Speaker 1: Hello everyone. This podcast has come out on Wednesday instead
Speaker 1: of Tuesday. You may or may not have noticed. We
Speaker 1: did that intentionally to be part of Blackout Tuesday, which
Speaker 1: was an event that was designed to show solidarity with
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter. And on that same note, this is
Speaker 1: a re release of a previous conversation that we had
Speaker 1: with Austin Channing Brown, who is a leading voice on
Speaker 1: racial justice and the author of the book I'm Still Here,
Speaker 1: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. In the
Speaker 1: show notes for this episode, you will find resources that
Speaker 1: you can use to educate yourself, to learn more, and
Speaker 1: to make things better. You can find those show notes
Speaker 1: in the podcast player that you are listening to this in,
Speaker 1: as well as on our website. Regardless of what part
Speaker 1: of this current crisis you choose to focus on, whether
Speaker 1: you want to focus your attention on yet another killing
Speaker 1: of an unarmed to black man by police, or you
Speaker 1: want to turn your attention to the way people are
Speaker 1: staging protests, the underlying problem is the systemic racism that
Speaker 1: is at the core of this country, and that is
Speaker 1: where we need to direct our attention. That is how
Speaker 1: this actually changes so that we don't keep having racial
Speaker 1: protests and riots over and over and over throughout American history.
Speaker 1: So education is a great place to start conversations like this.
Speaker 1: Will have a couple of books on the website. There's
Speaker 1: tons of reading lists out there that you can find.
Speaker 1: We'll also have places you can donate, as well as
Speaker 1: some links to other articles that give you different things
Speaker 1: you can do, particularly at a local level, to make
Speaker 1: a difference. So that's the place for all of us
Speaker 1: to move is to action. If you're watching all of
Speaker 1: this feeling sick to your stomach, like I know so
Speaker 1: many of us are, use that energy to move you
Speaker 1: towards some sort of positive action. It's a message we
Speaker 1: have on this show all the time, which is that
Speaker 1: while it matters what we know, what we think, and
Speaker 1: what we believe, what matters the most is what we
Speaker 1: actually do. And this is a time that that is
Speaker 1: really important. So allow this conversation to educate you, to
Speaker 1: move you, and then go take some action. And now
Speaker 1: here's the conversation with Austin Janning Brown. We can use
Speaker 1: anger to be creative and to build connections and to
Speaker 1: imagine a new way of being welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed throughout time, great tinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. Wee
Speaker 1: what we don't have instead of what we do. We
Speaker 1: think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Austin Channing Brown, a freelance writer and speaker
Speaker 1: with a particular focus on Black womanhood and faith. Her
Speaker 1: writing can be found in Relevant Magazine, Mutuality Magazine, and
Speaker 1: other places around the web. She also wrote a column
Speaker 1: called Wild Hope for Today's Christian Women, which is still
Speaker 1: accessible to readers passionate about racial justice and reconciliation. Austin
Speaker 1: travels the country preaching and teaching about the ways this
Speaker 1: work intersects with Christian faith. Her book is I'm Still Here,
Speaker 1: Black Dignity and a World Made for Whiteness. Hi Austin,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have you on. Your book is
Speaker 1: called I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made
Speaker 1: for Whiteness, and i am looking forward to jumping in
Speaker 1: and I've got lots of things to ask you and
Speaker 1: talk about. But let's start like we normally do, with
Speaker 1: the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter
Speaker 1: and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops
Speaker 1: and thinks about it for a second, looks up at
Speaker 1: her grandmother, and she said, grandmother, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. So I write and speak a lot about
Speaker 1: racial justice, and it could be really easy to feed
Speaker 1: a sense of hopelessness and loneliness and isolation and even
Speaker 1: a sense of pride as if it all rests on me,
Speaker 1: you know, um as if I'm I'm the only one
Speaker 1: out here doing this. I'm sort of complex about it,
Speaker 1: and I have to work to stay grounded, to stay hopeful,
Speaker 1: to stay joyful, to stay connected. And for me, that
Speaker 1: comes through a number of ways. Um. It comes from
Speaker 1: reading literature that I love. Um it comes from participating
Speaker 1: in this work with people that I love. Um So
Speaker 1: I'm reminded that I'm not just by myself. It comes
Speaker 1: from enjoying works of art and all the different appreciating
Speaker 1: all the different ways that folks approach racial justice and
Speaker 1: try to make a difference in the world. Um So yeah,
Speaker 1: So I find myself thinking more and more about what
Speaker 1: it means to feed myself. Well, um so I don't
Speaker 1: get burned out in this work, and now that I'm
Speaker 1: a mom, having to be very intentional about that, because
Speaker 1: my bandwidth for the work is shorter than it was when,
Speaker 1: um when nobody was relying on me. Yes, yes, children,
Speaker 1: children require, require and deserve a lot. That's right, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny in that parable itself as I read it.
Speaker 1: One of the things I say is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the Bad Wolf represents things like um, anger and hate,
Speaker 1: and you know, and so I think it's interesting because
Speaker 1: one of the things that is a theme throughout your
Speaker 1: book is the importance of anger and how valuable your
Speaker 1: anger is. And so I'm really interested in kind of
Speaker 1: what you started with there, which is how do you
Speaker 1: work with an anger so that it doesn't become corroding
Speaker 1: or how do you or you know, the the other
Speaker 1: question is how do we fight the monsters without becoming monsters? Right? Right,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. So let may begin by saying,
Speaker 1: um that I've spent a good portion of my life
Speaker 1: talking about racial justice, trying not to be angry, or
Speaker 1: at least trying not to show anger, even if I
Speaker 1: was to instead try and cover it with patience or
Speaker 1: um expressing another quote unquote appropriate emotion, like maybe disappointment
Speaker 1: or sadness or right, channel that anger into something else.
