W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell is a Peabody Award winner, 4X Emmy Award winner, documentary filmmaker, stand-up comedian, Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, Official Ambassador of the band Fishbone, self-proclaimed #1 Bruce Lee Expert…
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In this interview, Kamau Bell opens by giving flowers to Dominique Morgan for being an unapologetic Black trans woman educator and advocate on social media. Morgan explains her approach: showing people how to learn without “looking like a doggone fool” and expanding themselves without burdening others. She emphasizes that relationships are “disruptors” necessary for meaningful engagement, comparing asking questions without established connection to asking a neighbor you’ve never spoken to for sugar.
Morgan discusses her authentic social media presence (bonnet sometimes on, sometimes off) as intentional resistance to pressures on Black trans women to appear a certain way, which has built genuine community specifically with Black women. She previously worked as CEO of Black and Pink, the largest prison abolitionist organization centering LGBTQ+ incarcerated individuals.
Morgan recounts her incarceration from ages 18-27, including 18 months in solitary confinement, six months on death row due to overcrowding, and how this experience, combined with her parents’ deaths before she turned 27, paradoxically prepared her for her 2020 transition. She shares meeting John Lotter (killer of Brandon Teena) in solitary, later receiving thanks from him through her Black and Pink work, and dedicating a healing room to Brandon Teena, illustrating her philosophy that “no one should be known by the worst thing they’ve ever done”.
Morgan details her 2024-2025 legal case: after being let go from Okra Project in August 2022, she was indicted in October 2024, spent two years fighting charges related to allegedly untracked bail support funds, and ultimately chose to serve 30 days on Rikers starting April 2025 rather than continue an exhausting battle where her story risked becoming politicized, taking her power back while gaining clarity on her purpose.
She distinguishes empathy from radical compassion learned through Stanford’s program, which defines compassion as “bearing witness” without requiring immediate action. This has informed her approach to current events, including the killing of Nolan Wells and systemic oppression.
Morgan emphasizes the need to see Black trans women as individuals, not monoliths, noting that transition doesn’t automatically mature someone emotionally: “Estrogen doesn’t make you have… Showtime synergy.”
Follow Dominique Morgan on Substack at https://thedominiquemorgan.substack.com/
Donate to Black and Pink at blackandpink.org, The Maryland Safe Haven (Formerly Baltimore Safe Haven) at baltimoresafehaven.org, and Sister Song at sistersong.net.
Watch The Okra Project’s response to the legal situation mentioned in the show at https://youtu.be/0dsOx6pfcA8?si=W1MOGGFjw3ZMYa6h and read the Them.us article at https://www.them.us/story/okra-project-nonprofit-video-dominique-morgan-allegations?shem=aimgspe .
Check out Mahogany Mommies and check out their shirts at mahoganymommies.com. Use code WKB for a discount.
Buy the 2027 We Gather calendar by artist Jen Bloomer that features Kamau at radicistudios.com. Use WKamauBell10 to get 10% off.
Who’s With Me is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Chris Dowd. Distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Hey, everybody. It's me, W. Kamau Bell. Welcome back to another episode of Who's With Me. This is episode 25 with activist Dominique Morgan. This is a wide-ranging conversation. Dominique is great. If you're not familiar with Dominique's work, Dominique is an award-winning activist, an artist, a speaker. She's got a street named after her in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. She's also a musical recording artist, but I know her best as someone who makes Instagram videos for where she calls balls and strikes about whatever's going on in the news, often related to her identity as a black trans woman. So I think that's how I stumbled across her work on Instagram, just sort of like she wears a bonnet sometimes. Sometimes you can't even see her whole face. She's just like talking about what's going on in the world, again, often as it relates to black people or specifically black trans women. And this is a pretty layered conversation because also earlier this year, Dominique spent 30 days in prison for a crime that she pled guilty to, We'll get into that later about all that. I wanted Dominique to be able to tell her story about what happened there. We'll get into a whole thing. It's, but you know, we talked, we thought about maybe like cutting it or cutting it down, but I really felt like you don't hear people tell their own stories. Often sort of on like all the way out and sort of from beginning to end. I think it's important, um, to hear. And also I think because recently I was at San Quentin prison, I went to the San Quentin film festival, the third annual San Quentin film festival. And so I've spent a good amount of time around incarcerated people and people who are looking for redemption and people who admit to what they did and also have to move on. So I'm always open to people who are ready to tell their story. So anyway, we'll get to the deep end of that later. What's going on? First of all, coffee spilled. Rock, paper, scissors, cheese is out. Yes, it's out. I said it's out. It's still out. It was out last week and it's still out. But yes, you can get the book. We did a book signing. Me, Adam, and actually my daughter, Peanut, who's featured in the story, did a book signing at Mrs. Dalloway's in Oakland. Peanut signed a bunch of books. We had our first reading. I'm going to be doing a bunch of readings at schools around Berkeley and Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area. November 7th, I'll be at the Oakland Public Library doing a book signing. Look into that. Yeah, so Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese is out everywhere. Get it while they're hot. Uh, Couple of dates. I have some dates to promote, or I guess one day I promoted the, the Oakland library. I will be at the facing race conference in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 14th. Uh, facing race is a conference about race. They've been doing this for longer than we were. Then the Republicans have been demonizing DEI actually facing race is how I sort of came to prominence as a comedian. Cause it's a bunch of social justice activists and, and anti-racist who come together and talk about racism and how to dismantle it. And they invited me in early days of my career before I ever was on TV. And so I haven't been for years, so I'm excited to go back now as an OG. Tressie McMillan Cottom will be there. Lots of great people will be there. But again, if you're in the Raleigh, North Carolina area or want to go, I'll be at Facing Race November 14th doing a keynote. So please, yeah, check it out. Also, new Mahogany Mommies are out. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Just dropped some new Mahogany Mommies. This one's a good one. Go gaslight someone else. So, yeah, so I'm a big fan of Mahogany Mommies. They have lots of different messages on their political T-shirts and sweatshirts. I'm proud to rep that company. If you go to mahoganymommies.com, you can get a discount with the code WKB. Lots of great sweatshirts. Please check out. It's a black woman-owned apparel company that I've been supporting for years. But please, the new drop is out. The new drip. Am I too old to say the new drip? The new apparel is out. I'll say that. Last thing to promote, I'm in a calendar. I'm in a 2027 calendar that is accepting pre-orders now. It is called We Gather. It was created by the artist Jen Bloomer. Jen highlights 12 different artists in the calendar who their work is about gathering people together through the things they do. So Jen highlighted me at the Berkeley Rep doing stand-up when I was getting my stand-up back together. She came to a show. I didn't know she was there. But she highlighted me doing stand-up in like a 50-seat theater. And you can see that my 12-year-old was on stage with me at the show. And I'm drinking coffee. And these are all sort of bird's-eye views. So you can see people sort of all in the audience. And it's a great calendar. And also... 10% of the proceeds go to seven different nonprofits that are also highlighted in the calendar. The calendar is called We Gather. It features lots of amazing artists and activists like Valerie Carr, Andrea Gibson, my friend Kate Schatz, who I wrote Do The Work With, Wendy McNaughton, an amazing artist, Mia Birdsong, lots of people, 12 people, but those are just a few of them. You can get the calendar at radicchistudios.com. Click the link that says We Gather Project, radicchistudios.com. We'll put the link in the thing. And use my name, WKMALBEL10, all one word, WKMALBEL10, to get 10% off your order. So like we do in the Bay Area, we make some art. We also try to do some good things to help people. Check out the calendar. And it's time to buy calendars again. 2027 is on the way. It's less than two months to Christmas. All right. It's time to get into business. First of all, shout out to the Golden State Valkyries for winning their first WNBA title at Valhalla in San Francisco. Uh, it was Halloween night. So I had this great thing that a lot of people did that night where we were taking our kids trick-or-treating, but a lot of the houses along the trick-or-treating route had TVs out. So you could watch the game every like four or five houses, be able to stop and queue up with the game for a lot of the game. It didn't seem good is the first game seven ever in, in a WNBA history because they used to only do best of five in the finals, but it's first game seven. But by the time trick-or-treating was over, we went back to the main house we were hanging out with and it was like five minutes left in the game. And we got to watch them win the game. It was so beautiful. Shout out to the Golden State Valkyries. Thank you for inviting me and my wife, Melissa, to a game. Clearly, good luck. Just remember that next season. You know, it was great. Gabby Williams was the MVP, clearly. Put the team on her back. Coach Natalie dropped an F-bomb during the post-game interview. Just very Bay Area. Very Bay Area. Yeah, shout out to the Valkyries. who won in their second season of existence. That doesn't happen in sports. You don't have an expansion team that wins in their second season of existence. And I feel like a bandwagon fan because I've only supported them for two years, but they've only been around for two years. So shout out to the Valkyries. And then as I record this on Monday, November 2nd, I'm sitting here not knowing what happened to the midterms. By the time you get this on November 4th, you'll know more than I do. So yay? It's probably a bunch of yay and aww. Uh, you know, so, you know, it's, so I've already encouraged you to vote. It doesn't, I guess I can say vote next time there's an election, but the thing I want to talk about, uh, as we do this is no matter what happened in the midterm election, one thing I've noticed that we need, I feel like we need to focus on is we need to get woke back. We need to get the idea of woke back. And I know that's sort of controversial because a lot of people demonize woken out people on the, on the, on the right and people on the people who say they're on the left demonize woke. And now it's become a thing where it's just like, you know, Alexandria, Kazi, Cortez was sort of condescending to woke point 1.0. I saw Tim Miller from the bulwark saying like sort of condescending to woke in an interview he was doing, like people should be like, oh, now that we're not doing that woke thing anymore. Meanwhile, if you look around the country and what the Trump administration is doing, it's all very unwoke. So I don't know why we're demonizing this thing. that wants to push in the opposite direction of everything president Trump and his administration doing in this country. Like, like the Trump administration has, has, has presided over over 300,000 black women, uh, going on unemployment and being, losing their jobs. That's very unwoke. Uh, the Trump administration has ice rounding up people in the streets and they, you see that video, they hit, they hit somebody with the car. One of the ice people hit somebody and it was on a bicycle with their car. That's very unwoke. I don't understand how all the things that we, associate with justice that are firmly under the umbrella of woke which again woke is just an expression that black people came up with as a way to say be careful out there it's dangerous keep your top eye open all it meant was be intelligent pay attention think about your community you know that's all it meant and somehow we've turned that into a thing that like is like a democrat talking point when really