Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to now. No opportunity wasted. I'm your host, Angelica Ross.
So I'm just going to go ahead and kick things off with a word from Buddhism day by day. Wisdom for modern life by Daisaku Ikeda for July 22. And it says, quote, jose Tota always urged us to live our lives with courage and never be cowards.
He said, those who can't do anything but live cowardly lives are like beasts. They are ignoble and unhappy. Those who live out their lives courageously, on the other hand, lead the noblest and most sublime existences.
They are happy. Now, if that ain't the truth, honey, because things have been extremely challenging, but also, I am happier than I have ever been.
I am currently right now, back in Los Angeles. So I'm not in my home studio. I'm in the process of closing this chapter and packing up my apartment, selling what I can, shipping, and donating the rest, you know. And as challenging as things have been, it has also felt extremely rewarding to finally know that I can move on and move with the knowledge and experience that I gain from the challenges that I have been facing over the past year alone. And I go into more detail about those challenges in the winner's circle, where I can be a little bit more vulnerable in the community I'm building with folks who, you know, I'm building trust with. And when I reveal what it actually looks like to truly overcome your challenges and win, I'm showing that it's not always pretty. And I don't even attempt to hide the truth of what it takes.
I have cried more in this past week than I have cried in a long time.
I received some guidance from an elder in our trans community. Shout out to Miss Valerie Spencer. And it was just.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: It was a little bit of a.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Tough pill to swallow. But I have to say that the message was received, and afterwards, I allowed myself to feel all the emotions about it.
Clarity broke through my tears and brought me to a place where I'll be damned. I feel even stronger than I did before, even more conviction than I did before.
I had so many personal aha. Moments that led me to clearing my Instagram account. I started with the post that Meta said that I was in violation for and could not monetize. Then I thought, you know what?
It might be time to start over. I already don't have access to my 480,000 followers. Meta has made it very clear that as long as I continue using their platform the way that I've been using it, I might as well give it up. It might as well be a wrap.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Because they have communicated that they will.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Render my platform almost invisible.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: And that's exactly what it has felt.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Like for the past few months.
I have been in an echo chamber with everybody else who has been risking their platforms for Palestine, Sudan, Congo, or to really advocate for anything other than capitalism.
My metrics are telling the tea, honey. And what I believe is that many of the folks who love, follow, and support me know that I can do better than this. They know that I can move smarter than I have been moving. I want you to know that I know that. And I have immediately started correcting cores.
This is what is possible when you have community.
But my experience being a celebrity, you know, had me thinking I was in community with people who were really only saw me as competition.
I can hear my mom in my head, you know, saying, that ain't your friend.
So the next chapter of my life in Georgia is one where I am building community with people who I am wholeheartedly committing myself to serve my buddhist community and my local buddhist chapter. By continuing to attend our local meetings and activities, I'm building community with voters in Georgia who are ready for a radical leader such as myself.
Y'all see how the democratic party is moving. We see that the Democratic Party continues to show a lack of support for black women who, time and time again keep showing that we have what it takes to lead a company or a country.
So I don't expect the establishment to be throwing their support behind me, especially how hard I've been riding Biden lately and the democratic party in general. So I know the only way that I'm going to be able to win is with the people. And that's exactly what I plan to do.
Speaking of black women who are ready to lead the country, did y'all hear the news?
President Biden has dropped out the race, honey. And is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential ticket this November. What y'all think now, the question is, what, if anything, does this change other than a candidate who might still co sign Israel's war?
Now, I'm not gonna sit up here and be calling Kamala a cop, but my question is, will she co sign the ongoing multimillion dollar developments of cop cities across America? Who you gonna call? Not the cops.
Not when I'm the one who's calling for help and I get shot. Rest in peace, Sonya Massey, another unarmed black woman who called 911 for help and was shot in the face by a now ex sheriff deputy.
Listen, we are going to have to learn to call on each other, call on community.
We can't rely on these cops and cop cities to keep us safe.
