Interview: Matthew Kincaid

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Afro Punk Solution Sessions. I'm your host
Brigittad and I'm your co host Eve Jeff Cookee. Afro
punk is a safe place, a blank space to freak
out in, to construct a new reality, to live our
lives as we see fit while making sense of the
world around us. Here at Afropunk, we have the conversations
that matter to us, conversations that lead to solutions. Hi. Everyone,

(00:32):
Eve's here again and this time we have an interview
with Matthew Kinkaid. You might remember Matthew from the episode
bus Stop and the first episode of the season racism
is a virus. This time we want to give you
a listen to the full conversation that we had with him,
which was really great. And if you don't remember, he's
the founder of Overcoming Racism, which is an organization that
does race and equity training for institutions with a huge

(00:54):
focus on education. So here's the conversation. Yeah, you made
a state man as Solution Sessions where you said racism
is like a superbug. It mutates and unchecked grow stronger.
So I guess one of the first things that I
think about when I hear you say that, it's like,
how do we check racism so it doesn't grow stronger?
What are some of the things that we can do

(01:16):
to slow our halt the perpetuation of those values throughout generations.
That's a really great question and not necessarily the easiest
question to answer. Um. I think, you know, one of
the things that we promote it overcome racism is you know,
not continued continue, sorry over One of the needs we

(01:41):
promote overcoming racism is that, you know, we can continue
to address the symptoms of educational and equity, or we
can start to address the cause. And I think when
we think about challenging you know, the super bug that
is systemic racism, many of the initiatives that exist across
the country deal with the outputs or the causes, right,
so things like intercommunal violence, or um problems in the

(02:05):
criminal justice system, or lack of access to healthcare or housing.
And while that's all extremely important, and those are things
that we have to address, you know, we're gonna ever
truly root out system racism. It has to start with
education of ourselves and all of us you know, across
the country looking in the mirror to think about, how

(02:25):
is this system created, understanding very critically how the system
was created, what was created for, how it's maintained, and
through understanding that we can work to unravel ourselves from it. UM.
But that's really challenging because in many ways, systemic racism
UM is just as American as apple pie or any
other or baseball or whatever the case may be. And

(02:48):
so envisioning America without racism is um not easy. But
we have to, you know, be able to envision that
if we're gonna ever work towards that end. It sounds
like you're saying, I don't want to put words in
your mouth, but that history informs the ways that we
deal with racism today a lot. How do we think
about how should we think about our history when we're

(03:11):
thinking about overcoming racism, Well, the first thing we have
to do is be honest about our history. There are
so many false and narratives that exist, UM. And you know,
one of the reasons why overcoming racism works in schools
is because there are so many false and narratives that
exist around the country, starting with how we educate young
people about, you know, how America was created. UM. You know,

(03:34):
one of the things that is really promoted in the
education system is American exceptionalism. UM. And this notion that
America is a great nation or you know, the best
nation that exists, and a lot of that narrative, UH
doesn't mention, you know, the genocide of Native American enslavement
of African people, UM. You know, ways in which Mexico

(03:56):
was annexed and brought into our country through a brutal
and violent war or um. You know the intermittive Japanese Americans, UM,
exclusionary at you know, other exclusionary policies UM that Asian
Americans say throughout throughout history. And so in order for
us to have an honest conversation about dismantling racism in
the present, we have to have an honest conversation about

(04:16):
how systemic racism was created in the past. One of
the things that we talked about in our training is
that systemic racism is first and foremost a system of advantage.
And when we talk about racism, one of the things
that we talk about most often is how systemic racism
adversely affects people of color. We don't talk about the
other side of that coin, which that the system is

(04:37):
set up to, you know, provide advantages to white people.
And that's one of the truths that for whatever reason,
it seems easier to acknowledge the pain and the oppression
and the violence that systemic racism UM levies on the
bodies of people's color. But for some reason, it's much
more challenging for us as a nation to address the
fact that the entire system was set up to benefit

(05:00):
a small minority of people, and that minority people that
are set up to benefit has grown and expanded over time.
But you know, people didn't mistreat other people just because
they didn't like them or didn't understand them. Um. These
systems were set up to create distinct advantages for some
UM by you know, creating out and out group to
solidify power within collective in group. And so you know,

(05:21):
the first thing that to do with our histories be honest, UM,
and really analyze, you know, why racism was created in
the first place, UM, and why for all intents and purposes,
it really isn't an economically sustainable system. UM. It's not
good for the advancement of our country UM to disenfranchise
large populations with people. So you know, something that you

(05:45):
know didn't make sense. You know, hundreds of years ago.
As our country has grown and as our country has
become more diverse, UM, it certainly doesn't make sense now,
so we continue to perpetuate this vehicle UM and quite frankly,
it probably would be our undoing UM as as more
people's color you know, immigrating toiination and more people's color
you know, pro create infimation and more uniracial couples. You know,

(06:07):
you know, our country is going to continue to get
more diverse. And so if if we're gonna grow in
a way that UM bills of everybody, and we have
to start addressing these conversations in a really serious way. Now,
something that you talk quite a bit about is the
work that you do with your organization in schools, and
so I was thinking, you know, if we think about

(06:29):
racism as a as a bug or as a virus,
there are plenty of things that we expect educators and
schools and teachers to be on the front lines of
when it comes to physical ailments with children. So you know,
I remember getting you know, my my my vaccination record
in my school, or my teacher checking me for life.
Do you feel like when it comes to thinking about

(06:50):
racism as a bug, it should be the same kind
of thing where the front line for young people should
be schools and teachers and school administrators at at eradicating
this the same way that we do with meningitis vaccines
and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's
a really great comparison. I think about the fact that,

(07:10):
you know, we talk about closing the achievement gap, and
I don't particularly love the term achievement gap because I
think the achievement gap is very much manufactured by generations
of policies and lack of access to resources um that
you know exist in many of the community students accord
being educated. UM. But you know, we talk about this
notion that there are these sailing schools, and what I

(07:30):
would argue is that if you can look on a
map and based upon somebody's zip code, based upon the
arness of the rid, you can predict the type of
education that young person is provided. It's not a matter
of failing schools. Is a matter of schools doing exactly
what they're set up to do. And so if we
don't have a lens around racism as educators, as you know,

(07:52):
really the primary one of the primary lenses UM with
which we consider as we educate our children, then we're
destined to continue to replicate the results that we've had. UM.
You know, you can look at a timeline throughout history
and you can really see that educational systems have changed
throughout time, but they've never particularly done a great job

(08:12):
of educating people who are poor, and never particularly done
a great job of educating people of color in a
way that doesn't diminish who they are, in a way
that's affirming, in a way that sets them up on
an equal playing field to their white counterparts and their
wealthy counterparts. And so, you know, I do think that
this illness that is systemic racism. We see the impacts

(08:32):
of that in UM urban schools, but we also see
the impacts of that independent in private schools. I'll talk
about that separately, but you know, many of the things
that people pull their hair out about that are taking
place in urban schools. UM. If you really melted down,
it's a result of racial trauma that young people are
during outside of schools, and also the result of racial
trauma that those that's been reified inside of schools. UM.

(08:55):
For those young people, for some reason, the solution, the
solution that many schools are opting into in terms of
trying to address the UM educational inequity is to place
black and brown kids in the most restrictive UM, the
most exclusionary environments possible UM. And I just don't quite
understand how that is an appropriate response to UM the

(09:20):
cause or the source of why many times these young
people are not able to achieve at the same rate
as their peers and other communities who have you know,
access to better resources UM less you know, their proximity
to things like crime, UM, their proximity to UM, things
like healthy food, UM, you know are very different for

(09:42):
many of the kids who grow up in inner city
environments and go to inner city schools. That actually is
a good segue to something I really wanted to ask,
which is, how have you seen in your work with
schools and with overcoming racism have how have you seen
the impacts of systemic racism hang out differently on the
bodies of like children as opposed to adults, Like how

(10:04):
does it function? It? Does it function differently UM for
young people? I think UM. I think that when we
don't provide young people with the tools to critically analyze
and understand the systems of oppression, that they navigate on
a daily basis. UM. You know, it's can engender a

(10:28):
lot of really unhealthy responses UM to you know, two
stimula that really UM are very sternal of themselves. But
you know, oftentimes school environments promote a mids of meritocracy.
There's notion that if you just work hard and if
you just show more grits, then UM, that is the

(10:49):
ingredient to overcome any systemic theory of this in your way.
But when you tell a kid who is on the
receiving end a generational poverty UM manufactured generational poverty through
you redlining policy, UM, you know, through employment discrimination, you
name it. UM, the kids on the receiving you of
generational lack of access to quality education, that all they

(11:11):
need to do is just work their way out of it. UM.
That's a really uncare message to provide a child without
providing any sort of historical or present day UM context
of socio political awareness around the obstacles that they're navigating.
And that data was experience. And so I think for
a young person is very easy to turn that UM
pain that comes as a result of racial tima inward

(11:32):
upon themselves. And so I think that a lot of
the responses that we see in schools around ways in
which young people resist rules or expectations or um, you know,
teachers who may look different from them, or teachers who
come from different communities or areas. I think very much
is UH defense mechanism and response to these triggers that
they're experiencing both outside and inside of the schools. And

(11:54):
so the schools that we work with UM teachers being
able to, you know, provide these identities safe spaces for
young people, you know, really allowing people to you know,
name their oppression and thus work against that. UM you know,
you can now take your anger out at a system
versus taking the anger upon yourselves. I think for adults,

