January 9, 2025 • 49 mins
In this thought-provoking episode of the Stuck In My Mind Podcast, host Wize El Jefe dives deeply into a critical and dynamic conversation with JD Mass, an activist, author, and organizational psychologist whose work centers around racial healing and unity. The episode, titled "Charting a Course Toward Healing: JD Mass Discusses Race for What," unveils JD's insightful perspectives drawn from his own life experiences and professional journey.
JD Mass opens up about his formative years, having grown up as a minority in a predominantly Black community—an intentional choice by his parents aimed at fostering empathy and understanding racial disparities. These early experiences, alongside encounters with systemic racism, particularly in law enforcement and retail, kindled his passion for activism and ignited his commitment to anti-racism work. JD delves into his time at Ohio State University, sharing anecdotes about interacting with diverse groups and navigating the complex reality of code-switching in a racially stratified society.
Central to the discussion is JD's book, "Race for What?" and his philosophy that understanding and empathy are more effective than confrontation in battling racism. He challenges listeners to reconsider ingrained beliefs by bringing discomfort to their own biases, emphasizing the importance of addressing historical contexts like segregation and the obliteration of Black Wall Street. JD argues that the fight for racial unity has faced resistance but notes the promising shift in younger generations forming diverse friendships.
JD expresses optimism about the potential transformative power of blockchain technology and criticizes the conventional financial systems, highlighting how they are often bolstered by military force. He promotes his website, raceforwhat.com, where audiences can explore his book “7 Steps to Healing,” aimed at tackling anti-racism through healing and understanding. Also in development is a course with the Anti-Racism Academy, and plans for a Race For What comedy tour, designed to blend humor with serious conversations about race.
The episode also explores JD's critique of the education system, expressing a dire need for curricula that nurture creativity and holistic life skills rather than merely supporting existing frameworks. Host Wize El Jefe echoes these sentiments, lamenting the removal of arts from schools and emphasizing the importance of diverse cultural perspectives.
A prominent theme in JD’s discourse is the unfortunate societal conditioning into stereotypes and prejudices, likening society’s fascination with prestige and luxury to magic tricks that distract from life’s meaningful experiences. He advocates for societal systems that prioritize love and empathy over material wealth and competition, calling for a shift from competition to genuine curiosity and mutual learning among America's diverse populace.
The episode also ventures into JD’s insights on balancing entrepreneurial endeavors with activism, underscoring the importance of personal joy, natural connections, and the critiques of an artificial scarcity mindset. JD, reflecting on his experiences working with Nelly, highlights lessons around "white saviorism," competition, and creativity—and recognizes privilege and systemic inequalities through personal anecdotes.
With vulnerability, JD acknowledges missteps in addressing racial issues and stresses the importance of accountability and continuous learning, particularly highlighted through his interaction with the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. This community embraced holistic health and humanity-first ideologies, contrasting sharply with colonized cultural norms, and ultimately shaped JD’s understanding of cultural dynamics and his development of 7 reparative steps focused on healing and psychological transformation.
Throughout the episode, JD maintains a hopeful resilience, drawing from historical cyc
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Episode Transcript
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(00:42):
And welcome to another episode of stuck in my mind podcast. I am your host,
w I z e, and my next guest is a renowned
activist, author, and organizational psychologist
who has dedicated his life to fostering healing and unity among
people of diverse racial backgrounds. Welcome to the
show, JD Miles. Thank you for having
(01:04):
me. Pleasure's all mine, man. I'm I'm excited to talk to you. And,
Likewise. I love the name of the podcast. Thank you. Thank you.
Alright. So let let's just jump right into it. What was what was it like
growing up in in a predominantly black community, and and how did that shape
your perspective on racism? Alright. So,
(01:25):
the truthfully, my parents purposely wanted to raise
me in and around black community. Right? And the area that they
chose in St. Louis was literally the next door municipality
to where they grew up in a predominantly wealthier white
neighborhood. However, this neighborhood
actually was 5050, but the school system itself
(01:48):
was predominantly black, especially outside of 2
elementary schools, which had a much more mixed,
ratio. And so as we got into high school, you know, it
was 93% black, which the the cover
of my book is my high school prom picture in which I'm
pretty much the most identical identifiable face from
(02:10):
afar. Right? And, and so
having black friends, we moved next door when I was 4 years old
to my best friend's family. It was grandmother and grandpa. It was
aunts and uncles and mom in the house. You know? So
got that full big mama's house kind of experience.
And because of them, I met more black friends. And because of that, I went
(02:33):
into their you know, to meet their cousins into communities
of North St. Louis, which is a predominantly black,
area. And so doing
that, though, I got to experience a
very welcoming feeling. I got to experience a lot of fun.
I got talked about because not only am I of much
(02:55):
lighter skin, but I'm a also 5 3 and a half, and I
need that half inch to round up to 54. And
so, you know, you get talked about and you get kind of acclimated to the
system. And so early on, I'm crying a lot. And as I
got more into middle school and high school, I was much more,
part of that culture and like to talk trash myself.
(03:18):
But I did get to experience the difference in how I was
treated, whether it was by the police, by, you know,
store people that were in stores, and retail
outlets, by, you know, my family's
community or even in my family when my friends
were around and when my friends were not around. And I got to see
(03:40):
how they were affected by system
decisions and really got to experience all of
that that a lot of white folks just don't get a chance to
experience. And so our even those of us
that have those black friends that we love to brag about, They're
black friends that meet us at Starbucks and at Whole
(04:02):
Foods and, you know, in in our work setting and
go to a to a baseball game together or things of that
nature, but don't realize we're they're we're experiencing them
in our white world. We're not going into their community and
really getting a feel for how they, you know,
interact in that setting. Okay. So
(04:25):
so so how did your upbringing influence your decision to to
pursue activism and and and and I and antiracism
work? So, truthfully, as I started
to experience, especially from the police standpoint and the retail
outlets, Right? I got a story in my book where I
talk about the police stopping me when I was a child walking
(04:47):
through Clayton where my parents grew up, in Saint Louis,
and my friends and I walking through there. And at 10 to 12 years
old, I had never been given the talk, and we
get stopped and told that they're searching for, you know,
suspicious people because there was a burglary and all of this, that, and the other.
And they held us for so long. Eventually, I broke down and said, well, what
(05:10):
if we help you? And my friends went, no. We won't. Right? And
so I got the talk from them on the way
home that, no. They're not our friends. No.
They don't look to they're not here to care for us.
They're actually here to sort of punish us as a part
of the system, so you gotta watch yourself. And then I
(05:31):
got to experience taking, returning, and and
exchanging merchandise at retail outlets
that my friends were turned down from, and I would grab it in the
parking lot and return the item immediately
to the same exact person within 10 minutes and
get the item. No questions asked, exchanged.
(05:53):
No problem. And I saw, like, this power dynamic that I was
that I had, and it just made me wanna really understand why
does racism exist. So beyond just the
fighting of it and that's wrong and this is what it is and that isn't
racist and that is racist and all of that, I wanted to know why we
developed such a culture of this. And then I started to
(06:15):
really realize, like, there's more than just the racism
part of our culture. There's a real difference in our approach to
life and how we wanna as white
culture, we wanna make life work for us that gives us
this advantage. And as black culture
and other indigenous cultures and aboriginal culture, it's more about, okay,
(06:38):
how does the earth work? How does life work? How can I be part of
it? Let's enjoy this. Let's share this. Let's, you know, be
much more collective. And where we've be been much more
individualistic in our approach, and how do we
make this fit for us so we become more controlling and then
and as part of our culture. And so I've been going
(06:59):
through that psychology of how does this, how did it start,
why do we behave this way, is it really that we're
that different or evil, or did something happen that shifted
us in this direction and we've been justifying it ever since?
Okay. So, what inspired you to
write race for what? And and what message do you hope readers take
(07:23):
away from it? So what inspired me was
seeing, so I I was put on a path. I met my
son's mom when he was 6 years old. He is now about to
be 21. And she being
a black woman that was very much into the
(07:44):
community in Los Angeles and to, you know, go in and speaking in
prison. So she was very, enrooted in this fight
for justice and whatnot and equality.
