June 30, 2025 • 41 mins
In this powerful episode of Embracing Intensity, we welcome Caroline J. Sumlin—author of We’ll All Be Free—for a deep, vulnerable, and inspiring conversation about collective liberation, the impact of white supremacy culture, and how we can begin to reclaim our worth. Caroline shares her perspective as a neurodivergent mother, speaker, and educator, and we explore the intersection of self-worth, systemic oppression, and sustainable social justice work.
About Caroline J. Sumlin
Caroline is an author, speaker, and homeschool parent living in the Washington D.C. area. Her work centers on liberation from white supremacy culture, with a focus on how systemic oppression impacts self-worth. Her book, We’ll All Be Free, is a guide to deprogramming the internalized messages of white supremacy and reclaiming your true self. Caroline’s mission is to help others recognize the worth that oppressive systems have tried to erase.
In This Episode:
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The importance of understanding how white supremacy culture harms everyone—not just the most marginalized.
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Why urgency, productivity, and perfectionism are tools of white supremacy—and how to break free.
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Navigating motivation and urgency as a neurodivergent person.
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Creating a life of joy and balance while staying engaged in liberation work.
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The importance of connecting with our shared humanity in social justice conversations.
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Understanding collective harm and our responsibility in collective healing.
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Caroline's perspective on using privilege for good and deconditioning colonial thinking.
Resources & Links:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You absolutely can use your privilegeto help work in an anti-white supremacy,
(00:06):
anti colonization, anti-racism,anti paternalism kind of way.
And I definitely think if you begin tolook into what it looks like to actually
deprogram and decondition, and you mayfeel like because you haven't seen it
that way because of your neurodivergence,that you may not have that
conditioning, but it's still in there.
It's just going to presentdifferently in you.
(00:27):
So figuring out the way thatit's presenting in you, and then
working to kind of deprogram that.
Welcome to the EmbracingIntensity podcast.
I'll be sharing interviews and tips forgifted, creative, twice exceptional,
and outside the box thinkers whouse their fire in a positive way.
(00:48):
My name is Aurora Remember Holtzman.
After years of feeling too much, Ifinally realized that intensity is
the source of my greatest power.
Now, instead of beating myselfup about not measuring up to
my own self imposed standards.
I'm on a mission to help people embracetheir own intensity and befriend their
brains so they can share their giftswith the world through the Embracing
(01:11):
Intensity community, coaching, educationalassessment, and other tools to help you
use your fire without getting burned.
You can join us at embracingintensity.
com.
(01:39):
Hello.
I am super thrilled to share part ofour guest call on Collective Liberation
with Caroline j Sumlin, author ofWe'll All Be Free and you can hear
a little bit more about her personalstory on episode 2 81 and I was
(02:01):
super excited that she was willing tocome back for a second call with the
community and have a really powerfuldiscussion on collective liberation.
So you can find the recording of thefull discussion in the guest call library
and Embracing Intensity membership.
Link in the show notes and you cancontinue the discussion in the Embracing
(02:26):
Intensity community at community.
dot embracing intensity.com.
I am diving into my last summerbefore going back full-time
as a school psych in the fall.
So you'll probably see a little bitless content coming from me, but I
am working on some behind the scenesrestructuring of my membership and
(02:48):
other tools to help move forward.
And so keep your eye out forthat and keep joining us in the
embracing Intensity community.
Enjoy.
Welcome everyone.
I'm so thrilled to have CarolineSumlin join us, author of We'll All
(03:08):
Be Free, and I got the opportunityto interview her earlier in the
year, and I'm so glad to have you.
Welcome.
Oh, thank you for having me.
I appreciate
it.
Before we get started, I love tohave people introduce themselves.
Glad to see all of you.
Welcome Caroline.
I'd love to have you introduce yourselfand share a little bit about your
(03:30):
work and then I'm gonna open up thechat for q and a. So if you guys have
any specific questions that come upfeel free to put them in the chat.
And then I also have a fewhere to get us started.
So welcome.
Yes.
Thank you all for having me today.
It's really lovely to meet all of you.
I am Caroline j Sumlin.
I'm an author and speaker.
I also am a homeschool parent.
I am in the Washington DCmetropolitan area, but I'm
(03:53):
originally from Minneapolis St. Paul.
My work is centered on liberation,specifically from white supremacy culture.
And the angle that I take with that isactually how white supremacy culture or
our dominant societal culture impacts theway that we see ourselves, our self-worth,
and the messages that society has beenfeeding us all of our lives that come
(04:14):
from systemic oppression and systemicwhite supremacy that essentially caused
all to feel as though we are not worthyenough or we have to constantly be
chasing standards that were essentiallydictated by, who has placed themselves
at the top of our racial and socialand economic hierarchy in society.
So, that is what my book is about.
It's called, we'll All Be Free, how aCulture of White Supremacy Devalues Us
(04:35):
and How We can Reclaim Our True Worth.
And it's essentially a guide helping younavigate how you have been impacted by
white supremacy, understanding the historyand how the culture was developed as well
as how you can essentially break free fromand unlearn those standards, those norms
that we've all been conditioned to believeand how you can live a life of freedom and
(04:57):
kind of come home to who you truly are.
So that is my work in a nutshell.
Other than that, I'm, chasing afteran eight and a 6-year-old in some way,
shape or form, or I'm on the tenniscourt playing tennis for drinking coffee.
That's me.
Awesome.
And I've really appreciated your work bothboth on social media and in your book.
Which I finished actually on my tripto the A DHD conference in the fall.
(05:22):
Oh wow.
So then I finally reached out to you afterthat which was really awesome to have you.
So, if you guys have specificquestions, you can put them in the chat.
I would love to hear them.
And I'm gonna start with a few here, butI'll prioritize the ones from the audience
if you guys put anything in the chat.
So, I'm gonna start out with a questionbecause this is definitely relevant to me.
(05:44):
And that is, why do you think it'sessential for us all to understand
how white supremacy cultureaffects everyone and not just those
who are marginalized the most?
I love this question so much because Ithink this is one of the biggest ways
that we as a society, like to divide orlike to disassociate or feel as though
that it has nothing to do with me orfeel defensive in nature when we talk
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about something like white supremacy.
In fact, I am before I got on this call,I was looking at some comments from a post
that I posted on threads and there's, itwas talking about urgency, which is one of
those characteristics of white supremacyand a lot of people are right, you
know, understand what I'm talking about.
Then of course there's always those peoplethat are like, sure, bring race into it.
Yeah, this, yeah, I guess thismakes me racist, or I guess it
(06:29):
makes me a white supremacist.
That's usually what you kind of hearwhen you talk about white supremacy
because there's this idea, this feelingthat it's an attack on white people or
the existence of whiteness or it's notsomething that has to do with you if you
do not identify as a marginalized person.
Or navigate our societyin a marginalized body.
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But it is so essential that weunderstand that there's no us and
them when it comes to white supremacy.
When it comes to a system of oppression,though the system of oppression was
designed to harm the most marginalized,it does not mean if you are someone that
doesn't exist in a marginalized body oras marginalized of a body, so to speak,
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because there's obviously a range of that.
As somebody else or who this assumewas intended to harm, that does not
mean you are exempt from that harm.
Anything that harms.
You know, in a collective, whenone person is harmed, one person is
marginalized, when one person, or asmall group of people or what have you
are suffering, then that suffering isgoing to trickle and affect everybody.
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There's no way that anybody canlive in freedom or live in true
liberation when there is somebodythat is not living in liberation.
This is gonna be an interesting, maybeweird analogy that no one will maybe
understand, but I'm gonna try anyway.
So, I'm in a sorority and when I waspledging my sorority in college, we
were taught a lot about, 'cause whenyou pledge the sorority that I'm in, you
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have what's called a line and there's,a certain amount of girls on the line.
And so the girls that are onthe line are your line sisters.
That's like we were taught,like this is your unit.
When one sister is notwell, your line is not well.
You have to come together and you haveto do what you can to bring that sister
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back up and help her become her best self.
When one of you is impacted,you are all impacted.
You are your sister's keeper, right?
In our society, it's the same way We havebeen taught that individualistically, we
should all just be focused on ourselves.
And if it doesn't impactme, then it doesn't matter.
And if somebody else is marginalized,that's their problem, or what we're
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really taught is, well, you'reprobably just not working hard enough.
You're probably just not doing enough.
If you are suffering from X,Y, and Z, we're taught that,
Hey, that's a you problem.
You probably brought that on yourself.
Maybe it's your own culture.
