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Speaker 1: Hi everyone at Sophia, and welcome back to work in Progress.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is a towering figure in racial justice and

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Speaker 1: the struggle for equality. His name has been invoked in

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Speaker 1: Senate hearings, across news networks, and on the floor of

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. His book, How to Be An Anti

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Speaker 1: Racist spent nearly fifty weeks on the New York Times

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Speaker 1: bestseller list. In he was named one of the hundred

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Speaker 1: most Influential People of the Year by Time magazine. Today,

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Speaker 1: we are sitting down with professor, author, and activist Dr

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Speaker 1: Ibram X Kendy. Dr Kendy was born in Queens, New York,

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Speaker 1: but finished his secondary education in Manassas, Virginia after his

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Speaker 1: family relocated there. In Dr Kendy continued his education in

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Speaker 1: African American studies, eventually earning a PhD in the field

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Speaker 1: from Temple University. Dr Kendy went on to continue the

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Speaker 1: examination of race relations and racism in the United States

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Speaker 1: as a professor, essayist, historian, columnist, author, and most recently,

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Speaker 1: as the host of a podcast through I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: The podcast, Be Anti Racist with Ebram x Kendy is

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Speaker 1: a weekly interview show that discusses what it would mean

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Speaker 1: and what it would take to build an anti racist society.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot I want to talk to Dr Kendy about,

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Speaker 1: and even more I have to learn from him. So

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Speaker 1: let's get started before we dive into your work and

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Speaker 1: books and the new podcast and all of the projects

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Speaker 1: that you're working on. I actually love to start in

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Speaker 1: reverse with my guests. You know, who were you before

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Speaker 1: you were the doctor, you know, turning heads and giving

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Speaker 1: ted talks? Who was Abraham as a young man? What

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Speaker 1: were you inspired by as a child. Where you were

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Speaker 1: you always intellectually curious or or were you completely different

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Speaker 1: than the man who sits across from me now when

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Speaker 1: you were ten years old? So it's interesting. I feel

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Speaker 1: like when I was ten years old, I was almost

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Speaker 1: at the height of my academic career. I think, like

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Speaker 1: so like fourth I think it was fourth grade were

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Speaker 1: ten were around fourth grade. I remember in fourth grade,

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Speaker 1: that's when I think I did really really well, like

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Speaker 1: on all my finals, and I was like so proud,

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Speaker 1: and my favorite teacher was my teacher in fourth grade,

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Speaker 1: Mrs Miles. But then it started going downhill from there

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Speaker 1: and by the time I got to high school, like

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Speaker 1: I hated school. I struggled mightily freshman year. By the

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Speaker 1: time senior year came around, you know, I didn't know

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Speaker 1: whether I was even college material, and so I was

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Speaker 1: quite shocked when I when a college admitted me. And

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Speaker 1: even I think most of my even my academic career,

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Speaker 1: I think because I struggled so often, particularly in middle

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Speaker 1: school and high school, I think, in many ways, maybe

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Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why I sort of pushed

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Speaker 1: so hard and try to do so much um and

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Speaker 1: have so much to prove in a sense. And then

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Speaker 1: that was only height and I think when you know,

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Speaker 1: I battled serious illness, but no, I mean it was

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Speaker 1: when I was growing up. I would have if somebody

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Speaker 1: would have told me you're going to become a college

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Speaker 1: professor and like read books all the time and and

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Speaker 1: and talk to people like you and and and give

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Speaker 1: talks and write books. I would have been like, you're crazy,

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Speaker 1: that's that's not happening. Gosh, that's funny to think of

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Speaker 1: you as a little kid going no way, if you'd

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Speaker 1: had a window into your future, what were you really

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Speaker 1: into that fourth grade year? Were there books that really

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Speaker 1: inspired you or or with school as a whole, just

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Speaker 1: kind of full of possibility at that point I was,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was really into sports, So I played baseball.

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Speaker 1: I started playing baseball when I was six years old,

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Speaker 1: I think, and I was I think I was just

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Speaker 1: about starting to really play basketball, which growing up in

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Speaker 1: New York City, I mean that's what that's what we did.

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Speaker 1: We played basketball. I mean, I think I still was

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Speaker 1: interested in sort of inquisitive and had a sense of justice,

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Speaker 1: I think, a firm sense of justice, but it wasn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily sort of tied to what it is now. Did

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Speaker 1: that sense of justice have anything to do with your

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Speaker 1: your parents both being so tied into healthcare when you

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Speaker 1: were growing up. I think that was sort of part

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Speaker 1: of it, and even my both of my My father

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Speaker 1: was a minister, you know, aside from his sort of career,

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Speaker 1: and my mother became a minister when I was in

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Speaker 1: high school. And I think their ministry was was a

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Speaker 1: justice oriented ministry as opposed to a I'm gonna sort

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Speaker 1: of talk down to people and tell people how they

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Speaker 1: need to civilize themselves to the church. So I think

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Speaker 1: they're even their ministry I think instilled in me a

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Speaker 1: pretty strong moral compass. What was it like, especially to

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Speaker 1: what your mom step into a role like that when

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Speaker 1: you were a teenager. I think it was it was striking.

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Speaker 1: I think it may have been one of the ways

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Speaker 1: in which I first started to become aware of of

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Speaker 1: sexism and even the way that women's bodies are policed,

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Speaker 1: because my mother would always wear like stylished shoes and

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Speaker 1: and sort of I mean she was quite stylish, you

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Speaker 1: know when she would go to church, not stylished until

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Speaker 1: the terms of the way that an old lady with

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Speaker 1: her with her hat. But what stylish, you know, even

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Speaker 1: though she was older, means she would many people took

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Speaker 1: her that she was like in her sort of thirties

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Speaker 1: or twenties, and and so obviously some of the older

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Speaker 1: ladies in the church and many of the older men

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Speaker 1: had had issues with the way she dressed. And then

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Speaker 1: also the way she even preached, when she was very

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Speaker 1: directed and sort of in your face. I think some

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Speaker 1: people had took issues with that as well. And obviously,

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Speaker 1: I mean, since it was my mother, I thought that

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Speaker 1: they were crazy and and but it allowed me to

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Speaker 1: also start to see, particularly as I stated, the way

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Speaker 1: in which women were policed in general and society. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's so much intimidation that comes sort of right to

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Speaker 1: the forefront. I think for many women who are outspoken,

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Speaker 1: um who choose to be political, choose to talk about

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Speaker 1: justice in In my line of work, I get a

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Speaker 1: lot of can't you just stick to acting? And I think,

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Speaker 1: how interesting, you know, do what do we tell someone

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Speaker 1: to stick to bank telling or to stick to cashiering.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I want to put the I

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Speaker 1: n G on the end of any sort of job

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Speaker 1: a person could do, but this notion that, especially if

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Speaker 1: you're a woman, you're meant to do whatever it is

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Speaker 1: you do in a way that doesn't inconvenience for people

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Speaker 1: who interact with you. And I can only imagine and

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Speaker 1: and you know, a faith institution where there is so

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Speaker 1: much traditional patriarchy often at play, what that must have

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Speaker 1: been like in that you're out for your mom, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: without question. And I think it's also as a father

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Speaker 1: raising a daughter and sort of knowing the ways in

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Speaker 1: which people are going because of their sexist or patriarchal ideas,

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Speaker 1: are going to tell her that she should not be

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Speaker 1: speaking that loud, or that forcibly, or or demanding yes

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Speaker 1: or no. I think it's been difficult for me because

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Speaker 1: I'm always constantly trying to think through, you know, how

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Speaker 1: do I empower her specifically as as a man, as

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Speaker 1: a sort of a male figure, how do how do

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Speaker 1: I normalize her pushing back? But then also how do

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Speaker 1: I be a father? So it's why it's a weird

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Speaker 1: sort of thing that I'm I'm even personally trying to recommend,

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Speaker 1: because I even think it happens before people become women.

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Speaker 1: It happens to them as girls and and and sometimes

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Speaker 1: with with family. Oh my gosh, I went through a

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Speaker 1: lot of that as a kid, and I think being

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Speaker 1: also very inquisitive and curious and and just loving to learn,

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Speaker 1: there were lots of people who didn't know what to

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Speaker 1: do with me. And I sounded like this from the

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Speaker 1: time that I was I don't know, eight or something.

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Speaker 1: I'd opened my mouth and people were like, who is

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Speaker 1: this little old man and this tiny girl's body? You know?

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Speaker 1: And and my my parents sort of found an example

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Speaker 1: set when I was in middle school, I started going

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Speaker 1: to an all girls school and that that was a place.

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Speaker 1: Just recently, I saw my family on Father's Day and

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Speaker 1: my dad was speaking about how he learned so much

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Speaker 1: about ways to be my father by watching how I

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Speaker 1: was being educated in an institution that prioritized the you know,

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Speaker 1: outspoken academic rearing of young women, and that it helped

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Speaker 1: him unlearn some things which he had never told me before.

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Speaker 1: And I just thought it was such an interesting thing

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Speaker 1: as an adult now too, to hear from his perspective,

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Speaker 1: and it just reminded me of how much the place

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Speaker 1: is where we learn can impact us forever. Oh, I mean,

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Speaker 1: without question, I think about it for you because you know,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned growing up in New York City, and I

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Speaker 1: know that just before high school, where you also talked

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Speaker 1: earlier about you know, things shifting for you, you you

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Speaker 1: relocated to Virginia. Do you think that was part of

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Speaker 1: that change for you at that time? Did you? Was

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Speaker 1: that a wild experience of culture shop to to make

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Speaker 1: a move like that, Oh yeah, without a question. I

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Speaker 1: mean I grew up in Jamaica Queens, which was predominantly black,

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Speaker 1: um in working class and and even middle income neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: and and then to move to Manassas, Virginia, which was

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Speaker 1: a suburb of Washington, d C. Was predominantly white, predominantly

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Speaker 1: middle income, and even go to high school named after

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Speaker 1: a Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Uh, and even down the

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Speaker 1: road at Manassas Battlefield Park, that's where people would come

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Speaker 1: to relive Confederate War victories. I mean, it was like

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Speaker 1: it was like night and day. And I also think

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Speaker 1: so my parents when I sort of went to stone Wall,

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Speaker 1: they decided to put me in these advanced sort of classes,

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Speaker 1: and so I was typically the only black student in

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Speaker 1: the class or one of two. Again, I had my

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Speaker 1: almost my entire sort of schooling life. I had been

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Speaker 1: in predominantly black classrooms. So to go from predominantly black

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Speaker 1: classrooms to being the only black student, and then too

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Speaker 1: two begin to see the ways in which people were

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Speaker 1: seeing me as black. So when you're in a black space, right,

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Speaker 1: people just see you as taller or shorter, or lighter

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Speaker 1: skin or doctor skin. It's not that you're black, right,

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Speaker 1: But to experience that, and then also to experience the

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Speaker 1: ways in which people were thinking that I was less

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Speaker 1: than because I was black, and and even the ways

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Speaker 1: in which people were not nurturing me or or thinking

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Speaker 1: that they should have eye expectations for me because I

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Speaker 1: was black, and as being a sort of somewhat already

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Speaker 1: sort of d ring into the space with some in

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Speaker 1: which I was sort of lacking confidence. It almost reinforced

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Speaker 1: that lack of confidence, which then led to this sort

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Speaker 1: of downward spiral. If you don't mind me asking, because

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure there are people who are listening to

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Speaker 1: this who are thinking, what is that experience? And the

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Speaker 1: closest you know, experience I've had in a version of

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Speaker 1: what you're saying is when I, as a woman, I'm

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Speaker 1: in spaces with all women. I'm very clear on the

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Speaker 1: difference in what it feels like when I then enter

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Speaker 1: into a room filled with all men or where I'm

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Speaker 1: maybe one of two women, And so I make a

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Speaker 1: relative comparison only to to invite anyone at home who

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Speaker 1: might be wondering exactly what you mean, to investigate whether

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Speaker 1: they have a relative experience where they have felt um

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Speaker 1: either others or perhaps a little unsafe in a space.

