Speaker 1: Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with my Heart Radio. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. I am an actress, producer, storyteller,
Speaker 1: seecret of truth, justice, love and empathy. Now I wanted
Speaker 1: to have a podcast. You have conversations similar to the
Speaker 1: ones I'm having in private and I'm not seeing happen publicly.
Speaker 1: We are talking everything from dating while trans dating while
Speaker 1: a black woman, dating while forty, a lot of dating,
Speaker 1: but also trauma, resilience, beauty standards and social capital, Beyonce,
Speaker 1: you name it. Now, I want this podcast to amplify
Speaker 1: certain subjects, topics and folks who are doing work that
Speaker 1: makes me think, challenges or inspires me. Being involved in
Speaker 1: engaged dialogue with another thinking human being has raised my consciousness,
Speaker 1: lifted my spirits, and shifted my molecules. Years ago, a
Speaker 1: therapist of mine said to me in our very first
Speaker 1: therapy session that the only thing that we can control
Speaker 1: as individuals is our own perception and our own behavior.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all we can control, our perception and
Speaker 1: our behavior. It is my hope that the Laverne Cock
Speaker 1: Show is a place, a space that foster's perspective that
Speaker 1: might inspire new behavior in each of us that gets
Speaker 1: us closer to becoming the very best version of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Dehumanization is the birthplace of every genocide recorded through history.
Speaker 1: If you take a group of people that are different
Speaker 1: than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
Speaker 1: from them, it gives humans a capacity for violence towards them,
Speaker 1: which actually we're not neurobiologically wired two maim, rape, hurt,
Speaker 1: and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
Speaker 1: we have to go through a system of de humanization.
Speaker 1: And then once you strip people of your humanity, you're
Speaker 1: able to do all kinds of things to folks. On
Speaker 1: this episode, we are talking about how we can move
Speaker 1: away from us versus them, the pervasive division that plagues
Speaker 1: our country right now. It has been so painful for
Speaker 1: me watching not only how divided we are, but how
Speaker 1: we demonize and dehumanize folks who might disagree with us
Speaker 1: around some political issue. And so my guest today talks
Speaker 1: about rehumanization. She's someone whose work has shaped so much
Speaker 1: of my thinking and giving me so many tools to
Speaker 1: live a more wholehearted life. Of course, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the incomparable Dr Burne Brown. Burnde A. Brown has described
Speaker 1: herself as a researcher, storyteller. She studies courage, vulnerability, shame,
Speaker 1: and empathy. She's authored five number one New York Times bestsellers.
Speaker 1: She has a Netflix special. She is a shame research
Speaker 1: here with a Netflix special. Honey, Yes, she is so badass.
Speaker 1: And she is also the host of two different podcast
Speaker 1: Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. When I thought about
Speaker 1: having a conversation about how divided we are as a
Speaker 1: nation and moving beyond that division, I knew I wanted
Speaker 1: to have that conversation with Renee. By the way, just
Speaker 1: for context, we recorded this after the election in November.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Bryne Brown. Hello, Dr
Speaker 1: Brine Brown, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. How
Speaker 1: are you doing today? I am you know, I got
Speaker 1: to see you twice this week, so it is just
Speaker 1: the best week of my life. I'm doing great. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be with you and interested to see
Speaker 1: where our conversation goes. I am as well. I have
Speaker 1: a ton of notes and you know me, I do
Speaker 1: we have this We have this mutual friend her talk
Speaker 1: and he's like, I've never seen you anxious about a
Speaker 1: podcast you do. And I'm like, she knows my work
Speaker 1: better than I do. This is this is interesting. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with where you start in your book,
Speaker 1: dare to lead with the Marcus Aurelius quote, which what
Speaker 1: stands in the way becomes the way. And the reason
Speaker 1: I want to start there is because um, in my
Speaker 1: in the ways in which I armor up the things
Speaker 1: that keep me in the way of vulnerability, which is
Speaker 1: a key component of your work. You define vulnerability as risk, uncertainty,
Speaker 1: and emotional exposure. And oh my god, the deep levels
Speaker 1: of which I use perfectionism as armor. It's so deep.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to actually let go of perfectionism as
Speaker 1: I have this conversation. I'm trying to take the armor away.
Speaker 1: But I want to start by asking you what is
Speaker 1: getting in the way right now for you around vulnerability
Speaker 1: and courage that needs to become the way. So note
Speaker 1: to self. She is not going to throw any softball questions. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're just starting. We're we're just starting right there. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yes, it's us, it's us. Right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: what I noticed is that you're in the the arena
Speaker 1: like hardcore right now, you have two podcast unlocking us
Speaker 1: dare to Lead. You are in the arena in a
Speaker 1: way where you're having really uncomfortable conversations around race as
Speaker 1: a white person, which I think is so crucially important.
Speaker 1: And I just imagine that that has to be so
Speaker 1: thorny and so constantly vulnerable and constantly like getting your
Speaker 1: ass handed to you right that, Like, you're in the
Speaker 1: arena in a way that I don't even feel like
Speaker 1: I can even muster being in right now. I look
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh my god, how she doing this?
Speaker 1: So I guess there's the question of how you in
Speaker 1: the arena the way you are right now? And then
Speaker 1: like how are you doing with all of this, Like
Speaker 1: with all the challenges everything that you have going on.
Speaker 1: You've taken on so much in the work and the
Speaker 1: research and building your business and this leadership place. What girl,
Speaker 1: what's going on? I think something feels weird for me
Speaker 1: right now. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I I talk so much about taking the armor off
Speaker 1: and saying what you believe, even when your voice shakes.