She told me it's great that you know what you know, and it's great that
you love us the way you do. But if you really wanna help us, go
over there and fix your people. And I didn't wanna hear
(08:06):
that. I didn't wanna be around white folks
any more than she did at that time. And so I
heard about this community called, white people for black
lives in LA. And then I was in this doctorate
program, and there were these, you know, quote, unquote, good white folks
that really wanted to make a difference. And what I
(08:28):
realized is you wanna make a difference and you know nothing
other than white culture. And because of that, it's
you're you don't know who you're supposed to be making
a difference in their lives for, and you don't even know how to appreciate and
value them as humans either and what
they're going through and what they really want out of this struggle and what they
(08:51):
want in this change. And so in that, I
started to get involved and realized I'm almost, like,
as a doctorate, talking to a 5th grader or, you know,
a kindergartner at times. There would peep people that would join White People For
Black Lives, and they had just realized that they have a
privilege that their black, you know, coworker doesn't
(09:13):
have because their black coworker was worried about coming you
know, being pulled over by the police on the way to work with, you
know, some tags outdated for a little bit or something like
that. Right? Or they just saw, you know, about Mike Brown or
George George Floyd happened during that time that that
that I came back. But these different events that would happen that would make
(09:36):
these moments, and now they wanna go and lead the
change. And so the process that I wanna put
us through is recognizing we don't need to
lead the change. The biggest change in us is to let
go of the control. It's to let go of the power, is to let go
of the idea that we need to lead anything, and
(09:58):
we can learn the power of serving and supporting one another and
the humanity behind the healing process
so that we can live in a much more fun, enjoyable,
and humane society where we're all fed and and taken
care of and improving the quality of life.
Absolutely. What what what lessons did you
(10:21):
learn from from your time with the, African Hebrew Israelites
of Jerusalem? Okay. So,
on my on my, book cover, kneeling
next to me in our high school picture is, Nelly, the rap
artist. Right? And through him and working with
him, I met his uncle, who was part of the
(10:44):
African Hebrew Israelite community in Israel.
And I was going through a change of diet at the time.
Excuse me. And, I was becoming vegan,
leaning towards vegan. I was kind of already pescatarian at that
moment. And his uncle and I started talking
about the biblical translations of the Bible and
(11:08):
who the African Hebrew Israelite people were that actual
you know, the descendants of that actually wrote
these teachings that we and as I started to learn about it,
it just made much better sense than to think these
all these white folks, Moses and Abraham and everybody was all
these white folks that had all these great answers and
(11:30):
lived in this very hot place where we couldn't survive
with our lack of melanin in the same way. And it just
didn't make sense. Our behaviors weren't reflective of what
I was being taught in these teachings. And so when I met
the African Hebrew Israelites, I saw an intentional
community that really focused on humanity and
(11:53):
health and improving the quality of life.
And the level of intention that went into it, I didn't
even realize how much I was ill prepared for it.
Even though I had this great heart for, you know, wanting justice and
wanting to see black, you know, liberation
and reparations and all of these different things.
(12:16):
I still had only one point of view, and that is the
American way only teaches us about
colonized culture. We don't learn about any other cultures.
We don't learn about any other ways. We think this is life, and this is
only a world that we've created inside of life. And so
when I was opened my eyes up to it, I also
(12:38):
learned that I had to go through a change process, a process
of letting go. These steps that I'm asking all of us
to take are steps that I went through. You know, not
saying these are the steps you need to go through, but these are the steps
that I ended up having to take and really appreciating
the value of other cultures and really what
(13:00):
reparations and healing looks like and what the
psychological changes that need to take place to approach
life differently and how to really intentionally
create a world of humanity. And so that a lot
of my experience with them is what led me to come up with the 7
steps I did. Okay.
(13:23):
How has your your background in organizational psychology influenced
your approach to activism and community building?
So the organizational
back psychology background really taught me
how does culture develop, and that was the key kinda
(13:44):
missing component. Okay. I can see the difference. I can see the
love and the appreciation for the planet that that,
you know, Aboriginal and indigenous cultures have. I could
see the harm that we're doing in our society.
I don't still quite understand why.
And when you start looking at how environment,
(14:05):
you know,
shapes our psychological factors and our approaches
and how our emotions are determined by certain
parts of our culture, I had to take a step back and go
I finally get to answer and look at, theoretically,
why racism started. And so if you look at,
(14:28):
you know, this northern region of the world, you look at how the earth works,
There's resources that the planet provides us, these
these nutrients, the vitamins, and the minerals, and that make
up our body in the same way that it's made up in the
Earth, and the Earth provides that for us. So life already works in this
cycle. Yet in this northern
(14:51):
region where less melanated folks
occupied, we didn't have all of those
resources, so we had to go elsewhere. And we
had 2 approaches we could have taken. We could have taken 1, like,
whoo, glad these resources exist. Let's get them
back to where we are, and let's share in these.
(15:13):
Or what possibly happened is if you and
I thought that, you know, there was a limited amount of water based
on, you know, us having 2, you know,
2 cups of water and and that was all we thought that existed,
then we would develop this zero sum game. Every time I took a
sip, you would think that's a sip that you and your family
(15:35):
can't have. And so zero sum leads us to the
development of a psychology approach that we're in
competition. And, hence, we came up with
this word race because we were racing
to control these resources. Our economic,
systems are designed that there is a scarcity of
(15:59):
resources on the planet. No. There is not. There was just a scarcity
of resources in this northern region. And when
we found other places where they lived an
abundance, they were willing to share, and we still saw
this zero sum. They have the resources. We don't. Oh my
gosh. We need to take them. We need to do whatever we can to win
(16:21):
this race, whether it's manipulate, whether it's to
force, whether, you know, we brought our diseases because we
again, our bodies aren't whole due to the fact that we
don't have all of our natural elements that we need for
our bodies to be healthy. So we have diseases
that mostly started in these northern regions.
(16:44):
So our we're not connected to the planet. How could
we appreciate the planet if it's not giving us all that we
need at this time when we don't have planes and trains and automobiles
and Internet to tell us where everything is. And so we
didn't come with this idea that we could appreciate those willing
to share. We wanted to enslave them. We wanted to trick them
(17:06):
into giving us these resources and manipulate systems into
making us feel like we're more worthy than they are, and all of
these things just kept happening. And when something happens good for
ourselves, we tend to justify it. Oh my
goodness. No. That's not racist. No. It's not this. No. You could
have done that. You could have done that. Instead, hey. Someone else
(17:29):
made it through the system, and they did fine. What do you mean? Right? And
we start we play in this role of justifying it, protecting
it, denying it, trying to, you know, hoard it.
Whatever we're doing, all of these emotional development
come from that environment and are
not due to the fact that we have lack less
(17:50):
melanin in our skin directly, but indirectly because
we were in that environment, this is the culture that we shaped.
Okay. So so how do you maintain hope
and resilience when addressing such deeply rooted issues
as racism as racism? Well,
1, I just we've been waiting for it to change on its
(18:13):
own for far too long, so it doesn't change on its own. It's
it's exhausting trying to get people who have been
deceived into believing that we should be leading the the way,
that our way is the way of life, to really let
go of our privileges and power. It's exhausting to get them to
wanna share instead of hoard and control and
(18:37):
protect and all of those things. But
it's also a much more enjoyable experience to be on that
flip side, to be in a level of sharing and
and supporting, to have that happen.
And so I my hope,
and and I have to maintain the hope, is that at
(19:00):
some point, we are waking up to that. And when
you start waking up to that, the powers to be who wanna keep that
power are just gonna squeeze tighter because that's all we know.
Right? And so I think that's where we're at. We, you know,
we life operates in a cycle. We rotate around
the around the sun. We rotate each day.
(19:22):
So things are sick cyclical, spiritually and in energy
wise. At the end of this spirit
tool journey of colonialism, it's gonna be
ugly because it was always ugly. And yet there is
a opportunity to the way the planet works, when
lava comes up and out the volcano, it
(19:44):
cleans that area. That is the richest soils
for new ideas to grow. So as we go through this
explosion, yes, it's gonna potentially be
painful, and it's very scary for a lot of white folks, especially right
now, who are waking up to how horrible
this these ideas of this culture are,
(20:06):
and they're very scared about the potential. If we can
work them through the possibility that it on the other side,
instead of running from it, work through these changes,
that there's a great beauty that exists for us.
This work this earth already works. We don't have to
control it. We don't have to manipulate it. We don't have to come up with
(20:30):
genetically modified options for it. We just have
to appreciate it and be one with it and enjoy it.
What what do you believe are the biggest barriers for to fostering
unity among diverse racial groups?
(20:50):
The biggest barriers is ignorance and arrogance.
Right? Like, we don't realize how purposely we
were taught to be ignorant. Yeah. These school systems don't teach
us about any other culture. So if we don't know, then we ignore
that. Right? I I was in a college course, literally a
college course where you're supposed to be growing the minds of our
(21:13):
young adults, blossoming into adulthood. And
the teacher told us in world history, we don't have to learn about eastern
cultures. They never changed. We are the ones that are dynamic
and changing. We only need to focus on ourselves. And I went, did you
really just say that in world history with such comfort?
Right? So we taught this ignorance
(21:36):
naturally. So and then we're taught
American exceptionalism, European exceptionalism,
Greco Roman exceptionalism. We're the greatest.
We've conquered. We didn't just destroy and and
cause trauma and harm. We've conquered.