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Speaker 1: I know that you know, gender based violence has definitely

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Speaker 1: made me cognizant of especially if it's late at night,

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Speaker 1: if I'm in a space that's filled with all men

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Speaker 1: and men, I don't know, I feel very d it

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Speaker 1: feels very destabilizing, and so I wonder as a teenage boy,

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Speaker 1: going from the experience where you're just you because almost

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Speaker 1: everyone around you looks like you, to you being one

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Speaker 1: one or maybe one of two black students in some

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Speaker 1: of these classrooms. When you look back, are are there

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Speaker 1: facets of that experience that you could offer as an

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Speaker 1: example to to someone who's trying to learn about the

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Speaker 1: experience of other people in rooms. That's a It's an

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Speaker 1: incredibly important question. And I think that as one of

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Speaker 1: the only black students, people who came from an environment

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Speaker 1: in which you is exposed to the huge diversity of

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Speaker 1: black people. When people would come to me, to quote,

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Speaker 1: ask me questions about black people, it would be very

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Speaker 1: difficult for me to answer those questions because I'm like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm just one black person. But again,

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Speaker 1: I think I had that perspective just because I knew

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Speaker 1: so many different black people that I think if I

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Speaker 1: would have grown up in that space and I wasn't

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Speaker 1: exposed to as many black people as I was growing

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Speaker 1: up in Jamaica Queens, I may have had a different perspective.

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Speaker 1: So it was typically very uncomfortable for me when people

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Speaker 1: would sort of ask me questions about blackness or black people,

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Speaker 1: as if I was some sort of representative or expert

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Speaker 1: just because I was black. You know, obviously, I think

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Speaker 1: many people have talked about and I think people can

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Speaker 1: relate to this. When you are one the only one

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Speaker 1: or or one of few, and your group is discussed

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Speaker 1: in the larger conversation, it typically makes you feel uncomfortable,

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Speaker 1: even if the group is being praised, right, but certainly

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Speaker 1: if the group is being denigrated or if you're not

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Speaker 1: talked about, it also makes you feel uncomfortable. Right if

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Speaker 1: if you know that your group or a group that

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Speaker 1: you're you're part of, has made a contribution to that story,

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Speaker 1: should be part of that story, and it is left out,

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Speaker 1: and then what do you do? Do you do you

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Speaker 1: sort of raise your hand and say, well, you why

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Speaker 1: aren't you talking about black folks or aren't you talking

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Speaker 1: about women? It's it's quite uncomfortable. Um. And oftentimes when

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Speaker 1: you are the only one, no matter your sort of identity,

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Speaker 1: it's oftentimes the case that you or people like you

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Speaker 1: are just not talked about. So it's oftentimes that silence

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Speaker 1: which then erases you even when you're there. And the

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Speaker 1: dichotomy of that is really taking my breath away. That

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Speaker 1: the simultaneous potential to experience a ratio and also to

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Speaker 1: be made so synonymous with the group you're identified with

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Speaker 1: that you are just Yeah, it's almost like you're a

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Speaker 1: generic representative of a monolith. But you're not a monolith.

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Speaker 1: Black people are not a monolith. Women are not a monolith.

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Speaker 1: And and so what is what a strange sort of

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Speaker 1: chasm to be stretched across where you're either erased or

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Speaker 1: you're sort of given like a false iconography, and neither

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Speaker 1: feels authentic to you. And you, in your experience, are

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Speaker 1: going through all of this, as you said, having moved

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Speaker 1: to a place where the culture shock is real for

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Speaker 1: you and you have to walk into your school every

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Speaker 1: day and look at the name of a defender of slavery,

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Speaker 1: Like I, I would have really struggled with that. And

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Speaker 1: I I'm sure in hindsight, given the work you do

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Speaker 1: and the way that you unpack hundreds of years of

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Speaker 1: you know, American history and and the narratives we've told

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Speaker 1: ourselves here, I imagine that's quite a paint by numbers

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Speaker 1: of your own childhood life where you're connecting all those dots.

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Speaker 1: But but was was any of that something that consciously

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Speaker 1: weighed on you at the time. Were there conversations among

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Speaker 1: students even about changing the name of the school, because

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Speaker 1: I know that they recently did, but but we're people

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Speaker 1: talking about this back then? Or was that not a

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Speaker 1: topic of discussion? So it generally wasn't It wasn't a

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Speaker 1: topic of conversation of discussion when when I was there.

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Speaker 1: And I think part of my struggle is that when

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Speaker 1: I was at Stone Wall, when I was in high

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Speaker 1: school in Manassas, Virginia, I had a sense of racism,

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Speaker 1: and I could certainly identify it when I personally experienced it.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, I thought that I was

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Speaker 1: sort of blessed, and I thought that I was the problem.

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Speaker 1: I thought that black youth of the problem. Part of

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Speaker 1: the way in which I explained what I was experiencing

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Speaker 1: and even what other black youth in my class or

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Speaker 1: I should say school, was experiencing, was to really consume

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Speaker 1: just the widespread ideas in the nineties that there was

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Speaker 1: something wrong with black youth, and like, if there was

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Speaker 1: ever a decade in history where black youth were just

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Speaker 1: consistently and constantly vilified, you know, it was the most people,

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Speaker 1: of course know that is the decade when the term

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Speaker 1: super predator sort of emerged, and that was specifically about

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Speaker 1: black youth, particularly preteens. But but that was also that

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Speaker 1: the decade where a no excuses school movement emerged primarily

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Speaker 1: to quote serve black and brown students who it was

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Speaker 1: imagined six year olds were making too many excuses. That

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Speaker 1: was the decade in which it was imagined that black

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Speaker 1: teenage girls were having too many babies to to get

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Speaker 1: too much welfare. I mean, this was a decade in which,

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Speaker 1: in many ways American politics revolved around this menace to society,

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Speaker 1: you know, black youth. And I ended up consuming some

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Speaker 1: of those ideas, and so my senior year, I ended

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Speaker 1: up giving a speech for an MLK competition in which

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Speaker 1: the speech was littered with all those ideas about what

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Speaker 1: was wrong with with black youth, and I took That's

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Speaker 1: why I decided to really start even how to be

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Speaker 1: an anti racist with that story, because it just went

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Speaker 1: to show just how seductive, just how widespread, just how

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Speaker 1: it was even possible for for the victims of an

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Speaker 1: idea to consume it and then that impact their own

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Speaker 1: life in the way that it did be. And how

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Speaker 1: I've spent the really last twenty one years trying to

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Speaker 1: sort of unlearned them and learn anti racist ideas. When

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Speaker 1: you think back to that moment as a young man,

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Speaker 1: having internalized so much of our societal narrative about racism,

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Speaker 1: and in that moment you refer to in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: when all of these ideas were hitting the mainstream, how

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Speaker 1: do you see it now? What What do you wish

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Speaker 1: you could have explained to that teenage boy, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you could sit down with him today, what ideas

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Speaker 1: would you want to challenge? First? For him? Wow, I

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Speaker 1: think I would first say to that teenage boy that

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Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with you and and and people like you.

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Speaker 1: I think that's first. Secondly, that if if people see

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Speaker 1: you or view you as dangerous, that's a dangerous idea.

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Speaker 1: You're not dangerous. And even the reason why there's this

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Speaker 1: relationship there was at the time in the Spit Stereo

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Speaker 1: is between you know, higher levels of unemployment and higher

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Speaker 1: levels of violent crime and black youth, particularly in urban areas,

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Speaker 1: had astronomically high levels of unemployment in the nineties, and

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Speaker 1: there was this massive up surge over the course of

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Speaker 1: decades from the fifties to the nineties and specifically black

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Speaker 1: youth being unemployed, and no one was looking at that

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Speaker 1: as a as a potential explanation for why you had

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Speaker 1: some some levels of violent crime that even when people

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Speaker 1: did longitudinal studies and controlled for employment levels between white

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Speaker 1: and black youth, levels of violent crime were erased. So

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Speaker 1: these are the types of things I would have shared.

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Speaker 1: I would have also sort of urged myself to not

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Speaker 1: assess myself from what my classmates were thinking and doing,

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Speaker 1: and I would have urged myself to just have the

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Speaker 1: freedom to be. I would have given myself probably some

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Speaker 1: books by zone Il Hurston and James Baldwin. I would

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Speaker 1: have wished I could have brought back Jason Reynolds and

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Speaker 1: Jacqueline Woodson's book and other of some of these great

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Speaker 1: writers for young people today, because I didn't really read

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Speaker 1: that much in high school, because the books that were

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Speaker 1: offered through my classes were typically books that were just

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Speaker 1: not interesting to me. I couldn't relate to. I didn't

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Speaker 1: really dig Shakespeare much at all. But once I got

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Speaker 1: to college and my English one on one class, I

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Speaker 1: was reading all this black lid. You know, I've been

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Speaker 1: reading ever since, And isn't that interesting that you find

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Speaker 1: something that opens up the way you see yourself. You know,

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Speaker 1: that's the potential of a book, that's the potential of

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Speaker 1: of studying it. It makes me curious because you talk

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Speaker 1: about that opening for you in college, and when you

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Speaker 1: got your PhD at Temple, your dissertation was titled the

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Speaker 1: Black Campus Movement, An Afrocentric narrative of the struggle to

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Speaker 1: dive or sapphi higher education and you studied the time

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Speaker 1: period of two So was it this introduction to black literature,

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Speaker 1: these these spaces in which you finally felt seen that

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Speaker 1: made you want to look back at ways in which

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Speaker 1: education was not being diversified and could be It was

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Speaker 1: was that the was that the seedling that that planted? Then?