Speaker 1: I love that quote, and I'm doing it and there
Speaker 1: are consequences. There's for sure, I have experienced consequences for
Speaker 1: doing it. But and I always get flagged when I
Speaker 1: start thinking things like, well, I don't give a ship
Speaker 1: when anyone thinks because you know we're neurobiologically, why or
Speaker 1: to care what people think? Right? I guess I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm at a point in my life where if
Speaker 1: you need to leave or unfollowed or do your thing,
Speaker 1: because we're at a fork in the road and I'm
Speaker 1: taking one path and you're taking another, and you need
Speaker 1: something else from me, go with God, like I wish
Speaker 1: you a lot of luck. I mean, I think you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of white women who follow me
Speaker 1: who have unfollowed me. We've had a lot of that,
Speaker 1: you know. When I interviewed Biden for the podcast, when
Speaker 1: I put my support behind the Biden Harris ticket, when
Speaker 1: I talked about the pervasive dehumanization from the Trump administration
Speaker 1: and how regardless of politics, I can't abide by it.
Speaker 1: The fact that I have kind of walked into very
Speaker 1: hard conversations about race and and also really specific conversations
Speaker 1: about the ongoing betrayal of Black women by white women.
Speaker 1: I think it's if I can't have an opinion because
Speaker 1: you want me to just shut up and keep writing
Speaker 1: books that help you, then you don't have a deep
Speaker 1: understanding of my work. Like and I've never been here before, Laverne,
Speaker 1: I've never been here. I've been tentative. But I think
Speaker 1: there's a hundred possibility that we can both have been
Speaker 1: shaped and moved by my research and have very different
Speaker 1: political opinions. There is zero percent possibility that you could
Speaker 1: understand my work and think I'm going to shut up
Speaker 1: because I'm making you uncomfortable. Absolutely, I just floored by
Speaker 1: hearing you say that you've had so many white women
Speaker 1: on follow you and feel betrayed on a certain level.
Speaker 1: And I'm just thinking it has to be that has
Speaker 1: to be hard. I mean, it has to be insanely difficult.
Speaker 1: But there's a few things that you said. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the ongoing betrayal that black women feel from
Speaker 1: white women, can I just can we just can we
Speaker 1: go there right a little bit? Because I think that
Speaker 1: piece we saw that you know, so many white women
Speaker 1: again voted for you know, forty five and a lot
Speaker 1: of black women have had a lot to say about
Speaker 1: that Black folks in general. We've talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of black women publicly. It's been really beautiful. Where are
Speaker 1: you with all that? Right now? So I think both
Speaker 1: questions are they're related. I really I don't know how
Speaker 1: I got here. I really don't. I don't. I need
Speaker 1: to probably understand it better. I can't betray me first anymore.
Speaker 1: I have to rank order belonging to myself before making
Speaker 1: you pleased with me. And they're not. You know, they're
Speaker 1: not all white women. Of course I'm a white woman,
Speaker 1: like they're not all white women. But but that's the
Speaker 1: majority of folks who have not followed me. That's the
Speaker 1: majority of folks who have sent me pictures burning my books,
Speaker 1: you know. And yeah, and it's I think it pisces
Speaker 1: me off because I think the language I hear a
Speaker 1: lot is you disappointed me. You're such a disappointment. You
Speaker 1: really let me down. Why do they say, is it
Speaker 1: clear why they're disappointed? Because you know, because you change
Speaker 1: my life, or you got me through my divorce, or
Speaker 1: you help my my kid in rehab. And now you
Speaker 1: have to go blab in your mouth about politics. And
Speaker 1: so I think that idea that you've disappointed me and
Speaker 1: what that had the potential to do to me in
Speaker 1: my life for decades. You know, my response to it
Speaker 1: maybe a year ago was fuck you, And my response
Speaker 1: to it now is I don't care m that I
Speaker 1: disappointed you, because I'm not here to please you. And
Speaker 1: so the fact that you think I'm here to please
Speaker 1: you is exactly the white woman problem. Oh speak speak.
Speaker 1: There's a very deep complexity to the way many of
Speaker 1: us as white women, are raised, which is you will
Speaker 1: never ever, you will never sees real power over your body,
Speaker 1: over your future, over your mind. You'll never seize it.
Speaker 1: So the best thing that you can do is catch
Speaker 1: the drippings of the men who have it and learn
Speaker 1: how to be the right kind of woman to access
Speaker 1: the power from them. And your first call to duty
Speaker 1: is to protect them at all costs, because if that
Speaker 1: power is not dripping off them, where do you think
Speaker 1: you're going to catch it? And we're really raised that way,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's not sometimes it's subtle, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it's really not subtle. It's you know, stay than be smart,
Speaker 1: but not smarter than you know. I remember, just if
Speaker 1: you'll indulge me a story from growing up. I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in a tough family, tough
Speaker 1: Texas family. I grew up hunting and fishing and throwing
Speaker 1: a football. And I remember this awkward year where I
Speaker 1: kind of started developing and I could throw the football
Speaker 1: far and I could spit far, and I was and
Speaker 1: I still am, an amazing shot, and I can fish
Speaker 1: like your life depended on it. And I remember all
Speaker 1: of a sudden this disease where I could do that
Speaker 1: better than some of the boys my age. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was sent in the house
Speaker 1: to get supper ready because you know, in the words
Speaker 1: of my father and his father and his father, now sis,
Speaker 1: don't get sideways here, you know, let these boys throw
Speaker 1: that ball. And so I remember saying, oh, now the
Speaker 1: focus is how to set the table and make sure
Speaker 1: your chicken salad has all white meat in it, and
Speaker 1: you chopped the carrots a certain way or the salary
Speaker 1: a certain way. And that's our upbringing. And so I
Speaker 1: think what you see at the polls is is you
Speaker 1: know how they say, like racist white people in the
Speaker 1: United States will sign their own death certificates, They will
Speaker 1: vote for policies that crush them no safety nets, no
Speaker 1: health care before they organize and fight for things that
Speaker 1: they deserve because they feel too much like entitlements. And
Speaker 1: those are folks of color, right, women have that same
Speaker 1: upbringing I think around protect the men with the power.
