Watching Essence Live. I'm your host Dana Blair, and these are the biggest stories you're buzzing about today. From Dave Chappelle to David Banner, celebrities are coming out to say that maybe Possibly, hopefully, some good things could happen from a Trump presidency. Even Oprah has joined the call for folks to just relax. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Oprah said this. To hear President-elect Trump say that he had respect For President Obama. If felt that he had reached a moment that he was actually humbled by that experience. To hear President Obama say that he has renewed confidence in the peaceful transition. I think everybody can take a deep breath. [MUSIC] The anti defamation league, southern poverty law center, the NAACP and even some republicans are criticizing Donald Trump's decision To make Steven Bannon the chief strategist. So who exactly is this Bannon character? Well he led breitbart.com which is known for championing white nationalism. Brietbart.com has advocated for a religious test for immigrants and in 2007 his ex wife tested filing a domestic violence case that Bannon didn't want their children going to school. Full with the Jewish people. Meanwhile, trump himself recently told 60 minutes that he wants those inciting violence and racism in his name to quote stop it. Does that go for your chief strategist or not? [MUSIC] Okay, so apparently this is a thing now. White people are wearing safety pins to show their solidarity with people of color, immigrants, and everyone else who Trump disparaged in his campaign. But safety pins, I mean, really? Hmm, Adoerofatuff Tweeted, I wear my #safetypin because I genuinely want to show my support for all of our people. We are one. Separateness is an illusion. However, Denise Bennett strongly disagreed. On Facebook, she wrote, If you're in the presence of hate speak or actions, get your **** up and say something. I don't have time to be looking for your pin when Someone starts getting froggy. Well, it seems black people aren't the only ones questioning this safety pin solidarity. One artist and writer says the craze is downright embarrassing and he's taking his fellow white people to task. We're talking to him live, in studio next and taking your comments on Facebook. It's Tuesday, November 15th and Essence Live starts now. [MUSIC] Welcome to Essence Live, Essence Magazine's weekly digital talk show. I'm your host Dana Blair and today's show is jam packed with good stuff, of course as always. Coming up we'll have Kenya Moore give us the tea on Warren Manner and how she was able to make up with her fellow Housewives. Issa Ray will dish on her hair journey. And we've a special mystery guest coming. Hm, who will that be? Right now, we have a question for you, Essence Live fan, how has the election affected your relationships and interactions with your coworkers or your acquaintances? Any awkward reactions with say, Trump voters in the lunchroom? Well to share your stories right now use the #ESSENCELIVE, or email at essencelive@essence.com and we'll read some of your comments a little bit later on in the show. Earlier in the hot list we talked about these safety pins that folks are wearing to show solidarity to minorities, and some crazy post Trump times. But My next guest says he's definitely not here for. In fact, he recently wrote a piece entitled White People Your Safety Pins are Embarrassing. Please welcome artist and writer Christopher Keely, excuse me, Christopher Keelty.to the show. I apologize for Little tongue twister. How are you Crisper? Challenging name. Good, good Dana. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us here at Essence Live. I'm gonna go ahead and jump right into it. Why did you feel the need to write this article? I think I was embarrassed. You know, to me, I don't understand why a person who wants to show Solidarity, wants to show to friends for people of color wouldn't adopt one of the movements that's already out there. Wouldn't just put on a shirt or a hat or some icon that says Black Lives Matter. Why this new thing has to be invented. I'm familiar with the safety pin movement from the UK that followed the Brexit vote. Which was kind of very specifically about protecting Muslim women particularly who were being attacked. Their hijabs were Are being pulled off, that to me is I think kind of a good symbol in the US. It's a little bit more fitting for that movement. Yeah well and it says something very specific, it's opposing something very specific. In the US what sorta got me riled up was I saw people really sharing this as a way of kinda saying. Like yeah, I know racist white people just elected a white nationalist president, but I'm one of the good ones, you know. Yes. [LAUGH] I'm safe. Not me, yeah. I'm a safety pin, I'm safe. It was about protecting identity, not taking action. And you also had a cartoon that accompanied the piece as well, which we were talking about in the office. It was very on target. There was gentrifying neighborhoods Blaming the murder of Trayvon Martin on Trayvon himself. All while donning this safety pin if you will. So how did you become so enlightened? I had a few people who, activists, people of color who were very patient with me. Mm-hm. Who took the time. I worked