We need people who are waking up to the power in their own lives and are finding ways to use it. Like today's guest, Melanie Thompson, y'all. Melanie is sharing her story that is harrowing, yet inspiring. Coming from a family and growing up in domestic violence to being kidnapped and trafficked into the sex trade, and finding her way out through resilience and sheer determination, Melanie's story is a powerful testament to the importance of a mindset, of a winning mindset, and of personal growth, which she uses on her podcast, exit wounds. So I want y'all to just open your hearts, open your ears, and open your minds, and take a listen to my conversation with Melanie Thompson.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Again, the context of this podcast is no opportunity wasted. And, you know, I get very emotional. I'm getting goosebumps. But I'm just thinking about you. Because what we as buddhists, even before people realize it, we kind of get these kind of goosebumps and chills and say congratulations. When we see someone sort of at the beginning of a really big challenge, and we say congratulations, which can get very annoying.
But to see you here now, knowing that you are on the other side of some challenging experiences, I really would love for you to share with our listeners, our winners, as we call them, how you were able to sort of make the most out of some very difficult opportunities. How things started out for you and how they're going now.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a. I have a loaded life. I'm gonna try to condense that for you.
You know, I grew up in a domestic violence household or intimate partner violence household. My parents were obviously involved in that. And I am the oldest of seven children, so we had a pretty large family. There was a lot of alcoholism and abuse and things like that. So I started from there shortly transitioning into sexual assault and things like that. And then shortly after was when I was first kidnapped, when I was twelve years old and ended up in the sex trade. All of this was not like what we see on law and order, SVU. It had nothing to do with, you know, the sensationalized versions of trafficking and prostitution. This was right in the neighborhood. I'm from New York City. It was right around the corner for me.
It kind of, the path kind of goes through that. Shortly after my trafficking experience, I was arrested, unfortunately, and put into the foster care system, where I bounced around to different facilities, juvenile detention, different juvenile detention facilities, and in different foster homes and mental hospitals, and I can spend a million hours talking about, you know, all of the gruesome things I saw in that. But really, I started with a lot of instability, and I've been in the foster care system for 14 years before I finally aged out and just decided that I didn't want that trajectory to continue. So from there, I went on to pursue college, finally get a high school diploma, even though I graduated late. And then I started becoming an advocate for those that were in prostitution and those who were trafficked or in the foster care system, like myself.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: How? Okay, so, you know, I think that this is sort of like a fork in the road that happens for many people who experience something so jarring and traumatic.
There's left and there's right in the sense that you could have let this experience drive you into deeper, just trauma. Deeper trauma. Deeper experience. Especially, you know, it's not easy once you get roped up into the legal system, being arrested, being seen as a black adult, even though you are a child, as a young person, where was your mindset and your spirit to be able to come out of this and have the determination that you did?
[00:10:58] Speaker C: I'll be honest, in the beginning, it was very difficult for me. I really didn't have a lot of hope. I am the oldest of seven, but I was the only one of my siblings who ended up in these kind of systems. So it was very difficult to be separated from my family and then going through these systems and dealing with different foster parents who would tell me that I wasn't nothing about the curse, I wasn't nothing or dealing with people who didn't believe in me in different settings and things like that. I went back. I went back to prostitution a lot, and I ran away from a lot of the facilities that I was in a lot.
But I think, for me, where the determination came in was that before I was trafficked, and even growing up as a small child dealing with domestic violence in a household, I always had certain dreams. And while I was going through my experiences, I didn't think that I'd be able to attain those dreams. But it got to a point after my arrest, after I'm going through the system, where I'm like, I'm tired of running away. I'm tired of being physically abused. I don't want to deal with this anymore. And I realized later on in life that the only person who can change your situation truly is yourself. And granted, you might need some help along the way, but I started to think about you know what? I got younger siblings that I don't want this to happen to. I still have dreams of being a dancer, a writer, all of these different things that I wanted to fulfill. And I think I kind of had to pick myself up by the bootstraps and just hold on to what I really wanted to pursue. And I think the vision of what that could look like for me ten years down the road is what kept me going, because, like you said, it's left to right. And for me, I didn't want to end up in the grave. So the only other alternative in my mind at that time was to pick yourself up and actually follow what it was that you were dreaming of since you were a child. And I think that has just held me through for the next 15 years after that.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Wow, that's so amazing. And I love that you said and pointed out. I think we live in a very abusive and manipulative society, and it's just done in so many ways that are normalized that sometimes when we are saying certain things that can be truth, that can be, you know, whatever, it just can feel like victim blaming or it can feel like a lot of different things. And that's not, you know, especially, you know, in our buddhist organization with the SGI, like, we have a very diverse community, and that community looks like celebrities like myself, and it looks like folks who are. Who are housing insecure, who have. Who are doing sex work, who are just. Who are in addiction. Like, it's just kind of all across the board.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: And I get so emotional because it's.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: A place that has a respect for each person to understand that I can't fix anything for you. I can't. All I could possibly do is do a temporary, you know, band aid situation. You know, especially because I am one person who still has to take care of my own life and things as well. And so, you know, I've had friends, I have. I've had family. I've had various folks that I have, you know, try to help in various ways. And what I've seen over time is a difference in that person in the sense that they have something that believes outside of that moment that I can have something more, versus what I've seen in so many folks is that they've swallowed a poison, and now they don't need the system to tell them they're nothing. They're telling themselves on repeat of, you know, you said that you were able to hold on to these dreams outside of that. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about, like, how you broke that narrative.
