June 4, 2022 • 26 mins
Welcome to The Spillway.
If this is your first time here, we ask that you please start with this episode. We don't want to throw you into the deep end.
Join Loran as we go over the foundation of The Spillway and the best tips and tricks as to how to approach this series. Ultimately, this is a work that is more like a book than a conventional podcast and is constructed as a serial.
==========
In the episode Loran references research about White people's responses to race and racism which may be found here.
Martin Luther King's 1965 "The American Dream" Speech is here.
Sonya Renee Taylor's full speech is here.
James Baldwin's full speech and text of The Fire Next Time is here. (audiobook read by Jesse L. Martin)
Toni Morrison's interview with Charlie Rose is here.
RuPaul's iconic catchphrase is used in every episode of RuPaul's Drag Race. A selected montage on YouTube is here.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Jasmine Syedullah, PhD's full text from Radical Dharma: Talking Race. Love. and Liberation is here.
Resmaa Menakem's book My Grandmother's Hands is here. (audiobook read by Cary Hite)
==========
Welcome to our podcast. We’re so glad you’re here refocusing on Whiteness without supremacy or shame. Listen. Like. Follow.
Instagram: @the.spillway | Facebook: @WithoutSupremacyorShame
For a transcript of this episode and more, please visit our website, www.thespillway.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Loran (00:09):
What does it mean to be White in the United States today?
There's not really a consensus.
I mean, across the board, themost consistent voices are full of
White supremacy and White shame.
voices in the media (00:21):
So this right here, this is what
we're not gonna do on my page.
We're not gonna come in with Whitefragility and White guilt and all
don't blame, all White people.
The problem is White people.
That's the fucking problem.
This is gonna get me in a lotof hot water, but I'm gonna
say it unpopular opinion.
So assuming that there is alittle White privilege, let's
(00:42):
just take that for granted.
People never done anything for me.
Didn't you hear White people only doshit when it's like for themselves.
That's you know, that'swhat White people do.
The dysregulation of Whitepeople is what produces violent.
The truth that the most racist, evilpeople in America are White liberals.
This is one of the many, 2 63reasons that I hate my own life.
(01:06):
So, no, there's no such thingas White pride in part, because
there is no White culture.
I feel so attacked right now.
I dunno what to do, but, um,for you to make this about race,
this had nothing to do with race.
I'm definitely gonna get hate forsharing my opinion, but it has to be
said, so this guy's a professional race.
Baer.
The existence of a WhiteAmerican culture would make.
(01:30):
Complicated, right.
I mean, I, I think the country isfragmenting because at the end of
the day, racial differences cannotfundamentally be breached ever.
We're becoming the onlyvirus that needs to be killed
Loran (01:44):
And like any social identity being White isn't about one thing
or another this either, or identity.
What does it mean to be White in theus today without supremacy or shame or
Is that even possible?
Who are White people?
What are White people?
Where, when, why are White people?
(02:07):
So many of these questions have alreadybeen answered and in a really significant
way, White people aren't, or haven'tbeen the ones answering these questions.
Data from pew shows thatthe majority of White people
don't like to talk about race.
Or racism.
And we especially don't liketalking about race or racism with
people who aren't White, either.
We've White people we've evengone so far as to legislate how we
(02:30):
can or cannot talk about race orracism in our education settings.
And as of this recording, sevenstates have banned critical
race theory from its classrooms.
While 16 state legislatures haveproposed bans to be debated and decided
in upcoming legislative session.
In total, though, more than threequarters of the country has gone
through this debate of critical racetheory or CRT for short in its state
(02:53):
legislatures and all of this with theprimary emotional argument, being that no
child should feel bad about their race.
And that's a really importantargument and it's not the full
emotional experience required to buildtoward our collective liberation.
At least that's whatthe science is saying.
Research out of the universityof Nashville in Maryland have
(03:15):
found that there's a sweet spot intalking, feeling, doing around race
and racism within White people.
