Transcript

Josh Rivers: Elijah, thank you so much for joining me on Busy Being Black. We've been having a conversation about having you on the show for what feels like an eternity. I'm so glad that it's happening now, on the eighth anniversary of OTV. I'm so proud of you and I'm so glad that you're here.

Elijah McKinnon: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honoured and privileged to be in this space with you. I'm a deep admirer and fan of yours, so thank you for holding space for this sacred convening.

Josh: As you know, to open my conversations on Busy Being Black, I ask all of my guests the same question: How's your heart?

Elijah: My heart is full of love and pleasure and wonder. I'm thinking a lot about release and letting go, as opposed to surrendering, and so a lot of what fuels me and fills my heart right now is opportunities to get closer to that invitation to explore and be a bit more adventurous and courageous in my approach to calling what is sacred and divine in.

Josh: Surrender is a word that I have tussled with, and it's so interesting to hear that you're moving away from surrender, particularly as it relates to the divine, because these two ideas, if you will, are almost always presented together, right? We surrender to some higher power, we surrender to some greater divinity, what have you. Talk to me more about this decision to move away from surrender. What is it about release and letting go that differs from surrender?

Elijah: Surrendering has and holds a space in my heart that I think and believe throughout the duration of my 20s I had to wave the white flag, right? Like there was just moments in time where I just couldn't anymore, right? There was wisdom and knowledge that I did not have access to and so therefore I had to quite literally surrender. Entering into the third decade of my life has been an invitation for me to explore what it looks like to intentionally release or intentionally let go or intentionally transition, and so much of my work and my practice currently is about cultivating invitations to sunset: How do we send things off? A good friend of mine and sister-in-slayage often talks about how things need to die. Things actually need to be laid to rest so that other opportunities can bear the fruits of our labour, to really truly come alive.

Josh: That's a really helpful way to think about the difference between surrendering and letting go. And of course, my resistance to surrender has always been not letting go of control. I'm not going to be told what to do by anyone: Ancestors, higher powers, my dad, nobody is going to tell me what to do. I will figure this out the hard way. But then that's also my attraction to surrender and letting go. Sometimes when I am gripping the steering wheel, I'm prone to veer off the cliff. What if I do get a little bit better at letting in? How do I open myself up? And I think that's the journey I've been on this year practicing sobriety. So much of that is about letting myself be touched and moved by the world, and not running from myself and other people and experiences. Surrender has a new texture for me now than it's had in previous years.

Elijah: I really love that because it also is an invitation for you, right? To get a little bit closer to the ways in which our minds work, I think that the mind is such a fascinating object that we just hold within us, but also is outside of us. I think that that's what's so beautiful. The mind is actually influenced outside of us, right? Like we have a mind that is inside of our bodies, but it's actually influenced by what we see and what we hear and what we taste and what we touch, right? That's what actually gives our mind something to reflect and mirror back. I think it’s so beautiful to be in constant communication with what is happening around you and what is happening inside of you and how we can get in – I don't even want to say better alignment, but with just more alignment between the two. So, I'm happy that this journey, in whatever practice that arrives at in your body, is something that feels nourishing and is centred and anchored in care because so much around the surrendering that you were talking about is usually by force. And I am just trying to live a life that is anchored in duty over obligation, an invitation versus like a forceful intrusion. And so that's where I get really excited. You're tuned in, lyou understand that there's actually work that we have to do collectively and individually to get to that space.

Josh: Yeah, and the last thing I'll say on that is that idea of the mind is so interesting because it's not only that our mind is a consequence of and always an interaction with other ideas, people, moments and experiences outside of porous border of our bodies, but also our mind extends beyond the border of the self. Right? Our mind is also neurally networked, if you will, with people like us and not like us. And it really kind of troubles this distinction of the Western construct of the human, right? This kind of singular entity whose main productive goal in life – outside of reproduction and the propagation of the species – is actually to ascend some sort of individualistic higher plane,. And so this idea that the mind actually is not confined to whatever space we believe it occupies within our body, but is actually part of some much more larger interconnected whole, I think is really invigorating as well. What's enchanting you at the minute?

