Today, I’m reflecting on the 5th lesson my mother taught me: being hateful is incompatible with being whole. Episode 68 begins with a spoken-word piece about the distances we travel to understand that what separates us on the surface often dissolves when we look more closely.
In this deeply personal episode, I share the story of my mother—a white woman raised in a small, religious town—who chose love over prejudice when she married a Black man in the late 1950s and refused to hide her family to satisfy the expectations of others.
Her decision reshaped not only her life, but mine as well. At this time in our history, marked by hate and division, looking back can stir a host of emotions. I go all the way back to 1845 to the words of Frederick Douglass to draw parallels about the long history of professing hateful values under a veil of “Christianity.”
But at its core, this episode asks a simple but challenging question: What kind of life can we build if we refuse to let hate take root in our hearts?
Check out episode #68 and explore my mom's 5th lesson – that being hateful is incompatible with being whole.
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