For You, Anything

Love is sweeter than reason... Lupita Nyong'o asks, "How far would you go for family?" Her cousins and her sister spill the tea on a legendary nursing mishap, and a Nigerian barrister pours her love into a signature dish for a delivery across the globe. This week on Snap, we're featuring stories from our limited series Mind Your Own https://lemonada.lnk.to/mindyourown! STORIES "Sister Trouble" Lupita, her sister Fiona, and cousins Kitt, Tawi, and Mich get together to recount a legendary nursing mishap. Produced by David Exumé https://www.davidexume.com/, with assistance from Fiona Nyong’o https://www.instagram.com/ms.fionanyongo/. Original score by Clay Xavier https://www.clayxavier.games/. "Oha Soup" Joan, a Nigerian barrister, pours all her love into her signature dish just so she can hand-deliver it for her daughter’s graduation in New York. Produced by Priscilla Alabi https://priscilla-alabi.com/ and David Exumé. Original score by Jeremy Uwah https://open.spotify.com/artist/2KpVkRgWoy8W9gW9z75OWb?si=LWa73cj2SQGYxw8hH0lRBg&nd=1. Many thanks to Kitt https://www.instagram.com/kittnkiarie/?hl=en, Tawi https://www.instagram.com/tawinyangaya/, Mich https://www.instagram.com/michruoth/, and Fiona for joining us! And to Joan Okwuosa https://www.linkedin.com/in/joan-okwuosa/ and her daughter (and Story Scout!) Ashley Okwuosa https://www.ashleyokwuosa.com/ for sharing their story. Original Mind Your Own theme song by Sandra Lawson-Ndu AKA Sandu Ndu https://linktr.ee/sandundu x Peachcurls https://www.peachcurls.com/ ft. Ehiorobo https://www.ehiorobo.us/music. "Sister Trouble" and "Oha Soup" come from Mind Your Own https://lemonada.lnk.to/mindyourown, a storytelling show hosted and produced by Lupita Nyong'o, that navigates what it means to belong all from an African perspective. You can listen to all ten episodes of Mind Your Own https://lemonada.lnk.to/mindyourown on any podcast platform! Managing Editor: Regina Bediako. Director of Production: Marisa Dodge. Series Producers: David Exumé and Priscilla Alabi. Music Supervisor: Sandra Lawson-Ndu. Story Scouts: Ashley Okwuosa, Fiona Nyong’o, Jessica Kariisa, Lesedi Oluko Moche. Editors: Nancy López and Anna Sussman. Engineering: Miles Lassi. Operations Manager: Florene Wiley. Graphic Design: Jemimah Ekeh. Original Artwork: Mateus Sithole. Mind Your Own is a production of KQED https://www.kqed.org/’s Snap Studios, with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/. Special Thanks: Allan Coye, Jake Kleinberg, Samara Still, Sarah Yoo, Warner Music Group, and Afripods https://afripods.africa/. "Time Traveler" Jacoby Cochran walks through a Chicago neighborhood and into a time machine. That's where the story begins... Sensitive listeners, please note this story contains explicit language and references racial violence. Thank you, Jacoby, for sharing your story with us! For more of Jacoby’s https://twitter.com/Coby_Cochran work, please head on over to jacobycochran.com http://jacobycochran.com/. Produced by Regina Bediako & Anna Sussman, original score by Clay Xavier https://clayxavier.com/. Season 16 - Episode 14 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 1:36Speaker 00

  Snap Nation, have we got a treat for you. Today, I get to hand over the hosting reins to my dear friend, star, stage and screen, Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o. I know, I know, I know, a real life A-lister right here on Snap. Can you believe it?

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Since this listeners are advised, Lupita Nyong'o, the show is yours.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Hey Snap Nation. You might have heard from me before on Snap, but in case you haven't, I've been working on something special with my friends here. It's called Mind Your Own, a new storytelling show hosted and produced by me. It's about navigating what it means to belong, all from the African perspective. I'm Lupita Nyong'o and this is Mind Your Own.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  So we're gonna switch things up a little. I heard the wildest story a while back when I was with my sister Fiona. We were hanging out with my cousins.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  I'm Kit. I'm the eldest. I have a mini parent relationship with these two, where they think I'm their mother and I'm constantly reminding them that I'm not. I'm Tawi. That is not true.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  I'm the middle child.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm Mitch. I'm the youngest and I'm their unpaid help.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mitch, that's unnecessary. That is dirty laundry. And you owe us anyway. We changed your diaper. We did. Yeah.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Kit, Tawi, and Mitch are our first cousins. And the story was so good. I just knew I had to share it with you guys. So I brought Fiona into the studio to help me tell it.