for the ACLU for a number of years. Okay. And the director at the Pennsylvania affiliate Reggie Shufort. Really taught me a lot. There's another gentleman by the name of Harold Jordan, who worked with us, still is there, is a Community organizer. I came in, I grew up with upper middle class white background. I went to a public school that I think had five African American kids in upstate New York. Right. Which I've now learned is one of the most segregated states in the country. Wow. In terms of schools. And so I moved into activism being very concerned about LGBTQ rights and freedom of speech. And it was really some of those people who woke me up to the fact that black and brown people have much bigger problems than I think a lot of white people are aware of. And that a lot of us are participating in it>>Mm-hm>>Without realizing it or intending to. You know you certainly have your balance RIght right but it was not like something that you're intending to do>> right As you said there's a lot of dialogue that you participated in so Amongst your circle amongst your contemporaries how do you handle conversations on say a Trayvon Martin or a [UNKNOWN] when against your I'm just gonna go ahead and say against your white friends. Like or do you have those conversations because in the black community we're constantly having these conversations. Yeah I think Fairly frequently, often on Facebook. Right. But in person fairly frequently also. And it's challenging. There's that term like fragility which is extremely true. I've learned a lot more about it in the last couple of days sort of first hand. But often you're dealing with people who don't realize how motivated the things they say or believe are by sort of preserving. White supremacy, white nationalism. They think- And they're certainly not gonna claim that, yeah, yeah. No, and if you say it, forget it. That's when the conversation ends. So there almost has to be sort of a really diplomatic way of working your way in. The Trayvon assassination was particularly challenging because there was so much Fake news out there also. Right. And so you almost can't have a productive conversation when the person I'm talking to believes something completely different transpired than what I believe. And the truth is maybe even somewhere in the middle, I may have some facts wrong too. Right, but at least it's important that we're having the dialogue. And speaking of which, we wanna hear what you're saying out there on Facebook, Kayla, Do you have any comments that are rolling in right now for this subject or for Christopher? Definitely, so people are super vocal right now. And Natasha Powell says, I love what he's saying about the safety pin as a protection of self, not as support of any movement. In regards to your question earlier, your relationship with Donald Trump voters affecting your relationship at work Michelle Denise says it has been strained in workplace. LaDonna Felton says just the racist comments on the newsfeed, not necessarily in person. And Terrell York says, safety pins? No, action works. That makes a lot of sense. I want quickly from you, do you feel that now we have Trump as president it's gonna Open up the conversation even greater for race? I hope so, my hope with this is the people who wanna put on that safety pin, take a more active role in challenging other people. Take a more active role in educating themselves, I think that's what's really gonna be productive, In my view, white people voted Trump into power. We're the only racial demographic that he won. We really have to take responsibility for whatever happens from here out, and take responsibility for trying to fix the problem that we're We created it a long time ago and that we're perpetuating now. Thank you very much Christopher so much for your time. You're welcome to Essence Live any time. Alright you can read Christopher's full article on on the safety pin movement on medium.com as well as Huffingtonpost.com Thank you so much Christopher. Keep those comments coming We want your stories. Have you had any awkward or outright racist interactions with Trump supporters. Let us know using the #ESSENCELIVE. Coming up, our interview with Kenny Moore, plus we've got three essence live viewers standing by to try and guess who this mystery guest is, and that's gonna be a lot of fun. Right now some of your favorite stars reveal what they'll miss most about the Obamas. [MUSIC] I think what I'll miss most about the Obama's is probably the legacy of acceptance that they'll be leaving behind. The thing I'm gonna remember the most about the Obama's is how classy they are. And how inspirational they are with bringing their whole family together including Michelle's mom. And them being a really good example of what relationship goals can look like. I'm will miss having a statesman in the White House And a leader in the White House. And Barack Obama's been a statesman. I lived overseas, so I've seen it firsthand, how the world has responded to such a powerful and charismatic and intelligent President. He's got thick skin and he's able to take criticism, but at the same time, really just Just take it with grace and elegance, and keep it moving. And I think that's really what I respect about him as a president. I'm