February 2, 2021 • 48 mins
Invisible People are everywhere if you are listening and looking. There are whole segments of society that feel as though they are invisible. Ralph Ellison wrote the book Invisible Man in 1952. It was the story of a Black man who was born in the south and had high aspirations. He went to college and through a series of events realized he was invisible. The young man realized that he was being manipulated by others. The story he wrote resounds in the theatre of real life historical events. Recent and past events including but not limited to the riots after the murder of George Floyd and the storming of the Capital after the loss of the Presidential election by Donald Trump tell us that we must see people and find solutions that speak to the cause of the anger and pain felt by groups and not just look to punish those we judge. Dave Chappelle said the streets were talking after the demonstrations and riots following George Floyd. Is the storming of the Capital, Middle America speaking? I don't know, but I do know that in order to solve the problems we are dealing with today in America, we have to think differently. We have to do more than just "punish" those responsible. We have to speak to those that feel invisible.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:01):
Yeah, he came a long way I can do a long way. I'm not
(00:25):
afraid of the moment. I'm notafraid to get up in the morning.
Terence Shigg (00:40):
Welcome to the peace project with Terence l.
Shigg. Welcome back, I'm glad tosee that you are continuing to
listen, and I hope that you aregetting something out of it.
Today, I would like to start offwith introducing the topic, of
course. So today we're going tobe talking about invisible
people, and visible people. Andto me, that means people who
(01:03):
feel disenfranchised, notlistened to, not an equal part,
and a part to play in society.
For some reason, they feel asthough they have been
discounted, so invisible people.
And I think everyone at somepoint in time feels invisible.
(01:28):
And I think the key that we, asa society in this time right now
really need to pay attention tohim to look at is how are we
working to make sure that asmany people are enough people
are visible, so that we can worktogether and do what's best for
(01:51):
society, not just what's bestfor a letter. And when I say a
letter, I'm referring to aparticular political party, or
to a caste. And when I saycaste, I'm referring to a level
of influence and resources.
Today, that is what we're goingto be talking about invisible
(02:11):
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(03:38):
So this is the peace project.
And today our topic is invisiblepeople, invisible people. Now
I'm not talking about the kindof people are aliens that you
can't see or people that don'texist that we just create in our
mind. I'm speaking to the ideathat there are people within our
(04:01):
society that for whateverreason, and it really, to me
doesn't matter whether or not itis something that I believe, but
they believe it's reallyimportant what that person
believes. And there are aportion of society that believes
that they are invisible. Tobegin this, I wanted to kind of
(04:23):
get your mindset because I thinkI'm going to challenge you a
little bit today I'm going tochallenge you to think a little
bit differently. Albert Einsteinhad a say in this saying was we
cannot solve our problems withthe same thinking we used when
we created them.
And so I want you to just try tothink outside the box for a
(04:47):
little bit. And here's a littleexercise that I hope will get
your mind in preparation orprepared to kind of think
outside the box. There's a storycalled 17 camels. And it's a
story of a wise and prosperousfather. And his wise and
(05:08):
prosperous father, as any goodfather wanted to make sure that
he left a legacy for his threesons. And he left his belongings
to them. And part of thebelongings in those days, your
belt, your wealth was measuredin the things that you had. And
(05:29):
the major thing in this part ofthe country were camels. And
this wise man, when he passedaway, had 17 camels. So he left
his 17 camels to his three sons.
And then as well, hespecifically laid out how they
were to be divided. And theywere to be divided, with the
oldest son getting two thirds ofthe camels, the middle son,
(05:51):
getting one sixth of the camels,and the youngest son, getting
one ninth of the camels. So eventhough it was spelled out
specifically, how this was to bedone, if you notice, 17 doesn't
divide into any of those numbersequally. So the sons began to
(06:12):
argue about how to divide uptheir father's inheritance to
17. camels? Because there was noclear answer on how to do it. So
finally, the oldest one said,well, let's go to the wise man
in town. And we'll tell him ourproblem. And maybe he can help
(06:32):
us with this. Because we'regetting nowhere, as brothers do,
they just argue back and forth.
So they went into town. Theywent to see the wise man. And
they told him about theirdilemma. They told him that
their father left the will lefthis inheritance and left them 17
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camels, but he specifically saidthat we had to divide it up this
way, where the oldest would gettwo thirds, the middle son would
get on six, and the youngestwould get one night while the
wise man sat there for a while,and he thought and he thought,
and he said, You know what, Idon't know if I can help you
(07:13):
with this problem. But I'll tellyou what I will do. I have an
old camel, extra camel Outback.
You can have him. And maybe thatwill help you with your dilemma.
So the boys grumble they took Ofcourse, they took the extra
camel. And they grumbled alittle bit. But then the middle
son said, Hey, wait a minute.
(07:40):
Let's let's try and do thisagain. The oldest said, I don't
know why. But okay, let's tryand do this again. The wise men
have given them one extra camel.
So now they had 18 camels. Sothe oldest said, okay, two
thirds, two thirds of 18 is 12.
So, Hey, wait a minute. Thisworks now. So I'm okay. I get 12
camels. Middle sound says Okay,one, six. Okay, well, one, six
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of 18 is three. So I get threecounts. And then the youngest
said, Okay, 191, ninth of 18 istwo, I get two camels. So you
add the 1212 camels for theoldest, three, three for the
middle, that's 15 plus two forthe youngest. That's 17 camels.
(08:24):
They have one camel leftover,which they promptly returned to
the wise old man.
So you see, the idea of thisstory is the fact that we don't
always know the solution. Wecan't always see the solution.
Maybe we're a little too closeto the problem. And so we have
(08:45):
to think differently in order tosolve the problem. So I'm going
to challenge you on this episodeto think a little bit
differently. We'll be rightback. After a word from our
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Terence Shigg (09:56):
And welcome back.
Welcome back to the peaceproject. My name is Terence
Shigg. And today we arediscussing invisible people. Now
let me break down how I came upwith the idea where invisible
people came from. I wasn't, youknow, hallucinating or
something, I was reading a bookor listening to it. And if
anybody doesn't have Audible, Isuggest you get it. Audible is a
(10:16):
great way to listen to books andstories while you're on the road
while you're moving. And I waslistening to audible on I
listened to a book called TheInvisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
And Ralph Ellison wrote thisbook back in 1952. And Ralph
Ellison was a black man whowrote this story. And so this is
(10:39):
a spoiler alert, if you haven'tread the story, I'm going to
talk about the story. So eitherskip this part or just know that
you're going to know a littlebit about it. So he wrote this
story about a young black manwho was born in the south, and
traveled from the south tocollege, and went from college
to the big city. And it's thiswhole idea. And it's a very, I
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think it's a very intricatestory, and full of symbolism.
