:02

I wonder if that's the life I

39:04

want. And I'll just say, I think that one thing

39:06

that's gonna serve you a lot here is

39:09

not necessarily only doing the things you feel

39:11

like the moment that you feel like doing

39:13

them, but owning your desires. And

39:16

so I think framing things like

39:18

I felt compelled to explore my

39:20

polyamorous desires. This should be my

39:22

life, this shouldn't be my life. Can

39:25

get a little bit into this idea that

39:27

there's a life you should have. When what you

39:29

mean is there's a life that I want. And I

39:31

am potentially willing to end my

39:33

marriage and potentially willing to really hurt my

39:35

husband in pursuing that. And

39:38

I think maybe there's a part of

39:40

you that's gonna wanna flinch from that and gonna wanna

39:42

say, no, I tried to avoid it as long as

39:44

I could, but eventually the feelings became so big,

39:46

so powerful, so overwhelming, so unbearable. I

39:48

was left with no choice. We

39:51

are always, always, always making choices.

39:53

Life is all about choice. If

39:56

you choose to pursue your desires at the expense of the

39:58

marriage that you have with you. your husband right now,

40:00

you will need to be able to own that and

40:02

describe that in a way that is not simply one

40:05

day a tidal wave of desire came and took me

40:07

away. You don't have a poly soul that is making

40:09

you act a certain way. You have you and what

40:11

you want. Yeah. So

40:13

I just really want to caution you away from, you

40:17

may decide ultimately that the two of you have

40:19

incompatible desires for the future and that's a good

40:21

reason to break up, but that is not

40:23

the same as he is fundamentally

40:26

monogamously sold and I

40:28

am fundamentally polyamorously sold

40:31

and that is why we cannot fit together. So

40:33

I agree so much with that. I

40:36

do too and I just think again, you just need

40:38

to say these things to him. You just need to

40:40

tell him, I know we tried it once. Turns

40:42

out I don't stop thinking about it. I

40:45

don't really know what I want to do next,

40:47

but it is possible that I will eventually decide

40:49

that I want to do this more than I

40:51

want to stay married and monogamous. What

40:54

do you think? That's going to feel scary

40:56

and disorienting because likely he

40:58

will be upset because you have already

41:01

semi-tried this before, but the alternative, which

41:03

I think is not unreasonable either is

41:05

to decide I want to stay

41:07

in this marriage and not try

41:09

dating others again. There's no guarantee that if

41:12

you two split up that you are going

41:14

to get the social media polyamorous relationship of

41:16

your dreams. You might find that you date a

41:18

handful of people semi-casually, but you never find

41:20

someone that you really click with and you

41:22

just have a few people you see occasionally

41:24

and then that fizzles out. You

41:27

may get entangled with another couple or group

41:29

of people that ends up making you feel

41:31

like you got hit by a bus. You

41:34

may end up totally alone. I

41:37

think you know this, but it always bears mentioning

41:39

whatever you're seeing from other people on social media.

41:42

Part of why it looks so good is because you're seeing it on

41:44

social media. Then if you go and live

41:46

your own life and you wonder why doesn't this look like

41:48

the handful of cute videos I see from those

41:51

three over there, it's because it's a

41:53

handful of videos. I know

41:55

that you know that, but I just really want

41:57

to stress that because even

41:59

their life. Doesn't look like just those handful of videos.

42:01

Yeah, which is not to say that they're all lying or

42:04

making it up Just the things they

42:06

choose to record an exhibit are partial. Yeah so

42:11

Obviously you have a relationship

42:13

with eight and a half years and a child with this guy.