Speaker 1: And I read a book called Sister Outsider by Audrey Lord,
Speaker 1: and she's got an essay in They're called the Uses
Speaker 1: of Anger, and it was a huge lightbulb moment for
Speaker 1: me when she writes and I'm paraphrasing um that anger
Speaker 1: in and of itself is neither negative nor positive. It's
Speaker 1: just an emotion. But what we choose to do with
Speaker 1: it could be negative or positive. So we could certainly
Speaker 1: use anger to destroy and to hurt others and to
Speaker 1: you know, sort of rip one another apart. Or we
Speaker 1: can use anger to be creative and to build connections
Speaker 1: and to imagine a new way of being. And so
Speaker 1: the way that she describes anger, and she's doing it
Speaker 1: in the context of injustice, she says, anger reveals that
Speaker 1: something is wrong. We get angry about something right. That's
Speaker 1: something to pay attention to that we need to notice, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm angry because something should have happened and it didn't
Speaker 1: or right, or shouldn't have happened and it did right
Speaker 1: and so and so we can say that made me angry,
Speaker 1: So how do I change it? And that can be
Speaker 1: a really productive way of using anger, And that's been very,
Speaker 1: very helpful for me. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: was struck with in the book is you've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of your time in the church, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it in what we'd call, I guess, the White Church,
Speaker 1: and you talk about how frustrating. It is when you
Speaker 1: are dealing with injustice and you're confronting it and people
Speaker 1: say things do you like, well, you just have to
Speaker 1: love them more. I think that that strikes me as
Speaker 1: someone who often thinks that way, not about like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, black people need to act ex and way,
Speaker 1: but more about for myself sometimes, like you know, okay,
Speaker 1: is this the best way to handle it? And so
Speaker 1: you sort of talk about how so much of your
Speaker 1: time is spent dealing with we'll call it white fragility,
Speaker 1: and we can talk more about what that is, but
Speaker 1: dealing with that white fragility, and so you're trying to
Speaker 1: balance I think, letting out your anger and also having
Speaker 1: a productive conversation, and sometimes those things don't seem to
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. I mean, I can see it
Speaker 1: in inner personal relationships, right, that might be mad, but
Speaker 1: if I act mad at you, it's gonna be very
Speaker 1: difficult for us to talk. And so I just was
Speaker 1: struck by the challenge that must be an is for you,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious any thoughts you have on that. Let
Speaker 1: me begin by saying that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people of color in particular, but a lot of white
Speaker 1: folks too, who teach about and facilitate conversations about racial justice. Right.
Speaker 1: And there are some teachers who really enjoy working with
Speaker 1: folks who are at the very beginning of their journey,
Speaker 1: who still need the definition of white fragility, who begin
Speaker 1: conversations with I'm not sure I've ever even met a
Speaker 1: black person, folks who are like, really at the beginning
Speaker 1: of their journey, you know. And then there are are
Speaker 1: folks like me who have a tendency to work more
Speaker 1: with folks who have already been on this journey for
Speaker 1: a while, but are wanting, you know, to continue those conversations,
Speaker 1: to continue idea areas of growth, um, to to continue
Speaker 1: to be challenged. And so I want to be honest
Speaker 1: and say that I had more of those conversations when
Speaker 1: I was younger. I don't have them a whole lot anymore,
Speaker 1: because typically by the time I've gotten the phone call
Speaker 1: or I'm present, folks are already aware. And I enjoyed
Speaker 1: that because we can have conversations like the one you
Speaker 1: and I are having, where we think, where we sit
Speaker 1: down and we say, okay, so we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: conversation about race. Um. We know that there's a tendency
Speaker 1: for white fragility to enter the room. What can we
Speaker 1: do about that? Right, And then that becomes a conversation
Speaker 1: that we have before we even get to the hard
Speaker 1: stuff of race. Right, So we'll say, well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put tissues in the room, and if people are having
Speaker 1: you know, really emotional response response, that's great, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to pause the conversation for them, right, And
Speaker 1: if they to be excused, if they need to get up,
Speaker 1: like all of that is fine, Um, but that's going
Speaker 1: to be our rule. And then after like fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: or twenty minutes, we're going to take a break. And
Speaker 1: that's why those who are feeling really emotional can like
Speaker 1: take a moment, and you're right, have conversations with whoever
Speaker 1: they want to have conversations with. Right. But that way
Speaker 1: we're not interrupting the flow of what's happening here. So
Speaker 1: so the answer your question to go back, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't have a like a silver bullet
Speaker 1: right for these things. But I'm really interested in the
Speaker 1: conversation now that we have a name for it, and
Speaker 1: now that we know what we're talking about, to be
Speaker 1: able to say, okay, so how can we keep this contained, right,
Speaker 1: because we want people to experience their emotions, um, but
Speaker 1: we don't want it to interrupt the larger conversation that's happening, right,
Speaker 1: And so why don't you define to you what white
Speaker 1: fragility means and then maybe talk about how it interrupts
Speaker 1: conversations that start from a point of of goodness, right,
Speaker 1: but then get derailed one of the things. I'll let
Speaker 1: you answer the question, but one of the things in
Speaker 1: your book that struck me. I guess that you know
Speaker 1: the term today is cringe worthy, right, but it was
Speaker 1: cringe worthy for me reading it as somebody who you
Speaker 1: might as you were describing where people are on the
Speaker 1: journey of learning, I'm I'm earlier in the journey in
Speaker 1: that maybe that typical sort of just not realizing how
Speaker 1: pervasive the problem is, how endemic the problem is. So
Speaker 1: a lot of things I read and I thought, oh boy,
Speaker 1: that sounds like me at some point. You know, my
Speaker 1: heart's in the right place, but I'm clearly not not
Speaker 1: understanding a lot here, or not maybe not even listening.