woke wants the opposite of what trump is doing right now and i think those of us who know that i sort of let woke go because i was like it's not that serious the idea will remain but i feel like whenever we let people demonize the idea of woke, or whenever I let people demonize the idea, I don't know if they realize it, but what I hear when you demonize woke, whether you're on the left or the right, is you're saying, I'll be fine. No matter what happens, I'll be fine. You're saying, I don't need woke. I've got the good insurance. My retirement is fully vested. I live behind gates in my community. I'm white with money. I'm wealthy. So you can sort of put woke down Cause you don't need it. You don't need woke. And, but what you're saying is that you don't have a connection to the people who need us to be a woke country. People are being rounded up by ice. Uh, people who don't want us to be in war, people who. teachers who are having their funding cut or being told they can't tell the true history of this country because it's DEI. You're saying that trans kids are afraid to go to school, that you're not with them. You're saying you're not cool with Palestinian Americans who want to speak out about what they believe with fear of losing their jobs or repercussions, that you're not down with that. When you condescend to woke, you're condescending to everything good that can possibly push back against all the evil that's going on in this country. And so I really want us who know that's not the case to call these people out when they're shitting on woke because what they're saying is, I don't need it. I'll be fine. And it's not about you. It's about the community. And that's why I really, I gave up woke for a long time. Look, I know the history of the word woke. You know, the first recorded utterance of it is in a lead belly song. But that idea of being woke is something that has translated throughout black culture and black society ever since then. And even before then, it's just not the word woke, you know, famously the end of Spike Lee's movie school days is Lawrence Fishburne just screaming, wake up. Like it just like, so the idea of being woke, the idea of being awake is a very powerful idea. And as white people do, they've gentrified it and ruined it. And now they're tossing aside. Now they're done with it. But the core of the idea is justice, equity, specifically starting with black people, but we know if we get it for black people, we will get it for more than just black people because that's how it works in this country. So we have to stop letting some of these open-faced grifters, and I'm thinking about a lot of these right-wing people who now claim to be Democrats, sort of throw our things away that they're done with because they don't need them, when really we know if you're the parents of Nolan Wells, you could use a woke justice system right now. If you're the parents of Javits Frimprong, who was chased down and shot and killed on his way to school in the Bronx by, sounds like it was by maybe his classmates or bullies, that family could use some wokeness right now. All the people condescending to woke aren't even thinking about like high gas prices and high grocery store prices. They're not even thinking about that because they're like, ah, the gas goes up and down. It doesn't affect me. I got money. All of that is under the umbrella of woke. We need an economy that works better for everybody. I'm just done with people demonizing woke. On to my conversation with Dominique Morgan. Dominique Morgan is an award-winning activist. She's won awards from the NAACP. Again, I told you she's got a street named after her in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. She is a content creator making videos on Instagram and online to talk about the things going on in the world. Again, from her perspective as a black trans woman. She's funny. She's unflinching. That's how I found her is just seeing these videos on my timeline. I thought she was so funny and unflinching and I learned a lot from these videos. but the story is not just there. And I think we have to be honest about that. Uh, so in 2024, Morgan was indicted by the Brooklyn district attorney, uh, connected to allegations that she misappropriated nearly a hundred thousand dollars from the nonprofit, the Ochre project, which was under her leadership in July, 2022. The accusation is she diverted $ 99, 000 in funds intended for incarcerated trans people to her personal bank account. Uh, Now, you should know that Dominique Morgan says she did not do this. She said that those funds were used for what they were intended for. You should also know that OKRA Project Executive Director Gabrielle Souza has posted a video to YouTube that she posted a couple months ago on June 5th to respond to what Dominique says happened. So you can go check that out. I don't want to be accused of not presenting different sides of the case, but I did talk to Dominique. So Dominique pled guilty. and spent 30 days in jail earlier this year. And she talks about how she only got 30 days in jail for what sounded like super serious charges and did her time and is now out here telling her story. And she's appearing on Kev on Stage's podcast, on this podcast. She's out in the world doing good work, I believe, for black trans women and doing good work for the black community in general and also pled guilty to this thing. And again, as someone who has spent time around incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people, I have a lot of space for people who serve their time and move on to try to do good work in the world. That doesn't mean everybody has space for them, but I've learned to have a lot of space for that. So I did ask Dominique to tell her story. Again, it's about 46 minutes into the podcast. So if you want to go straight there and listen to it, that's fine. If you want to skip when you get there, that's fine. And I sort of let her tell her story and just served as like, I asked questions to sort of clarify points, but I didn't want to, I wasn't pushing back on things. I just wanted to hear her story. Again, you can go to YouTube and check out the Ochre Projects version of this event. But again, I just think it's important to, for her to tell her story. It's also important to highlight that she is doing good work and has been heralded for the good work she does. So life is complicated and I'm glad that Dominique Morgan is with me. We talk about her identity as a black trans woman. We talk about her incarceration. She's been incarcerated a couple of times. We talk about her journey to come out openly as a black trans woman. And we talk a lot about activism and clarity of purpose. It's a really good conversation. It's a virtual interview. So get prepared for that. But it was a great conversation. I was glad to do it. Enjoy my conversation with Dominique Morgan. Hey, thanks for watching an episode of Who's With Me. If you're on YouTube, please like and subscribe, share, hit that hype button. I hear it makes all the difference. Please like, subscribe, share, hit the hype button. Thank you. Welcome to Who's With Me. Thank you for being here.
15:05
Speaker 2
Thank you.
15:06
Speaker 3
Thank you for having me.
15:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. I start every podcast by giving people some flowers. I give people their flowers because I feel like we don't hear enough about the positive things, especially those of us who exist in social media spaces and who are out here being loud and clear about what we believe in the world. And you are certainly that person. So first of all, thank you for being out and loud and clear about what you believe in the world. and being an educator of people like me who I think I know some stuff, but I don't know what you know. And you're, you're so clear about it that it, I'm not saying it challenges me, but it sort of like puts forth like, this is where you have to be. If you're going to be on our side, if you're going to be with me.
15:42
Speaker 2
Well, thank you. I, I really try to, I try to show people with, you know, I started off in the classroom as an educator, as a sex educator, started off in the clinic and that, that the label of subject matter expert, I, I didn't realize how important that was into the last few years. And I do my best to either be very clear about what I know, or I'm trying to demonstrate to people that I am trying to figure something out. But even with that, I'm trying to show people there's a way to learn that you don't have to look like a doggone fool. And if you really want to learn that things are around you, so many people act as if their ability to acquire knowledge is so far off. And it's like, so either I'm showing you how to make it clear about what you know, or I'm trying to show people how to expand yourself without like being a burden to other people.
16:36
Speaker 1
Preach. So I appreciate that because I find myself in the position of like, I'm often the person who, because I get to sit in spaces with people who have a lot of knowledge that a lot of people don't have. I get to sort of ask the dumb questions, as you say, you know, the questions. So, and often I don't know the answers either, but I find myself, I just, as a conduit between like, sort of people who really are fierce advocates for their beliefs that I support and people, because I was on CNN for seven years, who were like, what is this? And I'm sort of trying to connect those. These ideas aren't that far away from you and I'd be the kind to connect you there.
17:09
Speaker 3
Absolutely. Absolutely.
17:11
Speaker 2
Learning modality is really important when you want to engage with folks. And that's why I always say, and I got this from my best friend, Andrew, relationships are disruptors. A lot of people, it's not you asking the question, it's You're asking questions of people that you don't have any relationship with.
17:27
Speaker 3
So it's like you're doubly crossing the line. You know what I'm saying?
17:29
Speaker 2
Like that's going to the neighbor you've never spoken to and asking for a cup of sugar.
17:32
Speaker 3
Like, yeah, it's not wrong. You know what I'm saying?
17:34
Speaker 2
It's not wrong that you want sugar. You need sugar for it. And the neighbor may have it. But everything is about building even... creating spaces where you get to be inquisitive, especially when it's about the human experience of people.
17:48
Speaker 1
Yeah. So you go saying good morning to your neighbor every morning, say, how you doing? Having a conversation, learning about their family, finding out what sports they like or don't like. So that when you go over the cup of sugar, you're not the neighbor, you're already in community with them.
18:02
Speaker 3
Absolutely.
18:02
Speaker 2
And you may find out that they only keep brown sugar in the house because they only bake a certain thing, right?
18:07
Speaker 3
It's about that.
18:08
Speaker 2
And Social media, yes, in-person relationships and connection is really important. But I also have realized, as an old lady about to be 45 soon, who used to poo-poo on social media connections, if you really want to connect with people and if you have the skill of listening, it's possible to do that online.
18:30
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I was trying to think, I don't know when... you came across my timeline. I guess it was this year, but I really, it's hard to know with social media, but like, I just know at some point it was like, my algorithm was like, here's another video. Here's another video from Dominique. Like you were just a part of my social algorithm diet. And I really appreciate how clear and direct you are. And you just show up as you are in the video, the bonnet on. Sometimes you're not even in the frame. Sometimes there is makeup. Sometimes there's no makeup. Sometimes the nails are all did. Sometimes none of it. And you just sort of show up as you are, which is a real challenge to the rest of us. Because even me, who I say always looks like a dad who's late to pick up his kids from school, tries to make sure I'm in the right lighting before I get on social media.
19:13
Speaker 3
Because it's the way I show up with my friends.
19:16
Speaker 2
So if my friends will tell you that they'll see me warming on the red carpet and they'll FaceTime me and the wig is off at the door. And by the time they call me and they're laughing, I'm just like, no, the ebb and flows of me, if I have to be a specific version of myself to be present... I will be present, but not as much as you may want me to. And when I realized that the cadence in which I was present online was going to create the relationships with people and establish a brand that would allow me to figure out, like, how does my identity as an advocate exist here? I'm like, oh, you're going to get this how you get it. And then the byproduct of that is the kind of undercurrent is pushing back on the perception of all Black trans women to be seen, they have to look a certain way.
20:05
Speaker 3
Or, or, or, or my, I.