(12:16):
adults are in some ways, depending upon you know, who
they are and their experience, because more aware of the
systemic barriers that exists. But for whatever reason, you know,
adults tend to hide the ball from kids, right, and
so you will have adults in schools who are working
these insane hours and then they'll wonder why. I like,
you know, it's like I've worked a work incredibly hard,
you know, for my students, coming in early, leaving late,

(12:37):
and then wondering why this kid, you know, perhaps isn't
as engaged in their education UM as you know you
might want them to be as an adult. And for me,
many times the answer is it's like, well, you know
a lot more than that young person knows in terms
of the obstacles that they may face UM on their
pathway you know, to and through college or whatever alternative

(12:59):
pathway to success they choose to take. UM. But as adults,
we don't teach the young people about how to navigate
those systemic barriers UM in many ways, just put more
pressure on them too, UM. Work through something, work through
a system that places an un normal and undue amount
of pressure upon them UM than already the external factors

(13:20):
that exists in their lives many times are placing on
them in the first place. When you talk about triggers
and navigating the world as a child as opposed to
an adult, that makes me think about the role that
social media plays and the way that the ideas of
racism spread. I wonder if you've seen anything UM with

(13:41):
through our work in schools, are just in general with
children and how racism maybe spreads more quickly or just
has more of an effect due to the way that
people communicate online. I just think that in ways, you know,
very different than when I was a young person. You know,

(14:02):
I think about when I was a teacher, I always say,
you know, I don't have any kids yet. Myself, I
would say, man, being a parent in this generation has
to be so much harder than you know, even what
it was to be a parent when I was growing up,
because our kids have access to everything at their fingertips,
unfiltered at all times, right, um. And there isn't necessarily

(14:23):
always a person who loves them or cares about them
to filter what they're seeing and what they're experiencing, um
through some sort of a lens or context. And so
you know, when I think about, particularly the Black Lives
Matter movement and the access that my young people have
to seem violence done upon black bodies, um without once again,

(14:45):
in school, people explain to them, um, you know generations
of police brutality, um. And you know the relationship that
law enforcement has played in in the black community, um,
without explaining to them the connection of that violence to
patterns of lynchings, um or or violence that existed, you know,
dating all the way back to the days of enslavement.

(15:06):
To place those things into a context for young people.
You know, it's it's it's been one of the most
challenging things that I feel like I have to navigate
as a teacher. Even before UM founding overcoming racism, was
my students coming into school after you know, h one
of the prominent cases of police brutality took place, UM

(15:29):
and really asking me, you know, Michigan K like, what
what's going on? Am I safe? Um? Well, you know
how am I supposed to process this? UM? Is this?
You know? Is this person going to be punished for
what has happened here? You know? And so you know,
there are these reports and data that's coming out now
that's just that you know, when black Duck goes viral,

(15:50):
it can trigger PTSD like trauma. And many of our kids,
as a result of student criticism, are already in environments
where they have a closer proximity to trauma. And now
social media has provided to our young people another means
to continue to be re traumatized UM without schools being
really well equipped to explain to young people kind of

(16:12):
what's going on. I was at a school UM in
Houston not too long ago, and I was talking to
some of the students there, and I was talking to
them a little bit about, you know, myself, and I
was telling them about how after Michael Brown's death, my
students protested UM and you know, the ways in which
we organized that. And you know, they looked at me
and they're like, we we didn't do anything, you know,

(16:33):
when Michael Brown was killed or when any of the
people after that. You know, we didn't talk about the
Black Lives Matter movement. We haven't talked about the Black
Lives Matter movement in school. And I think about just like,
how um unfair that is to two young people to
have them have such kind of close access to something

(16:53):
that is uh, you know, really emotionally triggering UM and
without them to have very much of an outlet for
adults explained to them. You know what's going on in
the context that these things existing. Well, it's just what
you were saying, this idea of hiding the ball, right.
You know, maybe as adults we hope and think that

(17:13):
these things don't impact our kids, that these things just
fly over their head and they have no they have
no meaning to them, and they don't they don't make
a difference in their lives because they're so young. But
I mean, it seems very clear from the from the studies,
and especially from your work that that's just not true. Yeah,
you know, I think that there is this strange UM

(17:35):
sentiment that systemic racism will just get better over time.
You know, sometimes when I go into trainings, people say
things like, well, yeah, I understand, you know, in my generation,
UM how these realities played out. But you know, my
kids they're color blind, they don't see color um and
in reality, what we do by not giving young people

(17:58):
UM the tools to have uh kind of literacy around
how rate functions, then you know, they're slept up by
what they see in the media, They're slept up by
what they see UM in other popular forms of entertainment,
they're swept up by what they see and learn in schools.
And so what we know already is that the media,
populic forms of entertainment, educational environments are not the best

(18:21):
environments UM to teach young people about what it means
to live and in multicultural society, because many times in
all of these settings we promote very stereotypical and false
narratives about people of color, and so we leave our
young people who are very impersonable and who do actually
at a very young age, have the ability to to

(18:42):
absorb very positive messages around what it means to live
in multiracial society because as adults were afraid to have
these conversations with just like great taboo, um, we leave
our young people to be educated in the society that
continues to socialize um. You know, are young white people
to um imagine themselves in a way that is superior,

(19:05):
and our young students of color to imagine themselves in
a way that is inferior. Um. And that's just a really,
really kind of misguided initiative. And so racism then becomes
permanent because we refused to address it, you know, with
our young people. People ask me, well, when is the
earliest you know that I shouldn't, you know, start talking
to my kids about race. You know, mostly I would
say white participants in my workshops. Um. And you know,

(19:30):
for me, I remember when I was in preschool, a
young white girl, you know, telling me that I couldn't
play in the sandbox because I was black. And I
remember looking at my skin and being like, no, I'm
not black and brown, you know, I just know you're
black right there? Going home and talking to my mom
and being like a kid called me black today at school, right,
And and I don't think my mom was necessarily like, oh,

(19:52):
I'm gonna be ready to high. But for young students
of color, for young people's color, there is no age
where you are protect did um, you know, from the
reality of systemic racism. And so I think for white parents,
they have to be willing to and ready to have
these conversations with their kids at an extremely early age,
you know, whenever they're ready to learn anything else. You

(20:14):
can start teaching them positive and affirming messages about what
it means to live out in anti racist lifestyle and
to um accept people for their differences and to value
people's differences, rather than to encourage kids not to see them,
which is quite frankly the worst thing that we can do.
We really doubt UM representation in media as something that

(20:36):
can be sort of an antithesis or opposition to these
false narratives as you call them, that we create through
real life, you know, real life things like through the news. UM.
Do you think that that's do you think that that's
really effective? UM? Do you think that it really helps
for children to see black people who are succeeding and

(20:58):
doing well and thriving on television and in film and
film UM as something that can really counteract these messages
and images that we're getting in news media. I mean,
I think that there is no one thing that is
a cure all for system and racism. The reason why

(21:18):
I was, you know, racism and systemic is because it
impacts people of color and white people across um. You
know all of these different sectors you know, education, healthcare, media,
you know, employment, you name it. So there isn't one
kind of crul But I will say that you know,
representation certainly matters. Um. You know, your ability to see
yourself as successful, your ability to see yourself UM as

(21:42):
somebody who looks like whatever it is you want to
be when you grow up and has a direct impact
on you know, the pursuits and the striving of our
young people. There's a reason why many of our young
people look up to athletes and entertainers. UM. And if
you ask, you know, any kid you know across many
racial dynamics, but you have kids like what you want

(22:03):
to be when you grow up. You know, Okay, I
want to you know, play this sport. I want to
you know, do this. I want to be a singer,
I wanna um be a rapper or whatever the case
may be, because those are the avenues that they see
themselves being successful. And so you know, if you open
up the definition of successfultle bit and show people, show
our young people about all of the people of color

(22:23):
are called multiple sectors. Um. You know what they've been
able to do, particularly within the context of overcoming systemic barriers.
You know, I just think that that means a dramatic difference. Um.
But as I mentioned before, that has to reify that.
You know, you know, I think you look at how
people are socialized. You know, you take up a young

(22:47):
kid who you know, receives some messages from their parents
about who they are. Um. That kid then goes out,
grows up, and goes out into the world. And you
know that kids say, goes to church and all the
stained glass windows have to who are white. Their kids
then goes to school and they read books and other
characters in the books or another books are written by
people who look like them. Their kid goes home and

(23:08):
turns on the TV and all the superheroes or all
of the people who show up on screen don't look
like them. And then conversely to that, you know, the
people who do show up, you know, in the books
for the movies of the screens, you know, the motifs
are all about darkness or this or that, or the villains,
um you know look like them, And so that does
something to the psyche of students of conor go on

(23:28):
the flip side for white students, you know, being able
to read a book like Harry Potter and the race
of the character isn't mentioned, to assume that the character
looks like you. To be able to turn on the
television and to see heroes that look like you, and
to see programming that is diverse, that represents people that
look like you, UM, it has a dramatic impact on
developing you know, kind of internalized um messages of superiority UM.

