Speaker 1: Pushkin. This episode is the last in our current season.
Speaker 1: It's also been a difficult one to make. Like all
Speaker 1: our shows, it tries to strike a cautiously hopeful tone
Speaker 1: because I do believe that each and every one of
Speaker 1: us can make positive changes that will make our lives happier.
Speaker 1: But this episode isn't just about how to be happy
Speaker 1: in your own life. It's about the need to fight
Speaker 1: injustice and the structure is around us that prevent whole
Speaker 1: groups of people from living happy lives. And that means
Speaker 1: that this episode touches on some tough issues, things like
Speaker 1: racism and homophobia, as well as stories about hate crimes.
Speaker 1: We started work on this episode before the killing of
Speaker 1: George Floyd and all the important conversations about anti black
Speaker 1: violence that have followed. But I hope you'll still find
Speaker 1: important evidence based tips for how you can personally fight injustice,
Speaker 1: including tips that I hope will be especially useful for
Speaker 1: listeners who are not themselves members of marginalized groups and
Speaker 1: who want to learn how they can help. It was Sunday,
Speaker 1: June twelfth, twenty sixteen, right in the middle of Pride Month.
Speaker 1: More than three hundred people had gathered at a Latin
Speaker 1: event at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando, Florida,
Speaker 1: and just before closing time, a gunman walked in and
Speaker 1: opened fire. Forty nine people were murdered and another fifty
Speaker 1: three were wounded. It was one of the deadliest mass
Speaker 1: shootings on US soil and one of the most vicious
Speaker 1: attacks on LGBTQ people anywhere in the world. It left
Speaker 1: the global community reeling. After the Pulse attack, I went
Speaker 1: into work and I didn't think anyone mentioned it at all,
Speaker 1: and obviously I was not in a place my mental
Speaker 1: health had taken a real turn. That day has had
Speaker 1: so many queer people and no one said anything. James
Speaker 1: Barr is a comedian and podcaster living in London. Like
Speaker 1: lots of queer people, on the Monday morning after the
Speaker 1: Pulse shooting, James didn't get help pourings of sympathy from
Speaker 1: his coworkers. No one asked how he was doing, and
Speaker 1: no one even spoke out about the tragedy. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until seven pm that night. I went to my
Speaker 1: improv comedy rehearsal and as I walked in, my friend
Speaker 1: Amanda said, are you okay? And gave me a hug
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. Had it really struck me? Because I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, no one has asked me that all
Speaker 1: day today. You're the only person that realized I might
Speaker 1: be affected by that, or that something had even happened.
Speaker 1: Everyone else was just completely oblivious. Those co workers probably
Speaker 1: weren't intending to cause James harm. Most of them would
Speaker 1: probably say they believed in gay rights, and if asked directly,
Speaker 1: that they were appalled by the Pulse attack. But despite
Speaker 1: all these good intentions, there's silence that day sent a
Speaker 1: different message that's really triggering because you feel alone. It
Speaker 1: takes you back to being at your mum's house when
Speaker 1: you realize you're gay and you can't tell anyone, and
Speaker 1: you're like thirteen, and you're sat there like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm on my own. No one else is gay. If
Speaker 1: you're a straight sis gender person like me listening to James,
Speaker 1: you may remember not being sure what to say when
Speaker 1: you heard about the Pulse tragedy. You may have known
Speaker 1: that you needed to say something, but you weren't sure
Speaker 1: what or how. Unfortunately, none of these good intentions matter
Speaker 1: to James at the time that day, any comment, however awkward,
Speaker 1: would have been better than silence, because at least then
Speaker 1: I know they see me. Now, I'm guessing that every
Speaker 1: person listening to this podcast right now thinks of themselves
Speaker 1: as a good person, someone who's committed to justice and inclusivity,
Speaker 1: and that you probably agree that society would be a
Speaker 1: happier place if all people were treated equally, no matter
Speaker 1: what their sexual, gender, racial, or ethnic identity. But as
Speaker 1: James's story reveals, lots of us feel to act on
Speaker 1: these feelings, not because we're bad people, but often because
Speaker 1: we're not sure how. If we really want our societies
Speaker 1: to be happier, we need to actively counter the bigotry
Speaker 1: and violence that affects so many identities on a near
Speaker 1: daily basis. But changing the deep seated structures that cause
Speaker 1: all this injustice is going to take an all hands
Speaker 1: on deck approach, which raises an important psychological question. Why
Speaker 1: do well intentioned people who believe in justice often do nothing.
Speaker 1: Are there lies of the mind that prevent good people
Speaker 1: from speaking up and taking action? And if so, how
Speaker 1: can we deal with these dumb parts of our psychology
Speaker 1: so that we can create a happier and more just world.
Speaker 1: Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to
Speaker 1: be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What
Speaker 1: if our minds are lying to us, leading us away
Speaker 1: from or really make us happy. The good news is
Speaker 1: that understanding the science of the mind can point us
Speaker 1: all back in the right direction. You're listening to the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab the doctor Laurie Santos. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: myself included, believe in adversity, believe in inclusion, believe in
Speaker 1: equity like there is no doubt those are sincere beliefs.