What do those dreams look like? And even if it's, you know, still. Cause for me, I need to also talk to the folks again, because, you know, when I talk about winning and folks being winners, it's not at the cost of somebody else being a loser. It's also about a mindset that does that is not determined by credit scores or bank account balances and things like that. It's a mindset that's from moment to moment. And so when it's. When we're talking about winning, what it looks like to win right now is to be able to have done something with that moment to get you closer to those things that you were talking about. So talk to me about that path. Was this podcast, is this podcast a part of that path of, like, sort of being in that creative space but also using your experience and platform?
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Absolutely. You know, I love everything you said, and I specifically love what you were saying in the definition of winners, because I think thinking about what winning looks like as it pertains to you and your organization and your podcast, which is kind of what shifted my mindset and how I was able to continue, because don't get it twisted when something happens now, if I'm back in a really bad financial place, if my, you know, I still live in the projects, right? If my housing gets on my nerves or whatever, have you, I often think about going back, and I think about, I could easily rectify this situation in 2.5 seconds, right? But I also think about everything that that was attached to. And I think, for me, it wasn't just like the fairy tale. I've always wanted to be a dancer. So I'm gonna just think about dancing and save my life.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: I think that's bullshit.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: If we be quite. The reality, though, for me was that I kept remembering, and I think I actually had somebody randomly tell me this back in the day, which helped me, right, waking up every day was a win, and I wasn't seeing it like that at that time, right? For me, when it was attached to success, was attached to a dollar amount, was attached to tangible things, and I wasn't giving value to my existence. And I think being homeless, being on drugs at the time, being heavily addicted to alcohol, having all of these different people do whatever they wanted to my little body, right? Like, I was seeing all of those as losses. And I felt like at that time, waking up was a loss.
When somebody helped me understand, shift your mindset to know that you still breathe in and that you have the ability to cut this off and that even if you did nothing today, rest is a win. All of those little pieces of things people were putting in my ear helped me to get to the next day. I've been now doing advocacy work for 14 years, and I'm only 28.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: That's amazing, right?
[00:17:41] Speaker C: So I started as a kid and going to the podcast now, you know, exit wound, I just started, I just completed the first season in the last two months. And what I love about it, you know, I've been doing this work, I've been in the movement, I've been tackling laws and all the fluff. But I kept saying, I'll speak to somebody, I'll do a panel, I'll do a training. But after every event, myself and other survivors and people who have lived through these things all convene and we all have to go get a drink after, right? Or we all have to go and debrief. And in that moment, I was like, you know what? Something gotta give. Because we all pouring our hearts out to the world, and yet we still feel drained. So I said, well, why don't I start a conversation? Let's put us in a room and actually take the time unfiltered, with no parameters and no politicians, and let's just talk about what we feel. And to be fair, I still think the podcast is a little edited, right? Like, I feel like we can go on and on, but I think that just creating a space to highlight 15 different individuals from one state that all don't know each other, but then all have similar experiences. I really want my goal with exit to highlight the true trajectory of what it's like to heal, not the crap that tv tells you. You know, CNN or whatever might highlight a survivor story, but when they do so, it's usually with an agenda, and you usually have to talk about your healing in a certain way. And I don't want to do that. I wanted people to know. Healing is not linear. Healing is very difficult at times. And it doesn't just look like, you know, numb your ring a cure, and then you feel better after five minutes. You might numb your ring a cure and then still feel angry or you meditate, you better talk, you know. Yes, I'm just saying because, you know, and this is from experience, because I've tried meditation and I still, I'm struggling with grasping it, right, because part of meditation, for example, is calming your thoughts. But if you're somebody with complex PTSD or somebody who has ADHD or lives in their head or is an overthinker. It's hard to do that. And I just wanted the world to know that. That's my particular, you know, path on healing. But so many survivors across the world all have similar commonalities. And I just wanted exit wound to highlight that and not just say, like, when people ask me or survivors, how did you heal? I didn't want the universal response to be what I tried yoga now and better.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:15] Speaker C: I wanted folks to know that it's not. It's up and down all the way through.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: You know, I. You know, that's. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Number one, two, that is also a big part of this in this practice when we chant nami o ring a kyo, and we. Cause you do get this rush of benefit in the beginning because it's a new mindset for you to see things differently, but then you are returned back to the reality that buddhism is everyday life. And so it's all the everyday challenges. I was at a meeting a couple weeks ago, and there was one of our, you know, the more that people practice, like, if they. This guy was practicing for 30 years, and what I love about these meetings, going to these different places is the more years that they've been practicing, it's like when they open their mouths, just a sentence, like, kind of just grabs you, you know? And so.
