Speaker 1: Pushkin. So I was riding in my car. I'm driving
Speaker 1: and this klansman was sitting in my passenger seat and
Speaker 1: we got on the topic of a crime, and he
Speaker 1: made the mention that black people are born with a
Speaker 1: gene that makes them violent. And I said, look, I'm
Speaker 1: as black as anybody you've ever seen. I have never
Speaker 1: done a drive by or a car jacking. How do
Speaker 1: you explain that this man did not hesitate one second?
Speaker 1: He answered me instantly, he said, your gene is latent.
Speaker 1: It hasn't come out yet. That's Darryll Davis, a blues musician.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you heard him right. He's driving in his
Speaker 1: car with a number of the Ku Klux Klan. You know,
Speaker 1: I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's sitting next
Speaker 1: to me with all smug and secure. Huh. You see,
Speaker 1: you know you have nothing to say. And I thought
Speaker 1: about it for a moment rather than attack him, you
Speaker 1: say it's not true. It's not true. I said to him,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, white people have a gene within
Speaker 1: them that make them serial killers. And he said, why
Speaker 1: would you say that. I said, well, face it, name
Speaker 1: me three black serial killers. He thought about it. You
Speaker 1: couldn't name anybody, you couldn't do it. I rattled off
Speaker 1: Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy, David burklewot son of Sam Albert de Salvo,
Speaker 1: the Boston Strangler. And I said, Son, you are a
Speaker 1: serial killer. And he said, Darrell, I've never killed anybody.
Speaker 1: I said, you're Gina's leg and hasn't come out yet.
Speaker 1: He said, well, that's stupid, and I said, well, duh,
Speaker 1: it is stupid. And he got very, very quiet, and
Speaker 1: I could tell that the gears in his head were
Speaker 1: spinning super fast, probably burning a hole in there. And
Speaker 1: then he a moment later he changed the subject. But
Speaker 1: within five months this guy quit the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: Since that car ride thirty years ago, Darryl Davis has
Speaker 1: gone on to convince dozens of people to leave the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone else to change their mind
Speaker 1: their view of reality is one of the most elusive,
Speaker 1: coveted types of change, which is why Darryl's story feels
Speaker 1: so improbable. So how does he do it? I'm maya
Speaker 1: shunker as a cognitive scientist. I've always been fascinated by
Speaker 1: how we change our minds and why we change our minds.
Speaker 1: On this show, I'll have intimate conversations with people who
Speaker 1: have navigated extraordinary change, and hopefully their stories will get
Speaker 1: us to think differently about change in our own lives.
Speaker 1: This is a slight change of plans. Darrel didn't set
Speaker 1: out to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused
Speaker 1: on his music. But one night his life took an
Speaker 1: unexpected turn when he was playing a show at a
Speaker 1: bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver Dollar Lounge
Speaker 1: at the time was an all white lounge, and I
Speaker 1: say that not meaning that black people could not go in,
Speaker 1: but meaning that they did not go in by their
Speaker 1: own choice because they were not welcome there. And when
Speaker 1: you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is
Speaker 1: being served, sometimes it has not made for a good combination,
Speaker 1: especially when you're out numbered. So we took a break
Speaker 1: after the first set, and I was walking across the
Speaker 1: dance floor to go sit you with the bandmates when
Speaker 1: somebody approached me from behind and put their arm around
Speaker 1: my shoulder. No, I don't know anybody in this place,
Speaker 1: so I'm turning around to see who's touching me? And
Speaker 1: it was this gentleman maybe fifteen eighteen years older than me,
Speaker 1: and he's all excited. He says, man, I sure like
Speaker 1: your piano playing. This is the first time I ever
Speaker 1: heard of black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.
Speaker 1: And I told him, I said, well, Jerry Lee got
Speaker 1: it from the same place I did, from black blues
Speaker 1: and boogie woogie piano players. Oh no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I never heard no black man play like that. So
Speaker 1: for you, Jerry Lee invented that style. I said, look,
Speaker 1: I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He's told me himself where he had learned how to play.
Speaker 1: The guy didn't buy that either, but he was so
Speaker 1: fascinated with me that he wanted me to come back
Speaker 1: to table. He's going to buy me a drink, so
Speaker 1: I don't drink, but I agreed to have a cranberry juice.