Speaker 1: Those beliefs, however, do not in any way change systems
Speaker 1: or structures or biases. All they do is just sit
Speaker 1: as beliefs. This is Dolly chug an NYU professor, an
Speaker 1: author of The Person You Mean to Be, How good
Speaker 1: people fight by us to go from believing something to
Speaker 1: building something. To go from the belief to the action,
Speaker 1: we have to build some skills, We need some tools.
Speaker 1: Dolly argues that each of us need to go from
Speaker 1: being a believer to becoming what she calls a builder,
Speaker 1: someone who takes an active role. Dolly's builder idea is
Speaker 1: similar to what historian and American University professor Abraham Kentdy
Speaker 1: has called becoming an anti racist. The idea is that
Speaker 1: it's not enough to simply not believe in bigoted stuff
Speaker 1: or not be racist ourselves. We need to honestly confront
Speaker 1: all the assumptions we've internalized simply by growing up in
Speaker 1: an unjust society. The problem, though, is that our lying
Speaker 1: minds make it super hard to see all the structural
Speaker 1: inequalities around us, especially if we're lucky enough not to
Speaker 1: experience that oppression directly. When little kids play with those
Speaker 1: spy ink pens spy pens where when they write, you
Speaker 1: don't see anything, and then there's a little blue ultraviolet
Speaker 1: type light and then you can see what's written. You've
Speaker 1: got to do that much work to see the systemic
Speaker 1: stuff unless you're experiencing it directly. I mean sometimes even
Speaker 1: when you're experiencing it directly, you don't see it. But
Speaker 1: you have got to do the work of finding the
Speaker 1: ultraviolet light, shining it, and actively looking for it. Dolly
Speaker 1: has had to shine that same light on her own biases.
Speaker 1: As a straight, sis gender woman of Indian descent. She
Speaker 1: knows what it's like to experience discrimination based on her ethnicity,
Speaker 1: but she also recognizes that her sexuality, race able bodied status,
Speaker 1: and education level have given her a whole host of
Speaker 1: amazing privileges. Writing The Person You Mean to Be was
Speaker 1: her way of coming to terms with all her own
Speaker 1: injustice blind spots. One of the reasons I love Dolly's
Speaker 1: books so much is because she's super honest about the
Speaker 1: fact that she's not perfect and that she too needs
Speaker 1: to put in work to become a builder. I'm risk averse,
Speaker 1: and I always want to say the right thing, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't love
Speaker 1: conflicts like all these things will pull me into doing less,
Speaker 1: not more. Ironically enough, this urge to be seen as
Speaker 1: not being prejudiced can make us do stuff that's pretty
Speaker 1: much the opposite. We are less likely to reach out
Speaker 1: because we think we might say this wrong thing. We
Speaker 1: are less likely to take an action, or to call
Speaker 1: a legislator, or to introduce ourselves to a neighbor, or
Speaker 1: to try to say someone's name who we don't know
Speaker 1: how to pronounce. There's even work suggesting that our worries
Speaker 1: about seeming prejudice take up a lot of mental bandwidth.
Speaker 1: My colleague ye Jennifer Richison and Princeton psychologist Nicole Shelton
Speaker 1: had white subjects chat about a controversial issue with either
Speaker 1: a white or black stranger. Afterwards, participants did a tough
Speaker 1: attentional task known as the Stroop test, in which you
Speaker 1: read the names of colors as quickly as you can
Speaker 1: despite the words being printed in the wrong colored font.
Speaker 1: It's actually pretty hard to read blue when it's printed
Speaker 1: in yellow. But Richison and Shelton found that white subjects
Speaker 1: did significantly worse on that Stroop test after talking to
Speaker 1: a black person. The researchers concluded that subjects left these
Speaker 1: interracial interactions feeling more cognitively and emotionally drained than if
Speaker 1: they chatted with someone of the same race, and later
Speaker 1: work from Richson's lab shows that white subjects have an
Speaker 1: even more pronounced performance dip when they're reminded to try
Speaker 1: and not seem racist during the interaction. Our minds go
Speaker 1: through a whole host of mental gymnastics when our self
Speaker 1: image is a decent person is threatened. It's what psychologists
Speaker 1: call motivated reasoning, and the process of motivated reasoning can
Speaker 1: sometimes get so extreme that we even lie to ourselves
Speaker 1: and reinvent our past. Let's do a little quiz. Shall
Speaker 1: we I want you to rate how much you agree
Speaker 1: with the following statement from one I strongly disagree to
Speaker 1: seven I strongly agree. Ready, how much do you agree
Speaker 1: with this statement my life has been full of hardships?
Speaker 1: Got your answer? Great? Oh wait, actually I forgot. I
Speaker 1: wanted to remind you of something before you answer the question.
Speaker 1: Please remember that most social scientists agree that even today,
Speaker 1: white Americans enjoy many privileges that Black Americans do not.