gonna miss President Barack Obama's calm demeanor when in times of craziness. And logic, I'm gonna really miss that. And I'm also gonna miss Michelle's passion, just Empowering women. The first lady is extremely skilled leader, and they have influence all over the world. And I will miss the warm hugs I receive right now as an American, all over the world. So yeah, thank you Obamas. Thank you. [MUSIC] Your watching Essence Live, I'm your host Dana Blair. And if you're watching us on Facebook, hey. And of course hey to the fellows who we see you all out there. All right, get your DVRs ready because the real Housewives of Atlanta is back. Recently I sat down with star Kenya Moore to talk about her show, her relationship status and a few juicy tidbits Take a look. [MUSIC] We are. We're working things out. Matt is a great guy. Hm-mm. He is a good person. That is the one thing that stands out from him than a lot of the other men that I've dated. I've dated some wonderful guys as well. Right, right. But some of the jerks Hm-mm. He certainly is not one of them. Matt's issue is that he's very young. He's not 30 yet and he's learning things and dating me is not easy. I am people would think comes with. You're a celebrity. Yeah I'm a celebrity so that comes with a whole set of problems. He's dating a successful woman, a much older woman. And so those things really affected me on self-esteem and just how he copes with everything. It may not necessarily be the right way and that That's what we're trying to work through. And are you working on his anger issues? Are you working through that together, or how do you handle that? Because as you mentioned there's so many young women that look up to you. Yes. And idolize you. And what would your messaging be there? What advice would you give? Well I think he definitely is working on them, in a professional capacity as well. And I think that It just depends on where you are. If a man ever, for me, crosses the line, putting his hands on you, that could even also mean to some people if you feel threatened. I have in my life been in an abusive relationship. So I know what it looks like and what it feels like. And our relationship doesn't feel like that. I think when he gets angry he'll hit a wall instead of hitting you. He'll walk away or things like that. I don't feel threatened in that way but I am concerned with the way he sort of throws these temper tantrums. To me that's a sign of immaturity. what I would say is that if a girl is dating someone That makes them, puts his hands on her or gets in her face or intimidates her, then you should probably leave the relationship. Do you think that you may walk down the aisle with Matt? We'll see, we're trying to figure it all out. I think that's great too, that you're keeping an open mind about it and just taking it. Because sometimes people rush and can find themselves in a Yeah. A bad situation, I wanna transition into More Manor congratulations the house looks beautiful. [SOUND] Thank you. Contractors, interior design all of that it's like and you had to pick out every single thing. Every finishing, every single thing, even my. HVAC units, my heating and cooling. I had to pick exactly the one that I wanted. Everything was a choice. I literally didn't have a front door when I bought the property. I didn't have flooring, heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical. I had nothing in that house. House. And I actually tore down one wing of it. My gosh. To rebuild it. Yeah. Why do you think some of the other ladies hate on more manors so much, specifically we're talking about your neighbor Sheree here. Why do you think that tension is there? I think she's embarrassed. It's been over five years. They build stadiums in less time. So it's clearly because She's having other issues, possibly financial issues, obviously we know about some of those things, they've been in the press, it's not a secret. But I think that even thought the accomplishment, you have to take note of that, she has gotten it this far. But I think with me having far less, And doing it in less than a year, which normally it takes about that amount of time. I think it's just purely bringing her issues to the forefront and that can be extremely embarrassing. Yeah. On the cast, which housewife are you the closest with? Absolutely Cynthia. Mm-hm. But I've gotten close to Kandi this season too. We've always had a friendship But I think now, we just have a lot of more intimacy, in terms of our conversations and the levels that we're getting to now, I'm learning her a lot more and she's learning me a lot more. And I'm really lucky. She's a great girl. It's been really interesting to see you and [UNKNOWN] start to come back together, if you will, and have a very cordial relationship. Yeah. Did that happen, was there a lot of work that went into that off camera saying, you know what? Let's let bygones be bygones, or? No, no work off camera. I've not seen her outside of the show. But, you know, two years of holding on to hate and you said this or you did, it's just too much. I think people have to evolve. And so it's a testament to How stong two women can be to be able to overcome, to be able to forgive and to be able to just move forward. No one wants to