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Speaker 1: Do you think? I think so? And I think especially

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Speaker 1: when I when I learned that it was people my age,

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Speaker 1: you know, black students and their allies of other races,

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Speaker 1: who who pushed for that, Who who pushed to ensure

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Speaker 1: that that the literature, that the histories that we're teaching

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Speaker 1: is really reflective of the nation of the people who

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Speaker 1: who are living here, That that even pushed for what

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Speaker 1: black students called the black perspectives, the black perspective in

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Speaker 1: other words, you can look at the same historical moment

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Speaker 1: and see it from the perspective of black people, or

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Speaker 1: white people, or men or women, or or queer or heterosexual,

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00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: you know people, and and so just to see that

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Speaker 1: that it was young people who were standing up and

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Speaker 1: standing out and calling for an anti racist education, I

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Speaker 1: think inspired me and I wanted to learn more about

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Speaker 1: them and showcase them. I think about those young people

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Speaker 1: petitioning to change the name of your former high school.

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Speaker 1: Was it a surreal moment when you saw that there

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Speaker 1: were young people petitioning to change the name of Stonewall

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00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 1: two the Ebram X Kendy High School? Is that I mean?

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Speaker 1: I know, I know that they settled on the Unity

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Speaker 1: Read High School, which fine, great, But I just imagine,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a fan of yours, having watched it happen,

394
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Speaker 1: I was like, is he having a real moment that

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Speaker 1: they're trying to get his high school renamed after him

396
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Speaker 1: right now? Because I don't know if you were, but

397
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Speaker 1: I was having a moment for you. Did that feel

398
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: so surreal to think about? As you'd gone back to

399
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Speaker 1: study young students, to look at the young students in

400
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: your former institution of learning, who who are studying you.

401
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: I mean, is that mind blowing or did it? Did

402
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 1: it not feel that way so much to you? No,

403
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely mind blowing, and it was

404
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: it was definitely surreal, and it was it was not

405
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: something I ever thought was possible. Well, I think what

406
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: was striking was I learned early on that they were considering,

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00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: you know, changing the name, and and I had, you know,

408
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: since I had graduated. Of course I wanted that and

409
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: and advocated for that. Never even thought for a second

410
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,719
Speaker 1: that that my name. I mean, that was just you know, crazy.

411
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Speaker 1: And I had friends from high school who who text

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00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 1: me or called me and it was like, are they

413
00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: crazy that they're really going to name it after you,

414
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: you know, saying in a joking way. Um. And so

415
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: I also liked that it allowed me to reconnect really

416
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: with some some high school friends who hadn't you know,

417
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: spoken to and they all thought it was either it

418
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: was so cool or so funny. But no, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean the fact that even I think not only

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00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: that students sort of pushed for it, but even the

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00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: descendant of Stonewall Jackson himself thought it was best for

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Speaker 1: for the district to rename it after me, and of

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00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: all the people you know, for him to think that

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00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: it should be named after me, I think was was

425
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: certainly something that was touching. Yeah, it really struck me

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00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 1: as a as an example of the power of ownership

427
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: and what that can mean energetically, the idea that we

428
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: as a group of human beings can say this is

429
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: a wrong from our history. We'd like to rewrite it,

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00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,959
Speaker 1: we'd like to shift how we talk about it. And

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00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: when I saw that that his great great grandson was

432
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: behind the petition, I just thought that that to me

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00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: feels like a type of reparation, a type of a

434
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: call really for repair, and and what repair can mean,

435
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: I think in in terms of our conversations about justice

436
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 1: and about really facing the truth of America. When we

437
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: talk about reparations, we do so financially, you know, we

438
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 1: talk about, as you said, disparities and and really apartheides

439
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: and resources. I got to talk to a phenomenal um

440
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: advocate in the food justice space who said, we have

441
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: to stop talking about food deserts because the word desert

442
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: is something natural, a food desert, an opportunity desert. These

443
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: phrases we use, these aren't natural. These aren't deserts. They're apartheids.

444
00:27:55,040 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: They've been They've been created to cause dis branchisement, and

445
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: the disenfranchisement leads to harm. And we see the outcomes

446
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: in everything from the way that black people are disproportionately

447
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: killed by police to the way that black and brown

448
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID. There have been

449
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: these resource apartheides that our history has created. And if

450
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: we're unwilling to acknowledge it, and if we're unwilling to

451
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: close those gaps with reparative resources, I for one don't

452
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 1: know how we're meant to really move forward. And I

453
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: and I think about how, in terms of what we're discussing,

454
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: the repair can be financial. The repair can also be

455
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: in our language. And we need all of it, really, Oh,

456
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: I agree, and and and we also need to realize

457
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: that it's possible. And and what's striking Sophia is that

458
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: when we take this off of race, there are certain

459
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: things that that makes sense. So to give an example,

460
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: my my father's father was not around and and so

461
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: my father made it a mission that he was going

462
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: to be different from his father, right, that that he

463
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: was gonna sort of be there for his kids. And

464
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: so when my father or other people whose father's you know,

465
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: weren't around, tell that story, people see them as wanting

466
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: to change the story, you know, of their family. And

467
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: it makes sense to people. But for whatever reason, you know,

468
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: when you're a descendant of a slaveholder, or a descendant

469
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: of a of a klansman, or a descendant of you know,

470
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: Jim Crow, segregationists or slave trader, suddenly people want to

471
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: quote somehow defend their family member or it wasn't that bad,

472
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: or or I'm not sort of reaping the benefits as

473
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: opposed to saying, you know what, yes, it was that bad,

474
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: and I want to change the story on my family's history,

475
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted such that a hundred years from now,

476
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: when when people think of my family name, they don't

477
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: think of a of an enslaver, They think of someone

478
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: like me who who fought against you know, slavery in

479
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: prison in my era, you know. And that's possible, and

480
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: it's possible for families to change. It's it's possible for

481
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: individuals to change. And and I think, for I think

482
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: one thing that I've tried to emphasize, even with the

483
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: term racist and anti racist is for people to see

484
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: these terms as not fixed, that these aren't fixed categories,

485
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: that these aren't identities. This is this is what a

486
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: person is being in any given moment, and people have

487
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: the capacity to change. That's one of the things I

488
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: think is so powerful about your book, and even in

489
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: the way that that, as you mentioned, you opened it

490
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: sharing a story of the racist tropes that you, as

491
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: a young black man had internalized, and when you there's

492
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: something so powerful. Well, I think about when people talk

493
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: about their own unlearning, when you are willing to learn

494
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: in public and offer your own vulnerability of what you

495
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: believed about yourself that was not true, of something that

496
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: you were raised to think was normal that you learned

497
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: was not of the statistical truths that you learn when

498
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: you reference you know, young white men and young black

499
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,479
Speaker 1: men and and crime rates, um really what they're dependent

500
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: on his poverty. I think what has been so powerful

501
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: for so many people, myself included read your book is

502
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: this idea when we really get down to the language

503
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: that we have made societally. And there are people who

504
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: have pushed for this because it benefits their hysteria politics.

505
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: But we've made the term racist, We've made it like

506
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: a brand. We've made it something that if if you're

507
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: deemed it, it's like on your forehead forever. And and

508
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: what you argue, you know, for for the folks at home,

509
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: is that it is an observation of an action. You

510
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: can take a racist action, you can take anti racist action.

511
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: But the idea that that we are all so nervous

512
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: to be deemed racist in a way makes us turn

513
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: away or deny the racism that's everywhere in our society.

514
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: These these historical systems of oppression. Um, when you talk

515
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: about the enslavement of people's in the era in which

516
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: the slave trade existed, we can't divorce that historical reality

517
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: from the current reality of the private prison system in America.

518
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: We still enslave people, just in different systems. And and

519
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: I think this desperation for us, in our most sort

520
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: of small individual selves, which we all have the desperation

521
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: to be good and to be worthy and to be

522
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: alive for a purpose. It's it's difficult to say, oh,

523
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: I come from this system, I was born in this system.

524
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: I have benefited consciously or unconsciously from this system. It requires,

525
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: as you've said, you said this in your Ted talk

526
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: I believe it requires immense vulnerability to hold ourselves in

527
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: the truth of this larger system we're all a part of.

528
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: So how do you begin to delineate the line between

529
00:33:54,400 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: racism as a system, racist policy as policy itself and

530
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: sort of de identify people, readers, audiences. You speak to

531
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: um from the idea of being racist and instead talk

532
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 1: to them about how their actions are racist or anti racist. Well, first,

533
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: I think what's striking right now, in this very moment

534
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 1: is one of the ways in which my work is

535
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: being attacked, UM is people are saying that I'm arguing

536
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: that white people are inherently racist. And what's striking about

537
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 1: that is that I actually argue directly against the idea

538
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: that any group of people, or even any person, no

539
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: matter their skin color, is inherently racist or anti racists.

540
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: And these constructs like I don't have a racist bone

541
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: in my body, Bundy, or you know that's not in

542
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: my heart, that that these are all sort of fairy tales,

543
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: um that what's actually the case if we sort of

544
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: break it down in its elemental sort of parts, you

545
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 1: have racist and anti racist ideas. Racist ideas cannote that

546
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: certain racial groups are superior or inferior, and and we

547
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: don't typically use terms like inferior, in superior. So what

548
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: we say is, well, this is what's wrong with black people.

549
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: This is the reasons why they're they're dying at higher

550
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: rates from COVID, or why there's higher rates of violent

551
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: crime because of these behavioral or cultural sort of reasons

552
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: which are expressions of inferiority. Or this is the reason

553
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: why white people have ten times more wealth than than

554
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 1: black people because of all these things they're doing well,

555
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: which are connotations of superiority. But and so those they're

556
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: racist ideas and anti racist ideas and anti racist ideas

557
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 1: challenge those ideas and and convey that the racial groups

558
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: are equals despite any sort of differences, whether phenotypic or cultural.

559
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: And then their policies, as you stated, policies that lead

560
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: to equity and in policies that lead to inequity. And

561
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: so the question for the individual, especially when we think

562
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: of these policies as a collection or meaning when you

563
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: start thinking of policies as a collection, you start thinking

564
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: of how they're forming a structure, a structure that sort

565
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: of formulates racism or formulates a system. So that's when

566
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: when when even people think of the term structural races

567
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: or systemic racism, what we're really talking about is this

568
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 1: sort of collection of policies that lead to inequity and

569
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: a substantiated my ideas that those of of of racial hierarchy.

570
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: And so the individual is either challenging that structure by

571
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: challenging those policies, by challenging those ideas, or they re

572
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: forcing it. And what I've tried to do is separate

573
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: the term racist from identity. So it really doesn't matter

574
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: whether your your skin color, whether you're a Democrat or

575
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: a Republican, whether you're a Northern or a Southerner, or

576
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: you're immigrant, whether you've you know, lived in this country,

577
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 1: whether you're progressive, whether you doesn't matter what you claim

578
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: about yourself. All that matters is what you say and

579
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 1: do and and and and it's just like you know how,

580
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: I think more and more people are learning, you know,

581
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: from people like Burnet Brown and others, to to say

582
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 1: to their kids, to not say, well, you're good or bad,

583
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: you're a good or bad person, that you're actually you

584
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: do good or bad things. It's the same sort of

585
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:48,399
Speaker 1: construct that it's about what we do. And and then

586
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: that what you do allows someone with diagnostic sort of

587
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: tools to really assess what you're doing too then diagnose

588
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:03,280
Speaker 1: you as racist or anti racist in any given moment,

589
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: knowing that in the next moment you could be the

590
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: very opposite. I had a sort of aha moment. Again.