And it talks about how thisyoung man went from the south to
college with these grand ideasand aspirations, only to be let
down, and to be kind ofdisenfranchised with the whole
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idea of a society and working tobetter society and realizing
that there are forces and powersout there that are trying to
manipulate society in a certainway, and that those forces are
very powerful. And so he gets,some would say disenfranchised,
some would say he gets woke, insome would say he gets
(11:51):
disappointed, because herealizes that with all the good
intentions that he has, thereare other things at play besides
what he wants and what he thinksis best for society. It's a
great concept, because he talksabout it in this long, I mean,
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it's a great story, unfolds itand talks about how this young
man really develops into feelingas though people don't see him.
They just have their own agenda,their own ideas. They want to
hear what they want to hear, saywhat they want to say they don't
(12:33):
want to be challenged. Soundfamiliar? I mean, that was the
amazing thing. This guy wrotethis book in 1952. And this
really sounds like what we'retalking about right now today
with the events that are goingon right now. And it really
started to play out for me whenwe saw the the riots at the
(12:57):
Capitol, when those people forcetheir way into the capital with
the intentions, which no onereally knows their hearts. So we
don't know their intentions. Wejust know what the what was put
out on the media of what theywanted to do. But what gets
people into that type of amindset. And so I would
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challenge you to think that isbecause people feel invisible.
They feel unheard.
disenfranchise. You go back tothe riots that happened after
the George Floyd's murder. Andthe people taking to the streets
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and the people being angry,angry at society in general
angry at law enforcement,angering at anger at a feeling
of being powerless and unheardin the struggle to bring to
light the fact that black menare being killed at a
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disproportionate number. Andagain, remember, I'm challenging
to go outside the box, whetheryou believe these things or not.
There are a portions of oursociety that believe these
believe these as facts, and ifthey do, then we must address
(14:26):
that issue. Not that fact, thatissue that issue of feeling
powerless and feeling invisible.
Dave Chappelle had a greatthing. He talked about the
riots, and he talked about themovement. And he said that the
streets are talking. So again,not condoning the riots or the
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violence, but speaking to thepeople and what are they saying?
They're saying that we feelinvisible. We feel as though no
one's listening to us that Noone hears this that no one sees
us. Now go fast forward to thesiege, the riots, whatever you
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want to call it at the Capitol.
And I'd like to challenge you tosay that middle America is
talking. And once again, notsaying that you have to agree
with the movement agree withtheir statements. But we have to
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speak to the feeling, thefeeling of them being deployed,
deplorable the feeling of thembeing unheard, the feeling of
them being cheated or robbed.
And it doesn't matter whether ornot that is a fact. Or if that
is true, they believe it. Andtherefore we must speak to that
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feeling, not that fact. Becausewe can argue, facts back and
forth, as the media loves to doand pit us against one another.
But what I'm saying is we needto start speaking to the people
and the feelings that areproduced by the set of facts
that they believe, because thefacts are arguable, and they are
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different. And everyone hastheir own way of thinking to get
to those facts and to use thosefacts and to interpret those
facts. But the feelings areuniversal. Because this book was
written back in 1952. And itstill applies today. It applies
to black people, brown people,white people, Asian people, it
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applies to everyone, thatfeeling of being invisible.
And look, I'm not condoningviolence. I'm not condoning
rights. But I'm saying that inorder to move past this, in
order to deal with this, we haveto start speaking and listening
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and seeing the people and notthe problems and not the set of
facts. We need to start speakingto the people. And I think back
to the riots in Los Angeles, Ithink back to the riots in 1992
when Rodney King, the RodneyKing incident happened, I was
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living in Los Angeles, I wasliving probably about a half a
mile away from the the lawenforcement command center at
the the bus RTD bus center, Ican still pictured up the road
from me. And I remember oneparticular night, because at
this time, I lived in a one roomstudio that I rented from my
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uncle in Los Angeles, I was juststarting my career out. So me
and my girlfriend at the timewho would be my future wife and
a mother of my children, we werein this room listening to what
was going on around us as wellas on the radio and talking
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about the the fires and thebusiness owners protecting their
their property. You had businessowners with guns on rooftops,
you had police cars on fire. AndI remember one in particular
thing, what happened was, theyhad looted a grocery store in
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the grocery store was on thefront side of a bed and care
facility for the elderly. And sothey looted the grocery store
and the bed and it caught onfire. And so the fire was
spreading and possibly going tospread to that bed and care so
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they were asking for anyone thatwas in the area could come out
and help. So me my girlfriend atthe time go out into a riot into
this type of atmosphere and Istill wonder to this day why we
never just said you know we'rejust gonna stay here and hunker
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down. We actually got someblankets and jackets together,
went to the location helped themevacuate, help them cover up and
make sure that the the elderlyresidents where you're taking
care of and the fire departmentand paramedics were on scene.
And then we went home. And Iremember the scene of seeing
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people ride walking down thestreet with grocery carts full
of food of diapers of carsfilled with, with clothes, of
arms filled with groceries.
There was a level of excitementabout the it was almost as if
people were feeling as thoughthey were being heard. They were
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being seen, they were gettingwhat was deserved them. And I
know that may make no sense, butI hope I gave you a visual of it
because it was it was dark, itwas late at night, early in the
morning, somewhere in between1am 3am some time that you know,
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I used to call that the witchinghour when I worked Midnight's
because that was the hardesttime to stay awake that once you
hit that, that two o'clock 2am.
But, and people were up andexcited, you had families, you
had adults, you had people fromevery walk of life, taking
(20:58):
advantage of this situation. Andnow I'll say check that of, of
being a part of this situation.
And I say being a part of thissituation, because that night,
even though they were unknown,because no one we didn't know
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who all of these people were asany group as any Riot type group
where they're looting or doingthings, you don't see the
individuals until afterwards.
But as a group, they feltvisible. And I challenge you to
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believe I challenge you to, tolook at what happened at the
Capitol. As any different thisgroup of people who felt
invisible, disenfranchised, feltlike they were labeled as
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deplorable as if their opiniondidn't matter is felt as if they
were not a a viable part ofsociety being heard. Wanted to
be visible. So I hope you followalong with me because I'm, and
I'll say it one more time, I amnot advocating the violence. But
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I want you to understand thefeelings that lead to it.
Because I think we're going inthe wrong direction if we're
trying to unite, if we're tryingto to unite by punishing by
judging, by making sure thatpeople are held accountable. And
that's it. We're just settingwe're just setting things in
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motion for the next right forthe next feeling or batch of
people to feel invisible and towant to be, I wouldn't even go
far enough to say need to beseen. And for the next incident
to occur. And this is this isn'tnew, this is something that's
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been around for as long as we'vebeen here, that there's been a
portion or a group of people whohave been felt oppressed. I'll
use the word felt subject to ato rules and standards that they
have no say so in who's feltdisenfranchised? And isn't that
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kind of the the seed forconspiracies, the seed for
conspiracies is okay, you don'tunderstand what's going on. So
I'm going to tell you what'sgoing on. I'm going to, I'm
going to give you a glimpse intowhat nobody else knows, I'm
going to make you part of thisgroup, which makes you visible.