Speaker 1: He bought it, paid the waitress, and then he took
Speaker 1: his glass and he clinked my glass and cheered me,
Speaker 1: and then he announces, you know, this is the first
Speaker 1: time I ever sat down with a black man and
Speaker 1: had a drink so innocently I asked him why, and
Speaker 1: he didn't answer me at first. I asked him again,
Speaker 1: and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and
Speaker 1: said tell him, tell him, And the guy looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: Well I burst out laughing at him because now I
Speaker 1: do not believe him. I thought he was putting the
Speaker 1: joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket,
Speaker 1: pulls out his wallet, flips through it, and hands me
Speaker 1: his clan membership card. I recognized the clan insignia, which
Speaker 1: is a red circle with a white cross and a
Speaker 1: red blood drop in the center of the cross, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking myself, oh my goodness, you know this is
Speaker 1: for real. So I stopped laughing. But he was, you know,
Speaker 1: very friendly and very appreciative of my music and all excited.
Speaker 1: He gave me his phone number to you know, to
Speaker 1: call him whenever I was to return to this bar
Speaker 1: with this band, and so I'd called him every six
Speaker 1: weeks and say, hey, man, you know, I'm down there
Speaker 1: at the Silver Dollar this weekend coming out. You say,
Speaker 1: it's so nonchalantly like, so I called the guy. It
Speaker 1: is remarkable that you called this person. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand you know,
Speaker 1: what was going through through your mind at this moment.
Speaker 1: If someone told me that they were in the freaking clan,
Speaker 1: I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd
Speaker 1: probably just flee the scene. And I think this is
Speaker 1: for pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning
Speaker 1: myself for a second, like what the heck am I
Speaker 1: doing sitting here with a Klansmen. But the guy was friendly.
Speaker 1: He disputed the things that I had in mind of
Speaker 1: the image over typical klansmen, and he wanted to share
Speaker 1: my music with some of his fellow klansmen clans women.
Speaker 1: And they would you get on the danceloor and dancelore
Speaker 1: on music. You know, they didn't come in robes and
Speaker 1: Hood's right, you know, they came in you know, regular
Speaker 1: street clothes. This goes on for a year, an entire year.
Speaker 1: Darrell would play a gig at this bar, and he
Speaker 1: would invite clan members to watch him play. This is
Speaker 1: one of those things that makes Darrell so unusual. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, a huge part of what makes someone who
Speaker 1: they are is their belief system. And so if we
Speaker 1: share the same taste in music, that's fine, that's great.
Speaker 1: But if I then find out they're a flagrant racist,
Speaker 1: that's going to fully eclipse everything else about them. So
Speaker 1: how does Darrell look past that? He says, it's not
Speaker 1: like that. He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to
Speaker 1: learn from it. See, Darrell had spent his early childhood
Speaker 1: overseas in a school he describes as a United Nations
Speaker 1: for little kids. Race was always in the background, but
Speaker 1: when he moved back to the States when he was ten,
Speaker 1: he couldn't escape races, and ever since then he's been
Speaker 1: interested in why people hate. I had had an experience
Speaker 1: at the age of ten where some racist people throw
Speaker 1: rocks and bottles at me during a parade in which
Speaker 1: I was the only black participant, and never having had
Speaker 1: this happened to me before, I was perplexed as to
Speaker 1: why people were doing this, and when later my parents
Speaker 1: explained that it was racism, my ten year old brain
Speaker 1: could not process the idea that someone who had never
Speaker 1: seen me before, who had never spoken with me, and
Speaker 1: knew nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon
Speaker 1: me for no other reason than the color of my skin.
Speaker 1: You know that just did not compete with me. Well, later,
Speaker 1: when I realized this was true, there are people like that,
Speaker 1: I formed a question in my mind, which was, how
Speaker 1: can you hate me when you don't even know me?
Speaker 1: And some people would just say, well, Darryl, you know
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. Well, no, it's not
Speaker 1: just the way it is. There has to be a
Speaker 1: reason behind it. Well it's always been that way. That
Speaker 1: was not good enough for me. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: to the nuclear of it. So Darryll dedicates himself to
Speaker 1: answering this question. He devours books about race and racism.
