How To Stay Sane While Fighting For Change with Shahem Mclaurin

Too often, we attribute mental health challenges solely to personal trauma or chemical imbalances—but what about the oppressive systems within the society we live? And how do we keep our mental health in check while fighting against these systems? Today Shahem Mclaurin addresses these complex questions, and shares his inspiring journey from growing up in Baltimore to finding his true calling as a social worker and therapist. Then he gives us some hot takes on narcissism, social media addiction, and eating disorders. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Keke Palmer?

  Hey guys, it's Keke Palmer and you already know we're about to dive deep today. Okay, we're talking about challenging oppressive systems, institutional racism, homophobia, the patriarchy and all of that, and how to stay sane through the fight. Who better to chat with about this than someone who understands both the systemic, institutional problems and the mental health struggles that result from them? His name's Shaheen Mclaurin and I can't wait to get into his journey and the impact he's making. So let's jump right into it because baby, this is Keke Palmer.

• 1:02Keke Palmer?

  So mom, we're talking about a lot of heavy stuff today.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, yeah, it sounds heavy.

• 1:06Keke Palmer?

  The intersection between mental health and social injustice and the systems, you know, as they put it back in the old days, the man. So I'm curious of how that all affected you growing up? It's so broad, but like, let me get kind of like more micro level with it. How was it for you growing up in a very segregated state like Illinois?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:28Keke Palmer?

  How did it affect your mental health?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  You know what, um, obviously you grow up and it is what it is, you don't question a lot, but I do know that I lived in a small area called Robbins and Robbins was surrounded by white communities. You had Millowthian, you had Alseb and you had Crestwood and Blue Island. So there was like these four towns surrounding this all-black town and we didn't have anything in our town. We didn't have a gas station. At one time, we did have a grocery store, but that didn't last. And so we were forced to go outside of our black community that was in the middle of all these white communities and we would go and support their stores. And when we would go, they'd call us niggers and go home nigger, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:12Keke Palmer?

  That was the hard R.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was nigger, yeah, they was like nigger, yeah, yeah. Um, and

• 2:19Keke Palmer?

  Mom, please don't make me laugh.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  And, um, I remember, um, one time my mother had just brought like a, um, station wagon. They had like a hatchback, like you could, you know, back in those days, they didn't have all the rules. Like you didn't have to wear a seatbelt or anything like that. I was like maybe seven or eight years old and I remember riding in the back of my mother's station wagon. And it was hot. She didn't have any air conditioning. So she raised the back door of it. And I was just laying and I had fallen asleep and I remember waking up and this guy was honking his horn. He was like, I hope you fall, nigger. I hope you die. I hope you fall, nigger. And I just never forgot that. I mean, I don't

• 2:56Keke Palmer?

  That's pretty heavy.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  I just was like, it really did something to me because I was like, he really wants me to fall out this car and die. And I just thought like, wow, that's a lot, you know?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  I just thought that was a lot. And then going to high school in Payless, which was an area that was really upper middle class, like a lot of the kids had beautiful homes and stuff like that. Um, I noticed that the kids that were from Payless, they were more welcoming than the kids that were from the Midlothian and Alseb. So the white kids that were the same economic background that we were from, they hated us. But the white kids that had more money and was a little, you know, higher in, you know, up the chain, they accepted us.

• 3:48Keke Palmer?

  Interesting. What do you think that means?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, as I got older, I just looked at it like maybe they saw us as a threat, you know?

• 3:54Keke Palmer?

  The ones in your community saw y'all as a threat?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the ones that were in the towns that probably didn't have too much more than we had, they saw us as a threat, as if they're taking our place.

• 4:05Keke Palmer?

  That's right. Okay, okay.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Like they're taking our place, they're taking something from us type of vibe. That's what I got from it. You know what I mean?

• 4:13Keke Palmer?

  How did that make you feel?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Well, I grew up with a mother who was frightened by white people. She was very afraid of white people. She had grown up in Memphis, Tennessee. And she would tell us stories of her being downtown Memphis and like, white men would be in the car and they'd say, "Come here, gal, you know, come here, gal." And, you know, you had to come if they called you. And she went over to the car and they'd be exposed, you know.

• 4:38Keke Palmer?

  Oh shit.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And she'd run and scream and they'd be laughing. So she was frightened, uh, very much of white men, you know. To the point where when I was like, um, like I was one of the stars in the school play, she told me I can't come, there's too many white people.

• 4:55Keke Palmer?

  Damn.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, she said, "I can't sit in that auditorium." And at the time, I was like, "What?" I thought it was so crazy. But as I, um, you know, as I got older and stuff and I heard so many other stories and people have phobias and triggered, I just accepted. I was like, my mother was so frightened of white people from growing up in the South and...

• 5:15Keke Palmer?

  Well, one thing begots another and the anxiety that grandma holds and even what you're, well, she held, she's no longer with us, rest in peace. It also makes me think back to how, I remember when the help came out and you were telling me, um, about how grandma was pretty much like, you know, her mom was like the Viola Davis character a little bit. Except she went across town to take care of these three young white boys that grew up with her as their mother. To the point that when she passed away, they were front row at her funeral, but during her having to leave to go take care of them, she left grandma at home where she was essentially attacked. I don't want to go into all the details. But while her mother was going and being a mother to these other children to make money, you know what I mean?

• 5:57Keke Palmer?

