0:03

Welcome to the Cohort SysSys podcast, where we give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of Black women and non-binary people with doctoral degrees.

0:12

I'm your host, dr Jamacola, and today we're honored to have with us Dr Christina Cleveland, who holds a PhD in social psychology from the University of California, santa Barbara.

0:22

She's a passionate advocate, author and public theologian and is the heart behind the groundbreaking book God is a Black Woman and the driving force behind the sacred Black woman retreat in Paris.

0:35

With a blend of psychology, theology, storytelling and art, christina brings a unique perspective to justice advocacy.

0:43

We can't wait to dive into her journey and what sacred Black womanhood means in today's world.

0:50

To welcome Christina to the Cohort SysSys podcast.

0:52

Thank you, it's an honor to be here.

0:55

I am honored that you joined us, especially because you are on a writing retreat, so thank you for creating time and space in your day.

1:04

I would love to know where you from.

1:07

Where do you live now? What are some of the things that you like to do outside of the scholarship, the advocacy and the work?

1:13

Tell us about yourself.

1:16

Well, I currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1:20

I don't really live anywhere.

1:23

I move often and I've I think I've done five cross country moves in the last seven years.

1:29

So, I'm so like who knows if I'll be here when this podcast airs, but that's where I live now and I lived there before when I was my early 30s, so it's kind of a return.

1:42

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I'm a California girl and I'm currently in central France where I'm writing another book on the Black Madonna and the Black Madonna of central France, and I come here every year for two to three months.

2:01

So this feels like and I have been doing that since 2018, with the one exception of 2020.

2:07

So this feels like a more like home.

2:10

There's been more continuity coming here these last five years than anywhere else in my life.

2:15

So I say I'm at home wherever the Black Madonna is, and she's in me too.

2:22

So, and let's see, what do I do beside?

2:28

I mean, I'm lucky because my work and my life passion go hand in hand.

2:34

So I'm I know that's, that's very, that's very lucky and late stage capital.

2:41

But what do I do besides my work?

2:46

Hmm, that's a good question. I love fashion and I love design.

2:50

I love like vintage. Actually, tomorrow, I'm going to go visit this really obscure Black Madonna that I had to go down like millions of internet rabbit holes to even find.

2:59

But it just so happens that the little medieval village that she's in is also having their like annual antique fair tomorrow.

3:06

So when went Well, take like a two hour train ride out to where she is, you know, spend some time doing some research, maybe even talking to folks about her and then also enjoying antique.

3:19

So I love like vintage and antiques and I love thinking about like interior design, and I've renovated a couple properties kind of like low renovated.

3:29

You know what I mean. Like more, like down to the studs, but not anything deeper than that.

3:35

So I do enjoy that.

3:38

You're speaking my language. I'm an interior design.

3:41

That's like my.

3:43

I call it like. My retirement, like that's what I'm going to do when I retire, is like.

3:47

I'm going to do interior design, my parents.

3:50

I grew up in a house with parents who are in the real estate industry, so I think it's like in my blood.

3:56

So, yeah, we can talk offline about real estate and flipping houses and interior design.

4:02

Another time. Like that's a whole other conversation, yeah, but I we're going to get into your specific topic of your work about Black Madonna's and about Black women, sacred Black womanhood.

4:15

I want to kind of first start at a disciplinary level before we get to the granular.

4:20

How did you become interested in social psychology, like what was?

4:24

How did that path emerge for you, and at what point in your young years or your academic journey did you realize I actually want to do research for a living?

4:35

I want to go around the world looking for Black Madonna's and I want to write about this, like when did that happen for you?

4:42

Yeah, so I actually became.

4:46

I was a site. I was a sociology and religious studies double major at Dartmouth and then my sophomore year I applied to this like study abroad program for the religion major and I didn't get in.

5:00

It was like an Edinburgh and it was one of those things where, like totally non extraordinary people that I knew got in but I didn't you know what I?

5:08

mean, like it was like one of those things where I was like why didn't I get in?

5:11

You know what I mean? I think it was like and I was pretty devastated because I was 19.

5:17

And you know, you don't have any perspective.

5:20

I'm like like altering, like shattering.

5:24

Exactly.

5:26

I saw my scholarship. I still have everything I need but like, for some reason they're not going to Scotland this winter is like devastating.

5:33

So I just remember having to scramble and to sign up for classes because I had assumed I was going on this trip and then all that was left was like introduction to psychology, which I had was planning on avoiding because it was all multiple choice tests and there was like this very strong, forced curve where only like the class could get a's.

5:56

And this is Dartmouth, so like you could have a 98% type, you know you could be 98%, still not being that top 5%, you know, just so.

6:04

So I was afraid.

6:06

But then I ended up having to sign up for Psych 1.

6:09

Because I had nothing else to do, because I didn't get into Edinburgh, and it actually worked out perfectly.

6:17

Because you have to do research studies, you have to be a guinea pig, you know, for Psych 1.

6:21

Yeah, they still do that. Yeah. And while I was doing one of the studies I met this amazing professor who I was just asking, I guess, good questions.