Speaker 1: White Americans are advantaged in the domains of academics, housing, healthcare, jobs,
Speaker 1: and more compared to Black Americans. Sor right back to
Speaker 1: the question from one I strongly disagree to seven strongly agree?
Speaker 1: How much do you agree with this statement my life
Speaker 1: has been full of hardships? Psychologist Taylor Phillips and Brian
Speaker 1: Lowry pose this same question to a group of white participants,
Speaker 1: with half the subject's first hearing that statement about race
Speaker 1: that I just read to you. You probably think that
Speaker 1: once white subjects were reminded of the greater obstacles that
Speaker 1: people of color face, that they'd be less likely to
Speaker 1: claim that their own life had been filled with hardships.
Speaker 1: But in fact, Phillips and Lowry found the exact opposite pattern.
Speaker 1: On average, white people said their life was significantly harder
Speaker 1: when they were reminded of their racial privilege. Phillips and
Speaker 1: Lowry came up with a rather catchy name for the
Speaker 1: striking example of motivated reasoning, borrowing from the musical Annie.
Speaker 1: They called it the hard knock life effect. It's the
Speaker 1: hard knock life for us. It's the hard knock life
Speaker 1: for us. Satrio plea success when we think about all
Speaker 1: the unseen gifts we get just from existing as a
Speaker 1: non marginalized person. When we realized that all the bad
Speaker 1: stuff in our life would probably be worse if we
Speaker 1: weren't white, or straight, or sistent, or able bodied, or
Speaker 1: middle class. That can make us feel kind of bad,
Speaker 1: like we got some benefit that wasn't really fair, even
Speaker 1: if we didn't intend to. Rather than experience all this discomfort,
Speaker 1: our minds try to cook the facts. We search our
Speaker 1: memory banks for the kinds of hardships that might make
Speaker 1: our own lives look less easy and therefore less privilege
Speaker 1: relative to a marginalized person. Despite writing an entire book
Speaker 1: on fighting injustice, Dolly is the first to admit that
Speaker 1: it's easy to fall under this way. Of motivated reasoning. Rationally,
Speaker 1: Dolly knows that she's had a whole host of life
Speaker 1: experiences that other people weren't lucky enough to have. When
Speaker 1: I say I have privilege, it's not that I haven't
Speaker 1: worked super hard for things. It's not that I haven't
Speaker 1: had some really serious challenges in my life. And yet
Speaker 1: if someone says to me, like, you know, you just
Speaker 1: went to fancy schools, we'll hold on. You know, I
Speaker 1: can feel my blood boiling in that moment. That is
Speaker 1: an example of what it looks like to deny privilege.
Speaker 1: But Dolly has found that there is a way to
Speaker 1: stop all the mental gymnastics that lead decent people down
Speaker 1: this not so good path. The solution involves dropping the
Speaker 1: fiction that were good people in the first place. I've
Speaker 1: been on this campaign to get people to let go
Speaker 1: of being a good person and strive and said to
Speaker 1: be a goodish person. We'll learn what it means to
Speaker 1: be good ish when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. HI, welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome along, listeners. What's funny? I just say, that's a
Speaker 1: really weird thing to say. It's kind of creepy. A
Speaker 1: welcome listeners. James Barr and Dan Hudson are the duo
Speaker 1: behind the award winning LGBTQ podcast A Gay in a
Speaker 1: Non Gay? Should we kind of explain what this is? Dan?
Speaker 1: Dad's girlfriend is is one of my best friends. But
Speaker 1: it's also Dan's girlfriends, So it's awkward because we're not
Speaker 1: really friends? Are we are? Not? This is news to me.
Speaker 1: I thought, no, no, not, what do you mean? Ready?
Speaker 1: Before it's launched in twenty fifteen, most of James's friends
Speaker 1: were women or gay men. Dan, who was the show's
Speaker 1: title suggests, is a non gay, wasn't the sort of
Speaker 1: person that James usually hung out with. I wasn't really
Speaker 1: interested in guys unless I was going to have their
Speaker 1: number in my phone, and obviously Dan was not likely
Speaker 1: to be in my phone. Dan loves metal music and
Speaker 1: he can be quite angry. Sometimes he's got a beard.
Speaker 1: Not that that's, you know, not gay, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm quite firm and Dan's very mask Because of their
Speaker 1: different identities and experiences, working together on the podcast meant
Speaker 1: bridging a whole host of tricky issues. At the beginning,
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to be there. Why do I
Speaker 1: want to talk to a straight guy? Why do I
Speaker 1: have to sit here and educate someone and explain what
Speaker 1: it's like just ordering a drink at the bar and
Speaker 1: being terrified that the barman will know I'm gay? Why
Speaker 1: do I have to tell him like how scary it
Speaker 1: is to hold hands with a boyfriend walking down the street,
Speaker 1: And I just I guess I felt like happy in
Speaker 1: my bubble of gay friends. And when I sat down
Speaker 1: with Dan and had to explain all the things that
Speaker 1: I've never really said out loud before, it was exhausting.
