INTRODUCTION:
Anna, pronouns anything respectful, is a Chicago-born social entrepreneur who builds streaming platforms which center & celebrate BIPOC & QTPOC creatives. Media has always been her passion and in 2009 she turned that passion into a reality when she founded E3 Radio, an online radio station playing Queer music & reporting on Queer news with an intersectional lens. Most recently, she founded The Qube, a curated app of music & podcasts by BIPOC & QTPOC creatives. Anna is determined to ride media into its next era by utilizing digital media streams to tell the stories and play the music that deserves to be heard.
Learn more about her work here.
In no particular order I’m also a daughter, wife, sister, and friend who loves cooking and running.
Favorite Quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” –Gandhi
Did you know? Anna has been in love with Robin Roberts all her life. Interviewing her would be the ultimate experience.
Media Coverage
ABC 7 Pride Coverage
Choose Your Struggle
191: Learn How To Do Queer Radio Right with Anna DeShawn, Founder of E3 Radio
Trindi Media Podcast
https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/mn4wvyq8
Park Careers Podcast
https://anchor.fm/icparkcareerspodcast/episodes/Episode-9–Anna-DeShawn-IC07-e10l4bp/a-a5haqne
INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):
· Exposure To The Qube App
· Celebration Of BIPOC & QTPOC Creatives
· Why It’s Good To Be Complete BEFORE You Enter A Relationship
· Why Mental Health Therapy Is SOOO Damn Good For You
· The Variety Of Mental Health Options Available To You
· A Warning Against Being Addicted To Church
· A Warning About Biblical Interpretation
· Politics & Religion = YUCK!
· Why Being Non – Straight Is Not A Damn Choice!
CONNECT WITH ANNA:
Website & Radio: https://www.AnnaDeShawn.com
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@annadeshawn
Facebook: https://facebook.com/annadeshawn
Instagram: https://instagram.com/annadeshawn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/annadeshawn
E3 Radio: https://e3radio.fm
The Qube: https://theqube.app
ANNA’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· EyeWear: https://thekayakollection.com
· VDOM: https://thevdom.com/the-vdom/
CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON:
Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopix
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon
Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com
DE’VANNON’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)
o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs
· Upwork: https://www.upwork.com
· FreeUp: https://freeup.net
· Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org
· American Legion: https://www.legion.org
INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?:
· PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.
https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
You’re listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De’Vannon and I’ll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what’s really going on in your life.
There is nothing off the table and we’ve got a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right into this episode.
De’Vannon: What’s up. What’s up. What’s up everyone. I’m so happy to have you with me again. One more week. I hope everyone is fucking fantastic. Happy Cinco de Mayo. Today we have a spotlight on black indigenous people of color and queer trans people of color as well. Anna de Shawn has created the cube app, which is a safe space for creative people of color of various ideas.
We dish on religion, sex [00:01:00] self-acceptance mental health and so much more. And I throw some shade at Lakewood church over in Houston, Texas, because of the way they dehumanize people behind the scenes. Take a listen to my people.
Anna. Good girl, girl. How the fuck is you doing the day? That’s what I need to know.
Anna: I’m amazing that I’m here with you period.
De’Vannon: Looking at you, trying to gain me up, see energy. Like that is the reason why sometimes contemplate letting a lesbian fuck me in the ass because y’all have got that. Yeah. The game was on point.
The words on point y’all is I am a survivor. I’m like, oh, almost y’all I’m just like Emile come in there. And I’m like a good low to come in my ass. Okay.
Anna: We don’t get that. We don’t got that. We got a lot of other things, but we got a lot of other.
De’Vannon: Although they [00:02:00] have those buildings. Now you can put something like different juices or whatever in them, and then it’ll squirt it into whatever hole you want.
So
Anna: mommy, my homemade is actually creating this really amazing strap. It’s her, her business is called V Dom. Y’all should check it out. V D O M she was on television recently for a pitch competition. Like it’s like mechanical, so it’s not hard all the time. So you hit a button, it gets hard on the, on the whim.
It’s like from an app. So you don’t gotta go. And like, yo it’s legit stuff. It’s good
De’Vannon: stuff. So it’s a Dick, a plastic Dick that get, that can give, go from levels of softness to hard,
Anna: but the press of a button.
De’Vannon: I ain’t seen that before. Hmm. Next level I found real. It, it okay. Also Anna de Shawn is a bad bitch.
She. It’s the [00:03:00] greater of an app called the cube. She hosts the radio station and everything like that. And she considered herself to also be a social entrepreneur as an initial. We’re going to be talking about what the cube is, how this benefits the LGBTQ plus community, the alphabet mafia, as I like to call us, because we will fuck a bitch up if we have to, we don’t want to, but sometimes y’all just make us pull the will Smith on a bitch and just
Anna: necessary.
Okay. Sometimes it’s necessary.
De’Vannon: I don’t think he should have done it, but I’m not here to judge him. I feel suck his Dick right now and buy tickets to his movie. But I, we, we, we will not be slapping everybody on Smith.
Anna: I don’t know what he was thinking. I think actually, I think he thought it was recorded. I think he forgot. It was like. I mean, there’s so
De’Vannon: many of them things, it’s just like he’s sitting at his [00:04:00] kitchen table.
Anna: I think he forgot it was left. I think he thought they were going to be able to enter that up.
De’Vannon: So we’ll be talking about what the cube is. It’s a new thing specific for our community and people of color and things like that to help help us with podcasts and getting our creative arts and media out there.
And then we’re going to talk about Anna’s history. She has a lot of history with the church and church Bo shit, and there’s so much bullshit and the church is unreal. And so what do you got to say about your own history? Tell us about you got the run
Anna: down to the quick rundown, quick rundown south side of Chicago, born and raised.
I consider myself a social entrepreneur who. Platforms digital platforms that celebrate and center black, brown and queer folks of color. I, I love my [00:05:00] people and I love the power that media has to actually create some change, some meaningful change to humanize people’s stories and experiences. And I think that we have the power to shift that, you know, if we tap into it and since 2009, I’ve been interviewing black queer folks to raise awareness around our stories out of Chicago.
And I’ve always been into media. Let’s be clear, Robin Roberts is everything to me. Okay. I want it to grow up and be just like her on ESPN or doing some play by play announcing. But it became very clear that people don’t look like me on television. They’re not masculine the center. Prokes a report in the 10 o’clock news.
Okay. But radio allowed for me to speak to folks without folks having to see me. And that is a very powerful thing. And I realized I really loved it. So I got into radio. Which of course leads you into podcasting. And then I just saw the same things that were happening in traditional media. What’s happening in podcasts.