42:15

That's not nothing I would

42:18

not say I Don't

42:21

want to say either. You must pursue your

42:23

polyamorous desires You will never be unhappy or

42:26

you must you know stick with the one that

42:28

rung you and put this to bed once and

42:30

for all But whatever you do, you really need to

42:32

think about am I prepared to

42:34

deal with this worst case version of it? Like

42:37

what's the worst case version of leaving your husband

42:39

to go and be polyamorous? Yeah And

42:41

do you think you can handle that better than the

42:43

worst case version of staying with your husband and being

42:45

monogamous? And just again,

42:47

it will just be a different way

42:49

of relating to people You might end up meeting people who

42:51

you're crazy about but who don't want to be polyamorous Or

42:54

maybe they do for a while and then they meet somebody who

42:56

wants to be monogamous and they change their minds out

42:58

there in The world there are people who will

43:01

mention on the dating apps that they're extremely into

43:04

polyamory and then on date

43:07

three or four will change their minds and sometimes

43:10

that's because it's the quickest way to get people

43:12

and sometimes it's because They change

43:14

their minds and that's fine. Yeah. Yeah,

43:17

you really do have to understand I think

43:19

that a lot of people are trying it

43:21

or considering it for the first time and

43:23

truly don't know yeah, how they're going to

43:25

feel about it until they try it and

43:29

Just as always you can't force

43:31

those desires So, you

43:33

know if if you think man, I'd love to

43:35

do if I was guaranteed that social media bliss

43:38

But like if you do end up breaking

43:40

up with your husband and you do end up Sailing

43:43

into this new chapter of your life. One

43:45

of the things that I think will Become

43:47

absolutely necessary to shed is

43:49

the sort of default I backed into this You

43:52

will need to be able to talk about your desires and your

43:54

limits and that will include being honest when you don't know what

43:56

they are or when you're not sure what they

43:59

are yet or when you You think you have a suspicion

44:01

of where they might be, but you're afraid that they won't get

44:03

you what you want. So you want to try to fudge

44:06

the numbers. And

44:08

I say that as someone who has done plenty of that

44:10

myself. So again,

44:13

there's no version

44:15

of your life that you should have. If

44:18

you get hit by a bus tomorrow and that would be

44:20

the life that you had, it wouldn't be a question of

44:22

deserve or not deserve. It's just things happen to people. Sometimes

44:26

they're good. Sometimes they're awful. Sometimes they're in between. You will

44:28

get the life that you pursue and you will get the

44:30

life that you try to build within

44:32

certain limits because you can't control

44:35

for everything. But certainly

44:38

I would also

44:40

encourage you if you do end up getting divorced

44:42

to really prioritize co-parenting

44:44

well and to figure out what

44:46

are your values when it comes to introducing new

44:48

partners to your kid. How

44:51

can you prioritize your kid's stability? How

44:53

do you make sure that you're not just every couple

44:55

of weeks bringing somebody new around and getting sort of

44:57

starry eyes and thinking now we're going to

44:59

be this wonderful nine person family in

45:02

a way that makes your kid feel kind

45:04

of jerked around? That's

45:06

a pretty big question too that I think you and

45:08

your potential ex potential husband will

45:10

need to also really bear in mind. So maybe

45:14

I don't know, I feel a little bit school marmish doing

45:16

all of this. Own your

45:18

desires. Think of the children. Only if you are

45:20

very careful can you earn polyamory. It is

45:22

like what you're proposing is difficult

45:24

and complicated. It will require a great deal of

45:27

thought and right now it seems like you are afraid of

45:29

that kind of thought and that's not going to serve you

45:31

well. I guess

45:33

I see that. I also

45:35

just think nothing is more complicated

45:37

than trying to justify something that you just

45:39

don't believe. The

45:42

monogamous theodicy is

45:45

a challenging thing to live. Yes. I

45:49

know I keep saying this is my last thought but

45:51

it's fine. You

45:54

say I'm at a place in my marriage where I'm starting

45:56

to feel displaced questioning whether I should be here and

45:58

I just want you to know. that might come

46:00

up for you in your next relationship

46:02

if you do leave. So

46:05

please don't think that if

46:07

you are just polyamorous, then

46:09

you would avoid feeling displaced, feeling

46:11

misunderstood, being eight and a half years

46:14

into a relationship and sometimes feeling

46:16

bored or thwarted by the other person. I

46:18

think that is inevitable result of human

46:21

intimacy. I don't think it's insurmountable.