Speaker 1: Part of the exhaustion comes from the fact that their
Speaker 1: podcast doesn't shy away from controversial topics. This is so
Speaker 1: personal awful. This podcast is not affiliated with any other
Speaker 1: thing that Dan and I do in are other lives.
Speaker 1: Most of their episodes are not safe for work because
Speaker 1: no aspect of James's gay sex life is off limits.
Speaker 1: Dan's often in the position of asking the cluelest question
Speaker 1: that many straight people have. Answering what a douche was
Speaker 1: was pretty awkward. So Dan and I have spent a
Speaker 1: long time talking about the ins and outs of anal
Speaker 1: cleaning and how that works, and also Dan just being
Speaker 1: so confused by the entire thing, like you do what podcasting.
Speaker 1: Conversations like these have turned James and Dan into LGBTQ
Speaker 1: champions and unlikely friends. They're shared laughter has given them
Speaker 1: the trust needed to talk about even more sensitive topics,
Speaker 1: things like HIV, the unique mental health challenges faced by
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community, and the injustice and violence against queer
Speaker 1: people that straights sis gender people often don't see. If
Speaker 1: I'm honest, I feel glad that we have had all
Speaker 1: those conversations because it will hopefully educate other people listening
Speaker 1: so that they don't have to have the same conversations.
Speaker 1: Dan admits that he hadn't thought much about LGBTQ issues
Speaker 1: before starting the podcast. His learning curve has been steep.
Speaker 1: We called it a gay and ann gay because we
Speaker 1: had to call it something. You hated the title, didn't you,
Speaker 1: because you didn't want to be You didn't want to
Speaker 1: be marginalized as a non gay person, which was hysterical
Speaker 1: to me because why should I have to be a
Speaker 1: gay person? And now I think I'm out of being
Speaker 1: a game more than they ever have. And Dan, you're
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, proud would be the wrong word,
Speaker 1: because we're going down a straight pride territory. But you
Speaker 1: are happy to call yourself a non gay. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's what it is, isn't it? That is
Speaker 1: what I am. Since co hosting this podcast, Dance had
Speaker 1: to navigate a lot of the moral identity threat that
Speaker 1: comes from recognizing his non gay privilege. But unlike other
Speaker 1: straight people, Dance had to deal with all that discomfort
Speaker 1: with thousands of people listening. Dan's been amazing, He's taken
Speaker 1: a lot of that on board. And maybe, and I
Speaker 1: think you've helped me just realized this. Now. Maybe the
Speaker 1: way Dan is a good ally is because he's awkward.
Speaker 1: He's awkward about asking these questions, He's awkward about learning
Speaker 1: and speaking up for gay people. He feels awkward, And maybe,
Speaker 1: as an ally for any marginalized community, you're meant to
Speaker 1: just feel a bit awkward to kind of understand it
Speaker 1: and make sure you're saying and doing the right things.
Speaker 1: James is onto something important here, because the science suggests
Speaker 1: that the path to becoming a better ally often involved
Speaker 1: embracing just awkwardness. It comes from accepting that you're probably
Speaker 1: going to screw up. As psychologist Dolly Chug explains, it's
Speaker 1: not a matter of if a non virtualized person is
Speaker 1: going to do or say something dumb. But when we
Speaker 1: are going to screw up, period, we are, and when
Speaker 1: we mess up, we need to immediately own the harm
Speaker 1: we've caused. First of all, I am sorry. It's not
Speaker 1: I am sorry if you were offended. Sorry if I
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings, I'm sorry if you took it that way.
Speaker 1: Those are all not what we want to say. It
Speaker 1: is I am sorry, I have done harm, I have
Speaker 1: messed up. I am going to do better. I am
Speaker 1: going to learn that commitment to learn from our mistakes
Speaker 1: and do better in the future is the first step
Speaker 1: to accepting that we're not a good person yet. That's
Speaker 1: why Dolly wants us to strive instead to be good
Speaker 1: ish people. And by good ish, I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: like not quite good enough for a lower standard than good.
Speaker 1: What I'm actually arguing is quite opposite. It's it's a
Speaker 1: higher standard because as someone who never assumes their good
Speaker 1: it's that I'm always looking for ways in which I
Speaker 1: could learn, or where my blind spots are, or where
Speaker 1: I could notice something I might have missed, or a
Speaker 1: different perspective. It's obvious that making silly mistakes it's necessary
Speaker 1: for learning almost anything in life, but we're often super
Speaker 1: resistant to believing that we can improve, something that renowned
Speaker 1: Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has called having a fixed mindset.
Speaker 1: Dolly thinks this rigid fixed mindset thinking is even more
Speaker 1: pronounced in cases that involve are moral identities. I'm a
Speaker 1: good person or I'm not. There's no working progress in there.
Speaker 1: And where we know from the mindset research is that
Speaker 1: when you're in a fixed mindset and you make a mistake,
Speaker 1: your brain activation actually goes down. You actually withdraw attention
Speaker 1: from the mistake. Why because there's no point looking a mistake.