But this was this black man, and he was talking about how we chant and sit in front of the gohonza and we chant, knowing with, well, supposedly being in this space of having absolute faith that I will absolutely overcome whatever this thing is, and I will have whatever it is that I want. I can absolutely have it and be happy.
And he talked about the tension between that space and also being in a space where sometimes you need to admit you need help, where that you're struggling, that things are hard. It doesn't mean, like, doing these things doesn't mean that you're going to be able to now do them in some superhuman way.
It just means it gives you a tool to remove you from a state of judgment of yourself, working against yourself in ways that are not smart. You know, that having the wisdom to make certain choices that protect yourself boundaries, all these different things that don't even start with you even walking out the door yet, you know? So the best gift that I have been able to receive from my spiritual practice is there have been moments when I have been struggling and crying and I've had to cry, and I've also been able to, like, kind of, like, crack a smile at the same time, because I know I'm okay, but it's just like, yes, this hurts right now. Like, I'm gonna be honest with the people. Like, I've been trying to be more and more transparent, and this is. This is gonna be some champagne problems. I'm gonna warn you right now. This is chronic champagne problems a little bit. But at a time where I was nothing, um, because I love Hollywood, because I basically told them to kiss my boute, um, and kept my integrity about the things that I'm doing, you know, that definitely affected my income and my income stream and the way that, you know, I did certain things. And so, you know, there was a large period of time where I was not working, where income was not coming in, and I was starting to get very stressed out about, you know, what to do next.
And there was a moment where, you know, friends are calling me up and wanting to go do fun things and different things or whatever, and I'm not in the mindset, because even when I'm hanging out with them, my mind is on either the movement and stopping the ceasefire and blah, blah, blah, or paying my bills. You know what I mean? And so there was a moment where I was getting very anxious, and then I stopped and I was, as I was chanting, like, I was literally just like, you have a Porsche in Los Angeles that you have not been driving.
So letting go of that and dealing with the fact that, sure, I'm still a star, I'm still valuable, I'm still all these things. Not having that Porsche does not diminish my value.
Not only that, but it's a smart move. I'm glad that I have it and that it held its value and that I could see sell it and create a, you know, a buffer in that moment. But realizing I had wood to burn to keep myself warm, I feel like I've been going through levels of that in the sense of realizing that I don't have to resort to various things if I have family, if I have, you know, even various things that I can take inventory of to kind of get me to that next point you talk about, like, so, exit wounds. I want to talk about this podcast because I now got to tune in and just get into it because.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Talk.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: To me about a couple things. One, I want to know about the title and just what that means.
And two, talk to me about something you've learned in conversation with these other folks like us. Maybe a story that stuck with you.
[00:25:29] Speaker C: So many stories stuck with me. But first, the title. So I, when we came up with this podcast, my colleagues and I. I wanted to think of something creative, and I'm a pole, so I was just like, I need something that's like a play on words. I don't know what, what it's going to be.
And then I said, well, let me think of concepts first. What is something that comes to mind when I think about my life? Prostitution, sex trafficking. An exit wound stuck out to me. Now, I wanted to play on this because initially to the general public exit, when you think of a bullet going through and coming out the other end, but in a metaphoric state, exit wound talks about something painful going in and then coming out, which usually, right when you go to triage or you go to the erde, when it comes out on the other end, it grieves you, and there's healing that could happen when the bullet is still inside. That's when the problem becomes. That's when infections can occur if we're being very medical, right? So for me, it was really just kind of signifying pain going and healing coming out.