• 3:49Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Hi Fiona.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  I'm excited about this one. This is one wild, wild story.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  You know how we use this term so loosely, "I'll do anything for you." Hearing this story made me think about times when we're together, like just this last weekend when we were sharing the bed and turning off the lights.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  And it's always like, who's going to turn off the lights? So it's, it just made me think, yeah, if turning off the lights is hard, what's anything to you? Like, when you say you'd do anything for me as your sister. So I called them up and here's a story I've heard afresh from Kit, Tawi and Mitch. Okay, go ahead.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  So our paternal first cousin lost her husband. Um, and we were all going to her village, like the village home for a funeral. Um, so it was a big exodus, everybody out of Nairobi heading there. I left my children at home because when my husband was here, he wasn't traveling for the funeral. We didn't know where we were going. We had never been there. We didn't know the sleeping situation. So I said, okay, fine, you stay with the children and I don't have to carry the little one. He was a little under one. He's not exclusively breastfeeding anymore. He eats solid food, stuff like that. So it wasn't a thing that we were doing all the time, like when he was a baby. I didn't carry a pump. I didn't think I needed it.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  We all piled into the car and it's a lot.

• 5:33Speaker 05

  Wow, the donkey's so cute. Can we stop and kiss him?

• 5:37Speaker 03

  And these guys are always hating on my music choices. They're like, Tawi, we don't want to listen to your white music. I don't know if I can say that.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  Sometimes we play Would You Rather?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  And then we debate about it for the next fifty-eight kilometers.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  And that's when I started to feel a headache. And I thought it was because I was driving the whole time. When she got the headache, she's like, oh yeah, I have a headache. Tawi, can you drive? So I took over the driving. By that time, still quite a ways. Maybe two, two and a half hours, not so far. Um but then the headache then now moved over to my shoulders. So Mitch was sitting in the back and she was trying to massage my shoulders. I took two painkillers, like really strong ones, Maramocha. You're supposed to only take one. I took two. I'm still dying. Um then somebody suggesting, maybe you're dehydrated, so I'm drinking all the water in life. And so we keep stopping to go to the loo. It's just getting worse and worse and now I have a migraine.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Like the back of my eyes are hurting. I can't keep my eyes open. I can't lift my arms. I can lift my hands, but then I can't lift my elbows past my shoulders. And we're going deeper and deeper into the country. Like we've left all the level, four hospitals. The last one is towards away. My main goal was just to get to my mom fast enough because she don't know what to do. The rest of us were just kind of like winging it. It was late afternoon. Fiveish, five P M. Literally, we've just arrived. We're standing at the car waiting because mommy just drove in.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  So she gets out and then we greet her. I can't really hug her properly and she's asking me what's wrong with you. And I say, my head hurts and I can't lift my arms and my shoulders are killing me. I don't know what's wrong. Help me.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  We're just standing there nodding and saying, tell her you also have a fever. Tell her you also almost threw up.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Does mommy's face ever change?

• 7:48Speaker 04

  No, she's a busybody, so she could be washing dishes.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  She was doing something else.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Doing something, whatever, but she's hearing you.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  She said, oh, I think your breasts are full of milk. You hadn't thought of that. Because it had never happened and this was my second child.