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I see you so I'm going to I'mgoing to include you. And isn't
that what conspiracy theories doand and cults do, and groups
that are looking to manipulateothers do and we must realize
that it doesn't always come inthe form of a cult or in the
form of quote unquote religionor in the form of a con man. It
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could come in the form ofsociety in general. Society
wanting to create a better, moreeconomically advanced society
will manipulate things for itsbenefit. I had a friend tell me
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the other day and I know I'mgoing to do a podcast on this
topic because it just it keepssticking with me. And he said to
me, as we talked about We talkedabout just society in general
and the wars and how minoritygroups have been treated over
the years, and how the poor havebeen treated over the years. And
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he said something that stood outto me, he says, you have to
remember that America is notalways the good guy. And I think
that's something that we have ahard time as Americans
accepting. Because we want tobelieve that we are the light on
the hill, we are the knight inshining armor, we are the
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country that is the example forthe world. And that may be so
but that doesn't mean thateverything that we do is without
mistake, and is not always donewith good intentions. I say all
this not to be depressing, or tosay, okay, there's nothing that
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you can do about it, becausethere is something you can do
about it. Because if you thinkabout it, and that's why I
started this with the idea thatI wanted you to be able to think
outside of the box. Because ifyou think about it, in order to
feel invisible, you have toallow someone else to tell you
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or make you feel invisible. Youhave to believe what the media
is saying what a leader issaying that says that is
contrary to what you believe indiscounts what you believe, to
feel invisible. So the solutionin a roundabout, direct, simple
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form, the solution is tounderstand that no one can make
you invisible, that you have toallow yourself to be invisible.
And the phrase that came up tome when I started thinking about
it is if you are invisible, tobe invisible, is to be a slave.
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And I say that with all of theshock and awe that it brings up
because I wanted to bring upthat visceral effect that to be
invisible this to be a slave,because you are now you are now
giving up your power of thought,reason, action reaction to an
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outside entity, be thatpolitician be that a leader be
that a group, you are giving upyour power to that group to tell
you what you think and what youbelieve. Therefore, the solution
to that is to know that you arevisible know what you believe
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and know who you are knowyourself. If you ever look up
Simon Sinek he has severaldifferent videos, he has several
different books one the infinitegame, start with y. But one in
particular part of his book,start with y talks about
something that he refers to asthe celery test. And the celery
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test is the idea that if youknow what your purpose is, what
your mission is, if you know whoyou are, then as things come at
you that is your standard thatyou put things up against. And
the example that he gives is ifyou're trying to lose weight, if
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you are trying to eat healthier,and you go to the grocery store,
and you say okay, I'm going toeat healthy, I'm going to try
and lose some weight. So I'mgoing to go down the cookie I do
you think you're going to findsomething on the cookie aisle
that is going to help you behealthier and lose weight? No
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more than likely not. And sowhen you go down the the fresh
vegetables and fresh fruitaisles where the celery is and
the apples and the oranges, doyou think you're gonna find
something over there that willhelp you eat healthier and lose
weight? Yes. And so knowing whatyour mission is, knowing what
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your purpose is to be healthier,eat healthier, lose weight. You
can test the things that you areselecting and the actions you
are taking with that. And ifthey don't match, then you don't
eat them. If that is yourmission, and see now I always
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add into that it's not aboutguilt. It's not about shaming
yourself into it. Because weslip we're human. You're still
going to eat that cookie everyonce in a while. You But it's a
different thing to eat thatcookie knowing it does not fit
with your mission. And it's notgoing to help you get healthier
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and lose weight, then to pretendthat one cookie don't matter, I
can eat six of these, and theywon't bother me, I'll just walk
an extra 200 steps today.
Because now you're manipulatingwho you are to fit what you want
to do.
Let me say that again. Becausenow you are manipulating who you
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are to fit what you want to do.
And that is the road tovisibility, rather than knowing
who you are, knowing that thatis not in line with what you
want, and doing it with theconscious awareness that today,
my cheat day, this doesn't fitwith my mission, but I'm going
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to have some cookies today.
Totally different mindset.
Totally different mindset. Andthe more that we can recognize
our standard and our purpose,and move in directions that that
feed that speak to others to getthem to do that. That's how we
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move past this. And so now Iknow people will say, Okay,
well, but people have to be heldaccountable. And people have to
be responsible, and we have topunish the people that did that.
Okay, that's, that's yourreasoning, that's fine. But
remember, we still have to speakto that feeling of being
(31:41):
invisible. I remember working ata prison and working midnight
shift, and having to stay awakeall night. So what I would do is
I would go in and get books, andI would stay up and read books
in between count, and anyonethat's worked in a jail knows
(32:02):
that. That's what you do allnight long as you count, just to
make sure that no one's escaped,and all the other fun stuff, are
you checking books, but that's astory for another podcast. One
in particular book that Iremember that I that I got from
the library, and back in thosedays, people went to libraries.
I don't know, kids still do thatwas called just revenge. And it
(32:24):
was about the death penalty. Andit talked about it made a very,
it made a very good case againstthe death penalty. Now when I
say that people are you maythink that okay, whatever. Okay.
And I personally, I'm againstthe death penalty, and I'll tell
you why. But I also can agree tothe death penalty penalty in
(32:51):
certain situations. Now, thatsounds like I'm being political.
But no, it's not. Because I knowwhy I believe what I believe.
And I can say, Okay, this iswhat I believe that one's
different. This one, Iunderstand it, and I understand
it from the the, the parameterthat it is, it's not a deterrent
(33:12):
is not to save money. It's justfor revenge. And that's what
this book broke down. And ittalked about how it costs more
money to how someone on deathrow to actually put someone to
death costs more money, becauseof the added specialties for
guards and the the proceduresthat they have to go through to
(33:34):
kill someone. And then it alsotalked about how it isn't a
deterred from crime, becauseeven though we have the death
penalty, those types of capitalmurders continue to, to stay at
the same level or increase. Soit doesn't decrease the the
amount of crimes and it doesn't,it's not less expensive. The
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book came to the conclusion thatwe do it just for revenge. And
so I would go to with that, Iwould put the conclusion out
there and have you think aboutit, when we say that these
things have to be punished, andpeople have to be held
accountable. And and no onetalks about getting to the root
(34:19):
cause of these issues. Are wejust doing it for events? As you
listen to the media, and theytalk about how well when BLM did
this, this is what happened andnow you have these riders doing
it and the same thing shouldhappen to them. And you're
(34:41):
comparing the level ofenforcement here and the level
of purity punitive action hereand and you're arguing about how
you should punish them and itshould be equal to them. And I
agree there should be an equalplaying field and They should be
punished to the same level. ButI really believe we're missing
(35:03):
the point. missing the pointbecause we're not speaking to
the causes of these things.