Speaker 1: So I want to throw that in and now we'll
Speaker 1: go back to white fragility and how that gets in
Speaker 1: the way of useful conversation about race. That's good. So
Speaker 1: I feel like what happens during that process that you're
Speaker 1: discussing when someone's eyes are being opened. Right. It's one
Speaker 1: thing to sit in front of a book, You're right,
Speaker 1: and have a very emotional response to a book. Um,
Speaker 1: But what can happen is when people are gathered together.
Speaker 1: So let's say you and I were like in a
Speaker 1: small group together or a book study together, and I
Speaker 1: start to reveal some of this stuff that's in the book. Right,
Speaker 1: so I started talking about the first time I was
Speaker 1: called the N word or Right, it would be really
Speaker 1: easy to have a very emotional response in that discussion. Right,
Speaker 1: You're looking at me in my face. You can see
Speaker 1: the pain, you can see the emotion, right, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I didn't even know all this stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and you're like having a great her emotions are building.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what can happen is those emotions um begin to
Speaker 1: overflow so much that they require or demand that the
Speaker 1: entire group stops the conversation that's happening and or to
Speaker 1: take care of this one person's feelings. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: And it could be tears, it could be um, it
Speaker 1: could be like a person who just starts rambling right
Speaker 1: about themselves, or they're just like, oh, I didn't know,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize, I thought this. And in my history
Speaker 1: is this and I remember when my dad this, And
Speaker 1: you're like, whoa, yeah, yeah right. So that's that's one way.
Speaker 1: And I would say that's that's a pretty common way
Speaker 1: where the emotions just get the best of the person.
Speaker 1: And and the problem isn't that they're emotional. The problem
Speaker 1: is that it stops the conversation or derails the conversation.
Speaker 1: I like that term that you use. Derails. It turns
Speaker 1: the conversation off of the issue of injustice back to
Speaker 1: how in this case, the white person feels right, right,
Speaker 1: right right. And I would say that's probably, um, that's
Speaker 1: extraordinarily common. I would say the other way that white
Speaker 1: fragility can sometimes show up, though, is an unproductive anger. Um,
Speaker 1: so that that negative use of anger where um, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, a white person is shouting at people
Speaker 1: of color, or is um, oh, we'll prove that. Well,
Speaker 1: how can you say that about me? Um? Well, who's
Speaker 1: really in charge here? I want to talk to someone
Speaker 1: who's in charge, right like that, they're just very aggressive,
Speaker 1: and it's another way to shut down the conversation, right,
Speaker 1: or to derail the conversation. But it's, um, it's so
Speaker 1: much more forceful, Um that it makes it a lot
Speaker 1: scarier quite frankly, Um, it's it's it's a little frightening
Speaker 1: because you're not sure how far that anger is going
Speaker 1: to go. You know. One of the things that can
Speaker 1: be dangerous or unpredictable is a white person who believes
Speaker 1: in their goodness and when they find examples that maybe
Speaker 1: point to something different, this one is hard. So I
Speaker 1: would say that, um, generally speaking, right, like, this whole
Speaker 1: conversation is like you have to talk in generalities because
Speaker 1: it's big, right, But generally speaking, there's a point along
Speaker 1: their journey for white folks who are on their journey
Speaker 1: who have to stop. Um, there's like a line in
Speaker 1: the sand when when they're like, no, I'm innocent. My
Speaker 1: family was never part of slavery, I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: I've never said a mean word against a person of color, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm one of the good ones. My parents taught me,
Speaker 1: you know, to love everybody, and that's what I've been
Speaker 1: doing right, and then there comes a moment when a
Speaker 1: white person is like, oh, I have been dealing with
Speaker 1: racial bias. I have biases. I tell you. There's a
Speaker 1: story in the book about a teacher who was well
Speaker 1: loved in my high school who had an AHA moment
Speaker 1: when she was making seating charts for her class, which
Speaker 1: she did at the top of every semester, and in
Speaker 1: one semester, she realized that she was using her seating
Speaker 1: chart to separate students of color because she assumed that
Speaker 1: students of color who were sitting together would be disrespectful
Speaker 1: and would talk a lot and would not pay attention
Speaker 1: to her, and she didn't realize it until she misstepped right.
Speaker 1: She tried to use names to figure out who the
Speaker 1: students of color were, and she missed one of the
Speaker 1: names and and ended up with two black girls sitting together.
