Episode 16: A Game of Telephone
Greetings Earthlings.
Thanks so much for spending time with us during the Fish Sandwich Heaven podcast. As a reminder, we’ll be going on break until the new year. I got things to do, and so do you. I’m not even gonna sit here and lie to you and give you a definite date. Imma be where I’m AT! And we will connect soon!
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Feel free to queue up old podcasts. But wherever you are on January 10, feel free to send up a prayer with good intentions for my birthday!
I know we said We’d be in Psalms for this chunk of time, but this passage in Isaiah really spoke to me.
The Chopping Board
My relationships, language, and ideas are so complex that they cannot adequately be captured by modern technology.
I can encourage curiosity in my own life and in my friendships while respecting boundaries.
I can make choices about how, when, and where I share updates about my life.
Fish Sandwich
Isaiah 40:21-23, 25-26 NRSV
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
23 who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
A Game of Telephone
Have you ever been in a conversation that feels like double dutch? One person starts a conversation, and then you are finishing each other’s sentences. Think back to sleepovers in middle school and bus rides to amusement parks. The back of the bus would ALWAYS be full of these kinds of conversations.
Or you might experience it in class when you say you “just want to piggyback off what was said.” That might be the most formal iteration of this dynamic because it announces what is being done explicitly.
There’s a name for it.
Linguists say that cooperative overlapping happens when person B starts talking alongside Person A. This is to be distinguished from interrupting. Interrupting is more likely when there is a power differential OR if there is an existing dynamic of disregarding someone’s contributions. Cooperative Overlap is a way of validating your interest in what Person A is saying. Interruptions invalidate.
And this happens especially in Black and Brown cultures, and with Jewish communities. It happens a lot in households where Standard English is not the dominant language.
As an Apolitical Fun Fact, Bernie Sanders and I went to the same high school, and every time I see this man open his mouth, his way of communicating is very familiar to me. He reminds me of my AP Chemistry Teacher. I’m not saying that he’s not rude, but I’m also saying he’s from Brooklyn and he has a certain way of articulating himself, that feels very familiar. It’s really Bedford and Quentin, shout outs to everyone who went to James Madison High School. This is also where Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to high school, I believe Chris Rock was there for a time, I want to say Judge Judy. IF you think about those accents, these are people who do cooperative overlap a lot.
I think yall know me well enough to know that I’m not fangirling behind these people it’s just me giving examples of how people talk. I also want to say, people need to put some respect on all of Brooklyn because, you would think from most media that Brooklyn only goes from the Bridge to Eastern Parkway. And I’m trying to tell you that Midwood, Flatbush, Canarsie, East New York, Sheepshead, Brownsville, Coney Island, we all have our distinct way of speaking. There’s a whole bunch of different accents from Brooklyn. I don’t think I really have one, unless I’m angry. You will hear it then. You tell me, send me an email and tell me if you hear it. These are all apolitical fun facts, I’m just trying to give you examples
Of course, he’s a politician so he doesn’t need MY defense.
You’ll know when you’re hearing Cooperative overlap because it sounds chaotic. You can’t tell when one person is starting or initiating and when another is finishing. It’s almost like people are reading from the same script. But this is difficult isn’t it? Because not everyone processes auditory information like this. For some people, self-included, depending on the level of auditory stimuli in a given space, too much overlapping and disorganized noise can overwhelm me. It’s not a signifier of your Blackness that you can or cannot do the double dutch cooperative overlap move all the time, or at all.
Linguists have found that there are cultures that prioritize this method of communication more than others. Which then presents a challenge, because in contrast with White US. American Christian Dominant ways of communicating, those of us who do not fall into these patterns are considered rude, harsh, disrespectful. And because Black people are always suspicious in the eyes of the State, a group of Black teenagers engaging in cooperative overlap are more likely to be read as hostile, or even getting ready to fight. When in reality, they’re just reciting lines from movies or playing around. Cops aren’t trained to catch that nuance.
Neither is technology.