We're not speaking to the socialinjustice that are causing these
problems. We're not speaking tothe people who feel as though
they are not being seen thatthey are invisible. And what
(35:24):
leads to that the level ofdisparity in education, in
resources in finances, thelevels of disenfranchisement,
the differences in the levels ofcommunity, from the services
available in certaincommunities, to other
(35:45):
communities, to the educationsystem, in the schools, in
certain communities and otherthere's such a disparity. You're
going to have people that feelinvisible, unless we start
taking care of people and starttalking to people and start
talking to what is causing themto feel invisible. And you may
(36:13):
not agree with what I'm saying,this is a hard truth, I believe
to to, to talk about. But Ireally believe it's the
discussion that needs to be had.
Because no amount of policies,no amount of executive orders,
no amount of criminal cases, isgoing to speak to people who
(36:34):
feel deplorable, who feeldisenfranchised, who feel as
though they are discounted, andwho feel that they are being
manipulated by a power structurethat does not include them. And
that's what we are, that's whatwe are seeing here in America.
(36:58):
And the way out of that isthrough ourselves, learning who
we are, what our purpose, ourwhat our purpose is, and to
start speaking to people and notto problems. start connecting
with people who feel invisible.
(37:25):
And not just solving problems,and not just throwing money at
problems, and not just buildingand investing. And thinking that
the problems will go away. Weneed to start investing in our
youth and we need to startinvesting in people and giving
them the resources that theyneed, so that they can feel
(37:51):
visible. So I hope I've made mymy point clear, and I hope you
understand that none of this issaying that the actions taken of
those who feel invisible, arewarranted if those actions
(38:16):
violate the rights of others,but we have to stop bifurcating
these issues from the people inthe causes, and then throwing
away the causes, and justjudging the people. Because to
(38:42):
me, that's the recipe that we'vebeen doing over and over again.
And we continue to have rightafter Riot after riot. We
continue to have disparity incommunities, we continue to have
food insecurity, we continue tohave unequal access to resources
(39:06):
and education, we continue tohave a segment of society who
controls the media, the financesas in the stock market.
And by having that control,there comes responsibility from
(39:28):
those entities. And those arethe entities that must come
along in this process. They mustcome along in this process by
listening to the people thatthey are influencing and ask
themselves the question, arethey influencing those people
(39:49):
for their benefit, meaning thebenefit of the corporations and
the people that are putting outthis information? Are they truly
truly trying to help Are theytruly trying to inform? Or are
they simply trying to increasetheir bottom line. And until
(40:11):
that happens, as individuals, weneed to get together and
understand that our, ourinformation, our self worth,
should never and cannot bedetermined by someone else's
bottom line. So the more thatyou know yourself, the more that
(40:35):
you put things to that salarytest, the more that you take
action, rather than reaction asyour primary course, the better
will all be. So that's it fortoday, this episode of invisible
(40:58):
people, and I want you to chewon it for a while, think about
it. And I'd also like to say ifyou enjoy this podcast, if you
listen to it in, you getsomething out of it, please pass
it along forwarded to a friend,share it, leave a message like,
(41:18):
and let me know what you whatyou think. If you'd like to send
me an email, you can send me anemail at t shigg@gmail.com.
That's t shigg@gmail.com. Andthank you for listening once
again. And you know, the drill,let's get to work. Had a quick
(41:40):
addendum, as I thought aboutthis topic, some more topic of
invisible people. And I alwayslike to give a challenge at the
end. So my challenge is going tobe for you to see the invisible
people in your midst.
And I'll give you a kind of ablueprint for it or an example.
(42:03):
And I might get in trouble forthis one, I might I might get my
black cards suspended or revokedfor for a four minute,
hopefully, it won't be apermanent thing. But uh, let me
give you a little insight.
There's one thing that I learnedto do growing up as a black man
in the United States is thatit's something that when you're
(42:24):
out in public in, I alwayslearned it and figured it was
just what was done. And later onrationalized it as it's just
because we are such a smallportion of the population, and
many of the places that we are,it's very few of us around. So
when I'm out in public and I seesomeone who is who appears to be
(42:48):
a minority or African American,it is almost out of well, it's
not almost it's out of justtotal habit that I will
acknowledge them by giving thema little, you know, a little
heads up a little nod a little,little eye contact to say, Yo, I
see you. And it's 90% of thetime, that other person will
(43:12):
look back at you and like Yo,yeah, I see you too. Like I
said, I hope that doesn't get mein too much trouble with my with
my my brother. And but that'sjust something that we do.
That's something that AfricanAmericans do the something that
black folks do, we weacknowledge each other when
we're in public, even if wedon't know each other, kind of
just a Hey, I see you typething. And thinking about
(43:34):
challenges and solutions, one ofthe things I want you to do is I
want you to recognize peopleacknowledge people, be kind to
people, my daughter, every year,her school does this kindness
week thing, and they give him alist of things that they can do
to be kind. And it was a littlemore challenging this year,
(43:55):
because some of the things areschool specific, like sitting
next to someone you don't knowor making a new friend at
school. So she really had to bea little more or we had to be a
little more creative with it.
And one of the things we talkedabout was after the week was
over, I wanted her to know thatthis isn't something that we
(44:18):
just do for a week that kindnessis something that we should
always be doing. This is just aweek to kind of give you a
reminder that this is somethingthat you should be doing all the
time. And she understood that.
And so my hope and my challengefor you after this, this
episode, is that you will nolonger be able to ignore the
(44:42):
invisible people in our midstthat you'll see the obvious ones
like the homeless person walkingdown the street, or the person
with mental health issues that'stalking to themselves. But I'm
hoping that we'll go Little bitfurther, and you'll see the ones
that aren't so obvious, you'llsee the lady that's working as a
(45:05):
cashier that just seems a littleoff and you don't know why. And
you'll be challenged to be kindto her to say something nice to
appreciate her for being anessential worker doing a job
that's putting her in contactwith the virus over and over
(45:25):
again so that you can havetoilet paper. Hopefully, this
episode will let you see theinvisible people that are missed
that aren't as easy to see likethe person in front of you or
behind you in the grocery line,that for some reason, you can
tell they just couldn't geteverything that they needed. And
(45:46):
something prompts you to, to payit forward. Hopefully, you'll be
able to see the invisible personin our mitts that doesn't look
like you are looks like somegroup of people that you don't
care for. Be that lawenforcement. And it could be
(46:06):
that law enforcement officerthat seems a little too
confident, you'll recognize thathe feels like he's invisible.
And you'll notice that yourreaction is different. And the
actions that you take will, willtake on a new meaning. When you
(46:29):
see that there are people allaround you that fill them
visible. That feel as thoughthey don't matter. That feel as
though no one sees them. So thechallenge is and what you can do
individually without anyadditional resources. Besides
(46:52):
the body in mind that you haveis Be kind to people smile at
people. random act of contrast,random acts of kindness are
welcome. But overall, let's seeeach other.
(47:15):
So this time, it's really thisis the end. I'd had to add that
little bit in there. And I'llsay it one more time. Let's get
to work.