That actually makes an importantdifference for the good there's a,
uh, this like spectrum of responsesthat White people have around race
and racism and researchers identifiedthem as avoidance, guilt and shame.
(03:38):
Avoidance, they actually callit negation in the study.
Avoidance basically says thatrace and racism don't matter.
And then on the opposite side of thespectrum is shame, which boils down
to White people who hate themselvesor other White people and wish that
they themselves were not always White.
Now researchers found that themore psychologically avoidant.
(04:03):
Or emotionally shaming Whitepeople are of themselves or others.
The more likely these two groups ofpeople are to not do anything productive
for our collective liberation.
Let me say this a different way.
If you avoid, or you don't thinkabout race or racism and how it
negatively impacts everyone, butespecially people of Color, you are
(04:26):
likely to do more racist things.
And simultaneously if you hyper fixateon the emotional damage and wreckage that
racism has created in the us leading youto disassociate from your being White or
making you hate yourself or other Whitepeople because of their being White.
You too, are more likely to doracist things to people of Color.
(04:51):
Researchers found that along the politicalspectrum, more people who want to avoid
conversations, vote for Republicans andmore people who have shame around there
being White vote for Democrats Q MalcolmX here talking about White liberals.
Malcolm X (05:06):
There are many Whites who are trying to solve the problem, but
you never see them going under thelabel of liberals that, that White
person that you see calling himselfa liberal is the most dangerous thing
in the entire Western hemisphere.
He's the most deceitful.
He's like a Fox and a Fox isalmost, is always more dangerous
in the forest than the Wolf.
You can see the Wolf coming,you know what he's up.
(05:29):
but the Fox will fool you.
He comes at you with his mouth shapedin such a way that even though you
see his teeth, you think he's smiling.
Loran (05:35):
Interestingly, this third category though emerges from
the data empathetic behavior.
They call it built, but theirdescriptor sounds a lot more like
empathy to me than anything else.
Quote, I feel sad about the historyof racism in the us and quote.
This empathy response had the highestrates to both happier and healthier
(05:58):
emotional, psychological states andthe greater likelihood for action
towards our collective liberation.
People are thinking and feeling aboutrace and racism, which is different
from those who avoid, but not to thepoint of making someone else's pain,
your pain, which is different fromthose who feel and perform shame.
(06:19):
So there's this like sweet spotthat we're aiming for that requires
emotional intelligence of us andnot avoidance or codependence.
But how do we get there in this currentclimate at The Spillway, we're creating
a space using critical race theoryand not just critical race theory as
a pseudonym for talking about race andracism and the misnomers of CRT that
have flooded the mainstream discourse,but the actual legal framework of
(06:43):
critical race theory of interestconversions from CR T's found from CRTs
foundational texts by Derrick Bell, cuzhere's a really hard pill to swallow.
The more we as White people, decenterWhite voices and White needs, the
less sustainable racial justicework will become the further away
our collective liberation is.
(07:06):
Yes, White people havehad the mic for centuries.
I understand the impulseto pull the power cord.
And how do we get this currentcontingent of 231.9 million
weight people in the us on board.
Are we just supposed to replicate thetools of Whiteness and White supremacy?
Or can we at least try somethingelse as interest convergence?
So eloquently theorizes, every step,every single step towards systemic
(07:32):
equity in this country has required thatWhite straight says, men sign off on it.
I'm not saying it's right.
Interest.
Convergence just says that equityin this country has required very
specific people to sign off on.
You, and I both need that policymaker,that legislator, that CEO, that principal
pointed towards our liberation, mindyou policymakers, legislators, CEOs, and
(07:57):
principals decision makers are startingto look and identify as something
different from White straits or men.
And that shift is terrifyingthe hell out of some.
Well, a lot of White peopleright now, and a core philosophy
of The Spillway is just this.
We're gonna get a lot farther inour liberation with honey than
(08:17):
with vinegar and Hey, I get it.
Shaming power holders can feelreally good and can get some
really surprising short term gains.
But, but the energy of shame.