It has been nearly two years of us being inside and relying on technology to host conversations and classes and church, and I’m realizing that technology cannot handle overlapping conversations. Maybe you’ve noticed it too. The people who build these devices are assuming that people take turns and finish their sentences completely before the next person begins.
But after all the birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, movie nights, organizing calls, homegirl dates and more, It’s become clear to me that technology can’t recognize our very Black ways of communicating. It doesn’t know how to recognize choral singing, call and response, laughter, or facial expressions.
It will hear two people speaking at once and make a decision to shut one voice down to amplify the other.
I’m glad that’s not how it has to be. And something is very encouraging about the fact that technology cannot contain all of all our magic. It struggles to understand the minutiae of our communication styles. It’s encouraging because it says that there are some things that the powers cannot contain and sell back to us, but then, you think about people who rely on this tech to go about their daily life. And if you can’t communicate well via zoom, and all we have is zoom, what are we to do?
Cooperative overlap is a method of building relationships. Subconsciously deciding to make that choice to finish the sentence or add on to what someone has said takes vulnerability and intimacy. Relationships, romantic, platonic, professional, political, are about building solidarity and bearing witness to each other’s lives.
They usually start with a question.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
Another way that we as humans, but especially as Black humans, develop intimacy in our speech is through questions.
The writer of this text is desperate to build that intimacy. After all, there’s a hefty amount of Good news throughout this passage that really needs to be heard.
Did you hear? Did you see? Have you seen this? How many of us have been tagged in memes or videos or tweets because someone felt like “oh my gosh, this is absolutely for you.”
Have you seen this? Did someone tell you yet?
The only way any of us learns anything is because someone tells us. And we are never finished studying. That’s why it’s called studyING. It’s a process. Sometimes you will find that through studying, you’ll learn something that you didn’t even think you’d even have to know! And it’ll force you to change your whole idea and project. There are things that you don’t know that you don’t know. What’s that line from Pulp Fiction? Samuel L. Jackson says there are known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. And there are things we know we don’t know, and then there’s also things we don’t even know we don’t know. Studying is very intimidating because you come across stuff you didn’t want to know. Ask me how I know.
And at some point, someone has to light the fire in you to seek the knowledge.
For a moment, think about your passion. Dance. Music. Writing. Design. Cooking. Working on cars. Teaching.
Think about this passion. Now think about the person who lit that fire. A mentor, a teacher, a pastor, an elder, a professor, a neighbor, a dean, an organizing buddy, someone in your community who saw something in you.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
I think about my Spec, Shahara Jackson, who recently became Dr. Shahara Jackson. She was my first grade teacher and a member of my home church Concord. To this day, she is who I think about when I’m designing lessons. She had a way of making learning fun. I’ll never forget how she taught us about the Pan African Flag by helping us to make our own with construction paper. This was first grade, and I vividly remember--
Red for the blood.
Black for the people.
Green for the land.
Have you not known?
This question, I don't think, always has to be a question of haughtiness, or know-it-all-ness. And sadly it often is. Sometimes we are discouraged from exploration because when we walk into the classroom, or the meeting, or the event, or we open up one of these apps people make us feel like we’re not supposed to be there.
“What do you mean you’ve never read So and so?” “You’ve never been to Such and Such?” “You don’t know Mrs. LADeeDah?”
Instead, maybe these questions in this text mean something else, especially given the prophet’s pen elsewhere.
Perhaps the tone of this question might be, “let me put you on.”
Whatchu know about that , young blood?
That’s never a question meant to hurt you, but A question that says, “oh word, let me find out!”
God will send you someone in your life who wants to make sure that you’re not left out. Someone who wants you to be put on game. We not just gon have you out here, by yourself, looking silly. We gon send you some book recommendations, book club invites. People who love you will slide the information your way. They’re not gon have you out here looking ridiculous. And you know what, that is a blessing. I don’t know how we got to the point of the game where people believe that folks sharing information with you is somehow aggressive. I’m thinking about the Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart stuff and it’s like, people are trying to help you booboo, we trying to keep you from looking silly, but you seem to be committed to looking this way. Power will do that to you.