Dwayne E. Shigg (47:26):
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Lyrics (48:16):
came a long way I can do to do all
Unknown (48:29):
I can do all I can do to get up in the morning
taking whatever controller
Yeah, he came a long way I can do a long way. I'm not
(00:25):
afraid of the moment. I'm notafraid to get up in the morning.
Terence Shigg (00:40):
Welcome to the peace project with Terence l.
Shigg. Welcome back, I'm glad tosee that you are continuing to
listen, and I hope that you aregetting something out of it.
Today, I would like to start offwith introducing the topic, of
course. So today we're going tobe talking about invisible
people, and visible people. Andto me, that means people who
(01:03):
feel disenfranchised, notlistened to, not an equal part,
and a part to play in society.
For some reason, they feel asthough they have been
discounted, so invisible people.
And I think everyone at somepoint in time feels invisible.
(01:28):
And I think the key that we, asa society in this time right now
really need to pay attention tohim to look at is how are we
working to make sure that asmany people are enough people
are visible, so that we can worktogether and do what's best for
(01:51):
society, not just what's bestfor a letter. And when I say a
letter, I'm referring to aparticular political party, or
to a caste. And when I saycaste, I'm referring to a level
of influence and resources.
Today, that is what we're goingto be talking about invisible
(02:11):
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regimen.
(03:38):
So this is the peace project.
And today our topic is invisiblepeople, invisible people. Now
I'm not talking about the kindof people are aliens that you
can't see or people that don'texist that we just create in our
mind. I'm speaking to the ideathat there are people within our
(04:01):
society that for whateverreason, and it really, to me
doesn't matter whether or not itis something that I believe, but
they believe it's reallyimportant what that person
believes. And there are aportion of society that believes
that they are invisible. Tobegin this, I wanted to kind of
(04:23):
get your mindset because I thinkI'm going to challenge you a
little bit today I'm going tochallenge you to think a little
bit differently. Albert Einsteinhad a say in this saying was we
cannot solve our problems withthe same thinking we used when
we created them.
And so I want you to just try tothink outside the box for a
(04:47):
little bit. And here's a littleexercise that I hope will get
your mind in preparation orprepared to kind of think
outside the box. There's a storycalled 17 camels. And it's a
story of a wise and prosperousfather. And his wise and
(05:08):
prosperous father, as any goodfather wanted to make sure that
he left a legacy for his threesons. And he left his belongings
to them. And part of thebelongings in those days, your
belt, your wealth was measuredin the things that you had. And
(05:29):
the major thing in this part ofthe country were camels. And
this wise man, when he passedaway, had 17 camels. So he left
his 17 camels to his three sons.
And then as well, hespecifically laid out how they
were to be divided. And theywere to be divided, with the
oldest son getting two thirds ofthe camels, the middle son,
(05:51):
getting one sixth of the camels,and the youngest son, getting
one ninth of the camels. So eventhough it was spelled out
specifically, how this was to bedone, if you notice, 17 doesn't
divide into any of those numbersequally. So the sons began to
(06:12):
argue about how to divide uptheir father's inheritance to
17. camels? Because there was noclear answer on how to do it. So
finally, the oldest one said,well, let's go to the wise man
in town. And we'll tell him ourproblem. And maybe he can help
(06:32):
us with this. Because we'regetting nowhere, as brothers do,
they just argue back and forth.
So they went into town. Theywent to see the wise man. And
they told him about theirdilemma. They told him that
their father left the will lefthis inheritance and left them 17
(06:53):
camels, but he specifically saidthat we had to divide it up this
way, where the oldest would gettwo thirds, the middle son would
get on six, and the youngestwould get one night while the
wise man sat there for a while,and he thought and he thought,
and he said, You know what, Idon't know if I can help you
(07:13):
with this problem. But I'll tellyou what I will do. I have an
old camel, extra camel Outback.
You can have him. And maybe thatwill help you with your dilemma.
So the boys grumble they took Ofcourse, they took the extra
camel. And they grumbled alittle bit. But then the middle
son said, Hey, wait a minute.
(07:40):
Let's let's try and do thisagain. The oldest said, I don't
know why. But okay, let's tryand do this again. The wise men
have given them one extra camel.
So now they had 18 camels. Sothe oldest said, okay, two
thirds, two thirds of 18 is 12.
So, Hey, wait a minute. Thisworks now. So I'm okay. I get 12
camels. Middle sound says Okay,one, six. Okay, well, one, six
(08:04):
of 18 is three. So I get threecounts. And then the youngest
said, Okay, 191, ninth of 18 istwo, I get two camels. So you
add the 1212 camels for theoldest, three, three for the
middle, that's 15 plus two forthe youngest. That's 17 camels.
(08:24):
They have one camel leftover,which they promptly returned to
the wise old man.
So you see, the idea of thisstory is the fact that we don't
always know the solution. Wecan't always see the solution.
Maybe we're a little too closeto the problem. And so we have
(08:45):
to think differently in order tosolve the problem. So I'm going
to challenge you on this episodeto think a little bit
differently. We'll be rightback. After a word from our
sponsor.
Dwayne E. Shigg (09:03):
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blessed.
Terence Shigg (09:56):
And welcome back.
Welcome back to the peaceproject. My name is Terence
Shigg. And today we arediscussing invisible people. Now
let me break down how I came upwith the idea where invisible
people came from. I wasn't, youknow, hallucinating or
something, I was reading a bookor listening to it. And if
anybody doesn't have Audible, Isuggest you get it. Audible is a
(10:16):
great way to listen to books andstories while you're on the road
while you're moving. And I waslistening to audible on I
listened to a book called TheInvisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
And Ralph Ellison wrote thisbook back in 1952. And Ralph
Ellison was a black man whowrote this story. And so this is
(10:39):
a spoiler alert, if you haven'tread the story, I'm going to
talk about the story. So eitherskip this part or just know that
you're going to know a littlebit about it. So he wrote this
story about a young black manwho was born in the south, and
traveled from the south tocollege, and went from college
to the big city. And it's thiswhole idea. And it's a very, I
(11:03):
think it's a very intricatestory, and full of symbolism.
And it talks about how thisyoung man went from the south to
college with these grand ideasand aspirations, only to be let
down, and to be kind ofdisenfranchised with the whole
(11:26):
idea of a society and working tobetter society and realizing
that there are forces and powersout there that are trying to
manipulate society in a certainway, and that those forces are
very powerful. And so he gets,some would say disenfranchised,
some would say he gets woke, insome would say he gets
(11:51):
disappointed, because herealizes that with all the good
intentions that he has, thereare other things at play besides
what he wants and what he thinksis best for society. It's a
great concept, because he talksabout it in this long, I mean,
(12:12):
it's a great story, unfolds itand talks about how this young
man really develops into feelingas though people don't see him.