  To be a housekeeper, to be a caretaker, she had to leave her own daughter behind where her own daughter had experienced...

• 6:03Speaker 01

  She was molested by her uncle and then now, now you got a kid that's...

• 6:06Keke Palmer?

  I think those are definitely systemic effects that lead to mental health.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  But to talk about my grandmother even more so, yes, she was a, uh, I forget what they called it back in the day, domestic. Yeah, so she worked in this rich lawyer's home, um, in Memphis. And he had three sons or two sons, I don't recall, but... I remember when her daughter got sick. My Aunt Ruby, I never met her, she passed away in her early twenties. And she got tuberculosis. In the forties and the fifties, there was a mass epidemic of tuberculosis. And people were dying, you know, so very similar. And my Aunt Ruby got tuberculosis. And so my grandmother, her name was Isla West.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Isla West went to her boss, who was this rich white lawyer in Memphis, and said, "My daughter has tuberculosis. She's in a sanatorium and she has three kids. And her husband is trying to take the kids from me. My daughter left the kids with me, but now he's coming to get the kids. Can you help me?" And he said, "Isla, I don't represent niggas."

• 7:17Keke Palmer?

  Damn.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  So my grandmother couldn't stop him. He came and got the two older kids and left the baby. He said he didn't think the baby was his. And so my grandmother raised my cousins, my mother's nephew, raised my first cousin Johnny. And she raised him as he was her own. And I guess he, you know, never really knew who his father was. If he did, I don't know that story. But that same family, my grandmother kept working for them. And you're right, when the father died, he had paid for my grandmother's house. So I guess he didn't represent niggas, but he paid for their houses, I guess.

• 7:58Keke Palmer?

  So weird.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  I don't know, so it's kind of like the good and the bad. I don't, you know, I don't even know how to take that. You know, I don't know, but.

• 8:06Keke Palmer?

  Me neither.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  But yeah, so.

• 8:08Keke Palmer?

  So weird.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  That's how the story goes, so.

• 8:11Keke Palmer?

  But all of that is just so nuanced and people are so affected. Like, all of that is just so terrible.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Well, it totally affected my mother, obviously, because.

• 8:20Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, I'd be scared of that.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  She didn't come to live with her mother until she was like, maybe like twelve or thirteen. By then, now, you know, who knows what she's been through? And now she's a teenager, trying to figure things out. And, you know, coming from Mississippi and Memphis. And she just told me the first thing that she did was to try to get out, you know?

• 8:43Keke Palmer?

  Sure.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And that's how she ended up in Chicago. She came to Chicago just trying to better her life and, you know, just get out the South.

• 8:50Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 8:53Keke Palmer?

  Yeah. I always felt, I remember when we first had started talking about anxiety and stuff like that and just like, to me, a lot of that is epigenetics, because some stuff you just are, is just passed down. It's just so interesting, I was, remember I had a conversation with a, um, meditation lady when I first started getting into all that stuff, and she was like, "When you heal yourself, you heal your ancestors." And I just didn't know, like, what that meant. But in the concept of what we know to be scientific with epigenetics, it makes total sense where, when we started talking about, like, that became healed in our bloodline. So it then is no longer going to be transferred over. And if it is, if there's any remnants, there's gonna be an awareness around it. Um, like, when we had spoke about Ally, you know, my niece, Larielle's daughter,

• 9:37Keke Palmer?

  who can so clearly speak about what anxiety feels like, what it means to her, as early as eight years old.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Keke Palmer?

  You know?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, what she said to you, um, the other day about how she gets up, yeah.

• 9:49Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, how she get up and she just has anxiety, it's because she's worried the house could be on fire. I'm like, that's crazy.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Well, I think, but I think it's good that, you know, the younger generation can talk about it, because we didn't have those words. We didn't have trigger in any of those things.

• 10:03Keke Palmer?

  Something else I want to speak about on this topic, because we talk about this kind of stuff a lot. And there's another vantage point that I'd like to look at it from, um, that takes us kind of outside of this, this perception where, you know, when you are trying to work through this stuff, and when you are trying to, you know, be just a fighter for the greater good, for the community, for the marginalized, there is a reality that you want to push up against the system. You know, you hate the system, because the system is what has created this scenario. But there's a reality within that, that the system is always going to exist. And if it's not gonna be this system, it's gonna be another system. How do you then learn and teach yourself how to work within that system, while still fighting for the things that you want to fight for? Because the reality is, is, you, you know,

• 10:48Keke Palmer?

  I think that's kind of one of the only ways to be able to do it. Like, you can't change something from the outside, you can only change something from the inside. And it may not be huge change, but it can, it can impart a bigger change. Because if I let in one, and one person like me, and then another person like me, and then another person like me, then eventually there will be some equalizing going on, right?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that you have that activist spirit, and you have that, you know, "I want to change things, and I want to, you know, do what I need to do." I never had that. I'm more of a "follow the rules." I really do believe you should follow rules and you shouldn't buck the system. And you should figure out how to do things within the system. I don't know, I'm just wired that way. It scares me when people go outside of the system or whatever. My mother too. She had a beauty salon on the west side of Chicago. And she says she'll never forget she was listening to Martin Luther King. He was giving a speech. And she was, he was like maybe a mile from her beauty salon in Chicago.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  And she was listening to him on the radio. And she said he was speaking so eloquently until she lost her appetite. She said she was actually eating, listening to him. And what he was saying was so powerful that she lost her appetite. And she said, I wished I could go out and protest, but it's just not in me.