20:06
Speaker 2
Have to, I need to use a voice like, you know, all these things. And it's just like, I am, I am all of those things and I am still Dominique. And, and what I've learned is that I've been able to create these bonds with people, specifically Black folks, specifically Black women, that cuts through the kind of fat of it all.
20:28
Speaker 1
Yes.
20:29
Speaker 2
And, and, and I don't, I don't have to diminish myself to get closer to them and, and, even in their journey to get closer to me, the uncomfortability, they know they're not uncomfortable because I want them to be uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable because life has created these systems that made it feel like there's all these gaps between us. You know what I'm saying? And so that consistency, that repetition, the people's auntie title, I don't take that lightly because, you know, I had an amazing mother, but my aunties were essential. And so I'm just like, yo, I need to pop up in the middle of the night when a story about Jackie's drop off at four o'clock in the morning and the young girls who see themselves in Deandra, you know, in Deandra Sanders, I need to come and speak to them because they're up thinking.
21:15
Speaker 3
About it as well.
21:16
Speaker 2
You know what I'm saying? And so, yeah, it, it gives me freedom to show up, which is important.
21:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. And also I appreciate the way that you do your work on social media because you're, hilarious and you don't mind getting a little dirt on you when you say some things or, you know, you don't mind, like just, you're not, you're not, it is not a cookie cutter, uh, rehearsed statement. You haven't, uh, you're, you're not trying to keep your language clean or pure or, or politically correct. And I mean, like, it's, it's very like straight from the, straight from the gut, you know.
21:47
Speaker 3
Straight, straight from the gut, straight from the heart. And, and I mean it.
21:51
Speaker 2
And I think that for me, it, it, it lets people know that when I get online, if I'm crying about something, Yo, I'm feeling this with y'all. When I am talking about my love of black people, as much as I have a lot to say about the shenanigans of black men, and when I get online and talk about, I know black men are essential because of who my father was, and I can unpack that. Every part I'm showing you is really me. And when I cuss you out, I mean it. Because everybody don't get cussed out, right? I also show that. And also I think that I try to imbue all of myself in how I show up because regardless of what people have seen, and I've always said like the black trans renaissance was like 2020 to like 2024, where we were everywhere. We gave everybody an inside look at all the things. The girls had poles, all the shenanigans. And we came on the other side and it was like, you motherfuckers cannot use the bathroom. So based on that, I'm just like, cool. I.
22:51
Speaker 2
Really want to show you that I am speaking from lived experience, but also I'm super smart. And not just like, oh, my auntie said, my grandma said I was smart. I went to Georgetown, I went to Stanford, because also trans people experience life, and we grow and we expand. And so I also speak as a subject matter expert, never to demean folks, but to just make it clear that.
23:19
Speaker 3
Sometimes.
23:20
Speaker 2
Even if you don't like the messenger, we know what the hell we're talking about.
23:24
Speaker 1
Oh, yes.
23:25
Speaker 3
Right? And I feel like we're in a culture right now where people are.
23:27
Speaker 1
I.
23:29
Speaker 2
Can't fathom living in a community where I don't have Wi-Fi or phone service.
23:34
Speaker 1
Yeah.
23:34
Speaker 3
And I was trying to find out what was happening with the world. Because, right?
23:38
Speaker 2
I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, born and raised. And so I grew up with three channels. I can't imagine if that's all I had right now.
23:44
Speaker 3
So those of us who make up the fabric of information carriers.
23:50
Speaker 2
No, you got to look the devil in the face and make it plain like my grandma used to say.
23:54
Speaker 1
I mean, it's interesting you say the thing about having three channels because I travel a lot for comedy, for doing stand-up, but also doing work and filming and all sorts of things. And I would still be sort of blown away by it. I'd be in a hotel in a small town in the middle of the country and there would be commercials advertising, get ready for broadband. Like it wasn't there yet. And I was just like, or you'd see a commercial that was still advertising the 1-900-SEX numbers. People are still calling. Absolutely. People don't have the access to the internet. Absolutely. And that is still a lot of this country, that they don't have access to the things that we're supposed to take for granted. Or many people take for granted. You obviously do not.
24:36
Speaker 2
We take it for granted. We get frustrated by it. It's... it's wonky because systems, the reason that systems thrive is that we know that they're historically not built for the most marginalized to thrive in those systems. But even in the experience of being marginalized, it takes a lot to wake up every day and.
24:55
Speaker 3
Figure out what your life is going to be like from scratch. You know what I'm saying? It takes a lot.
25:01
Speaker 2
And as, as someone, again, I think the Nebraska experience is like a lot didn't change on a daily basis. Um, I'm the child of a Sagittarius and a Cancer, people of habit and practice, amen. And so I grew up with nothing. I knew what dinner was going to be. And then I went into the prison system at 18.
25:22
Speaker 3
And that was hard for me.
25:24
Speaker 2
But when I look back on that experience, I'm always like, I knew what every day was going to be. And within the boredom, there was so much safety in it. And so in this world, there's hell of possibility, but within possibility is Fear, all the trappings that can come out of taking a chance. And not everybody's prepared for that. And when we are intentionally creating cultures where folks are misinformed, right, that's dangerous. And so that's why I'm like, even when I'm frustrated, even when I'm like, I'm tired of these damn phones.
25:56
Speaker 1
Yeah.
25:57
Speaker 2
What I realize as someone who's watched your work, you know, people who are not telling you what to think, but they're putting the information in front of you are important. Right.
26:06
Speaker 3
You know what I'm saying?
26:06
Speaker 2
And then we got to match that with people who are supporting people in strengthening and refining their discernment and their ability to aggregate data.
26:14
Speaker 3
But that's what I try to be.
26:16
Speaker 2
I try to be the one that like, I try to be like the old country buffet or good shonies in the 80s, huh?
26:21
Speaker 3
I'm like, put all the things in front of you.
26:24
Speaker 2
And I will walk around and be like, you know, you may want to start with a protein, but if you want to do all desserts, God bless you.
26:29
Speaker 3
But you know what I'm saying? But I'm here for you. I'm here to facilitate.
26:34
Speaker 1
So what is it in the water in Omaha, Nebraska that breeds people with complicated backstories of maybe of some imperfection and some incarceration? Black folks, thinking about Malcolm X is what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the fact that that's another black person from Omaha who lived a lot of life and did a lot of things and then came through with some truth on the other side.
26:58
Speaker 3
Shout out to my bro Nathan.
26:59
Speaker 2
There was four or five years ago, they commissioned him to build three statues of influential people from Nebraska. And it was Malcolm X, Senator Annie Chambers, and myself. And I think about my sister, Simone Sanders. I think about Kathy Hughes. I think the thing about the Midwest, I think Nebraska especially, is that... There is a strong Black community, but our ability to kind of touch the pulse of what Black culture feels like unfiltered is difficult. And maybe there are people now that have social media and things, but I would even say that is still a parody. It's a performative version of it because until you touch it yourself. Folks in Kansas City... You know what I'm saying? Like it's pretty much the South. If you got a Waffle House, that's black culture. We can't get no Waffle House in Nebraska. We above the Mason Dixie. You understand me?
27:56
Speaker 3
So it's just like, you know, Chicago, you look at some of these St.
27:59
Speaker 2
Louis, Detroit, you can be like, oh, if you grew up in the Clarks, your sisters were singing down the street. It don't matter how North you was. You felt that. Where we're from, we're experiencing the oppression of blackness. We know we're black. We know the power in our black experience is, But there's not many opportunities to turn the corner and see that brilliance really minted and respected. The Malcolm X Center just got its first money to build a real building a few years ago.
28:27
Speaker 3
Wow.
28:29
Speaker 2
It was a small, small shack that ran on little to no money.
28:35
Speaker 1
And if Malcolm X had been born in Harlem, that thing would be celebrating its 60th anniversary. My God.
28:41
Speaker 3
You understand me?
28:42
Speaker 2
There are people that don't know Malcolm X is born in Omaha, Nebraska. And so it's just those sort of things where, and I think if you get a connection to the Black experience, understand Black culture, you'll have an understanding of how systemic oppression happens and you'll kind of see it coming. I think for me, I was so focused on thinking that experiencing poverty and these things that were impacting my body were more about the Black people around me not doing good enough. I was so wrapped in anti-Blackness that my actions caused me to separate myself from community that would have been there to support me in a deeper way at 18. And even as I traversed incarceration, I was incarcerated from the age of 18 to 27. I spent 18 months in solitary confinement. Six months of that, I was actually housed on death row in Nebraska. due to the overcrowding. Nebraska's prison system has been overcrowded for over 25 years at a critical space where the feds should, we've overreached the percentage that the federal government has put in place. And they just, they always, you know, let a few people go to kind of hit those numbers, but it's easy to get trapped in the systems that they build for the Black experience. when they also don't give you the, the, the, at least the one-on-one on like what black culture looked like. I, again, I grew up not even.
30:01
Speaker 3
Thinking about Malcolm X.
30:02
Speaker 1
Yeah.
30:02
Speaker 2
You know what I'm saying? Like we were, I, in the third grade, I played Martin Luther King in the play. It makes like two blocks from Malcolm X's birthplace.
30:12
Speaker 3
Right.
30:12
Speaker 2
Like those sorts of things where it's like, you don't want to be connected to it. So, but also my hometown, North Omaha, Nebraska, because the North part is important. um it's it's predominantly black i.
30:23
Speaker 1
Could tell it was black by the way you said north yes.
30:25
Speaker 2
Indeed that yes it is that is where dominique morgan street exists the street i grew up on is now named after me but it also makes you scrappy because anything you wanted you had to really go get it you know what i'm saying and not uh i grew up in harlem i had to i had to pump to the other side to the other borough i understand the kids of the big city i mean as in I had to, I had to drive to Kansas city to get like the destiny shout album when it came out.
30:51
Speaker 3
You know what I'm saying?
30:51
Speaker 2
I mean, I can't fathom what the HBCU experience would have, you know what I'm saying? Would it look like those sorts of things that now living in Atlanta for the last four years, I know really create a rich journey in your blackness, the type of journey that we deserve in my opinion. Yeah.