591
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: I always try to figure out what's my proximal relation

592
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: to this idea, because I can sit here, as you know,

593
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 1: a friend or an ally and hear what you're saying

594
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: and go, yep, I get that, And yet I know

595
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: that your experience is not my experience. My experience can

596
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: never be yours. So I think about things often as

597
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 1: a woman. And when you told the story of that experience,

598
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 1: you know, the MLK competition and giving that speech, I

599
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: thought back to how in my early twenties I thought

600
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: such a badge of honor, such a compliment to me

601
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: was when my guy friends would say you're not like

602
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: the other girls, and I wore that as this It did.

603
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: It felt like getting a girl scout badge, like I'm

604
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: extra cool, I'm super low key, I'm not high maintenance,

605
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: whatever that meant. And it took me until it took

606
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: me a decade of more reading and more understanding and

607
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:26,720
Speaker 1: more vulnerability and and more really diving into what patriarchal

608
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: policy looks like. And now it doesn't just harm women,

609
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: it harms everyone, much like racist policy doesn't just harm

610
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: people of color, at harms everyone. And I went, oh,

611
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,240
Speaker 1: that was oh my god, that was my young adult

612
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: self internalizing misogyny. But I've been steeped in it because

613
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: it's like a t that we brew in, just like

614
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: our system, our society with its racist systems. Mean, we've

615
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: all been soaking in this, and we have to begin

616
00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: to look and find the places where it exists. Where

617
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: we have told ourselves that certain things are true because

618
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: we've heard them and we haven't bothered to investigate where

619
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: they come from. You know, the trope that we hear

620
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: so much now, um and that really was drummed up

621
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: a lot, uh in political discourse during the Trump ere

622
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: was you know, the quote unquote black on black crime.

623
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: And it's like, that's actually not a thing. That's a

624
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:29,399
Speaker 1: trope that is utilized to harm a community rather than

625
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: us being honest enough as a society to look at

626
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 1: what causes crime in any community. And so I guess

627
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thinking it's a bit stream of consciousness. I'm

628
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: thinking with you in in real time here, because as

629
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: we start to identify those things, you know, whether it's

630
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: as women, the misogyny we've internalized, as as neighbors, the

631
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: things we've heard and just assume our phrases for a

632
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 1: reason rather than by design too, can continue to oppress people.

633
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: Is that where the delineation between being, as you say

634
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: in your book, non racist and actually being anti racist

635
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:16,720
Speaker 1: comes in because I might say, well, I don't believe

636
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 1: that trope, but if I'm not doing anything to fight

637
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 1: against it, I'm continuing to allow it to exist. Correct.

638
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: That's the idea, is that being non racist simply means

639
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: you see the racism and you observe it, whereas being

640
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,959
Speaker 1: anti racist means that you work to deconstruct it. Yes,

641
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 1: and I think that what I think we have to understand,

642
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: and I think this has to do with really what

643
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: both sort of racism and even sexism, is that when

644
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: racism and sexism, or if we want to focus on

645
00:41:55,480 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: on racism when it's the norm, when inequality as a norm,

646
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 1: when you when I when when a person does nothing

647
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: in the face of the norm, the status quo, what's

648
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: gonna happen? It's gonna persist. And so what that necessitates

649
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: is for people in order to create, you know, a

650
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: different type of world, we have to actively challenge the

651
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 1: status quo. But I think in a deeper sense because

652
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: it's difficult, particularly I think for black people, or I

653
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: suspect it's likely the case for women to talk about

654
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: the ways that we've internalized some of the ideas about us,

655
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: because then people if and if we talk about that publicly,

656
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: the concern that people have is, so, are are you

657
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: stating thereby that black people are responsible for racism or

658
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: as responsible as white people or or or women because

659
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: they've internalized some of these ideas that that they're just

660
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: as responsible for for for pay darky. And so my

661
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: response to that is no, No. What's actually the case is,

662
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 1: if you are a slave, if you're an enslaver, who

663
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: do you first and foremost want to try to convince

664
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: that that black people should be enslaved? Yes, you want

665
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,319
Speaker 1: to convince the white folks of North Yes, you want

666
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: to convince other white folks in your area who don't

667
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: own slaves. But who do you really want to convince

668
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:31,359
Speaker 1: you want to convince enslave people? Why? Because then that

669
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:36,760
Speaker 1: will prevent them from resisting. Then they will see racial

670
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: inequality as normal, as something they can't change. And so

671
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 1: the people who are most likely to resist won't resist

672
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: because they bought into those into those narratives. And I

673
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: think that sort of cuts across different bigotries, and and

674
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't just cut for for you know, people of

675
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: color or white people, either white or people of color.

676
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: If they've bought into ideas of racial hierarchy, then they're

677
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: gonna look out at the society of racial disparity and

678
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: equity and not see a problem, and then they're not

679
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: going to resist it. And ultimately they're gonna blame the

680
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: people who are the victims of racism for that racism.

681
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: And you know, and that certainly happens with women, as

682
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: it happens with black people. And so what I'm urging

683
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 1: is us, all, you know, everyone, to to actively challenge

684
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: racism and to no longer be fooled by this idea

685
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: of of of racial hierarchy. And I think you point

686
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: to something so important. Racism and sexism and honestly classism

687
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: are these evil bedfellows because in the same ways that

688
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: people will internalize a feeling of powerlessness or maybe hopelessness.

689
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: So many of us look at the current system and say, well,

690
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: what are we ever going to do about it? I'm

691
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: just one person. How am I going to change it? Look?

692
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: Look at the economy. What do you mean that the

693
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: Pentagon spends twenty two billion dollars a day? What's twenty

694
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:15,280
Speaker 1: What is two billion dollars us? I think is average

695
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: People don't understand how to look at some of the

696
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: size of this, And sometimes it's the size of the

697
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: system that helps convince us we can't change it. But

698
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: you argue so beautifully that we can that if we

699
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: choose to be anti the elements of the status quo

700
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: which are inequal and which do harm. By being anti racist,

701
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: we can make the system better for everyone. And that

702
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 1: feels like a really powerful point that you make, because

703
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people. Again, I think when

704
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: we get into our like I always use the term

705
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: lizard brain, and I don't know where that actually comes from.

706
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: And I realized, like I think a friend of mine

707
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 1: wants me to joke about how we evolved from Newts,

708
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: and it turned into this thing that we say all

709
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: the time, like, oh, well, when I'm in my lizard brain,

710
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: you know, where you're just super individual scared, where's my

711
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: next meal coming from? Am I going to be warm tonight?

712
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 1: You know that thing that we all are capable of.

713
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: We love the high level idea of creating an equitable system.

714
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: We want people to be taken care of. And I

715
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 1: think in our little lizard brains, were all terrified that

716
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: more for a group I may not know means maybe

717
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 1: less for me. And you argue that that is in

718
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: fact the opposite of what will happen, of what will

719
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: be true, that if we can create an anti racist society,

720
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: we can undo so much of the oppression of the

721
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: harmful policy that it will actually mean better for everyone.

722
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:08,919
Speaker 1: And that's something I don't think a lot of people get.

723
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: And if I, if I may make a generalization, or

724
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: perhaps just be vulnerable, I think a lot of us

725
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 1: aren't willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that we're

726
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: scared that maybe will run out and we don't know

727
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:26,280
Speaker 1: how to reconcile that individual fear with our best hope

728
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: for the group. But you say that there's data that

729
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: proves that what's best for the group will be best

730
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: for us all as individuals. Correct. Yes, And and indeed

731
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:42,359
Speaker 1: I just want to sort of underline something you said,

732
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: because we we talk we were talking about the ways

733
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: in which the eternalization of these ideas cause people to

734
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:53,920
Speaker 1: just look out at inequality as normal. But then you

735
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:59,280
Speaker 1: also spoke about our internalization of this of this powerlessness

736
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,919
Speaker 1: in this hopeless business. And I think just as much

737
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: we have to sort of see that the problem is

738
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: racism and not the groups that are victimized by it.

739
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: So too do we as individuals have to recognize our power,

740
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: you know, even in how to be an anti racist.

741
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,840
Speaker 1: Just as women are told they quote don't have power,

742
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: black people are told we don't have power. And I

743
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: was like absolutely, like where do we get this idea

744
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: that that we don't have power, that we don't have

745
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,879
Speaker 1: the power to resist. That every single person on earth

746
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: has the power to resist and and and we have

747
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: the power to organize amongst our stoves and form formulate

748
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: larger sort of power blocks through our organizing. If there's

749
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 1: anything we should have learned from the pandemic, it is

750
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 1: that when we do what's best for the community, we're

751
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: doing what's best for ourselves. I mean that that's one

752
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: of the central messages to me of the pandemic. And

753
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: and when we don't do what's best for the community,

754
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 1: when we just do what we want to do, we're

755
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: likely to spread the viruses of bigotry, which is then

756
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:18,959
Speaker 1: gonna come back and harm us like and and and

757
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping that that people realize that, you know,

758
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 1: and I hope people realize there's a distinction between individual

759
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: freedom and community freedom, and and that really we're at

760
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 1: really war in this country between the individuals freedom to

761
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: infect people and the community's desire to be free from infection.

762
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,240
Speaker 1: The individual's desire to be able to sexually assault people

763
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:54,320
Speaker 1: and the community's desire to be free of sexual you know, assault,

764
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: the individual's desire to have the freedom to exploit people,

765
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: and and the communities does are to be free from

766
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: from exploitation. And I guess I learned this largely from

767
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:10,319
Speaker 1: my ancestors, who realized that the only way they were

768
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: going to be free of channel slavery was it the

769
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,439
Speaker 1: community was free. So individuals fought for what was best

770
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: for the community, recognizing it was best for themselves. So

771
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 1: this isn't even about people not thinking about what's best

772
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 1: for themselves, but it's really people having a perspective that

773
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,399
Speaker 1: I'm going to fight for the community because that's what's

774
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: best for me, and that that, to me feels like

775
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: a beautiful sort of symbiosis. Because listen, you know, people

776
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 1: love to talk about individualism, American exceptionalism. You know, I

777
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: always hear someone morbidly in a conversation about individualism, quote

778
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 1: whoever said, you know you're born alone, and you'll die alone.

779
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:57,719
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, but babies also die if they don't

780
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: get held. We as humans, we our community creatures, we

781
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:07,359
Speaker 1: love to be together, we want to we truly, you know,

782
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: we evolved in villages and we still talk about our villages,

783
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:15,320
Speaker 1: and and we need each other. And so this notion

784
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:19,360
Speaker 1: that when you're out of balance, if you're so obsessed

785
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 1: with yourself that you forsake your community, you'll be miserable.