I’m like, where are my black people at? Where am I brown people at? Where am I queer [00:06:00]folks of color at? Like, why is it that when I go to apple and Spotify and all these places, like I can’t find my people and I wanted to change that.
De’Vannon: Well, it is a noteworthy thing you’re doing. And I can tell you have sense enough to understand that this is something that’s takes time.
You know, this is, this is a long-term dedicated process. Does it? Don’t take, you know, a long, long time to, to see, come to fruition. Hopefully you see it in your generation, but you know, you know, these things take time. So I appreciate that. You’re laying this foundation here, you know, for generations to come, you know, I can see it in a, in a hundred years, you know, you know, when you did that and gone somebody is going to have a very successful.
Show you know, public broadcast and everything like that. You gonna be like, we want to thank him to Sean for the work that we did back in 2009 to make this day [00:07:00] possible for me in 3050 or whatever the
Anna: case. That’s unbelievable. Let me tell you. But I do say this, that I do see the radio station and what we’re building with the cube as being far bigger than myself, I feel like, and I think we connect can connect on this on a spiritual level.
Like we’re here because we’re called to do something. And when I think when you tap into your call, it is bigger than you because you’re just a vessel for the work and you’ve been given some gifts and you, and you’ve been called to use them. And so I feel like I’m called to use these gifts in this way.
Everything about me says I’m about systematic changes about changes that can affect masses amount of people. That’s what I’m called to do. Some folks is called to be in the streets activating, you know, some folks has called to do one-on-one work and change people’s lives one by one by one. And I feel like I’ve been called to change folks’ lives through media and a massive amount of [00:08:00] ways.
And so I’m excited about what the cube is going to be to the world of podcasting. I’m excited what it’s going to be for discoverability. Today 43% of people listening to podcasts actually identify as people of color and there’s no place that is serving those folks. And the discoverability of those folks.
There’s so many people like you creating amazing content, raw content, authentic content, quality content, and more people need to know, you know what I’m saying about sex drugs and Jesus. Come on.
De’Vannon: Okay. We don’t want to go down that rabbit hole is a tight, deep hole and trust me may have gotten stuck in it.
Anna: I love you.
De’Vannon: So I love you too, baby. So one of my favorite things about you. So we’re going to talk about Anna for a little bit and get into her personal story, which tells us a lot about why she’s doing what she’s doing. And then we’re going to get very granular and talk very specifically about what the cube [00:09:00] is, where you can find it.
Who’s who was this for a podcast. As people want to go on shows what sort of content you can find there and all of that. So when I was reading through your bio and everything like that, and researching you as I do, I found that your pronouns, you don’t have like, he, she, they. You know, whatever you said, anything respectful.
And I admire the open-mindedness of that and the flexibility of that, it reminds me a lot of myself because when people ask me who I am, sometimes I like to refer them to the Torah, you know, to the, to the oh, Hebrew scripture when when Moses was first called by God. And he had his slippers off on the side of the mountain and God was in the burning Bush.
And Moses was like, God, who is you? Who are you? He was trying to put God in a box and figure out how shall I, what can, what can, how can I associate you with what I already know? Okay. And God told him, bitch, I am that I am. [00:10:00] And that’s all there is to it.
Anna: Yes. Is that a quote description? That is, I am what I am and that’s really it.
Right. Because the point of even. The initiatives around using someone’s proper pronouns is about respect. It is about honoring someone’s identity, right? And for me, depending on what space I’m in child, ain’t no telling what the pronouns is going to be. If I, with my boys, it’s just, it is whatever. Right.
And then I’m in society and people see me a certain way. And then that’s that all I’m saying is with respect to who I am. So anything respectful is what resonates most with me,
De’Vannon: right? Because it’s in the tone of voice in the spirit behind the words. So you can be like, what a bitch and mean it would love.
And you can be like, oh, Hey girl, Amina, what all the painting is and violent as that you could contrive. And when you hate that bitch, and you’re like, Hey girl, you [00:11:00] know, that was not really in the word, but isn’t the heart behind it. More than anything.
Anna: Absolutely cause the shade is real. You can notice the shade.
Okay.
De’Vannon: At all. Oops. Plaque.
Anna: You don’t have it, but I see it. Okay. Y’all got it. But I see it.
De’Vannon: I keep one in my glove compartment, just in my car, just in case I needed somewhere. And I got several in the house.
Anna: So does my wife, Lord, all the
De’Vannon: things, speaking of that. Yeah. And your bio, it says you are a daughter, a wife, a sister, and a friend who loves cooking and running.
What I wanted to know from you about the wife. How did it feel? I want to know how did it feel to be married? Did you have any struggles and things like that? I don’t meet a whole lot of married women. I don’t. So talk to me about that whole process.
Anna: Yeah, we just celebrated our five-year wedding [00:12:00] anniversary.
We’ve been together for nine years. Just like when I met her, my momma loved there. Okay. And I don’t like the ideas of, or the statements around, like someone completes me. I was done and completed, but she just adds so much to my life. She’s just such a sweet and kind person. And she just fit right in with my family.
It was like she had always been there. Everybody embraced her and, and I love her. So she’s my best friend. She is the ultimate diva. Okay. She is the most high film woman I have ever dated in my life. But she balances me out and I just love her to pieces.
De’Vannon: Yeah. Opposites attract like that. I learned that when I was in my hitting the therapy class, I was training to be a licensed hypnotist, which I am, you know, there’s all kinds of signs [00:13:00]behind why quiet, conservative people attract more outgoing people, you know, and vice versa.
If you too much alike, you tend to repel each other, you know, to put it simply my boyfriend’s the same way. He’s quiet. Fucking there. Okay in there, I’m the ones linking from the poles and the chandelier’s and hitting the splits. And even now with all of that, you know, showing up, you know, shutting the shit down and everything, and he couldn’t even talk.
He would, he’s not necessarily the most comfortable talking to people in public. You know, when I walk in the bitch, I own the room. Oh, his y’all’s belongs to me until I leave this bitch.
Anna: Okay. And let me tell you, so I turn it on when a microphone is in front of me, but other than that, I don’t have to say a word to anybody.
Okay. Yes, my wife is the same way. She walked into a room, she’s a stylist. She just takes up space. Okay. Take some space. You came misled. And she also sells, I wear all right. [00:14:00] So the Kia collection.com. So she sells customer. I wear. And so every time she walked into a room, somebody taken something off her face off her risk, won’t something.
And she is, she’s the life of a party.
Oh, yeah. The K a collection.com. K a K a Y a K O L L E C T I O N. So the K a collection.com.