Speaker 1: You're fixed. You're not going to grow to become better allies.
Speaker 1: We all need to switch to a different mindset. The
Speaker 1: growth mindset is the one where, of course we still
Speaker 1: care deeply about doing the right thing and being a
Speaker 1: good person, but we acknowledge that it's going to take
Speaker 1: lots of work and mistakes to get there. People with
Speaker 1: a growth mindset are willing to embrace harder and harder
Speaker 1: learning challenges. They even devote more neural resources to paying
Speaker 1: attention to their mistakes. Why because a mistake means I
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to get better. I'm mortified, but I
Speaker 1: can get better. The idea is to own it, to
Speaker 1: say it, and to act on it. Carol Dwek, along
Speaker 1: with her Stanford colleague Jamil Zaki, have shown that our
Speaker 1: mindsets can have a significant impact on how we approach
Speaker 1: hard identity challenges. They found that white participants with a
Speaker 1: growth mindset spent more time actually listening to a black
Speaker 1: person describe personal challenges than white subjects with a fixed mindset.
Speaker 1: The good news is that it's pretty easy to develop
Speaker 1: a growth mindset. It can be as easy as reminding
Speaker 1: yourself that you can change with a simple three letter
Speaker 1: word yet, as in, I'm not a good person yet,
Speaker 1: but I can be if I put in some work.
Speaker 1: The simple act of reminding ourselves we can change can
Speaker 1: have a huge effect on our willingness to engage with
Speaker 1: tough racial situations, own our own mistakes when they inevitably
Speaker 1: come up, and put in the work to make amends
Speaker 1: and do better in the future. A growth mindset can
Speaker 1: also help us break through the discomfort that often comes
Speaker 1: with stepping in as an ally to fight the injustice
Speaker 1: around us. Something non gay podcaster Dan Hudson had to
Speaker 1: learn firsthand. So I wrote an article for the Metro newspaper,
Speaker 1: which is the British equivalent of like USA today. To
Speaker 1: be fair, it was James's idea. He said, you should
Speaker 1: write an article about what it's like being an allied
Speaker 1: to the LGBT community, and I was like, well, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm not one, like, who's deciding that I am one?
Speaker 1: Prepping the article was a tremendous amount of work for Dan,
Speaker 1: and he spent the entire time fighting to keep that
Speaker 1: old fixed mindset at bay God, I really want to
Speaker 1: get this right and make the point correctly, and the
Speaker 1: easiest things I can't do this. This is just like
Speaker 1: too difficult. In the end, Dan was able to see
Speaker 1: the difficulty as a way to learn rather than a
Speaker 1: reason to run away. The result was a powerful article
Speaker 1: entitled I'm a white middle class SIS straight mail and
Speaker 1: this is how I learned to be an LGBTQ plus ally.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first times Dan had publicly
Speaker 1: applied the word ally to himself. It's it's a tricky
Speaker 1: words because James refers to me as an ally and
Speaker 1: that's great. It's one of those words that I think,
Speaker 1: if you're going to declare yourself as one. You've really
Speaker 1: got to be like manning the barricades. You've really got
Speaker 1: to be fighting for that cause all day and every day.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that I necessarily am, or maybe
Speaker 1: should be, I think, and I might be wrong. Dan
Speaker 1: call me out. That's because you're a straight, CIS white
Speaker 1: guy with all the privilege, so to you having to
Speaker 1: stand up for anything feels maybe insincere because it's not
Speaker 1: his cause. But here's where that article started. I was
Speaker 1: fed up of constantly having to stand up for gay
Speaker 1: people all the time, and I just felt like maybe
Speaker 1: it was time a straight person did it, because there's
Speaker 1: only so much gay noise we can make, and sometimes
Speaker 1: straight people are just going to ignore that. Yet again,
Speaker 1: James is right here. Not only is it morally wrong
Speaker 1: to always leave marginalized groups with the burden of speaking out,
Speaker 1: but the science shows it's often more effective for a
Speaker 1: non marginalized person to point out bigotry. We absolutely, when
Speaker 1: we're not from the targeted group, have more influence and
Speaker 1: standing than we assume. We don't feel that way in
Speaker 1: the moment, but the data is really convincing. One study
Speaker 1: found that white people who called someone out for using
Speaker 1: a racist stereotype are judged less negatively than a black
Speaker 1: person who does exactly the same thing using exactly the
Speaker 1: same words in tone. The same study found that the
Speaker 1: offender feels more guilty and it's more likely to apologize
Speaker 1: if a white person steps in. Another study showed white
Speaker 1: participants videos in which a white or black person called
Speaker 1: someone out for a racist comment. Participants were more persuaded
Speaker 1: by the argument and thought the interaction was less rude
Speaker 1: when a white person was the one doing a calling out.
Speaker 1: Dolly's book christened this phenomenon ordinary privilege. We're not speaking
Speaker 1: instead of them, We're not centering ourselves over them. This
Speaker 1: is not about our feelings. You know, when it might
Speaker 1: comes to us, because it might come to us a
Speaker 1: little more easily. We amplify what they were saying, We
Speaker 1: pass it back, We create the space for them to
Speaker 1: be heard, and then step aside. Okay, are you nervous?