Speaker 1: And she thought, oh, no, this is not going to
Speaker 1: work out. And she immediately like caught herself, was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe's been using a seating chart to separate
Speaker 1: students of color. Like she was devastated, but it was
Speaker 1: really important for her to pause and say to herself,
Speaker 1: I what I have been doing is racist. I have
Speaker 1: been making assumptions about my students of color and created
Speaker 1: my own little internal policy of keeping them separated. And
Speaker 1: she had to say to herself, it's not good like this,
Speaker 1: This is not me being good. I have to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that I have been impacted by race in this country
Speaker 1: and not everything I do was good, and that led
Speaker 1: that leads towards transformation. Right, So that why it's so important.
Speaker 1: It's not that I want white people to hate themselves
Speaker 1: or white people to hate being why or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's just that, um, there does come a point when
Speaker 1: a moment for transformation is possible, and that moment for
Speaker 1: transformation creates more moments for transformation because now you're not
Speaker 1: holding so tightly to the idea that I am perfect
Speaker 1: or I always get this right, or I never do
Speaker 1: anything wrong right. Once you crack that open, then you
Speaker 1: can give yourself some freedom to say, oh, there's another
Speaker 1: bad thought, or oh, I can't believe I said that
Speaker 1: out loud or right like, you give yourself the freedom
Speaker 1: to make mistakes and to admit those mistakes. So one
Speaker 1: of the things that I heard it's been several months ago,
Speaker 1: which was a complete light switch flipping on for me,
Speaker 1: and is in your book a fair amount? Is this
Speaker 1: idea of whiteness being normal? Yes, so you know, I
Speaker 1: grow up in a certain culture and that is what
Speaker 1: I think is normal, and everything that's outside of that,
Speaker 1: I judge it as far as it's deviance. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean that in the negative sense of deviance. I
Speaker 1: mean it in the sense of difference from that culture,
Speaker 1: and that given that most of this culture, the majority
Speaker 1: is white, we judge everything by whiteness. And I have
Speaker 1: two questions for you there. One is it seems to
Speaker 1: me that there's a normal human reaction to say, my
Speaker 1: culture the way I do it is right and normal,
Speaker 1: and everyone else is doing it wrong. So that strikes
Speaker 1: me as normal and also strikes me as that how
Speaker 1: damaging it is in this culture where there is such
Speaker 1: a pervasive culture. If we were all split evenly, and
Speaker 1: we had all of us felt like our culture was right,
Speaker 1: but we were divided in each well we'd all go okay.
Speaker 1: But when it's very different than that, and when all
Speaker 1: the institutions and the power see whiteness as being right.
Speaker 1: But that was an eye opener for me because when
Speaker 1: I when I got it I went, well, I do
Speaker 1: I do? Now I can question it and I can go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting quietly while someone speaks is not right.
Speaker 1: It's not normal. It just is what this group of
Speaker 1: people does. And you go to a certain you know,
Speaker 1: black churches, right what my first my first time as
Speaker 1: I went to BB King concert when I was like fifteen,
Speaker 1: and there was they were just you know, they're everybody
Speaker 1: in the audience is talking to BB you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they're yelling and carrying on, and I just thought
Speaker 1: it was so awesome. But that I just realized how
Speaker 1: often that assumption that the way I do it, the
Speaker 1: way I see it is normal, is pervasive. And once
Speaker 1: I suddenly start seeing everything through a different lens of like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not normal, that's just this kind of culture. That's right. Boy,
Speaker 1: that was a big wake up for me, and your
Speaker 1: book just sort of drove that home even further. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to hear that, because you're right, every
Speaker 1: culture has what we would consider normal, right, Um, But
Speaker 1: what happens particularly like my story, so as a black
Speaker 1: girl who then enters white ministries or white churches or
Speaker 1: white organizations, I am seeing as the deviant one, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I like that you use that term, even though I
Speaker 1: know you didn't use it positively or negatively, right, just
Speaker 1: like as a qualification of the difference. Um, what happens
Speaker 1: is because my supervisors right see themselves as normal when
Speaker 1: I do something that's different, just different, not wrong, just different,
Speaker 1: I then become the deviant one. Right. And now my
Speaker 1: performance review looks different from everyone else's. Um, let's say,
Speaker 1: because I do talk back, right, So I'm seeing as loud,
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing as interrupting people, and I'm seeing it
Speaker 1: so right, like all these things, when really I'm just
Speaker 1: being a black girl, Like this is just how we talk,
Speaker 1: like right, that's just normal for us. So I don't.
Speaker 1: And what can be difficult is then I'm expected to
Speaker 1: change major parts of who I am rather than being
Speaker 1: seen as valuable, right, Rather than my difference being valuable
Speaker 1: and something to learn from. Um, I'm punished for it
Speaker 1: because I have to fit the normal as has been
Speaker 1: defined for me. You talked throughout the book about diversity efforts.
Speaker 1: You talk about, Um, you know, you have you have
Speaker 1: a white culture, and you have you have black people coming,
Speaker 1: and that whiteness tolerates a certain amount of blackness, like
Speaker 1: we'll take it to a certain extent, you know, and
Speaker 1: once it goes beyond that, then it's um disruptive, abnormal, destructive,
Speaker 1: whatever whatever those different things are. And I've realized that
Speaker 1: this is somebody who has hired people over the years
Speaker 1: and done that as I. As I look at diversity,
Speaker 1: there's this one sense of me that's like, okay, and
Speaker 1: so like in a professional corporate career, there's one sense
Speaker 1: of me that's like, well, I want diversity of different
Speaker 1: ideas and opinions because that drives innovation and creativity and
Speaker 1: all that. And then there's this other part of me
Speaker 1: that goes, but boy, that's a lot of work. It's
Speaker 1: so much like, you know, like it's so much easier
Speaker 1: when I could just go into a meeting and say
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing. Everybody goes yes, and we're
Speaker 1: on our way. And and again I I've fallen guilty
Speaker 1: to that. Well, let me rephrase, I've been conscious of
Speaker 1: that and the desire to keep everything similar to the
Speaker 1: way we are, like I hire in my own image.