• 8:04Speaker 04

  Oh, you need to breastfeed.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Oh, you need to breastfeed. So now I have no pump. It was an oversight. I'm running around looking for a place that I can be private and be able to express the milk and just release the tension. But there's no place. We have no access to the house, to the main house, because it's full of people. We have tents that are not pitched, they're in the back of the car. I don't know, like I need a bathroom, all the bathrooms are pit latrines. And this is going to be messy because the milk is going to go everywhere, my dress is going to get wet.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  We sat for a bit and then we had to leave early. Kittens sake. We didn't even bury my cousin's husband. So we had to leave and go to our, now our home in our village.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Mommy told me stand in the hot shower and as you're standing, press your breast. So I stood in the shower for a while and I started to express, some of it was coming out, not enough. It was really, really horrible and now my breasts were getting more and more engorged. Now, I think I had expressed maybe three or four times. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was like, let me try again.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  We tried hot towels as well.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  So we put the hot towels, like a hot compress and just tried that. I just want to breastfeed anybody, somebody, if that's going to make me feel better. I noticed a baby sleeping on a couch, nobody was watching that baby, I was gonna pick up, I was just like, whose baby is this? Oh, whose baby is that? And I had this idea, I just need somebody to suck it out. And that's when I just made a request. Guys, hear me out. Please, please, could you just breastfeed? Sorry, what?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  You want me to what?

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Me, I was still desperate to help, yeah? But I didn't, I didn't think we were this desperate.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  But I just, I decided, okay, you know what? Kinda, kinda.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  It means, let's be bad diet.

• 10:29Speaker 06

  What will be, will be.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 06

  In like the worst possible way.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  So, I went first, okay? I went like, you know, I licked it just to know the taste, to kind of prepare my brain. Now, let me, let me tell you something else.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Disclaimer.

• 10:49Speaker 06

  There is nothing that can prepare you on how breast milk tastes. Did you know breast milk is warm? There's a temperature, thirty-two degrees Celsius.

• 11:05Speaker 06

  And then it's sweet, but not sweet like sugar.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  No.

• 11:07Speaker 06

  It's sweet like molasses.

• 11:11Speaker 06

  You know, I'm, I'm kind of passing my lips around it, trying to get as little of the taste as possible.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  You're sucking like a straw.

• 11:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was sucking like a straw. But it wasn't working.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Her technique was incorrect. Tawi, don't suck it like with your lips. You need to suck with your tongue.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  She's saying you need to latch.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  So I, now I was coaching her on how to suck like a baby.

• 11:37Speaker 06

  By the time, her nipples at the back of your throat, you are now committed to the experience. There's nothing you can do. Yeah, so if she's like, let me show you, open your mouth. And then she's sticking her boob, she's sticking her boob into your mouth. And then she's like, okay, now suck. And that's when it worked. But now it's working. So you have to swallow like half the contents, but the time you're spitting, it's only half what you sucked out. Because you, you're latching on now properly.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  You know. Tawi goes for like a minute or two and then she taps out, she's like, your tongue. And I'm like, okay, fine. I latched, I did my, my minute or two. I was like, tap out, Tawi. So it went back and forth like that.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  So immediately the, the milk comes out, it squats into the back of their throat, they remove their.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  mouth because it's disgusting. That relief of, oh my god, yes, finally it's coming out. But then the frustration of it comes out, it stops, it comes out, it stops. And I'm just like, just suck it up and just breastfeed properly. After a while, the milk just kind of flows on its own. And that's the point where now the physical relief is a lot more. And now I'm feeling a lot better and a gentle flowing blue shape. Oh, nice. Of relief. That's how it felt. Hmm, now I showered, I'm good now, now I can live my life happily until I see my baby tomorrow.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  We were now having a good time, chilling, talking, they were very upset. One hundred percent upset. Yeah. Not like angry or anything, but just one of those situations like that, that was an upsetting experience. Like you, you kind of don't know how to unpack that. But real talk, you know how people say, oh, I would do anything for my sister. I love my sister so much, I'll do anything for them. Yeah, that's anything.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  I will not forget it. Don't you ever. Better not.

• 13:53Speaker 05

  So, hearing this uh story from Kina Kit.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  The second time.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  You've heard the buildup.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:04Speaker 05

  Here I am in the same situation. Would you do that for me?

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Guy.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Would you breastfeed?

• 14:14Speaker 04

  I feel like such a thing should only happen once in the lifespan of an entire family. So I'm really, really hopeful that this will never happen again.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  But should it happen? Should it happen Fiona?

• 14:33Speaker 04

  I would do it.

• 14:34Speaker 05

  Would you?

