Going Through It

Going Through It - Josie Duffy Rice

Tracy: This is Going Through It. A show about women who found themselves in situations where they said, no uh-uh and they made a decision to make a change and turn something around. I’m your host, Tracy Clayton… And ya’ll couldnt have chosen a better place to be than to hang out with me for this brand spanking new season of Going Through it. Because I know for damn sure we’ve all been through it lately. I’m not just talking about pandemics and what seems to be the world burnin down. Yes, we’re going through some things that are out of our control. But... sometimes the things that seem out of our control end up changing our lives.

Tracy: You know how Oprah has ah ha moments? Where she just knows something for sure?

Tracy: We’ll on this season of Going Through It - we’ll start each episode off with a OH UH UH moment - Something at work, something personal, something that propelled, pushed, and/or ejected our guests out of a place of confusion into a very different place. A place where they were able to use their talents, intellect and will power to go through it. And get to happy. So - This Season, I sat down with 15 black women who have been THROUGH it, chile.
You and me are going to pick up tips and tricks on how to deal with the lemons life gives us sometimes, and make the lemonade stands of OUR DREAMS. Personally, mine has a 3 floors, elevators, a crystal staircase, but you know what? No glass ceiling tho!

Tracy: First up? Writer, thought leader, and one of my favorite people to ask questions about the law (I personally got my law degree from the University of SVU but her’s is real - y’all) Josie Duffy Rice.

Josie: I always wanted to write. That's what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be a writer, but I thought that law school was a good and safe choice to make.

Tracy: Josie always wanted her voice to matter, to make a difference. Today - she’s not only the President of the online publication The Appeal - but she’s a journalist, and the go-to voice for helping people understand EXACTLY how the criminal justice system works in this country. But before all this - she had a different goal. She wanted to be a lawyer. But law school wasn’t EVERYTHING that she had hoped it would be.

Josie: I thought the law was about logic. I thought I was going to go to law school and learn how to change the law for the better. And that's not what law school teaches you. They teach you what the law is. They teach you how to make arguments within the really narrow confines of what already exists. And to me, like I feel like I spent three years of law school being like. But that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would we do it like that? Like, why don't we do it like this? And that's not what they want. When you do think like that. You feel stupid because you feel like you don't get it.

Tracy: This incessant, nagging feeling of “not getting it” didn’t end with law school. She felt this feeling even when she landed a job after graduation.

Josie: I did a lot of work when I first graduated from law school, writing memos about voting rights in different jurisdictions and what was possible to do in terms of fighting bad voting laws. And I never felt good at it. I felt depressed by it. I just felt lost.

Tracy: This feeling that she was failing made her doubt run deep. like when you’re giving all u got but still can’t keep up. Like you’re drowning,it’s the worst y’all.

Josie: I worked twice as many hours as other people and got half as much done, in part because I spent the whole time just being like this doesn't really make sense to me in terms of this being the right way to change things.

Tracy: Soooo, she went back to basics: what she knew she loved to do. She started writing again.

Josie: I had started a side project which was called Seven Scribes, and I ran with my friend Van and we both really wanted to write. I mean, it was such an amazing time, I think, for writing, for black writing, especially because this is after Mike Brown has been killed. This is after Eric Garner dies. This is a year and a half or two years after George Zimmerman is acquitted And the work coming out of black writers, young black writers, was just so incredible.

Tracy: She was writing like crazy, and it was all coming out. And what she was writing was some very powerful black thought.

Josie: At that point i was seeing people writing big creative things and i thought maybe i could do something like that...

Tracy: Even though writing on the side was making her feel grounded, Josie couldn’t help but be confronted with the truth: She didn’t want to be a lawyer. She didn’t even think she was good at it. She wanted to write AND She knew she was good at that. And more importantly she was feeling it. It was time for a change, and sometimes that change comes at a moment when you feel like you’re gonna break.

Josie: I remember calling my dad crying on the phone, and he is like, you just need to go. There is no reason for you to be this miserable. And if it's this miserable, it's not a good fit. You know, it was not them and it was not me. It just was not the right fit. And so I left.

Tracy: No plan B. No roadmap. No contingency plan. She took a chance and left.

Josie: I felt like I was doing something insane. I didn't have any savings. Like I wasn't making any money. I didn't have any backup plan. I didn't have another job lined up. I just went home. When I left this job, maybe a few months later, there was a job listing at Daily Kos to write about prosecutors. And this was like there could not have been a better job for me at the time because I cared so much about prosecutors. And this is something I've always cared about.