Maybe it's your people.
Maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
You need to fix that yourself.
And that's done on purpose to essentiallytry to prevent us from seeing that
it's a collective problem and alsoprevent us from seeing that even in
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a place of privilege, you can stillbe harmed by this system because
once you realize you're harmed by it,then you want to dismantle it, right?
Once you realize that there's a systemout there that is harming you too,
you want to do something about it.
The other analogy I like to makeis like, and this is an unfortunate
one to make, but say for example,the issue of cancer, right?
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So if somebody is diagnosed with cancer,then all of a sudden they're the ones that
are like, well, I'm gonna show up now.
I've, beat cancer.
I'm gonna be at the marathons.
I'm gonna be at those races.
I really care about this research.
Like this is so important to me.
If someone was never diagnosedwith cancer, they may.
Like, I always get sympathy and empathymixed up, but they may sympathize.
Like they may be like,okay, yeah, that matters.
You know, I care a little bit.
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I might donate some money here and there.
I might, cheer somebody on.
But then all of a sudden, once ithits you and somebody that you love
or impacts you personally, all of asudden you start to realize and your
eyes get open to everything in that'swrong with that particular problem.
Now all of a sudden youare ready to fight too.
Well, our society exists in such a waywhere if it can keep most of us from
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realizing that we are being harmed bythe way the system is run, by the way
our society is operated, then mostof us aren't gonna try to fight back.
So once we realize that we are harmed,more of us are gonna try to fight back,
and then the system can't stand a chance.
So I hope that answers the question,but it's so essential because
number one, none of us are freeuntil the least of these are free.
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But also, number two, when you realizeyou are being harmed from a system.
No matter whether you are marginalizedor not, now all of a sudden we all
have a collective understandingthat because it's harming all of us,
we have to do something about it.
And there's no if, ands, or buts aboutit, once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Then you realize somethingneeds to be done.
It's no longer something you cansit back and say, oh, well, sucks
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for them, but at least I'm fine.
That's what they want us to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I always think of the canary inthe coal mine kind of theory where
people, you know, maybe feel itfirst, but it's bad for everyone.
Right.
And you had mentioned the urgencypiece as being part of that system and
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it made me think of one of the thingsespecially with A DHD, but a lot of
neurodivergence have difficulty withkind of getting themselves motivated.
And it just reminded me of one ofthe things that motivates A DHD is
that urgency and without urgency,sometimes we get nothing done.
And it just made melook up that real quick.
There's a there's a acronym,INCUP, which is interest, novelty,
(11:36):
challenge, urgency, and passion.
Those are kind of the areas that helpmotivate folks with A DHD and often
other executive functioning concerns.
But I guess that just kind of broughtmy question to if you have any thoughts
around what are some ways that havehelped to motivate you outside of that
concept of urgency, for motivation?
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Well, I think the first thing tounderstand is that urgency when it's
being weaponized in white supremacy isdifferent from like an urgency say, my
doctor's appointment is at 10 o'clock,I need to be there at 10 o'clock.
Right?
Like there's a difference there.
When we talk about urgency in the waythat it's weaponized, it's more so this
idea that if you are not constantlymoving or constantly feeling as though
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you need to be, essentially treatinglife as if it's a rat race, then you're
falling behind, then you are failing.
So we get these ideas in our headthat we're all competing against each
other and I have to be ahead of youin order to be worthy, in order to
be successful, in order to be seen.
So I do essentially, whatever I canto knock you out of the way, focusing
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on myself, individualism in an urgentsense because I must be running
out of time or I must be wrong.
I must not be doing somethingcorrectly if I'm not on the timeline
that society says I should be on.
It can also be weaponized in certainorganizational or institutionalized
settings when you think about theworkplace or what have you, because
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it can be used to make you feel asthough you are less than If you say
cannot produce at this rush timelinethan what may be asked of you.
Essentially trying torip your humanity away.
The more that you operate like some typeof robot that's just literally rushing
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to get things done the better it ties.
Along with that quantity over quality,which is another characteristic where
it's like, you know, we just want more.
We don't care if it's done well.
We want mass produced.
We want you to do as much as possibleis what looks more productive or
what looks more worthy in society.
We're taught that.
Like, when I think about when I was incollege and the idea was that the longer,
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the more beefed up your resume was becauseyou were doing 17 organizations, right?
Stretching yourself thin and constantly,like on a hamster wheel of being involved
in everything and then of course, notto mention it wasn't enough just to be
involved, but you had to be a chair.
You had to be a president,you had to be on the e-board.
The more you did.
The better you looked, thebetter you were presented, the
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better you were, what have you.
Instead of being able to say, I cando these one or two things really,
really well and I'm gonna producethe best quality in this work that
I'm doing and be able to do it ata pace that allows me to do that.
Right.
So I just wanna make sure that weunderstand that when we're saying these
different characteristics, it's notthe isolated characteristic itself.
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It's not that urgency ingeneral is never necessary.
And for people that are neurodivergent,if you have to kind of create your
own urgency for certain things andyou have strategies and tasks that
you can do to help you navigate that,that's not conflicting with how you see
yourself, but it's more so a strategythat you're using, then that's great.
But systemically and culturally,the idea that everything has
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to be urgent and right now.
Even like, and we see it everywhere.
It's normalized.
So think of, if you're ever like onsocial media or something like that,
or you're watching whatever, andyou get a message about like, it's
March, you gotta get summer ready.
It's just five weekstill summer or whatever.
Like the idea that you have tobe racing to prepare for a season
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and you have to get ahead andyou have to ramp up your routine.
That's how that can be weaponized.
And if you are not, you're behind.
And if your body doesn't look likethis or you're not ahead of your goals.
Another way urgency would presentitself was like back in October,
people were starting their winter arcs.
It was like, oh, get aheadstart on your goals.
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Now imagine what happens when January1st comes and you're ahead of your goals
and you're ahead of everybody else.
Why?
We're people, what are wecompeting with each other for?
On social media?
And it's not just social media.
That's how it presents itself.
Now, these things have alwaysexisted in our society and culture.
They just morph over time with the trends.
But we see more of it on social media now.
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So just using that for example, likewhat's actually the point of competing
in a sense of urgency to be able tosay, come January 1st, look at me.
I am two months aheadof my goals than you.
So you see what I'm saying?
That's the urgency part.
So I know your question is like, howdo you navigate things without the
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urgency, if it's a tool that you'reusing for neurodivergence and you
know you can use that in a way thatis beneficial to you, then great.
But separate that from the idea that youneed to be constantly moving urgently.
To be ahead of something.
I know for me, my neurodivergence, thereare days where I am able to use urgency
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to my advantage and then there are dayswhere I know I have to be slower and take
things a lot more slowly to be productive.
And I allow my body to dictate what thatlooks like for me on a day-to-day basis.
But obviously I can't speak to whatthat will look like for everybody.
'cause Neurodivergence is so complex.
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Absolutely.
And I think that brings to mind thatfor me there's a difference between
people pleasing and doing things ormaking commitments to other people
that are things I already wanna do.
So like I can use others to motivateme to do the things I want to do.
Not necessarily to do the things becauseof the other people, but if I make a
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commitment to do the things I wantedto do anyway, then that helps use that
tendency to care about what other peoplethink, to help motivate myself to do
something that I already wanted to do.
So I'm not doing it because theywant me to, but it does help me
to do it because I said I would.
So, mm-hmm.
I see that.
And I see you have a great question inthe chat on the neurodivergent thing.
(17:54):
I'd like to circle back to thatwhen we get to the discussion.
'cause I think you canprobably speak more to that.
I have a couple more questions andif you guys have specific questions
feel free to put 'em in the chat.
But we'll do a couple more questions andthen we'll open it up for discussion.
So, I did wanna to ask your thoughtson finding that balance between calling
people in and also connecting with theirhumanity and keeping your own peace.
(18:18):
Yeah.
I love this question because Ido think nowadays we do tend to
kind of use protecting our peaceas a crutch sometimes, right?
And that a lot of peopledon't wanna hear that.
'cause we kind of are like in a time, andI know there's multiple generations on
this call, but right now we're at a timewhere it's like, well, if it bothers me or
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makes me uncomfortable or messes with theway I'm feeling like it's a no for me and
I'm just gonna completely tune that out.
Right?
And that does come with some privilege.
I'm not saying that there isnever like time to do that.
I definitely have times where I checkin with my body and if I really feel a
strain in my mental health, in my anxiety,I feel as though if I see one more news
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headline, it's going to have a very
concerning effect onme, then that's my cue.