• 12:14Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  And I totally understood that because I don't want to protest either.

• 12:18Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm. But I mean, there's a lot of fear there, it sounds like. It's a lot of fear. I had a lot of guy friends, a lot of male black friends that said they didn't want to really go out with me when I went in protest because they were afraid. They felt like they were a target. And I don't think, I have compassion for that. I don't think there's any judgments for that. Um, you know, but I think I too like systems because I like to understand a system so that I know how to find the silver lining.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always tell that joke that jail wouldn't bother me. Because you know, you got regular meals and you know when you gotta go to bed. And I mean, I don't want to be in jail, but I don't think it would break me.

• 12:54Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Because I could follow them rules real, real well.

• 12:57Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting though, because I feel like there's a lot in my generation, and I'm sure in every generation, where you have people that have so many great ideas and have so many things that they want to, you know, help do in part on others. But there's that reality that in order to do that, there's a system here that I then have to figure out how to infiltrate. And I don't know if infiltrate is the right word, but there's a system here that I have to figure out how to have the language to participate in. And then I have to figure out how to articulate these big ideas to people that don't. Don't even understand my vocabulary.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:33Keke Palmer?

  I do feel like sometimes I, you know, want to do too much, or I care too much, or something like that. Like, I do feel that way. And I do think of people that, you know, maybe we don't know their names, but there are a lot of people that wanted to do things like Martin Luther King, or Malcolm X, or whatever, like you said, and then you think about them being murdered. You know what I mean? That's really sad, you know, because you're like, damn, they just wanted to make people feel that they were important and bring us into the community. And so all those things you think about, you know, but at the end of the day, I can only be me.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:01Keke Palmer?

  And that's something that Malcolm X said, that I always love so much, where he says, you know, you can't kill someone that's already dead. And I know that that sounds really scary, but I really do feel like, you know, we're just here for a blink of an eye. We're not here for a long time. This life is not mine anyway. If I'm only here for a good time, not a long time, then why don't I really follow my heart and do what makes sense to me? And that doesn't mean every day, every morning, I'm over here sitting trying to figure out how to write legislation. Like, I'm not, that's not what I'm saying.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:28Keke Palmer?

  But if I feel the need to speak out, then I'll speak out. You know, if I feel the need to, to, to, to say something, or to support something, or to, you know, if I feel drawn to care about issues, well, then I'm going to live in that because it's in me to do, you know?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  And my mother would be proud of you, even though she couldn't go out and protest, she wasn't, you know, didn't feel right about it. Now her granddaughter will. You were protesting.

• 14:55Keke Palmer?

  Well, that's the, that's, I think that, but I think that's the expression of what that lady had told me, that meditation lady, when she said, when you free yourself, you free your ancestors, because that actually is her voice. Those are the voices of the voiceless. My freedom and my ability to say the things that I'm even saying right now on this podcast are representative of those who could not say it at that time. And so I think that's also a part of where I get that strength from, you know, ancestrally, you know, whatever you want to call it. It's, it's just, it's in me, like they say. It's not on me. Okay, let me talk to, uh, Shahem and get into this with him.

• 15:41Keke Palmer?

  Let me tell you, I'm so thrilled to have this guest with us today because his work is truly shaking things up. Shahem McClorn is a clinical social worker and therapist who rose to prominence on social media through his potent mixture of social commentary and motivational messages. Pointing out that we cannot talk about mental health without talking about social injustice. I'm so excited to have you here. Shahem, how you doing, love?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  I'm doing amazing. Thank you for having me.

• 16:08Keke Palmer?

  Oh my gosh, thank you for being here. I mean, how's everything been going? What have you been up to lately?

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Ah, child, a lot of work. I've been, I've been working all day, client after client. You never go out of business in this business. I can tell you that much.

• 16:21Keke Palmer?

  That's a good thing. We need some good help out there. So I'm glad to hear that people are coming in and getting that good talk, okay? Now, I want to talk to you today because your work is at the intersection of mental health and social injustices. And I think that there is so much good in that, but also so much stress in that. Um, so I would love to ask you a little bit about how you take care of yourself in the midst of doing this necessary, but very taxing work.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Well, first off, thank you for the question. Uh, I get asked that so often. And the answers to a lot of my questions come down to the same thing, and I think you'll find that today. But community, I am nothing without the people around me. I have my own therapist, my online community, my friends who, who hold me up all the time. I'm always motivated by my nieces and nephews. Uh, that is the thing that, that holds me down the most when I'm going through it and when I'm doing this work. The only reason I do this work is for community and naturally that's the thing that keeps me going to.

• 17:25Keke Palmer?

  I feel the same way. Community is what keeps me going too. And I think it started in childhood. So I'd love to hear about kind of like how you grew up. You know, what was your background? You know, what was it like with your family and friends? Were you kind of like Michael from Good Times and always about the social justice? Or what was it like growing up?

• 17:42Speaker 02

  I am originally from Baltimore. Shout out to Down the Hill. I actually got my, I got my start like in community organizing in high school in Baltimore.

• 17:53Keke Palmer?

  What?

