Speaker 1: We can use anger to be creative and to build
Speaker 1: connections and to imagine a new way of being. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Austin Channing Brown, a
Speaker 1: freelance writer and speaker with a particular focus on Black
Speaker 1: womanhood and faith. Her writing can be found in Relevant Magazine,
Speaker 1: Mutuality Magazine, and other places around the web. She also
Speaker 1: wrote a column called Wild Hope for Today's Christian Women,
Speaker 1: which is still accessible to readers passionate about racial justice
Speaker 1: and reconciliation. Austin travels the country preaching and teaching about
Speaker 1: the ways this work intersects with Christian faith. Her book
Speaker 1: is I'm Still Here, Black Dignity and a World Made
Speaker 1: for Whiteness. Hi Austin, Welcome to the show. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for having me. I'm really excited to have you on.
Speaker 1: Your book is called I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in
Speaker 1: a World Made for Whiteness, and i am looking forward
Speaker 1: to jumping in And I've got lots of things to
Speaker 1: ask you and talk about. But let's start like we
Speaker 1: normally do, with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking
Speaker 1: with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the granddaughter stops, thinks about it for a second, looks
Speaker 1: up at her grandmother, and she said, grandmother, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life. And in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Mm hmmm. Um So I write and
Speaker 1: speak a lot about racial justice, and it could be
Speaker 1: really easy to feed a sense of hopelessness and loneliness
Speaker 1: and isolation and even a sense of of pride as
Speaker 1: if it all rests on me, you know, um as
Speaker 1: if I'm I'm the only one out here doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of complex about it, and I have to
Speaker 1: work to stay grounded, to stay hopeful, to stay joyful,
Speaker 1: to stay connected. And for me, that comes through a
Speaker 1: number of ways. Um It comes from reading literature that
Speaker 1: I love. Um it comes from participating in this work
Speaker 1: with people that I love. Um So I'm reminded that
Speaker 1: I'm not just by myself. It comes from enjoying works
Speaker 1: of art and all the different appreciating all the different
Speaker 1: ways that folks approach racial justice and try to make
Speaker 1: a difference in the world. Um So. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: find myself thinking more and more about what it means
Speaker 1: to feed myself. Well, um so I don't get burned
Speaker 1: out in this work, and now that I'm a mom,
Speaker 1: having to be very intentional about that because my bandwidth
Speaker 1: for the work is shorter than it was when um
Speaker 1: when nobody was relying on me. Yes, yes, children, children require,
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: Lord and She's got an essay in They're called The
Speaker 1: Uses of Anger, and it was a huge lightbulb moment
Speaker 1: for me when she writes, and I'm paraphrasing um, that
Speaker 1: anger in and of itself is neither negative nor positive.
Speaker 1: It's just an emotion. But what we choose to do
Speaker 1: with it could be negative or positive. So we could
Speaker 1: certainly use anger to destroy and to hurt others and
Speaker 1: to you know, sort of ripped one another part. Or
Speaker 1: we can use anger to be creative and to build
Speaker 1: connections and to imagine a new way of being. And
Speaker 1: so the way that she describes anger, and she's doing
Speaker 1: it in the context of injustice, she says, anger reveals
Speaker 1: that something is wrong. We get angry about something right.
Speaker 1: That's 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 indeed and it did
Speaker 1: right and so and so we can say that made
Speaker 1: me angry, So how do I change it? And that
Speaker 1: can be a really productive way of using anger, And
Speaker 1: that's been very, very helpful for me. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I was struck with in the book is
Speaker 1: you've spent a lot of your time in the church,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it in what we'd call, I guess,
Speaker 1: the white church, and you talk about how frustrating it
Speaker 1: is when you are dealing with injustice and you're confronting
Speaker 1: it and people say things do you like, well, you
Speaker 1: just have to love them more. I think that that
Speaker 1: strikes me as someone who often thinks that way, not
Speaker 1: about like, oh, you know, black people need to act
Speaker 1: ex and way, but more about for myself sometimes, like
Speaker 1: you know, okay, is this the best way to handle it?