We need some space.
Let me take a day or two to protectmy peace, so to speak, because we
never want to get to a point where weare essentially martyring ourselves
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and for the sake of, to say that wenever gave in or never gave up, or we
were super social justice warriors.
Something like that, which Ido see people doing that too.
Right?
I see the other side of that where it'slike never, ever, ever taking a break
or allowing yourself to have those veryreal human needs, and that's not safe.
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So if you feel yourself, yourmind, your body telling you, hey.
You're not safe right now,then absolutely follow that.
Right.
But also understand too thatthings that are hard and
uncomfortable are not impossible.
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Okay.
And the way that we're able tonavigate the things that are hard
and uncomfortable are when our basichuman needs, our fundamental human
needs, are the most taken care of.
So I always tell people that allowingyourself to be called in or tuning
into the activism and, the liberationwork and being present in that doesn't
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negate the fact that you are a human.
And the fact that you do have human needs.
It is that cliche where you still haveto fill yourself up before you can pour.
So no one's saying also negatesleep, negate needs, negate eating,
negate joy, negate those things.
If you aren't filling your life withyour human needs and not just eat, sleep,
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air, you know, water, but actual joyand I forget what the other ones are,
but like, you know, you think aboutthe the Maslow's hierarchy, right?
Make sure that you are taking care of themental, the emotional and the physical
needs, and still ensuring that there's asmuch joy present in your life as possible.
Still ensuring that family ispresent, still ensuring that you're
(21:24):
getting the physical touch from yourloved ones, et cetera, et cetera.
'cause when you do have that, then youhave the capacity to be able to tap in.
I know, like, I do my best work andthis work is taxing, it's daunting.
It's the constant need to be on in this.
Space and be present and reading allthese headlines and reading all these
opinions and offering something.
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If I'm spent, I have nothing to offerand that doesn't do anyone any good.
So I still have to make surethat I am taken care of in
all of the things I'm getting.
My exercise, I'm sleeping.
I don't touch the work until thephysical part is being cared for.
So I have the capacity to endure theuncomfortable to endure, the difficult to
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endure the emotions that come with that.
But I also recognize too thatyeah, there's absolutely needs for
timeouts and sometimes that's two,three days and that's okay too.
Absolutely.
I'm gonna do a couple more questions andthen we're gonna open up for discussion.
So, let's see.
It sounds like you're saying the socialhierarchies we live in don't serve anyone.
(22:26):
And white supremacy is one of thosehierarchies, but you're saying
that white supremacy is the singleoverarching hierarchy over all the
others, capitalism, gender, et cetera.
If so, how does that work?
Well, you wrote my book for me.
It sounds like you wrote it.
Yeah.
(22:46):
That's essentially what I'm saying.
And I will say this, thereare different takes on this.
Some people believe it is capitalismthat is the overarching one.
And white supremacy exists as a systemof oppression under that umbrella.
I see it differently.
I see white supremacy as the umbrella.
I've used both metaphors.
I use the umbrella metaphor, andthen I also use like the foundation
(23:07):
of like a house metaphor, right?
Like you build your foundation andthen you have the pillars and things
like that come up in the home to createthe entire house, but it doesn't stand
or function without the foundation.
I use both metaphors.
And the reason why I say that is because,so, okay, a couple things, I wanna make
sure I answer the question without goingoff on rabbit trails and there's several
(23:30):
of them in my book that'll also help you.
But when you actually look atthe history, right, and it's hard
to find a starting point in the
cultivation of what becomesour modern society, right?
And it is one of those thingswhere it's like what came
(23:53):
first, the chicken or the egg.
Because we got to where we are because ofa group of people who saw themselves in
one way as better than for many reasons.
A lot of them are rooted in religion.
And a lot of the belief then was thatbecause we are Christian and there's
(24:20):
Catholicism and Protestantism, andPuritanism, all that kind of in there.
But because we are Christian andbecause our skin is lighter and
because in the Bible it says that.
Light is holy.
That must mean we are like, they kind ofrationalized like we should be the ones
with access and dominion over the earth.
(24:43):
And literally believed like, becausewe are Christian, if anybody else
out there is not Christian orother cultures or other religions.
And there was kind of seen as likeheathenism that we have the authority
that God gave us the authority to takewhat should rightfully belong to us.
And what should rightfully belongto us is the riches and the money.
(25:08):
And the wealth, beginning withway back when would've been spices
and herbs and, other things thatwould've been seen as valuable.
Right?
And so when you begin with, i'm tryingto see, like I'll start with, when the
Portuguese kind of like, were some ofthe first to come down into Africa and
kind of see like, oh, they've got thingsthat I wish we had, we should have that.
(25:29):
Like it should belong to us.
That's kind of some of the beginningsof like, hey, this is a heathenistic.
They have gold, they have this, theyhave that, that should belong to us.
They're less than we are.
They're dark, they're lots of other namesthat they would use that are in my book.
I'm trying to kind of speak lightly here.
(25:50):
So let's begin this process ofcapturing these people and starting
this whole enslavement in slave trade.
And so racism was essentiallycreated before race.
The idea that they are less than we are.
And then let's come up with a systemthat ensures that is legal, essentially.
(26:13):
And that's where race came out of that.
So capitalism from what we cansee historically, really begins to
develop in America specifically.
And I'm not saying capitalism neverexisted before America, but what we
know is our modern day capitalism,the capitalism that we still model
in our world today, in Americaspecifically, or the western hemisphere,
(26:36):
'cause that includes Canada as well.
Like very much began on the, plantation.
And that started the model of the bigbusiness and, you know, using humans as
property and, as a monetary value andthe way that our industry was essentially
like modeled on the plantation first.
Like the way the actual plantation ran,translated into the what is it called?
(26:59):
The industrial revolution, likethat essentially morphed into
the industrial revolution and howthe industrial revolution came
about and how that model worked.
That was essentially the plantation justkind of moving into a new setting, right?
And so it just kind of morphed from there.
So when I look at why believe whitesupremacy is the overarching one
is because I see that capitalismin modern day capitalism came from
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essentially trying to create whitesupremacy and trying to ensure that
there was always that hierarchythat nothing could break that.
And how do you do that?
You ensure that the people with thesuperiority, essentially elite white
men, the wealthy white men, theyhave to hang on to all the wealth.
And therefore we have to makesure capitalism makes that happen.
(27:45):
Right?
And that's what we see to this day.
We see the wealth hierarchy.
So that's where when I was doingmy research, I wrote my book
to demonstrate that belief thatcapitalism fuels white supremacy.
The way that I actually say in mybook is that it's literally the engine
that keeps white supremacy running.
When you talk about all of theother systems of oppression.
(28:05):
So now we're getting into gender,we're getting into ableism,
we're getting into heterosexism,we're getting into fat phobia.
We're getting into allof these things, right?
When you look at what was considered thepurest and the holiest of a person, right?
You look at that being theelite white man, right?
(28:27):
So there's like a, like awheel of identities, right?
And in the center of itis the elite white man.
And then on the outer end it basically,you can kind of see like where would
you kind of fall within the wheel.
And the closer you are to thecenter is the most privileged.
So that would be the elite white man.
And then it kind of goes out from there.
So, lemme put it this way.
Like a black man wasstill a black man, right?
(28:51):
Somebody who was.
Not white.
A white woman stillnot a white man, right?
So if gender had nothing to dowith white supremacy, then there
would've been equality in that arena.
But there still had to be a wayto keep people in their place.
(29:11):
So there's still a hierarchy there.
And even though yes, if you're awhite woman, you sit on a higher
level of that privileged ladder orthat hierarchy than say a black woman
or say, a black trans woman like
you can see how that, plays out.
But at the same time, white mencannot keep their power if they
(29:33):
have a white woman existing atthe same level of power as them.
So there still had to be systems thatwere created to ensure that even a
white woman was kept in her place.
And from there all of theseother systems are born right?
You even see like the way I look atableism, if the elite white, and then
(29:55):
you gotta add Christian too, right?
Christian man is thedefinition of the standard.
And so if you existed in a body that isconsidered to be disabled, then you might
as well have not been white at that point.
There must be something wrong with you.
And so therefore you are essentiallythe, you can't sit with us type of idea.
(30:17):
And I hope that explains it.
I feel like I write about it a littlebit better in my book, but, that is
the way that my research at leastsupports that white supremacy was
the foundation or the umbrella thatthen allowed these other systems of
oppression to form and take place.
But they all continue touphold white supremacy.