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I did so many things back in Baltimore. I ran like youth programming for hundreds of inner city youth. I helped take care of the tree canopy there. I did so many cool things with people in my community. And that is where it started. That's where I got my start. Like when there was unrest because of the death of Freddie Gray. I helped to organize around that. But yeah, I've been doing community organizing since high school, which steered me on this path. And I actually, oddly enough, I didn't want to be a social worker or therapist. But it found me and I'm glad it did. I went to school to get my masters in social works strictly so I could be a better community organizer.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  And I just happened to be learning how to be a therapist at the same time. And my mentor was like, you need to put boot on the ground and work with people like interpersonally. And that really did cement a lot of the work I do. That's why I actually have an online presence is because I really wanted to continue my work. Sharing things with the general public, making things accessible, especially mental health care. And it's a part of what I do. I love it. I wouldn't do anything else. Like naturally I was against it going into it. But now it's just like something that is just such a core and integral part of me as a person.

• 19:16Keke Palmer?

  When you say that it found you, I really am connected to that because I think purpose is a lot of times something that people feel like is outside of them that they have to chase or that feels like it's only accessible to some people. And some people just know it and other people just don't. But I really do think it's something inside of us that we manifest externally. That it does just kind of come to us when we walk into our path. What was it for you? What was like that moment that you feel like it became apparent to you that this is what you had to do? Like was there a scenario or something that happened or just, you know, you found yourself there?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  So I was, I was resistant, like for a really long time. I'm not gonna hold you. Uh, but it was when I got my first job, my mentor helped me get my first job. Dr. Linda LaSalle Bryant from NYU. She is amazing. She's such a phenomenal woman.

• 20:03Keke Palmer?

  Uh huh.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  But she, she got me my first, helped me get my first job. And I was doing family therapy, uh, for preventative care. And I'm a former foster kid, so when I worked. Yeah, I worked, you know, I like, I grew up with my family, but I experienced being in kinship care. So I know what it's like to be in the foster care system. It's rough. It's hard. Families need a lot of support and resources. And that is part of why I was so opposed to going into that specific field, the field that I'm in now, is because I knew that, like, I've experienced trauma around it. But the second I got on the other end of it, like the other side of that role, it just kind of snapped into place and all of the things that I've experienced,

• 20:48Speaker 02

  all of the things that I've gone through, the hardships, it actually wound up being the thing that made me more relatable as a therapist. And so many of the people who were mandated to work with me, they were so much more comfortable compared to like my other counterparts, my peers, because they knew that they could relate to me.

• 21:07Keke Palmer?

  It's very tough to imagine that the things that we've gone through are, are, you know, again, it's our testimony that's leading us into our purpose. But as a faithful person, that is a hundred percent what I believe. And I feel like your, your story is a testimony to that and what you're saying. I want to know what were some of the challenges or some of the things that you faced when starting to embark on this um, career, uh, that, that you had to come to terms with, with yourself? Like what, how it brought these things to light that you dealt with very young? How was that? What, what was that experience like?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Oh, it was hard. Um, I have been forced and still even to this day. I'm forced very often to look myself in the mirror and face the ugliest parts of myself. Because it is just the truth, right? When you do this type of work where you are helping people to cope with life, to work through some of their deepest traumas. You have to uh do the same because if you don't, you kind of become a hypocrite. Um, and yeah, it's it's been tough. Uh, I think a lot of things that have been internalized that I've experienced, like I'm from the hood, like, you know, we get. We like to wild out every every now and again. And I used to be a crash out. I used to be a crash out.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Uh, and I really had to get a grip on even my anger and how I respond to things and where it was coming from. And generational trauma and like how that shows up, how how it's passed on, how shame works in family systems, you name it. Um, all of it. Uh, yeah.

• 22:36Keke Palmer?

  I love what you're speaking to because it's so true. So many of us are caring, whether it's being black, whether it's whatever specific different communities we could be from, whether it's queer community, uh, I'm of this, that, you know. We all have so many different things that define who we are and that comes with whatever social biases. And then even sometimes gene stuff, when you think about black American history, just what it was to have endured what we've endured here. When did it become clear to you, uh, social injustices and systemic racism? How it is really a big impact on mental health in the community? When did you start to realize like, oh, wait a minute, boom, like that's, that's what's, that's a big part of what's happening? And that's the, this is the result.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  So I'm gonna keep it a thousand with you, okay? Especially because you're you, you deserve the truth. I was there before I even got to this position as a therapist. Which is why I didn't want to be a therapist. A huge part of it was that I understood how even the mental health system, the institution of mental health care in the United States specifically, how it is geared towards kind of perpetuating a lot of those issues. It's not accessible and it doesn't really address in many ways the systemic issues that we have. So I was like. Like very much so a organizer, I wanted to be out there with the people. I didn't think that this was helpful work, but now that I'm here and I have a deeper understanding.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I know that it is not only important work, but it's important to shift the way that we go about this work and make the two connect. Um, and I think part of why it wasn't working before and while I was so adamantly against it was because I didn't have access to people who thought similar to me. Who brought that into this work, but now I do. There's a lot of us out here.

• 24:18Keke Palmer?