Speaker 1: And so you sort of talk about how so much
Speaker 1: of your time is spent dealing with we'll call it
Speaker 1: white fragility, and we can talk more about what that is,
Speaker 1: but dealing with that white fragility, and so you're trying
Speaker 1: to balance I think, letting out your anger and also
Speaker 1: having a productive conversation, and sometimes those things don't seem
Speaker 1: to go hand in hand. I mean, I can see
Speaker 1: it in interpersonal relationships, right, like I might be mad,
Speaker 1: but if I act mad at you, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: very difficult for us to talk. And so I just
Speaker 1: was struck by the challenge that must be an is
Speaker 1: for you and I'm curious any thoughts you have on that.
Speaker 1: Let me begin by saying that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people of color in particular, but a lot of
Speaker 1: white folks too, um, who teach about and facilitate conversations
Speaker 1: about racial justice, right. And there are some teachers who
Speaker 1: really enjoy working with folks who are at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of their journey, who still need the definition of
Speaker 1: white fragility, who begin conversations with I'm not sure I've
Speaker 1: ever even met a black person, folks who are like,
Speaker 1: really at the beginning of their journey, you know. And
Speaker 1: then there are are folks like me who have a
Speaker 1: tendency to work more with folks who have already been
Speaker 1: on this journey for a while, but are wanting, you know,
Speaker 1: to continue those conversations, to continue idea areas of growth, um,
Speaker 1: To to continue to be challenged. And so I want
Speaker 1: to be honest and say that I had more of
Speaker 1: those conversations when I was younger. I don't have them
Speaker 1: a whole lot anymore, because typically by the time I've
Speaker 1: gotten the phone call or I'm present, folks are already aware.
Speaker 1: And I enjoyed that because we can have conversations like
Speaker 1: the one you and I are having where we think,
Speaker 1: where we sit down and we say, okay, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a conversation about race. Um, we know that
Speaker 1: there's a tendency for white fragility to enter the room.
Speaker 1: What can we do about that? Right, And then that
Speaker 1: becomes a conversation that we have before we even get
Speaker 1: to the hard stuff of race. Right, so we'll say, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put tissues in the room. And if people
Speaker 1: are having you know, really emotional response response, that's great,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to pause the conversation for them, right,
Speaker 1: And if they need to be excused, if they need
Speaker 1: to get up, like all of that is fine. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's gonna be our rule. And then after like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 1: And that's why those who are feeling really emotional can
Speaker 1: like take a moment, and you're right, have conversations with
Speaker 1: whoever they want to have conversations with. Right. But that way,
Speaker 1: we're not interrupting the flow of it'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, but we
Speaker 1: 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 at least 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 earlier in the journey in that
Speaker 1: maybe that typical sort of just not realizing how pervasive
Speaker 1: the problem is, how endemic the problem is. So a
Speaker 1: lot of things I read and I thought, oh boy,
Speaker 1: that sounds like me at some point. Right, my heart's
Speaker 1: in the right place, But I'm clearly not not understanding
Speaker 1: a lot here, or not maybe not even listening. Yeah,
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, right and
Speaker 1: have a very emotional response to a book, um, But
Speaker 1: what can happen is when people are gathered together. So
Speaker 1: let's say you and I were like in a small
Speaker 1: group together or a book study together, and I start
Speaker 1: 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 in order to
Speaker 1: take care of this one person's feelings. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: And so it could be tears, it could be um,
Speaker 1: it could be like a person who just starts rambling
Speaker 1: right 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 it 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 so big, right, But generally speaking, there's a point
Speaker 1: along their journey for white folks who are on their
Speaker 1: journey who have to stop. Um, there's like a line
Speaker 1: in the sand when when they're like, no, I'm innocent,
Speaker 1: my 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 doing, right,
Speaker 1: And then there comes a moment when a white person
Speaker 1: is like, oh, I have been dealing with racial bias.