(30:38):
They work to make sure that whitesupremacy is able to stand strong.
Absolutely.
And I would also say too, that itcreates a situation where like poor
white folks are, if you're creating thatdivision, then they're focused on the
division rather than the people who areactually keeping them in that, you know?
(30:59):
So like it also creates somethingto distract those people.
So even white people who are at adifferent level, like financially or
whatever, who are being taken advantageof or whatever in their situations,
especially as the financial gap getswider and wider, focusing on the race
issue, creating the divisions givesthem something to focus on, or like
(31:22):
immigrants or, you know, gives themsomething to blame other than the people
who are actually keeping them, from that,
that was all done on purpose.
That tracks all the way backto indentured servitude.
Right.
It tracks back to okay, well we'vegotta find a way to create, essentially
a majority in whiteness as well.
(31:43):
Right?
Because we know historicallyspeaking, not every single European
immigrant was considered to be whitewhen our country was first being.
Developed, we don't usethe word founded around.
It was already founded.
Right?
Developed.
So, there had to be a way tokind of create a majority.
So that was the idea of like, allright, let's let them kind of like
(32:07):
into the Whiteness Club by subjectingthem to indentured servitude or other
things that are at least not as bad asenslavement or bad as displacement when
we're talking about indigenous people.
So we can still marginalize, we canstill oppress, but we can give them
some contingencies or we can give themsome conditions to make them feel as
(32:27):
though, Hey, but you still gotta legup on those other folks over there.
And then make sure that, there'sessentially created division there
too, or created tension because thenonce, like for example, once enslaved
people became free, now all of asudden that became a threat to poor
white people in their work, right?
That it wasn't a real threat.
(32:48):
It became like theybelieve that was a threat.
They're gonna come and take our jobs.
We hear that same rhetoric today.
It's not a coincidence.
All of it tracks historically.
That's how our nation was built.
So I always say to people, like, literallyeverything that we witnessed today is
not just like a, oh, that's interesting.
This just happened to be this way.
(33:08):
No, our nation was founded upon that.
It started from the idea that we haveto make sure that America specifically,
I know there's Canadians in here,but America specifically is a nation
of whiteness and a nation wherewhiteness is what holds the power.
And we will utilize whateverit takes to do that.
(33:30):
And of course I'm not as wellversed in Canadian history, but
it trickles to Canada as well.
Absolutely.
And I wanna open up for discussion,but I did wanna ask one more question,
kind of wrap up the podcast part of it.
And that is what has helped you to stayengaged in social justice work without
burning out or feeling overwhelmed?
As I mentioned before, filling yourlife with things that bring you joy.
(33:53):
Like I'm big on that.
I firmly believe that.
Joy is a birthright.
It is oftentimes something that wehave to be intentional about seeking
and creating for ourselves versuswaiting for it to happen to us.
But, even just like.
Waking up in the morning and puttingon an outfit that makes me feel
like very confident in my body.
(34:14):
Or going out and playing tennis,being intentional about getting on the
tennis court or being intentional aboutreaching out to a friend and saying,
Hey, I haven't seen you in a while.
Let's grab some coffee.
Let's check in.
Being intentional,being around people too.
And I can definitely be a hermit.
I can definitely be the kind of personthat would prefer to take the easy
route and stay in, but I know thatwhen I'm connecting with people and
(34:36):
prioritizing the human interaction,that always allows me to feel filled.
So what are the things that are going tobring you the most joy and make sure that
they are non-negotiables in your life?
Understanding that the reason why welive the way that we live, the reason
why the society, is the way that it isbecause of western colonization we are
(34:58):
in our society and western society.
That's what we're dealing with whenwe're talking about all of this stuff.
And when I was mentioning earlier, I said,I know there are cultures in societies
and, I was thinking about people of theglobal majority, people of the global
south and non-Western dominant society,cultures, countries, et cetera, that have
continued to live the way that humanitywas intended to live, which was in
community, which was in collectiveness,which was without these hierarchies
(35:22):
that exist to amass wealth and power.
Right?
So I. The western world has beenand continues to be so harmed
by, colonization, which hasgot us to where we are today.
So, you know, when you're thinkingabout rejecting another way to
look at it too is like, and thisis just talking about racism.
It's not just racism, but I'mgonna use it as an example.
(35:44):
But like, when you think about rejectingracism or being anti-racist, it's
two very different things, right?
So just saying no, likeI don't agree with that.
That can still be harmful becauseit doesn't necessarily do anything
to reverse course for the actualoppression that's happening, right?
You absolutely can use your power oruse, not your power, your privilege, too
many p words, your privilege to help.
(36:06):
Work in an anti white supremacy,anti colonization, anti-racism,
anti paternalism kind of way.
Right.
And I definitely think if you begin to,look into like what it looks like to
actually deprogram and decondition and youmay feel like because you haven't seen it
that way because of your neurodivergence,that you may not have that
(36:28):
conditioning, but it's still in there.
It's just going to presentdifferently in you.
So figuring out the way that it'spresenting in you, figuring out
how, you know, the normalizationof our colonized society.
And why people think the waythey think and why this exists
the way that exists, and thenworking to kind of deprogram that.
I think that is gonna be a goodstart for you in answering what it
(36:49):
would look like for you to then useyour privilege in a way that helps
be anti versus just a rejection.
Does that make sense?
And I wanted to add that that Dr.Kimberly Douglas had to leave, but she
does a lot of work around DecolonizingNeurodivergence specifically.
So she's a great resource on that.
Thank you guys for sticking around.
(37:10):
I know we're a little bit overtime it's the nature of our
neurodivergent conversations.
We get so into it.
But I do wanna have a fewmoments to let Caroline wrap up.
I did wanna say in terms of my ownexperience, and I'm not speaking as
myself as an example, but just what I haveconsciously done with my community, which
(37:30):
is that I try not to speak for anyone.
I try to.
Offer my platform to let otherpeople speak for themselves.
But I also have made a verydeliberate effort to have folks who
can speak to different perspectivesthan I personally can share.
So that's kind of beenmy approach on that.
So, do you have any finalthoughts you would like to share
(37:53):
in wrapping up our conversation?
Thank you so much again.
This was so great.
Well first, just wanna thank youall for allowing me into your space.
I can tell this group is just powerful andbeautiful and even just seeing the amount
of conversation happening in the chat inaddition to what we were talking about.
I love how tuned in you all are with eachother and just the embracing of who you
(38:16):
were born to be, who you're created tobe, the way your mind works, everything.
Because that's something that Istruggle with to this day and finding
people that embrace the way that mymind works, which is not typical.
It's, I mean, also neurodivergenthas been a struggle for me.
So I just love to be in communitiesthat it's just so embraced and, yeah,
(38:37):
I just wanted to actually extend my,like, you know, Aurora, your community's
beautiful and you allowing me here.
'Cause it's such a sacred space andI, feel honored that I was allowed to
be here to speak with you all today.
So thank you.
I hope that you were able to receivesomething from the conversation.
Or that if you choose to pick up the bookthat you're able to receive something.
You know, my work is, I choose to look atthe worthiness piece and tie worthiness
(39:01):
into this because it's not reallysomething that's very much talked about.
But I deeply believe that everysingle one of us is impacted by this.
That our self-worth is impactedby these systems and structures
and the culture that we live in.
And we don't realize just how much.
And I think, you know, once yourealize just how much your worth has
been impacted by something that wasmade up for very inhumane reasons.
(39:25):
It really changes the way you're able tosee yourself and your neighbor and your
community and the people around you.
And that's really where the power lies.
Like how are we seeing ourselves?
How are we seeing our neighbors?
How are we treating each other?
I hope that you're able to walk awaywith something that just helps you
see yourself in a new light that's,yeah, I guess that's my spiel.
Of course, you know, if you have anyquestions for me or you would like to
(39:47):
get in contact with me, I will leavemy contact information with Aurora.
I'm on Instagram.
I also have a website.
You can send a contact form,or my email is fine too.
I'd love to chat with anybody furtherif you would like that or you need
that support or something like that.
But yeah, just thank you for havingme and I appreciate being here.
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad that you were able to joinus and I highly recommend you go out and
(40:11):
read her book if you haven't already.
And follow her Instagram.
It's always very inspirational.
Thank
you so much.
(40:34):
Looking for ways toembrace your own intensity.
Join our embracing intensitycommunity@embracingintensity.com where
you'll meet a growing group of like-mindedpeople who get what it's like to be gifted
and intense and are committed to creatinga supportive community as well as access
to our courses and tools to help youuse your fire without getting burned.