De’Vannon: Okay. So then I’m like, Hey, yo, collection.com. All right. I’ll drop that shit in the show notes, but show ya. I also heard what you said about how you were complete before you met her. This is something I concur with.
None of this. This person completes me. I’m lost without you. I can’t. Oh that you better know who you are before you get into a relationship with somebody. And a lot of that has to do with just theory, spirituality and shit like that. I think so many relationships in between. People lose [00:15:00] sight of their own individual identity in the whole process.
And if you’re not in tune with who you are, you’re not going to be able to truly cater to that other person. You know, you gotta be whole first
Anna: a hundred percent and let’s also be clear. We all been broken, right? So I ain’t coming up here. Like I walked, I woke up like this therapy saved my life. Right.
Therapy saved my life. We’ve all had tough and challenging relationships that have taken you all types of places that you never thought you would go. Then at some point you have to like, do some self reflection. Like, is it me? Maybe it’s me. And you got to own that. You have to own that. Otherwise you’ll continue to date the same person over and over again in a different body with a different sign and all types of stuff.
And that was my reality. I had realized that I was dating the same person over and over again. I’m like, what is wrong? And so quickly checked myself into therapy and it saved my life. And so when my wife came into my [00:16:00] life, I didn’t need completing. At that point, I was very clear about who I was and who I am.
And she was just like the perfect fit into, into my life. So now we have our life with our puppy and grateful.
De’Vannon: So when you say you checked yourself into therapy, are you being general in that saying you started seeing a therapist, did you check into a residential.
Anna: I’ll say it in general. Like I went to start, I started seeing a therapist and I’ve seen a few over my life and actually it’s just about to start seeing a new one.
And I think there’ll be, is one of these things where you can choose to be in it for a really long time with the same person, but sometimes you even grow out of your therapist. And so sometimes you have to shift and sometimes you don’t need it anymore and sometimes you gotta restart it because life would be doing a lot of living.
And we just went through what, two years of an airborne panic. And if you listen into this, that means you survived it too. And [00:17:00] so none of us are the same as we were in 2019. There’s no way you’re the same person. So I think that there’s there’s seasons. And so I’m in a season where I got a lot going on.
So I’m about to go see another therapist and it’s just, if you’ve never done it, it’s just a refreshing opportunity to talk to someone who is not fully engaged in your life, but can offer an outside an outside viewpoint that is often not, it’s not critical, it’s not judging. Right. You find somebody that works with you that you can vibe with, and you’ll find yourself lighter after leaving.
They’re clearer, maybe about something you’re struggling with. And for me, it was, it saved my life.
De’Vannon: What kind of therapist? A licensed clinical social worker, a
Anna: licensed clinical social worker and a black woman.
De’Vannon: I find the LCSW to be [00:18:00] more like down to earth, then send like a psychologist, cause an LCSW is not prescribing medication.
So they’re actually the only way they can help you is through the words and the talking and the exercises and the practices. They, they, they give you to take home. I see an LCSW. I see a licensed marriage and family therapist together with my boyfriend together for, I don’t know, 2, 3, 4 years, some shit I don’t keep up with the damn time.
You have to ask him I’m bad with birthdays and just general time, because I, I view things more eternal. You know, I don’t believe in time constraints. It always has existed and always will in a way. And so And then I see my hypnotherapists individually and I love hypnotherapy because of how focused it is and how it gets into the subconscious and how you rip out what you don’t want.
You speak back to your open, vulnerable mind, which you do want. And so I particularly use that to help me stay off of [00:19:00] drugs. And so all. So that is our plug for mental health, because we know that it’s something that’s lacking in both the color community and in the gay community. It is not a straight a strike to your pride.
If you want to go talk to somebody about getting help, there’s many different types of therapists. That’s why I asked her that if you go to one therapist and they’re a fucking piece of shit, then fuck that hell you go to somebody else. Maybe you need a different type of therapy. There’s all sorts of new age, metaphysical shit out there, getting the therapy Stella constellations all kinds of mind, body, soul meditation, shit.
If you don’t want to do traditional therapist, you can therapy. You can do the shit off his own. Now there’s all kinds of shit. So whatever it is you think mental health is if you have a bad taste in your mouth about it I asked you to revisit it and take a second look at it. Because again, I said, we all had been fucked.
You know, and so you need help to get unfucked up and to get an objective perspective. So you [00:20:00] don’t keep getting fucked up relationships and sabotaging yourself. So just humble yourself down and go get some help, baby. And look, no one has to know, these therapists are bound by confidentiality, so it’s not like they can go put it on social media that you were in treatment, or they would get their license taken and probably go to jail.
So it’s a secret, nobody. Nobody nobody has to
Anna: know that’s right. And may is mental health awareness month. So there is so much information out here right now in promoting and making awareness, you know, mental health awareness, I think this month. So you just one Google search.
De’Vannon: Just one Google search away.
So a quote that you had it says is your favorite pro. You said at first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you, then you win. And that was by Gandhi. Tell me what this quote means to you.[00:21:00]
Anna: And that you can’t be waiting for people to validate who you are or validate your idea or validate what you call to do. It is not about that. You know, people gonna go along for the ride, you have to be clear about what you want to do. And I think that along the way, you’re going to encounter different people.
You know, I’m building a business. I don’t come from a whole lot. I come from a whole lot of love. And so, but we got a lot of things and a lot of people, I talked to a lot of asks and the requests, I take a lot of leaps of faith. I have to keep practicing my faith muscle and building up my face muscle and what it means to take risks.
And along the way, I’m going to run into people that don’t agree with me, who don’t believe what I’m in, what I’m doing, who don’t see a market for it, who don’t see a need for it. And honestly, like when we make it, that’s when everybody want to be down. So for me, that quote by Gandhi just resonates a lot with what it means to be on the journey.
And not, and for me, it’s [00:22:00] not caring so much about the destination because to your point, like, I feel like things just will continue to be, but it’s about enjoying the journey. And that quote reminds me that it’s a journey that is not just going to be one thing or another thing. It’s all of things,
De’Vannon: all of them each and every last one of them.
I love the friction that comes along. When w when people would try to repel us, though, I believe it helps to meet tourists. And it helps to refine us like when a moth or a butterfly. It’s trying to crawl a lot of that Chrysalis after they’d been a caterpillar, you know, that struggle helps to release the, you know, the blood flow in whatever juices are in their little furry bodies to expand their wings.
You know, that that struggle is needed. They can not become what they are to be without the problems. And, you know, and so I’m thankful for all the Karens for all the church, people who told us we had to get out, you know, and, and everything like that. For [00:23:00] the people who told us since we were black, we can’t, we can’t stay there.