  But I think that's the thing within our country as things are evolving and people are getting in positions of power that do know this experience and that do have compassion and understanding of these real human stories that we're talking to. A lot of them have been shut out and it does become difficult to feel like you can see yourself in it. What was it like realizing or having that lightbulb moment where it's like, okay, actually being inside of the system, it actually can be a benefit. In a way that I didn't think it was before. Like, how did you get there? Because I think that's something that a lot of us, especially as millennials, we done seen this system crash and burn, honey. And we like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, ban the establishment. But a lot of times it's like, we gotta lean into the establishment and work from the inside to, to make a change on the outside.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Listen, Kiki, I told you, like, all of my answers are gonna come back to community. I would be nothing I am today without the people who guided me along the path. I went through a lot of racism in grad school and specifically one of my advisors, Dr. J. Like, one of the coolest men you'll ever meet in your life. He told me when I was going through the racism in grad school, because one of my classmates sent me an email. Saying they didn't want a black presence in the classroom, me being one of the only black people in the classroom. My professor, Dr. J, told me, you are a disruptor. And I was so taken aback by that, but he was like, every space you enter.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  You are going to disrupt that space because these spaces are not built with you in mind. He's a black man. He understands. He was like, you, even your mere presence is causing these people to rethink the way that they look at and see the world. That was one of the moments where it all kind of clicked into place for me because I understood that these systems, even like that was my in real life example, these systems are not built for us to be there. But I belong here, even though there are obstacles to get where I'm at. When I enter this space, I leave the door open for everybody behind me and I a hundred percent agree. We have to lean into these systems as like, you know, black people specifically.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  And I always encourage like more black people go into the mental health field. We need you. We need us for real.

• 26:29Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, we do because we have to diversify what it means to have anything, whether it's these issues, those issues, just all of it across the board because if we were never there in those spaces, then they're not going to consider us. And I have to remind myself that all the time. So let's talk about it explicitly. How are mental health and social injustice related? Like to what extent does social injustice impact our mental health?

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Oh my God, where do I begin? There are so many facets in, in how it goes. I can start off with like even in the body, like the physical body. Racism impacts our physical health, how we show up in this world. Be it stress hormones, like cortisol being passed on to children when they're in utero because their mothers are going through a tremendous amount of stress, like through, because of racism, poverty, things along those lines. Be it the way that white supremacy physically impacts the body, how these histories of torture, of watching people be murdered, public lynchings, how that really impacts and embeds itself into a person's DNA via epigenetics.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  I can talk about how if you really zoom out and look at the way that down to the environment, how black people are pushed into neighborhoods and communities where the tree canopy, because you know, I used to work on the tree canopy, there's no tree canopy, which increases asthma, which make black people in large, more susceptible to things like asthma, which impacts people's mental health. Having like poor health conditions, like it really impacts. How a person feels about themselves, how a person looks, whether we want to talk about the media and why people like you are so important. How we are not represented, how we don't see ourselves. There's a reason why a lot of white people walk around like they're invincible.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Because they see themselves as superheroes in the media all the time.

• 28:22Keke Palmer?

  Um. Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  How, I mean, I could talk about so many different facets. But ultimately, what it comes down to is dehumanization.

• 28:32Keke Palmer?

  Yes, it's very painful. It's very, very painful and and so much of that has been, obviously, when you think about slavery in America, you have a a business essentially. People are making business in order for their business to continue to be justified. We have to over this course of time continually dehumanize the people so that it supports the interest of this business. If this person is less of a person, then the more that you're going to want to invest in this without, you know, compassion. And we're working against years and years and years of that work. And I'm telling you, man, when I watched Ahmaud Aubrey and then George Floyd. I was in my bedroom and I I'm telling you, it was like I I was paralyzed. I was sitting down and I knew that something is wrong.

• 29:16Keke Palmer?

  Like I felt sad before about things, you know what I'm saying? Like when Trayvon, like you see this, you know, we almost become, you know, plain to it where it's like, well, we know something's going to hap- you know. I've I've I've seen this. I know about these things all my life. But when this particular season in this moment and obviously time was standing still and COVID and the pandemic, all these things were happening. I'm telling you. There's probably some type of medical, you know, word or something for what I felt in that moment, but I could not even just, I felt so hopeless. In a way that I have never felt before, that I have never felt before in my life. And I remember talking to my girlfriend and saying, she was like, my girlfriend's not black.

• 30:01Keke Palmer?

  And she was like, should we go out there together? You know, should we go out there? They were marching at the time in California. And I was like, yeah, I need to go. I need to go. Will you go with me? And she was like, yeah, let's go. So me and her husband, we all went out there. And then that was when I had that moment with the National Guard. And I'm telling you, I blacked out in that moment because I just felt so, so much pain. You know what I mean? I don't even know how to describe it. But like you said, I'm glad that I could just let it out because a lot of people cannot. And when you're holding that stuff in and holding in and holding in, holding in, holding in, it, it will kill you. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know how, how you can live with it after a while because it's just like, it's just so hard to explain, but you just feel so hopeless. That's a terrible feeling to feel.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, you're a hundred percent right. And I, if you want me to be honest, I think it's so much of it has to do with like, this country never really facing the, the truth about like its origin, the lack of morality that founded this space. But also how shame is taught to people, generation to generation, how it is like not only commodified, but sold to people. And having people in these spaces where they are so deeply shamed about being people and so worried about making ends meet and getting from day to day and trying to validate their own humanity. Yeah, trying to survive. Uh, to the point where they, they can't act on things like grief.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  You're describing hopelessness. That's a part of grieving. You were grieving.

• 31:35Keke Palmer?

  Literally. That's so true. Don't have a moment for grief.

• 31:48Keke Palmer?