Speaker 1: He reads nearly every book that exists on the Klan,
Speaker 1: but he's still unsatisfied, so he decides he wants to
Speaker 1: write his own book about the clan. All the books
Speaker 1: written on the clan except for mine, have been written
Speaker 1: by white authors. You know, white authors obviously have an
Speaker 1: easier time getting in contact with the clan and sitting
Speaker 1: down and not fearing any ramifications or whatever, or they
Speaker 1: might even join the clan undercover. A clansman would have
Speaker 1: a different perspective sitting there talking to a black person
Speaker 1: than he would a white person. And how do you
Speaker 1: feel that perspective would have been different because he's sitting
Speaker 1: there telling the person that he hates why he hates them.
Speaker 1: So now he's having to face me and face those
Speaker 1: same questions you know that somebody would ask, or even
Speaker 1: different questions that a white interviewer journalist would not ask
Speaker 1: because they don't think of him, because they don't feel
Speaker 1: the things the same things that I feel. As Darrell
Speaker 1: starts researching for his book, it suddenly dawns on him
Speaker 1: he already knows someone in the clan, that guy from
Speaker 1: the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes on a mission
Speaker 1: to track him down. It takes a while, but eventually
Speaker 1: he finds the guy's address and I knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: you know, unannounced, and he opens the door and sees me, goes, Darrell,
Speaker 1: you know what are you doing here? And look, he
Speaker 1: looked up and down the hallway to see if I
Speaker 1: brought anybody with me. So it was more of him
Speaker 1: that who was intimidated than me. And when he stepped
Speaker 1: out of his apartment, I stepped in. So he turns around,
Speaker 1: comes back in. So now we're standing inside his apartment
Speaker 1: and he says, you know what's going on? Are you
Speaker 1: still playing. What's going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still playing. But listen, I need to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the clan. He says, the clan. I said, yeah.
Speaker 1: He goes, well, I quit. I quit a while back.
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, where's all your clan stuff?
Speaker 1: He says, well, they came and got it. And I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean they came and got your robe hood?
Speaker 1: You know, don't you own it? And he explained to me,
Speaker 1: when you join the clan, if you have the money
Speaker 1: to pay for it, you can purchase your robin hood
Speaker 1: and it's yours to keep forever. If you cannot afford
Speaker 1: it at the time, you can still take it home
Speaker 1: with you, but you put a little extra money in
Speaker 1: every time you pay your dues until you pay it off,
Speaker 1: sort like layaway kind of thing. A bizarre financial lead
Speaker 1: system within the clan. Love it, yes, exactly, equal opportunity
Speaker 1: for everyone who's racist, that's right, okay, absolutely so. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he said that they came and got it, but when
Speaker 1: they came to get it, he could not find the mask,
Speaker 1: and he has since found it and he needed to
Speaker 1: return it. I said, what can I see it? So
Speaker 1: he goes down the hallway, comes back and hands me
Speaker 1: the mask, and I said to him, I said, do
Speaker 1: you know Roger Kelly. He goes, yeah, Roger was my
Speaker 1: Grand Dragon. I know him. And I said, well, listen,
Speaker 1: I need you to hook me up with mister Kelly.
Speaker 1: I want you to interview him. I'm going to write
Speaker 1: a book on the clan. Now, let me explain how
Speaker 1: the hierarchy of the plan works. You understand these terms.
Speaker 1: We would call a state leader a governor. They call
Speaker 1: that the Grand Dragon a mayor. That person is known
Speaker 1: as the exalted Cyclops. Anybody on the great level is Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very the self importance that these names true, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: But see that's also what attracts people because you know,
Speaker 1: they get titles, they feel important. Yes, it's a sense
Speaker 1: of self importance, you know, because they're not getting that
Speaker 1: from the society in which they live. So, you know,
Speaker 1: this brotherhood, this gang, if you will, gives him those things.
Speaker 1: So at the time, Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon
Speaker 1: state leader from Maryland. So I said, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what you need to return this mask, right, he said yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, give me Roger Kelly's phone number and his
Speaker 1: address and I'll go and return it for you. And
Speaker 1: he snatched that thing right out of my hand and said,
Speaker 1: in no way. And so I begged and plead it
Speaker 1: with him. Well, he finally gave it to me on
Speaker 1: the condition that I not revealed him mister Kelly where
Speaker 1: I got it. And he warned me that Darrell, do
Speaker 1: not go to Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, that's that's the whole reason why
Speaker 1: I need to talk to mister Kelly. I know, why
Speaker 1: would he kill me? What is going on in his
Speaker 1: mind when he sees me. I have to understand this.
