About Face

The relationships we inhabit can shape and define us, and how we see ourselves. Who we choose to love and let love us matters, because in the wrong hands, we may suffer from neglect, abuse, oppression, and even, the total loss of self. One of the most difficult decisions is to know when someone we love is no longer serving us, or worse, actually causing us harm. What does it take to break away, and how do we know when to do it?

This is a story about love, but also co-dependency and the very complicated nature of emotional abuse. But more, it’s a story about how one woman used her own oppression to find her voice.

My guest today is Reema Zaman. Reema is an award-winning writer, visual artist, actress and speaker, and the author of the memoir I Am Yours. She is from Bangladesh and immigrated to New York When she was 18. When she was 25, she fell in love and married into a relationship that shifted the direction of her life. She writes and talks about what it is like to fall into emotional abuse as well as how to find your voice when you come out of the darkness.

About Face is a member of Bear Radio, the premier English-speaking podcast network of Berlin.

Music for this episode was provided by Miss Kenichi

The 2018 Oregon Literary Arts’ Writer of Color Fellow, Reema Zaman is an award-winning writer, actress, speaker, and author of the critically acclaimed memoir I AM YOURS. I Am Yours debuted on the Powell's Bestseller list, alongside Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming. Born in Bangladesh and raised in Thailand, Reema’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Ms. Magazine, Vogue, The Guardian, Salon, Guernica, Shape, and elsewhere. Reema has the honor of partnering with the International Rescue Committee and Girls Inc. to serve key causes and empower the next generation of leaders. As the only Reema Zaman in the world, she is easy to find on social media. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter and learn more at reemazaman.com.

Naniso shares his experience growing up in the generation following Apartheid and describes the difference between institutionalized and systemic racism versus other forms of covert oppression. We talk about a particular instance where he was physically assaulted and detained at an airport and how the attack figures into his consciousness, as a thought leader and in how he interacts with the world.

The way that we see ourselves in the world begins with our family, where are we in the pecking order. As we grow up, we learn more about who we are and where we come from. Even as children, we internalize our individuality through the subtext and organization of our communities and in the context of other social constructions like gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Consciously and unconsciously, how we see ourselves is shaped by how we fit into the world. But, what happens when your identity, the way you see yourself is shaken beyond your control, how do you reckon with this realization- maybe you aren’t who you thought you were? Or maybe the way the world sees you is not the way you’ve always seen yourself.

Naniso was born a few hundred kilometers north of Johannesburg, South Africa in the homelands or rural villages established during Apartheid. We talked about his early life and what it was like growing up in the generations during and after Apartheid and the difference between systemic and institutionalized oppression versus covert racism.

About Face is a member of Bear Radio, the premier English speaking podcast network of Berlin. 

Music for this episode was provided by Miss Kenichi

And the song "What She Thought of Herself," by The Space Where She Was.

Tania Lacy was a famous Australian television personality during the 80s and early 90s before she got fired for hijacking the station in protest. Losing her job led to a loss of identity and a reckoning with her own sense of self. This is a story about her height as a celebrity and the fall into obscurity and heroin addiction. This is a story about Tania's ballet accident that ruined her dance career, her transition into  choreography and Kylie Minogue's "Locomotion" video and her rise as a television star and woman in comedy. We talk about why fortune and fame are never enough, how to forgive ourselves, and why strength and power must come from within. 

About Face is a member of Bear Radio, the premier English speaking podcast network of Berlin.

Music for this episode was provided by Miss Kenichi.

Website: misskenichi.com

Album purchase: https://misskenichi.bandcamp.com/album/fox

Why are some of us capable of changing our lives and finding the right path while others get lost along the way? What influence does mental illness play in our ability to recover? How do we navigate our way out of broken homes, addiction, and family mental illness?

This episode features Justin Evans from The Peripheral and The Generation Why, one of the top-ranking true crime podcasts. We talked about his family history of mental illness, how to mourn loved one who has already been lost to a disease, and how he paved his own way.  

About Face is a member of Bear Radio, the premier English speaking podcast network of Berlin.

Music for this episode was provided by Miss Kenichi.

Website: misskenichi.com

Album purchase: https://misskenichi.bandcamp.com/album/fox

Tattoos, piercings, punk rock, rockabilly- the look and the subculture can have a hard-shell appearance, but what about those individuals underneath? What is the relationship between subculture and individual identity? Is there a correlation between mental health and extreme tattooing? How do subcultures give us strength and armor, and at what point are we lost to ideology? Is there a false security in our fight for belonging? 

This is one woman’s journey--how she found hope, strength and security in a subculture, while also learning to shed the armor and uncover her own truth and find an authentic direction for herself. This episode deals with mental health, including anxiety and depression, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, loss, and recovery.

I want to start at the beginning, with birth. This episode includes my own story about a traumatic birth and my interview with visual artist and writer, Carmen Winant, to talk about her work, My Birth, the powerful installation at the MoMA, the missing and misrepresentations of birth in cultural representations as well as the challenges in the transition into motherhood. In addition to birth, we also talked about feminism in motherhood, and the potential for political action around these specific women’s issues, birth, and parenting.

For more information about Carmen Winant here is a link to her website: carmenwinant.com

A few mentions. About Face is a member of Bear Radio, the premier English speaking podcast network of Berlin.

Music for this episode was provided by Miss Kenichi.

A short hello and introduction to our next season which will be released every two weeks beginning December 10. 

“I was looking at the world and it started to flatten out and I realized, this is what it’s like to die. Everything starts to lose meaning. . . it just becomes a flat image.” - Jason Snell.

I interviewed Jason Snell while he was in Europe, in Berlin, on his trips between Paris and Warsaw and Italy, before he heads back to either Iowa or L.A., or somewhere in between, wherever he decides to land for the next weeks or months. As I’m nearing my ninth month of pregnancy, becoming even more firmly planted, sometimes feeling immobile, I can admire the freedom, independence and that open quality of not knowing where you are going next. Sitting down with him, felt like time-traveling, both of us, revisiting the ghosts of our old selves. 

I was reminded me how stories unfold in time and space, how sometimes we are not sure where one ends and another begins. There are the kind of stories that happen in an instant, a car accident, a trauma, a sudden loss, and then there are those that can span years, decades, even a lifetime. Jason’s story is one that happens in flashes, and also, spans more than 20 years, and so, I’m going to break the interview into two parts, Episodes 9 and 10.

In Episode 9, we talk about his youth and intro to drug addiction- LSD, cocaine, heroin, and the magnitude of his losses, from human life to his innocence, and self. We talked about the attraction towards darkness, the sheer weight of death. This is an episode about the edge. It’s an episode about loss, but more, what does it take to turn around?

Stay tuned for Part II of this series, where we will explore human potential, forgiveness, and the power of mending our past, not just our relationships with others, but with ourselves.

Music Credits:

Artist: Miss Kenichi
Album: Fox
Tracks: Death Cab

Artist : The Space Where She Was 
Albums: What We Lost and How to Play Dead
Tracks: The Memory Changes Every Time I Remember, What She Dreamed For, What She Thought of Herself