Speaker 1: It's your only access to it. And and let me
Speaker 1: let me tell you this part. And you've mastered the
Speaker 1: art of getting that power from men. M The interesting
Speaker 1: thing about it that women can use the capital of beauty, right,
Speaker 1: that these things have a shelf life. That's so often
Speaker 1: the things that we as women are told to rely
Speaker 1: upon to hook a man into. You know, we get
Speaker 1: older and gain weight or we just get older. And
Speaker 1: and what's so that is if that is what we've
Speaker 1: based our existence on as women of all races, that
Speaker 1: when the rug is sort of pulled out from under us,
Speaker 1: it's not always, but it often is. Right, we found
Speaker 1: out our husband is cheating, We find out like we
Speaker 1: don't have that same capital anymore because we've capitulated to
Speaker 1: patriarchy basically and white supremacy, and they're very much connected.
Speaker 1: But so brilliant about what you said is that relationship
Speaker 1: between white supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism isn't there too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I don't think you can extract
Speaker 1: I mean, let's as you would say, go bell hooks
Speaker 1: on this. I don't think you can extract capitalism because
Speaker 1: I think part of the contract is, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about very traditional relationships. I'm talking about traditional patriarchal,
Speaker 1: sexist there's a financial contract. I stay young and fit,
Speaker 1: and you make the money. And what ends up happening
Speaker 1: is that contract. Man, It's a Faustian bargain. It is
Speaker 1: a deal with the devil himself, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think that's what you see with white female support. Um.
Speaker 1: And I want to separate people of color from conversations
Speaker 1: about being black in America because I think there is
Speaker 1: so much anti blackness within communities of color outside speak
Speaker 1: speak And so I do think that white women are
Speaker 1: I want to I wanna be really careful with my
Speaker 1: words here. If if white men are the banking system
Speaker 1: for white supremacy, white women are the culture police of
Speaker 1: white supremacy, Explain, Explain, it's the performative cry and quiver
Speaker 1: when confronted with a black man. It's the mammification of
Speaker 1: black women. Oh can you can I crawl in your lap?
Speaker 1: And you can, you know, stroke my hair and braid
Speaker 1: it and save me. They're real cultural police around maintaining
Speaker 1: a system. It's killing them, killing us. Oh yeah, So
Speaker 1: what I would love to do, because the empathetic piece
Speaker 1: right around these white women, what would be our generous
Speaker 1: take on what is going on there? First of all,
Speaker 1: what is what is so beautiful about what the uncertain
Speaker 1: place that you seem to feel like you're in now
Speaker 1: is that it feels like the embodiment of being the wilderness.
Speaker 1: For those who know Braving the Wilderness and give examples
Speaker 1: in that book, and you talk about having the courage
Speaker 1: of your values, it feels like you're right in the
Speaker 1: middle of what it means to be the wilderness, to
Speaker 1: be in that place where you have rejected. If you're
Speaker 1: not with us, you're against us, and you are really
Speaker 1: in the space of belonging to yourself and the price
Speaker 1: is high that the reward is great. You know, my
Speaker 1: angelaric moment that that you quote in Raving the Wilderness.
Speaker 1: I guess I just want to sort of affirm that
Speaker 1: from my perspective, that that's what it feels like. And
Speaker 1: I guess shivers about it because this is the difficult
Speaker 1: work that we must do. But then going to that
Speaker 1: generous place, to that empathetic place for white women. Let's
Speaker 1: just keep talking about white women for now, I guess.
Speaker 1: But is it the thing of trying to fit in
Speaker 1: this sort of poe belonging, because you know, we can
Speaker 1: talk about the theoretical aligning with power, and you know
Speaker 1: black folks do it too, right, Black folks will align
Speaker 1: with white supremacies, will align with certain power structures. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a way to armor up into self protect
Speaker 1: what what's at the core? Because I think that if
Speaker 1: we were not going to be able to move past
Speaker 1: us versus them, how divide it we are if we
Speaker 1: can't sort of begin to parse out the psychology of
Speaker 1: what is going on at the core of all this.
Speaker 1: And I've thought it's maybe it's fear, But what do
Speaker 1: you think is at the heart of this? So first
Speaker 1: let me just say that I I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on with me right now, and so you're analysis
Speaker 1: of it. I've always told you, how what have I
Speaker 1: told you that it would be the best role you
Speaker 1: could ever play in a million years? What would you
Speaker 1: be playing? Do you remember what I told you? I
Speaker 1: don't remember. What did you say? What did you say?
Speaker 1: You should play a therapist? Very good. Let you get
Speaker 1: that in the universe. Now. I remember. So I felt
Speaker 1: therapized by you a little bit, because I do think
Speaker 1: there's some truth and I've been trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where I am right now. I think what's happened Lavern is.
Speaker 1: I think I've made peace with the wilderness. And I
Speaker 1: think that there have been times in my life that
Speaker 1: I would brave the wilderness and then I'd come back
Speaker 1: to my bunk or belonging. And now I've just set
Speaker 1: up camp here. This is actually going to be my life.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's great. It's like Coachella out here.