(23:53):
And so you know, that's definitely something that is going
to have to be addressed. Look at you know, Black Panther.
We took um eight students to go see Black Panther.
And you know, one of the most profound things I've
actually taken students to see movies before, just as a
you know teacher. We've gone and saw a great debaters
and um Selma unduringthing like that, but going to you know,

(24:14):
overcoming racism, seeing those kids to see Black Panther, sitting
in that movie theater and listening to kids cheer and
laugh and get so excited at what they're seeing on screen,
and then listening to kids after they left the movie
theater talking about what it felt like to see a
black superhero. Um, it's it is both inspiring but frustrating

(24:36):
to know that, you know, I think we're taking like
twelve and thirteen year old that those kids live their
entire life and had never seen anything like that before. Um,
and you know, who knows how long it will be
until they see that again. And so you know, I
definitely think representation matters, and um, you know we have
to address that, but it isn't a cure all M.

(24:59):
I think you're right. I'm I went to see Black
Panther with a big group of kids, and you know,
when I went, I was sort of thinking, oh, this
is the big movie. If you don't go see it,
you know, like it was it was at the time.
It felt like as black folks, we it was a
movie we had to support and like we're really expected to.
And so I went into the theater a bit sort

(25:20):
of here we go, I gotta go see this movie.
But then watching kids leave the theater and talk about
you know, um, like like a little black girl was like, oh,
I want to work with computers because that the character
who has all the technology technology stuff is a is
a girl like me. You know, it's sort of easy
for me to roll my eyes at conversations about representation

(25:42):
as if they are a catch all, but then when
you actually see how the important they are to young folks, especially,
it's kind of hard to deny. So I can sort
of understand feeling both that they are important but that
they are not the end all be all of what
we need to make a meaning all impact in the
lives of young black children. I think self esteem helps

(26:06):
young black children to resist the negative messages in negative
stimula that they're advertised about themselves on a daily basis.
Racial pride also helps, you know, dr just dunking on
dry talking about how your culture is your medicine right
and how you know, really one of the things that
is one of the most significant depths of you know,

(26:27):
the enslavement of African people was the depth of culture. Um.
And you know, there are ways in which you know,
obviously we've created our own culture through struggles, through sacrifice,
but to be disconnected from your culture is something that
has this dramatic impact. And so, you know, representation build
self esteem, It builds racial pride um, which I think

(26:50):
builds students armor to navigate, you know, the oppressive systems
that they have to navigate, you know, throughout their lives. However,
you know, as adults, we still have to focus on
dismantling those oppressive systems. And so I think, you know,
the representation peace does really matter. But as long you know,
one of the things that we talked about over colorations
is like, we shouldn't just be teaching young people of

(27:11):
color to know how to run better um in a
world that places of dramatic obstacles in front of them,
to know how to you know, jump over this hurdle
or how to dodge this hurdle. UM. We should be
removing those systemic barriers. W bde Bois wants to the
education is anywhere and everywhere political, and the political goal
of education for people of oppressed groups must be aimed

(27:35):
at finding a means to um end their oppression. UM.
And I just think that like that quote really sums
up what the goal of education should be for our
young people. If it isn't meant to liberate them from
the systems that placed them on an unequal footing, then
what exactly is it meant to do? Um? Because if
you're just trying to set up young people to better

(27:57):
navigate systemic oppression, then there are some of them who
will be able to do that in others who, by
definition and by design, will not. And so we're basically
agreeing to leave some of our young people behind because
you know, the system is done exactly what it tended
to do in the first place. Yeah, And sort of
going off of that, I think that that's where you

(28:18):
see this narrative of black folks have to be twice
as good to go half as far right, this idea
that in order to just make it you need to
be you know, so much better and know how to
run so much faster and jump so much further to
make it over these hurdles. And you know, it's if
you're the kind of person who can do that, great,

(28:38):
but not everybody can. And more importantly, that should not
be the system that we're setting up, right, No, Yeah,
and I think you know, there are all these messages
that we've created as a culture in a community to
help us to explain to our young people, you know,
how to stay safe in a culture in a system
that is inherently violent towards them. Right, we teach our

(29:01):
young people how to stay alive and encounters with the police,
rather than teaching law enforcement officers how not to kill
our young people who are unarmed and bright and full
as potential. UM. We teach our young people how to
run faster and jump higher UM over the hurdles where
systemic racism UM places in their way. But we don't

(29:21):
necessarily always UM, as a collective group of adults of
all races, think about how can we create a level
playing still for all kids. And so we do one
activity in our workshop. It's a level playing for activity UM.
You know, we're realists. People have seen it, probably alive,
but realist of statements. And you know, people privileging up
in the front and people who have marginalized UM I
think end up in the back. And at the end

(29:44):
of the activity, we have folks run to this line
of success and so obviously the metaphor, you know, people
who are in the front are kind of right there,
people in the back are really you know, busting their
tail to get there. And one of the things that
I talked about after that activity once we kind of
talked about in debrief that is that, well, there's a
few things. Number One, for the people in the back,

(30:04):
you know, because of proximity, you're not even really running
against the people in the front. The people in the
front have already pretty much you know, it's been placed
very close to the finished line. And so because of that, right,
many times we're placed in positions where we feel like
we're running against one another, and so we see things.
We see things like internalized depression playing out in our
community as we're all trying to run this collective race

(30:25):
to you know, reach this kind of artificial line of success.
But the other thing is is that sometimes these are
adults of the activity. You see people who are way
in the back, right and I tell them to run
to the line of success, and they just freeze where
they walk, because you know, the activity in many ways
is kind of silly. And I always ask the participants,

(30:48):
what do we say about kids who see very critically
and very intelligently, just how unerstair the situation that they've
been placing is and they choose not to play the game, right,
they choose not to like run this rat race um,
in this race that they were intended to fail um.
And we say all kind of negative things about those
young people. And then what do we say to the

(31:10):
young people who have been running this race and running
it perfectly the time that they're sixteen or seventeen or
twenty or twenty one. They're exhausted right before they even
had a chance to really live their lives. And so,
you know, we tell our kids have to be twice
as good. And in many ways that is true, and
there are actually a lot of studies that would that

(31:31):
would suggestive that is true. But it makes me think
of the story of John Henry. And you know, in
the story of John Henry, John Henry is the African
American man, you know, early nineteen hundreds. He his entire identity,
you know, is wrapped up in this notion that he
could lay down railroad tracks faster than any other person.
And so, well, what does the railroad company do. They
create a machine. They create a machine that can lay

(31:52):
down railroad tracks faster than any man. And so John
Henry tells the railroad company, there is there is no
way that this machine can beat me. And so he
races the machine and he wins, but he dies at
the end of the story. And in many ways, I
think that is the story of being black in America.
We constantly teach our young people to race against this machine,

(32:16):
to be just that much smarter, to be just that
much stronger, to run just that much faster, to work
just that much harder. But then when we see the
mental health issues that exists in our community, when we
see some of the violence that exists in our community,
when we see the lack of you know, educational um
attainment that exists in some pockets of our community, um,

(32:38):
what we realize is that there are people who are
running this race that are burning out. And the reality is,
you know, white people care about you know, people of color,
If they care about themselves in this work, then they
would instead of asking, um, you know, people of color
to run faster to be better, they would, you know,
ask why are they running this race in the first place.

(32:58):
And you know, these are the question sims that we
try to get up in our session because if we're
not actively working and get systemic racism, whether you're a
white person or a person of color, then you're complicit
in it. And our complicity has adverse impacts on our children.
I can understand as an adult the ways in which
I had to navigate sytemic racist in my life, and
I can understand as an adult when I choose to say, well,

(33:19):
I don't necessarily feel like fighting this battle for me
right now. But when I stepped footing in that classroom
and I look into the eyes of a kid who
has every ounce of potential in this world to do
whatever it is they want to do. But I know
that that kids a hundred percent isn't going to um
give yield the same results as a kid who grows
up a few neighborhoods over um as their uncent is

(33:42):
going to yield. That really encouraged me to step out
and say something has to be done about this. And
I can't rest until, um, you know, I feel like
I've made some sort of attempt and UM the lack
of access that our kids are handed um in the beginning,
and I can't just tell them to work, work, to
outwork everybody else. UM. I have to have something better

(34:05):
for them. UM. And so you know that's kind of
the challenge this work. What would you say to someone
who says, we live in a post racial society? You know,
it's interesting. Um. You know that question is really simple
but really hard to answer because it's you know, racism

(34:26):
to me is so real. Um. That is you know,
it's almost like someone walking up to you and saying,
the sky is is red. You know what do you say, like, well, no, actually,
you know, look the sky is blue. I don't know
if there's something you need to adjust your eyes, but
I mean, you know, there there is literally every study

(34:48):
that you can imagine across every you know, um, every
sector of influence in this country that from that points
to um, the existence of systemic racism, not just in
the past, but very much alive and today in the president.
And I think what I was to someone who said
that America is a post racist society or probably start
by asking them some questions, right, and so you know,

(35:11):
I would ask some questions about, you know, where they
grew up, up, where they live, what type of schools
they went to, um, what type of exposure do they
have to people who are different from them? And then
from get garnering some of these answers often times people
who would say something like that have grown up in
environments and they've had very little proximity to people's color.
Maybe they've only learned about people's color on the news

(35:33):
or in the media. And so I asked them, why
do you think your neighborhood that you grew up and
look like that? Why do you think the school that
you went to in your neighborhood that you grew up
and looked like that. Let's try to understand, you know,
and and kind of unpack that. And I think that
when you when people start to actually look at their
lived experiences, is very easy to point out points of privilege. UM.