They just have their own agenda,their own ideas. They want to
hear what they want to hear, saywhat they want to say they don't
(12:33):
want to be challenged. Soundfamiliar? I mean, that was the
amazing thing. This guy wrotethis book in 1952. And this
really sounds like what we'retalking about right now today
with the events that are goingon right now. And it really
started to play out for me whenwe saw the the riots at the
(12:57):
Capitol, when those people forcetheir way into the capital with
the intentions, which no onereally knows their hearts. So we
don't know their intentions. Wejust know what the what was put
out on the media of what theywanted to do. But what gets
people into that type of amindset. And so I would
(13:20):
challenge you to think that isbecause people feel invisible.
They feel unheard.
disenfranchise. You go back tothe riots that happened after
the George Floyd's murder. Andthe people taking to the streets
(13:42):
and the people being angry,angry at society in general
angry at law enforcement,angering at anger at a feeling
of being powerless and unheardin the struggle to bring to
light the fact that black menare being killed at a
(14:05):
disproportionate number. Andagain, remember, I'm challenging
to go outside the box, whetheryou believe these things or not.
There are a portions of oursociety that believe these
believe these as facts, and ifthey do, then we must address
(14:26):
that issue. Not that fact, thatissue that issue of feeling
powerless and feeling invisible.
Dave Chappelle had a greatthing. He talked about the
riots, and he talked about themovement. And he said that the
streets are talking. So again,not condoning the riots or the
(14:47):
violence, but speaking to thepeople and what are they saying?
They're saying that we feelinvisible. We feel as though no
one's listening to us that Noone hears this that no one sees
us. Now go fast forward to thesiege, the riots, whatever you
(15:07):
want to call it at the Capitol.
And I'd like to challenge you tosay that middle America is
talking. And once again, notsaying that you have to agree
with the movement agree withtheir statements. But we have to
(15:31):
speak to the feeling, thefeeling of them being deployed,
deplorable the feeling of thembeing unheard, the feeling of
them being cheated or robbed.
And it doesn't matter whether ornot that is a fact. Or if that
is true, they believe it. Andtherefore we must speak to that
(15:52):
feeling, not that fact. Becausewe can argue, facts back and
forth, as the media loves to doand pit us against one another.
But what I'm saying is we needto start speaking to the people
and the feelings that areproduced by the set of facts
that they believe, because thefacts are arguable, and they are
(16:15):
different. And everyone hastheir own way of thinking to get
to those facts and to use thosefacts and to interpret those
facts. But the feelings areuniversal. Because this book was
written back in 1952. And itstill applies today. It applies
to black people, brown people,white people, Asian people, it
(16:38):
applies to everyone, thatfeeling of being invisible.
And look, I'm not condoningviolence. I'm not condoning
rights. But I'm saying that inorder to move past this, in
order to deal with this, we haveto start speaking and listening
(17:02):
and seeing the people and notthe problems and not the set of
facts. We need to start speakingto the people. And I think back
to the riots in Los Angeles, Ithink back to the riots in 1992
when Rodney King, the RodneyKing incident happened, I was
(17:23):
living in Los Angeles, I wasliving probably about a half a
mile away from the the lawenforcement command center at
the the bus RTD bus center, Ican still pictured up the road
from me. And I remember oneparticular night, because at
this time, I lived in a one roomstudio that I rented from my
(17:46):
uncle in Los Angeles, I was juststarting my career out. So me
and my girlfriend at the timewho would be my future wife and
a mother of my children, we werein this room listening to what
was going on around us as wellas on the radio and talking
(18:13):
about the the fires and thebusiness owners protecting their
their property. You had businessowners with guns on rooftops,
you had police cars on fire. AndI remember one in particular
thing, what happened was, theyhad looted a grocery store in
(18:36):
the grocery store was on thefront side of a bed and care
facility for the elderly. And sothey looted the grocery store
and the bed and it caught onfire. And so the fire was
spreading and possibly going tospread to that bed and care so
(18:59):
they were asking for anyone thatwas in the area could come out
and help. So me my girlfriend atthe time go out into a riot into
this type of atmosphere and Istill wonder to this day why we
never just said you know we'rejust gonna stay here and hunker
(19:21):
down. We actually got someblankets and jackets together,
went to the location helped themevacuate, help them cover up and
make sure that the the elderlyresidents where you're taking
care of and the fire departmentand paramedics were on scene.
And then we went home. And Iremember the scene of seeing
(19:45):
people ride walking down thestreet with grocery carts full
of food of diapers of carsfilled with, with clothes, of
arms filled with groceries.
There was a level of excitementabout the it was almost as if
people were feeling as thoughthey were being heard. They were
(20:11):
being seen, they were gettingwhat was deserved them. And I
know that may make no sense, butI hope I gave you a visual of it
because it was it was dark, itwas late at night, early in the
morning, somewhere in between1am 3am some time that you know,
(20:33):
I used to call that the witchinghour when I worked Midnight's
because that was the hardesttime to stay awake that once you
hit that, that two o'clock 2am.
But, and people were up andexcited, you had families, you
had adults, you had people fromevery walk of life, taking
(20:58):
advantage of this situation. Andnow I'll say check that of, of
being a part of this situation.
And I say being a part of thissituation, because that night,
even though they were unknown,because no one we didn't know
(21:19):
who all of these people were asany group as any Riot type group
where they're looting or doingthings, you don't see the
individuals until afterwards.
But as a group, they feltvisible. And I challenge you to
(21:41):
believe I challenge you to, tolook at what happened at the
Capitol. As any different thisgroup of people who felt
invisible, disenfranchised, feltlike they were labeled as
(22:03):
deplorable as if their opiniondidn't matter is felt as if they
were not a a viable part ofsociety being heard. Wanted to
be visible. So I hope you followalong with me because I'm, and
I'll say it one more time, I amnot advocating the violence. But
(22:26):
I want you to understand thefeelings that lead to it.
Because I think we're going inthe wrong direction if we're
trying to unite, if we're tryingto to unite by punishing by
judging, by making sure thatpeople are held accountable. And
that's it. We're just settingwe're just setting things in
(22:49):
motion for the next right forthe next feeling or batch of
people to feel invisible and towant to be, I wouldn't even go
far enough to say need to beseen. And for the next incident
to occur. And this is this isn'tnew, this is something that's
(23:10):
been around for as long as we'vebeen here, that there's been a
portion or a group of people whohave been felt oppressed. I'll
use the word felt subject to ato rules and standards that they
have no say so in who's feltdisenfranchised? And isn't that
(23:35):
kind of the the seed forconspiracies, the seed for
conspiracies is okay, you don'tunderstand what's going on. So
I'm going to tell you what'sgoing on. I'm going to, I'm
going to give you a glimpse intowhat nobody else knows, I'm
going to make you part of thisgroup, which makes you visible.