Speaker 1: All all the weirdos are out here. When we talk
Speaker 1: about the white women who support Trump, or we talked
Speaker 1: about that, and Trump is not the problem to me
Speaker 1: at all. Trump is the manifestation of a problem, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: if people knew my politics, really knew them, I'm much
Speaker 1: more moderate than most people think, and the far left
Speaker 1: take me on as much as the far right, to
Speaker 1: be honest, So what I would say is, when we
Speaker 1: talk about those white women. It is ultimately, to me
Speaker 1: about two things. It is about belonging, the veracity at
Speaker 1: which the like I don't even know how to use
Speaker 1: the words like, the force at which people will come
Speaker 1: at you in this cohort if you do not tow
Speaker 1: the line. It's not just that they will come after
Speaker 1: you and push you out. They will come after your husband,
Speaker 1: your wife, your kids. They will come for you because
Speaker 1: you are tipping something sacred. And so it is about
Speaker 1: belonging versus fitting in. And it is about a d
Speaker 1: socialization that on purpose does not involve the interrogation of power,
Speaker 1: because you have to foster some sort of critique of
Speaker 1: the status quo, and some people just aren't built for that.
Speaker 1: Let's take a short break. When we come back, let's
Speaker 1: talk about expectations and how they keep us from living authentically.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Burnet Brown says that stories are data with
Speaker 1: the soul. So here's a little bit of data from
Speaker 1: my personal life with a lot of soul. I'm spending
Speaker 1: a conversation with a man that I've known for twelve
Speaker 1: years now, and we dated like twelve years ago, and
Speaker 1: we were sitting here in my apartment like a month
Speaker 1: or so ago and talking about some very difficult stuff actually,
Speaker 1: and he's been dating trans women since like twenty seven
Speaker 1: years of dating trans women. If some people in his life, no,
Speaker 1: but most people don't know. And we were talking about
Speaker 1: like how his dad was a cop, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's like, I can't let people know that I like
Speaker 1: trans women because I was the firstborn son and there
Speaker 1: were all these expectations around masculinity, were all these things
Speaker 1: where I was just like, but you have known trans
Speaker 1: women for twenty seven years. So many of us for
Speaker 1: decades have had the courage to be ourselves. We've lost
Speaker 1: our families, lost friends, and he's seen this. But then
Speaker 1: he's so afraid of losing the approval of his father,
Speaker 1: having people judge him. I just didn't even get it.
Speaker 1: But then I was thinking, he just has never questioned
Speaker 1: the status quo. He's never been in a space I
Speaker 1: think because he is white and male. But the deep
Speaker 1: sad part of it is that at this point in
Speaker 1: his life, there were all these expectations around who he
Speaker 1: was supposed to be and it has not worked out.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have the money that he wanted to have,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, saying, hasn't a kids, and so
Speaker 1: what was so sad to me is that he kind
Speaker 1: of his toe this line and not really fully belonged
Speaker 1: to himself. And I think, and sometimes those people who
Speaker 1: are willing to question the system and question the expectations,
Speaker 1: I guess about who they're supposed to be. Maybe those
Speaker 1: people are more able to brave the wilderness. Thinking about
Speaker 1: like where you are right now, and I'm just thinking
Speaker 1: about people burning your books. I can't even imagine how
Speaker 1: that must feel. And then I think about how I've
Speaker 1: been in the wilderness, like my whole life in a way,
Speaker 1: because I've made choices, right, I've made choices that have
Speaker 1: I've always been an outsider and that's just been my life.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people aren't willing to do that.
Speaker 1: It's scary to be in the wilderness, and it's it's
Speaker 1: scary to go alone. It's scary to question authority. Yes,
Speaker 1: because look, here's the thing, Like, is it sad when
Speaker 1: someone sends me a picture of you know, the gifts
Speaker 1: of imperfection and flames? It did take my breath away
Speaker 1: a little bit, But after I thought about it, I'm like, now,
Speaker 1: I can you know, join the list of great band
Speaker 1: booked writers. You know, that's great, But think about the
Speaker 1: privilege of choosing the wilderness versus being shoved in it
Speaker 1: because of your gender identity, or your race or a
Speaker 1: million other reasons. So why interrogate power if what's at
Speaker 1: risk is your privilege? Absolutely right. So if I'm going
Speaker 1: to interrogate power to better understand my experience on the margins,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. But you're going to ask me to
Speaker 1: walk into the wilderness and interrogate power, and I got
Speaker 1: nothing but shipped to lose unless I believe existentially in
Speaker 1: a better world, our justice. I think you have to
Speaker 1: believe in those things. I mean, why else would someone
Speaker 1: do it? Right? Absolutely? You know. I have a group
Speaker 1: of girlfriends called the COTS, the Council of Trans Sistors,
Speaker 1: And we were hanging out and one of my girlfriends,
Speaker 1: she's a white trans woman and was raised very privileged.
Speaker 1: She was assigned mail at birth and was told that
Speaker 1: she could conquer the world and rule the world. And
Speaker 1: she was talking about sort of feeling a loss of
Speaker 1: that sort of care free, you know, assumed male sort
Speaker 1: of privilege that she had. And it was me and
Speaker 1: two other black trans women, three of us black trans
Speaker 1: women I hadn't. We were like, do you do you
Speaker 1: have a sense of We had no. There was absolutely
Speaker 1: no point of reference because I never felt and this
Speaker 1: is the thing, every every trans experience isn't the same,
Speaker 1: but like how race can change these things. I was like,
Speaker 1: I never felt I never felt male, I never felt
Speaker 1: perceived as mail, and I certainly didn't feel privileged right
Speaker 1: like that. No one was like saying the world is
Speaker 1: your oyster because you're like this gender non conforming, like
Speaker 1: poor kid from Alabama like that. That was not like,
Speaker 1: that was not a part of my upbringing, and so
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I had anything to lose when
Speaker 1: I transitioned. And I think about the men who date
Speaker 1: trans women as well, and like, I've just been so
Speaker 1: aware over the years how so many of them don't
Speaker 1: stand by our sides, particularly ones who do have privileges,
Speaker 1: because it's hard, you know. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of assumptions that people make about men who date trans women,
Speaker 1: and most of them, I found, are not willing to
Speaker 1: face those those assumptions that people make about them. Right
Speaker 1: because people disavow the womanhood of trans women, they assume
Speaker 1: the men that we date must be gay because they
Speaker 1: don't acknowledge our womanhood. And a lot of the men
Speaker 1: that I've I've dated met over the years are not comfortable.