31:07
Speaker 1
So I live in Oakland, California. Uh, I got, I have three daughters, uh, just, and I don't know, I know you say you're a fan of my work, but I just feel like I have to be clear when I talk. My wife is white, so my daughters identify as black, but they're also mixed race. And one of the reasons why we were so sure that we wanted to, like, and I've lived in the Bay Area since 97, but like knowing that my daughters are being raised in Oakland, a part of that was about being connected to their blackness, you know? And Oakland is like one of those cities like Chicago, Harlem, you know, Atlanta, that there is a, That even though gentrification has wiped out a lot of black folks here, there's still the roots of blackness here. There's still Black Panthers who are around here living here in Oakland. They have access to blackness in an unfiltered way that they would not have if we even moved them to the suburbs of Oakland.
31:55
Speaker 2
You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like those things feed your epistemology. They feed your way of knowing. And I kind of realized like this idea of epistemology, the things we know that we really don't know how we know them. but it also will become a part like your GPS, your compass in life. You have to be intentional about feeding it once you realize it exists because if you don't, there'll be things that will be guiding your life every day and you won't know where they came from, but you will fight, you will scream, you will holler behind them, which is really what most people are doing online.
32:27
Speaker 1
Yes.
32:27
Speaker 2
They're fighting about beliefs and ideas that they haven't interrogated for themselves, right? They haven't unpacked for themselves, but they're going to go balls to the wall. And sometimes it's like, My mama told me about this. My grandma told me about this, all the things, which is cool. But I want to say that you can, you ain't got to be disrespectful, but you can also challenge those things and.
32:47
Speaker 3
See if they still fit for you, if.
32:49
Speaker 2
They're going to be the foundation for how you navigate the world.
32:54
Speaker 1
Yes.
32:54
Speaker 3
You know? Yes.
32:55
Speaker 1
Yeah. Ginger ale may cure a few things, but sometimes you need to go to the doctor.
32:59
Speaker 3
Sometimes you got to go see them people.
33:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
33:02
Speaker 3
And it's all right. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's so important.
33:05
Speaker 2
And I think that when we exist in our Blackness and a multitude of marginalized identities, it's easy to lose our connection to the Black experience in the way you can when it's like a predominant focus, right? I'm never, regardless of what some people feel, I just did Kevon Sage's podcast with Angel.
33:28
Speaker 1
I saw, I saw.
33:29
Speaker 2
And there are people who, we knew people were going to be mad, but for me, it was like, as a Black creative, it's like, Being on Kev's show is like the queen knighting you.
33:38
Speaker 3
No shame.
33:39
Speaker 1
No, no, no. I know where I exist in this podcast. You understand me? In this comedy universe.
33:44
Speaker 3
For real. He is, in.
33:46
Speaker 2
Regards to people who are building and executing, and for him to see... it, it meant a lot for me because just as much as I am trans, I am black. It's the, it's the type of moment where, you know, I would, if my mom and dad would have been like, guess what I'm about to, guess what I'm about to do.
34:04
Speaker 3
Guess what I'm about to see.
34:05
Speaker 2
And I just think that brings richness in the black experience because they're going to give.
34:09
Speaker 1
Us the hell.
34:09
Speaker 2
We're going to get the hell.
34:11
Speaker 3
That's going to come to us.
34:13
Speaker 2
The joy, the richness are the things we got to work for. And, When you grow up with a skill of connecting to your culture in a way that really affirms you, the Black folks I see who are thriving, they have that skill down pat.
34:28
Speaker 1
Yes. Well, let me say this. I certainly have much admiration for Kev. Kev on stage. And when I saw that you did his podcast, I was like, oh, and she's doing mine too. I felt like better about myself.
34:40
Speaker 2
I literally told my manager, I was like, how long have you been sitting on this? And it was very casual. It was like a text message. Then they know that I don't always look at text messages. I was like, absolutely.
34:51
Speaker 3
Yeah.
34:51
Speaker 1
And also it speaks to, I know Kev has talked a lot. He's a man of faith and a Christian and and gets pushback whenever he talks about the LGBTQ community and how he accepts the LGBTQ community and the fact that he would have you on because you're not going to go in there and sort of do it in a quiet, sort of reserved way yourself. You're going to go all out.
35:11
Speaker 3
I'm going to go all out.
35:11
Speaker 2
And I also, the point, the also thing is I'm going to go all out about my God because I have a strong faith, right? And I feel like that's in, that was, again, that thing was for me. I was like, if nobody ever saw this, like I'm like, The conversation was great. I saw Kev's special the night before, The Grief Sucks. And, you know, that read as someone who... I buried both of my parents before I was 27. You know, so it was just important. But to sit there with Kevin Angel, and then the message I've received. There are so many Black folks right now who are like, I.
35:46
Speaker 3
Don't know what we're supposed to be doing.
35:49
Speaker 2
You know what I'm saying? Like, the conversation of fighting, all those things, people are just like, child, I... I can't even afford a fried egg sandwich, you know? Like, what you want me to do? And I wanted to go in there and say that, like, I've been in the darkest spaces. I've literally been buried under the prison. And I told the story about when I was housed on death row. I didn't, you know, I was 21. I didn't know a lot about the guys on the housing unit. And I just knew that, like, there was a guy, Ray, on the left side and a guy, John, on the right side of me. And I told the story of, you know, we were in the basement, like we were in the lower part of the prison. And so like, if it would rain and things like that, my window, I had one small window, it would get covered. And so then that would make my room like very dark. And so being in that room 24 seven, they, they let us shower like three times a week at that age, you know, like it was, you know, depression was constantly kind of at my door and John would walk up cause they could go outside. John would go outside and clean my window. He would wake me up and make sure I didn't miss meals and, you know, give me paper to write because I couldn't even afford paper. And, And one day a CO came down and was like, you need to be careful with him.
36:59
Speaker 3
And I was like, why?
37:00
Speaker 2
Like, I mean, everybody down here on death row, like they've done something, but why him? And come to find out that John was John Lauder, one of the two people who had killed Brandon Tina. There's a movie called Boys Don't Cry. Hilary Swank won an Oscar for it. And before little old Dominique Morgan came along, Brandon's story was the most known trans story from the state of Nebraska.
37:20
Speaker 1
Yeah.
37:21
Speaker 2
And, but I'm meeting this man 20, 25 years later.
37:25
Speaker 3
Yes.
37:26
Speaker 2
And fast forward to when I'm running Black and Pink, we send Christmas gifts into everybody. And the Department of Corrections is like, well, we don't want to send them to the Macs and we don't want to send them to death row. And I'm like, we're sending them to everybody if we're sending them. And we sent them in. And the next day, some representatives of John, you know, tweeted this letter of thanks to me and Black and Pink. Now, at that point, this is like 30 years after this man has done this very terrible thing.
37:51
Speaker 1
Yes.
37:52
Speaker 2
But no one should be known by the worst thing they've ever done. And my experience at meeting him, that was a reason I was meant to meet this man. And then when I built Light in the House, the first housing program I opened, we have an entire healing room that's dedicated to Brandon, where his picture is at, and where every person who comes to the space learns about him. And so I always have full circle moments. I always have full circle moments. You were doing work when I was at Black and Pink looking at incarceration in ways that no one else was talking about it. I was having to explain abolition to white folks in Nebraska running Black and Pink National. I could show them your work and be like, yo, this is because you need various conduits, right? And the universe always just brings me back around. And that's why I... I said this yesterday because some of the comments on those videos, oh, and you know, I'll go in and let have.
38:48
Speaker 1
Yeah.
38:49
Speaker 2
And I'm like, I should not expect to always feel comfortable holding space for my people because of the level of privilege I have. I navigate the world with a great deal of, you know, there's systems that want to get on my body.
39:04
Speaker 3
Yeah.
39:05
Speaker 2
But also with the, I navigate the world as a black trans woman who's 44 years old. With the access I have and the privilege I have to be an example, to challenge people, to push back. Dominique, why do you think that everything is going to have to be easy? You know, and once I sat with that yesterday, it allowed me to divest and just be like, and I'm going to continue to show up where I feel like my gut, my. my higher power tells me to you know what I mean because I could be anywhere doing because people ask you to you know Dominique come outside the car why do you know what I'm saying like if that's what it's about it's not it's about sharing space with people and recognizing that people create these incredible spaces where people come to you all for who you are And then I get the chance to come and share. And that seems simple, but that's literally radical activism in 2026.
39:54
Speaker 1
Yes.
39:54
Speaker 3
Yes.
40:14
Speaker 1
Well, you said a lot in there. And so I have a lot of things I want to say. One thing I want to say, you talked about solitary confinement. I just think it can't be said enough that solitary confinement has been studied by many reputable sources as being inhumanly cruel and a violation of people's human rights. And it is a thing that is used in America very often and far too often against people like yourself. So certainly I can't imagine what that is like, but I want to just leave some space for you to talk about that as a.
40:43
Speaker 2
I think a lot of people don't think solitary confinement is happening the way it's happening because when President Obama, I think it was his second term, he stopped solitary confinement. He stopped disciplinary segregation for longer than two weeks.
41:02
Speaker 3
And so what the system did was.
41:04
Speaker 2
Okay, well, we can't, because they used to give people back to back to back to back. And so then they created, well, we'll put you on administrative confinement because you're not here as punishment. You're here for the safety and security of the institution. So I think that's one thing. A lot of people pulled back from talking about solitary because they thought it was handled by President Obama. Two, the Prison Rape Elimination Act is a bipartisan measure that's been around. I think it was 2002 that it was enacted. And so many queer and trans folks were placed in solitary under that. And, and so they were like, you're not in trouble. We're just have you here for your protection. We're putting you in solitary for your protection. We're going to destroy your mind for your protection. And they could never explain to me what it meant. I would try to send letters out. And luckily the ACLU of Nebraska, shout out to Amy Miller and Brenda council. I think miss, I mean, I think auntie Brenda was the first black woman Senator in Nebraska's history.
42:07
Speaker 3
Um, They got my letters.
42:10
Speaker 2
Amy came down there and like a week later, I just woke up one day and my door just opened.
42:15
Speaker 1
Wow.
42:16
Speaker 2
And they let me out. Now, full circle moments. The captain was a woman named Janae Pancook who would like sign my extensions in solitary.
42:26
Speaker 3
And I don't think I ever saw her face.
42:28
Speaker 2
In 2016, I started my Georgetown program and it was a cohort of us from Nebraska that In my cohort was Janae Pancook, the former captain, and my juvenile judge, Judge Elizabeth Serkovich.