Elijah: Well, as a fantastical queen, I'm quite enchanted by very simple things. I think life is such a gift and it's so precious. And right now, what I'm most enchanted by is the practice of slowing down and paring down. Finding really beautiful, soft, tender, intimate moments to just exist beyond production or beyond labour or beyond service. Also understanding the privilege and the luxury that is held within that pursuit and how challenged I am by that: why being able to slow down is a luxury and a privilege and the ways capitalism and supremacy culture keep us so far away from that. I’m delighted by my ability to advance through life this way, with that perfect balance of grace and grit. Oftentimes I am in these spaces where individuals talk about like, “Oh you have this light,” or, “You hold this light,” and I think for so long – because of ego – I was like, “Yes I am light” and like, “I'm the chosen one.” But what I'm actually realising is that I'm a mirror for those who don't have access to that light source. So when they see me tapping into my power, it's not envy or jealousy. It's not anger or frustration. Those may be parts of it sometimes, but what they're actually seeing is someone who has actually cultivated the privilege to be able to tap into that. So many people that I get to divine with and share space with see that as a window. And so it's been a beautiful space to divine in with the people who I hold sacred and the people who really understand ritual as a form of liberation. So those are some of the things that I think I've been musing and meditating on over the past couple of weeks.

Josh: I love that. You’ve made me think about my own softness. I don't just want to be able to rest. I want to be able to be soft, to be tender, to be properly vulnerable. I was joking with my friend the other day that the vulnerability I sometimes embody feels like a fabricated one, right? Like it's safe, I know just how vulnerable I can be and I guard that kind of very specific vulnerability, if that makes sense. But there's still a barrier there that I’m working on taking out brick by brick.

Elijah: Oh, it makes complete sense. I mean, there's something that is quickly coming up for me. I was attending a leadership training a couple of weeks ago and a fellow executive was practicing this modelling that I really, really loved. And it was: there's a difference between being vulnerable and being transparent … Oh, your face says it all!

Josh: Well that says a lot since I was considering the amount of Botox in my face. So if you're seeing an expression that means it's really hit home.

Elijah: But it's so true. We can be really, really vulnerable in practice, or we can be very transparent in theory. What I've been trying to get closer to is, how do we have a bit more balance? Because I think I'm really good at being transparent. I'm very good at telling the truth: “This is what's happening.” And I'm learning how to become more vulnerable and sharing that with people who I build trust with. Being transparent doesn’t mean you establish trust. You're just telling people things and it's not deeply rooted in transaction. I don't have to listen to your response of my transparency, for example. I don't have to be engaged.

Josh: My mind is blown because that is a really helpful heuristic. I can't think of a more accessible word than heuristic because I haven't thought about that transparency and vulnerability dichotomy. And that actually brings up a lot of questions for me in my mind, which I'll process offline, but thank you for putting that into my orbit. I really love an Instagram post of yours. It's from a couple of years ago. And so I don't know if it's even appropriate to bring up, right? We all change so much in the course of the day, let alone a couple of years, but I imagine it might still resonate with you. The post says, “I'm allergic to your lack of imagination.” And the caption says, “The 2020s are definitely giving flop era vibes. Put me on ice and wake me in 2030. Or better yet, just keep me on ice and don't wake me till society has collectively decided to love, cherish and protect Black people as much as they do their greed, ego and patriarchy.” And now, as then, it makes me think of a conversation with Patrisse Cullors. She was in conversation with Krista Tippett on On Being and said, I'm paraphrasing, someone imagined chains, someone imagined guns, someone imagined death. Our job is to imagine something else. How are you tending to your imagination in this moment?

Elijah: That's a big question. And I think something that comes up for me as a quote by June Jordan: “If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.” I like to think of my imagination as like a portal to a place that I know. I think sometimes we often we'll think of an imaginative space as this unknown, right? It's this other world. And while that can be true, because multiple truths can exist at once, I actually like to think of my imagination as like a place that I do know. It's a place that I do spend a lot of time at. It is this place that I'm very familiar with. And it brings up this notion around just like my upbringing. When I hear that question and when I think about imagination, I didn't grow up in this incredibly fantastical, surrealist home. My upbringing and my roots are very pragmatic – through survival. As the child of a partnerless parent, I was taught to be pragmatic because that's how you survived. That's how you learned about the world around you. And I'm often quite weary of individuals who proclaim themselves to be visionary, but can't understand the difference between balancing dream with action. Because we can live in a world that interrogates all of these systems and dismantles everything, but if we're not simultaneously building something else and placing ourselves inside of that world right now, then when we dismantle all of these systems and when we interrogate all of the ways in which these solutions have failed us, we are not actually prepared and invested in what is on the other side. And so I think a lot about my imagination and the grand visions that I have and hold through action. So a lot of that is listening and observing. It's been a lot of times that I’ve been listening to people and listening to what they don't say, so that I can deduce where my gifts bring value to a space. And I'm getting really good at this, which I'm really excited about, and also incredibly terrified about, but I'm so good at removing my gifts from the table. I'm really good at knowing when my gifts are not valued, honoured or respected and deciding to remove them from that space. And I’m not letting you know where they're going. I’m not giving you coordinates. These gifts no longer hold value in this space? Best of luck to you.