Tracy: A side hustle that becomes your main hustle. LOVE TO SEE IT!

Josie: Nobody was doing this work. Nobody was writing about prosecutors. I mean, regularly nationwide. It was like a pretty niche thing. And so I got lucky.

Tracy: She got lucky and she got the job. BUT it wasn’t luck that pushed her career into this new space of writing about the law. She put in the work.Josie Duffy Rice’s writing eventually became some of the most powerful words that many of us have read around black thought around the birth of the Black Lives Matters movement as we know it. And talking and writing about the law is something she’s been doing for years now! So sit back and get ready to learn a thing or two about how we’re trying to change the dumpster fire we’re all in right now and how Josie navigated a space to influence that change.

Tracy: I think it's so interesting that you wanted to make more of a change in your career, so you went to journalism and now it's just like, all right, all right, Josie it’s your time. It’s your time to shine! What has it been like for you as a black journalist? I just imagined that, like, your inbox is suddenly full of people who are now like, “Can we talk about everything and other issues and can you come in and work here and talk here and write this and do this? What has it been like?”

Josie: Yeah, it's funny. The past few weeks have been kind of surreal and I think even more it's it's being a black journalist is a big part of this, right. And then focusing on criminal justice, like is another big part of this. I was just looking at notes from a meeting like maybe last year, where we were talking about defunding the police as an idea.

Tracy: Mmm. You said, from last year?

Josie: Yeah and in this meeting, in this meeting of advocates and here I am just scribbling notes and people are talking about five year, 10 year plan to get people to talk about this issue. And organizers and black women in particular have been setting the groundwork for this discussion for decades. And so it's not to say that, like, this came out of nowhere, but I do think it came very quickly. And so this moment is both exciting and overwhelming. And ultimately, I think the main thing I feel is exhaustion, which kind of makes me sad, which is kind of a sad feeling to feel because what I want to feel right now is totally energized. But I--you know, I think there's still so much uncertainty even in a moment like this. And when you've worked in criminal justice for some time, you recognize that these are very entrenched systems. And so as hopeful as I am that we start addressing the abuse that we see in criminal justice, you know, among police, among prosecutors and prisons, I'm still cautious of getting too excited because I think the future is still unsure.

Tracy: Yeah. And it does always feel like at least for me, myself, personally, as a black woman that like no matter what I'm doing, I'm always waiting on like the other shoe to drop or to fall.You know?

Josie: Exactly.

Tracy: Just like, yeah this looks good, but there's still time for everything to just, like, get fucked up. [laughs] And often it did.

Josie: I think that's such a good point, Tracy. And I was thinking about this the other day. Like, there's something really profound about this moment, I think, because it's a reminder that, like, I don't really know what it feels like to have unbridled optimism or unbridled, you know, excitement. Again, like I think it's about being a black woman. I think about working in this field. I'm a black woman from Georgia, of all places. You're from Kentucky. Like, you know, it's just--it always feels like the worst is yet to come.

Tracy: Yes. Yes. Lord have mercy.

Josie: If I were a different person, maybe I'd be able to jump in excitement and really believe that what's coming down is only positive. But I'm scared.

Tracy: Whew! Same. Same. Yeah. In the middle of all this, I do feel like I'm learning like this conversation about defending the police, like, you just said. [00:08:34] I feel like I just saw Hidden Figures for the first time. I’m like, “What do you mean this has already been like like the groundwork has been laid by black women? Like, what?

Josie: Right. Right.

Tracy: What do you think about the current conversation about defunding the police and like how it's going? Like,what's missing? How are we doing?

Josie: Yeah, I think look, I have spent the last I mean, especially I'd say the last five years, right? Learning from people like Miriam Caba. Learning from people like Angela Davis in particular when it comes to this issue. Learning from Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Learning from these women who I've just been in awe of for, you know, for years. And it's exciting to see other people kind of be like, “Who are these amazing women?”

Tracy: Yeah.

Josie: I'd like to hear from them and kind of see what they've been saying. I think in general the defending the police conversation is coming a lot further than I would have imagined, right? And that people are really willing to talk about what kind of money we spend on the police and like, where else could we be spending those resources? People are getting there. And I think that's good. What I remind people is that it doesn't happen overnight.

Tracy: True.

Josie: And that the change doesn't happen overnight and that, frankly, like in a lot of ways that's the point. Right? Like, we don't become different people overnight. We have to give each other and ourselves room to learn to change and to be able to say, I don't know the answer to all these questions. Right now, we see a lot of people saying, “well, if we defund the police, are we going to handle X, Y and Z?”