  You're speaking about epigenetics um, as well, which I think is so important, especially when you think about certain mental health stuff that people attribute to our community, whether it be, you know, uh, ADHD or depression or, you know, just some of these things that we hear about often or, you know, whether it's anger or, you know, mismanaged anger, et cetera. I'm curious in your line of work, you know, what are some of those, these common mental health things that we know about that are directly connected to these kinds of social injustices?

• 32:21Speaker 02

  I am really biased, so keep that in mind when I say this. I'm specifically an EMDR therapist. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. It's an intensive trauma therapy. So I really work with people who have severe trauma very often. And with that, I can say I have witnessed people's, the root of a lot of people's like disorders, a lot of people's anger, stress, it all be traced back to being in and growing up in a very harsh, abusive, racist, sexist world. Like, it is really hard to exist in this world.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  And people, uh, accrue so much trauma as a result. And they store it in their bodies, especially if we don't know how to access metabolizing that trauma and grieving properly. And it's not something that's taught because it's intentional not to teach that because people would be in a much different space if they had access to it. There's a reason why during the pandemic, when people had an opportunity to sit with themselves, so many people came out of that so transformed, including myself. It's all a part of it.

• 33:34Keke Palmer?

  Me too, yeah.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Keke Palmer?

  I love that word metabolize because that's the thing too. Somebody had recently wanted me to do some EDMR therapy and I was a little bit apprehensive, not totally sure how to embrace it because obviously it's a extreme, it's like an intense, um, process. I'm, I'm sure I'll try it at some point, but this idea that you have moved on from something, but you didn't actually process the emotions in it, right? You know, you could have gone through stuff in your life and say, well, that was because of this and I know how it got there, but it's not a justification. It's just an explanation and now you have to deal with what it did to you. That dealing with what it did to you gag, uh, that's a whole thing within itself, honey. It's just crazy.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Listen, trust me, I know I, I do it. Every day, all day, and people don't even recognize sometimes how much trauma lives in the body. It literally lives in your body, feel it all throughout your body. And some people are just so disconnected because connecting means feeling hurt and pain. And it's easier to avoid that, if anything. But that's why I try to do what I do to like, spread this information as much as I possibly can. I want it to be accessible. People deserve to know these things. People deserve to have access to healing. And I believe like that the way our society is structured, it literally keeps people away from it and you should not have to buy your way into knowing how to heal yourself.

• 34:59Keke Palmer?

  So is it insane to imagine this idealistic society where there's none of the isms or the phobias or, you know, all this different stuff that they put? Or is the journey really learning how to find peace within yourself while dealing in this world that's never kind of gonna be peaceful, so to speak?

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Hiki, you know what I love about humanity and human beings? It's that we can hold two truths at the same time because I believe like that it is important that we not only imagine, but like really feel secure in the idea of a world free of a lot of the oppressive structures that we exist within. But also that we should always like lean towards trying to find peace within this stuff. There's a reason why joy is a practice and not just like emotion. You have to actively seek joy and seek peace throughout this entire process or you can lose yourself in it or be burnt out and reach that spot that we're talking about where you, you can't feel it and you feel just as worn down.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  If you don't address it, you know, you have to know how to pace yourself while doing this type of work, while imagining these things and know that, you know, it's not gonna be done overnight, but it definitely can be done.

• 36:18Keke Palmer?

  I love that. I love that feeling of hope. Like you said, positivity, knowing things can change, but ultimately knowing the change you you want to see most immediately is going to come from you and your community. When you think about the things that need to be changed and and and social injustices, has there been any that you feel like have you've seen progress in real time where you've been like, oh, wow, this this is good. We're moving positively in a in a in a good direction.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  I'll be honest, it's been a lot of regression lately.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  It's been a lot of regression lately because of people whose names I won't mention. But I think

• 36:55Speaker 02

  every time there's a step in the right direction in history, there's a step back. I will say that, you know, lately, we've seen with the rise of social media, so many people becoming conscious, like the public consciousness is being elevated and raised. There are issues that people feel so vastly different about than people who did like seventy, sixty, fifty years ago. And it's because of the power of community and the ability to express ourselves and communicate across and not just down and up. I think it is so important to like really acknowledge, like, you know, all of the progress and the hope and the joy.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  We have information, and that's something that has been so guarded and protected for centuries. And now

• 37:42Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  a lot of it is in the hands of the people. I won't say all of it, but a lot of it is in the hands of the people, and we get to disseminate this information and help other people out, raise the consciousness in ways that we never were able to before.

• 37:54Keke Palmer?

  And that is what I do love about social media, about the internet in general. I know that there's a lot of negativity that can come with it, and the algorithm chooses the most negative thing. But honey, if you're really searching for the positive thing, you can have so much access to information that you otherwise, honey, I'd be on Google morning, noon, and night, finding out why did I feel this way? You know, and the AIs, you could ask them AIs a couple of questions that you can't even really ask nobody. Like, so it's like, there is access to being able to get information, like you're saying, which I think is the most important thing when trying to put a name or a a a just a defining word to some of the things that we're feeling. Um, last question, what would you say? To someone that is obviously feeling the effects of social injustice,

• 38:39Keke Palmer?

  but kind of wanting to protect their peace, so to speak, you know, afraid to kind of lean in or go outside of their community or their family and take themselves out of what they would consider joy and disrupt their quote unquote peace with all this stuff that they wish they could fix, but they ultimately feel hopeless in actually creating a change within.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  I always say that my favorite B word is balance. And if you find yourself living in one extreme, you're probably doing something wrong. And that's true for both the positive and negative. There is up and down for a reason. And I think you should always be checking in with yourself or checking as often as you can around where you're living at. Because you can be disillusioned very quickly if you try to live only in a positive. Typically, when we try to cut off one emotion or one experience, we often cut ourselves off from the other ones too. And what you might think is peace and positivity is nothing of the sort. It can be an illusion real quick if you aren't like living a balanced life.

