I Have Some Thoughts Minisode | Maya Boyd is Storm, Tyga's New Album, U of Michigan's New Grade Policy

Welcome back to our minisode series, "I Have Some Thoughts." These short episodes are designed to contextualize the pop culture moments we're currently paying attention to through a mental health lens. Pop culture isn't just fun to chat about, it can reveal important information about how we relate, cope, and understand ourselves. Join us each Friday to hear Dr. Joy share her thoughts about the happenings of the week. This week, we're chatting about Maya Boyd being cast as the new Storm, Tyga's new album, and the University of Michigan's new grade policy. Stay Connected​https://click.convertkit-mail.com/27uv20p9mpioh8edr34s8ug63w344hg/58hvh8ug08p6wzc6/dGhlcmFweWZvcmJsYWNrZ2lybHMuY29tb3JibGFja2dpcmxzLmNvbS9wYXRyZW9u Wanna chat more about the pop culture hot topics of the week? Join us inside our Patreon https://community.therapyforblackgirls.com/ community. Is there a topic you'd like covered on the podcast? Submit it at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out the directory at https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Make sure to follow us on social media: Instagram: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.instagram.com/therapyforblackgirls Threads: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.threads.com/therapyforblackgirls Our Production Team Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis Producer: Ndeye Thioubou Production Assistant: Bria Mosley See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 1:24Speaker 01

  Hey y'all, welcome back to I Have Some Thoughts, our weekly mini seller series where we cover all things pop culture, but of course, from a mental health lens. And I am joined today again with Elise. Hey, Elise.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Hey, Dr. Joy. I'm super excited for today's topics, especially because we are kicking it off with some talk about Black Disney princesses. So this past weekend, Disney hosted its Disney Princess Celebration, bringing together some of the women who have made history as Disney princesses. One of the biggest moments was a performance featuring Brandy, who became Disney's first Black Cinderella in 1997, Anika Noni Rose, who voiced Tiana in The Princess and the Frog, and Halle Bailey, who portrayed Ariel in the live action Little Mermaid. Seeing the three of them share the stage created a full circle moment for Black Disney fans,

• 2:18Speaker 03

  particularly young Black girls who have grown up seeing these women redefine what a princess could look like. And then, cherry on top, shortly after Marvel announced Maya Boyd as the new Storm in the upcoming X-Men film. And so I've always just been so curious about what does seeing yourself represented as powerful, beautiful, and worthy do for a Black girl's sense of self? We know representation matters, especially for children, to see characters that look like them growing up. But why does it feel equally as powerful for adults?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  So first of all, Elise, I did not know all of this news. So I knew about Storm, but I did not know that there was a Black Disney Princess Celebration. So even my heart is fluttering, thinking about, I want to see footage of this now. And also, how do we get on the guest list? Because I want to be at the next Black Disney Celebration.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Where was our invite?

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Right, right. But I think that that really speaks to your question, right? That, you know, of course, there are the children who are children now, but all of us have a little person inside of us, right? That we continue to want to foster throughout adulthood and staying connected to that sense of curiosity and wonder and play. And I think that that is why representation feels so important, again, both for little people, but also I think for us, right? I think we can think about maybe when we grew up at a time where there was not the same representation. And so to think about what kinds of different decisions might you have made? What kinds of ways could your imagination have been fostered if you saw characters that looked like yourself? And so I think that there is both the celebration, but also some sadness and grief