And stuff like that. When I read that, I thought about how I got kicked out of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas for not being straight, you know, but eventually I’m going to get the victory over them. Cause you know, I’ve been there when they kicked me out. This was like 2008, 2009. And I just finished my book and I went into great detail about how I felt about all of that.
It took me over 10 years, but I finally clapped. I finally clapped the back. And so I will win. Yes,
Anna: you are winning. You are winning. You’ve already won. The victory is yours. You’re already,
De’Vannon: they may in an amen. Okay. So then I’m just curious about, what do you think some of the top issues are facing just the lesbian community today?
Hmm. [00:24:00] And why are you thinking about that? I noticed some of your top lives being moments when I was researching you. I would agree with queen Latifa from set it off.
Anna: Yes, honey. That is number one of all time. You know what? I would argue anybody down and say that ain’t the number one black lesbian moment in film, because.
She was studied out in and go, okay, let dances. It was everything. Okay. It’s a freaking classic acquaint. Lindsey foot is number one and she ain’t even have to be out she out now, but she ain’t going to have to be out. She is out to us anyway. So that was actually a really fun video to do. And I’ll probably do another one because so many people rode in some of their favorite black lesbian moments that I had not even thought about again, or that people didn’t tell me about because I asked my friends.
So for example Lena commented, Lena [00:25:00] wave comments. And then she was like, what about when Tasha was on, came out on the L word? And I was like, dang, that was a pivotal moment because L where had been so white up until that point and it Tasha show up and just wreck the crew. And I was just like, Hey you.
Right. So I’ll probably do another video. But I think, I think for lesbians, some of the major challenges is still representation. And I think there is a lot of invisibility happening with lesbians. So there’s a, there’s a podcast called cruising, which on this podcast and but there’s a podcast called cruising and they have like three lesbians going across the country and they are going to all of the last lesbian bars.
And so there’s 60,000 bars across the country and there’s only 25 lesbian bars, 25 lesbian owned bars across the whole country. And so they did a whole podcast traveling around the country and visiting these bars. [00:26:00] So I think that there is a great need for visibility of lesbians. Not only in media, but just in life in general, you know?
And I think lesbians often can kind of get lost in the south. So similar to how people feel like there’s some invincibility with, by bisexuals in the community right now, I think, you know, a lot of trans folks get a lot of press because there is a political onslaught happening from right wing conservatives politically.
And it doesn’t mention, you know, gay folks or lesbian folks or bisexual folks it’s specifically mentioned trans folks, you know, and I think that there’s some, there’s a definitely a sector of lesbians who feel like they have been left behind often also because we use the word queer these days and no one really uses the word lesbian.
So I know that there’s some lesbians out there that just feel like they’ve been left [00:27:00]somewhere in the eighties and. I think it’s a, I think it’s a challenge for them in that respect with all that being said, if one of our alphabet mafia is as you put it, okay, it’s being attacked. Then we all being attacked.
If we all don’t have freedom, then none of us have freedom. So I think that some of what I hear as lesbian concerns, you know, aren’t really concerns at all. I think it is fear. And I think that when our trans fam is experiencing right now, what they are experiencing right now affects every single last one of us.
De’Vannon: So when you say someone says there’s a lesbian concern and it’s not really a concern, it sounds like you’re speaking about hate and ignorance.
Anna: Well, it might be a problem for them. It’s not a problem for me. I think [00:28:00] that. I think it’s just people being who they are.
And I think that there, I think that people evolve and I think that terms evolve. And so I think there are people who are lesbians, who identify with a very strict definition of what it means to be a lesbian. I think there’s people who identify with the very strict definition of what it means to be, get men who love men and women who love women.
Like these are various particular definitions like that is it. And that is all right. That we’re coming upon a time. I felt like we were living in a time where there is sexual fluidity and so forth, and I can speak for myself and I statements are so helpful in these moments. It’s like I came out as a lesbian, but at the end of the day today, I identify as queer because child, I love a lot of things.
Okay. And it’s not just, it’s not just women or assists women. Okay. It’s just not. And so I needed an expansive word. I needed an expansive definition outside of [00:29:00] lesbian to identify with. So I think that I think oftentimes people get. And what they always known or anything like or stuff like that.
But at the end of the day, things evolve, people evolve terms, evolve, communities evolve. And I also think that if there is one major issue affecting lesbians today, it is just continues to be a lack of representation and visibility, especially for masculine scent and lesbians. I mean, fam lesbians, they, their level of Ms.
Visibility is a whole nother story, right? I’ve I’ve had films. Tell me, like, I intentionally date, you know, masculine of center women. So people know that I am a lesbian. I don’t want you to think I’m straight, you know? And for masculine of center women, there is a, there is an appearance that out you, when you walk out the house.
So you know, [00:30:00] visibility on a grander scale is still not there, even though there’s a different level of acceptance. I believe four lesbians than there are even for gay men. I think gay men have a whole other struggle that around masculinity, especially in this country, that it’s just really different than the lesbian experience.
I’ve talked about. A friend I grew up with a gay guy who was very flamboyant, right? We was cool. He had to come to school with a knife right in his shoe. He never left home without a knife. And underneath the sole of his shoe, that was not my story. I never felt unsafe. He always felt unsafe. And I think at the core of it, I mean, there’s so much to be said around the differences between a male identified experience and a woman identified experience within the LGBTQ community.
De’Vannon: Let’s talk about these experiences in the church. So in researching you, there is some Lutheran Baptist. History [00:31:00] here. Talk to us about how you grew up in cherish.
Anna: Ah, man, my mama and my daddy met at church. So my dad has been a teacher for 40 years and he was teaching at teaching at a private Lutheran school where my mom had enrolled my sister.
So my sister is 17 years older than me. And so my mom rolled my sister there and then they started a love affair in which they had to keep on, on the low, because the teachers weren’t supposed to be thanking the parents, the parents were supposed to be dating the teacher’s child, but in a way,
and let me tell you, 40 years later, they still at the same church. Okay. So. They landed at a black Lutheran church on the south side of Chicago. And so that’s where I grew up, but my dad’s side of the family started a missionary Baptist church also on the south side of Chicago. So I would often have two Easter speeches.
Okay. I, we would often end up going to two different churches on Sundays. Cause my family was at that church, [00:32:00] my uncles, my aunts, my grandma. I mean, everybody was that Christian Love missionary Baptist church. Right. And so we would, you know, time’s always different to, with black church. So Lutherans start at a bright and early 10:00 AM.