Tracy: The murders. The child pornographers.

Josie: Yeah, exactly. It's always child porn, murder and rape are the most--the most common, right?

Tracy: Everything that Law and Order is about.

Josie: Exactly. Exactly. But not everything that policing is about because policing is about very little of those things. But TV policing is about all of those things.

Tracy: They’d have you thinking!

Josie: Right. Exactly. And you think back to what it must have been like when people were trying to abolish slavery, right. Well, what are we going to do? How are we going to get the crops?

Tracy: Who’s going to pick the cotton?

Josie: Right. Where are they going to live? Where are they going to work? Right. There were a lot of things nobody had figured out.

Tracy: Yeah.

Josie: And what they had to say was, I don't know every answer, but I believe there are answers. I believe we get to those answers together. And what I do know is that this is not the answer. And that's sort of where I want people to feel comfortable. When we start from a place of this is not it. This is not going to work for me. Black people can't live like this. We just can't live like this.

Tracy: Absolutely.

Josie: What that means in terms of how we solve serious crimes. Communities can get there together.

Tracy: Yeah.

Josie: Most people are not living in spaces where there is a murder on every block, right? Crimes lower than it's been in 50 years in this country. On average, we know that we address crime and harm generally within communities. We address it with the people we love. When your kid is caught smoking weed, right, you usually don't call the cops, right?

Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.

Josie: You figure something out at your house. a lot of what we know about harm and crime, we're already addressing among each other. And that doesn't mean that everything can be addressed that way. I think there is. There are times in which having state involvement is important, but what it means is that it doesn't have to look like what it looks like. And having the ability to think, to use your imagination and imagine a different world is so exciting ultimately.

Tracy: Yeah.

Josie: Mariam Caba says this thing that I love, which is she says hope is a discipline. And I think that's really, really true. The idea of hoping for something else and for imagining something else, It's a discipline. It takes practice. It's a years long attempt at living a different life, living a better life. And I think the moment of thinking what else is possible, I go back to leaving a job, right? It's a small thing in the scheme of things. In the scheme of the world, it doesn't matter at all that I left my job. But to me, it mattered a lot because it meant I could say this is not working for me. I think there could be something better. I don't know what it looks like, but I have to believe it's out there.

Tracy: That is something that I really, really, really wish we were doing currently with the case of Breonna Taylor. When you mentioned community policing and community gatekeeping like, there's just so much frustration. I'm from Louisville, which is where she was murdered. And the mayor, just like he just seems so like out of touch and like in my head, I'm just like, if you were anyone else, if you live next to her and you had the ability to arrest her murderers, I assume that you would. I assume something would be different. But also, I'm a black girl and law is like intimidating to me. So I kind of don't know. So I wanted to ask you. The mayor seems to say that his hands are tied because of some state law that I don't understand. Do you think that that is true? Or is it actually because she's a black woman and, you know, because that's just kind of what happens with black women.

Josie: So I'll say as a preface that I don't know this particular a lot in and out like some other people do, but I have some insight into this dynamic. So on some level, we've spent decades worshiping law enforcement in this culture. And so we've passed law after law that makes it very difficult to hold police officers accountable. We've signed police union contract after police union contract. That makes it very difficult to hold them accountable. All right. I mean, these people are in some ways kind of stuck. But that being said, very often, it's convenient for people like the mayor and people like the state legislators and people like the police chief to be able to say, my hands are tied. I can't do anything.

Tracy: “Whoops, sorry!” Yeah, yeah.

Josie: It's convenient because they don't want law enforcement after them. They don't want to be the bad guy to the local police, right.? And so, like on a technical level, it's probably true to some extent. On a practical level, I think everything we've done is a choice and that none of this is just inertia.

Tracy: Right.

Josie: All of this is just as someone has made choice time and time again. And if it were a rich white woman who had been asleep in her bed and the cops came into our house, the wrong house, and they came in in the middle of the night and they shot her while she was asleep, we would see something else happening right now. They’d figure it out. They'd figure it out.

Tracy: Yep. Yep. They got that. That white woman motivation behind them. “We’re gonna have to figure something out!”

Josie: Right? And there is no justice for Breonna Taylor possible. My friend Derica says this. You can get accountability, maybe. You can get revenge, maybe.

Tracy: Right. Right.

Josie: You could see consequences. But she's dead. The opportunity for justice is gone. She's not coming back because she was asleep and police killed her while she was sleeping.