But the writer of the text goes even further. It’s not just any kind of gossip. This is a story about the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. This is the story about someone who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in, who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Poetic verbs. God sits. God stretches. God spreads. God brings power to nothing. God makes rulers insignificant. This is a very delicate argument, one that often gets abused by perpetrators of Christian Supremacy. Sometimes we as Christians do this thing where we make it seem like Only the Christian God is the one who exists. It’s that song that gets under my skin, “our God is awesome, he can move mountains,” I don’t know why it bothered me so much.
Well, I do, It’s very “nanannana boo boo” “my god is bigger than your god.”
And I think sometimes Christians act like worshiping God means that every other expression of spiritual reverence or curiosity is illegitimate! I don’t even want to assume that everyone who listens to this podcast is Christian or believes in God. In fact, I know that it’s not just christians or theists who listen. And I thank God for it, because I don’t want to just be surrounded by Christians for the rest of my life. I love yall, but sometimes we don’t have the range. Sometimes you have to look outside your tradition for wisdom and support to make sense of the human condition. That’s ultimately what any tradition is, including atheism. Including agnosticism. I can never say that word. One thing about me, I’m not going to fake the funk. If I can’t say a word, I’m gone keep it moving.
I also cannot say the word femininity. I feel like that is God telling me something, because if my own mouth can’t say it, then I don’t know why I as an individual am invested in the project.
Isaiah invokes the idea of a powerful God because Isaiah also lives under Empire. And when you live under empire, kings and rulers and princes and presidents believe that they are to be worshiped.
Isaiah instead devotes his speech to God, sure, as a praise towards God. But I also like to imagine it as a method of turning your back to the same Empire that made us sick, made us homeless, made us poor, made us depressed in the first place, and after doing so, insisted that it was your fault and refused any sort of empathy or kindness.
How we got to the place where we’re only trying to fix COVID by giving people vaccines. It’s going to take more than vaccines. You’re going to have to pay people to stay home and if you didn’t send our money to the IDF and other places, maybe we could have some stimmy money. Can we just talk about the fact that this time last year, we were talking about stimmies, and that was the running joke? I haven’t heard anyone talk about stimmies in at least a calendar year, and I want you to know that a stimulus check is very different from an economic survival check or universal income. Because an economic stimulus check is meant to be funneled back into the economy through consumer goods. When they give you 600 dollars or 1200 or 1400, that’s not enough to invest on your own. I’m sure there are great stories about people who have pooled their stimmies together to do something incredible, but I don’t blame people for using the money to get ahead on bills. Bills that’s always going to be there. At this point, I need a stimulus check every month, that’s what I need. The money is there!
No one can serve two Lords. As we turn our hearts to God, we also turn our backs on the powers and principalities that conspire for our oppression.
Throughout the prophetic texts particularly, you will see a critique of power. A critique of kings and kingdoms. Of palaces and queens. Isaiah also says one of my favorite scriptures in the bible, “turn away from mortals who have only breath in their nostrils, for of what account are they?”
Basically he said, these mortals, they breath stink! How you following a mortal whose breath stink?!
Or in the words of the Combahee River Collective, “We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.”
Or as my girl Edna Mode would say, “NO CAPES!”
This is a difficult thing to do. I don’t think it’s simple at all. The writer of Isaiah is trying desperately to keep the people focused on what freedom looks like. What it tastes like. It’s not integration into the castle. It’s not integration into the White House or to Congress, or into non profit or Fortune 500 Companies. It’s bigger than representation!
What would you do if you were freer than you are right now? Who could you be? What would you try? If you weren’t afraid of what people would say, if you weren’t stuck on what has already been done, if you weren’t confined to the limits someone else gave you, if you weren’t trying to keep up with some other expectation of who you were supposed to be? And what would you need God to be for you as you pursue your freedom?
I can’t answer that for you. It’s your question.
I’ll put it to you this way.
One of Disney's most compelling animated films, Finding Nemo follows the story of a fish trying to find his son. Marlin, a clownfish, gets separated from his son due to a series of unfortunate events. He has to travel across the ocean to search for him.