Josh: Or as we say, be well.

Elijah: Oh my goodness, bless your heart. I believe that my imagination is protected through solitude and reflection, that’s how I guard it. And I love that you pick up on that. There is an action in guarding one's beauty that resides within them, not like just external beauty, but like the internal beauty. And I think of gifts as a form of that. Whatever gift you hold, whatever wisdom you have garnered, whatever knowledge you feel called and compelled to share, it's such a gift and it's an honour that you hold that. What you choose to do with your gifts is actually where power resides. And so for me, when I think about the imagination, I'm thinking also about like the adult learning cycle: experience and action, and reflecting and thinking. I feel like imagination is like right in between those axes. Somewhere right in middle is where my imagination lies.

Josh: That's so beautiful. I'm perhaps prone to do this, to think of the imagination as a protected space not for anyone else that isn't necessarily a part of me. It's a place I have access to, because I love my solitude, right? And I guard it fiercely, and I love being on my own. I find myself so entertaining, but I also just love being in my head and doing what pleases me. So solitude is immensely important for me. And it's also when I do that imagination tending, right? I think of my imagination more as a garden, and so what I'm learning about now is how am I taking what's in this beautiful, abstract place and actually living it. How am I bringing my imagination into the world. I suppose I do that with Busy Being Black, but there things I want for myself and for other people as well too. I think it's so helpful to see the imagination as something to be shared in a more generative way.

Elijah: I love that you're on this journey, because it also means that everyone that you touch is also experiencing that along with you, right, in whatever ways in which it invites itself into their body. That to me is what is so powerful. It actually brings up something Patrisse Cullors said: we can feel sad, we can feel hurt, we can feel demoralised, but like we can't give up. That's the nucleus. We can feel all of these things, right? And every one of them can be true. But as long as we find some form of inspiration and drive to push us forward, that's the imaginative space that I want to be in. Oftentimes people ask me what do I do? And I tell them I’m a pop star or executive diva because I won't be bound by some title or some idea or identity that you believe is what allows me to move throughout the world. What allows me to move throughout the world is my agency and autonomy over my f*cking body. That's it. And then whatever wig I decide to put on is what I have imagined. So, if I choose to wear a short kinky bob, then that's what it is today. It's a short kinky bob day. But tomorrow it may give a 40-inch yaki unit. And that's my imagination. That's what's so beautiful about also being Black and queer and holding the intersections that reside within them: there is this other space that we get to tap into.

Josh: Congratulations on eight years of OTV. It's a tremendous accomplishment. For those who don't know, it might be helpful for you to talk about what OTV is: first, as a vision and then, what it does in the world – in action, as you might say.

Elijah: I love that question and I, one, cannot believe I'm old enough to be the founder of an organisation that is eight years old. What was I doing? Shouldn't I have been out in the street somewhere? But yes, eight years, it's quite lovely and such an honour to be able to continue doing this work. And to have watched so many organisations that started around our inception that are unfortunately no longer here or that are continuing to do this great work, It's just amazing to be in an ecosystem that is actively challenging the way in which media portrays, identifies, mobilises and activates our stories that are oftentimes missing from not only the big screens, but even the small screens. OTV really serves as an intervention: a new way, an alternative way of making media. And so through our work over the last eight years, we have arrived at a non-profit streaming platform, as well as media incubator that really centres artistic vitality and expression by intersectional artists. Intersectional artists really being defined by individuals who are marginalised not only by market but also society because of the race, gender, sexuality, nationality, disability or other... identity markers that keep them from not only entering the market, but also allowing their stories to be told authentically. And so what we've done over the past eight years is really develop an ecosystem that is really void of the ways in which media has dictated the way that our stories get not only told, but the way that they arrive to our communities. We really sit kind of right at that intersection of, yes, empowering artists, but also engaging community. And oftentimes as a media network or a platform or an incubator, you really have to kind of take one on, right? It's either you're going to engage in the artist or you're going to really stimulate the community. And what we've been able to do so beautifully over the last eight years is build a community that really supports our artists. And that is what I think continues to bring me back to this work and helps motivate new and exciting ways to engage in this really volatile industry.