Speaker 1: You did realize that you might not get the answer
Speaker 1: to the question if, in fact the dangerous part happened first, right, true,
Speaker 1: this is true. But but I but I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know that I would I would prevail. I'm the
Speaker 1: eternal optimist. If you will, Well, I am not the
Speaker 1: eternal optimist. And Darrell's decision feels incredibly risky. But anyway,
Speaker 1: he has a secretary, Mary, call and schedule the interview,
Speaker 1: and he gives her one important instruction, do not tell
Speaker 1: him that I'm black, and see if you would consent
Speaker 1: to sitting down and giving her boss an interview. I figured,
Speaker 1: you know, he might pick up in my voice that
Speaker 1: I'm black, and uh. I didn't want him to hang
Speaker 1: up the phone say am I talking to you, and
Speaker 1: my whole project would have ended before they ever got started.
Speaker 1: Roger Kelly agrees to meet for an interview one evening
Speaker 1: at a nearby motel. Darrel gets to the motel early
Speaker 1: with Mary. He's not sure if Roger will even agree
Speaker 1: to step foot in the room, but if he does,
Speaker 1: Darrel wants to be hospitable. He asked Mary to fill
Speaker 1: up the ice bucket and buy some sodas, and then
Speaker 1: they start arranging the room. There's not much to arrange.
Speaker 1: There's the ice bucket, a table, two chairs, and Daryl's
Speaker 1: canvas bag which has his tape recorder and a Bible.
Speaker 1: The clan claims to be a Christian organization, and they
Speaker 1: claim that the Bible preaches are racial separation. Now, in
Speaker 1: my reading of the Bible, I have never seen anything
Speaker 1: like that in there. So I want to be able
Speaker 1: to pull up my Bible and hand it to him
Speaker 1: and say, here, mister Kelly, please show me chapter and
Speaker 1: verse where it says blastomed whites must be separate. So
Speaker 1: I'm all prepared right right on time, right to the minute.
Speaker 1: Five fifteen knock, knock, knock on the door. In it's
Speaker 1: what is known as the Grand Nighthawk. Night Hawk means
Speaker 1: bodyguard security. He's dressed in military camouflage and he has
Speaker 1: that clan patch on his chest on one side, on
Speaker 1: the other side of his chest or the initials cakak
Speaker 1: and embroidered on his cap and said Knights of the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan, and on his hip. He had a
Speaker 1: semi automatic handgun in a holster. He comes in, Mister
Speaker 1: Kelly is walking directly behind him, carrying a briefcase in
Speaker 1: a dark blue suit and tie. And the night Hawk
Speaker 1: turned the corner and saw me and just froze in
Speaker 1: his trap. So mister Kelly slammed into his back and
Speaker 1: knocked this guy forward. And now that they both are
Speaker 1: stumbling around trying to regain their balance, and they're like
Speaker 1: looking all around the room like somebody's not right here.
Speaker 1: And I'm just sitting at the table looking at their faces,
Speaker 1: and I could read their faces like a billboard. Their
Speaker 1: faces were saying to me, did the desk give us
Speaker 1: the wrong room number? Do do we misunderstand something or
Speaker 1: is this an ambush? So you know, I saw the apprehension,
Speaker 1: and so I stood up and I displayed both of
Speaker 1: my palms to show I had nothing in my hands,
Speaker 1: and I walked forward. I extended my right hand and
Speaker 1: I said, Hi, mister Kelly, I'm Darryl Davis. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with a slight change of plans. You're listening
Speaker 1: to a slight change of plans. I'm Maya Shunker. So
Speaker 1: there they are, Roger Kelly, the grand Dragon of the Clan,
Speaker 1: face to face with Darrell Davis. Daryl reaches out to
Speaker 1: shake Roger's hand and Roger shakes his hand back. It
Speaker 1: seems like the interview is going to happen, but before
Speaker 1: he can dive in with his first question, Roger asked
Speaker 1: to see Darryl's ID. So Darrel hands in his driver's
Speaker 1: license and then he looks at it and he says, oh,
Speaker 1: you live on such and such a street. And so
Speaker 1: now I'm wondering, why is this man reading my address?