But then also, I was like, well, this would make for a good visual, and we're trying to make an icon or something for it or a symbol. And that became really creative, artsy, but just overall, exit wound just talks about pain going in and healing coming out.
And then in terms of things that have stuck with me, really, all of the survivors that I've interviewed have been extraordinary people in the movement. And I think, you know, one story that particularly stuck out to me, I was actually just listening to this the other day. You know, one of my survivor sisters had talked about when she got married to a guy who got mad at her for something trivial. And I won't, you know, I won't put on the show her business, but got mad at her for something trivial.
And when he came home that night, he had basically blasted out her experiences and her past to his family that forced him to divorce her. And although that story in and of itself is messed up for me, what that also signified and reminded me of was the parallels that all of us survivors had, right? We can all have different experiences. We could have been on different tracks, had different traffickers, different plans, whatever, whatever, whatever. But we all still had that same shame attached to our initial stories. And that hurt and that pain and that feeling of having to walk through society and not necessarily feel confident and comfortable enough to be your true self. And for me, I think it hurt a lot because thinking back when I was younger, before I got to this place, that I'm at right now, it was always, I don't want to give somebody the real me because if they see it, they won't take it. They won't accept it. They're going to disown me. Right. And hearing her tell me that and then thinking of myself and then hearing and seeing all of the survivors who have not been in the movie who are still out there right now, who are newly exited and thinking about what they might be feeling. Because even, even as we chant, even as we go through, right. We still have our insecurities. Every human has insecurity, survivor or not. So when you couple that with these lived experiences and just hearing that, and mind you, that woman that told me that she's twice my age, so just hearing how it's generational for me, I think, you know, we hear that and it's a buzzword and we know it on paper, but just to see it in real time, to see how, you know, this trauma continues to manifest itself, I think, is what stuck out for me.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: You know, I've been in a similar situation where obviously I came out of the sex trade as a trans woman, and I met my ex fiance who I was in a relationship for, with, for like eight years. And it was probably like the great, it was one of the greatest loves of my life. I'll say one of, because I might be on the verge of another, but just saying it was what, it was one of the greatest loves of my life. And.
But we had to get over this space for a couple years where I was coming out of that and I was trying to get him to trust me, like, in a way that I know he loved me and these different things, but it was almost like the images on the Internet were betraying who I really was. It was like he couldn't see the difference between me playing a character, you know, for the people and thinking that this is who I really am. And I think I just, my heart is really tussling right now with the idea.
Men and maleness and testosterone and masculinity has been allowed to run rampant for centuries, since the beginning of time and femininity and sexuality and our power and all these things have always been seen as something to tame, as something to control, to own or to, you know, commercialize and to profit off of. And I almost think that we even as women ourselves or just even the people ourselves have yet to be experienced the freedom of what it means to be a sexual being in this culture and not have to be of service to anyone.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: And you know what? I think that's why. And, I mean, I'm google able, so people know that I don't use the term sex work, but I think my reason is valid, right? Like you said, we are in a sexual society, right? And we all grew up with sex selves. And I think where the lines get misconstrued is that when we talk about sexuality and femininity as power, it was intended with the idea behind it, right, that that power relates to seduction and eroticism. However, patriarchy came in and took that sexual feminine prowess and found a way to mask it or disguise it as power, but in the benefit of the patriarchy rather than in the benefit or for the purposes of seduction. So when we talk about sex being work, what we often find is people saying sex work is work, and sex work is, you know, female empowerment and body positivity, right? And that's what it's guys does, right? So when we talk about it as either a feminist issue or even just as a non feminist issue, it's like, yeah, like, stripping is sexy, and, like, you know, that's only a new phenomenon. That idea that when we talk about sex work, right, this idea that we're gonna equate it to body positivity and, like, female empowerment, and let's take our power back. The reality is that sex work, prostitution, whatever you call it, it's not in the power of the feminine being in that. In that situation. I tell people this all the time, right? A lot of people that have not been in this experience think that a person who doesn't have a pimp, let's say the person that decides to go in a strip club, the person that is taking their pole classes, and they showing us our tricks at the top of the poll and all of that, they'll say, that woman has the power. She chose to get into sex work and be a dancer. On the surface, yeah, she did it. She walked into the strip