786
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: But but a great balance is how do I do

787
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: what's best for us, which is also what's best for me.

788
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: That that, to me feels like a harmony. That's the

789
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: thing that makes me feel hopeful. It doesn't. And I

790
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 1: think to your previous sort of question, I think one

791
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: of the greatest misnomers of of racism and its effect

792
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: is that racism has only harmed people of color, and

793
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: and I think more and more white people are beginning

794
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: to realize the collateral damage or even the direct damage

795
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: that they're suffering from racism. So there's going to be

796
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 1: people this fall or next fall in a state like

797
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: Georgia who are going to be white and Republican who

798
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: are going to struggle to vote, and that for the

799
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: first time, they're going to connect those voter suppression sort

800
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: of policies that we've been talking about with their own life.

801
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 1: And even though it made it even harder for black, brown,

802
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:31,760
Speaker 1: and indigenous people to vote, it also made it harder

803
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: for for white Republican particularly seniors and even students, to

804
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: to vote too. And or even something is it's even widespread.

805
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 1: As you know, you you have many parents of white

806
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 1: children who wants what's best for their white children, and

807
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 1: so they're like, I want the best neighborhood in the

808
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: best school and they connect good schools and good neighborhoods

809
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 1: with the amount of white people in those schools and neighborhoods.

810
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: And what they don't know is, especially as relates to

811
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 1: the school is studies show that white students do better

812
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: and diverse schools then they do in predominantly or homogeneous

813
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: white white schools and in the major important measures like

814
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:22,280
Speaker 1: problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, you know, racial literacy,

815
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: but even standardized tests. So by any measure, you have

816
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: white parents who are sending their kids and advocating for

817
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: segregated neighborhoods in schools, thinking it's what's best for their

818
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: kids when it's actually not and they don't know because

819
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:40,280
Speaker 1: they've been fed, you know, a different sort of story.

820
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: Or people sitting back and and comparing their lot two

821
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: people of color in this country, particularly white people, comparing

822
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: their lot to people of color as opposed to comparing

823
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:54,440
Speaker 1: their lot to white folks in Canada or France, or

824
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:59,360
Speaker 1: Germany or England or Ireland or the Netherlands, and asking

825
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: why do those folks at universal healthcare? Why are those

826
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: folks when they have a baby, Why can they have

827
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:08,319
Speaker 1: access to leave, to paid leave? Why don't we have

828
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 1: that here? Why are their lives better? Uh? And and people,

829
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 1: but they can constantly compare themselves to two people of

830
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: color as opposed to other white folks in other Western democracies.

831
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: But that I think is the real, the real lie,

832
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: and and the insidiousness of how poisonous power can be.

833
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: Because the power structure that was built that upheld four

834
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: years of enslavement is the same sort of version, you know,

835
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:46,839
Speaker 1: it's it's bastardized and kind of metastasized. Um. But I

836
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: think about, you know, my family coming here on a

837
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: boat through Ellis Island and the discrimination they experienced, you know,

838
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 1: being called ethnic slurs and dirty Italians and all of

839
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 1: these things. There was a very wealthy, small white power

840
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: structure that wanted to hoard wealth maintain it in in

841
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: this sort of you know, now it's the modern day

842
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: billionaire corporate wealth class. It's very small, and they want

843
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: the rest of us to look at each other as

844
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:23,280
Speaker 1: the problem rather than to say, oh, you're hoarding resources.

845
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: You are, you are exaggerating disparities. You are creating the

846
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:36,200
Speaker 1: greatest economic disparities we've had since the French aristocracy. And

847
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to blame each other and not the

848
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: very few people at the top who are literally impeding

849
00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:46,479
Speaker 1: the opportunity for us to have universal health care, which

850
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: by the way, it would be cheaper for us as

851
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:50,959
Speaker 1: a country anyway, So again, better for the community, better

852
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: for us. It costs us far more in America to

853
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: take care of sick people than it would cost us

854
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: to keep people healthy. So I I really I love

855
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 1: the way you talk about it because you you offer

856
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:10,280
Speaker 1: us a pressure test of what we believe to simply

857
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: be true. And I feel excited about the potential of

858
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 1: what it would mean for us to begin, rather than

859
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 1: in our own little pockets of suffering or fear, or

860
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: or the moments of scarcity that as humans we all have,

861
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: rather than to look at our neighbors and wonder who's

862
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: got more, to look around the world and say, why

863
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 1: can't we have systems like those that work so much

864
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: better in those other places? And that I think is

865
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 1: such a it's such a wise argument you make, because

866
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: you you let us remove ourselves from ourselves and our

867
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: fear enough to say, oh, look, the system of racism

868
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 1: here has hurt us all. So so the moral desire

869
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 1: that many of us have to see justice done and

870
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: to see equity achieved also does align with are very

871
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 1: individual terrified you know, scarce selves that we we none

872
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: of us want to admit we have that, none of

873
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: us want to admit we're afraid we're gonna lose it.

874
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 1: All tomorrow. But it's very human and and we can,

875
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: in fact, you know, align the best of our of

876
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 1: our morality for all with the best of our preservation

877
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:34,240
Speaker 1: of self, and we could build a whole new thing.

878
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 1: And that that feels thrilling to me. And I'm curious,

879
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,600
Speaker 1: as the expert in the room, where do you think

880
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: we should start when you think about what we could

881
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 1: do if we pushed toward true anti racist policy making

882
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 1: for true equity, what are the what are the things

883
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 1: that would be in your sort of laser sight first

884
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: and foremost, Well, first, let me say that I think

885
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 1: when when people think about what they would lose, they're

886
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: they're not thinking about that. In a different type of society,

887
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:14,200
Speaker 1: if you do fall there we will be there to

888
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: catch you. And in this society, there there the social

889
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 1: safety net is you know, has been burned to a

890
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 1: Chris right, and so you then would feel better taking

891
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: risks even in your own life, in your own career.

892
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:34,520
Speaker 1: But I think to your to your question, I think

893
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:38,840
Speaker 1: if I was to start in three different places, I

894
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 1: think it would be with eliminating the growing racial wealth

895
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: gap through through reparations. And it's the only policy platform

896
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: on the table of the American people that has the

897
00:58:54,840 --> 00:59:02,000
Speaker 1: capacity to to eliminate, let alone reverse, still growing racial

898
00:59:02,040 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 1: wealth gap. And and everyone knows that wealth is not

899
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:12,040
Speaker 1: just a present sort of phenomenon, It's an accumulated phenomenon.

900
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: And and everyone can understand how when we think of

901
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 1: if we're thinking about an approximate empirical sort of figure

902
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 1: for the costs versus the benefits of the history of

903
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 1: racist policies and practices, one of those figures would be

904
00:59:32,960 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 1: the racial wealth gap. And and this preparations program would

905
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 1: not take anything away from white people. It would provide,

906
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: going back to what you were talking about earlier, you know,

907
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 1: economic sort of repair. But it wouldn't just be about,

908
00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: you know, ensuring that there's all sorts of economic repair.

909
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:55,840
Speaker 1: Would also be changing the story around why white people

910
00:59:56,480 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: on average ten times more wealth then black people. And

911
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: it's not because there's something wrong or inferior with black people.

912
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 1: And so it would also be changing you know, that story.

913
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:13,240
Speaker 1: And and I think the other approximate figure that really

914
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 1: details the sort of cumulative effect of racism is the

915
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: life expectancy gap, and and how Native and and Black

916
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 1: people have the lowest sort of like life expectancy, you know,

917
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 1: in this country when compared to white people by by

918
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: a few years. And and in a few years, three

919
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:39,800
Speaker 1: or four years, when you're talking about tens of millions

920
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: of people, uh, you know, is a lot of lives uh,

921
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 1: a lot of years lost. And and that's that's the

922
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:51,360
Speaker 1: commutative effect of police violence, That's the cumulative effect of

923
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, the cumulative effect of food apartheid, of racial

924
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: health disparities, of Black and Native people being more likely

925
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:05,160
Speaker 1: to live in polluted neighborhoods, whether air or water pollution.

926
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:11,360
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's the effect of even college educated

927
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: black women being more likely to have severe complications and

928
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:21,400
Speaker 1: pregnancy than white women who dropped out of high school.

929
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 1: That's that's the effect of someone a superstar like Serena

930
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: Williams saying that there is a problem and people not

931
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:32,040
Speaker 1: listening to her while others are listening to white women.

932
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: You know, that's the cumulative effect of so many different

933
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 1: sort of health related and environmental related problems that that

934
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 1: we need to eliminate. And that's not again, you know,

935
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,440
Speaker 1: because even the life expectancy rates of white people are falling,

936
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: and so that's raising it for everyone. The image that

937
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: was coming to mind for me, which may seem strange

938
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:57,320
Speaker 1: at the start, but I promise we'll get somewhere, is

939
01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: you know this this idea that unpacking what privileges often

940
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 1: means what hasn't stood in your way. And as you

941
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: were talking about all of these issues, whether it's that

942
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: black women face some maternal mortality rate four times higher

943
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 1: than white women, um, when we're talking about, you know,

944
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:22,720
Speaker 1: the lack of inherited wealth because money was withheld generationally,

945
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:25,720
Speaker 1: all of these things that the image in my head

946
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:29,040
Speaker 1: was one of, you know, like athletes. I have no

947
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 1: idea why I'm thinking about this, because I am not

948
01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 1: a track and field person. I don't run unless I'm

949
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: being chased. But I think about like pro athletes, maybe

950
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 1: because you said, Serena, you know when you see those

951
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 1: videos of them and those weighted vests and that you know,

952
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:44,440
Speaker 1: it's like a velcrow thing and they put like weight

953
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 1: bars in the vest to make it heavier and heavier.

954
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 1: I think about how each each of those things you

955
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 1: were referencing, each of these topical issues, each of these policies,

956
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: uh these generations of harm, each one feels like a

957
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 1: little like a like a weight on the chest to me,

958
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: that holds entire communities down, that lessons life expectancy, that

959
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: makes it harder to get your head above water. And

960
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 1: some of us haven't had those weights placed on us,

961
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:21,920
Speaker 1: and some have. And the reality, yes, is that removing

962
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 1: those impediments, changing policy, changing systems will be better for

963
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 1: all of us. But I think my hope is that

964
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: the people who are listening to you and I have

965
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: this conversation today also understand that the notion that some

966
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: people are drowning under weights that they didn't choose is

967
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: just wrong. And we have to be committed enough to

968
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: your earlier point two standing up for other people in

969
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: the way we'd want people to stand up for us.

