In this week’s episode, Becky and Taina dive straight into the deep end of real-life mess: school-district politics, equity vs. “equality,” the exhausting reality of advocating inside systems designed to fail kids, and the tender, complicated terrain of queer marriage, desire, and boundaries. This one is personal, raw, a little chaotic, and very us.

Becky shares what it’s like preparing to speak at a school board meeting about inequitable resource distribution in her son’s district — while naming the discomfort of doing that work as a white parent in a predominantly white room. Then Taina opens up about the complexities of being pansexual, married to a lesbian wife, and navigating attraction, boundaries, and emotional intimacy when your partner is also your best friend.

In This Episode, We Discuss:
• The messy reality of advocating for equity in a school system still clinging to “equal” funding
• Why diversity in schools matters — and what’s at risk when privileged families leave
• The tension of being a group of white moms pushing for equity without falling into saviorism
• How to strategically communicate about equity in political spaces
• The emotional labor of teachers and staff in under-resou🎤rced schools
• Taina’s coming-out journey, late blooming, and the truth about queer identity development
• What happens when you marry the first person you date (and why that’s not the red flag people think it is)
• Navigating attraction, boundaries, and “is this appropriate to say to my wife?” moments
• Why partners cannot and should not be expected to meet every emotional need
• Cheesecake, green beans, and other metaphors we’ll never be able to forget

🎤 Proud members of the Feminist Podcasters Collective — join us at: https://feministpodcasterscollective.com

This week, Becky and Taina sit down with client experience designer and “business cousin” Portia Michele Osumaré for a liberatory conversation about the beauty of being “messy”—and why it’s not something to fix. Together they explore what it means to live outside the boxes that capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy build for us.

From being multi-hyphenate creatives to dismantling productivity culture, this conversation dives into queerness, control, and community—and how letting yourself be delightfully, unapologetically human can actually make your work (and your joy) more sustainable.

Portia reminds us that liberation isn’t theoretical; it’s something we practice every day—in our businesses, our relationships, and even the way we talk about money, success, and each other.

Connect with Portia:

• The Business Cousins Collective
• Follow Portia on Instagram

Discussed in this episode:

• Redefining “messy” as freedom, not failure
• The power of multi-hyphenate creativity
• Queerness as a practice of expansion and self-creation
• How control, order, and “clean” systems uphold oppression
• Building liberatory business models rooted in joy and humanity
• Community as a messy, necessary space for collective growth

Resources mentioned:

• Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me”
• Maya Angelou, “Be a rainbow in someone’s cloud”
• Ocean Vuong on how being queer saved his life

🎤 WE’RE PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE

Becky and Taina try something new in this episode—a looser, more conversational format inspired by their friends from BRB, Crying. Each host brings a “messy situation” to unpack together.

Taina starts with a real-life scare: police chasing a man through her backyard in Baltimore. The conversation unfolds into a raw discussion about policing, white conditioning, racialized fear, and what “abolish the police” really means. Together, they pull apart the myths of “good cops” and community safety, tracing policing back to its roots in slavery and exploring what real care-centered community safety could look like.

Then Becky brings her own messy topic: a threads debate about whether all landlords are unethical. As a small-scale landlord herself, she wrestles with her own complicity in a capitalist system while still trying to do right by her tenant. The pair examine how housing, like policing, reflects deeper systemic issues—and why nuance matters when we talk about ethics and liberation.

The conversation winds into reflections on whiteness, masculinity, and how even our attempts to “opt out” of oppressive systems (like calling yourself a “non-practicing white”) can be another form of avoidance. This one is layered, uncomfortable, and exactly the kind of conversation Messy Liberation is built for.

🧠 Themes

• The conditioning of fear and trust around policing
• How racialized power shows up even in “liberal” white responses
• The difference between policing and community accountability
• Ethical gray areas in housing and capitalism
• Why abolition is about care, not chaos
• Reckoning with privilege, whiteness, and the myth of neutrality

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Designer Terrence Williams
• The BRB, Crying podcast

🎤 WE ARE PROUD MEMBFRS OF THE FEMINIST PODCAST COLLECTIVE