Speaker 1: They're straight identified men. They are straight. There are men
Speaker 1: who are tried to women. They're not comfortable with people
Speaker 1: thinking they're gay. Um, but the thing of giving up
Speaker 1: privilege is is a huge part of it. But the
Speaker 1: divided nature of of where we are right now and
Speaker 1: the ways in which you alluded to, how dehumanizing our
Speaker 1: current president, for I don't like to say his name,
Speaker 1: how do humanizing his rhetoric has been in in policies?
Speaker 1: I would also like to say, And in Braving the
Speaker 1: Wilderness you talk about rehumanization and I had never seen
Speaker 1: anyone sort of talk about that and allude to that,
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so beautiful and so crucial
Speaker 1: for us getting back to each other, getting moving past
Speaker 1: us versus them, and becoming less divided. How do we
Speaker 1: really fully live in a space that we don't demonize
Speaker 1: into humanize people who disagree with us across the political spectrum?
Speaker 1: And that is like really really hard work, and I
Speaker 1: and I certainly do it imperfectly. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1: I think the word that we're not saying right now
Speaker 1: is walking into the wilderness interrogating power and the structures
Speaker 1: and the systems that are working just how they were designed. Shame, Oh, shame,
Speaker 1: speak right. I think there's a very short line between
Speaker 1: acknowledging privilege, interrogating power, and feeling shame and and being
Speaker 1: shamed by other people for interrogating it because you're messing
Speaker 1: with the system that they're propping up. And so maybe
Speaker 1: what I'm experiencing in the wilderness with all my weirdo
Speaker 1: friends have decided to set up camp out here with me,
Speaker 1: is that there's a lot of shame resilience in the wilderness. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think in terms of dehumanizing, I will tell
Speaker 1: you this and this is this has been tough for
Speaker 1: me as the election results came in over those you know,
Speaker 1: the days and days I banned as many people on
Speaker 1: the left is on the right from my social media accounts,
Speaker 1: because when this administration calls immigrants, we uses the investation.
Speaker 1: Let's just back up a little bit and do like
Speaker 1: some like some thinking and teaching about this. So dehumanization
Speaker 1: is the birthplace of every gin side recorded through history.
Speaker 1: If you take a group of people that are different
Speaker 1: than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
Speaker 1: from them, it gives humans the capacity for violence towards them,
Speaker 1: which actually we're not neurobiologically wired to maim, rape, hurt,
Speaker 1: and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
Speaker 1: we have to go through a system of de humanization.
Speaker 1: So the most classic understanding of that, or or evidence
Speaker 1: of that, would be a very very powerful marketing campaign
Speaker 1: by the Nazis and Nazi Germany late thirties around Jewish people,
Speaker 1: you know, using the words infestation, using you know, animals,
Speaker 1: rodents to describe. And then once you strip people of
Speaker 1: your humanity, you're able to do all kinds of things
Speaker 1: to folks. And so we thought with slavery in the
Speaker 1: United States as well. Yeah, of course, and we still
Speaker 1: see that, we still see the de humanization. Right. But
Speaker 1: if you call forty five, as you'll say, a pig,
Speaker 1: I'm banning you. And here's why. I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: story that a lot of people don't know about me,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a cusser. I'm a great cusser.
Speaker 1: I got I got every permeation of the F word
Speaker 1: that you it's something you've never even heard of. But
Speaker 1: I haven't said the word b I T c H
Speaker 1: since nineteen four. So, however many years at six twenty
Speaker 1: six years, and I'll tell you why. I had a professor,
Speaker 1: Karen Stout when I was in getting my graduate degree
Speaker 1: in social work, who studied femicide, the killing of women
Speaker 1: by intimate partners. And part of the project we did
Speaker 1: with her was analyzing court transcripts of not only mostly
Speaker 1: men who were of them were men who killed female partners,
Speaker 1: but also sexual assault, and in over these cases, the
Speaker 1: last word the woman heard was b I T H,
Speaker 1: which is a dehumanizing term, right It means dog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I am an equal opportunity blocker for dehumanizing.
Speaker 1: So one way I think we come back to each
Speaker 1: other is that is not okay if the left becomes
Speaker 1: the dehumanizing their own version of the maga hat people,
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in that world. We see it already.
Speaker 1: I mean there's I mean, I don't think there's an
Speaker 1: equivalent to maga on the left, but I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who I see it constantly, people
Speaker 1: who identify as politically progressive or leftist. When they say
Speaker 1: they're disgusting, they're horrible, They're awful like these are. This
Speaker 1: is language that I see constantly from people on the left.
Speaker 1: Now it feels to humanizing to me. It's dehumanizing now
Speaker 1: personally in terms of empathy and embracing the other side
Speaker 1: for me. Too soon, I'll be honest with you now,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be asked with you, why is it
Speaker 1: too soon? Let's say you and I. Let's say you're
Speaker 1: one of my relatives, but you are a conservative, conservative Republican.
Speaker 1: I am a I'm a moderate. Actually, I'm probably a
Speaker 1: moderate independent, to be honest with you. And if you
Speaker 1: and I want to go at it around social security,
Speaker 1: lack boxing, medical policy, immigration policy, that's great. But when
Speaker 1: you're politics by definition stripped me of my humanity, it's
Speaker 1: too soon for an empathic embrace. It's probably not safe.
Speaker 1: It's not safe, right, It's not safe. And so that's hard.