42:46
Speaker 3
Wow.
42:46
Speaker 2
And our job, our whole capstone was around revolutionizing Nebraska's juvenile system for queer youth. And so then I ended up going back to the PREA Center in 2019, and I was one of the co-authors of the way that they navigate trans youth in the system.
43:03
Speaker 1
So I....
43:06
Speaker 2
When you say that I talk with authority, I've survived a lot of things. But more importantly, I've lived through them. And I think there's a difference. You know, surviving, you know what I'm saying? Like, there are days I'm just kind of surviving. I know when I'm surviving.
43:21
Speaker 3
Head is down. I'm pushing through.
43:22
Speaker 2
I can't tell you what's happening to the left or the right. I'm just trying to get to the other side. And that's got to be what it is. But there are a lot of moments that were very hard that I lived through. I can tell you what the air smelled like. I can tell you what I ate that day. I can tell you what the colors were. And I used to think that was something that... I'm a Pisces. I used to think, you know, we love a depressive moment. We love a good slide down the wall and cry moment. We live for it. I thought, is this Pisces drama? And like, no, it's... I believe one of the reasons that I am on.
43:51
Speaker 3
This earth is to... create ways for people to learn.
43:56
Speaker 2
Nothing that I've experienced will be for not because I'm supposed to share it with people and not tell them what they should learn. I'm supposed to share it, show them what I learned and then create enough room for them to find themselves in it. That's a skill that I do well. And so whether I'm talking about solitary, my parents passing, my divorce, my It could be humorous. It could be, you know what I'm saying, like all these levels. And so I really try to do that. But solitary, I also say that I needed to go to prison because if not, I think my parents' death would have killed me.
44:34
Speaker 3
Oh, wow. If I'm being real.
44:36
Speaker 1
You needed to be away.
44:37
Speaker 3
I needed to be away. I needed to experience something.
44:40
Speaker 2
I needed to experience what I thought would be the worst thing ever and kind of like, you know, have you ever like.
44:45
Speaker 3
Ever been like a fist fight before? You ever fought with somebody? You know what I'm saying?
44:48
Speaker 2
Or you got a whoop when you were young and you don't, you steeled yourself. You're like, I know, I know they about to swing on me.
44:52
Speaker 3
Yep.
44:53
Speaker 2
And it, and it lets you take the next one, but you know, after it's going to sting, but I pushed through, you know what I'm saying?
44:58
Speaker 3
So it's like, I'm like, oh, I done spent 10, almost 10 years inside. There's nothing.
45:03
Speaker 2
And my dad passed away like the first year of me being locked up. I'm like, I came home February of 2009. My mother was dead before the year was over. And so because I was like, you know what? Ain't nothing going to touch me.
45:16
Speaker 3
It kind of.
45:19
Speaker 2
Tempered me. You know what I'm saying? And then my divorce, which I thought was going to wreck me. It's like, okay, prison, my parents. You know what I mean? And I think, honestly, that prepared me for my transition.
45:31
Speaker 1
So that was before you transitioned?
45:35
Speaker 3
All of that. I didn't transition until 2020. March of 2020, I started my transition. Okay.
45:41
Speaker 2
And because I was already like the CEO of black and pink, because I was always already known, it kind of shot me up. And then within a year I was the global model for Apple. So that just, yeah, I'd never, I'd never had like a, um, honestly, the bonus and things over the last year has been the most casual I've gotten to be in my existence because, because.
46:05
Speaker 3
Off the rip, it was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
46:08
Speaker 2
And, and, um, All of those moments got me ready for the work of taking me down to the studs and really building myself back up. Without a mom or dad to be like, yo, am I the daughter of y'all? You know what I'm saying? I would love to be a looking mom and be like, you know what I'm saying? Am I showing up the way you... I got to trust in my gut. I got to ask my aunts and uncles. You know what I mean? But yeah, that was a long ramble. But I don't talk about the difficult things because... I want people to sit in the difficulty. I want them to understand that you are going to be tested. Yes.
46:50
Speaker 3
You are. You are.
46:52
Speaker 1
You are.
46:52
Speaker 3
It's so messed up. It is not fair. And I.
46:58
Speaker 2
Don't think we live in a world that tests you for something that you can't pass if you really lock in.
47:03
Speaker 3
Sure. You know what I mean?
47:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, yeah, that was a lot. And speaking about all that, We talked about incarceration. I certainly believe that you shouldn't be judged by your worst moment. It is amazing that you wouldn't adjust that one man who killed Brandon Tina by his worst moment. There's a lot in there, a lot of empathy. I think empathy is the thing that we lack in this society. A lot of it, our empathy has been broken a lot by this current administration. And I certainly, one of the things I did learn at United Shades, I spent time at San Quentin Prison as a visitor. I should be clear, as a visitor. And that was the first time I'd ever been behind the walls of a prison. And I've been friends with Rahsaan Thomas since that day we met on The Art of San Quentin. And he's out now and producing films. And I go back for the San Quentin Film Festival. And that really changed my idea of prison and incarceration and not judging people by their worst moments and also knowing that the system wants to throw people away, especially black people.
47:58
Speaker 2
You may not be living the life that you want to live, but you're still living life. The number of old heads on the yard that could put some fat on somebody's head, the number of sisters who can, you know what I'm saying? Like they're beating faces. Like girls are beating faces at New York fashion week. That's skill, right? You know what I'm saying? The artistry, the singers, the preachers, it doesn't, your purpose doesn't die in you based on where your body exists, right? And so when we look at incarcerated people and like my journey with prison abolition, it was like, I had been incarcerated, but I didn't believe in. Cause everyone talks about prison abolition, like, like closing prisons. We're talking about not looking at people by their actions, but looking at people by the foundational humanity in them.
48:45
Speaker 1
Yes.
48:46
Speaker 2
And ma'am Kaba. And, and she really was helpful for me in my first year of black and pink. Cause it was hard for me, especially when it came to like sex offenders, people who cause harm as someone who, experienced sexual violence during incarceration as a young person. I was like, these people deserve second chances, but not these people, right? And my job was to support everyone. And I had to, she introduced a grace quotient to me, which is, I don't have to be the person that gives the grace. At minimum, I just have to hope that that person finds it somewhere.
49:15
Speaker 1
Yeah.
49:16
Speaker 2
That creates room in the labor of always trying to be... A lot of activists and people are tired because they're performing values they really don't believe in. And so they don't ever find the reciprocity in the experience because it can be hard, but then you get the moments where it's like, oh, I'm exactly who I say I am and that recharges you.
49:34
Speaker 3
No, you're performing. Also, I would like to offer... I completed a.
49:39
Speaker 2
Program through Stanford School of Medicine in radical compassion.
49:43
Speaker 1
Speak on it.
49:44
Speaker 2
It's an 18 month program. And I built so much of my work on conversations of empathy.
49:51
Speaker 3
So much.
49:52
Speaker 2
And the first class that she introduced this definition, compassion is bearing witness.
50:03
Speaker 3
And I was, I was like, What? I'm like, well, what's the next step?
50:10
Speaker 1
Get to the good stuff.
50:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, get to the good stuff. And it was like, no, like bearing witness. And then I had to sit with empathy. There's so many steps happening at once. If you're telling me a story about you burning yourself on the stove, I'm listening to the story. I'm trying to find, right, empathizing. We're trying to find a shared experience where I'm like, oh, where in my head where I know what that feels like? Well, if I don't know exactly that, I'm pulling from it. So my brain is all these places. And then there's people... People assume there's an inherent action that needs to happen next.
50:39
Speaker 3
Yeah.
50:40
Speaker 2
So many of us have taught ourselves to not tell people about what we're going through because we don't know anyone who can just listen to us and not involve themselves.
50:50
Speaker 3
Like, I just need to express the thing.
50:52
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
50:54
Speaker 3
Right?
50:54
Speaker 2
In that moment where that definition was presented to me, I realized how many of us are exhausted because we're not taking the act of seeing people. Now don't stop at compassion, but radical compassion, there are some people who go all their whole lives.
51:11
Speaker 3
And never like being seen, holding space.
51:16
Speaker 2
And, and when I, when I, I did, I did my TEDx in 2019 and I talked about like, I would tell my stories of incarceration and you know what, people start crying and all of a sudden their emotions became my responsibility. It's like, because you can't, Because also compassion and holding space and bearing witness forces us to sit with being uncomfortable with.
51:37
Speaker 3
What we're watching.
51:38
Speaker 2
Let's take Nolan Wells, for instance. A lot of us are struggling because we are witnessing what we know this country does. And more than ever, we all know that they're going to get their way.
51:57
Speaker 1
Who's the they in that sentence?
52:00
Speaker 2
Systems of oppression, white supremacy, the carceral state, they're going to get their way. And I wrote this piece on Substack and I waited because I know at this point things I create and say, they get places very quickly.
52:14
Speaker 1
Yes. Right?
52:15
Speaker 2
And Nolan's cousin followed me on threads. That's how I saw it the day after. We were at Essence. It was the day after Essence finished. I think it was July 5th. I woke up and I saw the auntie, the cousin auntie, you know, everybody cousin auntie in black.
52:31
Speaker 3
Families, that he was missing.
52:34
Speaker 1
Yes.
52:35
Speaker 3
I saw it very early. And right.
52:37
Speaker 2
And so I've kind of watched it from the jump. And I put up this subsect piece saying they're going to get their way, but also we get to have our way. What is restoration? What is healing outside of this system? There is pain to put these parents up every other week and beg people to see the humanity in this baby. To look at things that are based in common sense, the gaslighting, the number of black folks who are just like, am I tripping? And then you see the number of black folks that instead of being angry and frustrated, they began to adopt the perspective of the system because they would rather ride with it than feel the uneasiness of bearing witness to us being played with at the intersection of the loss of an 18-year-old child while you want me to sign up. for a society that will let a Black woman get a murder charge here in Georgia because she had to overnight some abortion medication because nobody would give her the support she needs.
53:35
Speaker 3
Right?
53:35
Speaker 1
Yeah.
53:36
Speaker 2
And so bearing witness is also important because sometimes you just got to sit still and hold it.
53:40
Speaker 3
Yes. Because if you move in, they'll goop you the way they want you.