970
01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: If we want to be able to take a risk

971
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:56,080
Speaker 1: and be caught, we have to be willing to catch

972
01:03:56,080 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 1: other people. And that, for me, is the point of

973
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 1: being as you challenge us to be actively anti racist,

974
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:08,160
Speaker 1: is to say, I'm going to go out and actively

975
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 1: try to work on removing these barbells of harm from

976
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: my community. Maybe not my next door neighbor. Maybe I

977
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:23,000
Speaker 1: don't know the person who's suffering with this, Maybe I do,

978
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 1: But we've got to advocate for each other and you

979
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:32,080
Speaker 1: mentioned this, and I know it can be a it's

980
01:04:32,080 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 1: a very hot topic in the political discourse right now,

981
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: but I will say, learning from you and so many

982
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: other people about what reparations mean and look like, I

983
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:50,040
Speaker 1: believe it has to be one of the greatest causes

984
01:04:50,080 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 1: of our lifetime. I had this supreme honor of attending

985
01:04:55,560 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 1: the centennial of the Race Massacre and Tulsa, and there

986
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 1: is a plaque across from the vernon a. M. E.

987
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:11,479
Speaker 1: Church on Greenwood, and it details every unpaid insurance claim

988
01:05:11,560 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: that was filed by every business owner who had their

989
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:18,000
Speaker 1: business burned to the ground. And all I could think

990
01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 1: looking at that list was hundreds of people died on

991
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 1: that weekend, how many business owners didn't get to file claims,

992
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:30,240
Speaker 1: how many families were run out of town. And yet

993
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 1: there are all these names listed and all the insurance

994
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:37,440
Speaker 1: money they were owed listed. And in nineteen one it

995
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:43,200
Speaker 1: was two point eight seven million dollars. So today, through

996
01:05:43,280 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 1: the most conservative financial model, at a five percent return,

997
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:49,280
Speaker 1: even though everyone agrees it would be a ten percent return,

998
01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 1: at five we're talking two hundred and fifty million dollars,

999
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: and at ten percent, we'd be looking at five million.

1000
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:05,200
Speaker 1: But when you talk about inherited wealth and white communities,

1001
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 1: and we look at Tulsa as a case study, and

1002
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: we look at two hundred and fifty million dollars that

1003
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: today would be in the hands of multigenerational Black families,

1004
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 1: that could have been reinvested in the community, that could

1005
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:23,160
Speaker 1: have launched other businesses, that could have bought homes and

1006
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 1: accrued real estate wealth and equity and all of these things.

1007
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:35,160
Speaker 1: I think, how could anyone deny what was literally withheld

1008
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: stolen from so many families across this country. We have

1009
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 1: to make up for it because we have, We've stacked

1010
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:49,720
Speaker 1: a scale so unevenly. And I I know that Tanahci

1011
01:06:49,880 --> 01:06:53,360
Speaker 1: Coats wrote the case for Reparations and he he outlines

1012
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:56,240
Speaker 1: his idea of what reparations in the in the forms

1013
01:06:56,240 --> 01:06:59,160
Speaker 1: of targeting investments in community, the neighborhoods, would look like.

1014
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:02,880
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm curious, do you have a Doctor Kendy

1015
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:07,280
Speaker 1: reparations plan? Is there a place you think we should

1016
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 1: start and and use as a case study or do

1017
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:12,640
Speaker 1: you think it's an immediate national program? How how do

1018
01:07:12,680 --> 01:07:17,560
Speaker 1: you think we move forward on this conversation? Well, well,

1019
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: first let me just say you know, I love your

1020
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 1: analogy about this sort of weights and and and and literally,

1021
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:29,960
Speaker 1: let's say you have to track athletes trying to run

1022
01:07:29,960 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 1: a race, and and and one is weighted down and

1023
01:07:34,840 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: the other doesn't necessarily know that the other is weighted down.

1024
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:44,840
Speaker 1: And I think for us to reflect on if those

1025
01:07:44,920 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 1: two track stars are representatives of racist I guess we

1026
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:51,640
Speaker 1: can think of even though we shouldn't think of individuals

1027
01:07:51,640 --> 01:07:56,640
Speaker 1: as representatives. But but the whole the analogy. If we

1028
01:07:56,760 --> 01:08:02,680
Speaker 1: believe that those two racist is our equals, and we

1029
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: see one of the person without the weights winning race

1030
01:08:08,240 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 1: after race, and we believe they're equals, aren't we going

1031
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:15,640
Speaker 1: to start thinking what is actually going on? How does

1032
01:08:15,720 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 1: if they're equals, should this person be winning time and again?

1033
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:25,400
Speaker 1: So what's going on here? And then that would allow

1034
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:29,639
Speaker 1: us to then begin expecting what's actually happening and then

1035
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:34,040
Speaker 1: begin to see that the person who's losing the race,

1036
01:08:34,160 --> 01:08:36,960
Speaker 1: that's losing, it's because they're being weighted down. But if

1037
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:41,240
Speaker 1: we don't believe they're equals, then we won't even look

1038
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:45,479
Speaker 1: and try to search for those weights. And and if

1039
01:08:45,560 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 1: we're should say, if we've been convinced that there aren't equals. Uh,

1040
01:08:50,400 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: you know, but I actually don't necessarily have a have

1041
01:08:55,479 --> 01:09:00,479
Speaker 1: a heart and fast and specific sort of reparations plan.

1042
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 1: But what I would say is I do, I do

1043
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:09,080
Speaker 1: believe that it should be geared towards eliminating the racial

1044
01:09:09,120 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: wealth gap, that that should be one of the goals.

1045
01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 1: I also think that as part of a reparations plan,

1046
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:23,000
Speaker 1: we should have an effort to to really mass educate

1047
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:26,680
Speaker 1: the American people on the losses as you just described,

1048
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:30,520
Speaker 1: you know, in Tulsa, so people can see very empirically,

1049
01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:37,800
Speaker 1: if possible, and certainly experientially the costs of racism, uh,

1050
01:09:37,840 --> 01:09:42,200
Speaker 1: specifically for in this case, for you know, for black people,

1051
01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 1: and so that people can see that the reason why

1052
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:52,880
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods are impoverished is not because of black people,

1053
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:56,520
Speaker 1: it's because of this history. It's because of these policies.

1054
01:09:56,560 --> 01:10:01,519
Speaker 1: It's because of these practices. And obviously any sort of

1055
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 1: serious reparations program would likely only emerge if we also

1056
01:10:08,439 --> 01:10:13,920
Speaker 1: were radically revolutionizing our society to rid it of the

1057
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:18,880
Speaker 1: policies that are that are continuing the racial wealth gap today. So,

1058
01:10:19,040 --> 01:10:23,040
Speaker 1: for instance, the refusal of even the Biden administration to

1059
01:10:23,200 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: cancel student debt is reinforcing the racial wealth gap. Studies

1060
01:10:27,240 --> 01:10:31,280
Speaker 1: show that you'd be able to cut through that racial

1061
01:10:31,320 --> 01:10:35,280
Speaker 1: wealth gap by by canceling student debt because student debt

1062
01:10:35,360 --> 01:10:39,719
Speaker 1: is disproportionately people who are black, and they're more likely

1063
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,840
Speaker 1: to have higher balances. And there's a whole host of

1064
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:45,559
Speaker 1: reasons for that. But but I guess what I'm saying

1065
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:49,640
Speaker 1: is it would be paired with other efforts to eliminate

1066
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 1: ways in which inequality is being reinforced today. Is it

1067
01:10:55,439 --> 01:11:00,320
Speaker 1: conversations like that, you know, the the specifics that you

1068
01:11:00,360 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: are aware of and understanding that being able to quantify

1069
01:11:05,439 --> 01:11:11,320
Speaker 1: those things and give people that empirical evidence with human

1070
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: stories can really open hearts change minds. Is that what

1071
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:20,200
Speaker 1: led you to decide to start your podcast? Because you're

1072
01:11:20,200 --> 01:11:24,080
Speaker 1: interviewing some of the most fascinating people, and whether it's

1073
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:28,800
Speaker 1: on topics of housing or sports, you're giving people a

1074
01:11:28,840 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 1: window into how these policies that we may not even

1075
01:11:33,160 --> 01:11:36,000
Speaker 1: be conscious of have shaped the world around us. So

1076
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:39,519
Speaker 1: was that was that what led you there? Is it

1077
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:42,639
Speaker 1: something you're loving doing? So I need some pointers from

1078
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:45,280
Speaker 1: you because it's certainly something I'm learning to do, but

1079
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:50,160
Speaker 1: I am I am enjoying it in the sense that,

1080
01:11:50,960 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 1: you know, like our conversation, we're we're really able to

1081
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:59,240
Speaker 1: spend some time digging really deeply, you know, into problems

1082
01:12:01,080 --> 01:12:06,200
Speaker 1: with the eye towards thinking very clearly about potential solutions

1083
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:08,639
Speaker 1: that we can rally around. And I think it allows

1084
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:12,160
Speaker 1: me to to talk to people who are experts in

1085
01:12:12,560 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 1: voter suppression, or who are experts in queer sort of racism,

1086
01:12:17,479 --> 01:12:21,439
Speaker 1: or who are experts in race and sport, or you know,

1087
01:12:21,600 --> 01:12:25,400
Speaker 1: experts on prison abolition. So because I'm not an expert

1088
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:29,320
Speaker 1: on all forms of racism, you know, my specific expertise

1089
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:32,800
Speaker 1: is is really on the history of racism, which in

1090
01:12:32,840 --> 01:12:36,479
Speaker 1: that history has come to bear on defining terms. And

1091
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:40,360
Speaker 1: so for me, it's definitions allow us to have a perspective.

1092
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 1: And so when you pair the perspective with human stories

1093
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 1: and with facts, I think it allows people to really understand,

1094
01:12:48,360 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 1: you know, what's happening. Yeah, I think to personalize history

1095
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:55,320
Speaker 1: and to give people touch points I think is a

1096
01:12:55,400 --> 01:13:00,639
Speaker 1: really inspiring opportunity. I'm very excited about it. For you,

1097
01:13:01,360 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 1: I is there someone who's just a dream guest for

1098
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:07,840
Speaker 1: you who you're like, that's that's that's the one on

1099
01:13:07,920 --> 01:13:10,280
Speaker 1: my list that I'm really hoping I can get to

1100
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:15,760
Speaker 1: wow um well other than Sophia Book. I mean, I

1101
01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:18,439
Speaker 1: should consider this, my rs VP, just tell me where

1102
01:13:18,439 --> 01:13:21,880
Speaker 1: to be. Is there a dream guest and with this

1103
01:13:21,920 --> 01:13:26,080
Speaker 1: person would be living? I take it? I mean, I

1104
01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:32,920
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I always admire sitting down with

1105
01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:39,360
Speaker 1: Angela Davis UM. And you know, I can remember the

1106
01:13:39,400 --> 01:13:42,799
Speaker 1: first time we met and actually did an event together.