• 14:36Speaker 04

  I think so. I would do it with a lot of trepidation. But I would do it because ultimately I would not want to see you in such distress. But you know what the real takeaway from this story is? Carry your kid.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  You know what Tawi and Mitch said? What? We all invested in breast pumps.

• 15:08Speaker 05

  So that's my takeaway. I don't think I would wait to be in that situation. I should just go on Amazon. Wow, wow, wow. And order a portable breast pump. Put your hand back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Big thanks to Lapita, Kit, to Tawi, and to Mitch and Fiona for sharing your family story. The original score for that piece was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by David Exame with assistance from Fiona Nyong'o.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  When we return, a homemade recipe you will not want to miss. Stay tuned.

• 16:19Speaker 00

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• 18:34Speaker 00

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the For You Anything episode. Today, we're hearing stories from a series we worked on with Lepita Niongo called Mind Your Own. This show dives into stories that navigate belonging from an African perspective, and I'll let Lepita take it from here.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Okay, let's just take a moment and breathe.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  And now, we set the table for our next story. It's from another mother. I hope you're listening.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Mothers are some of the hardest working people on the planet. Take this mother, for example.

• 19:20Speaker 06

  My name is Joan Okwuosa, Barrister Joan. I'm a lawyer, I'm a legal practitioner. I have four kids. The oldest is Ashley.

• 19:32Speaker 06

  I had Ashley when I was in school, when I was still in legal school. That was in like my third year. She's a sweet girl. I could do anything for her. She's sweet, she's kind, and very brilliant.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Now, Joan's kids are all grown up and moved out. But that doesn't stop Joan from providing a home-cooked meal every time she visits.

• 19:54Speaker 06

  Ashley said, "Mommy, all you want to do is cook, cook, cook." She said, "Mommy, you don't want to go anywhere."

• 20:01Speaker 02

  In 2018, Joan hadn't seen her daughter in years. Ashley was at Columbia University getting her masters, and Joan was in Nigeria. So, when Ashley graduated that year, Joan knew she had to do what she did best.

• 20:21Speaker 06

  I said, "You know what? I'm going to take Oha's soup to the United States for her graduation."

• 20:27Speaker 06

  Oha is one of our native soup. I'm from the eastern part of Nigeria. We have six girls in my family. So, you have to know how to cook the soup. So, when I gave back to all the kids, I did the same. I passed that on to the kids. So, out of all the soups, Oha became their favorite soup.

• 20:48Speaker 06

  I normally pass through London because I have family in London. I lived there for so many years. So, what I did was, I stayed over at my sister's place in Kent. I told my sister, "Oh, I'm going to make Oha's soup for Ashley." Oh, she was very excited about it.

• 21:02Speaker 06

  What I took from home here in Nigeria was the oha leaf, the indomie. I had the chin chin, I had even the bread you normally buy from Nigeria. So when I got to London, I went to the, to the local store where they sell African foods. I got everything else. First of all, you need the protein and the protein is either beef, chicken or fish, any kind of protein. I had kili sheep, which was like a grilled beef. I didn't use just beef, I used the cow leg. The meat comes with bone, but it's very, very nice with soup. It's, it's very sweet, the cow leg. If you know anyone in Nigeria, the children love the cow leg. Then the tripe, you have the tripe as well, that one takes a while. So I cooked the tripe with the cow leg.

• 21:47Speaker 06

  And then the fish doesn't take time to cook. Secondly, you have to get the tikna, it's called ede. That's what tikin said, it just don't make oha with water. You have to get the stock, the stock is the real deal, that is what makes oha special. Then you have to get ugiri, doesn't smell nice, but that's what makes it authentic. And I cooked it and then I froze it. It was massive, it was a lot because I know Ashley would, you know, have her friends come over and, you know, have some.

• 22:20Speaker 06

  My trip was on a Saturday, I made the soup on Wednesday. And I packed it, I brought it, I froze it, it was, it was, it was, it was still frozen. And then I packed all the luggage. Before I left for the airport, my sister had this angel apple. She said, why don't you take some fruits with you? And then I took the apple and then I put it on my, you know, my Prada bag. And then it was a British Airways flight. And then seven and a half hours later, I landed in JFK.