Tracy: That is a sobering point. Like, there's nothing, no retribution you can make for the victim in this case.

Josie: It never brings them back. And that’s a big thing that I think people don't think about when they think about the word justice. We think about what happens to victims and then we think there's something we can do to the perpetrator that will make it right or make it equal. And there's not.

Tracy: Whew. Mhmm.

Josie: Thinking about Juneteenth, we think here is a moment everything got made right. But generations and generations of people who were slaves born and died as slaves and they never saw emancipation and they never saw Juneteenth and they never saw freedom. And all of them wanted it. All of them hoped for it.

Tracy: And deserved it.

Josie: Generations of Masters of Plantation died in their beds at home fine.

Tracy: Yeah.

Josie: Right? You think about this idea that there's ever any kind of payback possible. And I'm not sure there is really. Accountability is crucial, but justice?

Tracy: I feel like everything that's happening now is like bringing up so much stuff like this has been like buried because there are other traumas and I think about and focus on. And this weekend I was like, I'm a chill out, I'm a watch some movies and so many movies that I used to love now feel different. They just hit a little differently. And in almost every movie, didn’t matter what genre, it was about policing. It was about fighting crime. It was about the bad guys versus the good guys. Almost every single movie. And a thing that that made me realize was 1. Wow, this is like a really pervasive narrative in our culture. And 2, how did they get so fucking powerful? Where does one even, like, start chipping away at these just these bros in uniforms?

Josie: Police unions are very, very, very powerful historically, right. And very powerful. But police unions are powerful because police are powerful. Right. Police aren't powerful because police unions are powerful. And by that, I mean the culture of policing in this country is so pervasive that we have allowed this one sort of union sector to maintain no accountability. We have valued policing over everything. Part of what we have to do is to make it politically possible to get at police. And that takes what's happening right now. It takes a reckoning among everybody of saying this is not what we want. If we were going to design the world from scratch, this is not what we would have designed.

Tracy: Sheesh. So the feeling that I am feeling right now is just like I'm just little’ ole me. I'm just little ‘ole Tracy in my Flatbush apartment trying to make it through the day and maybe take a shower, you know, like maybe take a shower today. There are lots of reasons that I can't be outside protesting with everyone. I do have depression and anxiety. I don't like big crowds. I have actual agoraphobia, which makes going outside hard. There's a pandemic. I say all this to say. How do you find a way to be helpful when you can't do, like, the big things that you see on TV?

Josie: Well, number one, I'm also not out protesting, first of all, I'm--I try to be careful because I'm a journalist. I know, but I'm also six months pregnant. I got a toddler at home. And I feel the same way that you do. Like, it's sort of like, should I be out there fighting? I think there are a couple of things. One is that what people really need is support. They really need support on the ground. And that mostly goes, I think, for local organizers and especially black local organizers. Policing is like mainly a local thing and a lot of attention is paid to the federal government. Like what did Donald Trump say about protesters today? Obviously, he's a nut job. So like there is this there is a sense of like what he says matters because he has an impact on the framing. But when it comes to what can happen where we are, you know, like figuring out who's organizing on the ground in Louisville and giving them a couple bucks, right? It goes a long way. I also think supporting local journalists in particular is huge. One of the things I don't think people really realize like every story you hear, every Breonna Taylor story hear, every George Floyd. There are 20, 30, 40 stories that you're not hearing, that’s never getting any attention, that maybe the family doesn't even know what happened, that there's just not any accountability on the ground. And journalists can't do everything. We don't value journalism like we should. And I tell people all the time, you don't want to see a world without journalism. So you might not like what you see--

Tracy: I know I don’t.

Josie: You really don’t. So you might not like, what you see. And you might want to change it. And that's good. But you still have to support it, because when we're watching it die, we're literally watching it die. And without the ability to tell those stories, there will be no accountability. And so supporting journalists, I think, is another big thing. And then the last thing is there's just basic knowledge that is important to have. How much does your local jurisdiction spend on the COPS? How much do they spend on other stuff? Parks, you know?

Tracy: Right.

Josie: School programming. Mental health. And who is your local D.A.? These are big questions that you can spend a couple hours figuring out. And probably at this point, someone has figured out for you. So doing those three things, supporting organizers or supporting journalism and knowing, you know, some basic details about your local jurisdiction is a lot. It goes a long way.

Tracy: That was actually really, really helpful in giving people like a place to at least start. I'm going to go do a Google search as soon as we're done talking.