• 39:40Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Speaking of balance, you be cooking?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I do be cooking.

• 39:47Keke Palmer?

  Come on, Dr. Durag, yes!

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Another thing too, I refuse to become one thing. And one thing that I try to do as a therapist is humanize therapy and us as people. People love to, you know, there is a lot of negativity online. I get the, you're a therapist, you shouldn't X, Y, and Z. I'm a person first, okay? And I will always be a person first, so always, yeah.

• 40:13Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, I love that. Yes, and I need whoever you're getting your Durags from, because they really are always on point. It's always got a little shimmer, a little shine, the colors be popping. So yeah, I'm gonna need that link.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Thank you. It's the beauty supply store.

• 40:26Keke Palmer?

  Period, period. Well, Shaheen, this conversation has obviously been amazing. I'm just so enlightened and, and really proud of you. You know what I mean? And the work that you're doing, because it's not of the faint of heart, but that's what we need. And also to see you be so jovial and so gregarious. It's like you said, that humanizing and having that joy while in the midst of doing such meaningful work is important. So I appreciate you for that and I want you to know that. Now, before I let you go, I like to play a game with my guests, okay? And this one is called "Your Problem or Oppressive System." So I'm gonna list a bunch of behaviors people struggle with these days. And then you tell me if it's more fair for people to blame themselves or the society they live in. Make sense?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:10Keke Palmer?

  Okay, this is the first one. Narcissism. Your problem or oppressive system?

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Oh, oppressive system.

• 41:17Keke Palmer?

  Now, give it to me. Let's dig into this, because I also, in my mind, thought oppressive system. And I could say why, but I'm not the one with the degree. So you go.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Well, I do believe like it's, uh, all of these are gonna come down to a, a combination of both. I, I think it's important to acknowledge that we live within a society that creates narcissists. There's a reason behind that. We have a very celebrity-obsessed culture, which is like, fine. But it gets to the extreme very often. Well, let me not say it's fine, because obsessed is where it goes too far.

• 41:51Keke Palmer?

  Right.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  But even beyond celebrity, narcissism is a direct result of trauma. And we exist in a society that creates a lot of trauma. Just like a lot of crime is a result of poverty. Like narcissism is a direct result of a society that creates the conditions for people to be traumatized.

• 42:09Keke Palmer?

  I love how you said that it is a combination of both, though, because absolutely, things are a result of where you're from. But then there's also that piece where it's like, choice. But I do think it's funny, because everybody is expecting everyone to be a rose that grew from concrete. It's like, damn, put some grass around me, boo. Like, why we all gotta grow from the damn concrete? You're, you know, they expect everybody to like, uh, have that outcome that's just like so hard to have. So it's, it, I do love that you said, like, it's a, it's a combination of both. Because you can only do what you know to do. Social media addiction. Your problem or oppressive system?

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Oppressive system. We are living in a loneliness epidemic, Kiki.

• 42:49Keke Palmer?

  Ooh, speak on the loneliness, woo.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a combination of things, but I think a large thing that contributes to it is the reduction of third spaces.

• 42:59Keke Palmer?

  Now, what is that? What do you mean, third spaces?

• 43:01Speaker 02

  There are places that are outside of a person's home and outside of their work. Like, places where people can go and just be in community together without having to work and without being home. These are places like parks. We used to have a lot of public pools, we know what happened to those after Jim Crow was stricken down.

• 43:18Keke Palmer?

  I remember going to the public pools as a kid, I didn't even realize that with the connection of why they disappeared.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. That reduction of third spaces takes away a lot of opportunity for people to connect and to be in community with one another. But not only that, social media is just accessible. People are desperate for community. A lot of people don't have time nor the means to get out and connect with people. A lot of people are in survival mode and that is just one way to distract ourselves from it all. I believe that we, again, we exist within a society that creates the conditions for people to be social media obsessed. And it is also about like personal habits and boundaries with technology.

• 44:02Keke Palmer?

  Wait a minute, speak on this public pools thing really quickly, what happened, what do you mean with that?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  So, I don't know if you've ever seen the picture of this man pouring battery acid inside of the pool after pools were desegregated. But after desegregation, a lot of public pools in the South especially were shut down because they could no longer be segregated and/or whites only. Yeah, a lot of them were filled up with concrete and, and, and many other things.

• 44:29Keke Palmer?

  And it's interesting because Illinois is super, super segregated and I do remember in my neighborhood, it literally was like predominantly black. You know, I mean, like every, I mean, I don't even really remember seeing that many white people. So, I grew up where we had this community place called the Seda and we did have like a little public pool. So, when you had mentioned it, I mean, it didn't stay around long, but we did have a little stuff, but it was all community driven, which is so interesting here, what you're saying. Like, it was literally stuff that we created within our community to, and I don't even know if it's still around anymore, but that's why I was like, that, that's interesting, that's crazy. Um, okay. Eating disorders, your problem or oppressive system?