46:23

I don't think it's inevitable. I don't think that means

46:25

anytime you're with someone longer than 20 minutes,

46:27

you're going to be tipped

46:30

into a pit of boredom and hostility, just

46:32

that all intimacy

46:35

eventually introduces repetition,

46:37

boredom, and the potential to feel like, why aren't

46:39

you trying to woo me the way that you

46:41

used to? And that can happen whether

46:43

you have 12 partners or one. So

46:46

again, this could

46:48

very well be happening to you again in eight and

46:50

a half years. So that's not an

46:52

argument for staying necessarily. So much as

46:54

just nothing gets rid of

46:57

the problems of domesticity. Nothing gets rid of

46:59

the sense of, I feel

47:01

less seen by a partner than I did

47:03

10 years ago or before we had a

47:05

child. And generally, I think the

47:09

best response to that is some combination of

47:11

being honest with your desire to be met

47:14

in a different way. And also the sort

47:16

of Saint Francis prayer of make

47:19

me more desirous of understanding than

47:21

to be understood, because that's just going

47:23

to help you be in relationships with

47:25

other human beings. It

47:28

is so, so easy for all of us to

47:30

think, why aren't I understood better? And so difficult

47:32

for all of us to think, why don't I

47:34

understand others better? You're

47:36

an incredible husband. Did you know that? I mean,

47:39

it's easy to say all these things on a

47:41

podcast. No, I understand that. But you

47:43

think about these things consistently, and I

47:45

feel very seen by you, whatever that's worth. I

47:47

feel very seen by you. And I thank you for that. And

47:50

I think just one of the things that I really

47:52

enjoy about this, I like talking about relationships and ideas

47:54

with you. And I

47:56

like trying to figure out the

47:58

everyday problems of intimacy and domesticity

48:01

and reflexive patterns of

48:04

self-centeredness or selfishness or self-seeking

48:06

and trying to figure out different ways

48:08

to relate to those totally human and

48:10

understandable impulses that don't require beating ourselves

48:13

up nor in sort

48:15

of giving them carte blanche. So

48:19

best of luck to you, letter writer. I

48:22

wish you truly, truly, truly the best, as

48:25

well as your school-aged child who was unplanned

48:27

and you don't say anything else about and

48:29

I really hope you at least like them.

48:31

Yeah. The

48:33

accidental youngster. And maybe you don't. I

48:35

mean, and you're just trying to do

48:37

the best that you can and I'm not gonna yell at you

48:40

for not loving a child that you didn't plan and I

48:43

just try to do as right by them as you possibly can. But

48:47

I'm sorry also for like assuming you don't love your child

48:49

just because you didn't mention it in your discussion of your

48:51

problem with your husband. That's it.

48:53

Thanks everybody for joining us for another episode. Grace,

48:55

thank you so much for coming down and I

48:57

look forward to seeing you at home later tonight

48:59

for dinner. Yeah, I'm making bangers and

49:01

mess. And I hope it will be ready before

49:04

midnight. Before midnight?

49:06

Yeah. Sweet. I reckon I can do

49:08

that. Love you, doll. I love you,

49:10

baby. Thanks. Thanks

49:18

for joining us on Big Mood, Little Mood

49:20

with me, Danny Laverute. Our producer

49:22

is Phil Serkis, who also composed our theme

49:24

music. Don't miss an episode of the show.

49:28

Head to slate.com/mood to sign up to subscribe

49:30

or hit the subscribe button on

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49:34

Thanks. Also, please leave us a

49:36

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49:39

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49:41

more Big Mood, Little Mood, you should join

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49:47

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$15. for your first

50:00

three months. If you'd like

50:02

me to read your letter on the show, maybe you

50:04

need a little advice, maybe you need some big advice, head

50:07

to slayt.com/mood to find

50:09

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50:12

form or find a link in

50:14

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50:16

now. Thanks for listening. And

50:23

here's a preview of our Slayt Plus episode coming

50:25

this Friday. You might decide that you wanna

50:27

save your father. I know we've talked about this

50:30

sometimes. I wanna be honest with you. I'm still

50:32

angry about this. I

50:34

don't say that because I want you to apologize

50:36

again. I don't wanna leverage that anger in

50:38

a way that makes you feel like you have to just start

50:40

each day with an apology. I just wanna let you

50:42

know that that's where I'm at. It doesn't mean the

50:44

only thing I feel towards you is anger, but that anger

50:47

is present and that's not totally healed. And

50:49

I wanna ask if we can just put a pin

50:51

in talking about that until a little bit later. And

50:54

then maybe in the meantime, it sounds like he's able

50:56

to be pretty present with you for those conversations. So

50:59

I think you'll be able to say that to him. That might take some

51:01

of the pressure off because if you feel like I

51:03

gotta rely on dad to make me dinner right

51:05

now and cover the rent, and

51:07

then I have to go into a big

51:10

conversation about my childhood with him, that just

51:12

makes me feel too raw and exposed. It

51:15

might just be good to put that one off for a

51:17

while and just focus on how can we be as

51:20

collegial roommates as possible. To

51:23

listen to the rest of that conversation, join Slayt

51:25

Plus now at slayt.com/mood.

51:29

I'm Jonathan Braylock. I'm Jarrod Milligan.

51:31

And I'm James the third. And

51:33

we're those of Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood. It's a

51:36

comedic podcast that reviews films with leading actors

51:38

of color and analyze them in the

51:40

context of race and Hollywood's diversity issues. Yeah,

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listen to new episodes on Mondays. Find

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don't care where you get them. I

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just want you to listen. Don't threaten the people we

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need them to listen. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Sorry guys,

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listen. I'm James the third. And we're those

51:56

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51:59

Listen to us. Yeah, put

52:01

on a happy voice. What can I

52:03

say? I've

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been cast jumping.