(24:01):
I see you so I'm going to I'mgoing to include you. And isn't
that what conspiracy theories doand and cults do, and groups
that are looking to manipulateothers do and we must realize
that it doesn't always come inthe form of a cult or in the
form of quote unquote religionor in the form of a con man. It
(24:26):
could come in the form ofsociety in general. Society
wanting to create a better, moreeconomically advanced society
will manipulate things for itsbenefit. I had a friend tell me
(24:48):
the other day and I know I'mgoing to do a podcast on this
topic because it just it keepssticking with me. And he said to
me, as we talked about We talkedabout just society in general
and the wars and how minoritygroups have been treated over
the years, and how the poor havebeen treated over the years. And
(25:12):
he said something that stood outto me, he says, you have to
remember that America is notalways the good guy. And I think
that's something that we have ahard time as Americans
accepting. Because we want tobelieve that we are the light on
the hill, we are the knight inshining armor, we are the
(25:33):
country that is the example forthe world. And that may be so
but that doesn't mean thateverything that we do is without
mistake, and is not always donewith good intentions. I say all
this not to be depressing, or tosay, okay, there's nothing that
(25:58):
you can do about it, becausethere is something you can do
about it. Because if you thinkabout it, and that's why I
started this with the idea thatI wanted you to be able to think
outside of the box. Because ifyou think about it, in order to
feel invisible, you have toallow someone else to tell you
(26:20):
or make you feel invisible. Youhave to believe what the media
is saying what a leader issaying that says that is
contrary to what you believe indiscounts what you believe, to
feel invisible. So the solutionin a roundabout, direct, simple
(26:45):
form, the solution is tounderstand that no one can make
you invisible, that you have toallow yourself to be invisible.
And the phrase that came up tome when I started thinking about
it is if you are invisible, tobe invisible, is to be a slave.
(27:07):
And I say that with all of theshock and awe that it brings up
because I wanted to bring upthat visceral effect that to be
invisible this to be a slave,because you are now you are now
giving up your power of thought,reason, action reaction to an
(27:31):
outside entity, be thatpolitician be that a leader be
that a group, you are giving upyour power to that group to tell
you what you think and what youbelieve. Therefore, the solution
to that is to know that you arevisible know what you believe
(27:54):
and know who you are knowyourself. If you ever look up
Simon Sinek he has severaldifferent videos, he has several
different books one the infinitegame, start with y. But one in
particular part of his book,start with y talks about
something that he refers to asthe celery test. And the celery
(28:16):
test is the idea that if youknow what your purpose is, what
your mission is, if you know whoyou are, then as things come at
you that is your standard thatyou put things up against. And
the example that he gives is ifyou're trying to lose weight, if
(28:37):
you are trying to eat healthier,and you go to the grocery store,
and you say okay, I'm going toeat healthy, I'm going to try
and lose some weight. So I'mgoing to go down the cookie I do
you think you're going to findsomething on the cookie aisle
that is going to help you behealthier and lose weight? No
(28:59):
more than likely not. And sowhen you go down the the fresh
vegetables and fresh fruitaisles where the celery is and
the apples and the oranges, doyou think you're gonna find
something over there that willhelp you eat healthier and lose
weight? Yes. And so knowing whatyour mission is, knowing what
(29:22):
your purpose is to be healthier,eat healthier, lose weight. You
can test the things that you areselecting and the actions you
are taking with that. And ifthey don't match, then you don't
eat them. If that is yourmission, and see now I always
(29:46):
add into that it's not aboutguilt. It's not about shaming
yourself into it. Because weslip we're human. You're still
going to eat that cookie everyonce in a while. You But it's a
different thing to eat thatcookie knowing it does not fit
with your mission. And it's notgoing to help you get healthier
(30:11):
and lose weight, then to pretendthat one cookie don't matter, I
can eat six of these, and theywon't bother me, I'll just walk
an extra 200 steps today.
Because now you're manipulatingwho you are to fit what you want
to do.
Let me say that again. Becausenow you are manipulating who you
(30:34):
are to fit what you want to do.
And that is the road tovisibility, rather than knowing
who you are, knowing that thatis not in line with what you
want, and doing it with theconscious awareness that today,
my cheat day, this doesn't fitwith my mission, but I'm going
(30:57):
to have some cookies today.
Totally different mindset.
Totally different mindset. Andthe more that we can recognize
our standard and our purpose,and move in directions that that
feed that speak to others to getthem to do that. That's how we
(31:18):
move past this. And so now Iknow people will say, Okay,
well, but people have to be heldaccountable. And people have to
be responsible, and we have topunish the people that did that.
Okay, that's, that's yourreasoning, that's fine. But
remember, we still have to speakto that feeling of being
(31:41):
invisible. I remember working ata prison and working midnight
shift, and having to stay awakeall night. So what I would do is
I would go in and get books, andI would stay up and read books
in between count, and anyonethat's worked in a jail knows
(32:02):
that. That's what you do allnight long as you count, just to
make sure that no one's escaped,and all the other fun stuff, are
you checking books, but that's astory for another podcast. One
in particular book that Iremember that I that I got from
the library, and back in thosedays, people went to libraries.
I don't know, kids still do thatwas called just revenge. And it
(32:24):
was about the death penalty. Andit talked about it made a very,
it made a very good case againstthe death penalty. Now when I
say that people are you maythink that okay, whatever. Okay.
And I personally, I'm againstthe death penalty, and I'll tell
you why. But I also can agree tothe death penalty penalty in
(32:51):
certain situations. Now, thatsounds like I'm being political.
But no, it's not. Because I knowwhy I believe what I believe.
And I can say, Okay, this iswhat I believe that one's
different. This one, Iunderstand it, and I understand
it from the the, the parameterthat it is, it's not a deterrent
(33:12):
is not to save money. It's justfor revenge. And that's what
this book broke down. And ittalked about how it costs more
money to how someone on deathrow to actually put someone to
death costs more money, becauseof the added specialties for
guards and the the proceduresthat they have to go through to
(33:34):
kill someone. And then it alsotalked about how it isn't a
deterred from crime, becauseeven though we have the death
penalty, those types of capitalmurders continue to, to stay at
the same level or increase. Soit doesn't decrease the the
amount of crimes and it doesn't,it's not less expensive. The
(33:55):
book came to the conclusion thatwe do it just for revenge. And
so I would go to with that, Iwould put the conclusion out
there and have you think aboutit, when we say that these
things have to be punished, andpeople have to be held
accountable. And and no onetalks about getting to the root
(34:19):
cause of these issues. Are wejust doing it for events? As you
listen to the media, and theytalk about how well when BLM did
this, this is what happened andnow you have these riders doing
it and the same thing shouldhappen to them. And you're
(34:41):
comparing the level ofenforcement here and the level
of purity punitive action hereand and you're arguing about how
you should punish them and itshould be equal to them. And I
agree there should be an equalplaying field and They should be
punished to the same level. ButI really believe we're missing
(35:03):
the point. missing the pointbecause we're not speaking to
the causes of these things.
We're not speaking to the socialinjustice that are causing these
problems. We're not speaking tothe people who feel as though
they are not being seen thatthey are invisible. And what
(35:24):
leads to that the level ofdisparity in education, in
resources in finances, thelevels of disenfranchisement,
the differences in the levels ofcommunity, from the services
available in certaincommunities, to other
(35:45):
communities, to the educationsystem, in the schools, in
certain communities and otherthere's such a disparity. You're
going to have people that feelinvisible, unless we start
taking care of people and starttalking to people and start
talking to what is causing themto feel invisible. And you may
(36:13):
not agree with what I'm saying,this is a hard truth, I believe
to to, to talk about. But Ireally believe it's the
discussion that needs to be had.