Speaker 1: I have biases. I tell you. There's a story in
Speaker 1: the book about a teacher who was well loved in
Speaker 1: my high school who had an Aha moment when she
Speaker 1: was making seating charts for her class, which she did
Speaker 1: at the top of every semester, and in one semester,
Speaker 1: she realized that she was using her seating chart to
Speaker 1: separate students of color because she assumed that students of
Speaker 1: color who were sitting together would be disrespectful and would
Speaker 1: talk a lot and would not pay attention to her,
Speaker 1: And she didn't realize it until she misstepped. Right, she
Speaker 1: tried to use names to figure out who the students
Speaker 1: of color were, and she missed one of the names
Speaker 1: 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 I'd been using a seating chart to
Speaker 1: separate students of color like 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 is good, and that let
Speaker 1: that leads towards transformation. Right, So that's 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: not normal. It just is what this group of people does.
Speaker 1: And you go to a certain you know, black churches,
Speaker 1: right what my first my first time as I went
Speaker 1: to bb King concert when I was like fifteen, and
Speaker 1: there was they were just you know, they're everybody in
Speaker 1: the audience is talking to beb you know, I mean
Speaker 1: they're yelling and carrying on, and I just thought it
Speaker 1: was so awesome. But that I just realized how often
Speaker 1: that assumption that the way I do it, the way
Speaker 1: I see it is normal, that's right, is pervasive and
Speaker 1: once I suddenly start seeing everything through a different lens
Speaker 1: of like, well, that's not normal, that's just this kind
Speaker 1: of culture. Boy, that was a big wake up for me,
Speaker 1: and your 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, But what happens,
Speaker 1: particularly like my story. So I, as a black girl
Speaker 1: who then enters white ministries or white churches or white organizations,
Speaker 1: I am seeing as the deviant one, right like. I
Speaker 1: like that you use that term, even though I know
Speaker 1: you didn't use it positively or negatively, right, just like
Speaker 1: as a qualification of the difference. Um, what happens is
Speaker 1: because my supervisors right see themselves as normal. When I
Speaker 1: 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, right,
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, rather than my difference being valuable and
Speaker 1: something to learn from. Um, I'm punished for it because
Speaker 1: I have to fit the normal box 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
Speaker 1: come in, and that whiteness tolerates a certain amount of blackness,
Speaker 1: like we'll take it to a certain extent, you know,
Speaker 1: and 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: to 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 a part of
Speaker 1: me that goes, but boy, that's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It's so much work, like you know, like it's so
Speaker 1: much easier when I could just go into a meeting
Speaker 1: and say this is what we're doing. Everybody goes yes,
Speaker 1: and we're on our way. And and again I've fallen
Speaker 1: guilty to that. Well, let me rephrase, I've been conscious
Speaker 1: of that and the desire to keep everything similar to
Speaker 1: the 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,
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. UM. And so even though
Speaker 1: it was so hard, I leould see other teams, like
Speaker 1: other halls that were like all white, and they'd just
Speaker 1: be skipping and jumping, and I'll just be like, man,
Speaker 1: that looks nice. I wonder what that's like, because I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that honesty, because it's true. Diversity is hard
Speaker 1: to manage. I've been struck by since I read your book,
Speaker 1: and I I've known this before, and I've I've seen
Speaker 1: it before, but I don't think it ever hit me
Speaker 1: with the same um level of clarity. I've been on
Speaker 1: the treadmill a bunch of times and there's a whole
Speaker 1: bank of TVs right up up across and I look
Speaker 1: 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 like 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,
Speaker 1: and say what do you think about this? And so
Speaker 1: it's social media has opened up our ability to represent
Speaker 1: ourselves and to find one another. But it can still
Speaker 1: be really hard to have to do that work, even
Speaker 1: though as opposed to it just being accessible all the time. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the Internet, for all its flaws, and there
Speaker 1: are many, there are many, has given marginalized people of
Speaker 1: all stripes, right, whether it be a racial thing, whether
Speaker 1: it be a sexuality or a gender thing, or whether
Speaker 1: it be even closer to home for someone like me,
Speaker 1: someone who's a little different than the typical toxic white man,
Speaker 1: like there's a different like suddenly there's a diversity of
Speaker 1: views and you can find people that are like you.
Speaker 1: And so I just think in general the internet has
Speaker 1: provided that and that's really good. A question for you,
Speaker 1: So as somebody who is you know to use the
Speaker 1: term that you used earlier in this journey, right, sorry,
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 a 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 recognize 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. UM, I would say,
Speaker 1: if to the degree that you can, to start with
Speaker 1: books that answer your biggest questions about race, Um, So,
Speaker 1: for example, I think of Christina Cleveland's book Disunity and
Speaker 1: christ And she's obviously writing from a Christian perspective, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot of social psychology in her book. So
Speaker 1: she's answering questions, well, why do we gravitate towards one another?
