- The kitchen was --
it was our space, at least for the time being.
It was sort of this magical, wonderful thing and
I thought it was really cool that this was this one place
where my dad knew better than to come in.
It never occurred to me to associate that space
with anything other than just really good, good times.
But yeah, graduate school.
Being a student of different feminisms and
taking all the gender...
gender history and ...
sexuality history and
all of that.
I developed a kind of critical consciousness or
understanding about gender roles and
how they can really sediment into something
that is not necessarily empowering.
And the ways that those gender roles work very differently
for different races and ethnicities.
And like I was saying,
the history of African-American women
as domestic workers, as maids, as mammies, all of that stuff.
That is also a really...
deep and persistent part of...
my extended history.
Even as African-American women were sort of figuring out
historically, how to navigate these...
ultimately,
systemically-racist spaces,
I think there was definitely a period there where
I was a little wary about that space.
But the happy part is,
it's definitely an empowering space again
because I'm my boss.
What's more empowering than that?
Personally I've always been comfortable in the kitchen.
It's been my sort of space of retreat and peace and
all of that.