Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. We are rereleasing this week the episode with
Speaker 1: Ruth King where we talked with her about her book
Speaker 1: Mindful of Race, Transforming Racism from the inside Out. We
Speaker 1: want to really be putting forward voices right now that
Speaker 1: we think are important to be heard, and Ruth's is
Speaker 1: certainly one of those. You heard her recently in our
Speaker 1: special episode how to Work with Anger that we put
Speaker 1: out early during the COVID crisis, and now we're rereleasing
Speaker 1: this full episode with her. I hope that you find
Speaker 1: lots of wisdom and healing in her words, I work
Speaker 1: with the bad wolf, so to speak, in a way
Speaker 1: that is not making it wrong, because the minute I
Speaker 1: make it wrong, it has to act out more to
Speaker 1: get my attention. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we
Speaker 1: have quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are
Speaker 1: what you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Ruth
Speaker 1: King and emotional wisdom author, coach, and consultant. She's a
Speaker 1: guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Community of Washington. She's also
Speaker 1: on the Teacher's count Soul at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Speaker 1: and is the founder of Mindful Members Inside Meditation Community
Speaker 1: in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ruth has a master's degree in
Speaker 1: clinical psychology from John F. Kennedy University and is the
Speaker 1: author of several publications, including her new book, Mindful of
Speaker 1: Race Transforming Racism from the Inside Out. And here's the
Speaker 1: interview with Ruth King. Hi, Ruth, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's lovely to be here. I am happy
Speaker 1: to have you on. Your book is called Mindful of
Speaker 1: Race Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to sharing the book with the listeners. But let's
Speaker 1: start like we always do with the parable. There's a
Speaker 1: grandmother who's talking with her grandson. She says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, looks up at his grandmother, and he says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well, it's a beautiful parable.
Speaker 1: I've heard many versions of it, and the one I'm
Speaker 1: remembering is from the Cherokee tribe. It's an grandfather talking
Speaker 1: to a grandson. But you know how these things go,
Speaker 1: We turn it around, you know, they go through like
Speaker 1: the can listening, and they come up with different versions.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what it is, but the point
Speaker 1: of it is so powerful and and what it means
Speaker 1: to me, especially lately, is that the polarity of the
Speaker 1: good one and the bad one, uh, you know, is
Speaker 1: really both of coming from our mind. So um, part
Speaker 1: of what I'm really sensitive to at this time in
Speaker 1: my life is really befriending both the good and the
Speaker 1: bad thoughts are you know, beliefs and things that race
Speaker 1: through our mind and not being attached to one being
Speaker 1: better than the other because they all come and go
Speaker 1: with regularity. You know, I work with the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: so to speak, in a in a loving way, in
Speaker 1: a way that is not making it wrong, because the
Speaker 1: minute I make it wrong, it has to act out
Speaker 1: more to get my attention. But when I welcome it
Speaker 1: and sit with it and become more curious about what
Speaker 1: the disturbance is and how it's running through my mind,
Speaker 1: heart and body, just like how the good wolf, you know,
Speaker 1: the good thoughts and beautiful things run through my body.
Speaker 1: I have to develop a tolerance for that also, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I can have an allergic reaction to good things
Speaker 1: and want to move through that quickly. But mostly what
Speaker 1: I'm doing these days in my life is holding both
Speaker 1: in my aren't with a sense of curiosity and non attachment.
Speaker 1: That curiosity is so important, Yeah, I think it's important
Speaker 1: because without it, we're just an automatic pilot, right, We're
Speaker 1: just like believing our thoughts and moving through the world
Speaker 1: like it's absolute, and then separating the good and the
Speaker 1: bad wolf becomes externalized, and we see good and bad people,
Speaker 1: and good and bad cultures, and good and bad races,
Speaker 1: and we don't get to understand the subtlety of mind
Speaker 1: that is projecting on what arises in our view and
Speaker 1: our and our consciousness. So I think it's a good calling,
Speaker 1: especially when when the good and bad are extreme. You know,
Speaker 1: that's when it we get gripped the most. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: to really back up a little bit and just gentle,
Speaker 1: be a bit gentle and curious about how the experience
Speaker 1: is being lived and the heart, body and mind, and
Speaker 1: just to relax with that without taking action, without feeling
Speaker 1: like you gotta go do something. Um, just really feeling
Speaker 1: into this thing, these two wolves, and maybe having to
Speaker 1: have a conversation with each other. You know, when the
Speaker 1: bad wolf thoughts come up, we can call in the
Speaker 1: good wolf to kind of talk some sense into that guy.
Speaker 1: That's how I'm working with that. So you say that
Speaker 1: racism is a heart disease. Explain what you mean by that, Well,
Speaker 1: it's rooted, uh. And my having open heart surgery at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty seven, where um, I realized that
Speaker 1: so much of what I had been doing up to
Speaker 1: that point was just really running around and righteous rage.