Speaker 1: Why do we like homogeneous UM teams? Like why? Right?
Speaker 1: Like what's behind that? Um? And so in that way,
Speaker 1: it's really accessible because she's she's not doing the like
Speaker 1: emotional memoir that I'm doing, right, she is really talking
Speaker 1: about psychology UM. And she's hilarious, which is also really
Speaker 1: helpful when you're talking about race. So yes, so books,
Speaker 1: that was one example. I think educating oneself and reading
Speaker 1: books and trying to get that window into other folks
Speaker 1: world is so so important. Why are all the black
Speaker 1: kids sitting at the table is another really really good
Speaker 1: just introduction into understanding and answering questions about race, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of them out there. UM. I don't generally
Speaker 1: try and like plug Amazon, but one way in which
Speaker 1: I think Amazon can be useful is that when you
Speaker 1: find a good book to then go to what other
Speaker 1: folks have read? Right, if you can continue the journey,
Speaker 1: I would also say to start looking for opportunities to
Speaker 1: talk with other people about it. So whether that's through
Speaker 1: book clubs, UM, maybe like like the local libraries or
Speaker 1: the community school excuse me, community college workshops that are
Speaker 1: happening in the area, conferences that are nearby, and UM.
Speaker 1: One organization in particular I'd love to plug is called
Speaker 1: Be the Bridge. It was started by women named Latasha Morrison.
Speaker 1: And that group UM is one online right, so you
Speaker 1: can talk to lots and lots of people all over
Speaker 1: the country. But then they also have their local groups
Speaker 1: so that you can physically meet folks for coffee and
Speaker 1: about race together. And I think that's a really brilliant
Speaker 1: way to participate and to start in this conversation because
Speaker 1: one way that UM, white folks have a tendency to
Speaker 1: like miss a step as they go search for their
Speaker 1: like black friend who's going to explain everything, They're like,
Speaker 1: I don't think right at that point in relationship. Yet
Speaker 1: that struck me. In the book, you know, you talked
Speaker 1: about how exhausting that is if you're the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the few black people in an area, you're
Speaker 1: going to have white people, again, a lot of whom
Speaker 1: are well intentioned, but you're going to be answering their
Speaker 1: questions all the time and nobody stops to think, like,
Speaker 1: was this hard on Austin the fact that everybody's asking
Speaker 1: her about race all the time? Like no, no sense
Speaker 1: of you know, and again struck by, like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet I've done that before, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: I want to know, you know, inquiring minds. But never,
Speaker 1: you know, never struck me because again seeing it from
Speaker 1: my view of the world, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: that's why I love UM, this organization that Latasha has started,
Speaker 1: because it's filled with people of color who are saying,
Speaker 1: come 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 because
Speaker 1: there is three other people who can answer it and
Speaker 1: will answer it, you know. So I really love that
Speaker 1: UM because it gives people an opportunity to start having
Speaker 1: these conversations. But to know, right, so not wonder, but
Speaker 1: to know that all these people have opted into that conversation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing I was struck by, and I'm struck
Speaker 1: by now how it even threads its way a little
Speaker 1: bit into my conversation is the white confessional, Yes, the
Speaker 1: white person who comes to you and unburdens themselves with Well,
Speaker 1: once I was at the table and Uncle Joe said X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z and I didn't do anything, or there
Speaker 1: was a girl all in class when I was in
Speaker 1: third grade, or whatever those things be. And again I
Speaker 1: kind of notice it, like just a little of it
Speaker 1: working its way through me here despite having read your book.