Speaker 1: I realized real, oh my gosh, that is so real.
Speaker 1: And let me let me say that as a UM
Speaker 1: as someone who has had to hire people right myself, um,
Speaker 1: and who is very purposeful about diversity. It's so much work.
Speaker 1: There are definitely times when I think, Oh, Austin, why
Speaker 1: didn't you just you know, make this easier on yourself.
Speaker 1: This is a whole lot of personality, This is a
Speaker 1: whole lot of culture, This is a whole lot of miscommunication. Like,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of work, um, But I have
Speaker 1: to remind myself one the beauty that we're creating when
Speaker 1: we do hit the ground running and when we have
Speaker 1: seen all sides of our vision and of our mission,
Speaker 1: and I have to remember that it matters. So in
Speaker 1: my context, um, I was a resident director who had
Speaker 1: to hire ur as every year. Um. And it mattered
Speaker 1: to all the other students and my residence hall when
Speaker 1: they could see faces that looks like them on the
Speaker 1: team and in leadership roles. And so even though it
Speaker 1: was so hard, I would see other teams, like other
Speaker 1: halls that were like all white, and they'd just be
Speaker 1: up in and jump it and'll just be like, man,
Speaker 1: that looks nice, right. I wonder what that's like because
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that honesty, because it's true. Diversity is
Speaker 1: hard to manage. Yeah, I've been struck by since I
Speaker 1: read your book, and I've I've known this before, and
Speaker 1: I've I've seen it before, but I don't think it
Speaker 1: ever hit me with the same um level of clarity.
Speaker 1: I've been on the treadmill a bunch of times and
Speaker 1: there's a whole bank of TVs right up and I
Speaker 1: look at it and they're all either financial or political shows,
Speaker 1: and I realized it is white men. And again I
Speaker 1: know that, but to see like what we would consider
Speaker 1: the power, money and government that it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: so predominantly people like me in twenty years um, almost exclusively,
Speaker 1: And I was just struck more by it than I
Speaker 1: have been in the past. Again, I've noticed it before,
Speaker 1: I knew it was true before. There's something about having
Speaker 1: read your book that gave me a different perspective on
Speaker 1: how difficult that must be. Yeah, I tell you. I
Speaker 1: think one reason why why social media has been such
Speaker 1: a huge phenomenon for people of color is because it's
Speaker 1: it's a place where we can go to access one
Speaker 1: another's thoughts, you know, where where pre social media, we
Speaker 1: just had to deal with the fact that they were
Speaker 1: going to be mostly white folks on TV right talking
Speaker 1: about quote unquote black issues without our voices, without our thoughts,
Speaker 1: without you know, all of our experience and knowledge. And
Speaker 1: now I can go on Twitter and and say, okay,
Speaker 1: so what do other black women think about this? So
Speaker 1: what do other black men think about this? What do
Speaker 1: you know? I can access specific black journalists and you know, Poe,
Speaker 1: and what do you think about this? And so it's
Speaker 1: social media has opened up our ability to represent ourselves
Speaker 1: and to find one another, but it can still be
Speaker 1: really hard to have to do that work to it
Speaker 1: just being accessible all the time. Well, I think the Internet,
Speaker 1: for all its flaws, and there are many, has given
Speaker 1: marginalized people of all stripes, right, whether it be a
Speaker 1: racial thing, whether it be a sexuality or a gender thing,
Speaker 1: or whether it be even closer to home for someone
Speaker 1: like me, someone who's a little different than the typical
Speaker 1: toxic white man, like there's a different like suddenly there's
Speaker 1: a diversity of views and you can find people that
Speaker 1: are like you. And so I just think in general,
Speaker 1: the Internet has provided that and that's really good A
Speaker 1: question for you, so as somebody who is you know
Speaker 1: to use the term that you used earlier in this journey, right,
Speaker 1: what are some good things for someone like me to
Speaker 1: be reading, to be doing, to be Like, So, you've
Speaker 1: got an audience here of probably thirty five thousand, probably
Speaker 1: mostly white people. I mean, I don't know the demographic,
Speaker 1: but if I had to guess, I can't speak for everyone,
Speaker 1: but most of whom I know to be good hearted
Speaker 1: people who want to do the right thing. So what
Speaker 1: what does a person who's in that spot who says, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't really understand these issues that Well.
Speaker 1: I recognized their difficult I recognize their painful I recognized
Speaker 1: that on some hand, I'm I'm part of the problem,
Speaker 1: or at least not part of the solution. Like that,
Speaker 1: What do I do? Oh, that's such a good question. So, um,
Speaker 1: I would say, Um, first, reading truthfully, you might not
Speaker 1: want to start with my book, I would say, if
Speaker 1: to the degree that you can, to start with books
Speaker 1: that answer your biggest questions about race. Um. So, for example,
Speaker 1: I think of Christina Cleveland's book Disunity in christ And
Speaker 1: she's obviously writing from a Christian perspective, but it's a
Speaker 1: lot of social psychology in her book. So she's answering questions, Well,
Speaker 1: why do we gravitate towards one another? Why do we
Speaker 1: like homogeneous teams? Like why right? Like what's behind that? Um?