• 22:52Speaker 06

  You know, we embodied our pasture immigration, everything was okay. I had my papers, everything, the visa, there wasn't any issue. We were at the carousel, there was a policeman, he had, you know, he had the dog, the sniffer dog. And he kept on, whoa, you know, kept on backing.

• 23:10Speaker 06

  I said, well, that's not for me. I'm not carrying any illegal thing. I'm not carrying drugs. I'm not doing anything that I don't know why this dog is barking. He went away again. I came back again. He kept on barking. I I've never been sniped by a dog. I never in my life, never been in trouble, any form of trouble. Ever broke the laws. I take my keys to stay out of trouble. Anything can happen and it can be indicted and the rest is history. And so when they kept coming, I was scared because just like being scared of snakes or being scared of ants or being scared of cockroach, why, why is this dog coming to me? Why is it coming around? And then they asked me to step aside. I did step aside and the scout, we said, ma'am, can we see your bag?

• 23:56Speaker 06

  And I said, oh, my bag. I said, okay. And then I gave them a bag. The man said, do you have any, any kind of fruit? Do you have anything in your bag? I said, yes, I've got an apple. The guy said, oh, I'm sorry. You're not allowed to take, you bring in any, any apple. And I said, wow, I didn't have any clue. I didn't know. I gave them the apple and then asked me to come with them. They took my luggage and then they said they have to now check my luggage. I said, fine, they should check it. They took me into the other side at JFK for people that maybe they have maybe issues with their passports. They need to interrogate them. So that's the place they take you to. And that's when they open up the luggage.

• 24:39Speaker 06

  I was actually going to unlock the box for them. They said, no, ma'am, stay away. So the gentleman asked for the keys. I brought her the keys. That was when I was scared. It was over two hours just to take those things one after the other. I was like, oh, my god. He saw an indomin and then he said, well, chicken indomin is illegal that I should next time bring the onion. Put it in the bin. I said, not a problem. He said, yes. And he said, I know you have kids because he knows that most Nigerian, most African, somebody. I said, yes, for the children. And then he went on to the meat and said, this is dry meat. He said, no, because fish is allowed. I said, no problem. And then they chucked that one in the bin. And then when they came to the soup, it was still frozen.

• 25:25Speaker 06

  And they said, what is this? I said, it's fish. He said, yes, you know, fish, you know, local delicacies. Yeah, no, the kids will enjoy it. They opened the soup because they couldn't see anything physically. It wasn't like they saw the meat clearly or they saw the fish. They knew the soup wasn't made just with water. He said, what's in this soup? What do you have? What did you cook it with?

• 25:51Speaker 06

  I wanted to tell the truth, not because of my legal background as a lawyer. I think I was raised to tell the truth. And I said, I cooked it with fish. I made it for my daughter. I was bringing it for her. And he said, okay, is it just fish? I said, no, sir, that I've got meat on it, beef, cow leg. And he said, wow, meat is not allowed in the United States. I didn't know meat was not allowed. He said to me, he could have allowed me to keep the fish with the soup if there was no meat. But since there was meat, like he was gonna take it from me.

• 26:36Speaker 06

  And then he said, because you told the truth, there's nothing I can do. And then that he was so sorry. And right in front of me, right in front of me, they just took the soup and then they just dropped it in the trash.

