Matriarchy is not simply women occupying positions of power inside the same violent systems.

It is a complete reimagining of how we relate to ourselves, one another, the Earth, healing, care, accountability, and collective survival.

In the final installment of this series on matriarchy, Nikki sits down with educator, author, and healing justice practitioner Myisha T. Hill for a profound conversation about what it would actually take to co-create a matriarchal society.

Together, they explore why liberation cannot be achieved through intellectual understanding alone and why healing - especially healing beyond whiteness, hierarchy, patriarchy, and codependency - is essential to collective liberation.

This conversation dives deep into:

• Whiteness as erasure

• Somatics and nervous system healing

• The difference between codependency and interdependence

• Ancestor work and healing historical wounds

• Why white feminism cannot create matriarchy

• Black feminist and Indigenous understandings of care

• Healing justice as liberatory practice

• Embodiment, praxis, and living the work IRL

• Collective liberation and the future we must learn to co-create together

Myisha also shares insights from her groundbreaking book Heal Your Way Forward and discusses why so many people attempt liberation work without first doing the internal healing required to sustain it.

If Episodes 75 and 76 asked us to rethink power and democracy, this conversation asks us something even deeper:

Who must we become to make matriarchy possible?

TAP HERE to connect with Myisha T. Hill, learn more about her Joy Is the Revolution Tour, and get a copy of her book Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future.

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Business As Usual.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

What would it actually take to save democracy?

And what if the answer isn't more control, more domination, or simply replacing men with women in positions of power?

In this episode of Interrupting Business as Usual, Nikki sits down with writer, podcaster, birth worker, and creative visionary Crystal Tennille Irby for a conversation about matriarchy, collective care, Black motherhood, and what it means to build a society rooted in care instead of control.

As gender-based violence, authoritarianism, and political instability continue escalating across the United States, more people are calling for matriarchy as an alternative to patriarchy.

But what do people actually mean when they say "matriarchy"?

And are we truly prepared for the kind of transformation a matriarchal society would require?

Together, Crystal and Nikki explore:

• Why matriarchy is not simply "women in power"

• How patriarchy distorts our understanding of power

• Collective care, motherhood, and community responsibility

• What the historical wounds of chattel slavery have to do with our inability to build a matriarchal society

• The importance of liberatory imagination, creativity, and dreaming

• Why democracy cannot survive without a radically different relationship to care, power, and community

This conversation also examines the role of Black women in political resistance movements, the South as both a historical wound and a site of liberation, and the ways liberal feminism often reproduces patriarchal ideas about power and domination.

More than a conversation about matriarchy, this episode is an invitation to imagine new ways of relating to one another - ways rooted in accountability, creativity, collective responsibility, and care without control.

If you've been asking:

• What is matriarchy?

• Can matriarchy replace patriarchy?

• How do we build safer communities?

• Why does modern feminism still feel rooted in domination?

• What would a society centered around care actually look like?

This episode is for you.

TAP HERE to connect with Crystal Tennille Irby.

Listen to Dem Black Mamas Podcast at: https://demblackmamas.com/podcast

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Business As Usual.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

Matriarchy won't save us.

Not if we're still operating from the same broken understanding of power that created the world we're trying to escape.

In this episode of Interrupting Business as Usual, Nikki is in conversation with Reverend Brig Feltus - anti-racism educator, metaphysical minister, and someone who embodies what it means to move through the world with deep relational awareness.

Together, they interrogate the rising call for matriarchy in response to patriarchy, gender-based violence, and femicide - especially as liberal feminism positions matriarchy as the "solution."

And they ask a harder question:

What if we're not actually ready for matriarchy?

Because if your understanding of power is still rooted in domination, control, and hierarchy…

Then you're not building something new.

You're replicating the same system with different people at the top.

• What matriarchy actually means (and what it doesn't)

• Why liberal feminism misunderstands power - and the consequences of that

• How Black women have always practiced forms of matrilineal care and collective responsibility

• Allo-parenting, community care, and relational ways of being

• Why integrity is a prerequisite for leadership, trust, and collective safety

• The role of repair and accountability in building any liberatory future

• How our socialization under patriarchy limits our ability to imagine something different

• Why many women either fear power or replicate domination when they access it

• What it actually requires to move toward a matriarchal or matrilineal society

This isn't a conversation about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy.

It's a conversation about transforming our relationship to power.

Because without care, integrity, and repair…

Matriarchy won't work.

If you've been asking:

• "What is matriarchy?"

• "Is matriarchy better than patriarchy?"

• "Can feminism actually create liberation?"

This episode will challenge what you think you know and invite you into something deeper.

Connect with Reverend Brig Feltus by visiting https://www.rememberinstitute.com/

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Business As Usual.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki.

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow me on IG: @nikkiblak

You don't have a leadership problem.

You have a how you think about leadership problem.

Every time harm happens in activist spaces, we ask:

Who allowed this person to lead?

But we don't ask:

Why were we organizing ourselves around them in the first place?

In this episode, Nikki breaks down how leadership models in social justice spaces concentrate power, recreate harm, and keep us stuck in the same cycles.