Speaker 1: You know, is he gonna come burn across at my
Speaker 1: house or you know what? So that had me a
Speaker 1: little concerned, but I didn't want to let him know
Speaker 1: that he had rattled me a little bit, and so
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, yes, mister Kelly, that
Speaker 1: is where I live and you live at and I
Speaker 1: named his house number and his street. It's a pretty
Speaker 1: good mic drop line. Yeah, because you know, if you
Speaker 1: come visit me, I'm going to come and visit you.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe it's better that we just confine
Speaker 1: all of this visiting to this motel room. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we started with this interview that this is the actual
Speaker 1: cassette tape from the meeting. Okay, first, what got you
Speaker 1: interested in in the q clux Klan. I was always
Speaker 1: interested as a kid, you know, when I was going
Speaker 1: to school, I was interested. I was fascinated by the
Speaker 1: Rachel was a rogues across burning and things like hey
Speaker 1: and did yeah family and the clan. I was like
Speaker 1: a friend introducer to the clan ran mothers in the
Speaker 1: plan year ago. You know, we be and talking and
Speaker 1: every time my cassette would run out of tape, I'd
Speaker 1: reach down into my bag to get a fresh cassette,
Speaker 1: or if mister Kelly tried to make some biblical point,
Speaker 1: I'd reach down in my bag and put out the Bible.
Speaker 1: The night hawk was standing to mister Kelly's right at
Speaker 1: full attention, and every time I reached down, the nighthawk
Speaker 1: reached up to his gun. Well after about an hour
Speaker 1: or so, the bodyguard relaxed, he realized there was no
Speaker 1: threat in the bag, and I went in and out
Speaker 1: of the bag. He didn't move a little over an
Speaker 1: hour into this, mister Kelly and I were just have,
Speaker 1: you know, casual conversation, and there was a quick, short
Speaker 1: noise that occurred out of nowhere. It sounded like this,
Speaker 1: And because it came out of nowhere suddenly, and it
Speaker 1: was so fast and so short, my ear could not
Speaker 1: discern it. So I perceived it to be a threatening noise.
Speaker 1: I knew that mister Kelly had made this noise. How
Speaker 1: did I know that? Because I didn't make it, and
Speaker 1: I feared for my life. I'm not armed, My secretary
Speaker 1: is not armed. The only person who I know for
Speaker 1: sure is armed is the nighthawk. I can see his
Speaker 1: gun on his hip. I don't know if mister Kelly
Speaker 1: carries one up under his suit jacket or not. All
Speaker 1: I know is, you know, I don't want to die.
Speaker 1: I'm looking right into mister Kelly's eyes I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just like inchested away from him, and his eyes were
Speaker 1: fixated on mine. Mine were fixated on his. Neither one
Speaker 1: of us said a word. My eyes were saying to him,
Speaker 1: what did you just do? And I realized his eyes
Speaker 1: were saying to me, what did you just do? And
Speaker 1: the nighthawk was looking back and forth between both of us,
Speaker 1: like would either one of y'all just do well. Mary
Speaker 1: was sitting to my left on top of the dresser
Speaker 1: because there were no more chairs in the room, and
Speaker 1: she realized what had happened, and she began explaining it
Speaker 1: to us. When it happened again, the ice in the
Speaker 1: ice bucket had begun and the cans of soda pop
Speaker 1: were shifting down the ice. Wow. And then, of course
Speaker 1: when she explained it and it happened again, you know,
Speaker 1: we all began laughing. We all began laughing at the
Speaker 1: same thing. Everybody in that room became human in that moment.
Speaker 1: We all feared, We all feared each other. Somebody could
Speaker 1: have gotten shot over an ice cube, all right, Just
Speaker 1: think about that for a second. After this interview, Daryl
Speaker 1: and Roger keep in touch. Daryl is still curious about
Speaker 1: Roger's perspective and how it might answer the question Daryl's
Speaker 1: been asking for decades, how can you hate me if
Speaker 1: you don't even know me? And now the two weren't
Speaker 1: actually getting to know each other. Was there a point
Speaker 1: where you thought, hey, wait a second, I might actually
Speaker 1: be able to get this Roger Kelly guy to change
Speaker 1: his mind about this. Here's a thing, Maya. I never
Speaker 1: set out to change anybody, not the first time, any means,
Speaker 1: because you know, I never expected anybody to change. All
Speaker 1: I wanted to know was how can you hate me
Speaker 1: when you don't even know me? As all I want
Speaker 1: to know? And I never expected to see these people again.