stay stuck, at least I don't. << No, no. Definitely. What about you and Porcia? What's the status of y'all's friendship? We've never really had a friendship. From the beginning of the show I've always been cordial. We just don't see eye to eye. I have Have no problem with her, I can be in the same room, I just don't necessarily want to extend and invitation to my home. Fair enough, I was really shocked to see that. I was watching the show, of course, with some of my girlfriends, I was like I would feel some kind of way if someone I didn't invite came into my space. In your home. In my, yes. You know, if it was a party that's one thing. That's one thing, but it's your home. This is my home. This is where my energy is, this is what I wake up to every morning. And they definitely hated on my [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN] actually and Portia and [UNKNOWN] came by unannounced to my home talking all kinds of crap about it. So you know I just laugh at those girls sometimes. But it's a pretty bold move to come over to somebody's house uninvited to a house warming party. But you handled it very well. I would like to transition to talk just a smidge orf politics. Donald Trump was elected our president. Yes. What are your initial thoughts on that, our new president elect? Well I think no matter who you voted for this is our president elect. I think we have to support him. He will be working for our country for the next four years at least. Mm-hm. And we just have to learn to be more involved. To be more passionate, definitely encourage other people to vote. And to be more vocal and educated about the politicians that we choose in the future. Mm-hm. And he was not affiliated With the crown when you held the crown. No I think a few later A few years later but you did with the apprentice you had a working relationship with him. Do you feel that he'll be a good president? I hope that he will be. Yes. One can only hope. [MUSIC] Hey, Morris Koger here and you are watching Essence Live with the beautiful Dana, who's got the same haircut as me [MUSIC] You're watching Essence Live, I'm your host Dana Blair and right now it's time to play a very fun game, we're calling Guess the Guest. Here's how it works. We have three lovely Essence Live viewers, who have no idea who our mystery guest is. Each lady will ask our mystery guest three questions, at the end of all three rounds, they'll right down who they think or mystery guest is. Ladies, make sure to pay attention to the questions your other participants are asking so you don't repeat the same question, okay? Yep. Cool. All right. Before we get started, I'll give you all one clue to get your detective juices flowing. So here's your clue. Our mystery guess is a singer. [LAUGH] All right. Everyone ready? All right. You ready? Here we go. Ashley, you're first. What is your first question? Have you released an album in the last Three months. No. Okay. Okay. Amber's over here just making notes. Amber it's your second. What genre of music do you sing? R&B. All right [UNKNOWN] Rovel. Rovel I'm sorry. What was the name of your last album? Bridges. Bridges did you say? Okay. She's teasing. Okay so here's round two, no sharing no sharing, Ashley? Okay, have you been on any reality TV shows? I have not. Thank sweet Jesus. [LAUGH] What was the inspiration behind the album? Just like one sentence. [LAUGH] Love. One word. Love that. [LAUGH]. About. Hm, what, have you done any collaboration with any major rappers? [LAUGH] And if so who, two parts. She gets a two parter. That might be giving too much away but I have done collaborations with rappers. Okay it's the third and final round, Ashley? Are you above the age of 30? [LAUGH] That's good. That's not fair. Yes. Have you been linked to any celebrity artists romantically? Are you thottin' and boppin'? [LAUGH] I'm gonna translate [CROSSTALK] I have Not. [BLANK_AUDIO] [UNKNOWN] is like you can see steam coming out of her ear, okay final question. Okay how long have you been a major artist? Over 20 years. 20 years okay. Okay that;s it. Do we get a bonus question round? No, no bonus questions. That's it. No more questions. Right down your guess. Don't peek at each others. One by one nobody blurred out and I will tell you at the end if and when if someones was right. Ashley you first. Who do you think it is? Joe. That's good. Such a good, that was good. [CROSSTALK] Carl Thomas. That was cute but that's not it. [LAUGH] there's shade in the studio D. Girl this is wrong. > Girl who is it music? That's interesting okay so before I reveal. It's so good. Celebrity mystery guest would you mind maybe singing a few bars. That's what I was going to ask. [LAUGH] [COUGH] They say this is a big, rich town. [LAUGH] I just come from the poorest part. Bright lights, city life, I gotta make it. This is where it goes down. Yes. Okay, okay, okay. [MUSIC] [LAUGH] You can come around and reveal yourself, come stand next to me. You were right Ashley, she was right, she was right! Awesome, awesome. This is Ashley. Good to meet you. Great to meet you. Pleasure, pleasure. Nice to meet you Mary. Nice to meet you. And Rabbel. NIce to meet you. [CROSSTALK] Carl Thomas. Come stand next to me over here John. I can't sing no more. I can't. She said I