(35:54):
And so you know, for a short answer, I think
in our workshop, the way that we navigate that is
we just put up a on the data and so
you know, pretty much every myth that exists around UM,
you know why people of color are, you know, achieving
UM at a lesser rate than their right counterparts. Um.
Every myths is disproven in in in data. If you

(36:17):
look at the wealth gap in this country, there's a
phenomenal piece called the asset value of whiteness. You know,
people say, well, the reason why black families it's not racism, right,
it's it's you know, there's just too many homes without
black fathers in the home. And if if black people
would just invest in the institution of marriage and black
fathers will stay in the home, then there will be
no no gap. But if you look at the gaps
in wealth, black two parent households have about half the

(36:39):
net wealth as white single parent households. You say, well, no,
it's not racist. Education. If people in the black community
would just double down to focus on the education, then
you know that would um that you know, that would
close these gaps. There's not just something racism is, it's
it's a cultural thing. Is they're just they don't care
about the education. And if you if you look at
the data around wealth, you know, black um families who

(37:02):
have graduated from college have significantly left that wealth. In
white families who have some or no college, well, it's
because they're lazy, because they just don't want to they
don't want to work, you know. But then you look
at the data and you find out that black families
of full time work have less net wealth and white
families of part time work. And so you know, these
are all statistics and studies that are very readily available

(37:23):
to people. And so you know, I think there's someone
is to say the society has pulls racial Um. That
argument is just so thin that you know, by asking
them a few questions, UM, usually you can post some
some pretty some pretty clear holes in it. So I
want to sort of switch gears. Um. You probably remember

(37:43):
the kind of deadly rally in Charlotte'sville. Um. Back in August.
After that rally happened, Barack Obama actually had the most
like tweet on Twitter ever. He tweeted a picture of
I've mixed of children of all races, and he said,
no one is born hating another person because of the
color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.

(38:04):
And so clearly this was a message that struck a
chord during a time where folks were looking for meaning
and answers. But I'm curious, if we're thinking about racism
as a virus, do you think that's true. Do you
think that babies are born with the with the inclination
toward racism in them already as soon as they're out
the womb, or is it something that has learned or

(38:25):
is it is it not that simple? Do you think
it's a mix of of of the two. No, I
think babies are definitely born into society without you know,
much consciousness of these issues. Um. But I think that
they're they're born into a society that already has habits
and traditions and a history, and so very early, at
a very early age, young people start to receive messages

(38:47):
about what it means to exist in the many identities
that they hold. You know, I will say, in terms
of gender, right even before children are born, we start
to have messages about like how their gender express should be. People.
You know, well, if you know whether your baby is
born with male genitil or female genitial you right, people
buy them different things without really you know, knowing how

(39:09):
they will how their gender will actually be expressed as
they grow grow older. So I will say in terms
of gender, that process of socialization does happen really even
before birth. But in terms of race, you know, we're
we're taught very early, um about you know what role
it is that we're supposed to play out play in society.
And we're taking first by people that we love, by

(39:29):
our parents, by our teachers, um. And then we go
out of society and those messages are reinforced by institutions, right,
And we talked about a little bit earlier than media. Um,
what you see when you go to school, what you
see when you go to your religious organization, Um, what
you see when you just navigate space. Dr Dreida Group
wrote a book called post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and she
talks to her talk about you know, like imagine a

(39:52):
black kid in the bank, like a little kid, maybe
five or some important place. And so she asked her audience,
you know, when she's speaking to the audience, he asked them,
you know, are the rules you know she has black people?
Are the rules did you tell your kids before? You
want to thank And it's kind of a funny moment
because there aren't some in some ways these universal rules. Right.
It's like, you know, don't say anything, stay close to me,
and um, don't touch anything, right, like you know, don't

(40:14):
embarrass me in this bank. You know this is you know,
we care a lot about how people perceive us in
public as a result of people judging our entire race.
When you know, based upon the action of the sun.
You just gave me a flashback to my childhood. You
just get that was like a real like I kind
of forgot, like without even knowing. Yeah, I and you

(40:34):
said that, and I had completely blacked this out of
my of my adult life. But that before we went
into a store or a mall or especially a bank,
we gotta talking to though was don't touch anything, don't
ask for anything, or embarrassed me to run around, you know.
And I think I did not even realize until this
moment at that where that comes from. And the interesting

(40:58):
the interesting thing about that is, you know, because I
often time invoke this in my trainings, right to just
see as a trouble around the country, you know, there's
this It's extremely universal. Because I won't name them, I'll
just ask people. I'll say, well, what are the three things?
They'll come out. So you imagine this little black kid
in this bank, right, and it's obviously a metaphorical situation,
but they see a white kid in the bank, right,

(41:19):
And just in this example, the white kid is making noise,
the white kid is moving around, the white kid is
touching things sub consciously, that's doing something really distinct for
this kid. First, this white kid is breaking all of
the rules, right, Like, these are the rules. You told
me that these are the rules, So I would imagine
these rules appin everybody. This kid is breaking all the rules,

(41:40):
and I'm noticing that none of the adults in this
setting are reacting to that this kid is breaking the rules.
But it doesn't You know, for me, the world would
be ending right now, but for this kid, the world
isn't ending, right And so this kid starts to better
understand the set of rules that heat lives by and
the set of freedoms that this other kid lives by.
You know that ending of itself isn't necessarily the biggest deal, right,

(42:04):
But then I haven't mentioned earlier when that message is
being reinforced by the institutions that this kid grows up
and goes to that's how we start to shape our
racial identity, or for young boys, um ways in which
we start to shape notions of toxic masculinity at a
very early age. Um your pet dies and your father
tells you, you know, boys don't cry, or you fall

(42:26):
and you scrape your knee. You know what your your
parent is trying to say is you know, hey, you
can make it through this. You know, this isn't the
end of the world. But we start to drill in
these messages that says you don't have the same ranges
of emotion that women have. Right, Anchor is an emotion
that's socially acceptable to you. But fear, or um, anxiety

(42:48):
or sadness, these are not socially acceptable emotions when you
feel those emotions, hide those emotions, suppress those emotions. And
so I don't think that we are born um with
these notions, but I think that we've gotten dremely good
at UM training our young people. First in those messages
that people mean no harm. I'll do do one more.
You know, if you think about a young a young

(43:11):
white child, right, and so this you're in a grocery
store or some public setting, right, and the white child
sees a person's color, maybe the first time they've seen
a person covered before. They say, look, mommy, she's brown.
What do you think is the first thing that that
white parents said to the child. I think that's I
think that that white person would probably say to the child, like,

(43:32):
you shouldn't you shouldn't say that out loud, like they should.
They should not say something like that in public because
it embarrasses them. Yeah, like you probably like should yeah, exactly,
like you know, don't don't say that the person may
apologize to the woman to say, I'm sorry, but what
you've really just told this kid is like what the
kid did was made an observation, right, and you know

(43:53):
you probably should expose your children more people color. But
beyond that, right, you know, that is a teachable moment
for a young person, not that racist, this like secret
or this taboo or this thing that you should never
talk about, but instead like absolutely there are people of
all different colors and complexions, and that's one of the
things that makes our you know, country, in our society great.

(44:13):
And we're gonna go to this community or we're gonna,
you know, put you in this school or whatever the
case may be, so you can interact all of these
different people, um who come from all the different backgrounds.
And so we've done very good at training at a
very early age are young people to live out realities
of what it means to be a man or a woman,
what it needs to be hetero sexual, what it needs
to be a person of color or a white person, um.

(44:35):
And then institutions do a very good job of reinforcing
that the the thing that is most important in this
and this kind of comes from by the hero psycho
socialization is that as we get older, we get rewards
for staying in the lane that we are assigned, and
you get punishments if you step outside of that. Right.
And so it's very hard once we've been socialized to

(44:58):
question our socialization and to act outside of that socialization.
UM So, if as a black person, I you know,
work hard and I bootstrapped, and I don't ever complain
about systemic racism and I just you know, grind my
way through society, then you know people will say things like, wow,
you're really a credit to your race, and you you know,

(45:19):
you really are. You know, you're proven. You know this
is possible. Um. But if I speak out about systemic injustice,
if I, um call out when somebody you know, microaggresses me,
or when somebody is promoted unfairly, or when I don't
have the same access to somebody um as a different
race in me, you know, then there are punishments to that. There.

(45:41):
I may lose friends, I may lose the job. Um.
You know, there are consequences that come with that. I
think the perfect example of this is Colin Kaepernick. Because
you look at the NFL, you know, there's all manner
of criminals that exists, or people who have committed crimes
that exist in the NFL, right, people who beat their wives,
people who um, you know, I I commit a sexual assault,
people who kill people you know, you name it um

(46:04):
there in the NFL. But Colin Kaepernick and Air agreed
choosing to kneel into uh, you know, to make a
statement against spice supremacy that is not allowed in America,
that is fundamentally against the rules, right, And so you
no longer you know, the punishment that has to come
with that is you no longer can exist in this space.
You can do all of these things that we expect

(46:24):
of you, but if you step outside and you challenge
this system, there are there are consequences to that UM
and that's what keeps people in their lanes. If as
a man, I hear women UM, you know, talking about
the meat too movement or times up, or talking about
ways in which men um you know, sexually harassed or
sexually assault or just in general UM perform, you know,

(46:45):
toxic forms of masculinity in ways that hurt that hurts women.
When I'm among my group of men friends and I'm
just saying, like, oh man, that's all a bunch of nonsense,
and this is that that's that all flies right. But
the minute I go into a group women and there
aren't women around, and I say, man, you know, we
really should start having conversations about topic mascalinator or a man.