We've made ourselves look so important. So now we got this
(21:59):
arrogance with our ignorance, and you don't know what you don't know.
And you think you know because the the the news
just told you what was happening over in, you know, the black neighborhoods
and, oh, what's happening over in India and what's happening over in
these areas of Africa and all the poverty. Look at all of this
horrible stuff going on. These people don't know how to live civilized.
(22:21):
We got all of that to untangle.
The the word that I love the most that helps
me the most is the word prestige. Right?
That word was titled in a movie made about
a magic show. And when I was with the African Hebrew Israelites, we all
(22:41):
wondered, like, what the hell does prestige have to do with magic?
When you look up the origin of the meaning of the word,
conjuring tricks and creating illusions.
Harvard is prestigious. Ferrari is
prestigious. Having a very nice home and all this fancy
artwork is prestigious. Living in these areas, going to
(23:03):
these schools, all of these things are prestigious. Well, what if they're just
tricking us into wanting, into focusing on
that consumption instead of focusing on
the true enjoyable parts of life that are
connect we're connected to. So
that is the challenge, untangling all of that prestige.
(23:27):
Awesome. So so how can individuals begin to take
accountability for the harm caused by racism in their
communities? 1st step
is not to take a step and really seek some understanding.
Go and open your eyes and ears to the fact that
black people may be telling you the truth when they say this shit
(23:49):
is messed up. Excuse my language. I don't know if we can Oh, you can
test you can test me. We're not good. We can test Right.
You know, when they say that these people did this to these
cops do this, We don't get the same access to resources.
Go and experience that. So take time to
really understand and open your eyes to the fact that
(24:11):
we have limited we have been taught a limited scope about
life. I I remember this one,
social, engineer, talked about
he developed a project called the Venus Project, and he
talked about you hear people say, you
know, people are it's human nature to steal and
(24:33):
cheat and do all of these things. Right? And
in our society, we protect ourselves from those. Well, it's
we I gotta buy a gun because somebody else has a gun. I gotta protect
myself because someone's trying to steal my things. I gotta protect myself
because someone's trying to cheat. Yes. Those things
are human nature. It's also human nature to love one another. It's also
(24:56):
human nature to care for one another. It's human nature, and it
feels good to support one another and serve one another. We
could build systems around those virtues.
Yeah. But we didn't. We built systems around
this competition, which leads to heal to
cheating and to, right, and to harming somebody and
(25:18):
to wanting to battle them and all of these things and making imagine
you walk out your door and you see your enemy you see your neighbor as
your enemy instead of someone that can share with you. We're that
far away from life, but this cycle
can be broken through. So if we have the interest to just
take time to really start to dissect that, so
(25:40):
seek understanding and acknowledging so much of the harm of our
culture. That can be a big
starting place to wanting to let go of and
move forward. And that's one of the amazing things about the
podcasting community is that we
especially us independent podcasters, we we see the struggles
(26:02):
we all go through in what we're doing. And I I I have
friends that are white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, and
and and we all come together,
and and it's it's it's beautiful to be able to Right. Have
someone of of of different race be supportive
of what you're doing Yeah. And instead of putting you
(26:25):
down. When you have each other each other's back and uplift each other,
it it's nothing but it's nothing but love. And that's what I love about podcasting
is that I've been able to connect
with like minded people. Mhmm. It doesn't matter what what
race they are. It's been just they see what the struggles you
go through as a as a podcaster and and everything you've learned.
(26:47):
And and so when you start building these relationships and you start
seeing and the fact that I get to speak to people from all over the
world. Yeah. And I learned so much from different cultures
and learned about different culture hints and and what they're doing in
Taiwan or what they're doing in India or what they're doing in Australia.
Being able to have these conversations and learn that at the end of
(27:08):
the day, we all we all want the same thing. Mhmm. We all
want to be happy. We want our family to be happy. We wanna be
healthy. Safe. And, yes, and and we we all
basically want the same thing. And but,
yeah, we get blinded by what the media and all these
other outlets are putting out there saying that, oh, no. But
(27:30):
at the end of the day, we're all the same. We want the same things.
Mhmm. And that, to
me, is the greatness of America,
especially, only lies in its potential.
Right? Because there are so many cultures that have come here in one
place. It lies in that potential. If we can change our
(27:53):
approach from seeing each other as competition to what you just
talked about, curiosity. Oh my goodness. What could
I learn from something? Well, how can I gain and enrich my
life from somebody else? That experience in and of
itself, that little shift in approach, that why right
there, how I move forward. Oh, instead of
(28:16):
seeing technology as a threat to my job, what if we all
could share in this planet and technology makes it so we don't have to work
so hard, and we do get to enjoy more about each other and learning
and tasting each other's foods and and whatnot. Right? And we do
get to just learn and share in that experience
and and and serve one another and do man, it
(28:38):
the the shift, that's it's really not it's
very simple how we gotta operate in order to
really have an enjoyable life. Yeah. But challenges
either working through this cycle or
stopping the momentum of it and shifting that approach, and that's
where where we're at. And
(29:01):
these powers to be knows know that, and they are trying to
hold on and squeeze us and keep us fearful and
protective of what Divided. Yeah. What we have and divided and individualistic.
I mean, that's their goal. So Yeah. They know they can't do it
forever. What what role does education play in
creating awareness and change around
(29:24):
racial injustice? Well, learning and teaching
plays a in a in a wonderful role.
We need to learn from the earth. Mhmm. 2,
to get back to the simple, you know, and rebuild what truth
is. We need to, you know,
value learning and and some of these things that we've been
(29:47):
taught not to value anymore. We need to appreciate the value
of others. So there's learning is great.
This education system, it can it can
go. We need a very different approach. If we're
not learning that how to improve the quality of
our lives, then all of that other
(30:09):
stuff, we're just learning to support the systems that are in place.
Yeah. We're being trained. We're not being taught, and we
need an education system that teaches us and that and
inspires learning and and in creativity. Right? Creativity
and life are the same. And that's and that's a lot of things that that's
one of the things that we've we've missed. Like, they've taken they've they've
(30:31):
taken music and art and everything Of course. Out of out
of schools, and there is more programming so that you can
learn that you need to be at a 9 to 5
instead of really learning about life, instead of
learning the the the key necessities of being alive.
Right. Yep. I mean, that
(30:53):
shows us that that's one way of showing us this system is designed
without love and mind. Right? How we feed our
children, the system is designed without love and mind. How
we treat pregnant women who are going to give
birth, the system is designed without love and mind. How we
treat those who are sick, how we treat our elders,
(31:15):
all of these things, how we treat somebody who has an
accident and all of a sudden they can't pay their bills. Instead of having
a support system to help lift them up, we punish them.
And now we it's more costly to be, you know,
lower class lower economic class status than it
is to be upper. We like, come on. This system is designed
(31:37):
without love and mind, and all we have to do is just get to that
point of curiosity and just touching the grass
and seeing the trees and seeing how life works and
just it's so simple, and we can get there.
We just need that real moment for the rest of
us to figure this out. Definitely. Definitely.
(32:00):
So so how do you balance your your entrepreneurial spirit with
your passion for activism and community work?
Boy, if I could tell you that, I I wouldn't
be so doggone exhausted right now.
I'm, you know, I'm just trying to give myself grace right
now, find some level of enjoyment
(32:23):
where I can. I I really
do my best to pay attention to this to the grass
and to the trees and to life and not get caught up because sometimes
I'll ask people, when you look outside, what do you see?
Do you only see the cars and the roads and the buildings
and the, you know, advertisements and the names and all of that, or do
(32:46):
you see the trees and the grass and the flowers and
the life? Do we get mad so mad that
that doggone life just grew through our crack and
our and our concrete? But that's
life. And we that's what gives me hope too is because we can't
we're not stopping life. We're making our lives miserable right
(33:08):
now, but you're not gonna stop life from happening. We if
we can reshape that and and recognize
how left little we've been taught about it, then right
outside of where I'm living, where all the corn
and the soybeans are being grown, we could be
growing broccoli and and apples and strawberries
(33:29):
and and, you know, all kinds of wonderful things
instead of this manufactured idea
that there's not enough to share. There's so much to share,
and we could just have so much of that. And just, you know,
that part, having conversations, meeting
you gives me inspiration and and kinda gives me some
(33:53):
balance in that. Yeah. So you mentioned Nelly
earlier. What what challenges did you face
while working on on his early his early business ventures, and what did
you learn from that experience? So,
one, I learned what white saviorism
is. I was
(34:16):
raised in a way that made understanding the business climate
much easier for me. So I was given that role,
but I didn't have to do it like I know it. I know it's better
for you. I know you want me to go get that nice car.