Speaker 1: And there was a real underbelly of white supremacy, white nationalism,
Speaker 1: violence that came along with this administration. Has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with conservative politics. It has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: constitutional conservatism. It has to do with a lack of
Speaker 1: respect for democracy and people. And I can't embrace that
Speaker 1: right now. I don't trust you. Yeah, I feel that
Speaker 1: I understand that. What I wonder what's interesting to me
Speaker 1: right now is thinking about sort of the history of
Speaker 1: the conservative politics so much of both Democratic and Republican politics.
Speaker 1: Race is just a huge, huge part of it. What Nixon,
Speaker 1: specifically in the Republican Party did at the time was
Speaker 1: used race as a way to galvanize white men at
Speaker 1: the time, and white men who sort of avoid majority
Speaker 1: and we know a lot of white women came along
Speaker 1: for the ride. And so we can say that conservative
Speaker 1: politics around, you know, fiscal conservatism and all, that's not
Speaker 1: really about race, but it is that party since sixty
Speaker 1: eight has always used race as a way to get
Speaker 1: folks to vote against their own economic interest, as a
Speaker 1: way to scapegoat and fearmonger, and that is something that
Speaker 1: the Republican Party has consistently done. Now, I would say
Speaker 1: I would say I'm an independent. I wouldn't say I'm
Speaker 1: I'm moderate in any way, but I'm definitely independent. But
Speaker 1: I think the Democratic Party, at least more recently has
Speaker 1: sort of given lip service to being anti racist. And
Speaker 1: because our politicians are sort of bought and paid for
Speaker 1: by special interests, they're not really doing anything for poor
Speaker 1: and working people, right, so that like the most marginalized
Speaker 1: people are still not really being helped by either party.
Speaker 1: And trying not to be cynical, but this year I've
Speaker 1: been very cynical thinking about where we are. The will
Speaker 1: of the people isn't really being done by the folks
Speaker 1: in power, and and so much of what the US
Speaker 1: versus Them is about is about people in power using
Speaker 1: the divide and conquer strategy, and folks are just buying
Speaker 1: into it. It feels like there's a couple of things, right.
Speaker 1: There's the interpersonal piece of what can we do to
Speaker 1: not dehumanize, to rehumanize, to have empathy and compassion and
Speaker 1: generocity towards each other on an interpersonal level. But then
Speaker 1: if we start thinking about its structurally, there's all this
Speaker 1: power and all of this money involved in keeping us
Speaker 1: divided it. You know, I think to me it comes
Speaker 1: down to the use of power by leadership. The Republican
Speaker 1: Party is the power over party, and the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is the power with empower to empower within party. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's the case. You know, power over
Speaker 1: works from this belief that power is finite, where power
Speaker 1: with empower to work from a position that collaboration is
Speaker 1: important because power is infinite when shared power over uses
Speaker 1: fear and blame. Just keep people afraid and tell them
Speaker 1: who's fault it is that you're afraid. So there's two
Speaker 1: things that I think are key to real power, and
Speaker 1: no one's going to like them, which are representation and reparations.
Speaker 1: So I believe in those two things absolutely. I believe
Speaker 1: in representation until we have a government that looks like
Speaker 1: the people it serves in terms of not just race, ethnicity,
Speaker 1: and gender, but class amen And then what are those
Speaker 1: reparations looks like? Are we talking racial reparations? Are we talking? Oh?
Speaker 1: I think we start with racial reparations, and I think
Speaker 1: the reparations should come in the form of funded healing
Speaker 1: of trauma and the dismantling of systems that perpetuate the trauma.
Speaker 1: I think we have to have some trauma work. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's time for a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Brian and I talked more about what our society needs
Speaker 1: to heal. Welcome back to my conversation with Dr Burne Brown.
Speaker 1: Let's just pick up where we left off. I've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of trauma work on my own and
Speaker 1: when I was doing a deep dive back into your
Speaker 1: work and looking at the ways in which we armor
Speaker 1: up around vulnerability. Um, victim of viking lens, right, My
Speaker 1: understanding of it is the victim biking lens. It's about
Speaker 1: not allowing ourselves to be victims. So the victim biking
Speaker 1: lens is a binary kind of way of looking at things.
Speaker 1: And it really is like, I have to be a
Speaker 1: fighter at all cost, so it has incredible judgment towards vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and so I must be armored up or I'm gonna die.
Speaker 1: It keeps us in a constant fight flighter freeze. It's
Speaker 1: a lens that keeps us always in this high zone,
Speaker 1: that keeps us always away from anything that might seem vulnerable.
Speaker 1: You're saying your work, it's really often a lens that
Speaker 1: trauma survivors use, and that that way of arming ourselves
Speaker 1: is a trauma response, but then also sort of keeps
Speaker 1: us in in the US versus them. It keeps us
Speaker 1: in that like fight flight of freeze. It keeps us
Speaker 1: in this place of not real resilience, and it it's
Speaker 1: almost a re traumatizing ourselves. What what Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I think everything you said, is true. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you know what it does to our body? You do?
Speaker 1: But does everyone know what it does to our body
Speaker 1: to stay in survival mode? Like that's a gear in
Speaker 1: our neurobiology that's meant to be used a couple of
Speaker 1: times in our lives. It's not a gear you're supposed
Speaker 1: to live in. Yeah, what was deep for me with
Speaker 1: all thinking about all the trauma work that I've been
Speaker 1: doing that I'm deeply aware of the ways in which
Speaker 1: I've used stress hormones like my whole life, because I've
Speaker 1: constantly been in this victim Viking lens because of my
Speaker 1: historic trauma, that trauma piece, that survival, fight flight or
Speaker 1: freeze kind of response that feels like it's also tied
Speaker 1: to belonging. You say in your work love and belonging
Speaker 1: or immutable needs of human beings, and that in the
Speaker 1: absence of that there's always suffering. But then also there's shame.