53:46
Speaker 2
It's the card game, you know, the things. But if you're locked in, Life is a spades game, and you've got to go Boston every time.
53:55
Speaker 1
You've got to go Boston every time.
53:57
Speaker 3
You understand me?
53:57
Speaker 1
Yes, yes, yes.
53:59
Speaker 3
Right? And for those who don't understand, we've got to check in.
54:02
Speaker 2
We've got to lock in because on the spades table, I always tell people, I've been in the institutions. I've gotten education that I'm so proud of. Every day, I pull something out from the prison yard that has saved my life. I've raised millions of dollars in boardrooms. on knowing you only got a two of diamonds and you trying to make it walk. Right?
54:24
Speaker 3
I've changed lives with that.
54:26
Speaker 2
And when it comes to us witnessing what's happening around us, I believe through compassion and bearing witness and the uncomfortableness we're holding, that's our debt to the process.
54:40
Speaker 1
Yes.
54:41
Speaker 3
We just better make sure our debt isn't in vain.
54:44
Speaker 1
Yes.
54:45
Speaker 3
You know?
54:46
Speaker 2
And it's uncomfortable conversations. As someone who, I started dating at 16. I came out at 12, started dating at 16. From 16 to 34, I only dated white men.
54:56
Speaker 1
Okay.
54:57
Speaker 3
Only dated white men. Right?
54:59
Speaker 1
I can't judge. Right?
55:01
Speaker 2
But I'm just saying, because I will talk about interracial relationships. I will talk about white partners. And I always want to frame it in the mindset of, I was not dating these white men because I was attracted to them. I was dating them because of their proximity to whiteness. That was my journey. And when we talk to people who have white partners, my thing is, well, why do you love your partner? If the first thing they bring up is race, then I'm like, okay, that's foolishness. And then once we push past that, for me, it's just the work. It's just the work. White relationships, white proximity, white spaces. So being in Nebraska, I could have a black partner, but I'm in Nebraska, I have a strong relationship to whiteness. Nolan and his family being in Mississippi, what they're navigating doesn't matter anymore. what the family wanted to have happen, his closest network were these white folks. Black lives cannot keep going in the wood chipper, and we not learning how it's happening.
55:56
Speaker 1
Yes.
55:57
Speaker 3
Right?
55:57
Speaker 2
The theory of change of white supremacy is what I'm calling it.
56:02
Speaker 3
Yes.
56:03
Speaker 2
And I think one piece of it is love who you love, have the friends you want to have, and everyone around you should be able to iterate why you are precious and important to them, But when you have a partner that comes from a system that has historically hurt your people, they need to understand that language even more. And my white homegirls, they know I'll be like, sister, why you fuck with me? Yeah.
56:28
Speaker 3
You understand what I'm saying? Hey, girl, you know what I'm saying? Like that's that's that's key.
56:32
Speaker 2
And so through this journey of like really holding space around this thing with Nolan, it's like, yo, we got to.
56:40
Speaker 3
We got to have difficult conversations and these young black boys. Yeah. These young black boys, the, the, the, the Carmelo Anthony's, the come out. I sit with this. I think for me, I transitioned at 38 and.
57:02
Speaker 2
My compassion for young black boys is not the like traditional, like auntie, like he can't do no wrong.
57:06
Speaker 1
Yeah.
57:08
Speaker 2
I've been a little black boy. And I had amazing parents. My dad loved me so much. My mother loved me so much. And I still got caught up in the hurricane of life. When we talk about empathy and compassion, we talk about holding space. I'm always like, I could have been Nolan.
57:32
Speaker 1
Yeah.
57:33
Speaker 3
Right?
57:35
Speaker 2
I was the kid when you said something to me in school, I'm going to hit you harder. I could have been Carmelo.
57:40
Speaker 1
Yeah. Right.
57:42
Speaker 2
So when I'm having these discussions, it's me bringing the totality of my life to it. And I think that is why I, no one can ever make me not cherish the Black, my trans experience because I get to see, I've seen life in so many ways that makes, makes me very unique.
58:00
Speaker 1
Yeah.
58:01
Speaker 2
And it allows me to be a part of the Black fabric in a way that I think is I will be proud of when I leave this earth. And you see it in my content, of course. But also it's like, that's why I like to get into the streets. I see it with the people in real time.
58:19
Speaker 3
You know what I'm saying?
58:21
Speaker 2
And what I hope happens through conversations like this with you, with Kev, is that I want more Black men to see me as a resource. I said on Kev's podcast, like it was so important, like my uncles are so important to me. I had to have a possibility model of Black men who loved me and not because they wanted to have sex with me Yes. And I got, I have brothers. I got like, you know, not biological brothers, but black guys that I'm close to. And I'm just like, it's very important to me because I love when they call me and they ask like a random question that you should ask your sister.
58:56
Speaker 3
You know what I'm saying? It's like, no, like I am a part of the village.
59:03
Speaker 1
Yes.
59:04
Speaker 2
And I think with black men, black trans women are part of the village is usually from a space of sexual pleasure. or unpacking something about themselves that they don't want to share with the broader world. And at 44, that's not labor I want to give.
59:17
Speaker 3
I do.
59:19
Speaker 2
want to be able to tell you like how to separate your laundry. I'll do that labor. So your girlfriend, you know what I'm saying? Like I do want, you know what I'm saying? I do want to call me when you put on that outfit. And before you go to this job interview, you look a fool change. I do want to write. I do want to be able to get in your inbox and say, now, you know, you cutting up. You know what I'm saying? Like that's important to me. And, um, I know this really went a lot of places, but, but all this is rooted in the idea of me divesting from, uh, empathy as my main focus and, implementing compassion as the way that I start with everything because the silence, the stillness, it allows.
59:56
Speaker 3
Me to be so much more strategic about what is next.
1:00:17
Speaker 1
So we've talked about your incarceration. We've talked about empathy. And when I first came upon you, there was some sort of news story that you seemed to be talking about that I didn't understand. And I was like, I didn't even know how to Google it. And now I've sort of done the deep dive. And I know some people are coming to you today fresh. I just want to ask you about you were incarcerated earlier this year.
1:00:44
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:00:46
Speaker 2
And the top of the summer, which is important to say, because I think the way that I navigated it, so many people like to be like, oh, that seems like I was like, no, baby, that was me.
1:00:55
Speaker 1
That was me. It wasn't yet. Now people's sense of time has been skewed since COVID. So yeah, that was not.
1:01:01
Speaker 3
And I've been on the pavement. So people be like, oh, I was like, no, baby, that was me.
1:01:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I just want to give you space to address that because I think a lot of people will hear what you're saying now and be like, yes, yes, yes. And then look at that story around you and not know what to make of the Ochre Project and you go to jail for 30 days. And clearly you have love for black trans women. That story seems different. Please, I just want to give you space to talk about that. Yeah.
1:01:26
Speaker 2
I came to know the Ochre Project in early 2021 and I was running Black and Pink and I was super happy with what I was doing. And the founder of Ochre Project reached out to me and she was like, hey, I'm going to step down I would like you to like take my place. And I was like, I'm not moving to New York. I don't want to leave what I'm doing here at Black and Pink. And because I was still Nebraska based and you got to think this is a pandemic. So I'm not knowing like, and activism is becoming this celebrity thing. So when stuff was happening amongst activists at this time, people would try to keep it as hush hush as possible because Because people were trying to navigate things. It was becoming very Hollywood-ish. And so I don't know. At this time, there's like a million dollars missing in the transfer of the organization. That staff is being let go at this time. I don't know this and all the Twitter things that I come to find out about.
1:02:23
Speaker 1
This is the Ochre Project, a million dollars.
1:02:25
Speaker 2
Yes, it's the Ochre Project, right? Because they first started raising money on PayPal, right? Before they had a fiscal sponsor. And so it was all this foolishness. And anyway, we end up Black and Pink board and they decide I can run both of them. And I'm like, you know what, we're going to do like a 20-80 to start off because Okra doesn't have a lot of work.
1:02:49
Speaker 1
So 80% of your work with Black and Pink, 20% with Okra. Right.
1:02:53
Speaker 2
And I was like, this also will give me the chance to hire two Black trans women. And because the work isn't heavy, it'll give me the chance to one, train them. I'm going to share with them on the front end. And I plan on leaving here in five years because my black and pink that year of the overlap was my fifth year at black and pink. Because I was like, you know, I want to demonstrate that you need to get out of the way to create room for new people.
1:03:20
Speaker 1
Yes.
1:03:21
Speaker 2
And so I hired these two girls. And something I processed maybe a couple of weeks ago Is that I thought if I gave you your things and I was getting my things, that it would create this culture where people were, their needs were met and there's no reason for us to have the approach.
1:03:42
Speaker 3
Anything from scarcity.
1:03:45
Speaker 2
What I was doing is I was assuming that your things were the things that I wanted.
1:03:50
Speaker 1
That what you, you were doing things that I wanted you to do.
1:03:53
Speaker 2
Well, no, the things that I would have wanted at that time were the things that you wanted.
1:03:57
Speaker 1
Okay. We had the same goals.
1:03:59
Speaker 3
We had the same goals.
1:04:00
Speaker 2
So me giving you access to the job, like, you know, hey, we all need to be making this money. I decided their salaries.
1:04:07
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:04:08
Speaker 2
And then they went in and they decided my salary with HR. Right. But I had to realize they weren't prepared for it. So long story short, we did not have a board. The three of us were the board because we were getting our nonprofit status coming up under the fiscal agent, Arts Business Collaborative. And in this whole story, which I've always been frustrated, and I've talked about it more since May, when I left the Oakwood Project, Oakwood Project had over $ 4 million loose money.
1:04:43
Speaker 1
Right?
1:04:44
Speaker 2
When they transitioned from Arts Business Collaborative, all of the money, they don't have access to any of it. And so I think they're suing them right now. But that was what we were doing.
1:04:55
Speaker 1
I just want to try.