I'm a go get a lesser car. I'm a finance it in my name. I'm
a take the money you wanted to show me love with and buy me that
(34:38):
nice car, and I'm a hire somebody else. Sure.
That might have been the better thing to do business wise, but
I did it in a way like, I got this. Don't worry about it. You
do your thing, and that didn't build trust. That was one thing
I learned. The second thing I learned is
wealthy people don't like other wealthy people either,
(35:01):
and so they're all competing. Like, at what point aren't you satisfied
with your own level of wealth that you can enjoy this planet?
So I watched as we tried to get things done in St. Louis,
these wealthy building owners downtown stop each
other from developing their building, whether it was with nightlife
or or restaurants or housing or whatever it
(35:24):
was. They'd spent so much time stopping the other
person in the idea that they were winning,
that St. Louis suffered as a city. We don't have a
vibrant downtown culture because these
people stopped that. And so I watched that. I was like, wow. This
this whole culture is about just crabs in a
(35:45):
barrel and not recognizing the barrel is not
natural to life. That's not the entire planet. It's just
a barrel. And so that's not the natural
habitat for us all as humans. So we didn't get a
whole lot of things done that way. And then you get into Hollywood
and who's controlling it and who's making all these decisions,
(36:07):
and how they're motivated by it, and how they're using analytics, and you
start to recognize, oh, analytics is just because we don't
have we're not in tuned with our natural creativity to
be the eye test and them sound test and the what's
fun and let's try this. We're trying to control and
win, so we're using analytics and everything. Oh, we
(36:29):
gotta win. We gotta win. And we're making everything in
entertainment less enjoyable because we're trying to win this as a
business instead of what entertainment really is is to
inspire creativity and be artistic and
enjoyable. All of these things is what
I've experienced. And then the last point is I
(36:51):
experienced that I've come from a place of privilege. So I can
remember a conversation early on in his career where
these white guys in that had been very
helpful to his career We're talking to him in a
way that I don't know if you remember Damon Wayans had what he
called his last stand up, and it was right
(37:14):
after, or it might have even been during
the time of, in living color. Yeah. And
his last stand up, he had a part where he goes, you know, white
people when you get rich as a black man, white people come and talk to
you differently. So now, Damon, now that you've made 1,000,000
of dollars, do you still think that there's racism in
(37:37):
America? Right? And he goes, well, no, sir.
Well, if it is, sir, my shows ain't seen none. Right?
And so that was a line that I loved. And so
I remember being in this meeting, and it just became so
obvious to me. These white guys were trying to get Nelly to do that. And
I started to say, well, Nelly, now that you've made all
(38:00):
these 1,000,000, and he looked at me like, if you don't shut the blank up
right now, that's your mission. Don't make that mine
right now. Let me continue to make some money. I
haven't gotten far enough in this. Right? And so I could remember feeling
like, oh, yeah. I then I didn't come from his background.
I came from mine. So we're not all in this at
(38:22):
the same point. I need to be more conscious of you know,
it's like when I cuss out the police, I could get away with it.
My black friends would go to jail for having a traffic warrant that they probably
wouldn't have gone to jail for had I just kept my mouth quiet even though
I thought I was doing the right thing because we were being harassed.
So it's all of those Oh, so use that white dude that'd be
(38:45):
cursing on my way. Chill, bitch. Fuck. Exactly.
Thinking that I'm doing the right thing. Whoo.
Yeah. Watching my friend drive off, calling my dad,
like, hey. Can we get him out of you know?
So yep. So so so how do you how do you
(39:06):
approach conversations about race racism with individuals
who are resistant or or defensive?
Well, I I have opened the eyes of many by
talking about this scarcity idea. I
try to I don't try to fight them. Right? Like,
(39:27):
oppose them necessarily. Sometimes I just try and find things
that we're naturally
going to agree on so we can form some level of connection,
and then they become more, uncomfortable with
their own racism. I did this at Ohio State. First time I
had white friends in in abundance in my life, I was in
(39:50):
this dorm with these white kids. We developed friendships,
and you could see that they when they
saw me interact with black folks, and they were like, wait a second. You just
interacted with us, and now you're interacting with them and the whole you you got
this whole code switching kinda thing.
The example and how I got along with them. I got
(40:13):
along with the football players. Now all these white kids wanna be
cool with the football players. Right? This is Ohio State University.
So they would see that, and now all of a
sudden, they would start to feel uncomfortable in their own approach
because they recognize I don't even I don't have the experience to
even know that what I'm feeling is true or valid.
(40:35):
I just feel it because I've been trained to feel it this way. Yeah. And
so I know that there's a lot of people that just wanna
check every time someone says something racist. No, man.
Be understanding. They were trained that way too. Not that we should let them
get away with it, but we but fighting them ain't gonna
make them go back and go, yeah. You were right. Nah. It's gonna make them
(40:57):
be like, f you. Come next time, I'm a come
with my dukes up. Right? And so if we're gonna really inspire
change, it's to get them like, hey. Well, if why do black
people, you know, kill themselves? Okay. Well, why does
what does a scarcity mentality do, and how did we create scarcity
amongst them in order to do that? And how were they behaving when we
(41:19):
weren't, when there was segregation and we and they built Black Wall Street and
all of these things, and we tore those things down? How do we do all
well, yeah, now that you put it that way. Or I'd be
afraid to go into a black community. Why? Why would you be so afraid? Because
you know who's gonna be more afraid that you make it out of there alive?
Black folks that are living in that community. Because white folks coming into their
(41:40):
community makes the police on high alert. And if something
happens to you, somebody's going down, whether there's an investigation
as to who did it and why or what.
That's more fearful, and they go, wow. You're right. Where's
your where's your proof that black folks are out to
for revenge? Right? There is none. Oh,
(42:03):
wow. You're right. Okay. So some of these things that you are feeling
are just trained in you, and you don't well, I don't have to
attack you to get you to start to open up to those things.
Okay. What what do you envision for the
future of of racial unity, and how can we all
(42:23):
play a part in making it a reality?
So I think the economics or
social systems swing, just like an emotion
does on a pendulum. And right now,
after George Floyd and it looked like we were really coming together,
there has been this huge push to really stop
(42:46):
that and stop making white people feel bad in this
sense essence. That population is
growing smaller and smaller, and
that population of white folks that are very supportive of these
ideas of getting rid of the, you know, the
the, illegal aliens, you know, that came over here,
(43:09):
the the whatever, the undocumented, you know, illegal aliens.
Jobs and everything. Our jobs and doing all of this. That
group is just loud. It's not large.
And so as that's
happening, that group is also one
switch away from recognizing they weren't our
(43:32):
problem. And and so
yes. Hence, this, CEO just
got mauled down. It wasn't by somebody, you know,
it wasn't by an undocumented immigrant. Right? It
was by a rich family's kid. Yeah.
Even they don't have the relationships because we don't just
(43:55):
come from a truly honest place. We don't even know how. We're
so confused. But there is this level
of of youth that
have gone more and more starting with our generations, gone more
and more into an understanding that I have
all kind of friends from all kind of backgrounds, and this really doesn't
(44:17):
make much of a difference. And so I just think we're at that point
of we have to just push through this last
nastiness where these few people control so much
to recognize our own strength as people and the own beauty
of sharing and whatnot. Can only I mean,
there's, you know, potential with blockchain that we
(44:40):
could develop a whole new monetary system where we actually learn
money is a an exchange of energy. It's just that
medium for the exchange of energy. It doesn't build anything. It
doesn't create anything. It doesn't grow anything. It's just a
medium of exchange. Yeah. And we could reapproach
how we deal with all of that, which is why they're so telling us
(45:02):
cryptos are so bad because they're using the same approach
as if the American dollar is built on, backed by anything other than
military, threat that we will come bomb
you if you don't accept our dollar as the most valuable. Yeah.
Man, this has just been a a an amazing conversation.
(45:24):
Thank you. I I appreciate you
just coming and then, and spending time with me here on the
show. Now we've come to the part of the show where you get the
the the solo screen, and you get to
plug away, let everybody know where they can find you, where they can get the
book, everything? So everything can be found on
(45:45):
race for what.com. You can go to my social media links. Most
of them are at race for what, or
JD Mass, Psy d.
Get the book. There's 7 steps to healing. There's great
stories that hopefully you can connect to, and we're really
approaching, anti racism from a
(46:07):
healing standpoint and from really dissecting the why
and not just arguing about what's racist.
Look out for more community development. I'm developing a whole
course on the, with the Anti Racism
Academy, on the 7 steps to
healing that will take people through a journey of self reflection and
(46:29):
understanding our society. Hopefully, freeing us up
from some of the guilt and shame and into a place
where we can see the path towards building this world of
humanity. To me, humanity is achievable.
And, lastly, look out for Race For What comedy tour.