(40:57):
There's also a pay what you canoption through our Patreon where
you can increase your pledgeto help sustain the podcast or.
Or join us at a rate thatbetter fits your needs.
You can also sign up for my freeHarnessing the Power of Your
Intensity, a self regulationworkbook for gifted, creative, and
twice exceptional adults and teens.
(41:18):
All links can be found in the shownotes or on EmbracingIntensity.
com.
You absolutely can use your privilegeto help work in an anti-white supremacy,
(00:06):
anti colonization, anti-racism,anti paternalism kind of way.
And I definitely think if you begin tolook into what it looks like to actually
deprogram and decondition, and you mayfeel like because you haven't seen it
that way because of your neurodivergence,that you may not have that
conditioning, but it's still in there.
It's just going to presentdifferently in you.
(00:27):
So figuring out the way thatit's presenting in you, and then
working to kind of deprogram that.
Welcome to the EmbracingIntensity podcast.
I'll be sharing interviews and tips forgifted, creative, twice exceptional,
and outside the box thinkers whouse their fire in a positive way.
(00:48):
My name is Aurora Remember Holtzman.
After years of feeling too much, Ifinally realized that intensity is
the source of my greatest power.
Now, instead of beating myselfup about not measuring up to
my own self imposed standards.
I'm on a mission to help people embracetheir own intensity and befriend their
brains so they can share their giftswith the world through the Embracing
(01:11):
Intensity community, coaching, educationalassessment, and other tools to help you
use your fire without getting burned.
You can join us at embracingintensity.
com.
(01:39):
Hello.
I am super thrilled to share part ofour guest call on Collective Liberation
with Caroline j Sumlin, author ofWe'll All Be Free and you can hear
a little bit more about her personalstory on episode 2 81 and I was
(02:01):
super excited that she was willing tocome back for a second call with the
community and have a really powerfuldiscussion on collective liberation.
So you can find the recording of thefull discussion in the guest call library
and Embracing Intensity membership.
Link in the show notes and you cancontinue the discussion in the Embracing
(02:26):
Intensity community at community.
dot embracing intensity.com.
I am diving into my last summerbefore going back full-time
as a school psych in the fall.
So you'll probably see a little bitless content coming from me, but I
am working on some behind the scenesrestructuring of my membership and
(02:48):
other tools to help move forward.
And so keep your eye out forthat and keep joining us in the
embracing Intensity community.
Enjoy.
Welcome everyone.
I'm so thrilled to have CarolineSumlin join us, author of We'll All
(03:08):
Be Free, and I got the opportunityto interview her earlier in the
year, and I'm so glad to have you.
Welcome.
Oh, thank you for having me.
I appreciate
it.
Before we get started, I love tohave people introduce themselves.
Glad to see all of you.
Welcome Caroline.
I'd love to have you introduce yourselfand share a little bit about your
(03:30):
work and then I'm gonna open up thechat for q and a. So if you guys have
any specific questions that come upfeel free to put them in the chat.
And then I also have a fewhere to get us started.
So welcome.
Yes.
Thank you all for having me today.
It's really lovely to meet all of you.
I am Caroline j Sumlin.
I'm an author and speaker.
I also am a homeschool parent.
I am in the Washington DCmetropolitan area, but I'm
(03:53):
originally from Minneapolis St. Paul.
My work is centered on liberation,specifically from white supremacy culture.
And the angle that I take with that isactually how white supremacy culture or
our dominant societal culture impacts theway that we see ourselves, our self-worth,
and the messages that society has beenfeeding us all of our lives that come
(04:14):
from systemic oppression and systemicwhite supremacy that essentially caused
all to feel as though we are not worthyenough or we have to constantly be
chasing standards that were essentiallydictated by, who has placed themselves
at the top of our racial and socialand economic hierarchy in society.
So, that is what my book is about.
It's called, we'll All Be Free, how aCulture of White Supremacy Devalues Us
(04:35):
and How We can Reclaim Our True Worth.
And it's essentially a guide helping younavigate how you have been impacted by
white supremacy, understanding the historyand how the culture was developed as well
as how you can essentially break free fromand unlearn those standards, those norms
that we've all been conditioned to believeand how you can live a life of freedom and
(04:57):
kind of come home to who you truly are.
So that is my work in a nutshell.
Other than that, I'm, chasing afteran eight and a 6-year-old in some way,
shape or form, or I'm on the tenniscourt playing tennis for drinking coffee.
That's me.
Awesome.
And I've really appreciated your work bothboth on social media and in your book.
Which I finished actually on my tripto the A DHD conference in the fall.
(05:22):
Oh wow.
So then I finally reached out to you afterthat which was really awesome to have you.
So, if you guys have specificquestions, you can put them in the chat.
I would love to hear them.
And I'm gonna start with a few here, butI'll prioritize the ones from the audience
if you guys put anything in the chat.
So, I'm gonna start out with a questionbecause this is definitely relevant to me.
(05:44):
And that is, why do you think it'sessential for us all to understand
how white supremacy cultureaffects everyone and not just those
who are marginalized the most?
I love this question so much because Ithink this is one of the biggest ways
that we as a society, like to divide orlike to disassociate or feel as though
that it has nothing to do with me orfeel defensive in nature when we talk
(06:08):
about something like white supremacy.
In fact, I am before I got on this call,I was looking at some comments from a post
that I posted on threads and there's, itwas talking about urgency, which is one of
those characteristics of white supremacyand a lot of people are right, you
know, understand what I'm talking about.
Then of course there's always those peoplethat are like, sure, bring race into it.
Yeah, this, yeah, I guess thismakes me racist, or I guess it
(06:29):
makes me a white supremacist.
That's usually what you kind of hearwhen you talk about white supremacy
because there's this idea, this feelingthat it's an attack on white people or
the existence of whiteness or it's notsomething that has to do with you if you
do not identify as a marginalized person.
Or navigate our societyin a marginalized body.
(06:52):
But it is so essential that weunderstand that there's no us and
them when it comes to white supremacy.
When it comes to a system of oppression,though the system of oppression was
designed to harm the most marginalized,it does not mean if you are someone that
doesn't exist in a marginalized body oras marginalized of a body, so to speak,
(07:14):
because there's obviously a range of that.
As somebody else or who this assumewas intended to harm, that does not
mean you are exempt from that harm.
Anything that harms.
You know, in a collective, whenone person is harmed, one person is
marginalized, when one person, or asmall group of people or what have you
are suffering, then that suffering isgoing to trickle and affect everybody.
(07:37):
There's no way that anybody canlive in freedom or live in true
liberation when there is somebodythat is not living in liberation.
This is gonna be an interesting, maybeweird analogy that no one will maybe
understand, but I'm gonna try anyway.
So, I'm in a sorority and when I waspledging my sorority in college, we
were taught a lot about, 'cause whenyou pledge the sorority that I'm in, you
(07:59):
have what's called a line and there's,a certain amount of girls on the line.
And so the girls that are onthe line are your line sisters.
That's like we were taught,like this is your unit.
When one sister is notwell, your line is not well.
You have to come together and you haveto do what you can to bring that sister
(08:19):
back up and help her become her best self.
When one of you is impacted,you are all impacted.
You are your sister's keeper, right?
In our society, it's the same way We havebeen taught that individualistically, we
should all just be focused on ourselves.
And if it doesn't impactme, then it doesn't matter.
And if somebody else is marginalized,that's their problem, or what we're
(08:40):
really taught is, well, you'reprobably just not working hard enough.
You're probably just not doing enough.
If you are suffering from X,Y, and Z, we're taught that,
Hey, that's a you problem.
You probably brought that on yourself.
Maybe it's your own culture.
Maybe it's your people.
Maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
You need to fix that yourself.
And that's done on purpose to essentiallytry to prevent us from seeing that
it's a collective problem and alsoprevent us from seeing that even in
(09:04):
a place of privilege, you can stillbe harmed by this system because
once you realize you're harmed by it,then you want to dismantle it, right?
Once you realize that there's a systemout there that is harming you too,
you want to do something about it.
The other analogy I like to makeis like, and this is an unfortunate
one to make, but say for example,the issue of cancer, right?
(09:26):
So if somebody is diagnosed with cancer,then all of a sudden they're the ones that
are like, well, I'm gonna show up now.
I've, beat cancer.
I'm gonna be at the marathons.
I'm gonna be at those races.
I really care about this research.
Like this is so important to me.
If someone was never diagnosedwith cancer, they may.