Speaker 1: My first book was about rage, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: being so right in the world, about how I felt
Speaker 1: and saw who was wrong and the racist this and that,
Speaker 1: and um. I am realized how to be with my
Speaker 1: upset And before I knew it because of a hyperactive
Speaker 1: thyroid um diagnosis that I had had a hyper thyroid
Speaker 1: that had gone on diagnosed for many years, which enlarged
Speaker 1: my heart, which contributed to the need to have open
Speaker 1: heart surgery for a micro valve prolapse. And in the
Speaker 1: course of this surgical procedure, I became aware that it
Speaker 1: was more a spiritual intervention that was suggesting to me
Speaker 1: that I needed to reevaluate how I went about living
Speaker 1: my life, which up to that point had just been
Speaker 1: righteous rage run amuck. And it was in the recovery
Speaker 1: of the heart surgery that I got in touch with
Speaker 1: how matters of the heart was really my work in
Speaker 1: the world to do. And so uh it took a
Speaker 1: while for me to build eyes what that actually meant
Speaker 1: lived out loud, but I often say to people that
Speaker 1: the recovery from the heart surgery was my first silent
Speaker 1: retreat because I got a chance to really listen to
Speaker 1: how much hate I was embodying, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it was wrapped around Race. The rage was wrapped around Race,
Speaker 1: and my body was just riddled with such upset that
Speaker 1: I needed to vacate the premises. And I vacated the
Speaker 1: premises using rage as an exit route until I couldn't
Speaker 1: do that anymore, and then I had to thaw out.
Speaker 1: I thought out into a realization that I had to
Speaker 1: make a different deal with the disturbance I was in,
Speaker 1: and that it required tenderness, that it required a lot
Speaker 1: of care, that it required me befriending the upset, the
Speaker 1: bad wolf, if you will, in a loving way, And
Speaker 1: in the course of that, I stepped into mindfulness meditation,
Speaker 1: and that became a real tool for me, being able
Speaker 1: to sit with the upset in a loving way and
Speaker 1: to hold it and see it as energy moving through
Speaker 1: the body, as beliefs that I didn't have to necessarily
Speaker 1: agree with or do anything with this gradual process that
Speaker 1: I entered into, this healing if you will really spoke
Speaker 1: loud to me about how Race is so entangled with
Speaker 1: the heart and matters of the heart that I call it,
Speaker 1: you know, a heart disease, a global heart disease, and
Speaker 1: it's curable through our awareness, through our care um and
Speaker 1: through this kind of tenderizing our gentle ng that I
Speaker 1: talk about that's so important as medicine that supports us,
Speaker 1: and being able to tolerate this conversation, being able to
Speaker 1: keep our heart engaged when we're having this conversation. Uh,
Speaker 1: it just squires a lot of love basically. Um, So
Speaker 1: I bring that to this. You know, phrase of racism
Speaker 1: is a hard disease and it's curable. It's not easy,
Speaker 1: it's messy as hell, but it is possible to transform internally.
Speaker 1: That shifts our view and shifts our relationship to our
Speaker 1: understanding of what race and racism is. You talk about
Speaker 1: early on that when any of us, people of color
Speaker 1: or non hear the word racism, where we start to
Speaker 1: think about it, something happens, you say, we you know,
Speaker 1: we get alarmed, and then whether we're conscious of it
Speaker 1: or not, we tend to go to our weapons of choice,
Speaker 1: which each of us have. You know, you mentioned aggression
Speaker 1: in your case, or hatred, you know, distraction, denial, doubt, worry, depression, indifference,
Speaker 1: I really like that summary to realize that how that
Speaker 1: word triggers all of us, and we all have habitual
Speaker 1: patterns of of how we think about it, and that
Speaker 1: for all of us are habitual pattern doesn't serve us
Speaker 1: as well as it could, or doesn't service as well
Speaker 1: as a pattern that is more current. Let's say that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the habitual pattern is oftentimes a layer on top
Speaker 1: of what the real deal is that we're experiencing that
Speaker 1: we can't tolerate by the way, So it's a defense mechanism.