• 3:59Speaker 01

  related to the kinds of things that maybe weren't an option for you. And so I think that when we see these kinds of things, it really just taps into our inner child.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And another question that I have for you is, how do we continue to help Black girls develop a strong sense of self? Especially when it does feel like the media around them doesn't reflect or affirm them. I see so many teen shows coming out, and I'm like, oh my goodness, where are the Black girls? It's like they got everyone else up in this friend group, but not us.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  That's a great, great point. And I think we talked about those kinds of things, right? Like what kinds of media exists for young Black girls today? And it feels largely absent. And so I think that that means that we just have to work harder to be kind of living representations of that media for them, right? So of course, you know, we have the few and far between princesses and things that we do have in the media, but I think the conversation has to go beyond media, right? Like what kinds of interactions are young girls having with the Black women and girls in their lives that they can see and touch, right? Like, so are we volunteering in our elementary schools? What kinds of things are we involved in in the community so that girls have access to different women who are doing different kinds of things and impacting the world in lots of different ways?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Because media, of course, is one thing, but I don't think we can overstate the power of having somebody in your community who's doing some really cool things that you're able to have a conversation with and maybe see on a regular basis. And so I think when, in the absence of media, that means that we have to be more present.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Oh, I really do love that. I think it was beautiful. And I hope that's something that we're doing with this podcast, just showing kind of like the range of career paths, career paths within the mental health field, but also outside of that.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  So moving on to topic two, if I had to wager, it feels like over this year, at least 30% of the topics will somehow involve AI.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  The things that are going on with AI, it's a mess. So rapper Tyga released an album called Starface last week, and shortly after, received a zero out of 10 rating on Pitchfork. This is the first time in almost 20 years the publication has rated an album a zero. Their reasoning centered around the fact that Tyga openly admitted to using AI to make the album. While he says the vocals and songwriting was him, some of the musical elements were AI. Aside from this particular album, the rating has led to a broader conversation surrounding how we balance artistry in a world where AI and AI usage is developing very fast. So I'm curious on your thoughts on how can artists protect their motivation

• 6:40Speaker 03

  when they see technology producing in seconds that took them years to learn? You know, like if you learned how to play the saxophone or the piano, and that is so integral to how you view your artistry? And now people are saying, hey, I'd rather just use this generative AI. How does someone react to that?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. I mean, this, this is so difficult, I think, especially when you're talking about something like the arts, right? Because as somebody who I think is very connected to the arts and who has some very kind of convoluted, I think, feelings about AI and the ways that it is showing up in these spaces, I think that you can't actually replicate artistry, right? Like you might be able to produce the same sound that somebody makes with a saxophone, but I don't know that that's artistry. And I think that especially as opportunities are being taken away and, you know, people are paying for this because it's cheaper, right? To have a machine do a track than an actual artist.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I know that it can be really hard and be very demoralizing, I think, to say, okay, I'm going to stay focused on my artistry. But I think there has to be an inner knowing that what AI is doing is not actually art. It is a replication of what artists have done. And this is why I think we have to also be very careful about welcoming AI so haphazardly into our spaces, right? Because I don't think that what AI produces is going to give us the same feelings and move us the same ways as the work that true artists have done with musical instruments, with the ways that they have written, with the songs they have composed. Like, I just don't think that is possible.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  And I think as hard as it may be, it will be really important for artists to kind of stick to their artistry, right? Because even if machines can do some of what you can do, I don't think that they can actually replicate fully an artist.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think it is a very dicey conversation when it comes to the arts generally. Because I think about like what producers do when you're using kind of like a track machine. You're like, okay, I'm pressing this drum, but that's still a human interaction in that. It's like, okay, we've recorded this drum sound, now let me mix it up. But now it seems like we are taking the human away from that and just saying like, I want a song that sounds like '03 Jay-Z,

• 9:10Speaker 03

  without finding and building a relationship with the person who can do that. And I think about it in terms of podcasting too. Like, do people set up workflows for their show? Absolutely. But if you don't have your own curiosity, it's like, you cannot replicate a human conversation in that human curiosity. And so even when I think about our work that we do here, it can be very frustrating that it seems like everyone wants to get things done so fast and not think about how maybe artistry and maybe the ways we think about the world are in opposition to that speed. And that brings me to my next question. How do you keep developing your craft? And how do you tune out the noise?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  And what would you say to someone who feels this pressure to use AI to like automate their processes and to move faster in a world that's telling us, hey, if you don't do this, you're going to be left behind?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that it is hard, right? Especially when you feel like it's coming from every angle, right? Like AI moving all of these things forward. And I think some of it is just like me being old school and kind of like get off my lawn. Right? I am hesitant to kind of like completely throw everything to the wind in like AI now revolutionizing everything because I think that there are some things that we have been doing for a very long time that there was nothing broken with it, right? And so if it's not wrong, then don't fix it. And so I think that there are some ways, of course, you know, spell check and like the things that it feels like makes sense for like a machine to do. And then there are other things that I think are more heartwarming that come from the heart that just are not