• 26:54Speaker 06

  I just wanted to go and see Ashley. I just wanted to run. I just wanted to go and meet her because she's been there for a long time. I couldn't contact her. I couldn't call her. And it was Mother's Day. I love my children so much. I just want to get to destination and just give them all the goodies that I bring from Nigeria. And I told them, thank you. And then I packed the rest of my luggage. That was when they allowed me to go in and see Ashley.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  When I went outside and I realized that Ashley will be eating that soup, that's when I felt bad. Not right when I was with the officers, because I didn't want to show my many kind of emotions. And then Ashley said, "Mom, are you okay?" And I told her what happened. She felt bad. And I felt bad that Ashley couldn't eat. The first person I called was my mother-in-law. We spoke our language and we said the soup is gone. I said, "Ha, oh my god, that soup, Ashley's favorite, right?" I told my sisters, I've got, we are six girls, so I told them that the soup was gone. And I told my best friend that the soup was gone.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  I learned from that experience. I want to tell the mothers out there, if you're traveling, and especially we that come from Africa, go through the list of what to bring and what not to bring. Now, when I travel, I travel with only fish. And then I make oha soup for her every day in Toronto. I mean, feeding my children is something that is part of us, is something that I enjoy, is something that I have to do, something that I'm born to do. I'll still be cooking for them till maybe I'm 100.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  After Joan told her story, we had to know. Did she regret telling the truth? Couldn't she just have told a little lie to save her precious soup? Joan's answer: No, absolutely not.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, Lapita, and big thanks to Joan Okolsa and her daughter and story scout, Ashley Okolsa, for sharing their story. The original score by Jeremy Uwa is produced by Priscilla Alabi and David X. May. The original "Line Your Own" theme song by Sandra Lawson-Ndu, aka Sandu Ndu, with Peach Curls featuring Ehi O'Robo. Managing editor is Regina Berriaco. Director of production is Marisa Dodge. Engineering by Miles Lassie. And big love and thanks to Lemonada Media. You can listen to "Mind Your Own" on any podcast platform. Ten incredible episodes, there's a grave robber,

• 30:04Speaker 00

  a red carpet kissing under the Nandi Flame tree, all this and more. "Mind Your Own" with Lapita Nyongo.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Now, after the break, an engineering breakthrough right here at Snap Labs. Prepare yourself for the Snap Judgment Time Machine. Stay tuned.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com.

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  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Gun Washington, and we're bringing you a true story that takes us all over America. But you can put away your maps, because this journey we're making today won't be on highways or country roads, because we're launching from town.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Now, this story does have some strong language and references incidents of racial violence. As such, listener discretion is advised. Our story begins in a Chicago neighborhood when Jacoby Cochran walks into his grandmother's house. Snap Judgment.

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  So my grandmother Mamie is a time traveler. And her home, which I'm sitting in right now, is a time machine.

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  You might think I'm being poetic or metaphorical, but nah. She is a wizard.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  About four years ago, I was standing on her front porch listening for the familiar, "Who is it? I'm coming. Who is it?" Her nice way of saying, "Who the [bleep] is at my front door?"

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  When she opens the door, she embraces me in her arms, and I'm immediately transported to a place generations far before my own.

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  You see, my grandparents moved into this house in the winter of 1967.

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  So when you walk in the air and the furniture all has generational weight to it. As you come in through the door, you're immediately greeted by these perfectly manicured couches and lamps that are about as old as the house itself. The ageless dining room set in China is about forty-five.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  As I enter into the kitchen, I walk past the thirty-nine-year-old refrigerator, and I sit down at this exact table across from my grandmother. I grab some newspapers and scissors and I get to clipping.

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  Now, as I'm sitting at the table, I can't help but think what the last two decades of my life have looked like sitting across from this wizard. As I got older, I started watching Jeopardy with my grandma, and I could actually understand what was happening. And I sat across from this genius who won millions of imaginary dollars from this exact green chair. And she loved to chastise [BLEEP] when they would miss low-hanging fruit.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  But as the years went on, she gave me harsher and more grounded lessons.

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  She taught me what it meant to be black in America.

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  She taught me what it meant to watch Chicago transform.

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  To go on from being the first black family on her neighborhood to one of all black families in her neighborhood.

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  She taught me to stay alert. She was the first person that made me realize that to be black in America is to be marked. And to be marked is to be hunted.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  But on this July afternoon, we were sitting there and we were clipping out the comic strips. You see, my grandmother loves this comic strip called Love Is. She is pretty much every single one from like nineteen eighty-three, real talk. And as we're going through getting the coupons and the sales, getting the Love Is, she looks up at me and she says,

• 35:42Speaker 00

  "I don't enjoy this process as much as I used to."

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  Now, of course, I didn't take it personally. I knew Granny wasn't sitting there saying she doesn't like being at this table with me.

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  So I waited.

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  And she said,

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  "Kobe, they never really celebrate black folks on these newspapers."

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  "They go out of their way to make us look like a criminal."

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  "Like an animal."