Gonna start off in Saint Louis. We're gonna do some
(46:52):
panel discussion mixed with some stand up comedy and live music.
We're gonna have a humor and healing comedy tour coming
soon, so all of that's gonna be going on.
Awesome, man. Awesome. Thank you, JD, once again for being such a great guest.
Thank you, sir. And, anything I can do to help support you
(47:12):
in in your cause, let me know. You when once you
get the comedy show launched and everything, let me know so I can
promote it on the show and everything. Thank you. But don't leave
your shit. Let me close out the show, and we'll chat a little bit off
the air. But For sure. Thank you, man. This is a powerful show, and I
I greatly appreciate you coming through and, and sharing
(47:33):
and sharing your story and and sharing all the wonderful things
you're doing out there to change to make this a better world. Well, thank you
for having me. Appreciate everybody that's doing this type of
work. Alright, brother. Don't don't leave just yet.
Alright. Alright, everybody. Another great show.
Greatly appreciate everybody who's tuned in. If you haven't if you're not if you haven't
(47:55):
attached the live, catch the replay, hit the
notification bell, share this, like it,
please. This is a this is a powerful episode. People need to, to really
check this episode out. As always, big shout out to my RealWise
fan, Poppy j, Brandy j. Love you guys. Shout out to the boss
lady. Love you and appreciate everything you do. Big shout out to J.
(48:18):
D. Mast for coming through and and really dropping some knowledge and and
really enlightening us on on on everything that's
going on in the world today. And as always, a big, big shout out
to all the essential workers out there. God bless y'all. Be safe.
You know your boy, Wise, does it? Peace out.
And welcome to another episode of stuck in my mind podcast. I am your host,
w I z e, and my next guest is a renowned
activist, author, and organizational psychologist
who has dedicated his life to fostering healing and unity among
people of diverse racial backgrounds. Welcome to the
show, JD Miles. Thank you for having
(01:04):
me. Pleasure's all mine, man. I'm I'm excited to talk to you. And,
Likewise. I love the name of the podcast. Thank you. Thank you.
Alright. So let let's just jump right into it. What was what was it like
growing up in in a predominantly black community, and and how did that shape
your perspective on racism? Alright. So,
(01:25):
the truthfully, my parents purposely wanted to raise
me in and around black community. Right? And the area that they
chose in St. Louis was literally the next door municipality
to where they grew up in a predominantly wealthier white
neighborhood. However, this neighborhood
actually was 5050, but the school system itself
(01:48):
was predominantly black, especially outside of 2
elementary schools, which had a much more mixed,
ratio. And so as we got into high school, you know, it
was 93% black, which the the cover
of my book is my high school prom picture in which I'm
pretty much the most identical identifiable face from
(02:10):
afar. Right? And, and so
having black friends, we moved next door when I was 4 years old
to my best friend's family. It was grandmother and grandpa. It was
aunts and uncles and mom in the house. You know? So
got that full big mama's house kind of experience.
And because of them, I met more black friends. And because of that, I went
(02:33):
into their you know, to meet their cousins into communities
of North St. Louis, which is a predominantly black,
area. And so doing
that, though, I got to experience a
very welcoming feeling. I got to experience a lot of fun.
I got talked about because not only am I of much
(02:55):
lighter skin, but I'm a also 5 3 and a half, and I
need that half inch to round up to 54. And
so, you know, you get talked about and you get kind of acclimated to the
system. And so early on, I'm crying a lot. And as I
got more into middle school and high school, I was much more,
part of that culture and like to talk trash myself.
(03:18):
But I did get to experience the difference in how I was
treated, whether it was by the police, by, you know,
store people that were in stores, and retail
outlets, by, you know, my family's
community or even in my family when my friends
were around and when my friends were not around. And I got to see
(03:40):
how they were affected by system
decisions and really got to experience all of
that that a lot of white folks just don't get a chance to
experience. And so our even those of us
that have those black friends that we love to brag about, They're
black friends that meet us at Starbucks and at Whole
(04:02):
Foods and, you know, in in our work setting and
go to a to a baseball game together or things of that
nature, but don't realize we're they're we're experiencing them
in our white world. We're not going into their community and
really getting a feel for how they, you know,
interact in that setting. Okay. So
(04:25):
so so how did your upbringing influence your decision to to
pursue activism and and and and I and antiracism
work? So, truthfully, as I started
to experience, especially from the police standpoint and the retail
outlets, Right? I got a story in my book where I
talk about the police stopping me when I was a child walking
(04:47):
through Clayton where my parents grew up, in Saint Louis,
and my friends and I walking through there. And at 10 to 12 years
old, I had never been given the talk, and we
get stopped and told that they're searching for, you know,
suspicious people because there was a burglary and all of this, that, and the other.
And they held us for so long. Eventually, I broke down and said, well, what
(05:10):
if we help you? And my friends went, no. We won't. Right? And
so I got the talk from them on the way
home that, no. They're not our friends. No.
They don't look to they're not here to care for us.
They're actually here to sort of punish us as a part
of the system, so you gotta watch yourself. And then I
(05:31):
got to experience taking, returning, and and
exchanging merchandise at retail outlets
that my friends were turned down from, and I would grab it in the
parking lot and return the item immediately
to the same exact person within 10 minutes and
get the item. No questions asked, exchanged.
(05:53):
No problem. And I saw, like, this power dynamic that I was
that I had, and it just made me wanna really understand why
does racism exist. So beyond just the
fighting of it and that's wrong and this is what it is and that isn't
racist and that is racist and all of that, I wanted to know why we
developed such a culture of this. And then I started to
(06:15):
really realize, like, there's more than just the racism
part of our culture. There's a real difference in our approach to
life and how we wanna as white
culture, we wanna make life work for us that gives us
this advantage. And as black culture
and other indigenous cultures and aboriginal culture, it's more about, okay,
(06:38):
how does the earth work? How does life work? How can I be part of
it? Let's enjoy this. Let's share this. Let's, you know, be
much more collective. And where we've be been much more
individualistic in our approach, and how do we
make this fit for us so we become more controlling and then
and as part of our culture. And so I've been going
(06:59):
through that psychology of how does this, how did it start,
why do we behave this way, is it really that we're
that different or evil, or did something happen that shifted
us in this direction and we've been justifying it ever since?
Okay. So, what inspired you to
write race for what? And and what message do you hope readers take
(07:23):
away from it? So what inspired me was
seeing, so I I was put on a path. I met my
son's mom when he was 6 years old. He is now about to
be 21. And she being
a black woman that was very much into the
(07:44):
community in Los Angeles and to, you know, go in and speaking in
prison. So she was very, enrooted in this fight
for justice and whatnot and equality.
She told me it's great that you know what you know, and it's great that
you love us the way you do. But if you really wanna help us, go
over there and fix your people. And I didn't wanna hear
(08:06):
that. I didn't wanna be around white folks
any more than she did at that time. And so I
heard about this community called, white people for black
lives in LA. And then I was in this doctorate
program, and there were these, you know, quote, unquote, good white folks
that really wanted to make a difference. And what I
(08:28):
realized is you wanna make a difference and you know nothing
other than white culture. And because of that, it's
you're you don't know who you're supposed to be making
a difference in their lives for, and you don't even know how to appreciate and
value them as humans either and what
they're going through and what they really want out of this struggle and what they
(08:51):
want in this change. And so in that, I
started to get involved and realized I'm almost, like,
as a doctorate, talking to a 5th grader or, you know,
a kindergartner at times. There would peep people that would join White People For
Black Lives, and they had just realized that they have a
privilege that their black, you know, coworker doesn't
(09:13):
have because their black coworker was worried about coming you
know, being pulled over by the police on the way to work with, you
know, some tags outdated for a little bit or something like
that. Right? Or they just saw, you know, about Mike Brown or
George George Floyd happened during that time that that
that I came back. But these different events that would happen that would make
(09:36):
these moments, and now they wanna go and lead the
change. And so the process that I wanna put
us through is recognizing we don't need to
lead the change. The biggest change in us is to let
go of the control. It's to let go of the power, is to let go
of the idea that we need to lead anything, and
(09:58):
we can learn the power of serving and supporting one another and
the humanity behind the healing process
so that we can live in a much more fun, enjoyable,
and humane society where we're all fed and and taken
care of and improving the quality of life.
Absolutely. What what what lessons did you
(10:21):
learn from from your time with the, African Hebrew Israelites
of Jerusalem? Okay. So,
on my on my, book cover, kneeling
next to me in our high school picture is, Nelly, the rap
artist. Right? And through him and working with
him, I met his uncle, who was part of the
(10:44):
African Hebrew Israelite community in Israel.
And I was going through a change of diet at the time.