6:30

According to him, I think usually people just want to leave as soon as they're done fulfilling their studies.

6:35

I was like I'm really curious about this hypothesis, like tell me more.

6:39

And then I had like some critiques of course, and I feel like we have a general and this is generalization obviously but like we kind of have this, like we have the ministry of do better.

6:51

Yeah, I love that Because we care right.

6:55

So he was just like you're really good at this, do you want to be my research assistant?

7:01

And so he offered me a paid job, which I was a financial aid kid, I'm like, I can't do any research for free, that is not a thing.

7:08

But if you can pay me, I can pay you here.

7:13

And so then he, he's the one who really told me, like you're good at this.

7:16

I had a grad school, you know. So I never really had this like big grand vision, and I think that's maybe the reason why I'm not still currently in, like, the formal social psychology department.

7:29

My first two jobs were those.

7:31

And so I have, you know, I've done those publications and I've done those.

7:35

I've done that world and I it was always a like, don't love, you know, like, because I'm generally curious about things, but I was always much more interested in real life application than I think social psychology at the time.

7:50

I think now it's easier to get more applied grants, okay, because that was 15, almost that was 20 years ago, you know, but at the time it was like I would ask questions and say, like I think this result is epiphenomenal, like I don't think it exists outside of the lab, and that would get in trouble for that.

8:10

You know what I mean, because I was in like a cognitive, a social cognitive psychology program where, like all about isolating all the variables and I'm like, but memory doesn't work that way.

8:21

Memory works in the real world, you know Like.

8:24

So it never really bribed. And so eventually I think I started transitioning from just kind of like social psychology as an isolated discipline to integrating it more with justice work, which then at the time there was this like budding field called reconciliation studies.

8:42

So I was sort of able to like reposition myself and then I was able to get a job as a reconciliation studies professor, okay, and that's what I ended up.

8:51

And then I ended up going to Duke to be their professor of reconciliation at the Divinity School.

8:56

So I just remember teaching at Duke Divinity and my students being like Dr Cleveland, where did you go to Divinity School?

9:02

And I'm like no, where I just teach at yours. Like so, welcome to my class.

9:14

And so my work about the Black Madonna kind of came out of being in the Divinity School world and becoming really interested in looking for images of the divine that could relate to the Black female experience, and so it really just came out of my own personal need.

9:31

I was kind of fed up with white Christ and even how white Christ shows up in Black church spaces.

9:38

And then I was also just fed up with male Christ to or exclusively male Christ.

9:45

And so I went on my own journey and then thankfully, I think, between people's general interest and my ability to just continually reinvent myself, this is what I do now.

9:58

I'm like I'm just gonna go back to my school.

10:00

I can see my dissertation on cardiovascular reactivity and motivational states.

10:06

Like it's very interesting. Okay, I did not know that.

10:11

Wow, that is very different.

10:14

People know that that's actually.

10:17

My background is in cardiovascular social psychophysiology.

10:21

Okay, why did? That end up being the thing that you studied in grad school.

10:26

Because I was doing social psych and I was really interested in motivation and then this world-class biopsychosocial researcher invited me to join his lab and so it was really just like cool, like this is a great opportunity to continue doing what I'm generally interested in, but have this like other methodology.

10:46

And so then I just ended up learning a lot about the cardiovascular system.

10:50

It's funny when I go to like checkups and stuff, because doctors are like why do you know so much about the cardiovascular system?

10:56

That's the only thing I know about.

10:58

Don't ask me anything else about the body.

11:04

I'm still trying to piece it all together. But so because you had the religion major, one of the major I'm talking about, major, oh, okay, how is that story?

11:15

So it's like religion was the thing you were studying and then you added so sociology and religion, then you added psychology, you dropped religion, went and did a PhD in social psych and then you somehow still ended up in religion.

11:31

So it's just like, yeah, I don't know.

11:33

Sometimes I wonder if these things are ancestral.

11:36

My family is like one of the like most celebrated families in the Kojik Church Church of God and Christ, which is the large black Pentecostal denomination in the United States, probably in the world, and so sometimes I wonder was this just?

11:57

I mean, my great grandfather is famous in that world.

12:01

Well, what's famous? And so many family members.

12:05

So I just wonder if there's a connection there.

12:12

Interesting, okay, so you have this.

12:16

Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I mean, I think there are very few divinity schools that would hire me at this point, cause a lot of people see me as like kind of witchy or like out there a little bit.

12:26

So you know, I don't know.

12:28

But yeah it, never underestimate the power of tokenism, though.

12:34

True, If a box needs to be checked someone might come in for you.

12:40

Yeah, I mean, surely I've alienated them and burned all the bridges?

12:45

And then, sure, and then the next week I get an email from some president somewhere being like do you wanna join our faculty?

12:51

And I'm like, aww, y'all just discovered that Thomas Jefferson funded your institution and now you need to do something about it.

12:59

You know.

13:01

Mike, oh my goodness, I actually I wanna talk about I want us to go back and talk about your doctoral, the time in the doctoral degree.