1107
01:13:43,520 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 1: I believe it was something like January ten or eleven,

1108
01:13:48,400 --> 01:13:51,920
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, and was literally the anniversary of the

1109
01:13:51,960 --> 01:13:55,639
Speaker 1: one universary in which I have been diagnosed with with

1110
01:13:55,760 --> 01:14:03,480
Speaker 1: cancer UM. And she's someone who is just strikingly brilliant

1111
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:07,000
Speaker 1: and sharp, but also extremely down the earth and personable,

1112
01:14:07,800 --> 01:14:10,320
Speaker 1: but then also someone who's just been a defender of

1113
01:14:10,360 --> 01:14:13,599
Speaker 1: everyone from from women to queer people, to poor people,

1114
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:18,200
Speaker 1: to prisoners, two people of color, to to the working class,

1115
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:21,680
Speaker 1: and and so to see in it and speak with

1116
01:14:21,800 --> 01:14:24,559
Speaker 1: someone like that and learn from someone like that, you know,

1117
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:27,320
Speaker 1: I think whenever I've had that opportunity, it's always been

1118
01:14:28,439 --> 01:14:31,439
Speaker 1: it's it's always been just an incredible learning experience for me.

1119
01:14:33,080 --> 01:14:37,240
Speaker 1: It strikes me that, you know, an audience with Angela

1120
01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:40,800
Speaker 1: Davis is such a high moment, and I know that

1121
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:43,719
Speaker 1: this work doesn't come without low moments. You have faced

1122
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 1: backlash over the years. I mean you talk about the

1123
01:14:47,040 --> 01:14:51,360
Speaker 1: way that you know your work is being criticized and

1124
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:55,759
Speaker 1: picked apart, particularly by the right. I mean the rage

1125
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:57,880
Speaker 1: that your honesty seems to be met with. I think

1126
01:14:57,920 --> 01:15:01,960
Speaker 1: about you and Nicole han of Jones and um, the

1127
01:15:02,040 --> 01:15:06,479
Speaker 1: scholars who I so deeply respect, who simply for telling

1128
01:15:06,479 --> 01:15:13,840
Speaker 1: the truth are being attacked, and I wonder what keeps

1129
01:15:13,840 --> 01:15:19,479
Speaker 1: you going? You speak with such an authentic hope about

1130
01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:24,439
Speaker 1: people's ability to change. So what is it you see

1131
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: that keeps you going despite what's hard. I think there

1132
01:15:30,400 --> 01:15:34,080
Speaker 1: was a time in my life in which I did

1133
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:40,360
Speaker 1: not understand why certain things were happening to me, or

1134
01:15:40,400 --> 01:15:43,960
Speaker 1: even certain things were happening in society, and I think

1135
01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:47,840
Speaker 1: it was that lack of understanding that sold me down

1136
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:51,680
Speaker 1: or stopped me. And I think now I'm certainly not

1137
01:15:51,720 --> 01:15:55,679
Speaker 1: surprised that that people are attacking, you know, my work,

1138
01:15:55,840 --> 01:15:59,680
Speaker 1: specifically by misrepresenting it. Because what happens is if you

1139
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:02,759
Speaker 1: can't really argue against something, you just change the argument

1140
01:16:02,760 --> 01:16:06,760
Speaker 1: and argue, are you against your new argument? And and

1141
01:16:07,160 --> 01:16:12,240
Speaker 1: so that's not the sort of surprising, and obviously it

1142
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:16,480
Speaker 1: still hurts, but I guess I understand it, and that understanding,

1143
01:16:16,760 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 1: you know, allows me to sort of carry on that

1144
01:16:19,120 --> 01:16:22,599
Speaker 1: if anything, I expected it right. You know, it's like

1145
01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:27,639
Speaker 1: you know, you go and in exercise and lift weights,

1146
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:32,440
Speaker 1: it's gonna hurt, right, So you I almost had an expectation,

1147
01:16:33,160 --> 01:16:36,200
Speaker 1: and I remind myself what I'm doing. But I also

1148
01:16:36,320 --> 01:16:39,479
Speaker 1: know that that in order to bring about change, we

1149
01:16:39,560 --> 01:16:42,960
Speaker 1: have to believe change is possible. Change is possible within people,

1150
01:16:43,760 --> 01:16:47,040
Speaker 1: and change is possible within society. And I think that

1151
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:49,599
Speaker 1: fuels me. And I don't think anything that can happen

1152
01:16:49,640 --> 01:16:53,200
Speaker 1: to me or happen in society will will prevent me

1153
01:16:53,280 --> 01:16:56,240
Speaker 1: from believing in that possibility. Are there examples you look

1154
01:16:56,280 --> 01:16:59,960
Speaker 1: to when you think about those major moments of transform

1155
01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:03,360
Speaker 1: a bit of change where you say, if that person

1156
01:17:03,439 --> 01:17:06,599
Speaker 1: could do it, or this policy could be taken apart,

1157
01:17:06,640 --> 01:17:10,400
Speaker 1: then I know we can continue. So I never forget

1158
01:17:10,720 --> 01:17:13,760
Speaker 1: a few years ago I had had I was able

1159
01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:16,639
Speaker 1: to sit down and have a conversation with with Derek Black.

1160
01:17:17,320 --> 01:17:20,840
Speaker 1: Derek Black is the son of Don Black and and

1161
01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:27,120
Speaker 1: Don Black created the website called Stormfront, which was the

1162
01:17:27,200 --> 01:17:31,559
Speaker 1: first white supremacist website and still one of the major

1163
01:17:31,800 --> 01:17:37,280
Speaker 1: white supremacist sort of websites. And Derek Black's godfather was

1164
01:17:37,360 --> 01:17:42,519
Speaker 1: David Duke and Don and Derek sort of raised I

1165
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:48,439
Speaker 1: should say Don and David raised Derek to really usher

1166
01:17:48,640 --> 01:17:54,360
Speaker 1: the white supremacist movement into the mainstream. And and even

1167
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:57,200
Speaker 1: in high school he was just a captivating sort of

1168
01:17:57,240 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: speaker at at white supremacist sort of conferences, had his

1169
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:06,880
Speaker 1: own radio show. He was really being groomed. But then

1170
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:12,240
Speaker 1: he went to college. Then he started befriending people who

1171
01:18:12,240 --> 01:18:15,840
Speaker 1: were not white. Then he got into a relationship with

1172
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:19,400
Speaker 1: a girl who challenged him or a woman by that point.

1173
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:24,080
Speaker 1: And over time, Uh, those people who cared about him

1174
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:29,719
Speaker 1: and loved him deeply and who he respected, we're able

1175
01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:33,559
Speaker 1: to cause him to begin to change. And eventually he did.

1176
01:18:33,760 --> 01:18:37,160
Speaker 1: And and and now he's even though he was raised

1177
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:40,720
Speaker 1: and thought of as this sort of air apparent to

1178
01:18:40,760 --> 01:18:44,200
Speaker 1: the white supremacist movement, now he's someone who's striving to

1179
01:18:44,240 --> 01:18:47,559
Speaker 1: be anti racist, you know, like us. And so if

1180
01:18:47,640 --> 01:18:51,320
Speaker 1: he can change, if he can in a way move

1181
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:58,280
Speaker 1: past his I should say, swallow. Obviously, the type of

1182
01:18:58,320 --> 01:19:01,840
Speaker 1: relationship that was going to emerge when he decided to

1183
01:19:02,439 --> 01:19:07,599
Speaker 1: leave the movement. If he could begin to transform himself,

1184
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:12,280
Speaker 1: then why can't the rest of us. Yeah, those those people,

1185
01:19:12,360 --> 01:19:17,759
Speaker 1: when they explain how they began to see what's true,

1186
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:20,479
Speaker 1: give me a lot of hope that the rest of

1187
01:19:20,560 --> 01:19:23,880
Speaker 1: us can as well. When you go from one human

1188
01:19:23,960 --> 01:19:28,240
Speaker 1: example like Derek to the sort of macro thirty ft

1189
01:19:28,880 --> 01:19:35,920
Speaker 1: looking at policy government place, are there aspects of other places,

1190
01:19:36,000 --> 01:19:40,120
Speaker 1: other countries around the world where you say they're really

1191
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:44,360
Speaker 1: doing it right? Are there specific examples you think we

1192
01:19:44,439 --> 01:19:48,839
Speaker 1: could borrow from to build a more anti racist United States?

1193
01:19:49,320 --> 01:19:52,280
Speaker 1: I think there are certain aspects of it. I think

1194
01:19:52,320 --> 01:20:00,679
Speaker 1: that the fact that Germany begins teaching kids as early

1195
01:20:00,720 --> 01:20:05,760
Speaker 1: as kindergarten, you know, about the Holocaust in an incredible

1196
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:11,280
Speaker 1: seriousness to ensure that it isn't sort of replicated. Uh.

1197
01:20:11,640 --> 01:20:14,160
Speaker 1: And you know, at this point in time when when

1198
01:20:14,320 --> 01:20:18,919
Speaker 1: parents and are are advocating against the teaching of racism,

1199
01:20:19,040 --> 01:20:22,439
Speaker 1: you know, other countries are are teaching as about anti

1200
01:20:22,520 --> 01:20:25,920
Speaker 1: semitism as early as you know, kindergarten, if not earlier.

1201
01:20:26,840 --> 01:20:29,200
Speaker 1: That's certainly something that that we can look to. We

1202
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:33,040
Speaker 1: talked about many of the social safety net programs that

1203
01:20:33,280 --> 01:20:37,280
Speaker 1: that other Western democracies have. Part of the problem with

1204
01:20:37,400 --> 01:20:40,800
Speaker 1: many of these nations they aren't typically collecting racial data.

1205
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:45,720
Speaker 1: So so there's a benefit in terms of universal programs,

1206
01:20:46,400 --> 01:20:50,360
Speaker 1: but we have to pair universal programs with with programs

1207
01:20:50,840 --> 01:20:54,920
Speaker 1: that are specific to specific groups, that provide the most

1208
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:59,120
Speaker 1: resources to the groups with the greatest needs. That's not

1209
01:20:59,320 --> 01:21:05,840
Speaker 1: necessarily something that that I see other sort of countries doing.