Excuse me. And, I was becoming vegan,
leaning towards vegan. I was kind of already pescatarian at that
moment. And his uncle and I started talking
about the biblical translations of the Bible and
(11:08):
who the African Hebrew Israelite people were that actual
you know, the descendants of that actually wrote
these teachings that we and as I started to learn about it,
it just made much better sense than to think these
all these white folks, Moses and Abraham and everybody was all
these white folks that had all these great answers and
(11:30):
lived in this very hot place where we couldn't survive
with our lack of melanin in the same way. And it just
didn't make sense. Our behaviors weren't reflective of what
I was being taught in these teachings. And so when I met
the African Hebrew Israelites, I saw an intentional
community that really focused on humanity and
(11:53):
health and improving the quality of life.
And the level of intention that went into it, I didn't
even realize how much I was ill prepared for it.
Even though I had this great heart for, you know, wanting justice and
wanting to see black, you know, liberation
and reparations and all of these different things.
(12:16):
I still had only one point of view, and that is the
American way only teaches us about
colonized culture. We don't learn about any other cultures.
We don't learn about any other ways. We think this is life, and this is
only a world that we've created inside of life. And so
when I was opened my eyes up to it, I also
(12:38):
learned that I had to go through a change process, a process
of letting go. These steps that I'm asking all of us
to take are steps that I went through. You know, not
saying these are the steps you need to go through, but these are the steps
that I ended up having to take and really appreciating
the value of other cultures and really what
(13:00):
reparations and healing looks like and what the
psychological changes that need to take place to approach
life differently and how to really intentionally
create a world of humanity. And so that a lot
of my experience with them is what led me to come up with the 7
steps I did. Okay.
(13:23):
How has your your background in organizational psychology influenced
your approach to activism and community building?
So the organizational
back psychology background really taught me
how does culture develop, and that was the key kinda
(13:44):
missing component. Okay. I can see the difference. I can see the
love and the appreciation for the planet that that,
you know, Aboriginal and indigenous cultures have. I could
see the harm that we're doing in our society.
I don't still quite understand why.
And when you start looking at how environment,
(14:05):
you know,
shapes our psychological factors and our approaches
and how our emotions are determined by certain
parts of our culture, I had to take a step back and go
I finally get to answer and look at, theoretically,
why racism started. And so if you look at,
(14:28):
you know, this northern region of the world, you look at how the earth works,
There's resources that the planet provides us, these
these nutrients, the vitamins, and the minerals, and that make
up our body in the same way that it's made up in the
Earth, and the Earth provides that for us. So life already works in this
cycle. Yet in this northern
(14:51):
region where less melanated folks
occupied, we didn't have all of those
resources, so we had to go elsewhere. And we
had 2 approaches we could have taken. We could have taken 1, like,
whoo, glad these resources exist. Let's get them
back to where we are, and let's share in these.
(15:13):
Or what possibly happened is if you and
I thought that, you know, there was a limited amount of water based
on, you know, us having 2, you know,
2 cups of water and and that was all we thought that existed,
then we would develop this zero sum game. Every time I took a
sip, you would think that's a sip that you and your family
(15:35):
can't have. And so zero sum leads us to the
development of a psychology approach that we're in
competition. And, hence, we came up with
this word race because we were racing
to control these resources. Our economic,
systems are designed that there is a scarcity of
(15:59):
resources on the planet. No. There is not. There was just a scarcity
of resources in this northern region. And when
we found other places where they lived an
abundance, they were willing to share, and we still saw
this zero sum. They have the resources. We don't. Oh my
gosh. We need to take them. We need to do whatever we can to win
(16:21):
this race, whether it's manipulate, whether it's to
force, whether, you know, we brought our diseases because we
again, our bodies aren't whole due to the fact that we
don't have all of our natural elements that we need for
our bodies to be healthy. So we have diseases
that mostly started in these northern regions.
(16:44):
So our we're not connected to the planet. How could
we appreciate the planet if it's not giving us all that we
need at this time when we don't have planes and trains and automobiles
and Internet to tell us where everything is. And so we
didn't come with this idea that we could appreciate those willing
to share. We wanted to enslave them. We wanted to trick them
(17:06):
into giving us these resources and manipulate systems into
making us feel like we're more worthy than they are, and all of
these things just kept happening. And when something happens good for
ourselves, we tend to justify it. Oh my
goodness. No. That's not racist. No. It's not this. No. You could
have done that. You could have done that. Instead, hey. Someone else
(17:29):
made it through the system, and they did fine. What do you mean? Right? And
we start we play in this role of justifying it, protecting
it, denying it, trying to, you know, hoard it.
Whatever we're doing, all of these emotional development
come from that environment and are
not due to the fact that we have lack less
(17:50):
melanin in our skin directly, but indirectly because
we were in that environment, this is the culture that we shaped.
Okay. So so how do you maintain hope
and resilience when addressing such deeply rooted issues
as racism as racism? Well,
1, I just we've been waiting for it to change on its
(18:13):
own for far too long, so it doesn't change on its own. It's
it's exhausting trying to get people who have been
deceived into believing that we should be leading the the way,
that our way is the way of life, to really let
go of our privileges and power. It's exhausting to get them to
wanna share instead of hoard and control and
(18:37):
protect and all of those things. But
it's also a much more enjoyable experience to be on that
flip side, to be in a level of sharing and
and supporting, to have that happen.
And so I my hope,
and and I have to maintain the hope, is that at
(19:00):
some point, we are waking up to that. And when
you start waking up to that, the powers to be who wanna keep that
power are just gonna squeeze tighter because that's all we know.
Right? And so I think that's where we're at. We, you know,
we life operates in a cycle. We rotate around
the around the sun. We rotate each day.
(19:22):
So things are sick cyclical, spiritually and in energy
wise. At the end of this spirit
tool journey of colonialism, it's gonna be
ugly because it was always ugly. And yet there is
a opportunity to the way the planet works, when
lava comes up and out the volcano, it
(19:44):
cleans that area. That is the richest soils
for new ideas to grow. So as we go through this
explosion, yes, it's gonna potentially be
painful, and it's very scary for a lot of white folks, especially right
now, who are waking up to how horrible
this these ideas of this culture are,
(20:06):
and they're very scared about the potential. If we can
work them through the possibility that it on the other side,
instead of running from it, work through these changes,
that there's a great beauty that exists for us.
This work this earth already works. We don't have to
control it. We don't have to manipulate it. We don't have to come up with
(20:30):
genetically modified options for it. We just have
to appreciate it and be one with it and enjoy it.
What what do you believe are the biggest barriers for to fostering
unity among diverse racial groups?
(20:50):
The biggest barriers is ignorance and arrogance.
Right? Like, we don't realize how purposely we
were taught to be ignorant. Yeah. These school systems don't teach
us about any other culture. So if we don't know, then we ignore
that. Right? I I was in a college course, literally a
college course where you're supposed to be growing the minds of our
(21:13):
young adults, blossoming into adulthood. And
the teacher told us in world history, we don't have to learn about eastern
cultures. They never changed. We are the ones that are dynamic
and changing. We only need to focus on ourselves. And I went, did you
really just say that in world history with such comfort?
Right? So we taught this ignorance
(21:36):
naturally. So and then we're taught
American exceptionalism, European exceptionalism,
Greco Roman exceptionalism. We're the greatest.
We've conquered. We didn't just destroy and and
cause trauma and harm. We've conquered.
We've made ourselves look so important. So now we got this
(21:59):
arrogance with our ignorance, and you don't know what you don't know.
And you think you know because the the the news
just told you what was happening over in, you know, the black neighborhoods
and, oh, what's happening over in India and what's happening over in
these areas of Africa and all the poverty. Look at all of this
horrible stuff going on. These people don't know how to live civilized.
(22:21):
We got all of that to untangle.
The the word that I love the most that helps
me the most is the word prestige. Right?
That word was titled in a movie made about
a magic show. And when I was with the African Hebrew Israelites, we all
(22:41):
wondered, like, what the hell does prestige have to do with magic?
When you look up the origin of the meaning of the word,
conjuring tricks and creating illusions.
Harvard is prestigious. Ferrari is
prestigious. Having a very nice home and all this fancy
artwork is prestigious. Living in these areas, going to
(23:03):
these schools, all of these things are prestigious. Well, what if they're just
tricking us into wanting, into focusing on
that consumption instead of focusing on
the true enjoyable parts of life that are
connect we're connected to. So
that is the challenge, untangling all of that prestige.
(23:27):
Awesome. So so how can individuals begin to take
accountability for the harm caused by racism in their
communities? 1st step
is not to take a step and really seek some understanding.
Go and open your eyes and ears to the fact that
black people may be telling you the truth when they say this shit
(23:49):
is messed up. Excuse my language. I don't know if we can Oh, you can
test you can test me. We're not good. We can test Right.
You know, when they say that these people did this to these
cops do this, We don't get the same access to resources.