13:08

But I want us to put a pin in the discussion about I think it's an important one about people who, what I am starting to call like, who do academia at the margins, like we're not like traditional academics, how we sometimes are very much sought after in the academic market and sometimes not.

13:32

It just really depends on the political and, as you said, like they discover something.

13:36

They need to do some optic work. So I wanna talk about that at some point.

13:38

But I want us to go back a little bit and talk about your time at UC Santa Barbara.

13:46

I'm curious, as you were deciding to go into a doctoral program, what was it about that specific program that stood out to you Like why study there as opposed to somewhere else?

13:59

Right, yeah, no, I'm. So that's such an interesting question and no one's ever asked me that, at least in a public conversation.

14:06

I am so lucky and blessed because that one researcher, jay Holm, who's actually still at Dartmouth he's close to retirement now, but I think he's the Dean of Social Sciences now but he and this other social psychologist, who's actually Scottish, but it just happened to be at my school for a couple of years on a two year contract and he's really world renowned.

14:35

His name's Neil McCrae. He's a really famous social cognition guy and both of them were incredible with me and basically came up with a list of schools where the faculty are both nice and smart.

14:50

And they were like they were like this is really good.

14:53

And so they were so. But I was interested in because I was interested in the researchers there.

14:57

But just knowing their research, and they were like absolutely not, you cannot even apply there.

15:02

And Neil was great because he's like a gossip too.

15:05

Like he's like really really Scottish guy who like looks kind of funny and is like kind of awkward but like randomly knows the scoop on like who was sleeping with who and like you know just all the drama, right, and he I was thinking about applying to this one school and he was like you can't.

15:22

I'm like why is it Cause last week two different faculty members at that school got in a fist fight in the hallway Because they disagree on what self-esteem is Wow.

15:34

And so he was like I will not even write you a letter if you apply there.

15:39

Like I'm just, that's just, and you don't want to.

15:44

And so they kind of identified a list of schools for me and UCSB was always at the top because they were like they produced incredible scholars, people go on and get great jobs and everyone there, most of the faculty, are like very well respected but not like so famous that they're never there, that they're like celebrities.

16:04

You know, they're like known within the field but they're not known in the world.

16:08

You know, and I had lots of friends who were like, oh yeah, I'm a PhD student at Stanford right now and like I never see my advisor cause he's always on like CNN.

16:16

You know what I mean. And so they were like you want someone who's going to be there for you.

16:20

You're coming from a small of our arts college, you don't want to get lost.

16:23

So it's like I'd gotten into some of the big, the big name schools like University of Michigan and stuff like that.

16:28

But when I went, I was just like this is like a transnational corporation, like it's.

16:32

Grad students don't even know each other, you know, like it's.

16:36

I was like there were first year students in the spring were meeting other first year students for the first time and I'm like what is happening right now Like this.

16:45

So they said go to UCSB, everyone there is great and it's true.

16:49

Like I had a really positive experience.

16:51

I was a Ford fellow. Ford paid for most of my predoctoral work, which is the case for, like, I know a lot of black people, which is awesome.

16:59

Until recently. You've just said they shut down the program.

17:02

You just quit.

17:03

Yeah, they just shut down the program, right. I mean I'm glad I snuck in there, cause I don't know what I would examine out for, but I just remember going to their conferences and interacting with all the other people there, mostly black people and they would be like, yeah, my advisor thinks I'm stupid and talks down to me and you know, and I was like, wow, like I I generate my advisors supportive and I know he thinks I'm smart and he like puts me up for things and like you know, like I don't know, like I had a, really I'm so I'm glad those two guys were really advocating for me and giving me the insight, cause I certainly got into like more big name programs, but I was just, I was just like I think I'll just get lost, like I don't want to be one of the people who's like begging my advisor to take a look at my manuscript.

17:50

You know like that's just not.

17:54

And then, plus, they were like quality of life. Like you don't underestimate quality of life in grad school.

17:59

They're like go to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara wasn't that great as a black woman in the in the 2000s, you know what I mean.

18:07

Like I don't know what it's like now, but it was lonely as a black woman.

18:11

Santa Barbara, just I don't know.

18:14

Santa Barbara is where, like, justice goes to die.

18:17

I think you know like it's just the sad escapism kind of place for a lot of folks.

18:23

You know it's just it's really wealthy and the entire place kind of feels like a Mexican plantation because there's just so much wealth.

18:35

And then you have all these like extremely poor, mostly Mexican folks who work in houses.

18:41

So that part wasn't ideal.

18:45

But the actual part at school, which is where you, as you know, that's where you spend like all your time when you're a grad student.

18:51

Right, especially in the course work years.

18:54

Also just because of my discipline, like we did lab research, yeah, so I couldn't have gone away to work on my dissertation.

19:01

You know, like my dissertation with me, you know, taking hundreds of people through my, through my study.

19:10

I always forget that. Yeah, y'all psych folks.

19:12

You can't go because I, after my course work.

19:15

I was like I will see you when it's time to defend.