Josh: A phrase that stands out to me is artistic vitality. And just this morning I was reading an essay by Okwui Enwezor, the late art critic and curator. He's basically responsible for a reintroduction, or a recalibration of, the lens through which Black African people are seen in the art world. So he did these kind of huge installations and exhibitions – Documenta 11, the Venice Biennale – to kind of challenge the kind of white western vampiric lens, a way of looking at Black African people. And I've also been reading John Berger, the late art critic who challenged our ways of seeing and understanding art as a product of an artist, who was going through things and experiencing the world and trying to say something, and that we have to pay more attention to the life of the artist. And so I guess artistic vitality is really standing out to me in this moment, particularly as it relates to the building of a community as well. How do you think about artistic vitality as something to aspire to and nurture? I guess how do you do it is what I'm asking. How do you vitalise the artist?

Elijah: Oh, that is such a stunning question. I mean, I think it centres care. It centres care over production and extractive practices. I think that there's just history that dates beyond me, and several decades beyond me, around the harmful and extractive nature of the film and entertainment and media landscape. And so I believe, and OTV's mission believes, in a two pronged approach, in terms of a theory of change. The media ecosystem is very, very volatile to individuals who hold a multiple marginalised identities. And we don't even need to get into that because we universally know how challenging this ecosystem is. So our theory of change really positions itself to repair that, right? How do we really repair that? What are the ways in which we need to isolate and specifically call in the opportunities to minimise harm? So that's one. And then two, simultaneously, we gotta build a whole new thing, right? Because we can't wait for that harm to be repaired. We gotta do something else on the periphery. And so, when I think of artistic vitality, and when I think about the ways of an artist having everything that they need to feel nourished and empowered, I think about bravery. This is just through our theory of change: the ways that our artists have come to us and been empowered to say, “this is what I want, this is what I need” have a ripple effect in a sector. Because once you expose someone to a possibility model, they can't unlearn that. Actually, I was just doing some random research around neurodivergence and it’s impossible for the brain to unlearn something. You don't unlearn it, you can isolate, but you don't unlearn. There's no control, alt, delete. So new possibility models are powerful because they spark opportunities for people to recall things that they've experienced with us when they go out into the world. And bravery is such a big piece of the work that we do because it's not only providing an access point for someone who has a lived experience where they maybe have not been able to be incredibly brave, right? Or not had the opportunity to be steeped and surrounded in courageous opportunities or conversations. But when they leave, right, from whatever, you know, canon or opportunity or experience that we have been able to activate, they know that it exists. It's real. And so when I think of artistic vitality and thinking about something that is sustained through an ecosystem. It isn't something that is elected, and it isn't something that is done in isolation. It's something that everyone has to subscribe to or it doesn't work. What I love about the work that we get to do and what I love about the stories that we get to amplify is that they're coming from the heart. I've talked about this a lot with Marvin Maddox over at FGUK around how storytelling is heart's work, right? It really is heart's work. And so we get to do that and we get to centre it in a way that reminds artists that their gifts bring value to the space, however they're arriving. And we are here to help you nourish that to the best of our abilities, so that when you re-engage in the big, big wild world, you're able to anchor in something that is tangible, that you created, that is of you and that no one can take away. And that is vital: it is yours. It is also what is most challenging about the work. It's really challenging to meet artists where they are, at the variety of spectrums in which we serve and help them out of where they are.