Go and experience that. So take time to
really understand and open your eyes to the fact that
(24:11):
we have limited we have been taught a limited scope about
life. I I remember this one,
social, engineer, talked about
he developed a project called the Venus Project, and he
talked about you hear people say, you
know, people are it's human nature to steal and
(24:33):
cheat and do all of these things. Right? And
in our society, we protect ourselves from those. Well, it's
we I gotta buy a gun because somebody else has a gun. I gotta protect
myself because someone's trying to steal my things. I gotta protect myself
because someone's trying to cheat. Yes. Those things
are human nature. It's also human nature to love one another. It's also
(24:56):
human nature to care for one another. It's human nature, and it
feels good to support one another and serve one another. We
could build systems around those virtues.
Yeah. But we didn't. We built systems around
this competition, which leads to heal to
cheating and to, right, and to harming somebody and
(25:18):
to wanting to battle them and all of these things and making imagine
you walk out your door and you see your enemy you see your neighbor as
your enemy instead of someone that can share with you. We're that
far away from life, but this cycle
can be broken through. So if we have the interest to just
take time to really start to dissect that, so
(25:40):
seek understanding and acknowledging so much of the harm of our
culture. That can be a big
starting place to wanting to let go of and
move forward. And that's one of the amazing things about the
podcasting community is that we
especially us independent podcasters, we we see the struggles
(26:02):
we all go through in what we're doing. And I I I have
friends that are white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, and
and and we all come together,
and and it's it's it's beautiful to be able to Right. Have
someone of of of different race be supportive
of what you're doing Yeah. And instead of putting you
(26:25):
down. When you have each other each other's back and uplift each other,
it it's nothing but it's nothing but love. And that's what I love about podcasting
is that I've been able to connect
with like minded people. Mhmm. It doesn't matter what what
race they are. It's been just they see what the struggles you
go through as a as a podcaster and and everything you've learned.
(26:47):
And and so when you start building these relationships and you start
seeing and the fact that I get to speak to people from all over the
world. Yeah. And I learned so much from different cultures
and learned about different culture hints and and what they're doing in
Taiwan or what they're doing in India or what they're doing in Australia.
Being able to have these conversations and learn that at the end of
(27:08):
the day, we all we all want the same thing. Mhmm. We all
want to be happy. We want our family to be happy. We wanna be
healthy. Safe. And, yes, and and we we all
basically want the same thing. And but,
yeah, we get blinded by what the media and all these
other outlets are putting out there saying that, oh, no. But
(27:30):
at the end of the day, we're all the same. We want the same things.
Mhmm. And that, to
me, is the greatness of America,
especially, only lies in its potential.
Right? Because there are so many cultures that have come here in one
place. It lies in that potential. If we can change our
(27:53):
approach from seeing each other as competition to what you just
talked about, curiosity. Oh my goodness. What could
I learn from something? Well, how can I gain and enrich my
life from somebody else? That experience in and of
itself, that little shift in approach, that why right
there, how I move forward. Oh, instead of
(28:16):
seeing technology as a threat to my job, what if we all
could share in this planet and technology makes it so we don't have to work
so hard, and we do get to enjoy more about each other and learning
and tasting each other's foods and and whatnot. Right? And we do
get to just learn and share in that experience
and and and serve one another and do man, it
(28:38):
the the shift, that's it's really not it's
very simple how we gotta operate in order to
really have an enjoyable life. Yeah. But challenges
either working through this cycle or
stopping the momentum of it and shifting that approach, and that's
where where we're at. And
(29:01):
these powers to be knows know that, and they are trying to
hold on and squeeze us and keep us fearful and
protective of what Divided. Yeah. What we have and divided and individualistic.
I mean, that's their goal. So Yeah. They know they can't do it
forever. What what role does education play in
creating awareness and change around
(29:24):
racial injustice? Well, learning and teaching
plays a in a in a wonderful role.
We need to learn from the earth. Mhmm. 2,
to get back to the simple, you know, and rebuild what truth
is. We need to, you know,
value learning and and some of these things that we've been
(29:47):
taught not to value anymore. We need to appreciate the value
of others. So there's learning is great.
This education system, it can it can
go. We need a very different approach. If we're
not learning that how to improve the quality of
our lives, then all of that other
(30:09):
stuff, we're just learning to support the systems that are in place.
Yeah. We're being trained. We're not being taught, and we
need an education system that teaches us and that and
inspires learning and and in creativity. Right? Creativity
and life are the same. And that's and that's a lot of things that that's
one of the things that we've we've missed. Like, they've taken they've they've
(30:31):
taken music and art and everything Of course. Out of out
of schools, and there is more programming so that you can
learn that you need to be at a 9 to 5
instead of really learning about life, instead of
learning the the the key necessities of being alive.
Right. Yep. I mean, that
(30:53):
shows us that that's one way of showing us this system is designed
without love and mind. Right? How we feed our
children, the system is designed without love and mind. How
we treat pregnant women who are going to give
birth, the system is designed without love and mind. How we
treat those who are sick, how we treat our elders,
(31:15):
all of these things, how we treat somebody who has an
accident and all of a sudden they can't pay their bills. Instead of having
a support system to help lift them up, we punish them.
And now we it's more costly to be, you know,
lower class lower economic class status than it
is to be upper. We like, come on. This system is designed
(31:37):
without love and mind, and all we have to do is just get to that
point of curiosity and just touching the grass
and seeing the trees and seeing how life works and
just it's so simple, and we can get there.
We just need that real moment for the rest of
us to figure this out. Definitely. Definitely.
(32:00):
So so how do you balance your your entrepreneurial spirit with
your passion for activism and community work?
Boy, if I could tell you that, I I wouldn't
be so doggone exhausted right now.
I'm, you know, I'm just trying to give myself grace right
now, find some level of enjoyment
(32:23):
where I can. I I really
do my best to pay attention to this to the grass
and to the trees and to life and not get caught up because sometimes
I'll ask people, when you look outside, what do you see?
Do you only see the cars and the roads and the buildings
and the, you know, advertisements and the names and all of that, or do
(32:46):
you see the trees and the grass and the flowers and
the life? Do we get mad so mad that
that doggone life just grew through our crack and
our and our concrete? But that's
life. And we that's what gives me hope too is because we can't
we're not stopping life. We're making our lives miserable right
(33:08):
now, but you're not gonna stop life from happening. We if
we can reshape that and and recognize
how left little we've been taught about it, then right
outside of where I'm living, where all the corn
and the soybeans are being grown, we could be
growing broccoli and and apples and strawberries
(33:29):
and and, you know, all kinds of wonderful things
instead of this manufactured idea
that there's not enough to share. There's so much to share,
and we could just have so much of that. And just, you know,
that part, having conversations, meeting
you gives me inspiration and and kinda gives me some
(33:53):
balance in that. Yeah. So you mentioned Nelly
earlier. What what challenges did you face
while working on on his early his early business ventures, and what did
you learn from that experience? So,
one, I learned what white saviorism
is. I was
(34:16):
raised in a way that made understanding the business climate
much easier for me. So I was given that role,
but I didn't have to do it like I know it. I know it's better
for you. I know you want me to go get that nice car.
I'm a go get a lesser car. I'm a finance it in my name. I'm
a take the money you wanted to show me love with and buy me that
(34:38):
nice car, and I'm a hire somebody else. Sure.
That might have been the better thing to do business wise, but
I did it in a way like, I got this. Don't worry about it. You
do your thing, and that didn't build trust. That was one thing
I learned. The second thing I learned is
wealthy people don't like other wealthy people either,
(35:01):
and so they're all competing. Like, at what point aren't you satisfied
with your own level of wealth that you can enjoy this planet?
So I watched as we tried to get things done in St. Louis,
these wealthy building owners downtown stop each
other from developing their building, whether it was with nightlife
or or restaurants or housing or whatever it
(35:24):
was. They'd spent so much time stopping the other
person in the idea that they were winning,
that St. Louis suffered as a city. We don't have a
vibrant downtown culture because these
people stopped that. And so I watched that. I was like, wow. This
this whole culture is about just crabs in a
(35:45):
barrel and not recognizing the barrel is not
natural to life. That's not the entire planet. It's just
a barrel. And so that's not the natural
habitat for us all as humans. So we didn't get a
whole lot of things done that way. And then you get into Hollywood
and who's controlling it and who's making all these decisions,
(36:07):
and how they're motivated by it, and how they're using analytics, and you
start to recognize, oh, analytics is just because we don't
have we're not in tuned with our natural creativity to
be the eye test and them sound test and the what's
fun and let's try this. We're trying to control and
win, so we're using analytics and everything. Oh, we
(36:29):
gotta win. We gotta win. And we're making everything in
entertainment less enjoyable because we're trying to win this as a
business instead of what entertainment really is is to
inspire creativity and be artistic and
enjoyable. All of these things is what
I've experienced. And then the last point is I
(36:51):
experienced that I've come from a place of privilege. So I can
remember a conversation early on in his career where
these white guys in that had been very
helpful to his career We're talking to him in a
way that I don't know if you remember Damon Wayans had what he
called his last stand up, and it was right
(37:14):
after, or it might have even been during
the time of, in living color. Yeah. And
his last stand up, he had a part where he goes, you know, white
people when you get rich as a black man, white people come and talk to
you differently. So now, Damon, now that you've made 1,000,000
of dollars, do you still think that there's racism in
(37:37):
America? Right? And he goes, well, no, sir.