1210
01:21:06,000 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 1: I know there was a time I think about ten

1211
01:21:10,240 --> 01:21:14,120
Speaker 1: years ago where Brazil decided that it was going to

1212
01:21:14,800 --> 01:21:21,680
Speaker 1: specifically diversify it's it's higher educational system and institute in

1213
01:21:21,680 --> 01:21:24,240
Speaker 1: an anti racist policy, you know, to do it. But

1214
01:21:24,560 --> 01:21:27,040
Speaker 1: it's really few and far between. So what do you

1215
01:21:27,200 --> 01:21:30,599
Speaker 1: hope we do. Is there something you'd like to see

1216
01:21:30,680 --> 01:21:35,240
Speaker 1: happen in the next five years, you know, a sort

1217
01:21:35,280 --> 01:21:41,840
Speaker 1: of guiding light change or uh policy that that you

1218
01:21:42,000 --> 01:21:45,880
Speaker 1: think would signify that we're on our way. I'll say

1219
01:21:45,920 --> 01:21:50,160
Speaker 1: two things. First, if we had a different response to

1220
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:56,920
Speaker 1: rising levels of violent crime, then that would signal something

1221
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:01,640
Speaker 1: to me. If we had, instead of the common punitive

1222
01:22:01,720 --> 01:22:06,760
Speaker 1: response of more funding for for police, we had a

1223
01:22:06,840 --> 01:22:11,280
Speaker 1: response of what's what could be going on here? You know,

1224
01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:14,719
Speaker 1: is it that there are too many guns on the street,

1225
01:22:14,800 --> 01:22:18,200
Speaker 1: and we're refusing to pass sort of gun safety or

1226
01:22:18,280 --> 01:22:20,880
Speaker 1: gun control programs. You know, could it be that we

1227
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:24,920
Speaker 1: just had an economic disaster through this pandemic? What are

1228
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:28,040
Speaker 1: some of the other sort of problem Let's fight violent

1229
01:22:28,120 --> 01:22:33,400
Speaker 1: crime with jobs or with resources. Let's invest in in

1230
01:22:33,560 --> 01:22:37,160
Speaker 1: mental health resources specifically, since we have so many people

1231
01:22:37,160 --> 01:22:40,400
Speaker 1: who are dying of police violence, who have you don't

1232
01:22:40,400 --> 01:22:44,240
Speaker 1: have a mental disability, or so many people incarcerated similarly.

1233
01:22:44,400 --> 01:22:47,400
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that would show me something that would

1234
01:22:47,439 --> 01:22:50,280
Speaker 1: show me that that we're turning the page on this

1235
01:22:50,640 --> 01:22:55,240
Speaker 1: connection of blackness and criminality that has so dominated our politics,

1236
01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:58,599
Speaker 1: that we're turning the page on there's something wrong with people,

1237
01:22:59,640 --> 01:23:02,799
Speaker 1: into will recognition that there's something wrong with power and policy,

1238
01:23:05,040 --> 01:23:08,519
Speaker 1: into a recognition that there's something wrong with power and policy.

1239
01:23:08,680 --> 01:23:13,120
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful sentence to my friend, because some of

1240
01:23:13,200 --> 01:23:17,599
Speaker 1: these are big level ideas, And for anyone who might

1241
01:23:17,680 --> 01:23:20,280
Speaker 1: be listening at home who is newer to this work,

1242
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:22,519
Speaker 1: or even for the folks who have been in it

1243
01:23:22,680 --> 01:23:25,960
Speaker 1: for a minute, what would your suggestions be for how

1244
01:23:26,280 --> 01:23:31,160
Speaker 1: people can begin to start actively engaging in this kind

1245
01:23:31,240 --> 01:23:34,360
Speaker 1: of work. So what I would suggest is each of

1246
01:23:34,520 --> 01:23:38,720
Speaker 1: us typically live in a neighborhood or were typically in

1247
01:23:38,840 --> 01:23:43,640
Speaker 1: a specific industry or sector or and and for us

1248
01:23:43,720 --> 01:23:49,600
Speaker 1: to whether it's you know, education or media, or environment

1249
01:23:50,040 --> 01:23:56,479
Speaker 1: or health, we are likely to work in institutions, um.

1250
01:23:57,080 --> 01:24:00,799
Speaker 1: And and for us to just really think about, Okay,

1251
01:24:01,080 --> 01:24:06,879
Speaker 1: who or what group is combating racism in my backyard?

1252
01:24:08,160 --> 01:24:11,360
Speaker 1: And and how can I help them? Um? You know,

1253
01:24:11,560 --> 01:24:13,960
Speaker 1: I if each of us was was to think about that,

1254
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:17,599
Speaker 1: and then as I'm seeking to to figure out how

1255
01:24:17,720 --> 01:24:21,599
Speaker 1: I can support them, I'm also trying to to sort

1256
01:24:21,640 --> 01:24:26,719
Speaker 1: of understand that form of racism in and of itself.

1257
01:24:27,040 --> 01:24:29,960
Speaker 1: As I'm trying to understand racism in general through reading,

1258
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:35,000
Speaker 1: through listening, through through educating myself. I mean, if we

1259
01:24:35,120 --> 01:24:37,200
Speaker 1: were to each do that, we can make some pretty

1260
01:24:37,240 --> 01:24:42,080
Speaker 1: significant changes in this country. M hm. So for anyone

1261
01:24:42,120 --> 01:24:44,880
Speaker 1: who is at home listening, if you haven't read How

1262
01:24:44,960 --> 01:24:48,040
Speaker 1: to Be an Anti Racist, there's your first step. Step one.

1263
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:51,639
Speaker 1: It almost feels silly to ask, you know, how how

1264
01:24:51,760 --> 01:24:54,800
Speaker 1: you feel like you're best inspiring others because you do

1265
01:24:54,960 --> 01:25:00,080
Speaker 1: so with your books, and clearly everyone agrees with is

1266
01:25:00,080 --> 01:25:03,560
Speaker 1: they're all best sellers. You're doing it with the podcast

1267
01:25:04,320 --> 01:25:07,600
Speaker 1: do you on a sort of more maybe one to

1268
01:25:07,720 --> 01:25:12,040
Speaker 1: one note. Do you have advice for people listening who

1269
01:25:12,680 --> 01:25:14,880
Speaker 1: who look up to you? Is there something you wish

1270
01:25:14,920 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 1: you could, you know, share with people, whether it was

1271
01:25:19,000 --> 01:25:21,240
Speaker 1: someone sitting across from you at a coffee shop or

1272
01:25:21,840 --> 01:25:23,720
Speaker 1: a group of students who might be listening to you

1273
01:25:23,760 --> 01:25:26,599
Speaker 1: speak at a university. Is there a piece of advice

1274
01:25:26,680 --> 01:25:31,920
Speaker 1: you'd offer. I think that we have to be willing

1275
01:25:32,200 --> 01:25:39,640
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable, not just because it really sort of

1276
01:25:39,720 --> 01:25:44,519
Speaker 1: showcases our humanity and it connects us with with other humans,

1277
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:50,880
Speaker 1: but it also allows us to recognize our flaws, our faults.

1278
01:25:52,880 --> 01:25:56,799
Speaker 1: It also allows us to be self reflective and self critical,

1279
01:25:57,160 --> 01:26:00,320
Speaker 1: and then it allows us to grow and be be

1280
01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:03,920
Speaker 1: a better form of ourselves and to constantly, you know,

1281
01:26:04,400 --> 01:26:08,000
Speaker 1: coming back a little bit better and knowing that when

1282
01:26:08,040 --> 01:26:12,439
Speaker 1: we make mistakes, we're making mistakes because we're human, and

1283
01:26:12,479 --> 01:26:15,200
Speaker 1: then we're choosing to sort of you know, correct them.

1284
01:26:15,240 --> 01:26:18,880
Speaker 1: And I mean that's how I tried to sort of live,

1285
01:26:19,120 --> 01:26:23,760
Speaker 1: and I want to encourage other people to do the same,

1286
01:26:23,920 --> 01:26:26,519
Speaker 1: just to have the willingness to and and this isn't

1287
01:26:27,080 --> 01:26:30,040
Speaker 1: for us to sort of call ourselves, you know, funk ups.

1288
01:26:30,160 --> 01:26:32,600
Speaker 1: Or something like this. It's not about that. It's I

1289
01:26:32,680 --> 01:26:35,280
Speaker 1: made a mistake, you know, I made a mistake in

1290
01:26:35,360 --> 01:26:37,880
Speaker 1: the way I spoke to this person. I could have

1291
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:41,640
Speaker 1: produced sort of this better. How am I going to

1292
01:26:41,760 --> 01:26:46,479
Speaker 1: correct it? And I think if we could all sort

1293
01:26:46,520 --> 01:26:49,120
Speaker 1: of live that way, I think we could have a

1294
01:26:49,200 --> 01:26:53,800
Speaker 1: better sort of human story. It's beautiful. So much of

1295
01:26:53,880 --> 01:27:00,200
Speaker 1: the idea about vulnerability and and growth really, to me

1296
01:27:00,400 --> 01:27:04,200
Speaker 1: feels like it is rooted in the potential of progress.

1297
01:27:05,479 --> 01:27:08,479
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, as it is my favorite thing to

1298
01:27:08,520 --> 01:27:11,400
Speaker 1: ask everyone who comes on the show, what in your

1299
01:27:11,520 --> 01:27:13,840
Speaker 1: life feels like a work in progress to you? Now

1300
01:27:14,840 --> 01:27:19,240
Speaker 1: that's probably what is not. I feel like everything is

1301
01:27:19,840 --> 01:27:23,439
Speaker 1: a sort of a work in progress. I think I

1302
01:27:23,520 --> 01:27:26,880
Speaker 1: could be a better writer. I think I can be

1303
01:27:28,240 --> 01:27:33,080
Speaker 1: more articulate. I think I can you know love better. Um.

1304
01:27:34,800 --> 01:27:38,160
Speaker 1: You know, obviously this society is a work in progress

1305
01:27:38,720 --> 01:27:42,639
Speaker 1: in terms of I thought I hoped I should say

1306
01:27:42,800 --> 01:27:46,400
Speaker 1: that we would be in a different place as a

1307
01:27:46,479 --> 01:27:54,760
Speaker 1: nation right now. We were seated last June. UM. I'm

1308
01:27:54,800 --> 01:28:00,479
Speaker 1: also I think trying to learn how to use time. Um.

1309
01:28:00,880 --> 01:28:04,599
Speaker 1: And I think that's also something that I think quite

1310
01:28:04,600 --> 01:28:07,320
Speaker 1: a bit about and and not just time in a

1311
01:28:07,400 --> 01:28:10,320
Speaker 1: sense of sort of how to organize but but but

1312
01:28:10,520 --> 01:28:14,360
Speaker 1: even like how to say no and yes to ensure

1313
01:28:14,560 --> 01:28:17,800
Speaker 1: that you know I'm strong enough to continue doing this

1314
01:28:17,920 --> 01:28:21,439
Speaker 1: type of work. And that's a work in progress. I mean,

1315
01:28:21,520 --> 01:28:24,599
Speaker 1: it's just just so much. That's a work in progress

1316
01:28:26,160 --> 01:28:28,880
Speaker 1: times a big one for me too. I feel you there,

1317
01:28:30,280 --> 01:28:32,640
Speaker 1: and I will say thank you so much for you

1318
01:28:32,920 --> 01:28:37,400
Speaker 1: giving us your time today and and bringing all of

1319
01:28:37,479 --> 01:28:42,680
Speaker 1: yourself to this space. I really deeply appreciate it. I'm

1320
01:28:42,720 --> 01:28:46,599
Speaker 1: sure that everyone who's listened to this conversation today does

1321
01:28:46,680 --> 01:28:49,240
Speaker 1: as well. Thank you, Sylvia, Thank you so much for

1322
01:28:49,320 --> 01:29:00,120
Speaker 1: having me on m