club. She auditioned, and I'm using she just because. Right. Like, on the surface level, that person decided to do that. However, when it comes to sex work and feminine female empowerment and body positivity, right? And we talk about this notion of choice and power, who is it that that person is performing for on the poll? How can they ensure, like you said, that on that Tuesday, they can go to an ATM and make a withdrawal? At the end of the day, if the majority. Because it's majority men, if the majority of the patriarchy that's in the audience does not deem that girl on the pole sexy enough, she don't get paid, right? If that strip club owner does not think that you are pretty enough to represent their strip club, you do not have work, right? You don't get to dance on that stage. So when we talk, this is why I say sex is not working. Work is not sex. Because although, and I do agree with the statement that I think us as people, take advantage of a broken system. But if it's those individuals that get to decide how feminine, or rather on that scale, how sexy our sex is, how sexy our feminine is, how sexy our prowess and seduction is worth, that is not power. That is not choice. That is something that is bestowed onto us. Now, personally, am I all for, you know, seducing your man, getting cute, looking sexy. If you want to go pole dancing for yourself and to feel, whatever, good, I'm all for it, right? I'm not against that. And I think, and I want to highlight this, there is a misconception that folks that do anti trafficking work are not pro sex or not pro erotica. That's not the case. I'm a very sexual being, and I'm very pro sexual freedom, right? What I am not pro is when, one, sexual freedom is commodified. Two, when sexual freedom is placed on a value meter. Three, when the patriarchy decides to come in and dictate who's pretty enough, who's worth enough, which trans body is better, which breasts are bigger, that's when you start putting these commodifications and stipulations onto that. That is not power, right? So when we talk about sex work being work, what I want folks to understand is that the system of prostitution is a system historically and to this day. And I think this is why exit week was created, right? To this day, society, because we have this notion that, one, sex sells, and two, this is a man's world, they somehow combine that to create the sex trade. So a lot of people see sex work as an individual's choice, your choice to go on the track. And I'm just. I'm just using you as an example. Your choice to go on the track, my choice to go in a strip club, her choice to get on drugs, their choice to do this. And that's how the world sees it, because we're all very surface level. But when you take a step back and say, actually, the sex trade is a system that was predicated on other oppressive systems, like racism, classism, patriarchy, so on and so forth.
And that system specifically targets marginalized individuals like us, black and brown, like us queer, like us trans, like us, poor on drugs, have a child, sexual abuse history, all of these different things. When you look at it from that lens, you recognize you don't actually have the power, because when we look at the true definition of power, you have to be at the center of your own development in order for power to be attained. When you are in the sex trade, you might be at the center, but you are not getting gainful employment. There is no promotions in the sex industry, and it's usually at the man or at the hands of the person that is paying you or valuing you or placing a number on your sexual prowess that has the power. Because without the demand, trying to go and trade, if we didn't have tricks, we wouldn't be getting dressed to go and trade. You know what I'm saying? So that's not power. And I think that's where my thing stems from, the sex not being work. It has nothing to do with the verbiage. It has nothing to do with, like, I'm trying to take your autonomy away. If you feel like you want to go twerk on the corner, that's your business. But remember, your payment for said business comes from the people who deem you sexy or not, who deem you fit enough or not, who deem you smart enough or not. And that is not powerful. That is your situation. Becoming your trafficker.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: What do you think? As someone who's been doing the work, doing advocacy as well, for so long, and watching and witnessing various people be either reminded or discover their own personal power and value outside of the sex trade, what does evolution look like for us in a space that has only fans as well as, like, you know, politicians and the likes still, and cops still participating in the underbelly, I would say, of the sex trade, honestly, I.
[00:37:55] Speaker C: Don'T even have all the answers, right? And this is what I've been combating for the last 15 years, especially. And I mean, I could do seasons of episodes alone on onlyfans, but, you know, especially in this space now, like evolution. And when I say for us, I mean for the black and brown, for the people who are the most impacted. Like, it's gonna take a cultural mindset shift with all of us, or at least the majority of us, in order to make significant change and in order to free ourselves from that chokehold, right? And like I said, we can't undo 400 plus years of history, of the cultural mindset that this is a man's world, that sex sells, and that we have to put ourselves into the male gaze.
It's difficult, right. In our music, in our videos, these types of things. BBL culture was on the rise and within the last five years, probably longer, but very much highlighted within the last five years. And I even have a lot of friends that engage. Right. I'm gonna stay fat, but you know what I'm saying?