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  See, my grandmother was always able to boil a dissertation down into a few sentences. And I understood exactly what she meant. "I've been sitting at this table for 25-plus years, "and the newspapers never taught me about Black Wall Street? "How local gangs actually started as community organizations? "Hell, even Juneteenth."

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  Nah. They went out of their way to remind me that I was marked.

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  And to be marked is to be hunted.

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  And at that moment, jeopardy gives way to the news.

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  And me and my grandmother are immediately transported together "from her kitchen table to a parking lot in Shreveport, Louisiana."

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  It's grainy video footage, but both of us can kind of make out what's happening.

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  In the front of a convenience store, "we see a black man being wrestled to the ground, "knees in his back, chest pinned against the concrete."

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  You can't really hear exactly what's being said, "but me and my grandmother, sitting in the silence, try to translate."

• 37:38Speaker 00

  When all of a sudden, gunshots fill my grandmother's kitchen.

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  She looks at me with these salt and pepper curls that have always been salt and pepper in my eyes. And she places her brittle hand on top of mine and she says,

• 37:59Speaker 00

  "This is exactly what I'm talking about." Look how quickly they looked at that man and they made up their mind. "Kobe, have I ever told you the story of Emmett Till?"

• 38:17Speaker 00

  In that moment, I couldn't move.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  I couldn't say anything and all of a sudden, my grandmother turned around and she reached into this closet under a stack of newspapers and a stack of magazines and she pulled out this Ziploc bag.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  And it was a September 1955 copy of Jet Magazine.

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  She sat it on the table in front of me and she told me the story of August 1955 in Money, Mississippi.

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  When she got done, it was clear that time traveling took a lot out of her. You see, she used to be able to sit at this table and move through stories with precise phenomenological detail.

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  But it was clear in her later years that her powers were wavering and she looked so tired.

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  So she put the magazines back in the Ziploc and back in the closet and she said, "Kobe, I'mma go upstairs and I'mma take a nap."

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  I just sat here in this table in silence

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  as the names ran through my head.

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  Like Oscar and Michelle,

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  Mike and Sandra,

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  Freddie, Rakia, Laquan and Alton.

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  Eventually, I got up from the table and I exited the time machine and I went home.

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  I woke up the next day, I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't feel great.

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  As you can imagine, the growing trauma of being black in America kinda [__] up the morning ritual. It's almost like my first thought is, wow, I'm alive. And my second thought is,

• 40:25Speaker 00

  here we go again.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  But instead of dwelling, I think to myself, you know what? I'm gonna get up. And I'm gonna go back to my grandma's house, cuz I don't really like how it ended yesterday. We was in the middle of clipping newspapers and coupons and Love is comic strips. So I go back. And I'm standing on the front porch, listening for the familiar, "Who is it? I'm coming. Who is it?" Which nicely translates to, "Who the [__] is standing at my front door?"

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  My grandmother opens it and places me in her warm embrace. And immediately, I'm transported to a time generations before my own.

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  I walk past the perfectly manicured couches and lamps. Past the ageless dining room set, past the 39-year-old refrigerator, and I sit back down at this table like I have my entire life.

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  And I ask my grandmother to pass me a newspaper and a pair of scissors, and I get to clipping.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  And in the silence, my grandmother looks up at me and she says, "Kobe,

• 41:48Speaker 00

  I don't really like doing this anymore."

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  She said, "They never really celebrate black folks on these newspapers."

• 41:58Speaker 00

  And I look down and I said, "You're right, Grandma.

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  They don't."

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  And before I could continue, she cut me off and she said, "But Kobe, I'm gonna show you one of my favorite newspapers."

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  And she reached in this closet, under a whole bunch of newspapers, and she pulled out a copy of the Sun-Times from 2013.

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  And she put it in my face and she said, "You see this little boy, right up here in the corner?" She said, "This is my favorite newspaper, 'cause they put one of my favorite black boys on this newspaper." And there was a little picture of my face in the corner. And of course, I'm sitting there blushing with my grandma, because you know how grandparents hype you up, right? They make you feel like superstars even when you just living.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  But before I could say "thank you", the television goes to the news.

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  And me and my grandmother are immediately transported to St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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  A black woman is holding up her phone on Facebook Live as her daughter screams in the backseat, as her boyfriend bleeds out in the passenger seat, shot, as we would later learn, seven times.