Okay. And we was done in 60 minutes, strong, maybe 75 on communion. Sunday Baptist church was just getting started about 11 and praise and worship. 30 minutes. And so by the time we get that, we still at the beginning of the service, so it would a lot more shouting to go. So it was definitely two very different religious experiences growing up too, which I think just kinda tells a lot about my life in general.
The dichotomies. I’ll be one place at one moment and be in total different place in the moment. Another moment, you know, I could be at some highfalutin place one moment, and then I could be in the projects the next moment. All of it [00:33:00] made sense to me for where I was in my life. But church church was a good time.
De’Vannon: So you’re a preacher’s kid. You, you, you say that would explain why you are freaking, you call yourself queer into all things. You have them PKS. I’m pretty freaky deaky.
Anna: We get into some things, we get into some things and they’ll see it. My dad. So he’s a deacon, but at the end of the day, he could preach anywhere and he does preach all the time.
And. He just for Lutherans, you got a lot of rules, regulations. And so he never went back to get that final piece, but he has his master’s in divinity and all this stuff. So, yeah. Child, Sundays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and church.
De’Vannon: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s how I was growing up. Pentecostal Wednesday, you know, Bible ban this night, delivering service this night and the other service [00:34:00] that night when I was at Lakewood, I was there four nights a week, choir practice, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, kids worship leading and teaching Saturday night kids, life choir, Sunday choir.
I think, I think we get like addicted to church before we realized we are
Anna: Church is a big part, right? If you grew up in the church, it’s a big part of your identity. It’s your community, it’s your family and my home church where my parents still go is home. They have always loved me, always embracing me.
I’ve never been anything that I’m not there, but I have my own thoughts around religion and religious organization. So joining the Missouri Senate is not an option for me because they don’t see me as a whole person. So for me, it goes beyond the church. It’s about the religious organization, right. [00:35:00] But it defined so much.
And that’s why when queer folks get rejected from church, It is incredibly impactful and can really damage and cause harm because the first couple of places you learn how to love is at home and at church. And that’s often times the two places you spend the most time. And so when one, or both turn their back on you as a human being, you are not the same person you were before.
It can, it, it leads you down a path that it, it destroys you period. Point blank. It destroys you, you know, and a lot of my work over the years has been around dismantling that and telling the truth about it. That Jesus never said one thing about gay people, not one, Jesus never said it. Now. I just, these clapper scriptures and everything else, I mean, The Bible is meant to be interpreted.
It’s meant to be [00:36:00] understood. It’s meant to be put into context and the way folks have picked and chosen what they want to and who they want to damn to Hale is, is the most unlocked ungodlike thing they can absolutely ever do. And back in the day, I did this project with this organization called church, was in a church where we did a video 30 day release them to do video every 30 days called my God is not a bully to just emphasize that point that God is not bullying anybody.
It’s the people in the pulpit that are, and their lack of interpretation of scripture and in context of strip scripture. So The church means a lot to me actually is part of the Q we are releasing our own content as part of the queue and to, and one of our podcasts first podcast is called second Sunday.
And I cannot wait for y’all to hear this podcast [00:37:00] because it’s talking about the intersections of being black queer and in the church. And we had the opportunity to interview a lot of black queer theologians, lay people musicians for this podcast and the things that they share a child, it’s just, it humanizes an experience that gets polarized a lot.
And I hope I hope folks can get seen through this work.
De’Vannon: Yeah. I was at a graduate at the Houston graduate school of theology and he of course, Euston, Texas, but I was going to get a master’s of divinity as well. When you said that it, it popped out my ears, but I, I left that bitch. I broke up, I broke up and that bitch, when the, when the law professor said that, that they like to control people in church.
And so that was like, well, I didn’t come here to dominate motherfuckers, so I’ll be going now. And so let me get more, I want to get more granular [00:38:00] with your per perspective. Cause I watched that video. One of the, one of the God is not a bully and I agree with what you’re saying and it’s at the epicenter of my message to people.
I preach spiritual independence and people getting close to God on their own without a church or with one. But if you’re going to have a church, remember that it’s second to God. And so You bring up. Okay. So you’re talking about like how the people are using the scripture to throw shade at people who are unlike them.
It, how. Scriptural interpretation is very subjective and it is, everybody can read the Bible and come out of it with what they want. It’s clearly not an easy to understand book because if it was simple to interpret, then you wouldn’t need a thousand different translations of it. And so, I mean, And so since people are indoctrinated in such a young age, you know, at churches, you, you understand you go there to learn, but critical thinking about what the preacher is saying is not what’s taught to you.
And [00:39:00] so you’re accepting whatever is being said. And by the time you’re old enough to know any difference, you’ve got all of these issues to sort out, and then you feel conflicted about it because you’ve been told never to disagree with a preacher or a church, but now you like the shit don’t make sense though.
And so, so we add an out here to tell you that you will not burn up and go to hell for not being straight and to all the straight people. And I mean that loosely, because you never know what the hell people not doing behind closed doors. I didn’t fuck so many straight married men and my day is unreal.
And so you know, just, just know that while they’re trying to use these scriptures over here to condemn you to hell since they want to be so strict about that. The, the Bible and everything. You know, the Bible speaks against getting divorced for any reason, other than infidelity. It speaks against interracial couples and stuff like that, stuff that we’re all totally cool with.
Now, them people in church got 50,000 divorces. [00:40:00] It all kinds of reasons and all kinds of mixed, mixed racial shit’s going on. And I’m cool with all of it. But my whole point is this. If you’re going to be such a hard ass about one part, you need to be a hard ass about the whole fucking thing. I don’t want to see you eating nothing that divided the hoof.
I don’t want you getting down with the pig or nothing like that. If you going to be that much of a, of a bitch about it, then follow the whole fucking thing from end to end and not just a P a few slices of.
Anna: And that’s what they do, right? Those Christians like them, so-called Christians cause they not Christian some so called Christians.
You know, they use, they use it for whatever they feel like they want to use it for. And they cause a lot of freaking harm and they’re causing harm right now. And now it’s entered the political round, you know? And we need more folks like you, we need more projects. I tell queer folks and LGBTQ young people that you’ll still love that God still loves you.
That your relationship with God is far more important [00:41:00] than whatever this preacher is saying from a pulpit. I also think critical thought is so incredibly important when you understand that there are books missing from the Bible, right? When you understand that, that what you’re reading is not the entire Canon, like what are we doing here?
People, what are we doing here? And also think it’s easy to make God this very angry damning person and being. That was not what God taught at all. That’s not what God taught at all.
De’Vannon: He’s not, he’s a God of mercy and grace forgiveness, long suffering, slow to anger, quick, the mercy, quick, the compassion.