Eventually, he decides to sit down and tell the story. He’s been running and ripping all over the ocean looking for a way to get his baby back. He hasn’t had a moment to just sit down and communicate and even strategize about what he’s been through. He’s been moving, and moving, and looking, and looking. Maybe you can relate. Some of us have been so busy doing and doing and doing that we never get a chance to reflect on exactly what we’ve been THROUGH.
Anyhoo.
He begins to tell the story with as much detail and passion as he can to a group of turtles. And in a beautiful overlapping story, all the animals begin to tell the story in places Marlin himself could not go. The turtles tell it to the fish, who tells it to a lobster, who tells it to a swordfish, who overhears it and passes it on to a dolphin, then to a bird, who eventually gets the message back to Marlin’s son Nemo in the dentist's office.
An elaborate game of Telephone, of course. The good news here was that Marlin was traveling across the ocean to reconnect with his son. And hearing this good news helped Nemo to pursue his Dad in return.
Sometimes you need encouragement that someone else is working on your behalf, because it’s easy to believe that it’s just you in this world. That someone you love is pursuing you just as much as you are pursuing them. The spread of this good news kept people (well, fish) from giving up.
This is not just the stuff of cartoons. Freedom-based initiatives like sit-ins and self-emancipation efforts during slavery and swipe-it-forward campaigns rely upon communication like these. Sometimes it’s not wise to tell 100 people something at once. You don’t want to put all the freedom maps on the timeline, lest the very people who hate us find out the map themselves! Sometimes you just tell one or two trusted people at a time.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
What is the message God wants to get to us?
Look no further than the earlier parts of this chapter.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain.
Then the glory of the lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.
Some translations say, “and all flesh shall see it together.”
For the MOUTH of the lord has spoken it.
I don't know what you need, I can’t see you, I don't even know what will happen in the world between today and the time you hear this.
But I do believe this, that we can create a God who conspires for our freedom and wellness. God is telling the dolphin to tell the turtle to send a message to you about your worthiness, your deservingness, your beauty, your power, your brilliance, your radiance, your humanness. Which yes, we have some flaws. Even me. I was recently made aware of the fact that I have flaws and I am currently dealing with this shocking information, launching an investigative report into this particular bit of data. This is new to me.
I’m kidding, obviously I know I have flaws.
But I do believe that God is conspiring for cooperative overlapping conversations to get that message of freedom, delight, joy, peace and comfort to you. If you hear nothing else today, please know that God wants you to be WELL. And we can create a God who will move heaven and earth to make us well. And if God takes too long, you’re allowed to move some furniture too.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low.
Every child shall be supported, and every bully shall be stopped.
The wage gap shall become level, the gofundmes will be fully funded, the debt will be forgiven, the homes will be saved, the loans will be erased, and the rough places plain.
Then the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed. All flesh shall bear witness to it together.
Because God God’sself said so.
But I ain’t one to gossip.
May it be so.
Let us make it so.
Amen.
To Go Bag
What does freedom feel like to you? What would it mean for you as an individual and in your household? For your community? What have you always wanted to try but it’s felt out of reach?
Alright beloveds, this is the end for us until 2022. Like I said, keep up with our updates on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and website. We look forward to a season of rest and rejuvenation.
As for me and my house, I’m closing my laptop and not opening it until after Christmas. So just pray for me, that me and my Capricorn self I can keep up with that aspiration. I don’t feel comfortable traveling anywhere, but one thing about me, I can entertain myself in my room.
Oh by the way, there’s a bunch of ambient noise on the Disney plus app, and you can spend time with the saints from Finding Nemo there! So maybe I’ll take a virtual trip to the East Australian Current.
Alright Earthlings, good to talk to you. Have an excellent December. And if 2022 is listening to this podcast, don’t you come in here starting no NEW mess. Just come inside, sanitize your hands, take off your shoes, hang up your coat and fold your hands and sit still. None of us have time for the stuff that you be on.