19:21

So I've heard you mention.

19:26

call out a couple of advisors your undergraduate research advisors as well as your doctoral advisor and so far I've only heard you mention men.

19:36

Were there any women, or especially black women, mentors or advisors that you had on your journey, whether they were in your program or non-academic mentors and advisors?

19:49

Yeah, oh my gosh.

19:51

Okay. So I'll say when I was an undergrad there was one, but I was so salty towards her too as an undergrad and I really feel bad about that because I get her now.

20:01

When I was an undergrad, we had a first-year faculty member who was a black woman.

20:06

Her name was Jennifer Richardson. She's super amazing.

20:08

Now she's a she gosh.

20:11

Maybe like 10 or 15 years ago she was a MacArthur genius fellow and now she's a Yale.

20:16

So she's amazing. But I she was like 28, just out of grad school and I did not have perspective and she didn't really have time for me and I took that personally, which is so like, makes sense.

20:37

You know what I mean. Also, in retrospect, I'm like she was the first tenure-track black woman in the Dartmouth psychology department ever.

20:47

She was living alone in Hanover, new Hampshire, as an unmarried black woman.

20:54

At the time she was trying to get tenure.

20:59

Like you're like, no, like you had unrelenting expectations for this woman, this precious woman, you know, and she and I have interacted a little bit since, since, you know, as I've grown up and she's amazing I've always thought the world of her.

21:16

I just, and I just my feelings were hurt because I thought, oh, she's a black woman.

21:20

She should have time for me, and I wasn't able to see what demands she was under until I was in a similar position and I was just like gosh.

21:30

All these black students want me to be their best friend and I have the energy to do that Also.

21:37

Not, that's not my job.

21:42

It does not get you any additional credit on the tenure file.

21:47

I'm saying the white supremacy at this institution like it's like I, that is not my personal burden, you know so, but just having her there, I mean, I took her social psych class and, like I, I saw her.

22:02

I feel like she's part of the. She's one of the reasons why I was even able to imagine going to grad school straight out of undergrad because she did the same thing.

22:10

She was 28 in a professor at Dartmouth, you know, and so so certainly her ex, just her existence, was a huge boost for me.

22:18

But I didn't. There were no black faculty.

22:22

In the entire psych department at UCSB, not just in the social area but in the entire psych department, there were no black faculty.

22:28

There were some older, there were some black women who are a few years ahead of me and they were all three of them.

22:34

There were three of them. All three of them were like really great towards me, like really supportive.

22:40

They weren't in my lab and I wasn't interacting with them super regularly, but I saw them around a few times a week and they would always, you know, encourage me, give me advice, just whatever.

22:54

But yeah, I mean it's academia, like I didn't go to an HBCU and so it was white and it was mostly male, you know, especially because I was on like the kind of hard sciences side of psychology too, like I didn't, I wasn't a relationships researcher or you know, there are areas where there are more women but in like the party, like the social psychophysiology and that cognitive side, it's really male.

23:21

Yeah, did you feel like your you mentioned being a black woman in Santa Barbara was really difficult?

23:28

Do you feel like being the only black woman in your cohort was harder, or the only black person in your cohort was harder, or being a woman in a male dominated field was harder?

23:44

I'm looking back and, honestly, like I can't tell if it's lack.

23:51

I mean, I do feel like I've really grown in my critical race consciousness, you know.

23:57

So I can't tell if I just wasn't aware of some things.

24:01

I have more examples of that in my high school and college years where I'm like who that had happened today, that would have landed differently on me than it did then In grad school, you know, honestly, I felt pretty supported and I felt as a woman and I and, and I, and even as a black person.

24:27

You know, like my cohort only had four students the social, the social cohort only had four students and we they were all great people.

24:36

I mean, everyone was white of those three, but they're all just like people who take seriously their own racial identity journey and gender journeys, and so I think I got lucky because people that I was spending time with, and then my advisor and then just the relationships I had with other faculty were, were pretty positive and, honestly, you know, when I was a graduate student in the early 2000s, one of our faculty transitioned from man to woman, right and before our eyes, and that was like, so supported in the department, like, and it was so like there were a lot.

25:17

I mean, then it's like early on in like trans consciousness.

25:21

You know we're talking 2000, so I had this person as a man, as a man, in 2003 and then by then the 2005, they fully transitioned.

25:31

So this is like very early on and and there were like emails from the department chair saying this is this, these are the, these are the pronouns you use, this is how you will treat this person, this is how you know.

25:43

It was not even a question of who, how we're gonna be as a community, like there was.

25:50

No, it was like this is how we're gonna be and that's like wait, I mean years ahead.

25:54

So I think it was an unique department in that sense because there were a few things that were going on that was that were forcing the department to get serious about its own policies.

26:05

And I will say the number one social, including racial, stigma lab in the country was in our department at the time.

26:13

Okay, so like then all the other black students were involved in that lab and that, that, that advisor, I mean, or that faculty member, was probably our most, one or two, most famous faculty members.