Speaker 1: Am I? Yeah? Dan has gotten better at knowing when
Speaker 1: to use his ordinary privilege. Like the time the duo
Speaker 1: we're making a show for the BBC, I'm openly going
Speaker 1: into a room where a man is going to judge
Speaker 1: me for being gay, and I don't want to be
Speaker 1: judged for being gay. And I'll warn you the memory
Speaker 1: of this incident still makes Dand so angry that he
Speaker 1: can't help but curse. But I'll let James set the scene.
Speaker 1: We did a documentary about gay conversion therapy and we
Speaker 1: both sat there in front of this guy that performs
Speaker 1: this pseudoscience on people, and that was really tough. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about your journey and how you came
Speaker 1: to this. I wanted to move away from the homosexual
Speaker 1: feelings I experienced. Why did you want to stop those
Speaker 1: feelings if you don't mind, I was not comfortable with them.
Speaker 1: I got more annoyed by the gay conversion guy than
Speaker 1: James did. I was livid that this man could come
Speaker 1: out with this shit basically, and that plenty of impressionable
Speaker 1: people from across the UK would fall for it. It
Speaker 1: was amazing having Dan there to take over the mic
Speaker 1: and shout this guy down and tell him he's wrong
Speaker 1: from a kind of non emotional place, because obviously for
Speaker 1: me to do that, it's a lot more raw. Dan
Speaker 1: can come at it differently. The conversations James and Dan
Speaker 1: have had about the importance of being an ally have
Speaker 1: changed both of them and have helped them step into
Speaker 1: social justice issues beyond the domain of queer rights. Being
Speaker 1: white in the summer of twenty twenty has given both
Speaker 1: of them an ordinary privilege that they can use to
Speaker 1: speak out against anti black violence. Dan and I both
Speaker 1: went to the Black Lives Matter protest in London, and
Speaker 1: I really felt we needed to be there because you
Speaker 1: can be nervous and uncomfortable and think it's not your issue,
Speaker 1: it's not your plight. But as a gay person, I
Speaker 1: know that I need allies, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: be there as an ally And there was a banner
Speaker 1: there that said it all like, use your white privilege
Speaker 1: to end white privilege. And I think if I've learned
Speaker 1: anything throughout Black Lives Matter, it's that silence equals death
Speaker 1: and that we need to stand up and say something.
Speaker 1: And we're meant to feel uncomfortable. Right. If we want
Speaker 1: to live in a society that's safe and fair for
Speaker 1: all people, then each and every one of us needs
Speaker 1: to embrace a bit more discomfort. Marginalized groups, of course,
Speaker 1: don't really have a choice about this. They're forced to
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable all the time. But the research shows that
Speaker 1: individuals from non marginalized identities need to embrace their fair
Speaker 1: share too, if we're ever going to build the kind
Speaker 1: of world we want to live in. When we return
Speaker 1: from the break, we'll see the power of this discomfort
Speaker 1: embracing approach. We'll talk to a straight white ally who
Speaker 1: spent the last seventy years feeling actively uncomfortable in the
Speaker 1: fight for racial justice. We'll see that embracing the discomfort
Speaker 1: that comes with this work, beyond simply being the right
Speaker 1: thing to do, can also prove an unexpected path to
Speaker 1: finding purpose and achieving happiness. The happiness Lap will be
Speaker 1: right back. I was five years old being raised in
Speaker 1: the town called Yonkers, New York, and looked outside my
Speaker 1: bedom window one afternoon saw my father's image swing from
Speaker 1: a tree with people under the tree picketing. Richard Lapchick
Speaker 1: was introduced to the discomfort that comes from being a
Speaker 1: white ally very early on in life. The crowd was
Speaker 1: hanging in effigy of his dad. Some reports say they
Speaker 1: even set fire to it. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: it was about, except that they were angry. Richard's father,
Speaker 1: Joe Lapchick, was head coach of the New York Knicks.
Speaker 1: He had just signed Nat Sweetwater Clifton, one of the
Speaker 1: first African American players in the NBA. To say that
Speaker 1: his signing was wildly unpopular in nineteen fifty would be
Speaker 1: an understatement. And for several years after that, I'd picked
Speaker 1: up the extension phone in our house, my dad not
Speaker 1: knowing I was listening, and it was racial epithets after
Speaker 1: racial epithet being hurled at him. Before coaching for the Knicks,
Speaker 1: Joe was a superstar in his own right. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, he played center for the fabled Original Celtics.
Speaker 1: Back then, basketball was segregated, but Joe's team chose to
Speaker 1: play games against the New York Rends, the best African
Speaker 1: American team of the day. There were race riots that
Speaker 1: took place during the game. People stormed the court to
Speaker 1: attack the players. The Celtics and the Wrens literally took
Speaker 1: the court with knives packed in their socks to fend
Speaker 1: themselves defend themselves if they were attacked by angry fans.