• 10:46Speaker 01

  things that we should really be allowing AI to kind of step into. And so I think we will see a pendulum swing, right? Like it very much feels like this is the beginning of everybody kind of riding this wave of AI take over everything. And we've seen these kinds of things before, right? But I think there will also be a swing towards the other end where true artistry will still have a place, right? And so I think I would encourage people to continue working on your craft, right? Continue to learn how to play a variety of instruments, continue to learn how to use your voice as an instrument, if that is, you know, how you're inclined. Continue to write, like continue to pour into yourself and to your craft, because I do think that we will see

• 11:28Speaker 01

  another pendulum swing of true artistry really being what is preserved.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Thank you for that. I think I needed this personally.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  More from our conversation after the break. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help

• 12:17Speaker 01

  like the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter, Alex Warren.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  I'm like a kid when I play music and I make music and I'm constantly asking questions, you know, whether it's an instrument I haven't played, or it's a melody that seems foreign. You know, there's every night you play a show and it's the same set, but it's not the same show. At a certain point, your brain kind of goes on autopilot. When I'm in the studio, or if I'm making music, that's where that curiosity kind of comes back, you know? I haven't lost it yet, but I'm also on my sophomore album. So and you, you obviously are an expert here.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Moving on to our last topic, University of Michigan announced that starting in fall 2027, students entering the university's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will receive pass or no credit marks on their transcripts for the first semester instead of traditional letter grades. The university says the pilot program is intended to ease academic pressure, helping freshmen adjust to college, and helping them start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-age individuals. This was very jarring for me. I'm thinking through, are we helping young people build resilience by giving them room to fail, or preventing them from developing resilience by protecting them? And I remember being at USC,

• 14:12Speaker 03

  and I think we had maybe up to three classes we could take pass/fail. And it was like, okay, that made sense. You could spread it throughout your academic career there. But I get it in some sense, but it does feel like with this policy, in my opinion, there may be some avoidance of just like the reality of this is my hard work. Like, if you don't know your grades, how are you supposed to measure yourself against, you know, what you should or could be doing? And so my question is, you know, it's a dicey kind of like policy, but why do we interpret a lot of these accommodations for mental health as coddling when others see them as necessary support? Or is this even what's going on here?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so much gets interpreted as coddling when other people react to it, right? You know, so I think when we look at supplemental services that people need, right? Like, I think a lot of people, just like you mentioned, right? Like, oh, this is what I had to do, right? Like, a lot of us are invested in the hard road that we had to travel to get to a place. And so we often see it as not fair if somebody didn't have to do the same thing, right? Or like, oh, does their journey match up to mine? When I don't know, I mean, so I would be very curious to hear what kind of data prompted this kind of decision, right? Because I wonder, like, what was happening on campus that made them feel like they needed to make a decision?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  But I do know kind of generally on campus, mental health, you know, we have been seeing increases in like significant mental health concerns. Sadly, there is no shortage of suicides on college campuses every year. And so I do know that students are under a tremendous amount of academic pressure. And so I'm guessing that some of that is what prompted them to maybe make this decision. But I think if you still like pass or fail the class, it is still giving you some indication of whether you have mastered this information well enough to kind of be able to demonstrate knowledge, right? Like, is that what we're looking for? Or are we looking for, like, some superficial? And I think the data is still kind of not really clear about whether

• 16:22Speaker 01

  grades and like test scores actually demonstrate mastery to us, right? And so I think the whole grading system itself is like developed because it's the best thing we have. I don't know that it is actually a true measure of success, though.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  That's a good point. And it's something I've had to reflect on. As like in college, I had a note taker because I have a hearing disability. And so sometimes I would also have additional time if things involved like audio or somebody speaking and things like that. And it did make me reflect on before having those accommodations, knowing that something was wrong, but feeling this gratification that I was able to overcome that struggle without asking for help. And it brings me to my second question. Does struggling make us stronger? Or can unnecessarily struggle hurt us? I think there is this romanticization of like, well, I had to do it this way,