Like, I always get sympathy and empathymixed up, but they may sympathize.
Like they may be like,okay, yeah, that matters.
You know, I care a little bit.
(09:47):
I might donate some money here and there.
I might, cheer somebody on.
But then all of a sudden, once ithits you and somebody that you love
or impacts you personally, all of asudden you start to realize and your
eyes get open to everything in that'swrong with that particular problem.
Now all of a sudden youare ready to fight too.
Well, our society exists in such a waywhere if it can keep most of us from
(10:10):
realizing that we are being harmed bythe way the system is run, by the way
our society is operated, then mostof us aren't gonna try to fight back.
So once we realize that we are harmed,more of us are gonna try to fight back,
and then the system can't stand a chance.
So I hope that answers the question,but it's so essential because
number one, none of us are freeuntil the least of these are free.
(10:30):
But also, number two, when you realizeyou are being harmed from a system.
No matter whether you are marginalizedor not, now all of a sudden we all
have a collective understandingthat because it's harming all of us,
we have to do something about it.
And there's no if, ands, or buts aboutit, once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Then you realize somethingneeds to be done.
It's no longer something you cansit back and say, oh, well, sucks
(10:52):
for them, but at least I'm fine.
That's what they want us to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I always think of the canary inthe coal mine kind of theory where
people, you know, maybe feel itfirst, but it's bad for everyone.
Right.
And you had mentioned the urgencypiece as being part of that system and
(11:12):
it made me think of one of the thingsespecially with A DHD, but a lot of
neurodivergence have difficulty withkind of getting themselves motivated.
And it just reminded me of one ofthe things that motivates A DHD is
that urgency and without urgency,sometimes we get nothing done.
And it just made melook up that real quick.
There's a there's a acronym,INCUP, which is interest, novelty,
(11:36):
challenge, urgency, and passion.
Those are kind of the areas that helpmotivate folks with A DHD and often
other executive functioning concerns.
But I guess that just kind of broughtmy question to if you have any thoughts
around what are some ways that havehelped to motivate you outside of that
concept of urgency, for motivation?
(11:59):
Well, I think the first thing tounderstand is that urgency when it's
being weaponized in white supremacy isdifferent from like an urgency say, my
doctor's appointment is at 10 o'clock,I need to be there at 10 o'clock.
Right?
Like there's a difference there.
When we talk about urgency in the waythat it's weaponized, it's more so this
idea that if you are not constantlymoving or constantly feeling as though
(12:23):
you need to be, essentially treatinglife as if it's a rat race, then you're
falling behind, then you are failing.
So we get these ideas in our headthat we're all competing against each
other and I have to be ahead of youin order to be worthy, in order to
be successful, in order to be seen.
So I do essentially, whatever I canto knock you out of the way, focusing
(12:46):
on myself, individualism in an urgentsense because I must be running
out of time or I must be wrong.
I must not be doing somethingcorrectly if I'm not on the timeline
that society says I should be on.
It can also be weaponized in certainorganizational or institutionalized
settings when you think about theworkplace or what have you, because
(13:07):
it can be used to make you feel asthough you are less than If you say
cannot produce at this rush timelinethan what may be asked of you.
Essentially trying torip your humanity away.
The more that you operate like some typeof robot that's just literally rushing
(13:27):
to get things done the better it ties.
Along with that quantity over quality,which is another characteristic where
it's like, you know, we just want more.
We don't care if it's done well.
We want mass produced.
We want you to do as much as possibleis what looks more productive or
what looks more worthy in society.
We're taught that.
Like, when I think about when I was incollege and the idea was that the longer,
(13:52):
the more beefed up your resume was becauseyou were doing 17 organizations, right?
Stretching yourself thin and constantly,like on a hamster wheel of being involved
in everything and then of course, notto mention it wasn't enough just to be
involved, but you had to be a chair.
You had to be a president,you had to be on the e-board.
The more you did.
The better you looked, thebetter you were presented, the
(14:15):
better you were, what have you.
Instead of being able to say, I cando these one or two things really,
really well and I'm gonna producethe best quality in this work that
I'm doing and be able to do it ata pace that allows me to do that.
Right.
So I just wanna make sure that weunderstand that when we're saying these
different characteristics, it's notthe isolated characteristic itself.
(14:36):
It's not that urgency ingeneral is never necessary.
And for people that are neurodivergent,if you have to kind of create your
own urgency for certain things andyou have strategies and tasks that
you can do to help you navigate that,that's not conflicting with how you see
yourself, but it's more so a strategythat you're using, then that's great.
But systemically and culturally,the idea that everything has
(15:00):
to be urgent and right now.
Even like, and we see it everywhere.
It's normalized.
So think of, if you're ever like onsocial media or something like that,
or you're watching whatever, andyou get a message about like, it's
March, you gotta get summer ready.
It's just five weekstill summer or whatever.
Like the idea that you have tobe racing to prepare for a season
(15:21):
and you have to get ahead andyou have to ramp up your routine.
That's how that can be weaponized.
And if you are not, you're behind.
And if your body doesn't look likethis or you're not ahead of your goals.
Another way urgency would presentitself was like back in October,
people were starting their winter arcs.
It was like, oh, get aheadstart on your goals.
(15:41):
Now imagine what happens when January1st comes and you're ahead of your goals
and you're ahead of everybody else.
Why?
We're people, what are wecompeting with each other for?
On social media?
And it's not just social media.
That's how it presents itself.
Now, these things have alwaysexisted in our society and culture.
They just morph over time with the trends.
But we see more of it on social media now.
(16:02):
So just using that for example, likewhat's actually the point of competing
in a sense of urgency to be able tosay, come January 1st, look at me.
I am two months aheadof my goals than you.
So you see what I'm saying?
That's the urgency part.
So I know your question is like, howdo you navigate things without the
(16:24):
urgency, if it's a tool that you'reusing for neurodivergence and you
know you can use that in a way thatis beneficial to you, then great.
But separate that from the idea that youneed to be constantly moving urgently.
To be ahead of something.
I know for me, my neurodivergence, thereare days where I am able to use urgency
(16:49):
to my advantage and then there are dayswhere I know I have to be slower and take
things a lot more slowly to be productive.
And I allow my body to dictate what thatlooks like for me on a day-to-day basis.
But obviously I can't speak to whatthat will look like for everybody.
'cause Neurodivergence is so complex.
(17:10):
Absolutely.
And I think that brings to mind thatfor me there's a difference between
people pleasing and doing things ormaking commitments to other people
that are things I already wanna do.
So like I can use others to motivateme to do the things I want to do.
Not necessarily to do the things becauseof the other people, but if I make a
(17:31):
commitment to do the things I wantedto do anyway, then that helps use that
tendency to care about what other peoplethink, to help motivate myself to do
something that I already wanted to do.
So I'm not doing it because theywant me to, but it does help me
to do it because I said I would.
So, mm-hmm.
I see that.
And I see you have a great question inthe chat on the neurodivergent thing.
(17:54):
I'd like to circle back to thatwhen we get to the discussion.
'cause I think you canprobably speak more to that.
I have a couple more questions andif you guys have specific questions
feel free to put 'em in the chat.
But we'll do a couple more questions andthen we'll open it up for discussion.
So, I did wanna to ask your thoughtson finding that balance between calling
people in and also connecting with theirhumanity and keeping your own peace.
(18:18):
Yeah.
I love this question because Ido think nowadays we do tend to
kind of use protecting our peaceas a crutch sometimes, right?
And that a lot of peopledon't wanna hear that.
'cause we kind of are like in a time, andI know there's multiple generations on
this call, but right now we're at a timewhere it's like, well, if it bothers me or
(18:41):
makes me uncomfortable or messes with theway I'm feeling like it's a no for me and
I'm just gonna completely tune that out.
Right?
And that does come with some privilege.
I'm not saying that there isnever like time to do that.
I definitely have times where I checkin with my body and if I really feel a
strain in my mental health, in my anxiety,I feel as though if I see one more news
(19:05):
headline, it's going to have a very
concerning effect onme, then that's my cue.
We need some space.
Let me take a day or two to protectmy peace, so to speak, because we
never want to get to a point where weare essentially martyring ourselves
(19:30):
and for the sake of, to say that wenever gave in or never gave up, or we
were super social justice warriors.
Something like that, which Ido see people doing that too.
Right?
I see the other side of that where it'slike never, ever, ever taking a break
or allowing yourself to have those veryreal human needs, and that's not safe.
(19:54):
So if you feel yourself, yourmind, your body telling you, hey.