That’s what the scripture say. He’s not like man, you know, quick to judge and clobber you and what you speak of about getting kicked out from churches and how it changes you. It’s it’s, it’s what I call being dehumanized. It makes you feel like you’re less than a person. And when a church tells you, you have to go.
Not because of [00:42:00] something you’ve done with church has never supposed to tell anyone to go, no matter what, you know, Jesus accepted murderers and everybody. So for a terrace would be like, you can’t go because of who you love, which is what Lakewood church did to me. You know, you can’t. There, you know, you, that, that, that, that sent me on a downward spiral that ultimately led me into drugs and to drug dealing and to getting hepatitis B and HIV, my choice to do what I do, do what I did, but they certainly would’ve sparked the set that shit in motion and fuck them.
Fuck you wake with church in on repeat, if we can dub stuff, that shit, then the video you also said. You, you made a comparison about how, okay. Say like procreation, one of the arguments people use against the non straight community is that God hates what you’re doing because when you have sex, you can’t, and there’s no kid that’s gonna come of it.[00:43:00]
And then you were like, okay, well they’re straight couples that God has prevented them from having children’s. It was that because he hates them too. You know, it’s not a, you can’t apply that sort of a rubric evenly. You can’t do it. And then you were also saying, you said something very interesting to me.
You said that you wouldn’t choose another burden and you were like, I’m already blessed. That’s hard enough as it is. Do I really want. Add queer to it and all the problems that come along in this life, in that statement, you’re rebutting the stupid shit. Like I heard Joyce Meyer and whoever the fuck else say that, where they think it’s a choice, you know, like, like we just, oh, well we’ll think we’ll be gay today, you know, or some or some stupid shit like that as that is the most overly simplistic, dumb ass shit.
These supposedly educated people
Anna: say 100%. And I think that that’s at the core of it. And I was talking to somebody recently whose child just came out to [00:44:00] them a year or so ago. And I was just like, you know, We have to start the conversation at choice with choice, because if you believe what I’m doing is a choice, then we’re not going to get very far because at the heart of homophobia, is this idea that you can change.
Hence why conversion therapy, right. Has been such a popular way for Christians to change people because you don’t think it’s a choice because you think it’s a choice. But in fact, it’s not. In fact, I grew up when my mama put me in bowls and matching ruffle socks. Okay. And doing everything in her power to make, to, to raise a feminine girl.
And in fact, I was who I was from the moment I had any say over it. It’s just not who I was. And I was very clear about that from a very young age. I was very clear that I was [00:45:00] athletic. Does that make me gay? No, but I was also very clear. I liked wearing my dad’s shirts and my dad and I had the same initials and he gets his shirts embroidered with his initials on them.
And I wanted to wear his shirts. I was not going to wear my mother’s dresses. I didn’t want nothing to do with heels. I didn’t want to do a pantyhose. It’s just, it just wasn’t who I was and it’s not who I am. And so I think all of these conversations around homophobia and transphobia and hate come around, the idea that who we are is a choice and who we are is not a choice in the same ways who they are, you know innately is not a choice.
De’Vannon: That do be facts though, because if there was, they’re going to apply that logic, the us, and it has to go in reverse. And I like you when I was two, three years old, I was already playing with Kendall. I was trying to see what was up under his shorts and shit like that. So, but if, but if there’s a choice, then when did they kick to be straight?
And [00:46:00] then if that’s the case, are they confessing that they had homosexual desire at some point, you know, the way they tell it, they’d been straight from the beginning. So if that’s the case, you know, it’s uneven, but it’s like anything else from your favorite food to your favorite color? Life is a thing of discovery.
We do not get to put ourselves together like a doll or a made out of Play-Doh. You don’t get to go. My favorite color is going to be green. My favorite dish is going to be lobster. My favorite state, I think I’ll go with Kentucky. My favorite shoes, I think van sounds nice. You know, you, you get exposed to shit and then you pay attention to what keeps standing out to you.
And what keeps drawing you in and then you go, oh, it seems like I’m into the color green or, oh, I think I really, really liked these fucking vans. They represent me. Well, you discover who you are, the beginnings of who you are, is shaped. And when you’re in your mother’s womb everywhere, she goes, the things she says, the people she talks to, the thing she thinks read, exposes [00:47:00] that child to everything, you cannot separate the two.
So you’re predisposed to so much before you’re even born. So for them fuckers to be like, well, you chose to be gay. I goes again, signs and all logic. And they’re just stupid as hell.
Anna: Pretty much, pretty much. And what’s really unfortunate is, is that I, I see that there can be a differentiation. So let me give you an example.
Like you can believe that being queer is wrong, right? You can believe. But that should not equate to me not having the rights as a citizen, within a country that I pay taxes in, if that makes sense. So for me, politics shapes society. So you can think being gay is wrong, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to limit my rights, [00:48:00] to control who I love control.
If I can get married control, if I can get medical care control with books, I read you not have that type of control in my life. Just because you don’t agree with who I am. I don’t agree with you being a white, racist, homophobic transphobic person. Right. Right. But I ain’t trying to write legislation to kill off your human existence.
Right. Because that is exactly the fact of the matter is that what’s happening across the country right now is killing. Trans youth, the numbers the suicide hotlines, like the Trevor project, they are outrageous right now, right? People are trying to leave states where they have had homes and families and a legacy because their children can’t get the medical care they need.
Because now politicians are saying that parents don’t know what’s best for their own children. How dare you? Just because you don’t believe in who I am. [00:49:00] And I think it’s just so incredibly contradictory because they don’t want anyone telling them who they are or what they should be doing. You know,
De’Vannon: if it’s any consolation, these people are the hypocrites of our day. You had them in Jesus’s time. I agree with what you said earlier, how the Bible is not complete. Some people will say everything you need to know about life it’s in the Bible. That’s bullshit. It’s a general. It’s a general guide to help get you close enough to God.
So you can talk to him for yourself and then he can fix you and instruct you the rest of the way. But everything is not in there, but these, these Republicans and evangelicals and everything, these are today’s hypocrites. Every generation has to have them. There’s not going to come a time in this earth until probably the millennial kingdom when Jesus Christ reigns here again, but even, well, I’m not going to say that because even then there’s going to be people who don’t believe in him in the earth.
And so there’s always going to be those people who are contradictory, these people [00:50:00] are like how solid the apostle is before you became Paul. The thing is if God doesn’t open somebody’s eyes to their hypocrisy, then they won’t see if you don’t up in their ears to hear truth. They won’t hear, they won’t believe and be converted.
