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