A few weeks ago, xoNecole was invited to attend Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) third annual Millennial Media Row. I wasn't sure what to expect or why we were chosen specifically but that changed soon after the event started. Over the last four years, we have seen a dramatic shift in terms of leadership and it has raised concern for where we are headed as a country. With the 2020 Presidential election coming up quickly, a lot of support has been thrown behind candidates that can defeat Trump with consideration of platforms coming in second. In a perfect world with a perfect candidate, those two things would coexist but the question is, do they?
Before the last Presidential election, there was one voice that resonated with the thoughts of black women across the nation. Rep. Waters quickly became a refreshing voice to younger voters even though her career in politics was well established and extensive. She said what we were all thinking with unwavering, unapologetic confidence. With over 40 years in public service, Rep. Waters has become one of the most powerful women in American politics of current times.
After making history by becoming the first woman and first African American Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, she taught black women the importance of "reclaiming my time" and how to take up space when you get a seat at the table. Rep. Waters is nothing short of role model for black millennial women and trusted advisor for honest commentary on the state of our nation. So I knew sitting down and speaking with her was going to leave me inspired and ready to create change in my community.
Below are a few standout quotes from our conversation to encourage and ignite black women as we progress forward in this election season.
*Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
On black women’s power and leadership in the political arena:
"First of all, what I'm pleased about is finally there's some recognition that black women make a significant difference in these campaigns. And what the women did, I believe in Alabama, was it? Where they got so much press and the coverage has gone a long way toward absolutely sealing the fact that black women can and make a difference. But I've kind of always known that. I've always known that black women somehow took leadership without it being given to them. [They] stood up and even [as they were] accused of being confrontational and bossy and sassy and all of that, but spoke their mind in an effort to protect their children and their families, etc. So I think that black women know what the issues are. I think black women are concerned about not only their ability to realize their potential."
On the importance of black women supporting each other:
"I have found that black women not only can get along well but can organize and work together in ways where sisters appreciate each other. And I think that is being demonstrated more and more. And so when they take this togetherness that we are witnessing, and we're seeing, and apply it in the political arena, they make things happen. And so I think that black women are gaining more respect and not just being looked at as volunteers, but as paid personnel, [executing] jobs in all aspects of these campaigns.
"We have black women writers, we have black women that are graphic artists, we have black women lawyers, etc. And increasingly those talents are being, I think, appreciated. Increasingly black women are feeling more comfortable in coming forward and saying, 'I can do that.' Yes, I'd like to have a job here. And so, I just think that the future for black women is promising. And I think that we are going to see black women achieve success in the areas that were never thought of as places where black women could offer leadership. And I'm very comfortable and very pleased with that."
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"I think that we are going to see black women achieve success in the areas that were never thought of as places where black women could offer leadership. And I'm very comfortable and very pleased with that."
On where black women millennials should start to break into politics:
"My advice is to get into a campaign, put your nose in everywhere, [and] learn what these relationships are all about. Learn how money is raised. That's an investment. Go and choose someone that you think exemplifies the kind of leadership that you would like to see in your community, in your neighborhood. I do like the idea of local politics. I do like the idea of city councils and state legislatures. As a matter of fact, I think it is more rewarding than being in Congress. Congress is a huge place where it takes a long time to navigate a piece of legislation from the House, through the Senate, and up to the presidency."
On why she doesn’t wait for permission and neither should you:
"This past weekend we had a busy schedule and I did a number of things. [Among those things,] I had an event at a church [that] was doing something extraordinarily inspiring with the young people telling the history of the civil rights movement and the voting rights movement. While I was in the church, the choir started to sing these old spirituals and gospel music. And there's one [that] says, 'Before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord to be free.' And I thought you know what, that's what you call resistance.
"I got emotional about it because here you had songs like that, developed by black people who live that resistance and who meant what they said. And while we don't have slavery, I think sometimes our minds are still enslaved because we refuse to exercise our judgment and we're waiting for somebody to give us permission to do and to be. And now that's one thing that I pride myself on, I don't wait for permission."
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"While we don't have slavery, I think sometimes our minds are still enslaved because we refuse to exercise our judgment and we're waiting for somebody to give us permission to do and to be. And now that's one thing that I pride myself on, I don't wait for permission."
On how to get things accomplished in the face of adversity:
"My mother said, 'Do with what you got.' So, I started taking all that I learned from my mother and my grandmother about how to do with what you have and not be stymied by what you don't have. So that's kind of a part of me. I really believe what I'm saying. I didn't feel any sense of danger. I didn't feel any sense of being worried about whether or not anybody likes me or not."
On what she encourages black women to do going into the future:
"Well, you know one of the things that has always bothered me is, black people as hard as they may be working, you know for their families and you know in the church and all that, don't demand anything of us. You don't tell us to come to your community meetings. I have white people call me from all over the country, telling me what they want me to do, not even from my district. Nobody asked us any real questions about public policy. What are the records of the elected officials? What are they voting for?
"We have elected officials who vote for payday lending and people don't know. That's what's trapping our community into long-term debt that they can't get out of. But nobody says anything to them about it. And so I think that I would say, particularly for black women, get together and invite elected officials at every level of government to come to where you are, organize an event because we do get together all the time. Let's just ask elected officials to come. And if black women do that, I think they will pay attention."
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Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
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I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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