(47:06):
You know, when we talk about women, you really shouldn't
objectify them like that. Do you think you're gonna get
continue to get invited back to the football game every
Sunday or whatever the case may be, Like, Nah, this guy,
he's a little bit on the outside. We don't we
don't want him to be a part of this. He
makes us uncomfortable. And so it's really hard for us
to break out of our socialization because you know, we
learned at an early age were rewarded if we operate

(47:29):
within our socialization and we're punished socially if we choose
to operate outside of that. Yeah, it's it's almost like
we're trying to sweep the dirty floor that is the
history and the reality of racism, like trying to make
it appear like that we're actually living in a clean house.
That's not um really when you get down to the

(47:49):
bottom of it. But it also makes me think about
how a lot of people are saying, oh, well, everybody's
really vocal about racism right now, and everybody's out and
I like that, or they may say that in terms
of like comparing the North to the South, like the
South is well, at least people are out and proud
about their racism and you know about it. But I'm
wondering if that's not really true, like how we've had

(48:11):
these periods of where people are more vocal about racism
and other periods where people are more quiet about it. UM.
Is that it's that like a misconception that people have
about in terms of how people vocalize their their racism.
I think so, I think that people of color UM

(48:32):
have racism probably about at the same rate throughout history.
You know, I don't have any data to prove this,
but I think the people of color have resisted racism
very similar ways throughout history. And that's actually true across
like racial lines um of you know, different groupings of
people of color in the United States. I think that

(48:53):
what's happening right now is that because of social media, UM,
and because of the twenty four hour news cycle, you know,
more white people have access to see people of color
expressing their discontent about systim racism, or they have more
access to see people of color enduring these very public
and humiliating forms of racism, whether it be what took

(49:13):
place in the waffle house in Alabama, or what took
place Starbucks, or the videos of police brutality that we
see taking place all over the country. You know, it's
not that these incidents just started happening more frequently. It's
just that you know, people have cell phones now and
can film them, UM. And because they can film them,
white people UM now have more access to being able

(49:34):
to see them. And what we see today is you know,
many white people not knowing how to process that because
it conflicts with their worldview of America. UM. That is
a meritocracy that everybody has an equal access UM, and
that you know, a few personal behavior shifts, UM, would
you know change dramatically change outcomes for African Americans. UM.

(49:55):
There's not that there's this you know system of racism
that you know it's systematically whole in the back. But
I think when you really dive deeply into that mindset,
the only argument outside of really looking at all of
the data and research to exist to prove Sussumi racism.
To to explain the condition of you know, people of color,

(50:16):
but particularly black folks and indigenous people in this nation
is to really assume that you're genetically inferior, you know.
And so it's like, either you you can make that argument,
which people have obviously tried to make uncessfully throughout time,
or you have to like not acknowledge the fact that
a woman of color with a higher salary and a
better education um than a white woman receives completely different

(50:39):
care and that for that woman of color who makes
a lot of money and it is very well educated,
their likelihood of walking into a doctor's office, UM, if
you look at breast cancer UM or other you know,
or a number of other diseases, their likelihood of being
diagnosed UM in a life or deaf case is dramatically
less than a likelihood of a woman who has less

(51:01):
resources and less education. How do you explain that, right, Like,
how do you explain the recent play that came out
um to The New York Times publicized that talks about
how black boys grew up in the top of one
percent of black families are incarcerated at the same rate
as white boys, who are white men who make thirty
six thousand dollars a year. How do you explain the

(51:21):
fact that when you control for fathers being in the home,
when you control for UM home ownership, when you control
for a person having UM a good access to a product,
good education, that black boys still fair dramatically worse than
their white counterparts if you don't look at you know,
the lanes of systemic racism. UM. You know, we've tried

(51:43):
some really cosmetic you know, like in front of action
in many ways, a very cosmetic policy UM, and also
a front of actions, the policy that dramatically benefits white
people and white families as white women are you know,
when the largest beneficiary is a front of action policies.
But you really have to ask yourself, It's like, what
is this really meant to achieve? Because if you if
you want to have a level playing foot in America,

(52:03):
you have to account for centuries of lack of access.
You have to account for public policy decisions UM that
invested in white communities. Policy decisions like the Christians Centre
Housing Administration UM initially UM, labor unions initially, the Social
Security Act, which when these things were initially written in
the very much excluded people of color, the g I Bill, um,

(52:27):
you know, which allowed people to purchase homes and go
to college. Generationally, like, we have to look at these
policies that allowed for, particularly after the Great Depression, the
white middle class to grow dramatically, but also white populations
who have been historically shut out the Irish, to Polish,
the Germans, etcetera, to assimilate into whiteness that people of
color did not have access to. Right. This wealth gap

(52:49):
that we have in our country is dramatic, and in America,
as a result of capitalism, not having money is directly
tied to a number of adverse effects, right. And so
when we look at the money that you know, the
gap in wealth between people of color white people, it's
not like that gap was just created because you know,

(53:10):
white people were more ambitious or smarter or had or
had more, um, you know, more talent. But you can
literally point to the places throughout history where you know,
a white person's parents or grandparent was able to take
advantage of a system that I wasn't or my parents weren't. Right,
and so, you know, if we're gonna really talk about
overcoming that, then we have to create some policies to

(53:33):
ad just pass wrongs. And that is where in America
is kind of like a nonstarter because we didn't get
here by having like color blind policies. We got here
because many of the policies um, either you know, written
into the law or through enforcement systematically exclue to people
of color from avenues developing wealth. But now we want
to get out of this mess through color blind policies, um.

(53:57):
And the reality is that's just not gonna work. And
so UM, you know, it'll be interesting to see, you know,
as people are raised their voices and more people are
paying attention to it, who's really willing to address this system? Um?
You know, because when we look at what it means
to address it, um, it means, you know, addressing pass wrongs.
And I think that that's a conversation that's very challenging

(54:18):
for a lot of people. Yeah, I also would say,
I think, I think you're exactly right, but I would
even say that those passed wrongs, I mean, we are
still so clearly feeling the impact. You know that if
if my grandparents were not allowed to take to have
access to the g I Bill because they were black,
and someone else's grandparents were because they were white, well,

(54:40):
that family, that white family was able to you know,
if they were if they were able to go to college,
use their house as collateral to pay for college. If
my grandparents were shot out of that, that's like we're
talking about things that impacted my parents who are still
living and are the reason why, like my parents had
to work two jobs to pay for college, and other
people's Arran's did not right, and so you know, to

(55:02):
I have a lot of friends who might say, oh,
this was a hundred years ago, that was four hundred
years ago, like that was so long ago. But we're talking,
we're it's not that long ago, right. The impacts are
are you can feel them right now and see them
right now. Right. We have this fantasy where all of
this stuff happened hundreds of years ago, slavery ended so
long ago, all of that, and no, no, this is

(55:24):
this is you know, this is impacting when you're in
a college classroom. This is impacting who is and is
not in that classroom today? In oh absolutely, and and
quite frankly, what people refusing knowledge that because we have
not um because we have not directly addressed the past inequities, right,

(55:44):
they just continued and morphed into inequities exist today. You know,
you can look across the country. You know redlining is
not is no longer deeply enforceable. But you know there
are banks that are settling lasses all over the nation
UM for excluding people of color, having scusionary lending practices
for people color who have the credit score and who

(56:04):
have the down payment, but still not being rented homes
in certain neighborhoods because of fear that they're gonna reduce
property values. UM the National Community re Inventment Coalition did
a study. They looked the cities all over America. Um
I was originally from St. Louis and so from St. Louis.
From two thousands and twelve twos and fourteen, less than

(56:25):
one percent of homes received loans and predominately black neighborhoods.
They show on this study in this map which areas
are low income areas and which areas are not. And
what you see on the map is that low income
white areas people are still having access to homelows. The
low income areas or people of color live homeloans are
not being given and many times they're not thanks that
are even in those communities for people to you know,

(56:46):
seek loans, and so you know, what you see is
that you know, one of the things that people can
say is like, well, no, this isn't a race issue.
Is the classes. But when you you know, really boil
down the data, um, that doesn't bear out truth. And
so you know, when we look get the incarceration rate
in this country, when we look at the health care disparities,
when we look at education inspirities, considering the fact that
we're more segregated now than we were four years ago,

(57:08):
when we look at the spirities and housing lending, and
then now the onset of gentrification which is pushing people
coming out of the inner city environments that they were
relegated to for um numbers of years. When when we
look across all of these different um perspectives, what we
see is that these policies that existed in the past
have really been perfected. And that's why I said in

(57:30):
my speech the racism is a superbug, right, because it's
much more invisible. Um, it's much more insidious in many ways,
I think the battle of fighting and racism is much
more chusing to that. Yes, we have social media and
we have a lot of different tools UM that our
predecessors didn't have. But when racism is extremely overt in
in your face, there are still a majority of white

(57:52):
people in this country said, you know in the nineties
that the movement by the negroes was hurting, um their
cause more than it was helping at right. And so
imagine a society where they're literally water fountains to stay
colored and white, and bathrooms to stay colored and white,
and lynchings that are taking place. Um, all these things
are happening, and people, and you know, white people in
the society were still like, yeah, this isn't so bad. Right.