Josh: The phrase that is bouncing around in my head, I feel like it was just given to me: “We become human again”. Right? If we think about the ways queer Black people are objectified, fetishised and dehumanised; the ways that there are only certain queer Black stories that the media machine wants to amplify, there's an actual scarcity of opportunities, right? It’s not a fabricated scarcity. So much of this experience can be dehumanising and demoralising and I'm so enlivened by the idea that queer Black people encounter you and your team and the community at OTV and feel like they're becoming human again, right? That how they feel matters as much as the stories they wanna tell. And the second thing is around storytelling. There's a wonderful quote from Chinua Achebe:

“If you look at the world in terms of storytelling, you have, first of all, the man who agitates, the man who drums up the people. I call him the drummer. Then you have the warrior who goes forward and fights, but you also have the storyteller who recounts the event. And this is the one who survives, who outlives all the others. It is the storyteller, in fact, who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that survivors must have, otherwise, surviving would have no meaning. This is very, very important. Memory is necessary if surviving is going to be more than just a technical thing.”

Elijah: Oh, I love that. And that resonates with me so incredibly deeply, especially around like just outlasting like the test of time. Because that really is something that isn't on our side, right? It is something that is constantly progressing and constantly changing the ways in which we engage with the world. And so the storyteller really is the individual who is the keeper of our secrets, right? It is the angelic troublemaker who also has the opportunity to say like, this did happen or didn't happen or happened this way or from my recall, right? At the end of the day, I think a big part of artistic vitality is shape-shifting. It's being able to really allow yourself to mould and change the ways in which your gifts are able to land. That's really what it is.

Josh: I'm having goosebumps, I just had a total a-ha! moment.

Elijah: Yes, we love that.

Josh: We are all already storytellers. If we think about the murder of our sibling O'Shea Sibley, or indeed any other murder of any other queer Black person since the advent of social media, the stories that we adopt and choose to share as social media citizens, as citizens of the world of the internet, means that we become the storytellers, right? And I think that so many of us have had that fact obscured from us. We don't see ourselves as the storytellers. We don't even see ourselves participating per se in the kind of weaving of a kind of larger, more damaging story. But that's actually what we've been made to do – even if we don't intend to – is be the storytellers of very limiting narratives about Black life broadly, but more specifically about who queer Black people can be in the world.

Elijah: And just the OTV perspective, I think that that's what a lot of people don't understand is how much of a privilege it is to have our own platform. We aren't beholden to anyone beyond our community. We are not waiting for approval. We are not waiting for affirmation. We are not waiting for the industry to validate or affirm the work that we're doing, which then creates a whole other system of gatekeeping, right? Because we now are the keepers of a platform and we choose what is and isn't being platformed in any given moment. And that comes with a huge duty and responsibility that I, in my role, am actively trying to learn because there's this thing that happens and that I've just witnessed over the last several years as an executive: I must be complete, right? I must know everything that must exist in the world around intersectionality, right? And every issue and any subject matter, and at every time of the day, I must have a recall and experience to relate. Or anytime I walk into the room, my transness or my queerness or my Blackness must speak for thousands of people, right?

Josh: Of course, you’re supposed to be a promise of the future.

Elijah: Exactly – and that, to me, comes with a huge invitation to dismantle, right? Because I do not speak for everyone, but I understand that when I show up into a space, I am never showing up alone. And I'm also not, you know, removed from the fact that also is where a lot of my anxiety is derived from, right? And that what fuels a lot of my depression is that weight that society places on bodies that look like ours. And so what is so important for us at OTV is that we are constantly taking moments for ourselves to centre and anchor in care, because at the end of the day, no one else is going to do that work for us. And if we want to actually change a sector, we have to model that behaviour. It isn't something that is going to change overnight and it isn't something that we may even reap the benefits of in our lifetime, fully and holistically. But I know that the small actions that we take towards centring care and anchoring ourselves in something that is beyond production and labour is what allows the storytellers of our time to really show up bravely and authentically. And that, to me, is legacy work. [Share this] That’s the thing that I’m more interested in that just entertainment.

Josh: Yeah, and I want to connect you to my conversation with Mikael Owunna, the photographer, engineer and artist. In his research into queer African histories he found that the role of the queer and/or trans person in African cosmologies was as the shaman or the gatekeeper between worlds and planes; and that part of the role of the gatekeeper is as a conduit for messages, communication and to help people in their rituals. So we can understand gatekeeper, as you've challenged here, as someone keeping something from us, guarding an archive that either we are in and we need to get to, or keeping us out of a space that we have title to. And we can understand gatekeeper in the queer African sense of gatekeeping: as those who guard – as in protect and defend – the gates to enlightenment, completeness and wholeness. I wanted to offer that to you.