Speaker 1: Shame is the intensely painful belief we have a boy
Speaker 1: ourselves that were unworthy of connection and belonging, and so
Speaker 1: the shame response when we've been shunned and we don't
Speaker 1: have a sense of belonging our bodies responded to being
Speaker 1: shamed in the same way they response to trauma, so
Speaker 1: that we still have that same release of cortisol, of
Speaker 1: of stress hormones and we come out fighting right, And
Speaker 1: so then the way in which we're like at each
Speaker 1: other's throats is really like, are we all just in
Speaker 1: a perpetual fight flight or freeze? I mean the psychological piece. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand that power wants us
Speaker 1: to be doing this to each other. But it's not
Speaker 1: sustainable to be constantly a fight flight or freeze. It's
Speaker 1: not sustainable to constantly beat each other's throats, and it's
Speaker 1: not wholehearted living. It's not like we can't be happy.
Speaker 1: I mean, the research shows that we're more sorted now
Speaker 1: than we've ever been before. We're also more lonely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: isn't that incredible finding that as we sort ourselves into
Speaker 1: these ideological bunkers where I'm just around people like me.
Speaker 1: I go to church, I worship, I go to the
Speaker 1: grocery store. I don't talk to anyone that doesn't agree
Speaker 1: with me. And you think that would few connection. But
Speaker 1: the only thing that tracks in terms of social psychosocial characteristics,
Speaker 1: what tracks exactly with sorting is loneliness. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: I don't think that we're collectively in a place of
Speaker 1: joy or love or empathy right now. I don't think
Speaker 1: how we are is sustainable. I have to say that
Speaker 1: the biggest casualty of the last four years is how
Speaker 1: divisiveness was used to maintain and create power, and that
Speaker 1: we fell in line like we didn't transcend it. And
Speaker 1: some of the worst, most violent perpetrators of the divisiveness
Speaker 1: were not only given cover, but they were armed by
Speaker 1: this administration literally and figuratively. Yeah. And so if you
Speaker 1: think about what we're up against as a culture systems
Speaker 1: or systems, right, and so if you think about it
Speaker 1: as a family system, the very first thing that we
Speaker 1: know that I know is a social worker that would
Speaker 1: have to happen in a family system where there are
Speaker 1: deep fault lines and betrayals and rage and fear is
Speaker 1: the creation of physical and emotional safety. Mm. So that's
Speaker 1: the very first thing that has to happen. In physical
Speaker 1: and emotional safety. That means you have to address all
Speaker 1: kinds of violence, racial, economic violence, gender violence. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the very first thing I would do is there would
Speaker 1: be definitely a Pandemic Task Force in place, and we've
Speaker 1: already seen Biden do that. Biden Harris has done that,
Speaker 1: because we have to be physically safe. The second thing
Speaker 1: I would do is if you incided terror in a
Speaker 1: single person with a goal of scaring everyone that belonged
Speaker 1: to that group, you would be classified as a domestic
Speaker 1: terrorist and you would be held accountable accordingly. So if
Speaker 1: you burn across at a black church, that's an act
Speaker 1: of terrorism. If you taught hurt go after a trans
Speaker 1: woman on the street, that's an act of terrorism. And
Speaker 1: it's never if you think about terrorism as an international term,
Speaker 1: and I looked this up a lot when I was
Speaker 1: doing this research and talk to experts on terrorism, and
Speaker 1: you know, terrorism is never about the single act of violence.
Speaker 1: It's about the fear that instills in people. And normally
Speaker 1: successful acts of terrorism are simple acts of violence that
Speaker 1: over time create divisions and communities in terms of how
Speaker 1: to respond to that terrorism. And so the terrorists work
Speaker 1: is very simple, just to do enough that's random against
Speaker 1: a citizen so that people then get at each other's
Speaker 1: throats around how to solve for it. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're seeing today. And I think what's useful about that
Speaker 1: is understanding that we can begin to think about domestic
Speaker 1: terrorism and a relationship to black folks in the police right,
Speaker 1: that like, black people have been experiencing terrorism from the
Speaker 1: police since the police have existed in the United States.
Speaker 1: And I think for people who don't know your work
Speaker 1: really well and they're like, oh, this magasan extreme, But
Speaker 1: I think what you're talking about is what does accountability
Speaker 1: begin to look like? We have completely there's no accountability,
Speaker 1: and so we can't brave, we can't really be in
Speaker 1: our full integrity without accountability, there's just new have been
Speaker 1: no consequences. And so it sounds like what you're talking
Speaker 1: about with this classifying people's terrorists is what does accountability
Speaker 1: begin to look like in the United States of America?
Speaker 1: And then how do we own that history? How do
Speaker 1: we own the story? I think it was one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful things I've heard this year. You're a
Speaker 1: famous quote. When we deny our stories, those stories define us.
Speaker 1: And when we own our stories, we can write a
Speaker 1: brave new end. And we have not owned the story
Speaker 1: the legacy of racism and white supremacy in the United States,
Speaker 1: and that owning that story requires some accountability that we
Speaker 1: haven't done. And so that's what i'm that's what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing from what you said. Yeah, I am, And so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, simple acts of accountability. Help me understand,
Speaker 1: Somebody walk me through why there is no national database
Speaker 1: of police officers who have used excessive force. And I
Speaker 1: think if you dig deep enough, it's police unions protection
Speaker 1: of bad you know. But does that serve good cops? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't serve anybody. Everything. When you look at the
Speaker 1: history of policing, which I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: have been doing, they have been commissions and ultimately the
Speaker 1: police protect themselves. Historically, that's what every commission comes down to,
Speaker 1: police protecting themselves and sort of assuaging or mitigating accountability
Speaker 1: around their behavior. That is the history of policing in
Speaker 1: the United States. But I would like to remind you
Speaker 1: of I think you was your second Ted talk when
Speaker 1: you talked about people sort of attacking your appearance and
Speaker 1: how that like started this crazy shame storm for you.