Speaker 1: And I think that, um, after a while, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're really interested in in deepening this our understanding
Speaker 1: of this topic, we we have to be willing to
Speaker 1: step into that zone of of what's underneath our habituation
Speaker 1: are our habits uh, and really understand it and then
Speaker 1: be willing to kind of let it go, you know,
Speaker 1: or or move it to the side, so that we
Speaker 1: can see a bigger picture, um, and entertain a bigger
Speaker 1: story about what this is about. One of the most
Speaker 1: striking parts of the book for me was this idea
Speaker 1: that that you bring up and I'm just I'll just
Speaker 1: read what you say, a common disconnection between people of
Speaker 1: color and whites, is that the former tend to experience
Speaker 1: the world through group identity, whereas the latter tend to
Speaker 1: experience the world through individual identity. White people generally think
Speaker 1: of themselves as well meaning, hard working individuals, unaware of
Speaker 1: themselves as a racial group. And boy, did that really
Speaker 1: strike me and hit home. And you go on to
Speaker 1: say that part of white privilege is the ability to
Speaker 1: identify or not identify racially, whereas people of color, it's
Speaker 1: not really that case that racial identity is so strong.
Speaker 1: It's part of the world that you you swim in.
Speaker 1: And and as white people, we can choose to either
Speaker 1: be a part of being white or distance ourselves from
Speaker 1: being white. And I just thought that was very profound.
Speaker 1: I had never thought of that before in quite that way. Oh. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's one of the most common and painful ways that
Speaker 1: we miss each other when we try to have a conversation. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, white people come to the conversation and the
Speaker 1: certain innocence and um, an individual, you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: good person. Uh And um, I didn't do anything. I
Speaker 1: wasn't living in that time. Um, I'm here now, you know,
Speaker 1: as if there's no rude rootedness and the history, the
Speaker 1: lineage of the people, the collective people are that we've
Speaker 1: been touched by our lives and the and the generations
Speaker 1: of people that helped us get here. Uh. And whereas
Speaker 1: people of color are aware of being good individuals as
Speaker 1: well as being racial identity groups, because part of being
Speaker 1: a subordinated group racial group in this country especially, but
Speaker 1: I think is more broadly than this country, you know,
Speaker 1: part of being a subordinated anything, whether it's a race,
Speaker 1: a woman, a gay person, you know, a poor person.
Speaker 1: The dynamic of subordination is that what groups us together
Speaker 1: is that we share oppression and dominant groups. Whether it's
Speaker 1: it's white people, or its men, or it's heterosexuals, or
Speaker 1: it's Christians. I mean, there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: those categories. The characteristic of dominance is that you don't
Speaker 1: have to look you just don't have to look at
Speaker 1: yourself as a group because because you just don't have to,
Speaker 1: and so you don't. But this is particularly painful when
Speaker 1: we're talking about race. It's it's kind of the piece
Speaker 1: that will support what I believe will be a transformation
Speaker 1: around this conversation. When white people get together with other
Speaker 1: white people and explore the territory of whiteness that every
Speaker 1: other race seems to know a bit about, but them.
Speaker 1: What this means is that I work with a lot
Speaker 1: of white people that are in what I refer to
Speaker 1: as racial infinity groups, and it's so difficult for them
Speaker 1: because they talk about, uh, you know, we get together
Speaker 1: and I don't feel anything, and I'm bored, and what
Speaker 1: we don't have anything to talk about, and you know,
Speaker 1: and the tendency is to go off and join a
Speaker 1: cause or to have other people of color educating you
Speaker 1: about what's needed, how do we fix it? But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of avoidance among white people to talk about whiteness.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a very interesting place to begin
Speaker 1: this journey. You say that white people may never have
Speaker 1: as much experience as people of color and talking about
Speaker 1: racial distress and racism, but they must start, especially if
Speaker 1: they are in leadership positions. And you know me, I
Speaker 1: mentioned We've had Austin Channing Brown on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to have more of these conversations um as
Speaker 1: a way of trying to engage in that debate in
Speaker 1: a in a useful and healthy way. Tell me a
Speaker 1: about a little bit more. Tell the listeners because I
Speaker 1: know because I read the book about racial affinity groups,
Speaker 1: because that was a very interesting idea that I had
Speaker 1: not really heard of. And the book spends a fair
Speaker 1: amount of time talking not only about what they are,
Speaker 1: which you're going to tell us, but also how to
Speaker 1: have one. Yeah, I just want to have that concept
Speaker 1: out there in in listeners ears if it's something they're
Speaker 1: interested in. Very good. Well, first of all, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's important to understand these six hindrances that I talk
Speaker 1: about in the book, UM, so that there is something
Speaker 1: to get our arms around and discuss within the racial
Speaker 1: affinity groups. So there's some education we need about the
Speaker 1: structure of racism that's in our social realm. There's a
Speaker 1: structure to it that we can begin to recognize and
Speaker 1: not only see out there, but see our relationship to it.
Speaker 1: And when we have that kind of curiosity, um, that's
Speaker 1: alive in us. Forming a racial affinity group would be
Speaker 1: a simple process of getting together with from two to
Speaker 1: five other people of your same race, and actually with
Speaker 1: white people, I would say, with your with your same gender,
Speaker 1: because sometimes white people get together and it's mixed gendered.