That we put into that person rots and itrots into an insurrection into another
(08:38):
teenager, led mass shooting into 31White nationalists piling into a U-Haul
headed to an LGBTQ pride event in Idaho.
Hurt people can hurt people.
We know this data and more than a centuryof social science backs this up yet.
One of the many things currentlybuilding the White nationalist movement
is the ability for White people to holdand acknowledge other White people's
(09:02):
feelings and hurts that's space.
Doesn't exist outsideof White nationalism.
That's an egregious mistake.
The more we trivializeor minimize these hurts.
The more we fuel that movement.
When in the history of ever haslaughing at or telling someone
to get over it ever healed anemotional or psychological wound.
(09:25):
At The Spillway, a key distinction isthat we see here and hold White pain
and rage with tenderness and movementstowards our collective liberation,
actualizing our full humanity.
And you'll find that everything we talkabout here, unless specifically labeled
as an exception to this rule is this.
We are White people talking to Whitepeople about White people, things.
(09:50):
And if you take that as anything that wesay or do here as a critique complaint
or analysis of people of Color, you'vegrossly misunderstood our work and
perhaps the importance of how holdingthis type of healing space for White
people is so critical to our shared work.
There are safe spaces for White peopleto be in multiracial conversations.
(10:11):
There are braver spaces for Whitepeople to show up in multiracial
conversation and take a backseat.
There are even spaces for White people toshow up and mobilize for people of Color.
And yet what we don't have are spacesfor White people to collectively
or individually heal ourselves.
This space is important because it'sthis really critical work folks of Color
(10:33):
have asked White people to do for decadesthat we just haven't made space for,
or as Martin Luther king says in 1965,
Martin Luther King, Jr. (10:44):
maybe we've spent far too much of our money
establishing military bases aroundthe world, rather than bases of
genuine concern and understanding.
All I'm saying is simply this,that all life is interrelated.
We are tied in an inescapable networkof mutuality, tied in a single garment
(11:06):
of destiny, whatever affects onedirectly affect all indirectly strange.
Strangely enough, I can neverbe what I ought to be until
you are what you ought to be.
And you can never be whatyou ought to be until I am.
What I ought to be.
This is the interrelatedstructured of reality,
Loran (11:30):
Dr.
King, Dr.
King, isn't the first or the last personof Color to talk about healing or holding
White people's hurts, arms and trauma.
White people have been asked repeatedlyto listen center and create action
around the asks of people of Color.
And if we scratch thesurface, just scratch.
A theme begins to emerge fromacademics to civil rights
leaders, to primetime television.
(11:52):
And this isn't from some fringe, civilrights or collective liberation movement.
This is.
Sonya Renee Taylor,
Sonya Renee Taylor (12:00):
without taking care of your trauma.
It is the tool you'll always goto acting in violence, to the
people of Color in the world.
While you're proclaiming you wanna be agood White person, a woke White person.
You, you know, you disavow racism,but you're still using Whiteness as
the, the tool to reestablish power.
And it's cuz you haven't dealt withyour trauma, go to therapy, deal
(12:20):
with your shit, deal with your shit.
So you can stop harming people of Color.
Loran (12:24):
James Baldwin,
White people in
James Baldwin (read by Jesse L. Martin): this country will have quite enough (12:26):
undefined
to do in learning how to acceptand love themselves and each other.
And when they have achieved this, whichwill not be tomorrow and may very well be
never, the Negro problem will no longerexist for it will no longer be needed.
Loran (12:42):
Tony Morrison.
Toni Morrison (12:44):
How do you feel?
Not you, Charlie rose, but don't youunderstand that the people who do
this thing who practice racism right?
Are bereft.
There is somethingdistorted about the psyche.
It's a huge waste and it's acorruption and a distortion.
(13:04):
It's like, it's a profound neurosisthat nobody examines for what it is.
It feels crazy.
It is crazy.
And it leaves, it has just asmuch of a deleterious effect
on White people and possibly.
Equal as it does Blackpeople, my feeling is White.