(58:15):
Imagine today where many of those very visible barriers have
been removed. Um, people of color are now calling out
for many of those same reforms. But it's falling up.
They're called cries and falling on death ears because even
harder for white allies to see what the data experience
of a person of color is. And so, what is
our vehicle to show white people now that there aren't

(58:37):
the bathrooms that are segregated, now that there aren't these
very visual reminders of systemic racism, What are the ways
that we show white people that we endure racism and
databases we parade our trauma to the world over and
over and over again. And while maybe that brings some
white people to the battlefield, UM, it also continues to
desensitize our society. UM. You know around the violent to

(59:00):
Black people during on a daily basis. When I saw
what happened UM to Ms Clemens in the waffle house,
happened to UM the two gentlemen in the Starbucks, my
reaction to that is obviously raged, but it's also They're like,
that is not so different from what I see happening
to black women, UM or black girls in schools. You know,

(59:22):
when the work that I'm doing in schools, and you know,
there are books written about how black girls are being
pushed out of schools. How when black girls assert their opinion, UM,
in their views to have an attitude, the ways in
which they're they're treated, UM, suspensious expulsions for black girls
for the way they wear their hair or the way
they wear their clothes. And similarly to the gentleman in Starbucks,
you know, seeing in schools black boys who are being

(59:44):
who are being arrested in school for minor behavior and fashions. UM.
You know, we have this conversation and we say oh
my gosh, like, how could these things happen? But in reality,
many of these things are very normal UM realities of
black life. UM. And I'm just not necessarily convinced that UM.
Continuing to show our trauma will convince UM white people

(01:00:08):
in this nation to see it. You know, I think
that there is gonna have to be some some real
soul searching UM for all of us to look at
the ways in which, you know, to dehumanize a group
of people, you know, it's the humanizing to all of us.
And so let of things that we talked about in
my training is and like if you you know, Lela
Watson Indigenous Actors says, if you come to help me,

(01:00:29):
then leave. But if you've come because you believe your
liberation is backned with minds and let us walk together.
And so we want to cultivate wide white allies that
fight against systemate racism not because they feel bad for me.
They fight against stimate racism because it humanizes them. I
think it's a man, it's much easier than you don't understand.
You know, I can say, oh a lot have a mom,
and I have a sister, and I have this and that,

(01:00:49):
and I just I just feel feel bad about sexism,
but I should also be able to look and realize
the ways in which the toxic messages that I received
about masculinity growing up are harmful to me, and that
I don't want to pass those same messages down too
if I were to have a son, or to the
young men that look up to me. Um. And so
I need to this mental systemic sexism, because there's all

(01:01:10):
there's a wide array of consequences that come for me,
you know, in association with that, the relationships that I'm
able to have with other men, you know, in the
ways in which i'm society wants me to perform those relationships, right,
Like I'm not supposed to tell you that I love you.
I'm not. I can give you a hug with my
arm in the middle, and I can talent you in
the back, but I can't open my arms and embrace you, right,

(01:01:30):
And so you know, there're these limited, these very limited
definitions of macicals that mentorids they have to perform, and
that is not only damaging to them, but clearly um
damaging to the women that we interact with. And so,
if we care anything about ourselves as a species in
the ways in which we hurt other people, in the
ways which hurt ourselves, then we will work through mental
sexism for us and not out of you know, some

(01:01:52):
sort of paternalism to say that we need to you know,
save women. Um, we need to save ourselves. And I
think that white people have to have that same um,
that same kind of motivation if you're seeing, you know,
as daviss is an undermount of prefutiality dating all the
way back to the day's flavoring. If you're a white
person and you're seeing the ways in which people of
color are forced into the situations we have very close

(01:02:14):
proximity to violence, and you understand how the system of
racism has set that up to be so. And you
receive benefits as a result of this system and privileges
that the system conveys to you. That's not a zero
sum game. You know, those benefits don't just come for free,
right and so um, you know, to do humanize somebody else,
to humanize yourself. And you know, I think once people

(01:02:36):
start to look at the cost of systemic racism, um,
obviously the costs for people of color are very visible
and clear. For the costs for white people and when
they realize we're not asking for white people to relinquish
their privilege, but rather to the maps with the systems
that ensure that their privileges predicated upon the oppression of others,
then I think we will recognize that our society will
do better collectively if we if we, you know, move

(01:02:59):
forward as a pertain into this issue. The last thing
I'll say about that UM is, you know, the the
greatest indicator of a society's well one of the good
in society's wealth and success is how well um they
treat their women and how how much enfranchisement that women
have in this society, you know, because it doesn't make
sense to disenfranchise half or some often times more than
half of your society. And so you know, what we

(01:03:21):
what we see is that the way that you treat
your marginalized communities directly, UM correlates to you know, the
success and the output of your businesses, your schools, um,
your country as a whole. And so yeah, capitalism and
you know, democracy and all the things. The ways in
which we conceived those in America have worked very well
for UM a population of people. But imagine how much

(01:03:45):
you know better our nation would be Um, if we
didn't spend so much time shutting people out from you know,
what it's supposed to be. A free market is supposed
to be open competition, but in reality, that's just not
how it functions. You're going back to your point earlier
about how you were saying we parade our trauma. Um,
even when we do parade our trauma, it's kind of

(01:04:06):
like people can still white people specifically, can still go
back and say, well, you had it so much worse before,
and you can get over it. And we deal with
this too. We're poor. Look at us, you know, we're
dealing with the same problems. Um. But I feel like
so I also feel like we've we've been drowned in
it so much that we can't we kind of can't
see the shore. Like people have become complacent and saying

(01:04:28):
that there's a better place that we can get to.
And people are so used to seeing that black trauma
that they're kind of like they don't take it seriously,
they take it for granted. Yeah, Um, I'm trying to
I'm blaming on the name of the scholar, um, but
it'll come to me. But you know, there's a scholar

(01:04:48):
who said Elizabeth Alexander Um said that, you know, black
bodies and pain have been an American national spectacle for centuries, right,
And so I think just kind of goes I here
question about, um, you know, whether or not our resistance
has gotten you know, louder or more people existing throughout time.
Like you know, we've m the ways in which definitions

(01:05:14):
of race playout today are not just predicated on the
ways in which we are personally socialized. UM. You know,
if I already have a physical wound, UM, and I
already have a kid, I wouldn't pass that physical wound,
you know, like a flesh wound down to my child.
But we definitely passed down trauma and emotional wounds UM
to our children. And so you know, people of color

(01:05:34):
are holding this collective pain that is in this this
collective experience of seeing ourselves be humanized, seeing violence done
upon our bodies, um, throughout perpetuity, UM. And we hold
that pain. And you know, we've as a people developed
a number of defense mechanisms to cope with that. But

(01:05:56):
then on the other side of that, white people have
seen this performance of black pain throughout history as well.
I'm gonna have been shouldn't be desynthesized to it. And
I used to ask myself as a kid, when I
would read books about you know, I was I've always
been this way. So I would read books about you know, enslavement.
I read books about you know, the super brites moving
and menching, and I would wonder. I remember reading about

(01:06:17):
Mega Everest and you know, I can't remember exactly what
writing this was, but he talks about um a period
of time where every day when he drove to and
from work before, you know, obviously before he was as
fascinated um, he would have to drive by this tree
where a black man's body was hanging. And I thought about, like,
what would it be like to have that be a

(01:06:37):
reality in your daily life? Not just for black citizens
where obviously that terrorism was meant to disslay them from
I don't know, registering the vote, or from living a
full definition or freedom and their lives experience. But for
a white person, what do you have to believe about
black people to drive by that same human body hanging

(01:06:57):
from a tree and not question or not act on
what what sickness exists in us to allow this to happen?
And I think, you know, sometime after the one million
um police video that I saw of you know, a
person of color or a child, you know, you know,
a man, woman or child, trans person, et cetera, being

(01:07:20):
executed by law enforcement officers. It kind of dawned on
me and I was like, oh, this is what that
is like. You know, I remember when Alton's three and
I live in Louisiana, remember when Altons Sterling was killed. Um.
I remember seeing the video of Alton Sterling and then
you know, turning over to going to sleep, and then
hearing another pin on my phone and looking opening my

(01:07:42):
phone and then ammediately they're after on my timeline came
the video of Philandol Castile, and I remember laying in
my bed enraged, um, sad, and thinking like, is this
what it means to be a black person in America?
You know in present day that you can you know,
watch the modern day lynching and then have to turn

(01:08:04):
over and go to sleep, wake up and go to
work the next morning. Um as there's nothing has happened
or nothing is wrong. And so, you know, I think
that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
And we're desensitized to the pain of black people and
people of color, UM and particularly indigenous people were to
sensitize this pain because we see this pain not only

(01:08:24):
on the news, not only on social media, but we
watch this entertainment. You know, you can look at it.
Many of the programs that exist on TV today, many
of the black characters are going through you know, extremely
traumatic and adverse situations. UM if they're not you know,
being portrayed on schemes, community really or whatever the case
might be. And so you know, we've gotten used to
it and um as a society that that's a very