Speaker 1: And so in that way, it's really accessible because she's
Speaker 1: she's not doing the like emotional memoir that I'm doing, right,
Speaker 1: she is really talking about psychology, UM. And she's hilarious,
Speaker 1: which is also really helpful when you're talking about race.
Speaker 1: So yes, so books, that was one example. I think
Speaker 1: educating oneself and reading books and trying to get that
Speaker 1: window into other folks world is so so important. Why
Speaker 1: are all the black kids sitting at the table is
Speaker 1: another really really good just introduction into understanding and answering
Speaker 1: questions about race, and there's lots of them out there. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't generally try and like plug Amazon, but one
Speaker 1: way in which I think Amazon can be useful is
Speaker 1: that when you find a good book to then go
Speaker 1: to what other folks have read, right, you can continue
Speaker 1: the journey. I would also say to start looking for
Speaker 1: opportunities to talk with other people about it. So, whether
Speaker 1: that's through book clubs, um, maybe like like the local
Speaker 1: libraries or the community school excuse me, community college workshops
Speaker 1: that are happening in the area, conferences that are near
Speaker 1: by and UM. One organization in particular I'd love to
Speaker 1: plug is called Be the Bridge. It was started by
Speaker 1: a woman named Latasha Morrison, and that group UM is
Speaker 1: one online so you can talk to lots and lots
Speaker 1: of people all over the country, but then they also
Speaker 1: have their local groups so that you can physically meet
Speaker 1: folks for coffee and a race together. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a really brilliant way to participate and to start
Speaker 1: in this conversation because one way that UM white folks
Speaker 1: have a tendency to like miss a step as they
Speaker 1: go search for their like black friend, who's gonna explain everything? Right,
Speaker 1: They're like, I don't think we at that point our relationship. Yet.
Speaker 1: That struck me in the book, you know, you talked
Speaker 1: about how exhausting that is. If you're, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the few black people in an area, you're going
Speaker 1: to have white people, again, a lot of whom were
Speaker 1: well intentioned, but you're going to be answering their questions
Speaker 1: all the time, and nobody stops to think, like, was
Speaker 1: this hard on Austin the fact that everybody's asked her
Speaker 1: about race all the time, Like no, no, sense of
Speaker 1: you know, and again struck by like, well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: bet I've done that before, you know, like that's I
Speaker 1: want to know, you know, inquiring minds. But never, you know,
Speaker 1: never struck me because again seeing it from my view
Speaker 1: of the world, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why
Speaker 1: I love UM, this organization that Latasha has started, because
Speaker 1: it's filled with people of color who are saying, come
Speaker 1: here with your question. Right, if you've got a question,
Speaker 1: you don't ever have to be afraid to come here.
Speaker 1: If I don't want to answer it, I won't try
Speaker 1: because there is three other people who can answer it
Speaker 1: and will answer it, you know. So I really love
Speaker 1: that UM because it gives people an opportunity to start
Speaker 1: having these conversations. But to know, right, so not wonder,
Speaker 1: but to know that all these people have opted into
Speaker 1: that conversation. Yeah. The other thing I was struck by,
Speaker 1: and I'm struck by now how it even threads its
Speaker 1: way a little bit into my conversation is the white confessional. Yes,
Speaker 1: the white person who comes to you and unburdens themselves
Speaker 1: with Well, once I was at the table and Uncle
Speaker 1: Joe said X, Y and Z, and I didn't do
Speaker 1: anything or there was a girl in class when I
Speaker 1: was in third grade or whatever those things be. And
Speaker 1: again I kind of notice it, like just a little
Speaker 1: of it working its way through me here despite having
Speaker 1: read your book. But but how people are coming to
Speaker 1: you for absolution and not only that being ineffective and
Speaker 1: really a sort of shortcut to something that's real, also
Speaker 1: the impact that it has on you. Yeah, oh, I
Speaker 1: love the way that you phrase that we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to talk more about this. It is a short cut.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes it's not that confessing is bad, right, it's
Speaker 1: just you should confess to the person who got hurt
Speaker 1: right off right, and not to a random stranger. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess it's not super random, but it is a stranger.