Speaker 1: The issues that white women have with white men tends
Speaker 1: to trump the discussion around race and it becomes more
Speaker 1: of the upsets around gender. So to minimize that, I say,
Speaker 1: you know, white men get together, white women get together.
Speaker 1: However that goes, you know by racial people get together
Speaker 1: and just come together. Commit for a year to meet
Speaker 1: once a month for about two and a half hours.
Speaker 1: And what you're doing in this in this racial affinity group,
Speaker 1: and what I'm offering is a mindfulness practice of getting
Speaker 1: yourself still and stable together. So there's a guided meditation
Speaker 1: that you would begin with, and then there's a series
Speaker 1: of about thirty five or forty questions that you would
Speaker 1: answer over the course of the year. And what these
Speaker 1: questions are are there inviting us to look at our conditioning,
Speaker 1: look at our beliefs, look at our long aims, look
Speaker 1: at what's unfinished that we're still carrying. Um. Talking about
Speaker 1: the hoops and ouches in those places of embarrassment and
Speaker 1: shame with each other. UM. So it's really pitted teasing
Speaker 1: through these these kind of tender zones where you've been
Speaker 1: conditioned to believe certain things and looking at your anger
Speaker 1: and whatever it might be that can come up. It's there.
Speaker 1: It's a structure that supports us and having a place
Speaker 1: where we can engage this topic. So when white people,
Speaker 1: for example, form racial affinity groups, one of the beautiful
Speaker 1: things about it because I also suggest people of color
Speaker 1: forming racial affinity groups. But when white people learn about whiteness,
Speaker 1: it takes the weight off of people of color educating
Speaker 1: them about whiteness. There's certain things that white people can
Speaker 1: do on their own, but you know, habitually, you know,
Speaker 1: so many white people that I meet don't even think
Speaker 1: about race unless a person of color brings it up.
Speaker 1: I'm suggesting you think about race and you commit to
Speaker 1: your own engagement and education. There's loads of resources out
Speaker 1: there around whiteness, you know for white people. You know,
Speaker 1: if you don't have to look at those resources, you won't.
Speaker 1: But I'm encouraging a structure of tenderness and care where
Speaker 1: there can be a mindful uh uh an intentional, compassionate
Speaker 1: looking at our conditioning around race, so that we can
Speaker 1: soften and forgive and open our awareness to see something
Speaker 1: beyond um. What's often um fear and shame that kind
Speaker 1: of closes the lens and the heart closes along with it.
Speaker 1: So the racial affinity groups are just a crucial part,
Speaker 1: I think, because it provides a structure for us to
Speaker 1: investigate our conditioning and work with that in a very
Speaker 1: intentional way. And when we don't have a structure, we
Speaker 1: tend to just not go there. We just can easily
Speaker 1: go back into amnesia, or we can just work. You know,
Speaker 1: I think our thoughts are all there is. And um,
Speaker 1: so I think it's very helpful. It's it's it's been
Speaker 1: said to be very helpful for people. Wonderful. Let's talk
Speaker 1: for a minute about you know, in order to understand
Speaker 1: the dynamics of racial you call it dominance and subordination,
Speaker 1: we have to look at group habits of harm rather
Speaker 1: than looking solely at individual acts or single incidents. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was so Another very helpful way to
Speaker 1: think about this is, again, as as a white person,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the concept of well, I'm a good
Speaker 1: person or I wasn't there, or you know, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at individual actions, and you're talking about looking at habits
Speaker 1: of harm. And you use a great metaphor for this
Speaker 1: around um, stars and constellations, because you share that with us. Yes,
Speaker 1: the stars and the constellations are one of the six hindrances.
Speaker 1: That's important for us to look at the first one
Speaker 1: we've talked about a bit, which is around the white
Speaker 1: individual as a good person. That's the first hindrance. But
Speaker 1: the second one is the stores in the constellations, and
Speaker 1: it goes with individual versus group. Now, all of these
Speaker 1: hindrances have to do with ratio group dynamics, not so
Speaker 1: much individual acts. So the stars and the constellations are
Speaker 1: invited us to notice for ourselves, and we can all
Speaker 1: do this um the habits that we tend to have
Speaker 1: around how we view racial harm. So one of the
Speaker 1: ways I described this is when Michael Brown was killed
Speaker 1: in Ferguson, there was a group of us here in
Speaker 1: Charlotte that got together, a mixed group, to talk about
Speaker 1: the killing. The video was showed and we were all
Speaker 1: asked to talk about what we saw and how we felt.