26:26

Okay, and so like, because there's so much power that that person had in the world their lab was had a kind of an outsized influence on the department, and so I think that's part of the reason why I enjoyed relative safety as a black person, because there were all sorts of people in the in the program who were like studying stigma.

26:48

Yeah yeah, your advisor.

26:51

They really advise you well. It sounds like a really great program for you and hopefully it still it remains a strong program and a welcoming and safe program folks who are there with me are now retired.

27:03

You know like. And then we also had creepers too, like there was this one faculty member we just called the lurker.

27:12

You know, there's always gonna be. I mean it's, it's academia.

27:15

So of course there's the stories of just like, oh, the lurker was trying to get me to go to lunch with him today.

27:21

You know the spousal hires and the people were you like why are you even here?

27:33

oh, my god, that's so interesting. My, when I started, when I was in grad school, there was we had no at least to my knowledge, there was no faculty member who was like.

27:40

But we also didn't have a culture in the department.

27:44

There was not a single spousal hire.

27:46

But now I'm in a department where there are several spousal high.

27:50

It's a completely different dynamic.

27:52

Yeah well, we hired I'm looking at his name now.

27:59

But right when I was graduating, we hired this guy, this cognitive psychologist who was.

28:05

He was gonna be hired no matter what, but we got lucky because he's actually great.

28:09

You know, like he came from like what a Canadian.

28:11

He's Canadian, came from a Canadian University but, like actually just prolific and, like you know, could have gotten tenure at UCSB on his own.

28:18

But he wasn't even a spousal hire.

28:21

He was one of the one of UCSB's Nobel laureates, was marrying his ex-wife and they, yeah, right.

28:31

And so obviously UCSB is gonna do anything to keep their Nobel laureate at UCSB right and so, and he's in like, he's like in like economics or something like not even in psychology, but he's marrying this guy's ex-wife and this guy and his ex-wife promised that they would stay to live in the same city until their kids were 18.

28:50

So now she has to move to Santa Barbara too.

28:55

Therefore, we had to hire him in psychology.

28:59

That's academia for you.

29:02

This is bananas. This is bananas.

29:05

Like you really are not even married to anybody here.

29:08

Like you used to be married to somebody. He's now married to somebody here.

29:11

Like yeah, that's probably the wildest spousal hire situation that I've heard, but I think it's a good reminder for folks who might be on the job market now or thinking about the job.

29:21

Sometimes it really has nothing to do with you Like, there's a job posted, you're qualified.

29:26

If you think that it's for you.

29:27

And then you're like, wait, why didn't I get it? Cause somebody needed to be hired because the noble laureate ex-wife or the noble laureate's wife needed to be at the school.

29:37

So yeah it's. I think that sometimes we don't really in grad school, we don't realize all of the politics and all of the nuances that go behind bringing faculty on, and sometimes I feel like when we get rejections on the job market, it can feel like oh you know, it can feel like an indictment on us and our work.

29:57

And oftentimes it has nothing to do with us or our work.

30:01

Can I add one more thing to that? I also think that I think it's also a reminder for those of us to ask for what we need too, because I know so many people, especially young black women, who are like, well, I would go there, but I don't know what my husband would do, or I don't know what my partner would do.

30:18

I don't know. And I'm like, roll that into the negotiations.

30:22

Once they've decided they want you ask for the world, the worst they can say is no.

30:27

And honestly, in academia, typically they will say yes Because it's and yeah, that's such a good reminder Because you see white people out here with the audacity you know and it's like what do you need?

30:45

Do you need more research funding?

30:47

Do you need more startup? Do you need, like, do you need more time off?

30:49

Like, always ask for more, like, always ask for more.

30:52

I always negotiate, I always ask for more.

30:55

Even if I like the offer, I always ask for more.

30:57

Yeah, because that's what you're supposed to do and that's what you're expected to do.

31:01

We don't often think that we're expected to, but, like when you get an offer, it's given to you with wiggle room.

31:07

There's always wiggle room, Always. Yeah, I'm glad this is gonna help transition to our.

31:15

The next line of questions that I wanna ask, which is about when you're finishing graduate school and you started entering the academic world, would love to just talk a little bit about your time in traditional academia and then why you transitioned, why and how you transitioned into more independent scholarship, so kind of coming out of graduate school.

31:34

You mentioned earlier that you taught at Duke's Divinity School without a Divinity degree.

31:39

That was an interesting time. What were some of the things that attracted you to an academic life and then what were some of the things that maybe pushed you not pushed you away, but made you decide a different path?

31:56

Can you put it that?

31:57

way, yeah, yeah. So I mean I love.

31:59

So what I love about academia is I'm good at it, schools I mean I'm a linear thinker, I'm a visual learner, I'm a self-starter, I have a lot of strong independent learning skills, and so academia has always been easy for me relatively, and that didn't change.

32:24

Actually, grad school was the easiest.

32:28

I went to really tough boarding school and that sort of prepared me for it and then I had to go to college and grad school, where basically a breeze for the most part.

32:38

I mean obviously I had to put work in and stuff, but I was ready to be there because of my high school education.