You're not safe right now,then absolutely follow that.
Right.
But also understand too thatthings that are hard and
uncomfortable are not impossible.
(20:14):
Okay.
And the way that we're able tonavigate the things that are hard
and uncomfortable are when our basichuman needs, our fundamental human
needs, are the most taken care of.
So I always tell people that allowingyourself to be called in or tuning
into the activism and, the liberationwork and being present in that doesn't
(20:38):
negate the fact that you are a human.
And the fact that you do have human needs.
It is that cliche where you still haveto fill yourself up before you can pour.
So no one's saying also negatesleep, negate needs, negate eating,
negate joy, negate those things.
If you aren't filling your life withyour human needs and not just eat, sleep,
(21:03):
air, you know, water, but actual joyand I forget what the other ones are,
but like, you know, you think aboutthe the Maslow's hierarchy, right?
Make sure that you are taking care of themental, the emotional and the physical
needs, and still ensuring that there's asmuch joy present in your life as possible.
Still ensuring that family ispresent, still ensuring that you're
(21:24):
getting the physical touch from yourloved ones, et cetera, et cetera.
'cause when you do have that, then youhave the capacity to be able to tap in.
I know, like, I do my best work andthis work is taxing, it's daunting.
It's the constant need to be on in this.
Space and be present and reading allthese headlines and reading all these
opinions and offering something.
(21:46):
If I'm spent, I have nothing to offerand that doesn't do anyone any good.
So I still have to make surethat I am taken care of in
all of the things I'm getting.
My exercise, I'm sleeping.
I don't touch the work until thephysical part is being cared for.
So I have the capacity to endure theuncomfortable to endure, the difficult to
(22:06):
endure the emotions that come with that.
But I also recognize too thatyeah, there's absolutely needs for
timeouts and sometimes that's two,three days and that's okay too.
Absolutely.
I'm gonna do a couple more questions andthen we're gonna open up for discussion.
So, let's see.
It sounds like you're saying the socialhierarchies we live in don't serve anyone.
(22:26):
And white supremacy is one of thosehierarchies, but you're saying
that white supremacy is the singleoverarching hierarchy over all the
others, capitalism, gender, et cetera.
If so, how does that work?
Well, you wrote my book for me.
It sounds like you wrote it.
Yeah.
(22:46):
That's essentially what I'm saying.
And I will say this, thereare different takes on this.
Some people believe it is capitalismthat is the overarching one.
And white supremacy exists as a systemof oppression under that umbrella.
I see it differently.
I see white supremacy as the umbrella.
I've used both metaphors.
I use the umbrella metaphor, andthen I also use like the foundation
(23:07):
of like a house metaphor, right?
Like you build your foundation andthen you have the pillars and things
like that come up in the home to createthe entire house, but it doesn't stand
or function without the foundation.
I use both metaphors.
And the reason why I say that is because,so, okay, a couple things, I wanna make
sure I answer the question without goingoff on rabbit trails and there's several
(23:30):
of them in my book that'll also help you.
But when you actually look atthe history, right, and it's hard
to find a starting point in the
cultivation of what becomesour modern society, right?
And it is one of those thingswhere it's like what came
(23:53):
first, the chicken or the egg.
Because we got to where we are because ofa group of people who saw themselves in
one way as better than for many reasons.
A lot of them are rooted in religion.
And a lot of the belief then was thatbecause we are Christian and there's
(24:20):
Catholicism and Protestantism, andPuritanism, all that kind of in there.
But because we are Christian andbecause our skin is lighter and
because in the Bible it says that.
Light is holy.
That must mean we are like, they kind ofrationalized like we should be the ones
with access and dominion over the earth.
(24:43):
And literally believed like, becausewe are Christian, if anybody else
out there is not Christian orother cultures or other religions.
And there was kind of seen as likeheathenism that we have the authority
that God gave us the authority to takewhat should rightfully belong to us.
And what should rightfully belongto us is the riches and the money.
(25:08):
And the wealth, beginning withway back when would've been spices
and herbs and, other things thatwould've been seen as valuable.
Right?
And so when you begin with, i'm tryingto see, like I'll start with, when the
Portuguese kind of like, were some ofthe first to come down into Africa and
kind of see like, oh, they've got thingsthat I wish we had, we should have that.
(25:29):
Like it should belong to us.
That's kind of some of the beginningsof like, hey, this is a heathenistic.
They have gold, they have this, theyhave that, that should belong to us.
They're less than we are.
They're dark, they're lots of other namesthat they would use that are in my book.
I'm trying to kind of speak lightly here.
(25:50):
So let's begin this process ofcapturing these people and starting
this whole enslavement in slave trade.
And so racism was essentiallycreated before race.
The idea that they are less than we are.
And then let's come up with a systemthat ensures that is legal, essentially.
(26:13):
And that's where race came out of that.
So capitalism from what we cansee historically, really begins to
develop in America specifically.
And I'm not saying capitalism neverexisted before America, but what we
know is our modern day capitalism,the capitalism that we still model
in our world today, in Americaspecifically, or the western hemisphere,
(26:36):
'cause that includes Canada as well.
Like very much began on the, plantation.
And that started the model of the bigbusiness and, you know, using humans as
property and, as a monetary value andthe way that our industry was essentially
like modeled on the plantation first.
Like the way the actual plantation ran,translated into the what is it called?
(26:59):
The industrial revolution, likethat essentially morphed into
the industrial revolution and howthe industrial revolution came
about and how that model worked.
That was essentially the plantation justkind of moving into a new setting, right?
And so it just kind of morphed from there.
So when I look at why believe whitesupremacy is the overarching one
is because I see that capitalismin modern day capitalism came from
(27:24):
essentially trying to create whitesupremacy and trying to ensure that
there was always that hierarchythat nothing could break that.
And how do you do that?
You ensure that the people with thesuperiority, essentially elite white
men, the wealthy white men, theyhave to hang on to all the wealth.
And therefore we have to makesure capitalism makes that happen.
(27:45):
Right?
And that's what we see to this day.
We see the wealth hierarchy.
So that's where when I was doingmy research, I wrote my book
to demonstrate that belief thatcapitalism fuels white supremacy.
The way that I actually say in mybook is that it's literally the engine
that keeps white supremacy running.
When you talk about all of theother systems of oppression.
(28:05):
So now we're getting into gender,we're getting into ableism,
we're getting into heterosexism,we're getting into fat phobia.
We're getting into allof these things, right?
When you look at what was considered thepurest and the holiest of a person, right?
You look at that being theelite white man, right?
(28:27):
So there's like a, like awheel of identities, right?
And in the center of itis the elite white man.
And then on the outer end it basically,you can kind of see like where would
you kind of fall within the wheel.
And the closer you are to thecenter is the most privileged.
So that would be the elite white man.
And then it kind of goes out from there.
So, lemme put it this way.
Like a black man wasstill a black man, right?
(28:51):
Somebody who was.
Not white.
A white woman stillnot a white man, right?
So if gender had nothing to dowith white supremacy, then there
would've been equality in that arena.
But there still had to be a wayto keep people in their place.
(29:11):
So there's still a hierarchy there.
And even though yes, if you're awhite woman, you sit on a higher
level of that privileged ladder orthat hierarchy than say a black woman
or say, a black trans woman like
you can see how that, plays out.
But at the same time, white mencannot keep their power if they
(29:33):
have a white woman existing atthe same level of power as them.
So there still had to be systems thatwere created to ensure that even a
white woman was kept in her place.
And from there all of theseother systems are born right?
You even see like the way I look atableism, if the elite white, and then
(29:55):
you gotta add Christian too, right?
Christian man is thedefinition of the standard.
And so if you existed in a body that isconsidered to be disabled, then you might
as well have not been white at that point.
There must be something wrong with you.
And so therefore you are essentiallythe, you can't sit with us type of idea.
(30:17):
And I hope that explains it.
I feel like I write about it a littlebit better in my book, but, that is
the way that my research at leastsupports that white supremacy was
the foundation or the umbrella thatthen allowed these other systems of
oppression to form and take place.
But they all continue touphold white supremacy.
(30:38):
They work to make sure that whitesupremacy is able to stand strong.
Absolutely.
And I would also say too, that itcreates a situation where like poor
white folks are, if you're creating thatdivision, then they're focused on the
division rather than the people who areactually keeping them in that, you know?
(30:59):
So like it also creates somethingto distract those people.