can't sing. [INAUDIBLE] Thank you so much for joining us. How you doing? My pleasure I'm good. How are you? You're a good sport. Good thank you. Thank you. Did you think they were gonna guess? I didn't think so. You were kind of vague. I didn't think so. I didn't think neither one of them would get it. But that was pretty good. That was hard. That was pretty good, yeah. Tell us about your new album. Hashtag my name is Joe Thomas. And it comes out, it's probably in stores already. It's The name is basically an homage to my biggest album, My Name is Joe. So I just released a song called So I Can Have You Back, which is the first single. I got a song with Gucci Man which is called Happy Hour, I heard you all talking about that earlier. Maybe. Those were fun times. I'm always talking about happy hour. Yeah, yeah, those are good times, [LAUGH] trust me. What track from this particular album do you think is your next Joe classic? You know what. I've got a song called Lean Into It. And I think it's classic R and B. I think it's the closest thing to what the 90s were at that particular time so it's quality.>>Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure.>>And of course thank you to all the ladies for joining us. [LAUGH] And [UNKNOWN] participating and for being such great sports. We are going to get you all a copy of Joe's new album. All right, thank you so much coming up, am going to check in with you one last time in social media, so be sure to leave us a shout out and comments using the #ESSENCELIVE but, here's insecure star Issa Ray explaining how she learned to love her hair in our series, my Main Moment. I appreciate you wearing your hair like that. I'm like, thank you for approval. [MUSIC] My mom used to always push me to rock my natural hair. She was so frustrated with me in highschool when I constantly covered it. She was like, I know you're here and if you get a perm it's gonna fall out. After a while, I was like, mom I don't care what you say, I want to do it and this is my choice, I am 12. [LAUGH] And My hair fell out. And she was like, I told your bald-headed ****. [BLANK_AUDIO] Men always come with the sister and the queen, which is fine, it's great, thank you. I say they think I like poetry a lot. They think that I'm a cocoa butter queen, so they always approach me delicately, like I just wanna say I appreciate you wearing your hair like that. I'm like. thank you for your approval.>> I love Tyana Paris. She's amazing. Her hair is always on point. I love Selenga's hair styles. She just always kills the game.>>So I saw Natalie, the flow assist video. She had like a bald Hey, you know I just thought she was so beautiful. And I was also working on a job that I was frustrated with. And trying to get acrobat girl off the ground. I twitted something like, men I wish I had an excuse like. I wish someone would just break up with me so that I can have excuse to shave my hair off. And then I was like, that's the funny plot line. Of a show or something and decided to tweet that I was going to, or put on Facebook, that I wanted going to shave my head bald. All my friends responded like, my gosh. Do it. You [UNKNOWN] to be so ugly. My god, what if you have a weird shaped head? And I was like, my friends are terrible. But I saw how much attention I was getting. And I was like, my gosh, I should use this. I should shave my head and then do a trailer for Awkward Black Girl where I feature my bald head. And that way people who want to see what I look will also know about this new show that I'm trying to do. So I did it and it got like 3,000 views in a day and I had a bald head. i had a fresh start. And that bald head changed my life. [MUSIC] My bald head changed my life too, Issa Rae. This is Essence Live. I'm your host Dana Blair and joining me in studio right now is a woman we hope can get us through these post-Trump times. She's the president and CEO of the National Urban League and a lifelong social justice advocate. Please welcome Arva Rice to the show. Hello, Arva. Hello there, how are you? I'm fabulous. Thank you so much for joining us Here at Essence Live. You're welcome any time. [LAUGH] I'm gonna, I don't even know where to begin. Other than what do you tell those folks who didn't believe that their vote counted? Wow that. In this year's presidential election? Yeah, that's a tough one. Hm-mm. Obviously it is so incredibly important to vote. I have friends of mine It will literally didn't leave the house, since Tuesday. He is been so upset about the Wow. The election. A nd I have my 10 year old niece who, you know, went to bed, thinking that she was going to wake up to the first woman president of the United States. After only having known African American as a president and woke up and said you know Donald Trump. Well, mommy when do we have to move? You know. And was very serious in that. And so I think that the conversation that we have to have with our children, it's about the importance of voting, the importance of being involved in this political process. And the fact that we're black women, we're black people, we're gonna get through this. We're gonna get through it. But this is a time to really get up and start fighting even more. So how do we hold him accountable? He's our new president