32:44

So I think I liked that, I liked the flexibility of academia and I also really liked that even when I was in psychology I more.

32:54

I mean I had to be. I had to be a little political about my research programs, because you obviously want to make sure you have at least one thing going that's gonna get you tenure, but you can also choose and so, like I was genuinely interested in motivation and intergroup processes and I was able to do that work.

33:14

And then my favorite, favorite, favorite part is students, especially when I was running labs and I had a bunch of undergraduates or graduate students, because when I was at Duke I had some graduate students working with me.

33:27

I loved time, kind of that one-on-one or small group learning and informal learning in the lab, and I love a captive audience.

33:38

So I mean, having teaching classes was always fun for me.

33:44

So those are the things that I enjoyed about academia.

33:49

I don't I'm learning like, I don't do institutions Like if I I grew up, you know, I grew up in the church, I grew up in a family of ministers, and so when I think about gifting I often think about like spiritual gifts or like five-fold ministry gifts or whatever, and so I would say I'm like profetive, a truth teller.

34:07

You know, like I'm, I'm I don't, I'm great at just forging ahead and like challenging the boundaries.

34:19

That's my gift and I'm an integrationist, and so I think the silos of academia were really stifling for me, because I really am.

34:30

I mean, I think I think I'm a strong social scientist because I've been very well trained.

34:35

I think I'm an innately gifted theologian, and so it's been really important for me to be able to integrate those two and there just aren't a lot of spaces in formal academia where that that can be that that level of integration can be held and taken seriously.

34:54

And so I just kind of got tired of siphoning myself off.

34:57

I got tired of writing these like esoteric journal articles that nobody was ever gonna read, which would have been fine if that's, if that's all I wanted to do, because that's, that's great.

35:08

You know what I mean. Like that that work is important and the five people who read it.

35:12

It'll impact them and their work and that kind of stuff.

35:14

But I'm also really interested in the public square and it was just hard.

35:20

It was hard to find spaces where I could do both.

35:24

And then also just the bureaucracy of it, like I just institutions just drive me a little bit bonkers and the fact that it's so I mean it.

35:34

Maybe it'd be different if they, if they were like womanist or something, but like it's so white and it's so male and the standards are and what matters and how to say it and who has power.

35:46

And it was just yeah, I mean, I just got tired of it.

35:50

And also it was always a like don't love, you know, like I was always like, yeah, I like my job, but it was.

35:57

But I know I know faculty members who, like this is their passion.

36:00

They're like in the shower thinking about this and they're like go out and drink after work and that's they're still talking about their research and like that was just never me with my research, you know, until I found kind of this more integrated black liberation and divine feminine stream, but there aren't a lot of journals that want to publish that work.

36:21

And so then it was like I'm gonna write for regular people.

36:26

You know, yes, that's, you were just setting up the transition so seamlessly.

36:32

I want to. If anyone has not yet heard of your book God as a Black woman, I would love to know.

36:40

Okay, so you were teaching you.

36:43

You know, just kind of shared that the research you were interested in wasn't for lack of a better term, it wasn't ten year old research, because, like no one wants to hear, the traditional academic settings do not want to hear, they got as a black woman.

36:56

So you decide to write for a public audience but you still bring in your scholarly perspective, you still bring in the academic element.

37:05

How did you, how did you think about kind of blending these two worlds?

37:10

It's kind of the book is part research, it's part memoir.

37:12

There are a lot of personal, intimate details in it as well.

37:16

How did you make that decision to combine both of those worlds and do it so seamlessly?

37:26

I didn't make a decision, at least not a conscious one.

37:28

Someone who reviewed my book said this is what black women, this is what black female scholars do.

37:41

Black female scholars incorporate their life experiences into their research, like we, so I think it's just part of my innate ancestral gifting as a black woman.

37:59

I will say I was very intention.

38:03

The one thing I was intentional about and maybe this gets to what you were asking is I didn't want it to be like a thank you for coming to my TED Talk book.

38:16

Okay.

38:17

I didn't want it to be all research and all data and all graphs and all information that will resonate with the white patriarchal imagination, because I think the way of the divine feminine undermines all that.

38:39

So I wanted to be really intentional.

38:41

So when I first set up the book, I thought it was gonna be essentially an apologetic, like here's why, like white patriarchal thinking is wrong and here's why the sacred black feminine, the lineage of the sacred black feminine, is an antidote to all of that.

38:56

And then I just realized no, I just wanna tell my story and how it's mattered for me and I'm gonna include aspects that are valued in the white patriarchal world because they were invaluable to me.

39:10

Like it was powerful for me to read this research and discover that this image in the Judeo-Christian scriptures was twisted and used as a misogynistic tool.

39:26

That kind of stuff was really powerful for my journey and so I was like I wanna share that, but I only put research in that supported my journey.

39:37

I didn't write for people, for skeptics, if that makes sense, right yeah, it does.

39:42

I like that distinction. So it wasn't that you were.

39:45

I liked that. You also said that it wasn't necessarily a decision.