• 17:20Speaker 03

  and that's how it should be done, because it gave me the fortitude to be the person I am today. But does it really have to be that way for everyone else?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yes. And I think that that is a particular danger for us as Black girls, right? Because so much of struggle has been romanticized, right? And in this idea that like, we have to work twice as hard to get half as much. And so so much of our lives have been an upward battle. So I think that we are overdue for something that's a little softer, right? For a little bit more grace. And so I do think that there is danger in this idea that if I had to struggle, then everybody else has to struggle, because I don't think that that's the only way that you can learn stuff, right? Like, of course, there is a thing as post-traumatic growth and resiliency is something that is just a part of the human experience. But I'm not actually convinced that

• 18:11Speaker 01

  tough times and struggle are the only way for us to learn anything in particular. I think that we can also learn from the examples and experiences of other people. I think that we can learn from validation and praise. And so I don't think just running ourselves into a brick wall, like, working as hard as we can are the only ways that we can actually learn anything that's consequential.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  So I'm curious if removing fear of failure actually makes young people, or people in general, more willing to take risk and learn? Because that's also what it seems like is going on here. Like, part of it is, oh, I can take this class and I can do this thing out of my wheelhouse because I won't be judged as harshly. And I've always viewed college as, yes, you're getting a degree, but you're also kind of searching who you are. And it's like, okay, I can take this class and I can sign up for this club, and I can take this internship. And so I'm curious what removing that fear of failure does, but what are also other ways

• 19:14Speaker 03

  we can encourage young people, but also ourselves, to take more risk and not worry about the outcome?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So I think, you know, built into the system, at least the way you outlined it, it sounds like it's only for the first semester. So there's only so much of this that you're going to be able to play with anyway, right? So I think it feels like there are already some guardrails in place to make sure this is not something that completely tips the scale. But I do think you have a good point, right? Like, if you know that there's not going to be a negative consequence in terms of a hit to your GPA because you tried a chemistry class because you weren't sure if you wanted to do that as a major and your major really is English, I think that does encourage some risk-taking, right? And some like, oh, let me see if this is something that I might like or that I might be successful in. And so I do think that that is one way

• 20:00Speaker 01

  to promote risk-taking and to explore, which I agree with you is a valid part of college, though I think we have seen less and less of that as college has become more expensive, right? It kind of feels like there is no real time to be exploratory anymore because, okay, this is, you know, $60,000 a year and you gotta get in and get out. And so I do think that this is one way to do that. But I also think that there is a way to do some risk-taking just through hobbies or listening to people's podcast interviews that are interesting to you, right? Like, other people that have done things that you think that you might want to do, listening to, you know, their kinds of interviews, setting up interviews

• 20:41Speaker 01

  for yourself. Like, I think that there, again, are lots of ways we can learn through other people without us being the ones kind of in the seat of taking risks. And I think for ourselves, we also have to normalize, like, making mistakes and not being great at everything and just understand that that is a part of life, right? Like, there are lots of things we're going to be good at and a lot of things we're really just going to suck at. And I think when we get into this loop of feeling like we have to be perfect and excellent at everything, we really set ourselves up for failure because that's not how humans work. We're not actually robots. And so, understanding that, you know, failure and making mistakes is a normal part of being a human and giving ourselves grace, just like we would give other people, is something that's a really important skill for us to learn.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Well, thank you for that sermon today, Dr. J. I thought we got a little bit of a sermon with all three topics. Like, we know representation matters, but it's good for us big girls to keep creating in the age of AI and, most importantly, take risks. Don't shame other people who may have had an easier path because I think that's part of life. Like, it sucks, but we did need people to say, like, hey, it kind of sucks being a freshman in college. It's really hard. How can we take pressure off of, you know, these young people to get to a point where we're reconsidering, you know, grades and grades that feel like very punitive? So thank you for giving us those reminders today.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  You're welcome. Thank you, Elise. These were great questions. I really appreciate the curation of the topics here. And if there are things that are coming across your timeline or things that you're thinking about that you'd like to hear our thoughts about, you can always send those to us at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox. And until next time, take good care of yourself.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.