(01:08:45):
dangerous thing because you know, that's how you know, Ayana
Jones in Michigan. You know, can seven year old girl
can be laying in her bed and be killed during
and they're not grady by law enforcement officers in the nation,
not collectively paw us um you know, and say there's
a problem. That's how Flint can be without clean water

(01:09:06):
for years and years and years and we continue to
move on with our lives that if you know, nothing
has happened. That's how a woman can be assaulted and
dragged throughout a waffle house, um, you know, over and
and people still go online and defend the silver the
plastic cutlery over the woman's dignity because you know, we've

(01:09:27):
we've allowed for you know, the lives of people of color,
particularly black and black and brown people, um to be
reduced to something that's less than human. And you know
that is that is something that um has been a
constant um in our experience in America. Yeah, that takes
me back to something that you said in your talk
and during the solution sessions. You know, if we all like,

(01:09:49):
unless you're out of your mind, you pretty much agree
lynchings are bad, unless you are a monster, you pretty
much agree slavery was bad. That people not like reasonable people.
The jury is not still out on these these concepts
with most reasonable people. But we don't behave in ways
as a society that demonstrate that we actually care about

(01:10:11):
eradicating racism, right like we sort of have to. We're
sort of pretending that we care. We go through the
motions of caring. You know, racism is bad, slavery is bad,
lynchings are bad, but we haven't really all agreed that
racism is bad in the ways that we kind of
pretend that we have. And so in a lot of
ways we're sort of going through this fake reality where yeah,

(01:10:32):
everyone agrees racism is bad, But then why do you
have Flint still not having clean water and we just
would have forgot about it. Why do you have people
going online and defending you know, waffle House over a
bag of cutlery, over an actual black woman's life who
had her dress pulled down in public by a police officer. Right,
if we truly, truly we're invested in meaningfully engaging in

(01:10:56):
eradicating racism, you wouldn't have these things, but yet we do.
It's like we have these two versions of the world,
one in which we're pretending we live in will we
care about racism and we want to get rid of
it and it's awful and it's so bad. And the
real world where these awful things happen and we just
sort of go on with our lives, and they often
don't touch each other. Those two worlds. I do racist

(01:11:19):
equity trainings, and you know, so people know me for that,
and you know, people will come up to me and
they'll strike up a conversation. Um, you know, as if
you know when I'm not doing that work that you know,
I do have a life outside of anti racist conversations.
But people will come up to me at social gatherings,
at in public or whatever, and they'll you know, strike
the conversation and what they really want to tell me

(01:11:39):
at the end of the conversation is I'm not racist. Right,
that's kind of the either they will come out and
say that where the underlying thing is they want me
as the anti racism god to I don't know, give
them a safety pin or a stamp of approval or
a sticker or high five and say like, you got
it and what I've what I've really tweaked for people,
And the way that I respond to that when people
say I'm not racis is you know, someone being quote unquote.

(01:12:02):
You know, you can argue whether or not that's possible,
but for this, for the results for the you know
sent this podcast, will you know say, um, for someone
who says, you know, I'm not racist, that doesn't really
if that is possible, that doesn't do anything to change
the lives experience of people of color are living on
a daily basis um, And it doesn't do anything to
change the fact of the system of racism provides advantages

(01:12:24):
um to the people who are oftentimes saying I'm not racist,
and so what I ask is are you intentionally anti racist?
And when you ask somebody that, it's kind of a
funny moment because you know, the look on people's faces
like really changes because I think a lot of people
who truly we somehow connected. So being racist means you're bad, right,

(01:12:49):
And so you know, you can call a white person
almost any name in the book, and you know, obviously
is mean to call somebody names, but if you call
a white person racist, that's like the worst thing you
can call them, right, Like, that is the easiest way
to get a rights person the sensive is to causing
racist and I can understand why that would be something
that doesn't feel good to be called that. And so
we've we've made the threshold of racism so high that

(01:13:12):
and that if you're not carrying a torch in Charlottesville,
And the President actually came out and raised the threshold
even higher than that, because he says that there are
some fine people out there who are carrying ti towards
We've raised the freshold to be racist so high that
no one qualifies, right, And so what we really have
to analyze in our society is that being racist is

(01:13:33):
quite frankly a normal outcome of the socialization that people
receive in our society. As a man, I was socialized
in a sexist society. If I want to fight against sexism,
I need to acknowledge that, and maybe through that I
would be disgusted enough with this label that I will
work to dismantle the dangerous message about um masculinity that

(01:13:56):
I was provided um growing up. And so conversely, in
terms of racism, to live an anti racist lifestyle is
not easy, right. It not only means that you have
to show up to the Black Lives Matter protests, that
you have to vote for the politician that speaks UM,
that has a platform on a race, that you have
to call your representatives to make sure that the politicians
are being passed UM are equitable. It is. It's not

(01:14:18):
all of that, but also the ways in which we
exist in space. It means to not be complicit with
systems of dominance, right, and so when you go to
the all white country club or the all the restaurant
where all the patrons are white but all the servers
are people of color, it means to change our behavior,
the way that we spend our money, the way that
we um the schools that our children go to the

(01:14:40):
neighborhoods that we live in, right, And I think when
you get down to what are the individual and collective
behaviors that people have to opt into to actually be
anti racist, I think a lot of people at that
point say, oh, actually, I'm kind of good. I'm actually
kind of comfortable, um with what with the way things

(01:15:00):
are right now? You know. It was interesting I just
saw in New York they're trying to there's a school
district in New York which is trying to deal with
the fact that their school district is completely seguitated, and
so there was a policy UM that they were trying
to pass. It would allow students who were um coming
from low income communities, prominently black, but also students who
were coming with academic struggles to be bust into the

(01:15:24):
school to have some slots in the school that was
had the best resources, were suits were performing the best um,
they were predominantly white. And their videos these parents meetings
where these white parents are rallying against this, right, where
they're saying, this is oppressing my child, right, my child
might have to go to another school where there's a
dramatic amount of privilege, UM because you're saving spots for

(01:15:47):
these kids, right, But it's the roots that the policies
about de segregation. I guarantee you those parents, if you
asked them, they would say, I'm not racist. I'm a
good person. Right. But when it comes down to sacrificing
the lived experience as your child who has the benefit
of whiteness in this country versus the lived experience of
a child of color who does not have the benefit

(01:16:09):
of whiteness in this country, then that's where the Rubbert
meus To wrote. And so how many people are willing
to actually make those sacrifices and the reality is very few.
And so this is why racism, as um dear Bell says,
is permanent, you know, until proven otherwise, because you know,
people are very comfortable with this notion of being not racist,

(01:16:29):
because the threshold in this country of being racist is
so high that no one really fits the description um.
You know, once we once we boil it down, if
you're not like wearing a white hood, um and burning across,
then you're not racist, right. And so everyone can exist
in that level of comfort and believes they're a good person.
But the question we should be asking is are you
actively anti racist. And I think that goes through white

(01:16:51):
people people of color. Um, when you talk about sexism
those two men, you talk about gender people who are
cis gender right. We have to we have to ask
ourselves like are we working to dismantle these systems or
are we complicit? And if we're complicity, well you can
be the judge of if that is racist or not.
But I know one thing, it doesn't do anything to
change with experience of me or the young people in

(01:17:13):
this country who are enduring UM the you know, generational
impact of a system that they had no UM role
in offering. Well, I think when people are confronted with
that and then they respond with that I'm not racist,
it's kind of like the ego stepping in as the
superhero with the cape and UM. I think that it
can be like a huge hurdle for people to not

(01:17:35):
only will first shift their mindset and then second shift
the actions that precipitate as a result of that mindset.
It's just a huge leap for some people. Well yeah,
and I think you know, one of the things that
I do in my trainings, you know, people will say,
you know, I've had white participants to my training, say

(01:17:55):
you know, I was really nervous about coming to this
because I was afraid I was gonna leave feeling like
I'm the worst person in the world. Or I was
afraid that my friends or my peers of colors that
I worked with, Um, we're all gonna look at me
and and and I guess, I guess they're gonna discover
for the first time that that I was white, right,
you know, like if they haven't kind of seen you

(01:18:16):
navigate these spaces in your white skin. And what they
what they say is that they leave actually feelings very empowered.
In many ways, they're healed because you know, one of
the things that we talked about in the workshop is
they're like, we're all socialized in the same society. We
all received the same messages about who is the most desirable,
who's the least desirable, Who is deserving of safety and

(01:18:37):
justice and liberty and prosperity, and who's not deserving of
those things? Um, you know, and so you know, one
of the things about the training is like we need
to demystify this notion that having racist tendencies or beliefs
disqualifies you from being a good person. Right, because at

(01:18:58):
the end of the day. If you have grown up
and being acculturated in America, as you've gone through our
school system, which does not do a good job of
educating people around the dynamicis race. If you watch our television,
if you watch our movies, if you go on our
social media channels. UM to be to somehow be able
to leave that without having developed any sort of racist

(01:19:19):
as a white person, racist beliefs or prejudicial beliefs, um
would be fascinating. I would love to study somebody who
was able to do that. And so when we understand
racism as a more normalized trait um, you know, as
in America, then we can actually address it. But that's
not what we do. We do the opposite of that.
We place um, you know, racism as being this you know,

(01:19:41):
unattainable thing. And so you know, people never have to
to address themselves. So people say things like this in
my workshop, Well, my parents, you know, um are good people,
you know, and and they you know, raised me the
best that they could. But you know, my my dad
would make really racist jokes in the household. And so
it's like I'm not trying to tell you that your dad,
who you love and who I'm sure is. You know,