Speaker 1: And there was a white guy in our small group
Speaker 1: of about four or five people who um spoke very
Speaker 1: um passionately and sincerely about how you know that man
Speaker 1: should have never killed that boy and left him in
Speaker 1: the streets and this is horrible and I'm just really upset,
Speaker 1: And he was shaking and trembling and crying, and he
Speaker 1: was telling his story, Um, he saw a star. His
Speaker 1: description of what he saw is what I would call
Speaker 1: a star, A single incident described um in the situation.
Speaker 1: When I talked about what I saw, I said something like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that once again, a white police officer
Speaker 1: has killed an unarmed black person. And this has just
Speaker 1: gone on way too long. And I named several of
Speaker 1: the people that have been killed. Uh. And I was
Speaker 1: describing a constellation, and I think this is another way
Speaker 1: that we miss each other. Uh. And because of what
Speaker 1: we bring to the table and how we've been conditioned
Speaker 1: to see. So, you know, the white guy that s
Speaker 1: folks saw an individual incident. It wasn't even colorized in
Speaker 1: the description and the language that he used. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like a white man or a black man. It was
Speaker 1: that man should have never killed that boy. Well, to me,
Speaker 1: it was very textured. And it's because of the ways,
Speaker 1: because of the pattern I see, the tattoo that's out there,
Speaker 1: the repetitive motion, an injury, the chronic nous of this situation.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a big dipper. It's a comic in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the in the constellations So to me,
Speaker 1: it's useful if we're not just seeing uh, single incidents,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have the gravity, It lacks an understanding
Speaker 1: of the gristant of the broader pain. Uh that's repetitive
Speaker 1: out there. So I think that's a difference also in
Speaker 1: looking at it from an individual lens and also from
Speaker 1: a racial group identity lens um that you're part of
Speaker 1: a group and individual wouldn't see all these things, they
Speaker 1: would just see the single incident. Another example of this
Speaker 1: is when people talk about all lives matter as opposed
Speaker 1: to Black lives matter. All lives matter is an individual view.
Speaker 1: We're all important. Black lives matter is speaking to a constellation.
Speaker 1: So the these are things we can begin to open
Speaker 1: our hearts and minds to to see that it's not
Speaker 1: just a solo incident. It's the patterning, uh that we
Speaker 1: want to bring some attention to and open to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me think of something that you wrote in
Speaker 1: the book that really was was touching, and you said
Speaker 1: you're talking about a dharma talk you gave. You said,
Speaker 1: I ended with this. The next time you hear of
Speaker 1: a brown person being killed by anyone, stay present and
Speaker 1: say to yourself, oh my another of Ruth's children has
Speaker 1: been killed, then check in with your own heart to
Speaker 1: determine the appropriate response. Yeah, that's that's how I move
Speaker 1: in the world, as a as a body, as a woman,
Speaker 1: you know, as a lesbian, as an author, as a
Speaker 1: great grandmother. You know, I'm concerned about these constellations of
Speaker 1: harm towards the bodies of color, and you know, and
Speaker 1: there's probably harm within the white body as well. But
Speaker 1: we're looking at the dominant and subordinated dynamic here. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to overlook the fact that we
Speaker 1: all have experiences of suffering and harm. Terminology question for
Speaker 1: you here. I was talking with someone recently who said that, Well,
Speaker 1: it was my son who said that only white people
Speaker 1: in this country can be racist because racism indicates a
Speaker 1: system of oppression. Now, everybody's prejudiced, but that racism is
Speaker 1: speaking to this, you know, um, constellation of harm that
Speaker 1: we're talking about, or this system of oppression. Do you
Speaker 1: use same terminology? Yeah, you know, I want to meet
Speaker 1: your son. Boy, he's not too far away. I told
Speaker 1: you he's in North Carolina. He really speaks to this this.
Speaker 1: You know, the younger generation too, Maybe that's coming up
Speaker 1: that's that seems to be, you know, have their fingers
Speaker 1: and a lot of these pots, and I think I
Speaker 1: think it's good news. Um. But yes, so, I very
Speaker 1: seldom use the word racist because racists is a word
Speaker 1: that speaks to individual actions. Um and um, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's at the individual level of certainly people can
Speaker 1: have racist behavior depending on what they're doing at the
Speaker 1: individual level. Um, But racism is at the institutional level,
Speaker 1: it's at the it's at the group and beyond level.
Speaker 1: Racism I associate very much with policies, practices, social norms, um,
Speaker 1: political systems. Who's you know, when the dominant system is white.
Speaker 1: White supremacy is an expression of racism and the sense
Speaker 1: of its intentionality. Um. The alt right movements, um, the
Speaker 1: uh you know, white nationalist movements that are concerned about
Speaker 1: staying on top or examples of racism, racist intention whether.
Speaker 1: But racism in our social structure is when it becomes institutionalizing.