39:48

It was a natural consequence of you bringing your full self, your full black woman, to the work.

39:55

So I appreciate that distinction.

39:57

And, for those who don't know, the book was inspired or was a result of a 400 mile walking pilgrimage that you did in search of ancient Black Madonna statues and you are now going to.

40:10

You're preparing for another pilgrimage in 2024, a Black Madonna pilgrimage and a sacred black woman retreat.

40:16

Can you share a little bit more about the significance of Black Madonna statues and how they're really related to empowering black women?

40:28

Sure, sure, so I will say, the 2024 pilgrimage that I'm preparing for right now, that I'll be bringing black women and black non-binary people on, is not a 400 mile walking pilgrimage.

40:39

Okay, so the first one was your personal, one was 400 miles.

40:43

This one, I love me.

40:45

Yes, I love me some walking pilgrimage, and I do that often, but I also wanted to create an opportunity for people to experience the Black Madonna's without having that accessibility challenge.

40:58

I trained in the Black Madonna pilgrimage.

41:01

I trained for months for that, so that's not something I would, and it took five weeks.

41:05

So, yeah, so I think, from a social psychological perspective, we're constantly underestimating the power of the situation.

41:22

That's one of the huge contributions that social psychology makes to our understanding of the way the world works.

41:30

We typically underestimate, we tend to attribute people's behaviors and their identity to individual internal sources, rather than understanding how much the situation impacts us, and so I've always been really interested in that as a social psychologist, especially these more implicit messages that we receive.

41:52

And so it's one thing for people to say God is not a white man, or like all lives matter, or all people are, all life is sacred.

42:02

It's another thing to actually have implicit imagery and messaging that affirms that all people, all people, truly are sacred.

42:19

And so for me, having grown up as a Black woman in an incredibly racialized and sexist country, surrounded by images of the divine that usually are affirming the sacredness of whiteness and maleness, it was really, really powerful for me in a full, unembodied way, to encounter images of the divine that are Black and female, and I will say I feel like my whole body biology changed when I first laid eyes on a Black Madonna and then learned more about the history I mean the global history at least 2000 years, but really more because most of the Black Madonna, especially in this area that I'm in right now, go back to ISIS and so they're like really, really, really, the tradition of veneration is really old, thousands and thousands and thousands pre-Christian basically, and so, yeah, so that's why I'm excited to bring people with me on the journey.

43:33

Yeah, because there's just so much.

43:38

I mean, each Black Madonna kind of has her own story and her own tradition and lore and mythology, and to get into some of those stories is just fascinating.

43:47

And then also to consider, what does it mean for us to really find ourselves in these stories and in these images and move forward in the world in a much more empowered way?

43:59

And when I first came to visit the Black Madonna for the first time in 2018 for that initial pilgrimage, I was a professor at Duke, but I remember at the end of my 18, after I visited the 18th Black Madonna and I was about to come home, I said to myself okay, I could go home and have this cute spiritual experience.

44:20

And actually at this point I had planned on writing a book, but I had not planned on including my pilgrimage at all.

44:25

Actually, my editors are the ones who said, oh, you did a pilgrimage, we'll include that Because I was thinking like an academic.

44:32

So I was thinking like I had all these pictures on just the reason and they were like no, we actually want you to share your story too.

44:40

But I just remember coming home and thinking I had my experience.

44:46

It was powerful. I have everything I need to write a book and I can do all that, or I can decide to go home and be changed and my personal life be changed.

45:01

And so then I started asking myself if I truly believe that God is a Black woman, then why do I still work at this Duke Plantation?

45:08

Why am I afraid to leave?

45:13

Why am I afraid that if I walk off this plantation, nobody's got me If I say that I believe that God is a black woman?

45:21

So I just started asking myself what would I do if I really truly believed that God is a black woman?

45:27

How would I say no in this relationship to this person, that I think I need their approval or I think I need their resources, or I think I need their companionship, or so many things.

45:41

If I truly believe that God is a black woman, then how is that gonna impact my bottom line when it comes to giving sacrificially to black trans organizations or stuff like that?

45:50

How is this showing up in every aspect of my life?

45:54

And so that's what became really important to me was the transformation.

46:00

So I feel like a lot of the work I did was after the pilgrimage, and I actually took about a year between the pilgrimage and when I even really started writing the book, because I wanted to live a spirituality of the sacred black feminine, not just have it in my head, which is such a white patriarchy thing and I just can't.

46:21

I mean so many things in my life changed in that year.

46:23

I quit my job, I ended my marriage, I moved, I significantly changed my relationship to my parents.

46:32

I mean there were so many things that I was like I finally believe that I'm sacred.

46:37

So what does that mean?

46:40

Yeah, wow.

46:44

And that's not to say that, like everyone who believes they're sacred needs to leave academia.

46:48

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that for me.

46:50

I was on the Duke plan and I was set up to be striving to be the most powerful Negro on that plantation and there was no other option for me.