elect whether we like it or not as a country. Mm hm. Now what's the next step? Sure. That is true. The hashtag not my president is definitely out there but the fact is, is that on January 20th he will be elected as the president of the United States and so we have a responsibility to stay connected and stay involved I of course want to encourage everybody to be part of their local Urban League. So I'm the head of the New York Urban League there are 94 Urban League affiliates around the country. Whether it's Urban League, whether it's Black Lives Matter whether it's the NAACP Whether it's your local church or mosque but we want to have people to be involved and that's the most important thing. Finding out who your local elected leaders are, making sure who your district attorney is. The district attorney is so important because they're the ones that make the decision about whether they're gonna charge little 12-year-old Jamar with something We're also gonna let it go, right? Right. So it's so important for us to be involved at the very, very local basic level because all of that feeds up to the Presidency. And so I think that that's the thing that I wanted to focus on the most is get involved. This is the time to get off your couch, and those times when you said I want to mentor somebody or I wanna be involved in somebody's campaign or I wanna be involved in the community board, the school board, whatever level, this is your time. Do you feel that his election, the election of Trump, has made your job more difficult? I think that the election of Trump has been incredible. I started out as, I'm the second female to run the New York Urban League and It's 97 year history. Wow. And when I came in 2009 it was literally four months after the Obama's moved into the White House. And so people literally said to me you seemed kind of talented Arbor, why would you go run an organization that's not relevant anymore? Wow. We have a black president. We're in post racist America. Why in the world would you go work there? And then unfortunately we have Treyvon Martin. We start having all these other shootings and we have Orlando and we have things that happen in Texas and Minnesota and suddenly it's you all aren't doing enough. You need to be more involved. You need to be more engaged. So I think that our work right now is difficult. I think that rather than having to convince people that racism still has an impact on the community, it's a matter of how do we fight it and how do we battle it?>>Definitely. Now, a little bit earlier on in the show we asked you to let us know If you had any weird interactions with Trump supporters. Kayla, what are the folks saying out on social? Very vocal, again, and the comments are rolling in. K-Ray says, I was working at an event and one of the moderators made this comment, with President Trump this will be the first time a white family has put a black family out of public housing. Wow. Justin says, I have black some, Trump supporters regarding their get over statement and stands. Veronica Gibson says, one of my white friends voted foy Trump, a dear friend for 14 years I told her not to speak to me, text me, Twitter me, inbox me, Facetime me, Snapchat me, dont even look at me in the next four years. All right. [LAUGH] She said don't even look at me. And we had Christopher Kielty on a little bit earlier in the show. And there was a piece in this article that I really liked where he mentioned in social media, don't necessarily unfriend them. Actually have a conversation. What are your thoughts? I definitely think the That unfriending them doesn't do us any good, right? I'm originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And so when I go look at my Facebook, I have a lot of people from Wisconsin, who didn't say anything leading up to the election And then after the election happened then suddenly the quiet Trump supporters have come out. And it's been particularly true for my sister, my niece, and some of the other people in my family. And I think that it's important to continue the conversation and continue the dialog. First of all, people need to understand how Personally the loss of this election for democrats is right. So it's literally you have had a presidential candidate and now person who's going to become president speak negatively about Muslims and about black people and about disabled and And you voted for him anyways, and so how are the people who represent those groups supposed to feel in that. And so I think that it's only by person to person interaction that people can truly understand that. And Facebook is one way of doing that person to person interaction. Thank you very much Arva for just dropping so many gems and of course thank you to all our guests for coming through. And of course you, all of you there watching Essence Live and all of your support. If you missed any of today's show, you could catch the replay shortly on essence.com and see all our videos on our YouTube page Before we close we have to pay tribute to Gwen Eiffel, who passed away on Monday. Her contribution to politics and journalism were impactful. Gwen for being a model to black women and girls everywhere, we salute you and you will be missed. I'm Dana Blair, see you next week. [BLANK_AUDIO]