Every generation has to have the people who are going to be citizens of hell bound to go to hell. Because if they have humility and love in their heart, they would go to heaven and they would be rugged. You people not going to accidentally end up in hell, you have to be like Pharaoh or somebody and just hardheaded ignoring the signs, not hearing what the people under you are trying to say, not hearing the voice of the people.
That’s how far was he just would not hear logic and reason because he was so set in his ways and what he wanted to want other people to do. Now, Paul Saul took his ass to the Sanhedrin saying Hedron was a religious council of the day. I think it’s like 70 something. My fathers who control shit. It’s no [00:51:00] different than legislation.
The day, a whole group of motherfuckers who control. You say, I look this Jesus person and come here with his bullshit and these people trying to act like him and we can’t be having none of this. So give me some power, some letters and shit. So then go arrest. They asses and beat them and fuck with them and shit beat this Jesus out of the acids.
Cause this ain’t right. It’s on rip up our moral fabric. And this is going to tear our society down because of how they believe. And the Sanhedrin was like, go on, play a gong. Now his way to Damascus Jesus intercepted his bitch ass. And it was like, ah, ah, ah, ah, what you doing? You need to stop this shit because I did not send you scripturally speaking.
He said, Saul saw, why, why are you persecuting me? It’s hard for you to kick against the pricks. And so what do we have here? Somebody who said those people over there, I don’t like what they doing. So let me in and enact laws to change them. And the Lord said, I don’t want [00:52:00] you to do that. That, that is the what the whole beginning of that, that part of the book of acts is about Jesus Christ.
Being against using the law to co Eris people to behave differently. It was right there yet. When those people, the people of our day, the hypocrites, the Republicans, evangelicals, if they even read they dusty ass Bibles, I don’t see how they can. And when they read the Bible, they, they read it to find not what’s wrong with other people.
They are right there. But when they killed Steve and I’m going to say this and shut the hell up, but this is a hot button for both of us when they killed even the one who said to me, the first martyr, he read the religious people for Phil, and he told them, you motherfuckers are the same people who kill the prophets and everything like that.
While you sitting up here trying to judge me that he, it was a whole long chapter in acts. And then they stoned him to death and everything like that. So these things must be so,
Anna: and I think so, [00:53:00] Chad, you just said so much, there’s so much to say. I think, I think at the heart of it also is that the theology, like your own spiritual connection to God is, can be so expansive.
So the, to your point, right, the Bible is one thing. But then, right. Christians will tell you that all these, you shouldn’t even explore these other religions. They can’t give you nothing. Like, no, you can’t get nothing out of nothing out of these, none of these other spaces. And I think to myself, like I thought God created everything.
I thought God created everything. And if God created everything and God is in everything. And and I find myself having a very expansive worldview about God and my beliefs, like, so. Growing up. You’re taught that if someone commits suicide, they go into hell. [00:54:00] And then now I was thinking, and then as I grew up, I was like, why would God send anybody to hell for committing suicide?
And where does it say that in the Bible? And it doesn’t right. We’re just fed these. We fed these things out of fear to control you to not commit suicide, but who in the world told you that? When I think about the, the, the, the preachers and spiritual teachings that like folks around the world, anyone who doesn’t call Jesus by name as their Lord and savior is going to go to hell, how is that possible?
When there’s people in the other countries, in the world who don’t even know who Jesus is. So you’re telling me that this God of love is going to send somebody who had an opportunity to get to know who, who Jesus was. That doesn’t make any sense to me. And I think that. When for me, because of my sexual identity, it caused me to have to question a whole hell of a lot of stuff.
Definitions of [00:55:00] what heaven heaven is, definitions of what hail is, definitions of who’s going, and who’s not, you begin to question all of it. And for me, when it boils down, I love it. When my mom says this to people about me. When she would tell me this all the time, she’d be like, have you read your 10 commandments recently?
I don’t see nothing in there about God, about gay people, you know? But I see a whole lot of other stuff that applies to you. Hello. So my mom, you know, she got to the point where she was empowered enough to, you know, stand up and say something and speak out about that. And I think that we need more people to do just that.
Cause they ain’t gonna say it to me. They gonna say it to their friend who they think agreed with them, you know? So. I just think we have a long way to go to the, understand what it means to, to embody and to embody a godlike existence, because it has so much [00:56:00] more to do with love and choice than anything else.
De’Vannon: I was like you a very well said girl. I was like you very confused and conflicted about myself because of what the church said. They only gave me peace with learning, how to read the scripture for myself. I went back to the original Greek Hebrew and Aramaic the original, the Bible and discovered it for myself, what I want people to do, because any translation you read king James, a message or whatever, the living Bible, those are all other people’s translations.
That’s not the actual original language. Instead, if you want the true truth, then you got to go back to the source. You got to go back to the original languages of the net and you get. Somebody else’s version
Anna: that end. You have to I think you gotta find your own practice. So you have to find what that practice looks like for you.
Especially when you feel disconnected from church, because church was a practice Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday, however many times a [00:57:00] week, that was a practice. So as if you feel yourself pulling away from that, that you have to figure out what your practice look like. And so today, like my practice looks like me being in my prayer corner in the mornings, but my affirmation books with my journals, with my candle, with my music, with pictures of my family, like for me growing up, like it is being grounded in quiet and close to God in those moments.
And that’s my, that’s my practice today. And I feel closer to God than I ever have. I see signs all the time. I think numerology is real. Like if something profound happens, I’m like, what time is it? I think, I think there’s so many ways to connect with God. And when you choose to close yourself off to all the possibilities and all the possibilities of who God is, you will miss her.
You going to miss, you’re going to miss her. You gonna miss her. That’s it.[00:58:00]
De’Vannon: Let me see here. So we wanted to talk about the cube. As we begin to wrap it up, I’m going to read your favorite quote by Shirley Chisholm believes you better than she was the first black woman to put in a bid to be a presidential nominated back in the seventies and her eyeglass, a tiny her frame game was on point yes and date match for the gods date.
And she said, if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. You go on to say in your it says in your, in your, in your website, you know, we bought our folding chairs and there hasn’t been any equity to be found at those tables. It’s time for us to build our own tables and our own chairs to this space and model the change we want to see in the world of podcasting.
Anna: Yes. All of that. So I love Shirley chill. I love [00:59:00] everything. She’s still fought. She she’s made a lot of things possible and she had to bring her folding chair. Okay. She had to, they weren’t inviting her to no tables. She had to bring a folding chair, but because of the work that she did and in fact that we can stand on the shoulders of so many other incredible, incredible people of history from Ella baker to Angela Davis, to Coretta Scott King, Utah, I mean, Elaine brown, I can go on and on.