Speaker 1: But when you're sitting there, one on one with somebody,
Speaker 1: it's hard to hate them as a human being. It's
Speaker 1: hard to hate them, and it's hard for them to
Speaker 1: hate you, even though they may try. But was there
Speaker 1: something specific that he did or that he said where
Speaker 1: you saw that there was an end? Yeah. I began
Speaker 1: noticing changes in in his behavior, in his language. He'd
Speaker 1: been to my house. His bodyguard would come with him initially,
Speaker 1: and we would have lunch or dinner at my table.
Speaker 1: I never got invited to his house. But then when
Speaker 1: he became Imperial Wizard. He began inviting me to his house,
Speaker 1: and already he was coming down to my house without
Speaker 1: without his bodyguard. He trusted me that much. This goes
Speaker 1: on for over five years. Eventually Roger quits the clan,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't simply step down and hand it over
Speaker 1: to someone else. He shuts down his entire chapter, and
Speaker 1: he cites his friendship with Darryl as being the reason
Speaker 1: Daryl since inspired over two hundred people to leave white
Speaker 1: supremacist groups. And Darryl's story of changing people's minds doesn't
Speaker 1: end there. He's still doing this kind of work today
Speaker 1: all over the world. And I wanted to dig in
Speaker 1: deeper on his approach. I know you don't like saying
Speaker 1: that you change people's minds, right, You inspire them to
Speaker 1: change their own minds. So when it comes to inspiring
Speaker 1: them to change their own minds, did you have to
Speaker 1: adapt your approach at all when when dealing with different
Speaker 1: types of folks? Absolutely, because you know, just like if
Speaker 1: somebody you know, you're a musician and you play violin,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you're right handed or left handed,
Speaker 1: left handed, hey shout out at Some people are wired
Speaker 1: left handed. Some people are wired right handed. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make one person better than the other, It just happens
Speaker 1: to be how they're wired. Likewise, how we make decisions
Speaker 1: depends upon how we're wired. Some people are wired to
Speaker 1: make decisions based upon their emotions. Others make decisions based
Speaker 1: upon their logic. So first you determine how does somebody
Speaker 1: decide something. If they if they make decisions based upon emotion,
Speaker 1: then there's no way in heck you're going to get
Speaker 1: to get them to see your point if you bring
Speaker 1: a logical perspectives. The same thing if you if you're
Speaker 1: dealing with a scientist or somebody who deals in data
Speaker 1: and logic and evidence, don't come with an emotional argument.
Speaker 1: You know, then I' even going to listen to you.
Speaker 1: Show them the data, show them the stats, the test results.
Speaker 1: So you know, you have to go to where they are.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes we miss that, we don't understand that because
Speaker 1: we haven't taken the time. I've seen it happen time
Speaker 1: and time again. So a clansman comes comes into my
Speaker 1: room to be interviewed or whatever we meet. As soon
Speaker 1: as he or she sees me, the wall goes right up.
Speaker 1: You cannot impart any intelligent information to them when their
Speaker 1: wall is up, because when their wall is up, their
Speaker 1: ears are plugged and they're shutting you out. Your mission
Speaker 1: is to bring the wall down. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: two feet from the guy, and he's telling me that
Speaker 1: I'm a criminal and that I'm lazy, and that I'm unintelligent,
Speaker 1: basing all of this based on my black skin. So
Speaker 1: when he's done radiating all this vitriol, his wall has
Speaker 1: come down because I haven't pushed back, and he's curious
Speaker 1: as to why I haven't pushed back, because he's so
Speaker 1: accustomed to being pushed back on and so now I've
Speaker 1: thrown him off his game and he wants to know, well,
Speaker 1: how do I feel about all this? I could go
Speaker 1: on the offense and attack him verbally and say, no,
Speaker 1: you are the criminal. You are the ones hanging black
Speaker 1: men from trees and bombing black churches and dragging black
Speaker 1: men behind pickup trucks, and I would be a one
Speaker 1: hundred percent correct. But rather than go on the offense,
Speaker 1: because if I did that, that wall will go right
Speaker 1: back up and he wouldn't hear a word I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Instead of going on the offense, I go on the
Speaker 1: defense and Maya hear's what happens. He goes home and
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like we all do,
Speaker 1: we reflect on what transpired during the day before we
Speaker 1: go to bed. He thinks, Man, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a three hour conversation today with a black guy, you know,
Speaker 1: and we didn't come to blows. You know, we might
Speaker 1: have gotten a little loud, but we didn't come to blows.