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:39:01] Speaker C: There's a lot of people that do. And it's. It's so deep rooted even before, even without the whole political trajectory, like, even just from the history of chattel slavery, like, thinking about how black female bodies were fetishized by masters used for breeding tools, things like that. That's something that I will not single handedly be able to undo.
But I do think it starts with these kind of conversations. If we're talking about what does evolution look like, being able to highlight these on platforms that go beyond just one person who luckily read a good book. Right. Because just about ten years ago, nobody was talking about this critical race theory intersectionality by Kimberly Crenshaw. Right. These are things that only just got highlighted within the last decade. So I think we are on a right path. I think the idea of wokeness and I think black individuals coming together and having more open conversations, even if it ends in a debate, but just having it at the table is where we start to evolve. I think only using onlyfans as an example, right. That's. That is a platform that we all know, whatever have you, and it was created for one thing and turned into something else. But even with onlyfans as popular as that became, I think more and more people are starting to see onlyfans for what it is. And I think more and more people have recognized the demographic of individuals that are on there, for one thing, and the demographic of individuals that are there for something else. So I think, really, it starts with having this conversation. And I think something that you said that was really amazing was the illusion of power. And I think whether you choose to go in a marriage and, you know, seduce your partner for a new bed, new car, whatever, whether you actually work in a strip club, whether you actually go turn a trip, whatever have you. As long as we continue to remember in the back of our minds that it's an illusion of power and not true power, I think it will start to eat at every individual. And once it starts to eat at you individually, you want to vent about that. And when you vent about that, you start to get other people, like in our podcast, who continue to feel the same way. That's how you start to unionize. Once you unionize, you collectivize. And when you collectivize, that's when evolution happens. So it's going to take some time because I'm not 400 years old and this goes 400 years beyond us. Right. But I do think we're in the right. We're taking steps in the right direction as a people, as a race. I think people are. This generation specifically is really good at calling out injustices. I think that we're putting more things in the open and challenging some of the norms that have been keeping us in these places. So we're working on it. We trucking on.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: To me, this is about lifting up the carpet, and it's going to be. It's a lot of dirt, and we clean and we cleaning it up, and sometimes that's going to look messy. So, you know, these conversations and hearing people talk off rip is not cute all the time, you know, because people are saying some really wild things. But even as, you know, black women, like, I really appreciate you.
Just even in this conversation, there have been ways that have not been performative or overt. And yet I can tell in your conversation you are a safer space. And what I say, by means safer space is, like, I try to make. Say that I'm a safe space, you know, but I know that I'm not perfect and that I can be ableist. I can be, you know, various things that slip up and, you know, but I do my best to want to be in community. And I could tell, you know, from your conversation that you are that type of person. You also said, do you chant.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: Ish?
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Ish.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: The reason why I say that is because you. The way you spoke was, like, kind of inclusive in the sense of like. And I'm like, wait, do you chant? You just saying I'm your whole ring a girl like that, you know?
[00:43:02] Speaker C: No, I have a friend who's buddhist, who's very close to me, who is trying to convert me, and I just. I haven't really taken the time to go through it.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Well, listen, let me tell you this. I'm a rope you in right now. But listen.
So to I. So I will tell you, like, to open yourself up to that experience, because everything you will learn in this and everything that you will hear will only put up a mirror to yourself that will get you to see yourself and your situation even more clearly, especially because you are already doing the type of work that we. And I'm gonna let you go in a minute because I'm telling you. But, like, you know, we live in a world that so easily cast people away as invaluable.
And as a black trans woman who grew up in the midwest and in the church and in different things, I was clearly communicated to that you are an abomination. You do not have value if you don't change your life. All these type of things. And. But this practice, the way I want to, you want to gravitate to, is because what we believe is that through this cycle of life and death that keeps going on and on and on, that we spiritually volunteer to take on the mission that we just took on to prove, not through just talking and whatever. No, through action, through actual proof, through my life. To show you that even somebody like me, that came from the places I came from and the experiences that I did, even someone like me can be the most valuable thing to this planet, because I'm seeing it in the way you are approaching the work that you're doing, the way you have the heart to do what you do, the way that you see your own value, because it starts there. You couldn't have done nothing for nobody else unless you had at first seen the value in yourself. And so the practice that we practice is based off this lotus sutra, which is. The lotus flower is a flower that blossoms and seeds at the same time, which basically tells us that we don't have to wait until we fully blossom, but that we can use our life in a way that we're blossoming at the same time that we are dropping seeds in other people's lives. And I see that you're doing that already. So this is a type of practice that will literally be, like, a. Something that would, like, blow it way open.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: You got me, tearyot. I'm so invested now. And, you know, like, something. Like, for me, I struggle daily. I have the depression and ptsd, and it's real for me. And I find myself often having conversations like, you're doing so much for so many people, and you. You're opening the conversation and spaces for so many folks that you go feel like crap.