Speaker 1: But but how people are coming to you for absolution,
Speaker 1: and not only that being ineffective and really a sort
Speaker 1: of shortcut to something that's real, also the impact that
Speaker 1: it has on you. Yeah, Oh, I love the way
Speaker 1: that you phrase that we're gonna have to talk more
Speaker 1: about this. It is a short cut. Because sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not that confessing is bad, right, It's just you should
Speaker 1: confess to the person who got hurt, right, right, and
Speaker 1: not to a random stranger. Um, I guess it's not
Speaker 1: super random, but it is a stranger. I often am like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what's your name? Who you are? But you
Speaker 1: are confessing to me? And I think it would be
Speaker 1: more helpful if the desire hire is not absolution, right,
Speaker 1: often it is, But if the desire really is to
Speaker 1: just communicate that you are moved by the speaker or
Speaker 1: moved by the facilitator, um to to instead skip the
Speaker 1: skip the story right, skip the confessional, and jump to
Speaker 1: the action stuff that you're going to take right. So
Speaker 1: it would be so much more life giving for me
Speaker 1: personally if someone said, you know what, I have had
Speaker 1: this book. I've had the New Gym Crow sitting on
Speaker 1: on my desk for a year and I haven't picked
Speaker 1: it up. But I'm gonna I'm gonna go home and
Speaker 1: readap right. Or I have been so afraid to talk
Speaker 1: to my parents about this, but the next time I
Speaker 1: go home, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk to them, you know. So that that would be
Speaker 1: much more helpful for all speakers who talk about racial
Speaker 1: justice to hear what commitment is going to be made,
Speaker 1: as opposed to yeah, this weird like confession, because I
Speaker 1: honestly I 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: gonna do about that? What are you gonna do about that?
Speaker 1: That's my new response response that's a good one. Uh okay,
Speaker 1: right right, Well, I think, as as a white person
Speaker 1: on the other side of it, we're waiting for you
Speaker 1: to give us the good white person badge. I'm like,
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. Yeah, it's so weird. So listeners start there,
Speaker 1: don't don't do that, don't do that, don't do that.
Speaker 1: M No, not good. You know, it's even stranger. So
Speaker 1: so this often happens to black women with folks who
Speaker 1: assume that they've got a close enough relationship, right, So,
Speaker 1: like a coworker or someone who's like, You're like, WHOA, Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not actually that close 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 is, 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 that's nice. But yeah, by
Speaker 1: and large, I think a general rule should be don't
Speaker 1: touch people you don't know under any circumstance, unless it's
Speaker 1: to pick them up from in front of a train
Speaker 1: or something. Listeners don't touch black women's hair. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the word reconciliation. What does reconciliation mean to you?
Speaker 1: What does it look like? And I guess again, how
Speaker 1: do people participate in that? Yeah? Oh, can I tell
Speaker 1: you the truth? That excuse me? That chapter was the
Speaker 1: hardest for me to write. Um. There were other chapters
Speaker 1: that were like more emotional to write and difficult for
Speaker 1: that reason, but trying to wrap a language around what
Speaker 1: I think reconciliations should look like was so hard. So
Speaker 1: I'm just going to confess that I'm going to bumble
Speaker 1: my way through this. Um. So, first, let me acknowledge
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of folks who don't use
Speaker 1: the term reconciliation anymore because it has been so watered down,
Speaker 1: um to basically be the equivalent of like having a
Speaker 1: coffee date with someone, or or the diversity efforts that
Speaker 1: we talked about, like just get the right number of people.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're practicing reconciliation. And so there's and and
Speaker 1: myself included. I rarely use the term by itself. I
Speaker 1: usually say racial justice and reconciliation because I just feel
Speaker 1: like it's clearer somehow. Um. But that being said, so
Speaker 1: here's another book for folks to read. It's a book
Speaker 1: called Radical Reconciliation, and it is the most helpful book
Speaker 1: I've ever read to really infuse um, the radical nature
Speaker 1: of reconciliation back into that word. Um but at a
Speaker 1: very attempting to put the cookie on the bottom shelf.
Speaker 1: I think that the term reconciliation should revolutionize our relationships
Speaker 1: with one another. So when we talk about the normalness
Speaker 1: of whiteness, right, that that we already discussed. So whiteness
Speaker 1: is normal in how we hire people. Whiteness is normally
Speaker 1: what we see on our television's whiteness, Right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: so much of America and which whiteness is the norm.
Speaker 1: UM reconciliation would ask the question, how can we revolutionize that?