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  And me and my grandmother, we sit there, and we watch the last moments of Philando Castile's life.

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  And she looks at me

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  with those salt and pepper curls, and she puts her brittle hand on top of mine and she says, "Kobe, this is exactly what I'm talking about."

• 43:57Speaker 00

  "Have I ever told you the story of Emmett Till?"

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  And she reaches behind her, in this closet, under a stack of newspapers

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  and magazines, and she grabs a Ziploc bag. In it, an original September 1955 Jet magazine, and she sets it on the table, and she looks at me.

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  "You see, my grandmother is a time traveler.

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  A wizard, and this house I sit in is her time machine."

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  But she no longer remembers being the first black family on this block.

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  You see with the dementia, she no longer remembers the perfectly manicured couch and lamps. She doesn't remember that the ageless dining room set.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  And China is forty-five.

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  She doesn't remember that the refrigerator is thirty-nine.

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  She doesn't even remember that we sat here at this exact table yesterday.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  But unlike yesterday, my grandmother summons up this energy and she tells me vividly the story of August twenty-eighth, nineteen fifty-five. She tells me first about four days earlier and the lie that Carolyn Bryant told. She tells me about the night her husband and his brother kidnapped Teal from his grand uncle's house. How they beat him and tortured him. Then tied a seventy-five pound fan around his neck and drug him and shot him in the back of his head and left him where he was found days later.

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  She told me about Mamie Teal and the sacrifices that no mother should ever have to make. How she was forced to make the tough decisions to show the world the brutality it was already very much aware of. How black women are often left picking up the broken pieces in these moments and movements.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  A few months later, my grandmother passed away, just a season before celebrating the fiftieth anniversary in her home. And I'll be honest with you. I've been selfish.

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  I've sat at this table now in the seat she once occupied and I wish every day that she'd sit next to me.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  That she time traveled with me.

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  But part of me is happy that she no longer has to clip these newspapers where black people die every day for walking and running.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  And driving, and sleeping,

• 47:15Speaker 00

  and selling, and relaxing, and living.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  I recently came back to my grandmother's house, and I stood on the front porch. I didn't listen for the familiar "Who is it?", "I'm coming", "Who is it?". Because now that it's my mother's home, she's installed the camera doorbell, so she knows exactly who's on her front porch. My mother answers the door, and she wraps me in her warm embrace. As I walk past the perfectly manicured couches that are still as old as the house, I notice the refrigerator has been replaced. But me and my mother, we sit in the same two chairs,

• 48:06Speaker 00

  and we start clipping through newspapers. Not for coupons and sales, but like my grandmother, my mom loves this comic strip. Love is...

• 48:22Speaker 00

  And then the TV goes to news. And me and my mother are transported to Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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  We don't clip the newspapers nearly as much as my grandmother did. We don't stack and collect the names, but we remember them. I open up my journal. I write down his name, Jacob Blake.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  And then I write what's on my heart in that moment.

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  My grandmother, Mamie,

• 49:06Speaker 00

  is a time traveler.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Big, big thanks to Koby Cochran for sharing his story with Snap. Koby is an award-winning performer, educator, and writer who reps Chicago's South Side all day. To learn more about where to catch his latest shows, videos, and writing, check out our website, snapjudgment.org. Original score for that story was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Regina Berriaco and Anna Sussman.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, Snap-ers. If you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. Did I mention that we're super proud of the Mind Your Own Podcast? The New York Times called it "one of the 10 best podcasts of the year" on podcast platforms everywhere. KQD in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's Orbiting Hall of Justice. Snap is brought to you by the team that goes to bed each and every night promptly at 10 o'clock. Except for the uber-producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, that's about when he wakes up.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Now, there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Lucini Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facio, Shayna Shealy, Taylor DeCopp, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exman, and Regina Berriaco. And this, this is nothing news. No way, sister, news. In fact, you can inquire around town as to what might be the word. One of the young toughs might let us slip that the bird is the word. Make sure you've heard correctly, the bird is the word. Yes, sir. The bird is the word. The bird, bird, bird. The bird is the word.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Finally satisfied that yes, the bird is in fact the word. The bird, bird, bird being the word in question. You would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.