So even white people who are at adifferent level, like financially or
whatever, who are being taken advantageof or whatever in their situations,
especially as the financial gap getswider and wider, focusing on the race
issue, creating the divisions givesthem something to focus on, or like
(31:22):
immigrants or, you know, gives themsomething to blame other than the people
who are actually keeping them, from that,
that was all done on purpose.
That tracks all the way backto indentured servitude.
Right.
It tracks back to okay, well we'vegotta find a way to create, essentially
a majority in whiteness as well.
(31:43):
Right?
Because we know historicallyspeaking, not every single European
immigrant was considered to be whitewhen our country was first being.
Developed, we don't usethe word founded around.
It was already founded.
Right?
Developed.
So, there had to be a way tokind of create a majority.
So that was the idea of like, allright, let's let them kind of like
(32:07):
into the Whiteness Club by subjectingthem to indentured servitude or other
things that are at least not as bad asenslavement or bad as displacement when
we're talking about indigenous people.
So we can still marginalize, we canstill oppress, but we can give them
some contingencies or we can give themsome conditions to make them feel as
(32:27):
though, Hey, but you still gotta legup on those other folks over there.
And then make sure that, there'sessentially created division there
too, or created tension because thenonce, like for example, once enslaved
people became free, now all of asudden that became a threat to poor
white people in their work, right?
That it wasn't a real threat.
(32:48):
It became like theybelieve that was a threat.
They're gonna come and take our jobs.
We hear that same rhetoric today.
It's not a coincidence.
All of it tracks historically.
That's how our nation was built.
So I always say to people, like, literallyeverything that we witnessed today is
not just like a, oh, that's interesting.
This just happened to be this way.
(33:08):
No, our nation was founded upon that.
It started from the idea that we haveto make sure that America specifically,
I know there's Canadians in here,but America specifically is a nation
of whiteness and a nation wherewhiteness is what holds the power.
And we will utilize whateverit takes to do that.
(33:30):
And of course I'm not as wellversed in Canadian history, but
it trickles to Canada as well.
Absolutely.
And I wanna open up for discussion,but I did wanna ask one more question,
kind of wrap up the podcast part of it.
And that is what has helped you to stayengaged in social justice work without
burning out or feeling overwhelmed?
As I mentioned before, filling yourlife with things that bring you joy.
(33:53):
Like I'm big on that.
I firmly believe that.
Joy is a birthright.
It is oftentimes something that wehave to be intentional about seeking
and creating for ourselves versuswaiting for it to happen to us.
But, even just like.
Waking up in the morning and puttingon an outfit that makes me feel
like very confident in my body.
(34:14):
Or going out and playing tennis,being intentional about getting on the
tennis court or being intentional aboutreaching out to a friend and saying,
Hey, I haven't seen you in a while.
Let's grab some coffee.
Let's check in.
Being intentional,being around people too.
And I can definitely be a hermit.
I can definitely be the kind of personthat would prefer to take the easy
route and stay in, but I know thatwhen I'm connecting with people and
(34:36):
prioritizing the human interaction,that always allows me to feel filled.
So what are the things that are going tobring you the most joy and make sure that
they are non-negotiables in your life?
Understanding that the reason why welive the way that we live, the reason
why the society, is the way that it isbecause of western colonization we are
(34:58):
in our society and western society.
That's what we're dealing with whenwe're talking about all of this stuff.
And when I was mentioning earlier, I said,I know there are cultures in societies
and, I was thinking about people of theglobal majority, people of the global
south and non-Western dominant society,cultures, countries, et cetera, that have
continued to live the way that humanitywas intended to live, which was in
community, which was in collectiveness,which was without these hierarchies
(35:22):
that exist to amass wealth and power.
Right?
So I. The western world has beenand continues to be so harmed
by, colonization, which hasgot us to where we are today.
So, you know, when you're thinkingabout rejecting another way to
look at it too is like, and thisis just talking about racism.
It's not just racism, but I'mgonna use it as an example.
(35:44):
But like, when you think about rejectingracism or being anti-racist, it's
two very different things, right?
So just saying no, likeI don't agree with that.
That can still be harmful becauseit doesn't necessarily do anything
to reverse course for the actualoppression that's happening, right?
You absolutely can use your power oruse, not your power, your privilege, too
many p words, your privilege to help.
(36:06):
Work in an anti white supremacy,anti colonization, anti-racism,
anti paternalism kind of way.
Right.
And I definitely think if you begin to,look into like what it looks like to
actually deprogram and decondition and youmay feel like because you haven't seen it
that way because of your neurodivergence,that you may not have that
(36:28):
conditioning, but it's still in there.
It's just going to presentdifferently in you.
So figuring out the way that it'spresenting in you, figuring out
how, you know, the normalizationof our colonized society.
And why people think the waythey think and why this exists
the way that exists, and thenworking to kind of deprogram that.
I think that is gonna be a goodstart for you in answering what it
(36:49):
would look like for you to then useyour privilege in a way that helps
be anti versus just a rejection.
Does that make sense?
And I wanted to add that that Dr.Kimberly Douglas had to leave, but she
does a lot of work around DecolonizingNeurodivergence specifically.
So she's a great resource on that.
Thank you guys for sticking around.
(37:10):
I know we're a little bit overtime it's the nature of our
neurodivergent conversations.
We get so into it.
But I do wanna have a fewmoments to let Caroline wrap up.
I did wanna say in terms of my ownexperience, and I'm not speaking as
myself as an example, but just what I haveconsciously done with my community, which
(37:30):
is that I try not to speak for anyone.
I try to.
Offer my platform to let otherpeople speak for themselves.
But I also have made a verydeliberate effort to have folks who
can speak to different perspectivesthan I personally can share.
So that's kind of beenmy approach on that.
So, do you have any finalthoughts you would like to share
(37:53):
in wrapping up our conversation?
Thank you so much again.
This was so great.
Well first, just wanna thank youall for allowing me into your space.
I can tell this group is just powerful andbeautiful and even just seeing the amount
of conversation happening in the chat inaddition to what we were talking about.
I love how tuned in you all are with eachother and just the embracing of who you
(38:16):
were born to be, who you're created tobe, the way your mind works, everything.
Because that's something that Istruggle with to this day and finding
people that embrace the way that mymind works, which is not typical.
It's, I mean, also neurodivergenthas been a struggle for me.
So I just love to be in communitiesthat it's just so embraced and, yeah,
(38:37):
I just wanted to actually extend my,like, you know, Aurora, your community's
beautiful and you allowing me here.
'Cause it's such a sacred space andI, feel honored that I was allowed to
be here to speak with you all today.
So thank you.
I hope that you were able to receivesomething from the conversation.
Or that if you choose to pick up the bookthat you're able to receive something.
You know, my work is, I choose to look atthe worthiness piece and tie worthiness
(39:01):
into this because it's not reallysomething that's very much talked about.
But I deeply believe that everysingle one of us is impacted by this.
That our self-worth is impactedby these systems and structures
and the culture that we live in.
And we don't realize just how much.
And I think, you know, once yourealize just how much your worth has
been impacted by something that wasmade up for very inhumane reasons.
(39:25):
It really changes the way you're able tosee yourself and your neighbor and your
community and the people around you.
And that's really where the power lies.
Like how are we seeing ourselves?
How are we seeing our neighbors?
How are we treating each other?
I hope that you're able to walk awaywith something that just helps you
see yourself in a new light that's,yeah, I guess that's my spiel.
Of course, you know, if you have anyquestions for me or you would like to
(39:47):
get in contact with me, I will leavemy contact information with Aurora.
I'm on Instagram.
I also have a website.
You can send a contact form,or my email is fine too.
I'd love to chat with anybody furtherif you would like that or you need
that support or something like that.
But yeah, just thank you for havingme and I appreciate being here.
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad that you were able to joinus and I highly recommend you go out and
(40:11):
read her book if you haven't already.
And follow her Instagram.
It's always very inspirational.
Thank
you so much.
(40:34):
Looking for ways toembrace your own intensity.
Join our embracing intensitycommunity@embracingintensity.com where
you'll meet a growing group of like-mindedpeople who get what it's like to be gifted
and intense and are committed to creatinga supportive community as well as access
to our courses and tools to help youuse your fire without getting burned.
(40:57):
There's also a pay what you canoption through our Patreon where
you can increase your pledgeto help sustain the podcast or.
Or join us at a rate thatbetter fits your needs.
You can also sign up for my freeHarnessing the Power of Your
Intensity, a self regulationworkbook for gifted, creative, and
twice exceptional adults and teens.
(41:18):
All links can be found in the shownotes or on EmbracingIntensity.
com.
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