Speaker 1: I often am like, I'm sorry, what's your name? Who
Speaker 1: you are? But you are confessing to me? Um? And
Speaker 1: I think it would be more helpful if the desire
Speaker 1: is not absolution, right, often it is, But if the
Speaker 1: desire really is to just communicate that you are moved
Speaker 1: by the speaker or moved by the facilitator, um to
Speaker 1: instead skip the skip the story, right, skip the confessional,
Speaker 1: and jump to the action step that you're going to take. Right,
Speaker 1: So it would be so much more life giving for
Speaker 1: me personally if someone said, you know what, I have
Speaker 1: had this book. I've had the New Gym Crow sitting
Speaker 1: on on my desk for a year and I haven't
Speaker 1: picked it up. But I'm gonna I'm gonna go home
Speaker 1: and readap right or I have been so afraid to
Speaker 1: talk to my parents about this, but the next time
Speaker 1: I go home, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk to them, you know, So that that would
Speaker 1: be much more helpful for all speakers who talk about
Speaker 1: racial justice to hear what commitment is going to be
Speaker 1: made as opposed to Yeah, this weird like confession because
Speaker 1: I I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Right well,
Speaker 1: I thought your answer now, which is pretty much you
Speaker 1: said you started to do kind of what you just
Speaker 1: did there, which is like, okay, so what are you
Speaker 1: going to do about that? What are you gonna do
Speaker 1: about that? That's my new response response. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, right right, Well, I think as as a
Speaker 1: white person on the other side of it, we're waiting
Speaker 1: for you to give us the good white person badge.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, I'm okay. I don't have any white I
Speaker 1: don't have any There were a lot of faux pause
Speaker 1: that you've had to go through in the book. But
Speaker 1: I realized that I know better than to touch a
Speaker 1: black girl's hair. I really thought, you know, I've really
Speaker 1: really thought that we had like covered that ground in
Speaker 1: the nineties. I really thought. And turns out, no, people
Speaker 1: just walk up and touch your hair. Huh. People are
Speaker 1: still doing it. It's so weird. So listeners start there,
Speaker 1: don't don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. No,
Speaker 1: not good. You know what's even stranger. So so this
Speaker 1: often happens to black women with folks who assume that
Speaker 1: they've got a close enough relationship, right, So like a
Speaker 1: coworker or someone who's like, You're like, whoa, No, we're
Speaker 1: not We're not actually that close. Should that touch of
Speaker 1: my hair? We're in a workplace. Um. But I tell
Speaker 1: you what's even more strange than that is when it
Speaker 1: really is a complete stranger to like being in a
Speaker 1: restaurant or being an airport and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you just feel someone's fingers and you and you're like,
Speaker 1: what what is happening? And you know what A really
Speaker 1: common response says, um, oh I was just interested, or
Speaker 1: oh I just I just thought it was pretty, or
Speaker 1: I just you know, that's nice. But yeah, by and large,
Speaker 1: I think a general rule should be don't touch people
Speaker 1: you don't know under any circumstance, unless it's to pick
Speaker 1: them up from in front of a train or something.
Speaker 1: Listeners don't touch black women's hair. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the word reconciliation. What does reconciliation mean to you? What
Speaker 1: does it look like? And I guess again, how do
Speaker 1: people participate in that? Yeah? Oh, can I tell you
Speaker 1: the truth? That excuse me? That chapter was the hardest
Speaker 1: for me to write. Um. There were other chapters that
Speaker 1: were like more emotional to write and difficult for that reason,
Speaker 1: But trying to wrap a language around what I think
Speaker 1: reconciliation should look like was so hard. So I'm just
Speaker 1: going to confess that I'm going to bumble my way
Speaker 1: through this. Um. So first, let me acknowledge that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of folks who don't use the term
Speaker 1: reconciliation anymore because it has been so watered down, um
Speaker 1: to basically be the equivalent of like having a coffee
Speaker 1: date with someone, or or diversity efforts that we talked about,
Speaker 1: like just get the right number of people. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're practicing reconciliation. And so there's and and myself included.
Speaker 1: I rarely use the term by itself. I usually say
Speaker 1: racial justice and reconciliation because I just feel like it's
Speaker 1: clearer somehow. Um. But that being said, so here's another
Speaker 1: book for folks to read. It's a book called Radical Reconciliation.
Speaker 1: And it is the most helpful book I've ever read
Speaker 1: to really infuse um, the radical nature of reconciliation back
Speaker 1: into that word. Um, but at a very attempting to
Speaker 1: put the cookie on the bottom shelf. I think that
Speaker 1: the term reconciliation should revolutionize our relationships with one another.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about the normalness of whiteness, right,
Speaker 1: that that we already discussed. So whiteness is normal in
Speaker 1: how we hire people. Whiteness is normally what we see
Speaker 1: on our television's whiteness, right, Like, there's so much of
Speaker 1: America and which whiteness is the norm. Um, reconciliation would
Speaker 1: ask the question, how can we revolutionize that? Um? Fact,
Speaker 1: can we make sure that our leadership teams are all
Speaker 1: fifty people of color? Um? Can we Can we commit
Speaker 1: to only watching networks in which people of color often
Speaker 1: make an appearance? Right? Um? Can we when when a
Speaker 1: when a person of color does get their own show,
Speaker 1: can we commit to watching it and letting the network
Speaker 1: know that we appreciate that person? Right? So it's just
Speaker 1: a way of saying, how can we participate and change
Speaker 1: that goes beyond our own like individual desire to meet
Speaker 1: over coffee and to have a friend who looks different
Speaker 1: from us. Right. It's it's it's a bigger way of
Speaker 1: thinking about how we participate in the world and how
Speaker 1: we become the solution. Um and doing that together, doing
Speaker 1: that as a community. Um. That's it's so hard. It's
Speaker 1: so hard to wrap language around. And it's hard because
Speaker 1: we really are still so divided, right and and witness
Speaker 1: is still so normal, and it actually becomes hard to
Speaker 1: imagine a different way a being and doing this thing. Yep.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I am struck by in in
Speaker 1: reading the book and listening to you talk and other
Speaker 1: things is the legitimate cultural differences that you're not going
Speaker 1: to like what I like. You know, in certain cases
Speaker 1: I may not like what you like. And to what
Speaker 1: extent do we have I don't like the word obligation,
Speaker 1: but I'll use it a moral obligation to stretch those
Speaker 1: boundaries of ourselves. Yeah, And I really want that conversation
Speaker 1: to even though it's hard to do, I want the
Speaker 1: conversation to bring a sense of of life, of joy,
Speaker 1: you know, of excitement that we're going to try something different.