1:04:57
Speaker 2
The Oprah Project is, I believe, suing the Arts, Music, and Collective because there's millions that they don't have access to. That's why they're doing these fundraising campaigns. And we started a bail support program, the same bail support program I did at Black and Pink that I did for the whole time I was at Black and Pink, the same way I did it. That was built off of the way the National Bail Fund did their programming. I am not tracking... I'm not a bail bondsman. I don't think that's the way we should do it. That's not the way that we did in Nebraska for years and years and years and years. And we did bail support for like three weeks. My deputy director, Alana, the girls wanted the organization. And because we were all contractors and we were the board because we were establishing our nonprofit status, them coming together, deciding that my contract was over, The day after I moved to Atlanta in 2022, I was let go from the Ochre Project. That was August 3rd, 2022. With the allegation being that they can't track the bail support. I don't have the W-2 forms for the people. I was like, well, none of these things we were talking about. None of these things were discussed. I then get a job. I go into philanthropy. I get a street named after me. All this time passes. And out of the blue, October 16th, 2024, I get a call from Kings County Court that they want to talk to me.
1:06:26
Speaker 3
And I'm like, OK, this is a conversation.
1:06:29
Speaker 2
I show up and there's this indictment, which messed me up in a lot of ways, because one, I knew you went to a grand jury because you couldn't discharge me. Everybody thought the indictment like these were federal charges. This was a county case. And most of them were the alleged like doctoring of documents that I hadn't had access to.
1:06:47
Speaker 3
So they spent two years.
1:06:49
Speaker 2
And I'm sharing this because my decision I made is rooted in this.
1:06:52
Speaker 1
Yes.
1:06:53
Speaker 2
I'm a black trans woman who was incarcerated as a young person. You alleged that I took $ 100, 000 and it took you two years to charge me with anything. The indictment was October 29th. The first court hearing was December 18th of 2024. They came to me with a deal of Dominique, if you serve 90 days, we'll let everything go. I'm like, I'm like, I've been on the New York times. They have, they've written pieces comparing me to Donald Trump. Um, and, and then he gets elected the second time. So this is like, the diamond is October 29th. And then he's elected a week later, like this. And this is the word I come into.
1:07:30
Speaker 1
So they, they were comparing you to Donald Trump in the bad way, like in the, in the bad way, because he had, yeah.
1:07:35
Speaker 2
Cause some of his charges were, were, and they were like, well, this, it was like Republican newspapers.
1:07:40
Speaker 3
It was insane.
1:07:41
Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
1:07:42
Speaker 2
And then we just keep going and they come back and they're like, well, you do 60 days. Then they kept canceling hearings. And then I'm just like, I just need to focus. And then social media thing happens.
1:07:53
Speaker 3
Yes.
1:07:54
Speaker 2
I honestly was just like waiting everything out because I was like, I haven't seen discovery. They know I didn't do this. Y'all are trying to clear your taxes. Then we finally look at the tax forms. And for each year, including last year, it lists me as the issue. You lost millions to your fiscal. And also, I couldn't talk about these things because we're in the middle of the case, right?
1:08:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
1:08:19
Speaker 2
December of last year, I finally saw the discovery. The discovery was the three women, the Black trans woman who was the founder and the two girls I hired, it was their testimony at the grand jury, was the discovery. And so then I was like, so I'm supposed to have this battle with these girls. I'm supposed to get Every other month, I have to fly to New York out of my own pocket. It felt like every moment of progress that I found could easily be snatched back because it was like, well, you know Dominique is navigating this thing. The people in my life knew what was happening, so I was still on the essence stage. I was still I was still thriving yes but when someone knew found out about I would have to have the conversation all over again yeah that's yeah right and so last December they said the judge like put us all in and was like Dominique I'm offering you 30 days and he was like I'm going outside of the prosecution I'm offering you 30 days Because I was just.
1:09:19
Speaker 3
Like, y'all keep going down. I was like, we're going to fight. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's dead this.
1:09:23
Speaker 1
I'm here for the fight.
1:09:24
Speaker 2
I'm for real. I'm just like, it was almost two years of this case.
1:09:29
Speaker 3
And the judge looked at me. He was like, it's not going to get better than this.
1:09:34
Speaker 2
And so January, I went and spent time with my family for New Year's.
1:09:40
Speaker 3
And I came out of that.
1:09:42
Speaker 2
My first certification was a program called Alternatives to Violence Project, which I received that certification in prison. And it was started by the guys in Sing Sing years ago. And the foundational part of that is you never have 0% of power and you rarely have 100% of the power.
1:09:58
Speaker 3
But what you do have... But where your power lies, what are you doing with it?
1:10:05
Speaker 2
I was like, I'm tired of this. This career in this space, I don't know what... I don't know why I got it. I don't know why a lot of atoms in my inbox. I don't know why, but I want to... feel in control of my life again. And so I was like, I did 10 years. I was like, I was like, can I sit for 30 days and trust that people who want to understand will understand and trust that what the path that I'm on the path that I'm on.
1:10:35
Speaker 3
And I, I take the, I take the game back.
1:10:38
Speaker 1
Yes.
1:10:39
Speaker 3
Right.
1:10:39
Speaker 2
And I was just like, but 30 days on Rikers is, is, is very different from, you know, incarceration in Nebraska is a thing, but this is Rikers.
1:10:47
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:10:48
Speaker 2
And my attorney was like, you know, Dominique, it's 21 days, actually. So, like, they're still fitting me for dresses for BET Black and Iconic, which was in the May.
1:10:57
Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh.
1:10:57
Speaker 2
All these things that happen. I'm at South by Southwest. And because the prosecutors were a bit upset, they asked the judge to remand me for 30 days. So, they got every day. I didn't get any good time.
1:11:07
Speaker 1
Okay.
1:11:08
Speaker 3
But that was what I needed.
1:11:15
Speaker 1
Okay.
1:11:16
Speaker 2
To see myself right now more than I ever have. Because one, I knew that my presence on social media was having impact. But when I was gone for those four weeks, it's insane how people showed up for me.
1:11:38
Speaker 3
In all sorts of ways.
1:11:40
Speaker 2
Whether it's Ayanna Pressley sending me an inbox, whether it's, you know, I realized I further cemented what my purpose was. Those 30 days in there, again, the subject matter expertise of it all. When I'm talking about ICE issues, I sat in there with... And I was in the women's facility. I sat in there with women who were being deported every day and translating for them and helping them call their families. When I'm talking about reproductive justice, yes, I know my sisters around me, they're navigating this, but I was in there... you know, with women who were pregnant and we have to fight for them when I'm helping, like, it was, it was the wildest, it was the most gender affirming thing I ever experienced in a very wild way.
1:12:25
Speaker 1
Oh.
1:12:26
Speaker 2
Because to them, I was, it was no question of, like, it wasn't like I, it was like, not only the system put me in there, it was like when I was in, I was in a dorm with like 50 other women. Yes. And, uh, Bree, Bree from America's Next Top Model is a counselor on Rikers Island now.
1:12:45
Speaker 1
Oh my goodness.
1:12:47
Speaker 3
And like my third day in, I was kind of like, what did you do? Because it was all a gamble. It was.
1:12:53
Speaker 2
And at the end of the day, I was just like, even if I come out of there and I'm a manager at Home Depot, I'm in control again. I felt so out of control. It felt like I was working, but I didn't have control. And so I took the, I was like, okay, I took it and I sat there, but Bree walked in and she was just like, I know who you are and I know what your purpose is. And I, that moment, was so important for me because it snapped me right back in. I was like, we about to walk these days down. And I knew, I said, I was like, they're going to regret every day I sat here because these girls are never going to be able to open their phone without seeing me. They're never going to be able to turn their TV and.
1:13:33
Speaker 3
Have to see me.
1:13:34
Speaker 2
And my work will speak because my work has always been of the people. And that's what happened. is that I made the choice to take the 30 days because I felt like I was in a fight that.
1:13:48
Speaker 3
No one would have won.
1:13:49
Speaker 2
And I, one of my biggest fears was waking up and my story ended up on Donald Trump's desk and it being on True Social.
1:13:55
Speaker 3
I swear to God, every day that was like.
1:13:57
Speaker 1
That you would become a cause for the right to demonize.
1:14:00
Speaker 2
My friends were so concerned for me.
1:14:02
Speaker 3
Get your VP in. Cause you know, I'm going to talk about Riley Gaines.
1:14:04
Speaker 2
I'm going to talk about, I was like, I don't care because I can't be, I'm not going to be quiet about things that are wrong. But I was just like, I, I got to take my power back and it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be simple, but it's mine. And what I've seen from, I turned myself in April 29th. I came home May 28th.
1:14:25
Speaker 3
And I.
1:14:27
Speaker 2
Think what people are most moved by is the fact that you have to know what is meant for you. Like that's the only thing that you really can have definitive. I know I'm meant to do something. I know that. The data shows that I should have been dead. I'm still here. Therefore, I have a purpose. That's the only thing I knew. And going in there, it was one of the scariest things I've ever done. But it gave me my power back in a way that has allowed me to sleep in a way that I haven't in three years. It allows me to have these conversations. Because before, it was like, we're in the middle of a case. People would ask stuff, and I'm like, well, let's talk about it, la, la, la. And I also took my power back before I lost love for serving my community.
1:15:18
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:15:19
Speaker 2
And even before I lost love for those girls, because I think all this came out of scarcity. And the sad truth is, they don't have what they wanted to have. What I thought I wanted to have is not what I ended up with.
1:15:31
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:15:33
Speaker 2
And also, the universe really is putting me on a path that I don't think I would have chosen if I would have stayed where I was. I don't think, I know I wouldn't have because I thought I was so stubborn with like, this is who I'm supposed to be. There's no way I would be figuring out how to talk to millions of people every day about things that I know is changing the world in the way that I'm into.
1:15:56
Speaker 1
First of all, I just want to thank you because that was very generous of you to tell that whole story. And, you know, because of the nature of the internet and social media, it's just hard to parse apart and find, even find you telling it that directly, because if I Google your name on, on, on YouTube, it's a bunch of people talking about you, you know, and.
1:16:14
Speaker 3
If I Google your name. And then you become content, right? You become content.
1:16:17
Speaker 2
And that's, I think that's the other thing that I realized, even as a creator, I already had a level of values, but I was just like, I'm never going to speak about people in a way that diminish, diminishes them In a way that is irreparable, especially with no true investment.
1:16:35
Speaker 3
Because most of the videos you will see, they don't know me.
1:16:38
Speaker 1
No.