Speaker 1: As the two teams traveled the country, Richard's dad saw
Speaker 1: the racism that the Rents faced almost daily. The Celtics
Speaker 1: stayed in fancy hotels that the Wrens weren't allowed to enter.
Speaker 1: The Celtics could eat wherever they wanted, but the Rens
Speaker 1: would rarely get served. There were even several occasions when
Speaker 1: white cashiers refused to pump gas for the Wren's bus.
Speaker 1: Joe decided he wanted to do something more than just
Speaker 1: play on the court alongside the Wrens, so he developed
Speaker 1: an opening game tradition that drew even more fire from
Speaker 1: the fans. My dad and his opposing center, Tursann Cooper,
Speaker 1: would not shake hands like people do at sporting events normally,
Speaker 1: but would actually embrace each other and sometimes kiss each
Speaker 1: other because they wanted fans in those stands to understand
Speaker 1: that this game was about more than a great Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame basketball game. It was about what their vision
Speaker 1: was that America could someday become. As a teen, Richards
Speaker 1: seems set on a career on the court, just like
Speaker 1: his dad, I wanted nothing more than to be an
Speaker 1: NBA player. I was six ft tall in the eighth
Speaker 1: grade and one of the tallest players in the city,
Speaker 1: and I was heavily recruited. Richard was accepted into a
Speaker 1: prestigious basketball camp. It was there that he saw the
Speaker 1: racism his father had witnessed a generation before was still
Speaker 1: being directed at players of color. There were five other
Speaker 1: white guys and a black guy at the camp, and
Speaker 1: one of the white guys was hurling the N word
Speaker 1: at the black guy for the first three days until
Speaker 1: I finally challenged him. The kid knocked Richard out cool,
Speaker 1: but as the science of ordinary privilege might suggest, Richard
Speaker 1: thinks his challenge did at least help to prevent further
Speaker 1: racist incidents. He also developed a lifelong friendship with the
Speaker 1: black player. He helped a man who would later become
Speaker 1: the basketball legend we know today as Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Speaker 1: As a fifteen year old white kid, I suddenly had
Speaker 1: a young African American lens with which I could see
Speaker 1: racism in America and what it was doing to communities
Speaker 1: of color. And I decided, as a fifteen year old
Speaker 1: that I was and the rest of my life working
Speaker 1: in the area of civil rights. Richard is now a professor, author,
Speaker 1: and human rights activist, someone the NCAA recently christened the
Speaker 1: Racial Conscience of Sports. He campaigned for years and supported
Speaker 1: the anti apartheid movement and worked to ban South African
Speaker 1: teams from participating in international sports. I thought, maybe, for
Speaker 1: the first time in my life, I'd done something Worthwhile
Speaker 1: I was working late in my college office, there was
Speaker 1: a knock on the door at ten forty five, and
Speaker 1: I just assumed there was a campus security but when
Speaker 1: I opened the door instead, it was two men wearing
Speaker 1: stocking masks. The men beat Richard unconscious, causing extensive kidney
Speaker 1: and liver damage, as well as a hernia and a concussion.
Speaker 1: They also carved the N word into his stomach. With
Speaker 1: a pair of officessors. Laying in the hospital that night,
Speaker 1: I knew that I was going to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of my life using the sports platform to address what
Speaker 1: I thought at that time was just going to be racism,
Speaker 1: but all social justice issues. I felt that if they
Speaker 1: had people are to the length they did to try
Speaker 1: to stop my father twenty eight years before, and to
Speaker 1: the length they had just gone to try to stop
Speaker 1: me that night, that they must have felt we were
Speaker 1: having an impact on race relations in the United States
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to see. Even though the beating
Speaker 1: stiffened richards resolve, he never allowed the ordeal to undermine
Speaker 1: the humility that, he argues all allies need to maintain
Speaker 1: in the fight for justice. At the time of the attack,
Speaker 1: people said to me, well, now you must understand what
Speaker 1: it's like to be black, and I said, I don't
Speaker 1: understand what it's like to be black. At any given point,
Speaker 1: I could have walked away from the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: and just rejoined that white middle class where all the
Speaker 1: privileges that we have and not face what a person
Speaker 1: of color phases every day when they go out of
Speaker 1: their house. This is one of the reasons Richard is
Speaker 1: so passionate that more allies need to step up, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to the fight against anti black violence.
Speaker 1: Everybody can't be on the front lines, but everybody's got
Speaker 1: to go off the sidelines. You've got to get involved
Speaker 1: in some way. It might be picking whatever the issue
Speaker 1: is you want to be part of, read about it,
Speaker 1: study it under standard, find an organization that's doing something
Speaker 1: about it, volunteer for it, and maybe then you might
Speaker 1: become emboldened after that to do more. But at least
Speaker 1: get involved with something. And we've had hundreds of years
Speaker 1: of oppression in the United States that have created what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with now, and it's going to take some
Speaker 1: time and strong struggle and effort on the part of
Speaker 1: everybody to address those issues. But even after reading and
Speaker 1: listening and volunteering, don't be tempted to get a little
Speaker 1: performative and show off what a woke good person you are.