(01:20:03):
in many ways, a great person um is completely unredeemable,
right because of the facts of the society they've been
accultated in and the negative definitions that they've bought in
around people's color. You know, you can't go back and
change that person is. You know, based upon your new
learning about how some racism functions, you now look at
that person and say, like, this person is all bad

(01:20:25):
and unredeemable. However, if you go and you educate that
person and they still choose to actively live out those realities,
that's something very different. But the reality is most people
in America don't have conversations about race. Most people in
America are not exposed to healthy, productive conversations about racisms.
A vast majority of Americans are racially illiterate. And you

(01:20:46):
can grow up in America, go through our entire educational
system from pre K through twelve, through college through graduate school,
and never one time have to critically analyze whiteness. Never
one time has a critically analyze how system and greats
the functions in our society. You can be extremely well educated,
you can have a great job, you can make good money,
you can be influential and never in your life had

(01:21:09):
to UM face the reality of how systemic racism UM
creates disprint outcomes for people along racial lines. And so
in that way, I can meet somebody who is very
well educated, not used to not understanding something, and teach
them the most elementary UM elementary kind of concepts around race,

(01:21:30):
and that person feels of feelings they're not used to feeling.
They feel, you know, maybe not as intelligent, where they
feel UM intimidated by the content UM, they feel that
their worldview as being completely questioned. I think that's why
I do the work in schools, because we have to
change that. We need to develop children across racial lines

(01:21:51):
who have literacy around race. And one of the reasons
why UM, and you know, whether it be the Black
Lives Matter movement, UM, the Civil rights movement, or the
Black Time movement, any movement that we've had in America
to navigate these conversations, we haven't had the critical base
of white allies to really truly took the scale to
make revolutionary change because so many people in America are

(01:22:12):
racially immiterant, and so even the good people who want
to work on behalf. You know, of these causes, UM,
it's inaccessible to them because no one has taught them
how to speak the language. No one has taught them
how to see the cues, none has taught them how
to avoid making um simple mistakes or detours when conversations
about race come up. And so a vast man joerity

(01:22:32):
of people just stay on the sidelines UM because they
don't have they don't feel up they have the tools
to um do anything or to learn and right now
because when the middle of the woke Olympics, UM, it's
not really necessarily the best environment for people to um there.
There isn't just kind of like beginner school that we
need for people of all asias, right, because if you

(01:22:54):
go on to social media you say the wrong thing,
you're didn't get dragged in the comments until the end
of the world, and now you know you say, well, shoot,
I'm not gonna do that again. UM. And so we
just keep having this cycle um go around around around again. Yeah.
I have to say one of the things I was
sort of happy about in the wake of I mentioned
Charlotte School earlier, but after that happened, I did see

(01:23:17):
people having a conversation that says, listen, racists are not
these mythical vampire creatures that you know, I couldn't be
a racist. I'm a good person. I couldn't be a racist.
I you know, I'm nice to the black kid who
lives on my street. Right. I think it was it
was this understanding, or at least I hope it was
an understanding that racists are not these monsters who you know,

(01:23:40):
they pull off their human mask and it's oh my god,
you know, yeah exactly. And I think helping people understand that,
you know, racists could be your son, who you love,
your husband who says you know, who says who, who
tells quote off color jokes. Right, it could be you know,
people of your family. It could be it could be

(01:24:00):
your cousins. And I think sort of this letting people
understand that, you know, I think for so long in
popular culture, I need to deal with racists. They're quote
unquote the bad guy in the movie. And it's very
clear this is a bad thing. This is he has
all the markers of a character I'm supposed to root against. Uh,
And in reality, it's all of us, you know, none

(01:24:20):
of us are immune to it. And I think helping
people understand that you don't have to be burning across
on someone's lawn to be a racist and what that
means and sort of starting there and starting at home
in their own backyards, I think was really important and
something that I don't think we really at least in
my opinion, I don't think that we had really seen before. Yeah,
and I think you know, sheveling that idea. I think

(01:24:44):
you're absolutely right at you Further, you know, I think
that people could you know, when people see things like
dealing roots and what you did um and what happened
with um, you know obviously shars Villon and these like
white supremacists, and you say like, oh, that person has
a normal job, and that person could be working right
next to me. I think there's still even some comfort

(01:25:05):
in that. I think in my mind, you know, I
tell people oftentimes there's a place in my brain for
white supremacist. I can in some ways understand a person
who has been acculturated to hate somebody else and is
holding onto that hatred because of you know, their self idea,
their self worth, um is tied up in having to

(01:25:26):
put somebody lower than them. You know, maybe they have
low self esteem or um, you know, it's they whatever,
whatever it drives a person to believe that their self
concept is derived from somebody being lower than them. There's
a place in my brain where I can understand that person.
The person who I don't understand, the person who I

(01:25:47):
will sleepover. And it's similar the doctor King's quote about
um white moderates right is the white bystander or the
white liberal right who says all the right things, who
tells you that they're gonn to show up, who who
will tell you up and down if they're not racists,
who may even posting their Facebook wall, an article or
a video or whatever the case may be, because nothing

(01:26:09):
actual in their lives experience to mitigate their own simplicity
and system of racism, or to you know, create better
outcomes for other people. And so I think, like, you know,
if we were looking at society is just like Bell curve,
which you know that's probably not the best example to
use for a number of reasons. But you know, let's
say you have a small percentage of just your guttural

(01:26:34):
like I'm all the way out white supremacist person, right,
you have this large massive people in the middle who
are bystanders. You have a small percentage of people who
are I'm woke. I'm I'm actively fighting consistent racism. The
people that we need to move or the people who
are in the middle right. I'm not gonna lose sleep over,
you know, getting a white supremacist to like me. You know,

(01:26:55):
I could care less, um, But the nice white lady
who calls the least on the person in Starbucks, or
the teacher who sends the black kid out of class
three to times five times more than they send the
white kid out of class, or the parents who, um,
you know, won't allow their kids to play a sport,
you know, in a certain neighborhood, go play a game

(01:27:17):
in a certain neighborhood because they're afraid of the people
who live in that neighborhood. Like, these are the These
are the people who maintain systemic racism. These are the
people who vote in politicians who don't have uh intentional
um lends around what racism is. And what we see
is that the vocal people, the vocal white supremacists, the
vocal people who want to protect white dominance, they're able

(01:27:41):
to get policies passed. In Louisiana, we have a Blue
Lives Matter law, you know, um, which suggests that any
sort of assault against the police officer or or in
some cases even resisting arrest can be charged the hate crime. So,
you know, you have people all of the nation who
are trying to get police reformed UM into policy right

(01:28:04):
and facing traumatic resistance and then really quietly running under
our noses. A law that's named after the Black Lives
Matter movement UM is passed to protect law enforcement officers
more than what they're already protected as a result of
UM Alten Sterlings murder. You know, immediately after Alton Serlings murder. UM,
this law is is passed, and so there's this buffer

(01:28:29):
of bystanders who don't say anything, who don't do anything,
and the people who have evil and malicious intent UM
are allowed to rule the day. And so those are
the people that will sleep over UM. You know, are
the people who consider themselves to not be racists, who
consider themselves to these people, but don't do much or

(01:28:49):
very little to you know, put some skin in the
game to challenge the system. I remember growing up in school,
you know, when we were learned about like you know,
I went to predominant white schools for a good majority
of my life. UM, we learned about like slavery. Um.
When we learn about the Soritan movement. You know, my
white peers are turned around, they were looking and they
would say, yeah, you know I would I would have,

(01:29:10):
you know, drink from the colored water fountainer. I would have.
I would have walked with you to the front of
the line. I would have I would have marched alongside
of you. Right, And you know people still really good
about that, you know, And then I I look at
what people are doing now. One, I've unfriended most of
you all on Facebook because of the racist things that
you furlows. But also like you're not showing up the
Black Lives Matter um marches. You're not putting any emotional

(01:29:33):
labor into creating a better society for people of color
when people of color is facing the same forms of
discrimination that they're facing. Thin, you're not doing it. Your
parents didn't do it, your grandparents didn't do it. So
at the end of the day, Um, you know, as
Dr King said, right, you know, it's just the white
moderate um, not the Kukus Klanner or the white Citizens

(01:29:54):
Counselor um that you know allows for systemic racism to
continue to move because um, they choose comfort over justice
and UM, you know, as long as we choose comfort
over justice, people with privilege wants that privilege to challenge, um,
the systems that exist. We'll be back next week with
another interview, but in the meantime, check out all the

(01:30:15):
episodes from season one if you haven't heard them, and
maybe even go back and listen to the ones if
you've already heard them. Afro Punk Solution Sessions is a
co production between Afro Punk and How Stuff Works. Your
hosts are Bridget Todd and Eve's Jeff Cope. Executive co
producers are Julie Douglas, Jocelyn Cooper, and Kuan latif Hill.

(01:30:39):
Dylan Fagan is supervising producer and audio engineer. Many many
thanks to Casey Pegram and Annie Reese for their production
and editorial oversight, and many thanks to Are on the
Ground Atlanta crew, Ben Bowland, Corey Oliver and Noel Brown.
The understide of Power is performed by Algiers. Connect with
us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Africa

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Interview: Matthew Kincaid

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

All Episodes

Interview: Matthew Kincaid

Dateline NBC