1:16:38
Speaker 2
They're trying to pay their rent. You know what I'm saying? And so you have to sit with that. And when people ask me, as you did before we started, like, is anything off limits? Nothing's off limits because I put everything on the line for nothing to be off limits.
1:16:53
Speaker 3
It's all mine again. Yeah.
1:16:55
Speaker 2
And that's how I want to live my life.
1:17:00
Speaker 1
So I got three questions for you. One is, what do you wish people who don't, who are just coming to you or coming to understand trans folk, especially Black trans women, what do you wish they knew? Or what could you tell them that you feel like you are getting us wrong?
1:17:17
Speaker 2
I think that people are making the mistake of navigating us as an entire unit and not individuals. And what I mean by that is there is the Black trans experience. Specifically, when people are talking about Black trans, people are talking about Black trans women.
1:17:34
Speaker 1
Yes.
1:17:36
Speaker 2
But when we don't look at an individualized experience, it, one, diminishes the fact that in your transition, you still have to mature as a human being.
1:17:43
Speaker 1
Yes.
1:17:44
Speaker 3
Estrogen doesn't make you have, like, you know what I'm saying?
1:17:47
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:17:48
Speaker 3
It's not Jim and the holograms. Like, you know, Showtime synergy. It's not that. I wish it was.
1:17:52
Speaker 2
That would be so fab. But it's not that. And so y'all will meet Black trans women. Who are not emotionally regulated. They're just a shitty person. And that means black and trans isn't why. It's because they haven't grown up. It's the same.
1:18:10
Speaker 3
And if they do transition today.
1:18:11
Speaker 1
It's because there's shitty people out there of all types and shapes and sizes.
1:18:14
Speaker 2
And if they do transition today, they'd still be a shitty person that has to grow up.
1:18:20
Speaker 3
You feel me?
1:18:20
Speaker 2
So I think we're not navigating trans folks as human beings because I think so many folks are making the mistake of, associating their social media experience with Black trans folks to their real experience. And I always say, most folks don't know trans folks.
1:18:33
Speaker 1
For sure.
1:18:34
Speaker 3
You don't.
1:18:35
Speaker 1
Or don't know that they know trans folks.
1:18:37
Speaker 2
Or don't know that they know them, or definitely don't have the level of intimate relationship that would give sense to the way that trans folks are living in your mind. I'm like, what trans person did something wrong to you? I mean, tell me, because I know everybody. I pull up.
1:18:54
Speaker 3
You'll talk to them.
1:18:55
Speaker 1
No, for real. Yeah, I know. I know you for real.
1:18:56
Speaker 2
Because this thing you're doing, for real, because I'm like, yo, I'm never going to talk to this lady because she's a, it's just a mess. But I'd be like, Tasha K, what trans person hurt you? Because I want to go talk to them because what they did is making you do something that is causing bigger hurt. And we're 0.01 of the population, all trans people. And that ain't factoring just the black population. And I never want to dismiss fear. I want us to unpack what is it rooted in and how do we navigate it?
1:19:29
Speaker 3
You feel me? Like, okay, cool, but let's talk about it. And so that's what I want them to know.
1:19:34
Speaker 2
That we deserve to be treated through our individual experiences with you. And it will allow you to see the humanity in not the trans experience in us. And you'll realize that again, you may not like that person. We don't like that. If that person shaved their head and they grew out a beard, you would still not like that person.
1:19:55
Speaker 3
It's not because they're black and trans.
1:19:56
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:19:59
Speaker 3
If they did transition detransition, you would accept them being a terrible person.
1:20:04
Speaker 1
If they were a man, Yeah, you wouldn't put it on all men. You would say, that man is an asshole.
1:20:09
Speaker 2
If Blueface transitioned today, you have delegations upon delegations of women who are like, at least he's honest. If Blueface transitioned today, they would undo him in a microsecond. I always say, people are like, oh, listen, when I looked at some of the videos about me, if I wanted to get over on anybody, I would detransition and become a pastor. If I wanted to be Lex Luthor personified and still be okay, I would detransition and I would start a church.
1:20:44
Speaker 1
You would be wealthy in a year. You would be funded. You'd have Peter Thiel money.
1:20:53
Speaker 3
Oh my God. You know what I'm saying? This is a journey.
1:20:55
Speaker 2
This isn't a third. It's just like the grace that's there. And so, yeah, that's what I want them to know. Navigate us as individuals and you'll find out... yes, the craziness that we all possess, but you'll get a deeper understanding of like how dope we are because as human beings, we're dope.
1:21:11
Speaker 3
You know what I'm saying?
1:21:11
Speaker 2
All people have something dope about them, but you don't know that unless you have a relationship.
1:21:18
Speaker 1
This has been such a great conversation. And certainly I would, I hope to talk to you more just in life, but also in these formats. Cause I think it is. So the way you talk about this is so like, this is like just a long Instagram video. I just watched a view, but I get to, I get to ask questions. So thank you for the generosity of being here.
1:21:33
Speaker 3
Absolutely.
1:21:34
Speaker 1
I always ask people if there's a cause or nonprofit that people want to support or shout out or anything just to give people, because I like to give my audience homework.
1:21:43
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah.
1:21:45
Speaker 2
In regards to causes and movements, Black and Pink National, always. Black and Pink is the largest prison abolitionist organization. And Black and Pink centers LGBTQ plus incarcerated people, but they serve everyone. And so the work of Black and Pink is super important. Maryland Safe Haven. Aya Damon's and the work that she is doing with Governor Wes Moore is incredible there. And just really the work of Sister Song at the Space of Reproductive Justice and Care. Monica is about to have her 16th anniversary event on October 10th. I started the Sex Worker Liberation Project at Black and Pink. And I built it because there was a workforce development innovation group grant out of Oakland. And I was like, Well, sex work is work. I submitted it. Honey, they knocked us down. Monica gave us the first $ 50, 000 to start the project. A year later, I won that innovation prize. And other people came on. And I've been thinking about this a lot with the stuff that's happening with Shanteria Mosley out of Atlanta. The young black girl was door dashing and unalive, body dismembered by this 18-year-old young man. And now people are saying, you know, there was sex work involved. And so when I think about Monica, there's just all those times that Monica said yes. Working in an industry where people would have easily said no to a black trans woman.
1:23:10
Speaker 3
So sister song work.
1:23:12
Speaker 2
And then personally, you know, my sub stack is where like my videos, my videos allow me to have the engagement that I would have.
1:23:18
Speaker 3
Like if we're friends, I'm a voice note girly. Yeah.
1:23:21
Speaker 2
The shit that comes in my mind like, hey, did you think about this? It allows me to have that type of cadence. My sub stack is where. I get to bring all my ideas together and I get to dive into them deeper and I get to create a couch for people to sit on again and not to tell people what to think, but to ask them to think. And I'm putting my things out there and like, let's unpack it. I'm starting, you know, the Imaginarium really where my Discovering Your Power, my curriculum lives there. I launched Auntie's Imaginarium yesterday, work that'll be just for young people. I constantly want to show my community like, yo, this is how I'm telling y'all how I'm going to be of service.
1:24:00
Speaker 1
My final question, easy. Podcast is called Who's With Me. Are you with me?
1:24:06
Speaker 3
I am with you, sir. Absolutely.
1:24:09
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
1:24:09
Speaker 3
You're needed. You are needed. Patriarchy is a bitch. And, you.
1:24:18
Speaker 2
Know, I have a list of like TED Talk titles that if they call me, I'd be ready.
1:24:21
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:24:22
Speaker 2
It's a title that, you know, T'Challa didn't decide who he was the king of. He was just the king of Wakanda. And it talks about... For me, it's just like the importance of strong, intelligent, steadfast Black men in our community are so needed. And people like you and Kev represent those brothers. And so I'm with you in regards to the work you do.
1:24:46
Speaker 3
But as.
1:24:49
Speaker 2
Your people, it's like, no, I'm with you because... We really need leadership, and we need leadership of people who are not idiots. And I'm grateful you're not an idiot.
1:25:00
Speaker 1
I'm going to put that in my bio. I'm so grateful. I'm grateful Kamau's not an idiot. And I'm going to take from this podcast so much. But one of the things I'm going to take from it, because it just really struck with me, I'm going to walk these days down. Because I feel like that will help me get through the day so many times. I'm just going to walk these days down. I know I'm not going to go through what you went through in Rikers, but it does help me sort of lock in, we've got to walk these days down.
1:25:21
Speaker 3
We got to walk them down. We'll get to the other side.
1:25:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. This was truly a pleasure. Thanks for listening to who's with me. That was my conversation with Dominique Morgan. Dominique Morgan has a sub stack. You can find her at the Dominique Morgan on sub stack. And also you can follow her on Instagram and social media channels. Again, great follow tells it exactly like she thinks it is. It throws, throws high heat. So yeah, check out Dominique Morgan. I was glad to have her on the podcast today. Again, my book, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese, is out. Again, Mahogany Mommies, the new fall drop is in, so you can go to mahoganymommies.com, use the code WKB to get a discount. Again, Facing Race, the Oakland Public Library, November 7th at the Oakland Public Library, November 14th at Facing Race. All right, so all those links are in the show notes. Also, Dominique mentions some organizations she wants us to support. So we got blackandpink.org, which is a LGBTQ +, focus on the plus because a lot of things after the plus, prison abolitionist group that supports the LGBTQ plus community. We got Maryland Safe Haven, which the current email address is baltimoresafehaven.org. It connects individuals and families to housing stability, health services, and the community support they need to thrive. The last one is one that I know about but happy to support, SisterSong, which you can go to at sistersong.net. They are a black woman founded and led reproductive justice organization, and they are so focused on reproductive justice that SisterSong is credited with coining the term reproductive justice in 1994. So they know what they're doing there. Support those three organizations. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week. As you can see, I'm recording here at Rabbit Grin Productions in Glendale. Thanks to Rabbit Grin Productions, just generally, but also thanks for letting me record this time in Glendale. Thanks to Pushkin Industries. Thanks to Who Knows Best Productions, which is me and my wife. Special thanks to Chris Dowd from Fishbone. Fishbone is on tour. Check them out. They just got back from doing a bunch of dates overseas, but they're back here now. And finally, as I always say, do something good for yourself, for your community, and for the world. We voted. Now let's keep doing good things.
The Host