Speaker 1: We're going to try something new and see how it goes,
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't work, then we'll try something else.
Speaker 1: But let's let's commit to to trying something new, um
Speaker 1: and to working through the issues that doing something new,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. One things I loved about the book was,
Speaker 1: despite talking about whiteness, its challenges, et cetera, was the
Speaker 1: celebration of blackness that was throughout the book. And I
Speaker 1: found it so interesting in the beginning where you coming
Speaker 1: from you lived in a white community, you had accepted, well,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to fit in there, And when you
Speaker 1: first went into exclusively black or you know, mostly black communities,
Speaker 1: you felt like, I'm never going to fit in here either,
Speaker 1: And how how hard that was for you, and that
Speaker 1: thank God that past right and you. And so that
Speaker 1: leads me to another question, because I hear this term
Speaker 1: and I don't quite know what it means or what
Speaker 1: to do with it, which is cultural misappropriation. So I
Speaker 1: don't quite know when that's good and when that's bad. Right, Like, So,
Speaker 1: for example, there are lots of things about Black culture
Speaker 1: that I that I love, you know, the me zick,
Speaker 1: the writing, the I mean, there's just so many things, right,
Speaker 1: So when does that go from an appreciation of a
Speaker 1: different culture and a celebration of a different culture into
Speaker 1: this term that I hear cultural misappropriation which I don't
Speaker 1: fully understand. Yeah, that's good, that's such a good question. First,
Speaker 1: let me say that I think different ethnic groups would
Speaker 1: have a different answer to this. Um. So, as an
Speaker 1: African American, I think someone who is um Latino or
Speaker 1: maybe Korean, Um, I think that there are things that
Speaker 1: they would want to talk about that center around let's
Speaker 1: say language, right, But because I'm African American and speak English, like,
Speaker 1: we could talk about like slang and we could talk
Speaker 1: about ebonics and right, um, but but I just want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that, right, So I'm gonna answer this as
Speaker 1: a black girl, and I would say, just by way
Speaker 1: an example, um Bruno Mars, super popular musician and love
Speaker 1: what he does definitely borrows from heavily from black folks. Right.
Speaker 1: But Bruno mars Is when he does interviews and when
Speaker 1: he talks about his music, he always acknowledges where the
Speaker 1: music comes from. He always says, this is what I
Speaker 1: grew up listening to. I love. I'm just making up names.
Speaker 1: I don't know if these are the people, but Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonder and Marvin Gay and Michael Jackson and right James Brown, Oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, so much James Brown. Right, But he makes
Speaker 1: that very clear. Um. He doesn't try and pretend like
Speaker 1: he just created this. Um. I would say that there
Speaker 1: are other artists who I will try and maybe not
Speaker 1: to name so much, who just um to two things.
Speaker 1: One who create music that sounds black without ever acknowledging
Speaker 1: where it came from, right, or too do a sort
Speaker 1: of like, really kitchy, I'm a cute white girl, but
Speaker 1: I've got all these black women in the background who
Speaker 1: are being black, right, and it's just like this, really
Speaker 1: like messy, Why what's happening here? Right? So one is
Speaker 1: sort of rooted in and and honor and respect and acknowledgement, right,
Speaker 1: and the other is sort of absent of all of that. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so I would say in terms of like a picture
Speaker 1: to try and picture, um that those would be um,
Speaker 1: very clearly different. Um, but I would say appropriation. It's
Speaker 1: a fine line. Um. I would also say, like what
Speaker 1: you're making money off of gets real tricky. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: appropriation versus appreciation, it can definitely get tricky. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why it's so important to eventually get to
Speaker 1: a place where you really do have friends, like real friends,
Speaker 1: friends who come over for dinner, friends who you know
Speaker 1: their kids stay at your house, like friends who call
Speaker 1: you in their lives they're falling apart, like friends, um,
Speaker 1: who are people of color, So that folks of color
Speaker 1: can say, oh, that feels like appropriation, you know, the
Speaker 1: common conversations. Um, yeah, because it is a tough one.
Speaker 1: It's a tough one. Well, we are at the end
Speaker 1: of our time, Austin. But thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: really appreciated the book. I really appreciate you taking the
Speaker 1: time to talk with me and teach me. Oh this
Speaker 1: was so much fun. I tell you. It makes all
Speaker 1: the difference when someone is one just willing to listen,
Speaker 1: just like just willing to listen, and especially in this
Speaker 1: political moment that we're in. But just being willing to
Speaker 1: listen is a gift, but also someone who is willing
Speaker 1: to recognize themselves and is wanting to change and wanting
Speaker 1: to grow. Um. I think that white folks will find
Speaker 1: that people of color are actually extraordinarily forgiving and extraordinarily
Speaker 1: gracious and extraordinarily kind when they are being received by
Speaker 1: an open heart and someone who is ready and wanting
Speaker 1: to to do that hard work. Excellent. Well, we will
Speaker 1: put links in the show notes to several of the
Speaker 1: books that you mentioned also too, of course your book,
Speaker 1: your website and and all of that. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, my pleasure truly. Okay, right, if what you
Speaker 1: just heard was helpful to you, please consider can a
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