47:01

I don't think that's true for everyone, but for me I was realizing I'm only here because I'm afraid of I'm afraid that I won't be provided for if I leave and I'm afraid that I'm nothing without this institutional affiliation, and I had to be honest about that.

47:21

Yeah ooh, that's deep, wow, mm-hmm, that is so deep, like woman and I'm in places for free liberation.

47:30

I have to trust that somehow abundance will provide.

47:34

Yeah.

47:36

If God's a black woman, I don't think she wants me being abused in this situation or relationship or whatever.

47:44

If God's a black woman, I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I have enough for today and there's wealth in that, even if I don't know if I have enough for tomorrow.

47:55

If God's a black woman, I can stop playing God, because black women know how to handle things.

48:03

I mean, the reason why I was constantly out there trying to control everything and hoard power and money and resources is because, at the end of the day, I didn't believe that God had my back, because God was this father, sky, god, white male, jesus, zeus character, you know, and I was like, you know how, like you know, when you're a little kid and someone promises you something and you're like I don't think this, I'm five, I don't think you're gonna come through, because last promised me a lollipop and you didn't come through, and so now I know that's how I felt about white male guys.

48:43

So I was constantly stressed.

48:45

I got to hold on to what I have. I have to, you know like, but I have this job, I have this opportunity.

48:51

These people are inviting me to come. If I don't go, who will If I don't say it, who will Like all of this?

48:56

And it's just like exhausting.

49:00

No wonder I have like five, you know, chronic illnesses.

49:04

Now, you know, because it's just like there's too much to carry.

49:08

Yeah wow. Woo, who just gave me so much to reflect on.

49:13

Wow, I feel like my mind is blown.

49:16

We do.

49:18

I do wanna honor your time, and so, as we wind down the episode, there are two questions that we ask all of our guests who grace us with their presence.

49:28

One is something that awaits those people off, so I'm excited to hear your response.

49:34

But what is one thing that you would do differently if you had to redo your doctoral journey?

49:38

You had to do your PhD all over again, for some strange reason.

49:41

What is something that you would do differently?

49:45

Okay, I think I would have gotten a PhD in sociology instead of psychology.

49:50

Okay, why is that?

49:51

Yeah, I enjoyed the sociology major more.

49:56

Just, they had more classes on race and urbanism.

50:00

And yeah, dartmouth, the sociology department was one of the more woke departments.

50:07

You know where psychology was pretty, it was very neuroscience focused.

50:11

So I think I enjoyed those classes more.

50:14

I think I didn't see it as like, as, and I think I just had some of that white patriarchal like hierarchy, like full psychological and brain sciences is more impressive than sociology, which seems a lot feminine and whatever.

50:28

But then you know there are more female faculty in sociology usually and that kind of stuff.

50:32

But I think sociology as a discipline suits my integrated and embodied way.

50:41

I am really interested in complex systems and I like that.

50:45

You, you know, usually sociologists have to write a whole book about a thing like can't just write an article, you have to kind of do like an in depth, a much more in depth project in order, which just makes I'm definitely like I'm not a generalist, I'm like very much like there's three things in the world that matter to me and like I mean like, for example, like I'll go and talk to like vintage dealers and be like, oh, that's so interesting, like I've never seen a 1970s revival of a 1920s piece like that before, and they'll be like are you going to do it?

51:17

I'm like no, I just like vintage, which basically means I will not stress to reinventage.

51:21

You know what I mean.

51:22

I'm just a personality and so I think sociology kind of suits that like going deep Right right, going deep for like five years on one thing yes, you're the first person to say that they would have studied a different or been in a different discipline, so that is interesting, and that was an integrated piece of that help.

51:42

I know enough about it to know that I would have probably done well, you know.

51:47

Yeah, I'm sure you'd have done well wherever you are that kind of person, as many of us are, we will just succeed, for God's sake.

51:55

Yeah, we'll just get it life and the more opportunities we have because I mean even, like even my black female friends who've had much less privilege than I do when you look, like dollar for dollar, like how much they make out of nothing, you know what I mean Like it's amazing.

52:15

Yeah, it's really amazing. Yeah, it is really amazing.

52:19

What is one final piece of advice that you have for current or prospective black men and non-binary doctoral students?

52:27

I think I would just say at every opportunity, every situation, whether it's a fellowship, a scholarship, a job offer, an invitation to collaborate or contribute to an edited volume, I would just ask myself am I too sacred for this?

52:43

And if the answer is no, then then I proceed with discerning whether I want to do it or not, but the first question being am I too sacred for this?

52:56

Hmm, yeah, this is me like running through my brain the list of things that I have already said yes to.

53:06

Am I too sacred for this?

53:08

Thank you so much, christina, for leaving us with that Like existential thought, and joining us on the Co-Works with Podcast has been such a joy learning more about your journey, learning more about your work and the inspiration that you give us all to reach inside of ourselves and find the divine black woman that we all are.

53:30

Thank you so much.

53:33

Thank you, such a joy to be here.

53:46

Thank you again for listening to this week's episode of the Cohort Sisters Podcast.

53:50

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54:04

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54:08

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