Elijah: I love that. Thank you for that offering, it’s beautiful.

Josh: One of the things I've been so attracted to in you is your softness and how you guard that softness and make space for it. It’s so intentional. So, as our conversation comes to a close, what is it about softness in particular that is so important to you?

Elijah: Yeah, this is a really beautiful question and I really enjoy any invitation to lean into the softness because so much of my life and the facade of being an executive diva is around this rigidity and harshness and it's hard, right? Everything has to be so polished and presented in a really digestible and compact way; and the skin has to be popping and the beard has to be bearding and everything just needs to be something. And so I think when I meditate on softness, it is such a beautiful invitation for me to remind myself that I am not invincible, but my strength moves beyond measure, right? Like yes, I do break, right? I do have moments where I am tender and I have to heal my wounds. But the reason why I guard my softness is because I have just experienced so much loss. I have experienced so much trauma. I have experienced so much debilitating sorrow in my life that those parts of me are always healing. They are always in conversation with what I am experiencing in my world around me. And so in order to just humanise this hardness that I have had to endure and the resilience that I have had to embody, it is imperative that I allow myself the opportunity to experience softness and care and nourishment in a way that really informs and activates parts of my body here on this plane, on earth, right now. We can talk about divining and we can talk about going to these other worlds, but what I have learned is that because of the body that I'm in, it is expected for me to endure pain and trauma – and in exuberant amounts – as a rite of passage. Like, how much can you burden before you crumble? And that is no longer a way that I want to live. It's unfortunate that I've had to watch so many Black women, Black queer people, Black trans people, Black trans femmes have to burden and shoulder so much of the world's pain and still be, like you've said, that conduit, bridge builders or building opportunities or building anything where anything nothing exists, which is so much of what I know our experience is to hold. I need something to indulge in that is beyond my function and labour in this world. I don't want to die here and be “like that bitch worked”. That's not what I'm here for. I'm really here to spread some of that softness and that sweetness and the wisdom and the gifts that have been imparted upon me. [Share this] When I reflect on those gifts and that wisdom, I don't think about my mother as a resilient woman. Yes, she was, but what she really actually taught me was care, right? How to care for myself and care for other people and how doing both and-or one at the same time is beneficial to everyone. So when I think about softness and I think about how I can share it or why it's so close to me and why I revere something so precious is because I think I’m entitled to it. I’m entitled to be soft.

Josh: Yes!

Elijah: And that’s that on that. That’s on period.

Josh: I want to share something with you: “If you hold me while I fantasise, I'll guard you while you sleep.”

Elijah: Yes, absolutely. So much of this year in my current life is really getting close to the person I am when no one's watching …

Josh: Oh my god, the ancestors just jumped on my back.

Elijah: Oh, they’re on my neck all the time. I think we've talked about this before, but like so much around who I am, I learned through thousands of literal strangers, right? Like I have no idea who these people are, but they're telling me who I am, and I unfortunately believe them. And so now, I have such a beautiful invitation to myself: I actually get to have agency on who I'm becoming, right? Like, I have lived many lives and I will live many more, and so who I choose to become is a softer, more kind person in this world. And a part of that is by literally leading with softness because I just witnessed so many people be forceful, right? I witnessed so many people really exert power in a way that doesn't land with softness. I go to sleep every night and I sleep real sweetly. I let this world go and I go to another place and I love it there. And then spirit brings me back into body and then I wake up and I'm like, “okay, I can do it here again, I guess.” You know what I mean? I can be down with this because I hold that softness as like a sacred part of my divination. I love that you brought in the undone because how do we become more undone? I want to be unraveled.

Josh: Yeah – and coming undone is not only in this process of living many lives and becoming something else, but also knowing that we can come undone and be put back together, right? That's part of it too. I think that's the resistance to softness can be: I can't come undone here because who will put me back together? It is hard.

Elijah: Well, because it's work. It is work. I wish that I could just say that I woke up like this. I mean, it's close, but it is the work. But it's the guarding of what is sacred that allows us to show up to this work that we have been called to do. And that to me is where the privilege and honour lies: I get to do this. I'm invited to do this. No one's forcing me. And you said it so beautifully that we do need people who are fighting. For me, my invitation is that my fight just looks different now. Same fight. Different type of fight.

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