And, you know, I share that because it's not easy work that we do. And although I've gotten past the initial feelings of, like, blaming myself for what had happened, like, I still struggle in that area of value, right? Because I fight a system where I just said that the society places value onto us, and then you still have to try to think of yourself in the highest valued form in order to get to that point. So it's. It's. That's why I say, healing is a lifelong journey. It's not gonna happen over.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: It really isn't. I just want to thank you again. Definitely reach out to your friends that you know, and actually, too, I'm gonna give you my number. You could text me you have any questions about it or whatever, because I'm.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: Telling you, because I really am telling.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: You, I'm just seeing your life. And what we talk about a lot is life condition and how to elevate that life condition.
Also how to understand that, because the life condition is based off of the ten worlds and everything from being in the lowest world of hell to being in a higher level of humanity and heaven and all these other buddha, buddhahood and all these other things. But it's, again, not to do this with an understanding that I will never. Because in each of the ten worlds exist all the other nine. And so in the midst of where I am right now, the world is on fire.
And there's complete hell for people in Palestine as well as people in Detroit and people all over the world. And so this type of thing gives you this ability to go to hell and back and to keep your, to be able to hold on to yourself and to not be engulfed by the flames, to not be eaten up by your own hunger, but to use that hunger to drive you for other things. So it's such an amazing thing. I already see it, and it's one of these things also, that a part of this practice is it's a mirror. So the reality is it's already just reflecting in you what's already there as you're awakening to it. This is just a practice to kind of like drum it all up, but you're already doing the thing, so continue doing the work, I hope. I just want to keep in touch with you. You're just, I felt, I felt you, I felt your spirit, I felt your mission. I would love to. How do we, how do we kind of like follow along and keep up with you?
[00:48:34] Speaker C: Listen, follow me at melt 1225, exit wound, the journey of exploitation and beyond. It's literally on all platforms, YouTube, Spotify, the whole nine.
And then of course, I'll send you my contact information if you want to add that to the show notes. But I would love to keep in touch and I would love to see folks follow and engage with the podcast, give us your true feedback, reviews and questions and comments. We could keep the conversation going.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: Yeah, let's keep this conversation going, folks. So let us know definitely what you were challenged with by this conversation, as well as maybe something that gave you some more hope and helped some of us out there release the shame, because I think that's one of the biggest parts of the journey, is understanding. We all go through something, and shame is just one of those things that's not going to help you along the way. So the quicker that you learn to release that, the quicker we can get about the business of healing.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Yes, thank you so much. We'll be right back, y'all.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: I hope you feel as inspired and blessed by that conversation as I did. There were so many buddhist breadcrumbs in that conversation alone. But before we go, I do want to drop just one more buddhist breadcrumb. Thank you so much, Melanie Thompson, for the work you're doing and continue to do. I can't wait to continue to follow what you're doing. But before we go, I want to drop another buddhist breadcrumb and talk about global citizenship.
In this month's copy of Living Buddhism, our, you know, buddhist magazine, there's this feature on the principles of peace, thoughts on education for global citizenship. And in one of the passages it says, quote, Buddhism teaches that both good and evil are potentialities that exist in all people.
Compassion is. Consists in the sustained and courageous effort to seek out the good in all people, whoever they may be, however they may behave. And it means striving through sustained engagement to cultivate the positive qualities in oneself and in others.
Engagement, however, requires courage. There are all too many cases in which compassion, owing to a lack of courage, remains a mere sentiment. End quote. So if you'd like to get your own copy of Living Buddhism and learn more, visit sgi dash usa.org. or for those listeners who are international listeners, you can listen. I mean, you can visit sgi.org. but in the meantime, I want you to have the courage this week to engage, engage in dialogue with those who you find, not just you're in community with, but in your environment that you might not normally engage with this week, find a chance to challenge yourself and to seek out the good in all people.
No opportunity wasted.