Speaker 1: It feels like you have really done a lot of
Speaker 1: work to build a lot of shame resilience. We know
Speaker 1: from your research that appearance, embody image is a number
Speaker 1: one shame trigger for women still And do you feel
Speaker 1: that or have you come to a new place with that? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm at a new place with it. I think it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's this line in the Big Book that
Speaker 1: says one of the promises of recovery is the gift
Speaker 1: of neutrality, where you're neither running away from something as
Speaker 1: fast as you can, nor are you running toward it.
Speaker 1: And the condition for neutrality is to be in fit
Speaker 1: spiritual condition. And so I think my goal is I
Speaker 1: can't do this work without being in fit spiritual condition.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll have twenty five years so next year. Um,
Speaker 1: And for me, the neutrality is the booze was easy,
Speaker 1: this ust was harder. And the bread basket is a
Speaker 1: mother trucker. You know, I've been in the bread basket.
Speaker 1: I've been in the you know sugar or the little
Speaker 1: Debbie snack cakes. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, as
Speaker 1: long as I stay in fit spiritual condition, I have
Speaker 1: developed a neutrality where I'm not running toward investigating who
Speaker 1: said that and what can I find out about them?
Speaker 1: And what's my great comeback. I'm not shutting down social
Speaker 1: that I need to be on for work. I just
Speaker 1: feel a neutrality, but maintaining fit spiritual condition in this
Speaker 1: world is har hard for me. It's sleep, it's eating well,
Speaker 1: it's praying, it's resting well. It's being connected with the
Speaker 1: people I love and valuing them over the strangers um
Speaker 1: whose opinions I can take too seriously sometimes. So I'm
Speaker 1: a work in progress leaver and as you know, as
Speaker 1: m I can, I tell you I made a gratitude
Speaker 1: list for the first time in a really long time today,
Speaker 1: and it's something I used to do everything single morning
Speaker 1: when I wait, be the first thing I do, like
Speaker 1: at least list five things I'm grateful for or five
Speaker 1: things I'm manifesting, and I haven't been doing it. And
Speaker 1: I notice a difference the way I've armored up this
Speaker 1: year around perfectionism, chronic numbing, all the all the ways
Speaker 1: we armor up. It's been deep and like, just leaning
Speaker 1: into gratitude this morning shifted so much and acknowledging that
Speaker 1: I'm still struggling with vulnerability and that that is really
Speaker 1: at the heart of so much of this. And everyone
Speaker 1: who does a deep diving your work, your leadership work,
Speaker 1: every single aspect of your work, it always comes back
Speaker 1: to vulnerability. Always, and it's and it's does it just does.
Speaker 1: So on the podcast for every episode, I wanted to
Speaker 1: have this question what else is true? What else is true?
Speaker 1: Comes out of both and it's really about what we
Speaker 1: focus on. If I'm in pain and I focus on
Speaker 1: that pain, that's all I'm going to feel. But if
Speaker 1: I focus on something that is light and joyful and hopeful,
Speaker 1: that can become a resource. And it's not that the
Speaker 1: pain goes away, it's that this other thing can help
Speaker 1: mitigate that pain. What else is true? It's all about
Speaker 1: the resilient part of us. So that is what this
Speaker 1: question and this segment is about. It is about cultivating
Speaker 1: resilience within ourselves and remembering that what we focus on
Speaker 1: becomes the thing. So we can change what we focus
Speaker 1: on and change our energy, change how we feel. We
Speaker 1: have the power to change. So burne bround for you today,
Speaker 1: what else is True? I make a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 1: I'm often afraid. But one thing that I do believe
Speaker 1: is true is I am proud of my willingness to
Speaker 1: always try to do the next right thing. I think
Speaker 1: that's true of me. I think I am trying to
Speaker 1: do the next right thing. Yeah, And that is a
Speaker 1: resilient place. That's a that's a beautiful place. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Burnee. You can find Burnee Brown in so
Speaker 1: many places. She's a New York Times bestselling author. There's
Speaker 1: many books you can read. She has the podcast Unlocking Us,
Speaker 1: the podcast Dare to Lead. I Love. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite moments of yours is the Power of Vulnerability audio book.
Speaker 1: I literally, I think for about a year I listened
Speaker 1: to it every day. This is why I know your work.
Speaker 1: So for about a year I listened to it every day,
Speaker 1: and I was touring and I needed it. The Power
Speaker 1: Vulnerability is something I've shared with a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends and they've just it's changed their lives. Yeah, Power Vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Check out Bernie Brown. Thank you so much. This has
Speaker 1: been Thank you, Laverne. This has been everything. Wow, Bernie
Speaker 1: give us so much to think about, as always, what
Speaker 1: it means to rehumanize each other feels key. Berne has
Speaker 1: this great acronym that I find so helpful. It's big
Speaker 1: B I G. And it basically stands for what boundaries
Speaker 1: be need to be in place for me to maintain
Speaker 1: my integrity. I and make the most generous G assumption
Speaker 1: about you and braving the Wilderness. Berne not only invites
Speaker 1: us to brave the wilderness, but to become the wilderness.
Speaker 1: The price is high, the reward is great. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If this episode
Speaker 1: resonated with you, please leave a review, rate, subscribe, and
Speaker 1: share it with your friends. Next week, we'll be talking
Speaker 1: to Demona Hoffman about dating over forty yes and forty
Speaker 1: eight years old and proud. We'll see an next week.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne
Speaker 1: Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until
Speaker 1: next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show
Speaker 1: is the production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I
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