Speaker 1: Um fact, can we make sure that our leadership teams
Speaker 1: are all fifty people of color? Um? Can we can
Speaker 1: we commit to only watching networks in which people of
Speaker 1: color often make an appearance on? UM? Can we when
Speaker 1: when 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 around 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 of being and doing this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the thing that I am struck by in in
Speaker 1: reading the book and listening to you talk and other things.
Speaker 1: Is the legitimate cultural differences? Yes, 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: of you know, of excitement that we're going to try
Speaker 1: something different. We're going to try something new and see
Speaker 1: how it goes, and if it doesn't work, then we'll
Speaker 1: try something else. But let's let's commit to to trying
Speaker 1: something new, um, and to working through the issues that
Speaker 1: doing something new inviatively creates, you know. Yeah. One things
Speaker 1: I loved about the book was, despite talking about whiteness,
Speaker 1: its challenges, et cetera, was the celebration of blackness was
Speaker 1: throughout the book. And I found it so interesting in
Speaker 1: the beginning where you coming from you lived in a
Speaker 1: white community, you had accepted, well, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: fit in there, and when you first went into exclusively
Speaker 1: black or you know, mostly black communities, you felt like,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to fit in here either, And how
Speaker 1: how hard that was for you, and that thank God
Speaker 1: that past right and you and and so that leads
Speaker 1: me to another question, because I hear this term and
Speaker 1: I don't quite know what it means or what to
Speaker 1: do with it, which is cultural misappropriation. Yeah, right, So
Speaker 1: I 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 music, that
Speaker 1: the writing, the 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 ink 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: that they would want to talk about that center around
Speaker 1: let's say language. Right, But because I'm African American, and
Speaker 1: speak English like we could talk about like slang, if
Speaker 1: we could talk about ebonics and right. Um, but but
Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge that. Right, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: answer this as a black girl, and I would say,
Speaker 1: just by way an example, um, Bruno Mars, super popular musician.
Speaker 1: Love 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. List thing too, I love, I'm just making
Speaker 1: up names. I don't know if these are the people,
Speaker 1: but Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gay and Michael Jackson and
Speaker 1: right credit James Brown, Oh my goodness, so much James around. Right,
Speaker 1: but he makes that very clear. Um. He doesn't try
Speaker 1: and pretend like he just created this. Um. I would
Speaker 1: say that there are other artists who I will try
Speaker 1: and maybe not to name so much, who just um
Speaker 1: do two things. One who create music that sounds black
Speaker 1: without ever acknowledging where it came from, right, or two
Speaker 1: do a sort of like really kitchy, I'm a cute
Speaker 1: white girl, but I've got all these black women in
Speaker 1: the background who are being black, right, and it's just
Speaker 1: like this really like messy. Why what's happening here? Right?
Speaker 1: So one is sort of rooted in and and honor
Speaker 1: and respect and acknowledgement, right, and the other is sort
Speaker 1: of absent of all of that. Um. So, So I
Speaker 1: would say in terms of like a picture, to try
Speaker 1: and paint a 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: the appropriation versus appreciation, it can definitely get tricky. And
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's so important to eventually get
Speaker 1: to a place where you really do have friends, like
Speaker 1: real friends, friends who come over for dinner, friends who
Speaker 1: you know their kids stay at your house, like friends
Speaker 1: who call you in their lives they're falling apart, like friends,
Speaker 1: um who are people of color, So that folks of
Speaker 1: color can say, oh, that feels like appropriation, you know,
Speaker 1: the 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, just being willing to listen,
Speaker 1: is it if? But also someone who is willing to
Speaker 1: recognize themselves and is wanting to change and wanting to grow. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that white folks will find that people of
Speaker 1: color are actually extraordinarily forgiving and extraordinarily gracious and extraordinarily
Speaker 1: kind when they are being received by an open heart
Speaker 1: and someone who is ready and wanting to to do
Speaker 1: that hard work. Excellent. Well, we will put links in
Speaker 1: the show notes to several of the books that you
Speaker 1: mentioned also too, of course your book, your website and
Speaker 1: and all of that. So thank you so much, my
Speaker 1: pleasure truly. Okay, ye, if what you just heard was
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