Speaker 1: And in most cases with me, most people have changed
Speaker 1: their perspectives. So I don't think many people in their
Speaker 1: everyday lives are going to be interacting with members of
Speaker 1: the clan, obviously, but many of us, many listeners of
Speaker 1: this podcast, do encounter racism and prejudice on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I first heard about your story,
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, if this man can convince clan members
Speaker 1: to leave, than anything is possible. But it feels like
Speaker 1: maybe things are a little bit more complicated than that, right,
Speaker 1: Because in order to get someone to be less racist,
Speaker 1: a necessary step is for them to identify that they
Speaker 1: are in fact being racist. And clan members are already
Speaker 1: brazen and celebratory in their racism. But if you were
Speaker 1: to challenge a mom or a dad who says in private,
Speaker 1: you know that they prefer if their daughter not marry
Speaker 1: a black man. They might not be willing to acknowledge
Speaker 1: this prejudice within themselves. And so I'm curious to know
Speaker 1: what advice you'd give to people who are trying to
Speaker 1: help those around them simply acknowledge their own prejudices by
Speaker 1: sending down saying, hey, let's let's not have a debate,
Speaker 1: let's have a conversation. Like for example, just the other day,
Speaker 1: a very good friend of mine his fellow musician, and
Speaker 1: we both like music of the fifties, you know, Elvis Presley,
Speaker 1: Jeff Berry, all that stuff. And he posted on Facebook,
Speaker 1: I wish we could return to the mindset of the fifties,
Speaker 1: and all these people, you know, gave him a thumbs
Speaker 1: up and likes and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: I saw it and I wrote on there, hmm, dot
Speaker 1: dot dot. I said, maybe we should return bring back
Speaker 1: the music, maybe bring back some of the cool cars,
Speaker 1: and definitely some of the low prices, but perhaps not
Speaker 1: the mindset. And see, and that's a whole different perspective.
Speaker 1: You will never hear black people talk about the good
Speaker 1: old days because we didn't have good old days, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know I loved the music of the fifties.
Speaker 1: But what I want to go back to that era? No,
Speaker 1: because in that era I would have to be drinking
Speaker 1: from a separate order fountain, riding in the back of
Speaker 1: the bus, not being served in certain restaurants. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go back to that. But see if that
Speaker 1: didn't even occur to him, Why I did it not
Speaker 1: occur to him because he has white privilege, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was just a plain ignorance. So I had to
Speaker 1: just point it out to him. He wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: be offensive or anything like that, He just didn't know.
Speaker 1: How do you think about the difference between labeling behaviors
Speaker 1: as racists versus people as racist, and how that difference
Speaker 1: in focus might affect people's ability to change. You put
Speaker 1: a label on somebody, they tend to carry it. It
Speaker 1: damages them. And if they have paid their price that
Speaker 1: you know, they've given that up. They should not have
Speaker 1: to wear that label anymore. We need to break them
Speaker 1: from that. Otherwise, what do they have left? How do
Speaker 1: they feel whole? You know, we can't do that to people.
Speaker 1: During my time at the Obama White House when we
Speaker 1: were designing reentry guides for people who are leading prison
Speaker 1: we made sure not to use labels like ex convicts
Speaker 1: or ex prisoners and instead use forward looking language like
Speaker 1: community members. And this was basic on the idea that
Speaker 1: people often act in ways that's strongly align with their
Speaker 1: social identities, and you know, they can often feel fixed
Speaker 1: in those identities. Yes, like, if they've paid the price,
Speaker 1: they have accepted responsibility and accountability, then why should we
Speaker 1: label them that way? Label them ask to what they
Speaker 1: are at the time. Daryl's now working with the State Department.
Speaker 1: They send him on trips to Israel, India and other
Speaker 1: countries to talk about prejudice and bigotry and how to
Speaker 1: tackle the deep inequities of race, class, and cast He
Speaker 1: also gives dozens of lectures a year at universities and I'll,
Speaker 1: you know, at the end of the lecture, I'll do
Speaker 1: a Q and A. There'll be some students standing off
Speaker 1: in the distance, not doing anything. It's kind of milling around.