• Why charismatic leaders are often a red flag, not a solution
• How movements recreate hierarchy instead of dismantling it
• The danger of outsourcing your power and critical thinking
• Why visibility gets mistaken for integrity
• What it actually means to practice shared power and accountability

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

We say we believe survivors.

And for the most part, we do.

But if that's true… why does the same harm keep happening in liberation spaces?

Why do the patterns stay the same - even in communities that claim to know better?

In this episode, Nikki breaks down why belief without action changes nothing, how accountability gets avoided, and what it actually requires to interrupt harm in real time.

• Why believing survivors isn't enough

• The real cost of accountability (and why most people avoid it)

• The 4 key questions that make "complicated" situations less complicated

• What you need to ask yourself if you're serious about liberation

• What to do if you want to support survivors but you're scared of "getting it wrong"

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

Sexual violence keeps showing up in progressive spaces, activist communities, and liberation movements - and the question isn't how did this happen?

It's why does this keep happening?

In this episode, Nikki breaks down how power, socialization, and a lack of real accountability allow harm to persist, even in spaces that claim to be about justice. She shares why progressive movements keep protecting power instead of people and what it actually takes to interrupt that cycle.

• Why this harm is predictable, not shocking
• How movements reproduce the same power structures they claim to resist
• The gap between knowing what's right and actually transforming
• What you need to examine if you're serious about liberation

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

If your family is parroting Fox News talking points, reposting propaganda, defending harmful policies, or just avoiding politics altogether, you've probably felt the tension.

You want to say something.

But you don't want to ruin dinner. You don't want to make it awkward. You don't want to damage the relationship.

So you stay quiet.

In this episode of Interrupting Business As Usual, Nikki breaks down how to radicalize your family, without turning every gathering into a battlefield.

Because if you're not talking to them, someone else is.

And that someone may be reinforcing the very ideologies you're hoping will disappear.

• How to have anti-racist conversations with conservative or apolitical family members

• Why trying to "win the debate" backfires

• How to plant seeds instead of escalate conflict

• The power of asking better questions

• Why stories change hearts more than statistics

• When and how to set boundaries

• How consistency creates long-term change

If you need a structured framework for leading anti-racist conversations at the dinner table, TAP HERE to revisit Episode 51: Holiday Survival Guide — How to Lead Anti-Racist Conversations at the Dinner Table with Family

That episode includes Nikki's signature Confident Conversations Framework to help you navigate high-stakes family dynamics with clarity and confidence.

For a deeper dive into how to set loving, effective boundaries, TAP HERE to revisit Episode 52: Teach People How to Treat You by Setting Boundaries

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

A lot of white women have been taught that change happens by being polite.

By being reasonable.

By doing the "right" things and trusting that the system will respond in kind.

But what if that's the very thing keeping oppressive systems in place?

In this episode, Nikki breaks down how respectability politics shapes white womanhood, why it disconnects you from power, and what it actually takes to move beyond it.

TAP HERE to listen to Episode 25: Why We Have to Be Radical to Be on the Right Side of History

• What respectability politics really is

• How white womanhood is conditioned to be polite, non-threatening, and compliant

• How respectability reinforces oppression instead of disrupting it

• What to do without respectability

TAP HERE to register for the March 30th workshop, What This Political Moment Is Asking of White Women and Femmes

This is a rare live training on how to move beyond guilt, good intentions, and reactive activism - and start making sociopolitically aligned decisions.

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

"I feel alone in this."

If that thought has been running through your mind lately, you're not imagining things.

A lot of white women and femmes are experiencing a deep sense of political isolation right now - in their families, friendships, workplaces, and communities.

But this isn't random.

And it's not just personal.

In this episode, Nikki breaks down why that isolation exists and what actually needs to happen to move out of it.

TAP HERE to listen to Episode 27: What We Get Wrong About Community

In This Episode

• Why political isolation feels so intense right now
• Why being "the only one who cares" will burn you out
• What it actually takes to find your people and build power

TAP HERE to register for the March 30th workshop, What This Political Moment Is Asking of White Women and Femmes

This is a rare live training on how to move beyond guilt, good intentions, and reactive activism - and start making sociopolitically aligned decisions.

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.
• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki
• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content
• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak

Authoritarian politics are gaining ground, yet many people feel like they're doing everything they were taught to do — voting, posting, donating, speaking out — and none of it seems to be stopping the slide.

So what's going on?

In this episode, Nikki breaks down why liberal feminism was never built to confront power in the first place, and why that makes it dangerously ineffective in moments like the one we're living through now.

• The core limitations of liberal feminism and white feminism

• How the White Urgency Cycle sabotages movements

• The difference between activism and organizing

• Why voting matters - but isn't enough on its own

TAP HERE to register for the March 30th workshop, What This Political Moment Is Asking of White Women and Femmes

This is a rare live training on how to move beyond guilt, good intentions, and reactive activism - and start making sociopolitically aligned decisions.

Special thanks to Def Sound for providing the theme for Interrupting Everything.⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣

Where do we go from here?

• To learn more about what you heard on the podcast today, visit nikkiblak.com.

• TAP HERE to work privately with Nikki

• TAP HERE to subscribe to the free weekly email series Resourcing a Revolution for more exclusive content

• Follow Nikki on IG: @nikkiblak