Speaker 1: To be a better ally, we need to refrain from
Speaker 1: the so called cookie seeking behavior as activists refer to it.
Speaker 1: Reward seeking doesn't help, and worse, it can yet again
Speaker 1: create more emotional labor for the group you're allegedly trying
Speaker 1: to help. This has to be a selfless act. I
Speaker 1: mean it can be a rewarding act for you know,
Speaker 1: everything that I've been involved with I feel incredibly rewarded by.
Speaker 1: But I didn't get involved to get rewarded. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's what people need to understand, and I
Speaker 1: think most people get it when you hear it in
Speaker 1: those terms. Simply put, allies, it's not about you. Caring
Speaker 1: about justice means you've got to be willing to do
Speaker 1: the work without a cookie at the end from the
Speaker 1: group you're trying to help. But this doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: allyship was without its sweet rewards. The good news, as
Speaker 1: Richard has seen firsthand, is that putting in all this
Speaker 1: hard work is worth it in the end, not just
Speaker 1: for fixing society, but also for our own personal sense
Speaker 1: of meaning and well being. I have an incredibly happy life.
Speaker 1: There were definitely moments in my life that were difficult
Speaker 1: to get through, but those moments all made me stronger
Speaker 1: in the end, and being stronger makes me happier. As
Speaker 1: we discuss so often in the Happiness Lab, doing good
Speaker 1: for others makes us feel good, often in profound and
Speaker 1: long lasting ways we don't even realize. Doing good for
Speaker 1: the world also provides us with greater emotional resilience, which
Speaker 1: I saw firsthand talking to Richard, because despite all the
Speaker 1: anger and division we've seen in twenty twenty, Richard is
Speaker 1: brimming with hope. I remember in nineteen seventy seven I
Speaker 1: was in Luanda and Zambia with the person who was
Speaker 1: my mentor. His name was George Hauser, and he had
Speaker 1: founded the Anti Apartheid Movement, an anti colonial move in
Speaker 1: the United States. And I said, George, do you think
Speaker 1: that Kenney, Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, what was then Rhodesia,
Speaker 1: and South Africa will be free in our lifetime? And
Speaker 1: he said, rich I feel something's different. I feel that
Speaker 1: there's going to be changed. Less than twenty years later,
Speaker 1: Richards stood on the steps of the Union building in
Speaker 1: South Africa and watched Nelson Mandela sworn in as president.
Speaker 1: If that man who had been a political prisoner and
Speaker 1: the most racist system of government on the face of
Speaker 1: the earth and the second half of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: could become its president, then anything and everything is possible
Speaker 1: if we put our mind to it. As they said
Speaker 1: at the top of the show, Making this episode has
Speaker 1: been particularly tough for me. I'm a biracial woman, but
Speaker 1: I'm also white passing, and that means I'm often in
Speaker 1: the unique position of seeing some of the anti black
Speaker 1: racism that my friends and colleagues experience all the time,
Speaker 1: while simultaneously having the realization that my skin color protects
Speaker 1: me from most of it. I don't always realize the
Speaker 1: incredible privilege that comes with all that, and the responsibility
Speaker 1: I have to be an ally to all identities that
Speaker 1: are facing injustice. While working on this episode, I've spent
Speaker 1: the entire time worried if I'm using the right language,
Speaker 1: or if I'm choosing the right guests, or if I've
Speaker 1: done the best job I could in raising these issues.
Speaker 1: None of this was fun or comfortable, but it's exactly
Speaker 1: the sort of discomfort that marginalize people and those that
Speaker 1: don't have my skin privilege go through all the time.
Speaker 1: They don't get to avoid it, and so honestly neither
Speaker 1: should I. Plus, the science of allyships suggests that all
Speaker 1: the discomfort I'm experiencing will ultimately make me happier because
Speaker 1: it's necessary for becoming the anti racist builder that I
Speaker 1: really want to be. But it's also worth validating that
Speaker 1: all this is really hard, but there's no time like
Speaker 1: the present. If each of us is willing to intentionally
Speaker 1: take on a bit more discomfort to do our part
Speaker 1: to fight system of injustice, then we might be able
Speaker 1: to build a world that brings genuine happiness to all people.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me for this second season
Speaker 1: of The Happiness Lab. I hope it's taught you newde
Speaker 1: tips you can use to make yourself and our world
Speaker 1: a little bit happier. The Happiness Lab is co written
Speaker 1: and produced by Ryan Dilley. Our original music was composed
Speaker 1: by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing, and mastering by
Speaker 1: Evan Viola, Pete Notaton also helped with production. Joseph Friedman
Speaker 1: checked our facts and our editing was done by Sophie
Speaker 1: Crane McKinnon. Special thanks to mail LaBelle, Carli Nigliori, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Maggie Taylor, Maya Kanig, Jacob Weisberg, and my
Speaker 1: agent Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries and me Doctor Laurie Santos