Speaker 1: When the crowd dissipates and goes away from the podium,
Speaker 1: he or she will then approach me and they'll like,
Speaker 1: look around, make sure nobody's with an ear shot and
Speaker 1: they'll say, oh, you know, I enjoyed your lecture, mister Davis.
Speaker 1: You know I was raised that way. My mother is
Speaker 1: in the clan, or my father's a neo Nazi. You know,
Speaker 1: this is how how I grew up. But now I'm
Speaker 1: here at University of whatever and m my my my
Speaker 1: boyfriend h is Jewish or my girlfriend is black, and
Speaker 1: I can't bring I can't bring that person home. My
Speaker 1: parents will kill me or you know, or they'll disown me.
Speaker 1: And how do they go home and tell their parents
Speaker 1: that their parents were wrong? You know, their parents wanted
Speaker 1: them to go and get an education, but they didn't
Speaker 1: want them to get that education. So they've got this
Speaker 1: secret burning on their chest. You know that just has
Speaker 1: to come out. And I'm one of the perfect persons that,
Speaker 1: you know that they can talk to about it. And
Speaker 1: I'll sit down and talk with them and you know,
Speaker 1: give them some advice and things like that and try
Speaker 1: to smooth things out for them. You know, he help
Speaker 1: them out. Um. You know, I get a lot of
Speaker 1: those kinds of emails. Guys, you want me to talk
Speaker 1: to their brother, or some kid wants me to talk
Speaker 1: to their parents, or some wife wants me to talk
Speaker 1: to her husband. We need something like a race anonymous
Speaker 1: kind of thing, And I'm planning on having a museum
Speaker 1: one day. In my museum, I'm going to have a
Speaker 1: component for people to come and talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: racist spouses or racist parents, or racist siblings or something
Speaker 1: like that, so there will be an outlet for them
Speaker 1: and hopefully, hopefully that can be replicated around the country.
Speaker 1: We spent so much of this interview talking about how
Speaker 1: you inspire changing others, and I'm wondering how this whole
Speaker 1: experience changed you. I I just thought I'd meet these people,
Speaker 1: get my information, write my book, and be done, never
Speaker 1: see them again. What what you and I and everybody
Speaker 1: else has heard as children is this. A tiger does
Speaker 1: not change his stripes, a leopard does not change his spots,
Speaker 1: So why would we think that a clansman would change
Speaker 1: his ideology? You know, people are who they are. But
Speaker 1: when somebody started changing, and then it happened again and
Speaker 1: again and again, I realized I was onto something. So
Speaker 1: what can what can be learned can also be unlearned.
Speaker 1: I cannot stop doing this work, so I'm making just
Speaker 1: as much time between my music and doing this kind
Speaker 1: of work because I love my country and I want
Speaker 1: to see it improve. We spend too much time in
Speaker 1: this country talking about the other person, talking at the
Speaker 1: other person, and talking past the other person. I prefer
Speaker 1: to talk with the other person and that has been
Speaker 1: the key to my success. Hey, thanks for listening. See
Speaker 1: you next week for my conversation with comedian and actress
Speaker 1: Tiffany Hattish Girl. If I hadn't gone through all the
Speaker 1: stuff that I've been through, I would not be funny
Speaker 1: at awe Like if you think about it, like everything
Speaker 1: that I am capable of, that how am I able
Speaker 1: to access it? Comes from all of the tragedy. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is created an executive produced by
Speaker 1: me Maya Schunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and
Speaker 1: Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior
Speaker 1: editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben
Speaker 1: Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louise Gara who
Speaker 1: wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange
Speaker 1: the vocals. Incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. So, Daryl,
Speaker 1: one of the things that really captivated me on a
Speaker 1: personal level about your story is that you are a musician.
Speaker 1: I was also a musician in the younger part of
Speaker 1: my life, and I studied classical violin. Okay, if I
Speaker 1: have to correct you on something. You said that you
Speaker 1: were a musician, let me tell you Something's a musician,
Speaker 1: always a musician. So you're still a musician. Oh I
Speaker 1: love that. Thank you. I think my technique would would
Speaker 1: violate that assumption, but I think in my heart I
Speaker 1: am a musician. I'll give you that