Because no amount of policies,no amount of executive orders,
no amount of criminal cases, isgoing to speak to people who
(36:34):
feel deplorable, who feeldisenfranchised, who feel as
though they are discounted, andwho feel that they are being
manipulated by a power structurethat does not include them. And
that's what we are, that's whatwe are seeing here in America.
(36:58):
And the way out of that isthrough ourselves, learning who
we are, what our purpose, ourwhat our purpose is, and to
start speaking to people and notto problems. start connecting
with people who feel invisible.
(37:25):
And not just solving problems,and not just throwing money at
problems, and not just buildingand investing. And thinking that
the problems will go away. Weneed to start investing in our
youth and we need to startinvesting in people and giving
them the resources that theyneed, so that they can feel
(37:51):
visible. So I hope I've made mymy point clear, and I hope you
understand that none of this issaying that the actions taken of
those who feel invisible, arewarranted if those actions
(38:16):
violate the rights of others,but we have to stop bifurcating
these issues from the people inthe causes, and then throwing
away the causes, and justjudging the people. Because to
(38:42):
me, that's the recipe that we'vebeen doing over and over again.
And we continue to have rightafter Riot after riot. We
continue to have disparity incommunities, we continue to have
food insecurity, we continue tohave unequal access to resources
(39:06):
and education, we continue tohave a segment of society who
controls the media, the financesas in the stock market.
And by having that control,there comes responsibility from
(39:28):
those entities. And those arethe entities that must come
along in this process. They mustcome along in this process by
listening to the people thatthey are influencing and ask
themselves the question, arethey influencing those people
(39:49):
for their benefit, meaning thebenefit of the corporations and
the people that are putting outthis information? Are they truly
truly trying to help Are theytruly trying to inform? Or are
they simply trying to increasetheir bottom line. And until
(40:11):
that happens, as individuals, weneed to get together and
understand that our, ourinformation, our self worth,
should never and cannot bedetermined by someone else's
bottom line. So the more thatyou know yourself, the more that
(40:35):
you put things to that salarytest, the more that you take
action, rather than reaction asyour primary course, the better
will all be. So that's it fortoday, this episode of invisible
(40:58):
people, and I want you to chewon it for a while, think about
it. And I'd also like to say ifyou enjoy this podcast, if you
listen to it in, you getsomething out of it, please pass
it along forwarded to a friend,share it, leave a message like,
(41:18):
and let me know what you whatyou think. If you'd like to send
me an email, you can send me anemail at t shigg@gmail.com.
That's t shigg@gmail.com. Andthank you for listening once
again. And you know, the drill,let's get to work. Had a quick
(41:40):
addendum, as I thought aboutthis topic, some more topic of
invisible people. And I alwayslike to give a challenge at the
end. So my challenge is going tobe for you to see the invisible
people in your midst.
And I'll give you a kind of ablueprint for it or an example.
(42:03):
And I might get in trouble forthis one, I might I might get my
black cards suspended or revokedfor for a four minute,
hopefully, it won't be apermanent thing. But uh, let me
give you a little insight.
There's one thing that I learnedto do growing up as a black man
in the United States is thatit's something that when you're
(42:24):
out in public in, I alwayslearned it and figured it was
just what was done. And later onrationalized it as it's just
because we are such a smallportion of the population, and
many of the places that we are,it's very few of us around. So
when I'm out in public and I seesomeone who is who appears to be
(42:48):
a minority or African American,it is almost out of well, it's
not almost it's out of justtotal habit that I will
acknowledge them by giving thema little, you know, a little
heads up a little nod a little,little eye contact to say, Yo, I
see you. And it's 90% of thetime, that other person will
(43:12):
look back at you and like Yo,yeah, I see you too. Like I
said, I hope that doesn't get mein too much trouble with my with
my my brother. And but that'sjust something that we do.
That's something that AfricanAmericans do the something that
black folks do, we weacknowledge each other when
we're in public, even if wedon't know each other, kind of
just a Hey, I see you typething. And thinking about
(43:34):
challenges and solutions, one ofthe things I want you to do is I
want you to recognize peopleacknowledge people, be kind to
people, my daughter, every year,her school does this kindness
week thing, and they give him alist of things that they can do
to be kind. And it was a littlemore challenging this year,
(43:55):
because some of the things areschool specific, like sitting
next to someone you don't knowor making a new friend at
school. So she really had to bea little more or we had to be a
little more creative with it.
And one of the things we talkedabout was after the week was
over, I wanted her to know thatthis isn't something that we
(44:18):
just do for a week that kindnessis something that we should
always be doing. This is just aweek to kind of give you a
reminder that this is somethingthat you should be doing all the
time. And she understood that.
And so my hope and my challengefor you after this, this
episode, is that you will nolonger be able to ignore the
(44:42):
invisible people in our midstthat you'll see the obvious ones
like the homeless person walkingdown the street, or the person
with mental health issues that'stalking to themselves. But I'm
hoping that we'll go Little bitfurther, and you'll see the ones
that aren't so obvious, you'llsee the lady that's working as a
(45:05):
cashier that just seems a littleoff and you don't know why. And
you'll be challenged to be kindto her to say something nice to
appreciate her for being anessential worker doing a job
that's putting her in contactwith the virus over and over
(45:25):
again so that you can havetoilet paper. Hopefully, this
episode will let you see theinvisible people that are missed
that aren't as easy to see likethe person in front of you or
behind you in the grocery line,that for some reason, you can
tell they just couldn't geteverything that they needed. And
(45:46):
something prompts you to, to payit forward. Hopefully, you'll be
able to see the invisible personin our mitts that doesn't look
like you are looks like somegroup of people that you don't
care for. Be that lawenforcement. And it could be
(46:06):
that law enforcement officerthat seems a little too
confident, you'll recognize thathe feels like he's invisible.
And you'll notice that yourreaction is different. And the
actions that you take will, willtake on a new meaning. When you
(46:29):
see that there are people allaround you that fill them
visible. That feel as thoughthey don't matter. That feel as
though no one sees them. So thechallenge is and what you can do
individually without anyadditional resources. Besides
(46:52):
the body in mind that you haveis Be kind to people smile at
people. random act of contrast,random acts of kindness are
welcome. But overall, let's seeeach other.
(47:15):
So this time, it's really thisis the end. I'd had to add that
little bit in there. And I'llsay it one more time. Let's get
to work.
Dwayne E. Shigg (47:26):
Let your legacy begin today. Drake mongoose
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(47:51):
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Lyrics (48:16):
came a long way I can do to do all
Unknown (48:29):
I can do all I can do to get up in the morning
taking whatever controller
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