Josie: Great. I love it.

Tracy: We're not done yet, though. We're almost done, but not quite.

Tracy: I have a friend who is not me, right? Her name is Stacy. My name, as we know,

Josie: Is Tracy. Very different.

Tracy: All right. So this is going to go great. So she is definitely feeling like physically fatigued, spiritually fatigued, financially fatigued all the time.

Josie: Oh, girl. Stacy, I feel you.

Tracy: Right. Right. I will tell Stacy that you said, ‘oh girl’. But like, sometimes it just feels like it's just like too too much like it's hard to feel like she has, been successful at finding her superpower-- her specific lane, the way that she can contribute. You were able to find and narrow down that your superpower is writing. How would you advise Stacy? Not myself, because this is not a thing that I've ever worried about in my life. How would you tell her to go about finding that superpower and using it to its fullest potential?

Josie: Well, first of all, I think Stacy has many superpowers. But we can discuss that with Stacy after.

Tracy: That's so sweet. You don’t even know her.

Josie: To her to call me. I think that a good way of going through the world is trial and error and figuring out that knowing what you're bad at is just as valuable as knowing what you're good at.

Tracy: Amen.

Josie: In the sense that, I took that like administrative assistant job. Wasn't a very good administrative assistive. Didn't love law school. Right. I recognized my work in the public defender's office. So as much as I loved the field of criminal law. I wasn't gonna be a good public defender. It just wasn't going to play to my skill set. The list of things I can't do gets longer by the day. And the hope is that there are a few things I can do if it's if you grew up and you want to like like do interpretive dance to some like Enya track, on the subway. That's great. I will be so proud of you. I will love everything you do. If you are good to people and you care about something and to me, I hope that as I get older, I'm becoming a better person, not a worse person. And that's all we can really try for her.

Tracy: That is an important reminder. I will be sure to tell Stacy that the moral of the story is to have a baby and listen to Enya.

Josie: Okay, I did not say.

Tracy: Nope. Too late. Too late. She’s already out making bad decisions.

Josie: Enya. Not baby. Ok Enya. Maybe not the baby.

Tracy: Yes, exactly. Exactly. We were talking earlier about optimism and fear. What are you optimistic about during this time?

Josie: You know, my grandma is going to be 90 in October.

Tracy: Oh, bless her heart. Happy birthday, grandma!

Josie: Happy birthday, Granny. And she's been - when she was 15. She was fighting in Texas against the poll tax and she basically hasn't stopped since then. She's just been pushing for better housing, you know, for the Civil Rights Act, for access to education, for a better world, right? For her kids and her grandkids and her great grandkids. And I think this moment to her is very sad because she worries that she's not going to see the end of this level of injustice. She kind of thinks to herself, like, I fought so hard for all of these things and it's still not great. I mean, it's better. Yeah, not great. And what I'm optimistic about is what I try to tell her, which is like we're going to keep fighting. I'm not tired yet. All the way. Right. Like, I still have fight left in me. And I try to remind her of that because she's tired. She's 90. Yeah. Let me sit down! And she has earned the right to sit down. I’m like you can sit down because the rest of us will keep pushing. Right. And so, you know, as long as there's fight, that's something I'm optimistic about. I look around at the world right now and see that there are people really fighting for that. And I hope that they win.

Tracy: Yeah. And again, especially the youth, the young kids man to see seeing them, just like I say, going,

Josie: Oh my God, Gen Z going off. Just going off, I’m like you guys are killing it. It’s amazing.

Tracy: Oh, go off you guys are killing it. Let me take some notes and learn a little something from y’all.

Josie: Right. Exactly.

Tracy: This was immensely helpful and so fun. Thank you so much. I feel like I have a better understanding of things and I feel less alone in the world and about being terrible at cleaning and organizing

Josie: Thank you so much. Oh, girl, please text me anytime you want. It's pathological. I'm so glad I got to do this with you. I love you so much. And I think you're just phenomenal. So thank you for having me on.

Tracy: HOMEGIRLS When it feels like the world is on fire - sometimes it can be sooo helpful to have a grounding force in your life. That’s one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to Josie - she gives you the facts but she also calms your soul. She helps you to feel seen. It’s also the reason that I thought - after each interview on Going Through It - why not break down what I learned with some of my homegirls - folks who know me, who get me, who SEE me. So friends and family - because of social distancing in the time of the coronavirus - me and my homegirls had a virtual dinner party to talk about how you answer the question that has been plaguing me since we all got locked down inside:

Tracy: Well cheers everybody, cheers to technology….