Speaker 1: It becomes normal that we see black folks killed with regularity.
Speaker 1: You know, it's normal that most of the people in
Speaker 1: the prison industrial complex, the profiting complex, the disaster capital,
Speaker 1: it's complex, Uh, is full of is brown bodies. You know.
Speaker 1: So these are examples of racism as they live in
Speaker 1: our social context. Their norms, practices, policies, blind assumptions, you know,
Speaker 1: a police institution, and the habitual pulling of the trigger. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know. And racism is not something I think we
Speaker 1: all need to try to avoid recognizing our associating with.
Speaker 1: I think it's something we need to you know, kind
Speaker 1: of embrace and be curious about, because if we're afraid
Speaker 1: of being a racist or being a part of a
Speaker 1: racist system, being being a part of racism, then it's
Speaker 1: very hard to you know, we're ashamed of that. It's
Speaker 1: very hard to investigate it, to really understand it more deeply. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's part of it's it's more of a
Speaker 1: collective um um, dynamic and and reality in our social realm.
Speaker 1: You know, who do you see on television most, when
Speaker 1: you turn on the news, who's got positions of power? Most?
Speaker 1: When you look at when you go to your doctor,
Speaker 1: who are most of the lawyers? You know, you can
Speaker 1: see the economic influence of it as well as the
Speaker 1: cultural piece. But I associate racism with culture and with
Speaker 1: the ways that norms and practices and policies and beliefs
Speaker 1: are embedded in the social fabric that we all are
Speaker 1: breathing that air and swimming in that water together. You know.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that people tend to
Speaker 1: avoid things, whether it be common, run of the mill
Speaker 1: procrastination like my task list, or bigger things, is when
Speaker 1: things feel way too big to tackle, you know, when
Speaker 1: something feels overwhelming, our tendencies to walk the other direction.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about race in the of a
Speaker 1: racist a person, you think, well, if we could just
Speaker 1: get that person to change how they feel, well, that
Speaker 1: feels like, okay, I could step up to the plate there.
Speaker 1: When we start talking about this racism as this overwhelming
Speaker 1: you know, the water that we swim in, how do
Speaker 1: people not you know, I even feel it in myself.
Speaker 1: When I start to think about all of that, I go, oh,
Speaker 1: she's that's you know, I can think about changing a
Speaker 1: heart or two, right, So what's your reaction to that. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a really good question and a common one,
Speaker 1: and I think we have to start with changing our
Speaker 1: own hearts, because I think that's really the fundamental ground
Speaker 1: of waking up around this. Again. That's why I talk
Speaker 1: about it as transforming from the inside out. Because that's
Speaker 1: where we get in touch very intimately with the mechanism
Speaker 1: of changing our habits. And this is where a mindfulness
Speaker 1: practice can be most helpful, because it allows you to
Speaker 1: sit with what's involved in softening into opening up. You know,
Speaker 1: when we get ourselves still, when we set our intention, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this on. I'm gonna give this some
Speaker 1: real daily time. I'm gonna be paying attention to my habits,
Speaker 1: to my thoughts around race. I'm gonna be involved in
Speaker 1: a racial affinity group for support and to know I'm
Speaker 1: not in this alone. I'm not gonna commit to doing
Speaker 1: a bunch of actions just yet, going to give myself
Speaker 1: a few months just to be with my own kind
Speaker 1: of unfolding and awareness around this. So I think that's
Speaker 1: a place that we begin. And I also, you know,
Speaker 1: I coach a lot of educators and meditation teachers and
Speaker 1: uh DORMA teachers, and one of the things I say
Speaker 1: to them, and these are a lot of them are white,
Speaker 1: And one of the things I say to them, if
Speaker 1: you're doing your own investigation around race, if you're bringing
Speaker 1: it and dropping it right into the seat of your
Speaker 1: mindfulness practice, when you're bringing that disturbance, saying all that confusion,
Speaker 1: all all of that anxiety, whatever it is, and you're
Speaker 1: dropping it into your practice, then you have some stories
Speaker 1: to tell about how that's going for you. Right, And
Speaker 1: when you have some stories to tell, that's really all
Speaker 1: you need to be telling, you know. In terms of
Speaker 1: working with other people, of course, there's the institutional level
Speaker 1: of joining organizations and you know how you vote in
Speaker 1: all of that. But I think at the interpersonal level,
Speaker 1: we don't have to change anybody. We just need to
Speaker 1: maybe begin to understand our own experience and talk about it.
