WEBVTT - Diary: Thinking About Privilege 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.519 Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:12.720 Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:26.680 My name is Laverne Cox. I've been thinking a lot 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:38.760 lately about privilege, and it's such a interesting, tricky conversation 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:39.480 to have. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:40.400 These days. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.279 You can see people online saying check your privilege, and 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.600 in people getting into fights around privilege and not feeling 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.680 privileged because they've had struggles in their lives. You know, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.040 when we talk about something like white privilege, for example, 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:56.800 there are a lot of working class white people who 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:58.959 don't feel privileged because they've had to struggle in their 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.920 lives and they're still struggling. A lot of men, when 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.600 we talk about male privilege, they're going through struggles and 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:09.360 they don't feel particularly privileged. And the way I like 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.720 to think about privilege is that privilege does not mean 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.479 that you have not struggled. It just means that there 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.800 are some things that you don't have to think about. 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.520 So you could be the most privileged. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.920 Person in one room and change rooms and be the 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.120 least privileged person in that room. And when I talk 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.840 about a privilege, I love telling this story I was 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:39.440 giving a lecture in South Carolina around twenty fourteen, and 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.440 before the lecture, I got to meet with a group 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.760 of students from the university and they had sat themselves 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.840 in a semicircle in this sort of conference room. And 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.720 I go around and I want to meet the students 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:52.280 and I ask them, you know who they are? 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.680 And they were all sort of student leaders. 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.680 They were representing different organizations and I am meeting. To 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.560 my left was the president of the LGBTQ Student Alliance. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.240 And I go around the table and the students hit 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.160 sat themselves in an interesting way where they the students 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:13.519 were like white to Asian to Latino or Hispanic to black. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.240 That's how the students were seated. 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.640 And so as the students went around, they told me 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:19.960 who they were, and I asked them some things they 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.760 may have been struggling with around identity or you know, 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.240 education or whatever they might have been struggling with at 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.800 the university. And I remember getting to the last student 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.959 who was who was a black student. He talked about 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.360 being black and gay and that as a member of 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.359 the Black student Union, he's often felt like he's had 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.320 to choose between being black and gay. When he's in 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.800 black spaces and when he's at the lgbt Alliance in 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:49.920 that group, that he has to sort of leave his 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.359 blackness behind and that he can't bring both those identities 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.600 into the queer space, or can he bring both those 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.560 identities into the black space. And so having the president 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.600 of the LGBTQ Student Alliance sitting right next to me, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.079 I turned to the to the president and said, well, 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.200 what do you think about what he said? And he's like, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.320 I don't know, I've never thought about it. And I 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.799 was like, that's this is privilege. I was like, this 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.160 is a privilege. It is not like he was a 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.919 bad person. This, this kid who's the president of you know, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.160 LGBTQ Student Alliance, is not a bad person because he's 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:27.160 never thought about this. 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.919 It's just it's a privilege to. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.320 Not have to think about leaving parts of yourself behind 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.040 when you go into a room because you inhabit multiple, 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.880 you know, sort of marginalized identities, and privilege just means 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.600 there's something that you don't have to think about and 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:49.720 it is not an indictment on you to have privilege. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:55.840 I am a black, transgender woman from a working class background, 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.480 right like all of those identity categories aren't necessarily thought 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.080 of as privilege. Yet I sit here in a lot 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.080 of privilege. I sit here in quite a bit of 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.760 class privilege. And the class privilege is recent, you know, 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.200 over the past, you know, within the past decade. And 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.080 I'm fifty years old, so most of my adult life 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.360 I've been working class, working poor, however you want to 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:24.720 describe it, but still fly and now I'm sitting in 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.960 a lot of class privilege. Being famous and a public 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:34.640 figure is a tremendous privilege. Fame mitigates so many of 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.840 the struggles of being black and trans and a woman 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.320 doesn't mitigate all of them, but it mitigates some of them. 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:44.040 Education. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.680 Having a mother that was a teacher was a tremendous 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.000 privilege of mine. Having a mother who corrected my grammar 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.359 and wanted to make sure that I spoke properly. That 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.960 I went to Bethel ami Church or Bethel African Methodist 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:01.120 Episcopal Church was a tremendous privilege because every Sunday I 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.640 summarized the Sunday School lesson, so weekly I was standing 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.000 up in front of a room full of people speaking, 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.800 and that would serve me later in my work as 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.000 a public speaker, going to the Abams School of Fine Arts. 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.120 Education is a huge privilege. So there's different kinds of privileges. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.400 And all those privileges did not mean that I have 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.880 not had a life of struggle. It just means that, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.720 like those privileges were things I didn't have to think 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.159 about and gave me entree into spaces that I maybe 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.919 wouldn't have gotten entree into if I didn't speak a 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.359 certain way and if I didn't have the education that 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.760 I have. And so, what I would love to invite 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.000 people to think about when they think about privilege and 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:49.120 ultimately when they think about racism or transphobia or sexism 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.080 is so I think so two things. When we think 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.960 about our own levels of privilege and the ways in 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.680 which we're privileged, it does not mean that we are 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.000 necessarily an open right. Being able to critically engage with 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.760 our privilege doesn't mean that we're a bad person and 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.960 that we're like oppressing someone. And I think that we 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.760 have to understand that ourselves. And then when we talk 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.640 about other people's privilege, we should be careful not to 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.000 paint them as an oppressor because they have maybe not 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.080 thought critically about their privileged or quote unquote checked their privilege. Right, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.320 So just because someone is privileged doesn't mean that they 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.880 are a bad person. And maybe if they haven't thought 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.400 critically about their privilege doesn't mean they're a bad person. 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.479 All of this should be an invitation. We all grow 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:41.760 up in a world where we internalize certain ideas. And 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.919 I've said this many many times, if I can be 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.159 I'm a black transfer to woman from Mobile, Alabama, I 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:53.680 internalized negative ideas about black people, and I'm a black person, 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.720 I internalize white supremacist, racist ideas about my own people 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.960 and myself that because we live in a white supremacist, 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.680 anti black world, I internalized negative ideas about myself based 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.920 on class. We had an episode in the last US 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.200 season of the podcast about class shaming. I internalized negative 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.720 ideas about myself as a trans person. Because we live 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.440 in an anti trans world. I had to unlearn all 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.080 of those negative things about myself. And so if I 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.720 can internalize negative things about myself as a black person, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.200 as a trans person, as a woman, as a person 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.280 from a working class background, because we live and what 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.000 Bellhus calls imperialists, white supremacists, capitalist patriarchy, we live in 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:38.400 a system that. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.240 Is racist, that is sexist, that is cis. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:48.120 Noormative, heteronormative. So then we all internalize these things. And 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.040 so if I'm internalizing it, even if you're a cis 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.480 gender person or a white person or a man, if 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:59.400 you likely internalize those things too. And so we're all 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.960 in the same boat. So calling someone racist, it's like 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.000 not it's not even really useful, I think anymore, because 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.760 we're all racist. We've all been sort of you know, God, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.280 indoctrination is such a loaded word right now, but we've 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.600 all sort of internalized. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.120 We've all been raised in a world. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:25.760 That devalues blackness, whether you're black or not, we all 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.080 live in a world that this celebrates on a systemic 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:34.760 level whiteness over other things that like devalues womanhood, femininity, 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.080 that devalues trans people and LGBTQ plus people, and we 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.800 all have to unlearn that. And so if we can 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.680 begin to envision a world where we're all in the 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:49.040 same boat, it's like the transphobia thing or the racist thing, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.800 like even calling someone I think the problem with just saying, oh, 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.160 this person is racist doesn't allow the space for transformation, 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.840 and the conversation about Bell Hooks with Darnell and Inmani 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.880 we talked about creating space for transformation, and when we 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.960 just say that someone is racist and that becomes their identity, 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.400 that doesn't open up space for transformation. Now, some people 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.600 are not interested in being transformed. Some people are not 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.040 interested in, like you know, interrogating the ways in which 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:18.720 they've internalized racism. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:20.000 It's very uncomfortable. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.920 It's been very uncomfortable for me to sit with the 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:29.160 uncomfortable feelings of like how I've internalized racist ideas about 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.800 myself and about my people, the internalized transphobia. 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:33.840 Oh my goodness. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.800 I don't know if I've told the story on this podcast, 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.240 but there was a moment when I was working at 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.760 Lucky Chang's, which is a drag queen restaurant in New 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.720 York City, which was and there was a woman named 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.720 Verra who had a school called Miss Vera's School for 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:51.800 Girls who want to be Boys, sort of a charm 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.480 school for cross dressers, and most of her clients were 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:59.440 straight identified CIS gender men who enjoyed cross dressing and 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.360 a sort of itishistic way. They were often married to women, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.960 and they would go to Miss Vere's charm School and 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.359 get lessons in femininity, and then sort of their graduation 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.839 would be getting dressed up on film and going out 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:13.960 for a night on the town. And often she would 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.199 bring them to Lucky Changs. And so one night, some 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.320 of the students from Mis Severe School that come into 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.440 Lucky Chang's and some of the girls who work at 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.800 Chang's found themselves so sort of saying really disparaging things 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.000 about the students from Miss Vera School who were very 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.800 obviously cross dressed men and who weren't the most feminine 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.880 or elegant or whatever. And I found myself joining in 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.800 with these other queens who I worked with, some of 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.640 whom were trans women, and then I had to check 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:44.480 myself and I was like, Laverne, what are you doing? 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.040 This is the same stuff people say about you. And 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.440 I realized in that moment, looking at these you know, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.280 students from Miss Vera's school who were these sort of 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.960 cross dressed men really probably for the first time out 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:02.000 in the world in drag, and the awkwardness of that 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.720 and the you know, the vulnerability of that moment, and 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:11.080 I had to confront my own sort of anxieties around 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.320 being seen that way by the world. My fear of 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:16.839 being seen is this sort of awkward cross stressor and 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.240 knowing that often when people find out I'm trans, I'm 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.960 viewed that way anyway. And so there were so many 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.520 levels of internalized transphobia that were operating in that moment 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.400 as I found myself joining in on making fun of 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.280 these students who were being really brave that night to come. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.280 Out for the first time, and I had. 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:43.079 To interrogate the way in which my internalized transphobia was. 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.360 You know, I hopefully I don't think they heard us, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.480 but that was really not cool, and that's not the 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.760 kind of person I want to be. I don't want 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.079 to be making fun of people because of the way 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.160 they look, and that's not how I want to proceed 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.000 in the world. So I had to check myself in 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.320 that moment, and I had to like say that I 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.199 don't want to behave this way and I don't want 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.480 to be this way in the world, and why am 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.360 I doing this? And I'm doing this because of my 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.200 own feelings about myself that I need to get better 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.800 with myself and okay with myself, and so much of 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.400 that for those of us who are from marginalized groups 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.719 who are internalize transphobia and sexism. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:23.720 That's the journey that we have to have. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.440 And if we're not from a marginalized group, if we are, 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.280 that cis white man that feels like they're being attacked 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.960 on a regular basis, Like the work is different. But 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.800 if I can be raised in a culture where I've 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:45.640 internalized racism and sexism and transphobia, it's probably likely that 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.000 you also internalize some of those ideas and it's not 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:58.920 and you're not a bad person if you're willing to say, yeah, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.960 I have, and how do I work on this and 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.679 how do I get better? How do I acknowledge that 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.679 there are certain things I haven't had to think about 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:13.080 around privilege, or things that I've taken for granted or 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.160 things that I've thought I knew or assumed. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:21.560 And it should be a privilege to. 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.600 Even when it's uncomfortable, to be lovingly called out. And 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.760 it's been uncomfortable for me when I've been checked around things. 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.440 It has been, but hopefully, like there are people in 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.920 your life who love you, who care about you, who 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.800 can lovingly say that's not it, and then hopefully you 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:45.000 can hear them. This is a good time to take 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:55.240 a little break. We'll be right back though, Okay, we're back. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.680 I think we're all I think we're all racist. I 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.920 think we're all transphobic. I think we're all sexist because 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.680 we've you know, grown up in a culture that has 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.600 sort of taught us all those things, and it's our 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.360 job to unlearn all that if we're interested in on 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:19.960 learning all those things, Like, maybe maybe a different way 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.840 to frame it. Instead of saying you are a racist 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:29.000 or you are transphobic, maybe like say, this language or 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:34.760 this approach is consistent with a history of transphobia, or 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:40.320 consistent with history that devalues the womanhood of trans women 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.840 or suggests that trans people aren't real. And when I 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.960 say transphobia, really just you know, most transphobia is about 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.680 sort of degrading trans people, saying that we're not real, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.960 saying that we're mentally ill. Ultimately, the core of transphobia 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:00.600 is that like trans women aren't trans women, that transmen transman, 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:02.840 and that non binary people don't exist. Like that's the 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.320 core of transphobia, or saying that, like, you know, the 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.080 Roseanne Barr moment, I think is a really good example, 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.440 like a really good example because it's just so blatant 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.640 when oh, I still can't say what she said about 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.080 Valerie jareded but you can google it. But after Roseanne 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.720 Barr tweeted what she tweeted about Valerie Jared and many 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:23.680 hours later would go on Twitter and say I'm not 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.920 racist when she said one of the most racist things 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.920 that somebody could say about a black person, It's like, 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.840 it's like, okay, what And I think she believes that 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.080 she's not racist, right, I think she can make a 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.720 statement like that and believe she's not racist. And so 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.120 I think having the discussion around like, well, what you 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.760 said is consistent with a history of how black people 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.720 have been talked about in America in a racist context, 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.560 So the accountability would be acknowledging that these comments are 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:02.200 consistent with that history. I didn't realize that, or I 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.080 realized it, and I was angry, and I said, who 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.600 knows how that came out or why you know it? 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.800 I extended as much grace as possible, But I think 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.160 it's more to focus on the behavior and not the person. 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:19.240 Is another way to kind of have the conversation maybe 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.560 about the ways in which we might discriminate or buy 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:29.040 into this normative, heteronormative imperialists, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. Maybe 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.840 focusing on the behavior and not the person, so it 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:36.320 doesn't become that person's identity the racism, but the racism 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.760 becomes a behavior that they can change. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:44.840 If they choose to or not. Just some thoughts, Just 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:45.520 some thoughts. 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.640 I'd like to think that everyone is redeemable, that everyone 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.720 is human and can be transformed. So you know, some 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.160 people demonstrate over and over again they're not interested in that, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.320 and we have to believe them when they tell us 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.359 that through their actions. But I want to be perceived 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.479 from a place of love and empathy at all times. 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.320 And I think that starting with we all have internalized 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.280 the values of this normative, heteronormative, impeerless, wide supremacist capitalist patriarchy. 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.400 It is a great place to start, so we're all 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.320 in the same place, and then we can begin to 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.159 do the work together and it doesn't become like you 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.320 did this to me, or you're a bad person, but 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.720 you've just gotten the wrong information. And here's different information 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.119 that you might want to consider so that you can 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.440 see the full humanity and not discount the full humanity 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.399 of the person standing next to you, or the person 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.639 on the other side of the screen, or any of that. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.480 So we can see each other better, see ourselves better, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.680 acknowledge our shared humanity better. That's what I'm interested in 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.320 as an artist, as a human rights activist, that we 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.200 can acknowledge each other's humanity more fully. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:11.359 Just some thoughts. Thank you for listening to The Laverne 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:11.880 Cox Show. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.000 Please rate reviews, subscribe and share with everyone you know 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.720 if you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:28.800 on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:36.040 stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show is a 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.360 production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:45.080 podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.439 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.