Well, if it is, sir, my shows ain't seen none. Right?
And so that was a line that I loved. And so
I remember being in this meeting, and it just became so
obvious to me. These white guys were trying to get Nelly to do that. And
I started to say, well, Nelly, now that you've made all
(38:00):
these 1,000,000, and he looked at me like, if you don't shut the blank up
right now, that's your mission. Don't make that mine
right now. Let me continue to make some money. I
haven't gotten far enough in this. Right? And so I could remember feeling
like, oh, yeah. I then I didn't come from his background.
I came from mine. So we're not all in this at
(38:22):
the same point. I need to be more conscious of you know,
it's like when I cuss out the police, I could get away with it.
My black friends would go to jail for having a traffic warrant that they probably
wouldn't have gone to jail for had I just kept my mouth quiet even though
I thought I was doing the right thing because we were being harassed.
So it's all of those Oh, so use that white dude that'd be
(38:45):
cursing on my way. Chill, bitch. Fuck. Exactly.
Thinking that I'm doing the right thing. Whoo.
Yeah. Watching my friend drive off, calling my dad,
like, hey. Can we get him out of you know?
So yep. So so so how do you how do you
(39:06):
approach conversations about race racism with individuals
who are resistant or or defensive?
Well, I I have opened the eyes of many by
talking about this scarcity idea. I
try to I don't try to fight them. Right? Like,
(39:27):
oppose them necessarily. Sometimes I just try and find things
that we're naturally
going to agree on so we can form some level of connection,
and then they become more, uncomfortable with
their own racism. I did this at Ohio State. First time I
had white friends in in abundance in my life, I was in
(39:50):
this dorm with these white kids. We developed friendships,
and you could see that they when they
saw me interact with black folks, and they were like, wait a second. You just
interacted with us, and now you're interacting with them and the whole you you got
this whole code switching kinda thing.
The example and how I got along with them. I got
(40:13):
along with the football players. Now all these white kids wanna be
cool with the football players. Right? This is Ohio State University.
So they would see that, and now all of a
sudden, they would start to feel uncomfortable in their own approach
because they recognize I don't even I don't have the experience to
even know that what I'm feeling is true or valid.
(40:35):
I just feel it because I've been trained to feel it this way. Yeah. And
so I know that there's a lot of people that just wanna
check every time someone says something racist. No, man.
Be understanding. They were trained that way too. Not that we should let them
get away with it, but we but fighting them ain't gonna
make them go back and go, yeah. You were right. Nah. It's gonna make them
(40:57):
be like, f you. Come next time, I'm a come
with my dukes up. Right? And so if we're gonna really inspire
change, it's to get them like, hey. Well, if why do black
people, you know, kill themselves? Okay. Well, why does
what does a scarcity mentality do, and how did we create scarcity
amongst them in order to do that? And how were they behaving when we
(41:19):
weren't, when there was segregation and we and they built Black Wall Street and
all of these things, and we tore those things down? How do we do all
well, yeah, now that you put it that way. Or I'd be
afraid to go into a black community. Why? Why would you be so afraid? Because
you know who's gonna be more afraid that you make it out of there alive?
Black folks that are living in that community. Because white folks coming into their
(41:40):
community makes the police on high alert. And if something
happens to you, somebody's going down, whether there's an investigation
as to who did it and why or what.
That's more fearful, and they go, wow. You're right. Where's
your where's your proof that black folks are out to
for revenge? Right? There is none. Oh,
(42:03):
wow. You're right. Okay. So some of these things that you are feeling
are just trained in you, and you don't well, I don't have to
attack you to get you to start to open up to those things.
Okay. What what do you envision for the
future of of racial unity, and how can we all
(42:23):
play a part in making it a reality?
So I think the economics or
social systems swing, just like an emotion
does on a pendulum. And right now,
after George Floyd and it looked like we were really coming together,
there has been this huge push to really stop
(42:46):
that and stop making white people feel bad in this
sense essence. That population is
growing smaller and smaller, and
that population of white folks that are very supportive of these
ideas of getting rid of the, you know, the
the, illegal aliens, you know, that came over here,
(43:09):
the the whatever, the undocumented, you know, illegal aliens.
Jobs and everything. Our jobs and doing all of this. That
group is just loud. It's not large.
And so as that's
happening, that group is also one
switch away from recognizing they weren't our
(43:32):
problem. And and so
yes. Hence, this, CEO just
got mauled down. It wasn't by somebody, you know,
it wasn't by an undocumented immigrant. Right? It
was by a rich family's kid. Yeah.
Even they don't have the relationships because we don't just
(43:55):
come from a truly honest place. We don't even know how. We're
so confused. But there is this level
of of youth that
have gone more and more starting with our generations, gone more
and more into an understanding that I have
all kind of friends from all kind of backgrounds, and this really doesn't
(44:17):
make much of a difference. And so I just think we're at that point
of we have to just push through this last
nastiness where these few people control so much
to recognize our own strength as people and the own beauty
of sharing and whatnot. Can only I mean,
there's, you know, potential with blockchain that we
(44:40):
could develop a whole new monetary system where we actually learn
money is a an exchange of energy. It's just that
medium for the exchange of energy. It doesn't build anything. It
doesn't create anything. It doesn't grow anything. It's just a
medium of exchange. Yeah. And we could reapproach
how we deal with all of that, which is why they're so telling us
(45:02):
cryptos are so bad because they're using the same approach
as if the American dollar is built on, backed by anything other than
military, threat that we will come bomb
you if you don't accept our dollar as the most valuable. Yeah.
Man, this has just been a a an amazing conversation.
(45:24):
Thank you. I I appreciate you
just coming and then, and spending time with me here on the
show. Now we've come to the part of the show where you get the
the the solo screen, and you get to
plug away, let everybody know where they can find you, where they can get the
book, everything? So everything can be found on
(45:45):
race for what.com. You can go to my social media links. Most
of them are at race for what, or
JD Mass, Psy d.
Get the book. There's 7 steps to healing. There's great
stories that hopefully you can connect to, and we're really
approaching, anti racism from a
(46:07):
healing standpoint and from really dissecting the why
and not just arguing about what's racist.
Look out for more community development. I'm developing a whole
course on the, with the Anti Racism
Academy, on the 7 steps to
healing that will take people through a journey of self reflection and
(46:29):
understanding our society. Hopefully, freeing us up
from some of the guilt and shame and into a place
where we can see the path towards building this world of
humanity. To me, humanity is achievable.
And, lastly, look out for Race For What comedy tour.
Gonna start off in Saint Louis. We're gonna do some
(46:52):
panel discussion mixed with some stand up comedy and live music.
We're gonna have a humor and healing comedy tour coming
soon, so all of that's gonna be going on.
Awesome, man. Awesome. Thank you, JD, once again for being such a great guest.
Thank you, sir. And, anything I can do to help support you
(47:12):
in in your cause, let me know. You when once you
get the comedy show launched and everything, let me know so I can
promote it on the show and everything. Thank you. But don't leave
your shit. Let me close out the show, and we'll chat a little bit off
the air. But For sure. Thank you, man. This is a powerful show, and I
I greatly appreciate you coming through and, and sharing
(47:33):
and sharing your story and and sharing all the wonderful things
you're doing out there to change to make this a better world. Well, thank you
for having me. Appreciate everybody that's doing this type of
work. Alright, brother. Don't don't leave just yet.
Alright. Alright, everybody. Another great show.
Greatly appreciate everybody who's tuned in. If you haven't if you're not if you haven't
(47:55):
attached the live, catch the replay, hit the
notification bell, share this, like it,
please. This is a this is a powerful episode. People need to, to really
check this episode out. As always, big shout out to my RealWise
fan, Poppy j, Brandy j. Love you guys. Shout out to the boss
lady. Love you and appreciate everything you do. Big shout out to J.
(48:18):
D. Mast for coming through and and really dropping some knowledge and and
really enlightening us on on on everything that's
going on in the world today. And as always, a big, big shout out
to all the essential workers out there. God bless y'all. Be safe.
You know your boy, Wise, does it? Peace out.
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History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.