Speaker 1: You know. I think for white people it's a good
Speaker 1: use of privilege to talk about race and how you're
Speaker 1: working with understanding your race. You know, it's a good
Speaker 1: used for you to have me on this show to
Speaker 1: be exploring this discussion. I worked with a guy that
Speaker 1: um was that was in a high position and a bank,
Speaker 1: and when the devastation happened in Florida with the floods,
Speaker 1: he rented three trucks and called a bunch of his friends,
Speaker 1: most of whom he worked with, and they went down
Speaker 1: there to help clear out some some of the homes, right,
Speaker 1: helping people um that were stuck there and in the
Speaker 1: middle of them doing that work, he got a call
Speaker 1: from his ball saying, listen, you know you're putting us
Speaker 1: in jeopardy down there. You know you're setting a precedent.
Speaker 1: This is not part of our policies. I think you
Speaker 1: need to come back to work right away. And he
Speaker 1: he said, when you come down here and see what
Speaker 1: I'm seeing and understand what I'm understanding, you will understand
Speaker 1: and why I can't leave here until I'm done. And
Speaker 1: he hung up the phone. He was piste off and
Speaker 1: that was kind of the end of it. There could
Speaker 1: have been a situation where he could have really been
Speaker 1: in trouble, but he wasn't really in trouble. He really
Speaker 1: challenged a policy or a belief. Are are kind of
Speaker 1: way a norm that they had always operated. He challenged
Speaker 1: it with his own authority, his own privilege, and said, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm doing. I'm staying here and tell
Speaker 1: this job is done. So we all are on that
Speaker 1: edge as as people of taking that risk of whether
Speaker 1: we what I often call beard or pass in these situations,
Speaker 1: do I follow my good wolf or my bad wolf?
Speaker 1: When I when my heart is telling me I have
Speaker 1: to go to Florida and help these families. Whatever it takes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know. So we're always making these decisions,
Speaker 1: whether we know it or not. Uh. And when we
Speaker 1: turn a light on that to really see and listen
Speaker 1: to and respond from that place, that place of care,
Speaker 1: that place of this is something I want to do.
Speaker 1: This is something I can do. This is something that
Speaker 1: will serve. Uh. It may not fix the whole problem,
Speaker 1: but it's something I can do, something I want to do. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's I think that's the zone we're in because this
Speaker 1: is messy. It's not going to be fixed in our lifetime.
Speaker 1: So we don't have to bite the whole elephant. We
Speaker 1: can just keep planting seeds and knowing that when we
Speaker 1: plant them, it's the future generations, it's your son, it's
Speaker 1: people that come after that kind of smell a certain
Speaker 1: fragrance from that bloom and say, oh, I get it.
Speaker 1: You know, I can look at it this way. There's
Speaker 1: another story that you tell in the book about um
Speaker 1: back to this idea of you know, white people tending
Speaker 1: to see ourselves as individuals and not as part of
Speaker 1: a racial group, and and how people of color do differently.
Speaker 1: You tell a story about talking with some folks in
Speaker 1: a in a training program you were doing after the
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen election, where there were a couple
Speaker 1: of white men, UM who felt like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: being treated as a Trump supporter because I'm white. Can
Speaker 1: you share that story? I thought that was very insightful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was these these white guys in the training
Speaker 1: and when I was talking about the individual and group,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, that we're all good individuals and we're
Speaker 1: part of racial identity group, they both said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting all this flak as a white guy because
Speaker 1: people look at me and think I'm I'm just because
Speaker 1: I'm white, I'm a Trump supporter. And UM. So again
Speaker 1: that's a very individual voice. You know, it's not me.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of him, you know. UM and I
Speaker 1: and I basically said, welcome to my world, you know.