We can build our own tables. We don’t have to wait on anyone to do anything for us. Should apple be more inclusive? Yes. Should Spotify be more inclusive? Yes, they should. But it is not about what they should do because capitalism rules this country. So if it’s not, if it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t make sense in so many ways in that world, but we have an opportunity to do something different.[01:00:00]
And I think we have an opportunity to shape, especially the podcasting space, because I feel like it’s still very much so a new medium, I believe it’s coming into its own after 20 years. And that’s why I like new it’s like, so it’s such a funny thing to say because it’s been 20 years, but for so many people, they are just really getting into what it could mean to listen to a podcast.
And we can shape what we want this world to see. And I wanted to see more diverse. I want to see more people like me and I wasn’t finding them. And so the cube will be that there’ll be the one and only curated destination of music and podcasts by BiPAP and QT POC folks. And the music is powered by our radio station.
Ethan. Which plays queer music and reports on queer news and high rotation specifically at the intersections of race and sexuality. So there’s so many queer artists out here doing their thing, and you don’t hear about them. [01:01:00] There’s so many of them making good music. I got one of my favorite inspirational artists is a black queer woman who was on Sunday.
Best Maya be you know, her, you know, like they deserve a space to be. And then there’s like, dope podcasts is like, you whole deserve to be seen who to serve more visibility, more amplification of your work. And I think we can do it. And matter of fact, I know we can do it. We are doing it. And I think we can do it really, really well.
So it’s going to be an app or in development. My goal. My hope is that we are dropping beta in July and totally out to the public. By September of this year, we’ve accepted 94 podcasts into the app. We’ve got a team of folks listening to every single piece of podcast content, because we want the best pod-casters inside of our app.
I want the best because there’s a lot of poor Lee produced podcasts in the market. People who [01:02:00] sound like they got the iPhone on top of the roof on a fourth bottle of wine. Okay. And you know, that’s okay. That’s okay. You can do that. You got something to say and you better go say it. Okay. But they don’t have to be what’s in my ears.
It doesn’t have to be what’s inside this app. I want it to have to be where the best reside and that’s what resonates with me. And that’s what we’re building.
De’Vannon: Yeah. I was listening to somebody, his podcasts earlier, who’s trying to come on my show and be a guest. And I was like, God, I can’t hear what you’re saying.
You sound muffled. Yes. Out there. So I thank you for your compliments. Just all the sex, drugs and jingles podcast has been accepted into the cube. So our clients, our quality is on point enough for these standards. And so. I’m going to read it a little bit further. So it says the cube is majority owned by a black queer woman and co-founded by three black LGBTQ persons.
The cube will be a centralized [01:03:00] destination for discovery of BiPAP and QT pop music and podcasts. Tell us what the BiPAP and QT pox
Anna: fans. Absolutely BiPAP is black indigenous people of color. And I choose to say BiPAP because I leave with my blackness. And so I choose to say black indigenous people of color.
And then I choose to identify queer trans people of color specifically, even though we inside the BiPAP, we in there. But I think it’s important for queer folks to know that I’m talking about that, that this platform is also for them, that I want to be able to center and amplify their work as well. And so that’s why I, I include QT POC into the narrative now is my marketing team happy about that?
No. Okay. It’s a lot of words. It’s a lot of acronyms people don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, but the people, the people who know know. Right. And so, you know, at the end of the day I’m in this accelerator right now with Google, which is [01:04:00] really dope. It’s the Google for startups like founders academy.
And one of the mentors was like, I need five words, five words to describe your business. You should be able to describe your business in five words. And I was like, God, dang it. And so I came up with discover, discover the best bi-pod podcast. Right. If I had to describe it in five words, discover the best BiPAP podcast is what I came up with.
And so that’s what it all means. At the end of the day. It’s about discovery. You will, will be able to listen to these podcasts inside of the app. And I hope people would choose to do that as well. There’s an opportunity for Uproxx to tip their creators from within the app and that money would go straight to those creators.
And I’m excited about that. The moment we get enough users, we’ll be able to roll out an ad revenue sharing program, right? So we could put more money into creatives pockets who do want to make money from advertising. And, you know, I think we just continue to build this platform in this [01:05:00] space for folks to discover some of the amazing ways that black, brown, and queer folks of color show up in the world.
And I think podcasting is a space that people are choosing to share their experiences with the world the same way you share yours. You know? I think there’s a, there’s a, I know there’s a lot of people doing that and you just can’t find them.
De’Vannon: Up until now, because now
Anna: you got the key
De’Vannon: cue, baby. Yeah.
All right. So just any last words you have for the world, any community, whatever you want to say, you can say, what the fuck you feel?
Anna: I love it. I love, I can say whatever the fuck I feel.
I feel like we’re in. I feel like we’re in a moment right now. So I, I feel like we’ve survived a pandemic and it feels like the world is restarting in some ways. [01:06:00] And I feel like we’ve got an opportunity here to change the way. We do media and podcasting has a way, has an opportunity to show folks how to do media collaboration.
Right? I think we can show what it means to be a community inside of a media industry. I think podcasting has an opportunity to do it differently than what and how things have been done in the past. And so I hope that I, I hope that I can be part of that change. There are so many amazing people in this space doing amazing work, our partners.
And my hope is that I can amplify them as well. So when we talk about the black podcast association, when I think about the women of color association, when I think about the BiPAP podcast creators group, when I think about Twila day, I mean, it’s just a number of [01:07:00] people. Who are seeking to create equitable opportunities inside of the podcasting space.
And we haven’t seen that in any other mediums. So we have to be the change we want to see in the world. We have to be, and this is where I am choosing to make my impact. This is where I feel like I’ve been called to make an impact. And so if you’re listening to this and it sparks your interest, if you’d like I’m down with Anna, a, I would love for you to go visit our website, the cube, that app, T H E Q U B e.app, and sign up for our newsletter.
So you’re one of the first people to know when the app drops and I hope that you enjoy what we’re, what we’re building. And I hope that you choose to join the journey with us to to your point, it’s like, this is a long-term game. This isn’t like we turn on the app and then problems is fixed. Now we’re in this for the long haul to see significant changes in media.
And we’re starting with pocket.
De’Vannon: Very well said. And also Anna’s other website is Anna de shawn.com [01:08:00] a N N a D E S H a w N. Both of these links for the Cuban banana deshaun.com will go in the show notes as I always do. And then Anna, we will have you back on in several months after the app drops so that we can get an update from you.
Thank you. Thank you so fucking much for coming on and spread your sunshine to the world today. I
Anna: appreciate you so much for having me. This has been a blast.
De’Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.
My name is De’Vannon and it’s been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right.[01:09:00]