Tracy: You know what question I hate, even though I ask it all the time? “How are you doing? How are you?”

Renay: Ugh, I mean now.

Tracy: Is that not a stressful question? Because I'm just like, oh, I'm great. The world's ending. And I still I have to pay rent.

Renay: Yeah.

Tracy: Wonderful. I’m great.

Berry: I don't answer the question. I usually give their change, like somebody to say, how are you doing? I'll be like, you know um so what's going on?

Tracy: Wow!

Berry: Most of the time it's like taking me down to like truly answer it and I don't lying people when you're asking me questions, so I rather just take change this up and be like, I don't know.

Tracy: That was the realest answer that I don't think I was expecting. Berry was like, “Uh uh, I won't do that. I won't do it. How am I doing? I’m not!”

Brittany: That's a good strategy.

Renay: I mean I was asked it like last week, I think. I was in a meeting and they were like, “How are you?,” and I was like…Cause I go through phases of like stressed, angry, like, oh, forget it. Let me just watch Bojack Horseman or something. And so at that moment I was like stressed and I was like, “A lot’s going on”. And she was like, “You know, you know have you done like a meditation class,” I was like, “Well, will breathing stop racism?” I literally said that.

Tracy: Maybe it's worth a shot? If it’s possible? I’m just saying we’re having a hard time out here. So, if all you got to do is go breathe, please. Brittany, how do you answer that question?

Brittany: See, I wish I was more direct because I think I just sort of like want that niceties part of the conversation over as soon as possible. So I'm just sort of like, you know, hanging in there. That's it. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. The whole world is a mess. And I also I mean, the guys honestly, it’s been a mess. It's just it's exposed now. The world has been doxed.

Tracy: Yeah. The world has been doxed. Ugh!

Brittany: Basically.

Tracy: My soul just got so heavy.

Berry: I’m more likely to ask, “how are you keeping things up?” Or like “how are you keeping going?” Like, I'm more likely to ask those kind of sustaining things.Than I am to, “How are you” because I know, like, you know how you can be good in the morning and by the end of the day, you can be like “I laid on the floor for an hour.” So I just kind of want to know that you're doing things that you like. But you know what? I got up and then I watched my favorite show that I've watched a hundred times and I was OK. You know, I evened out. Like, I want to know the things you're doing to sustain being in this place.

Tracy: And I love that so much. I saw on the Internet some cute little hand drawn, artsy graphic and it was like things that you can ask your friends other than how are you? And one of them was, what color is your heart today?

Brittany: Oh?

Tracy: Ah! I hate it. I hate it.

Brittany: Me and my mom used the phrase spirit mind. OK? So I'm like, “what color is your heart today” I’m like hm.

Tracy: Brittany, what color is your heart today? I feel like you're going to have a genuine answer.

Brittany: Oh, you know, periwinkle comes to mind.

Tracy: Oooo, periwinkle it up!

Brittany: Kind of like a cool tone. So there is a little bit of melancholy, but it's also common in children's rooms. So there's a little bit of fun to be had. It's like melancholy but optimistic.

Tracy: Wow. I'm going to ask you this question every time I see you.

Brittany: There we go.

Tracy: Thank you so much for tuning in to our very first episode of Going Through It! I hope you loved it. I hope you had a great time. I hope that you come back next week. See you next week! You don’t wanna miss any of these episodes! We’re gonna be talking to Mara Brock Akil, Lena Waithe, and SO MANY MORE. Going Through It is an original podcast created in partnership with Mailchimp, Pineapple Street Studios, and me! Executive Producers for Going Through It are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky and Agerenesh Ashagre. Shout out to the producers of Going Through It! Our Lead producer is Josh Gwynn. Producers are Jess Jupiter and Janelle Anderson. Our editor can’t stop, won’t stop - and her name is Lee-lah Day. Also - thanks to the voices of folks you heard sound off in the episode! Let’s hear those names!

Renay: Renay Richardson.

Berry: I’m Berry.

Brittany: I’m Brittany Luse.

Tracy: Our original music is by Dow -ud Anthony and Our Engineer is Hannis Brown. Special Thanks to Eleanor Kagan for being the alpha! The originator. The beacon, if you will. I will, don’t know about you! Stay in touch! Find me on Twitter at brokeymcpoverty. Tell your friends about the show! Make sure to rate and subscribe to Going Through It on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever free podcasts are sold! And that’s our show! I had fun, I hope you guys had fun. We’ll see you next week.