Speaker 1: And the welcome to my world point is that that's
Speaker 1: what it's like to be remembered. Yes, that's what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a racial member. I have to manage
Speaker 1: and most people of color have to deal with not
Speaker 1: only their own we're all in this. Most of us
Speaker 1: have to deal with our own experience as well as
Speaker 1: the projections that other people place on us, but because
Speaker 1: of the power difference, it has different impact. So so
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with all of the projections that people place
Speaker 1: on me as a black woman. You know, um, the
Speaker 1: automatic assumptions that might be made about me being a
Speaker 1: teenage mom and you know, growing up in south central
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and all these things. You know, people seeing
Speaker 1: that as old poor, poverty, you must have been poor,
Speaker 1: and it was like, yeah, all of that's true. And
Speaker 1: I was raised around all this strength and jazz and
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement and all this passion. Right, So
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with what's projected on me as well as
Speaker 1: my lived experience. I'm dealing with my individual experience as
Speaker 1: well as my group racial group identity experience. White people
Speaker 1: tend to deal with their individual experience, but when they're
Speaker 1: uh racial group identity experience is fed back to them,
Speaker 1: there's like, wait a minute, right, you know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what happened. So it was a real moment for
Speaker 1: these two white guys to fall out and get that
Speaker 1: that's what we're dealing with. Of course, So how are
Speaker 1: you managing the fact that you are a member a
Speaker 1: number Another spin on this eric Is. I think that
Speaker 1: white people have have um, well, white people have said
Speaker 1: to me that another reason they don't want to move
Speaker 1: towards racial group identity is because they'll be considered maybe
Speaker 1: a Trump supporter, but also, uh you knows, I've heard
Speaker 1: him say a skinhead or or you know, something extreme
Speaker 1: as opposed to the majority. The majority experiences around whiteness
Speaker 1: that hasn't really been vetted or examined. Uh So the
Speaker 1: fear is that it's going to look like these extremes,
Speaker 1: and because they're not that they don't go there. But
Speaker 1: I think there's some real value in seeing what this
Speaker 1: experience of day to day ordinary white people is really about,
Speaker 1: under the under the lens or under the inquiry of
Speaker 1: of race. Being curious about what it's what is the
Speaker 1: collective experience that we share as white people, could be
Speaker 1: really valuable. I can't think of the comedian whose joke
Speaker 1: is you know, it's it's similar to that about how
Speaker 1: good it is to be a white person, and how
Speaker 1: he could you know, you know, as people of color
Speaker 1: have to be afraid getting in a time machine, but
Speaker 1: as a white person, you can in a time machine
Speaker 1: and end up in any time and it's like this
Speaker 1: pretty good time to be alive. I also think racial
Speaker 1: affinity groups are also important for people of color because
Speaker 1: you know some of the traps we get into our
Speaker 1: um thinking we know all there is to know about race.
Speaker 1: But I just came back from Canada, and this is
Speaker 1: just one example. My partner and I traveled through the
Speaker 1: Canadian Rockies and then I stayed in uh for ten
Speaker 1: days and it was amazing, And I ended up in
Speaker 1: Vancouver at the end and taught a five day retreat
Speaker 1: their meditation retreat there, and being in Vancouver was one
Speaker 1: of the most diverse places I've ever been in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've traveled a lot. And so people of color
Speaker 1: sometimes we think we know all there is to know
Speaker 1: about race, but we haven't really examined the by of
Speaker 1: color that we have this presumed solidarity with. So what's
Speaker 1: what what happens with us as people of color is
Speaker 1: we know about we know a bit about our own
Speaker 1: racial group identity, but not about other racial groups identity
Speaker 1: in the body of color. And so we know a
Speaker 1: lot about our own race. We don't know about other
Speaker 1: people of color races. We don't know that experience. But
Speaker 1: in our conversation. We tend to think it's all clumped together.
Speaker 1: So for people of color, it's important for us to
Speaker 1: investigate what people of color means. What does it mean
Speaker 1: among us as a body of color, especially when we
Speaker 1: come together, say in a racial affinity group. What is
Speaker 1: our individual experiences of being a race, not so much
Speaker 1: as a collective, but as individuals, And how do we
Speaker 1: understand um our our diversity within the body of color.
Speaker 1: And this is where my Canadian experience comes in, of
Speaker 1: being in Canada and working closely with a Chinese Canadian there,
Speaker 1: which is very different than a Chinese American who had
Speaker 1: roots his family roots were in the railroad, building the
Speaker 1: railroads there and UM, so it was it really stretched
Speaker 1: my assumptions about um Chinese because I was in another context.
Speaker 1: I wasn't in American context. I was in Canadian context.
Speaker 1: And I think it's this kind of intimacy with the
Speaker 1: body of color that we need to understand and be
Speaker 1: curious about so that we're not making blind assumptions and
Speaker 1: and we're not moving just because we have a common enemy.
Speaker 1: So this week, the white people, you know that we
Speaker 1: really turned that around and look at you know, what
Speaker 1: is it that we're missing out in terms of our
Speaker 1: own connections with each other makes sense. One of the things, Ruth,
Speaker 1: that we have not had a chance to talk about is,
Speaker 1: in addition to all your teachings on race, you're a
Speaker 1: hell of a dharma teacher and um we are. We
Speaker 1: are out of time here, so you and I are
Speaker 1: going to do it in the post show conversation. But
Speaker 1: you have a little part where you talk about the
Speaker 1: three marks of existence that Buddhists talk about, and a
Speaker 1: short teaching there that blew me away, and I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to talk more about it. Listeners, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in the post show conversation, go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash support and become a contributor and you
Speaker 1: can hear all of those. You can listen to him
Speaker 1: right in your podcast player, and this one, I assure
Speaker 1: you was going to be worth hearing. But Ruth, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on
Speaker 1: and to share um your book with us in your thoughts.
Speaker 1: It was very helpful for me. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Okay, bye bye bye ye. If what
Speaker 1: you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making
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