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Oppressive system? I'm sorry, it's gonna be that every time.

• 45:10Keke Palmer?

  I mean, obviously, yes.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  If you exist in a society that only like positively uplifts a specific body type or a specific type of person, it's bound to be a result. We exist within a very fat-phobic, like colorist racist.

• 45:33Keke Palmer?

  And you need an hourglass, the hourglass shape. They want me, you know, the hourglass, everybody gotta have hourglass.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  It's like a Coke bottle. I can't give that, not all the time, no. Sometimes, but not always.

• 45:44Keke Palmer?

  Exactly, I couldn't agree more. Now, this is an interesting one. I'm interested to see, contributing to climate change, your problem or oppressive system?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Hmm, it's both, I'm sorry, that was definitely both. Let me tell you something, Kiki. The other day, I almost stopped my car to curse somebody out because they threw stuff out their goddamn window. Like, I hate when people litter. Stop littering, please, Lord. So, yes, it's both us, but also acknowledging that like the largest polluter in the world is the US military. Like, there are entire complexes that are the major perpetrators of climate change. Wars, for example, and genocides where people are being bombed heavily contribute to, uh, you know, ruining the environment. That's not what the environment wants to be blown to pieces.

• 46:37Keke Palmer?

  Oof, oof, climate change. That one is just coming at us slowly but surely.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  But we do have to also make our own personal choices.

• 46:45Keke Palmer?

  It's true. I hear everything that you're saying with the whole both. I don't feel that there's a space where there's no accountability, but it is like, again, what I was saying, we can't expect everybody to be a rose that grew from concrete, which means we can't always expect a miracle. You know what I'm saying? Some things have to be supported to make a change. You know what I mean? I can't know what my mind can't know. I can't be what I haven't seen. That is true to a certain extent. But yes, miracles do happen. People are able to come from traumatic, terrible situations and make it out and become, you know, whoever, but we can't always expect that. That's not, that's not realistic.

• 47:21Keke Palmer?

  Last one. Apathy, AKA laziness. Your problem or oppressive system?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Oof, oppressive system, I'm sorry.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Listen, it's a combination of both. Um, because I think a lot of things come down to choice. We have choice. And let me be clear, I in no way, shape or form will ever permit like taking all of your choice away and giving it up to these systems. Because we have choice. We can lay down and die, or we can get up.

• 47:51Keke Palmer?

  But a good piece to what you're saying into why the social injustice totally intertwines with the mental health is like my mother said. Growing up in poverty, growing up where we were, the idea of choice, it actually doesn't feel real. People actually really don't know they have choice. So yes, choice may be available to you, but if you have been in a system that has taken away your choice constantly, then mentally, you simply cannot go there. And so it's like, that was the whole reason why my parents moved, drove four days and three nights out of Illinois to California to help me pursue my dreams was to make me know. If it was one thing they could do was try to let me and their other children know that we had choice.

• 48:32Keke Palmer?

  They could only do that in action by making a crazy change based in faith. But again, that's not always the outcome in this scenario. So I love what you're saying because it's not taking away the reality that it's up to us, but it's understanding that it being up to us is a reality that many of us don't know we have responsibility for. If we have been in these systems that keep telling us something else. So it's very tricky.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, that goes back to dehumanization because that's very much so integral to being a human. Knowing that you have choice. When you exist in a system that is constantly dehumanizing you, you lose it. Trust me, I literally was just taught, telling one of my clients that resourcefulness is a huge part of being able to overcome obstacles. And people are often stripped into that and forced into a learned helplessness because they are being dehumanized, stripped of access to that part of humanity.

• 49:27Keke Palmer?

  I just live for you. I truly do. You really just ate that up.

• 49:34Keke Palmer?

  I thank you so, so much for coming on this show, for giving us your knowledge, your wisdom and your heart. Again, the work that you're doing is necessary and I'm just so glad to know you.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Thank you so much, Kiki. Honestly, I'm honored. I'm the honored one here, my God. What an icon.

• 49:55Keke Palmer?

  I really admire what Shahem's doing out there. I mean, he's tackling some tough issues head on, but he's also finding ways to keep his peace and stay grounded while doing it. I think my takeaway is that balance is the key to doing it right, especially when you're up against systems that are overwhelming. And I'm just glad that people are taking notice of his work and the difference that he's making because it's powerful stuff. Keep taking care of yourself out there and I'll catch you soon because you know it's your girl.

• 50:31Keke Palmer?

  Enjoy Baby This Is Keke Palmer on the Wondery app, wherever you get your podcasts and now on YouTube where you can watch full episodes. Subscribe to the Wondery channel on YouTube and don't miss any episodes. You can listen to Baby This Is Keke Palmer early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

• 50:55Keke Palmer?

  Baby This Is Keke Palmer is hosted and executive produced by me, Keke Palmer. Lucas Segal is our post producer. Music supervisor is Scott Valesquez. Our original theme song was written and performed by me, Keke Palmer. For Team Kiki, my producer is Sharon Palmer. For Wondery, our managing producer is Olivia Fonte. Our producer is Tristan McNeil. Senior producers are Lizzie Basset and Candace Manriquez-Britt. Our executive producers are Dave Easton and Marshall Louie.