(13:27):
People have a very, very seriousproblem and they should start thinking
about what they can do about it.
Take me out of it.
Ru Paul, if you can't love yourself, howthe hell you gonna love somebody else?
Loran (13:46):
Reverend angel, Kyoto williams,
Rev. angel Kyodo williams (13:49):
once you are aware of how you are being pleased,
you can begin the process of self Liberfrom the position of realizing the
mutuality of our liberation, ratherthan suffering under the delusion
that you are doing something for.
There is an intimacy in that realization.
Loran (14:06):
Jasmine Syedullah,
Jasmine Syedullah, PhD (14:07):
we wonder how Whiteness could be both the
problem and the best exit strategy,the problem, and the final solution.
Loran (14:16):
mind you, not every person of Color feels this way that White
people need to work on healing andloving ourselves, or to reframe
that, getting our shit together.
Folks of Color are not a monolith before,during, and after starting The Spillway.
I've heard in no uncertain terms thatsome folks of Color cringe at our mission
while others exhale a sigh of relief.
(14:38):
This is not the onlypath towards liberation.
This is merely one of them.
And if this doesn't work for youas a White person, that's okay.
Not everything in thisworld was made for you.
White people reallystruggle with this one.
One of the first lessons of TheSpillway is that we have to make
our own informed decisions as Whitepeople, as Resmaa Menakem says, and
(15:01):
this is an excerpt from his book.
My grandmother's hands on audiobook.
Resmaa Menakem (audiobook by Cary Hite): There are no shortcuts or workarounds. (15:05):
undefined
There is simply a choice.
Clean pain and healing ordirty pain and more trauma.
There is possibility.
And there is peril toall my White countrymen.
I say this not only is it not mybusiness to lead you out of White
body supremacy, but I would do you aprofound, disservice by trying to do so.
(15:30):
You need to develop, lift up andfollow your own leaders in the work
of dissolving White body supremacy
if you don't, if you choose to follow aBlack pied Piper, you will collectively
reaffirm the myth of White fragilityand helplessness in racialized contexts.
You will also have no one to passthe Baton to when your Black savior
(15:53):
retires dies or moves on, or turns outto be flawed, like all human beings.
Loran (15:59):
So to do this work, we have to jump into some uncharted territory.
Because this isn't about replicatingor appropriating the works of folks
of Color, which a lot of Whitepeople working in anti-racism do.
This is actually White people talking toWhite people about White people, things.
And before you get all flustered andunleash your unbridled shame culture at.
Which from White peopleusually sounds a lot like this.
voices in the media (16:22):
I do not believe that White people should
ever position themselves asexperts or leaders in this work.
We are to do our work, get our people andjoin in efforts in our local communities
to do the work, to dismantle all of theways that structural racism manifests.
I believe that Black, Brown, Indigenousand non-Black people of Color are
(16:43):
the best qualified to lead us throughthe dismantling of White supremacist
violence, ideology, and delusion.
When White people set ourselvesup as experts and earn money off
of the efforts of our anti-racism,we are causing violence.
Loran (17:00):
We've got episodes and bonus materials for you.
If you wanna stick around and checkout our frequently asked questions
on our website, or you're freeto shame the book by its cover.
I'm joined on this journey with oneof my favorite humans in the world.
Jenny, Jenny shares with me anunconditional love for our love together.
We've known each other for nearly 20 yearsand I'm only 73 days older than she is.
(17:22):
We've been around the sun, nearlythe exact same amount of time as
each other and have loved eachother for longer than before.
We never knew each other.
Importantly, Jenny comes to thiswork more from a place of avoidance
as I, from a place of shame.
Because this work is so relational,I thought it would be really
helpful to ask Jenny to be myco-pilot for this adventure.
So you can feel anchoredin our love for each other.
(17:43):
And for you in showing upconnection and relationship building
has to be our starting point.
If we see each other as someonethat needs to be fixed, how
do we build trust from that?
We just don't.
We want you to feel part of thisprocess and in digital and remote
format that requires creating familiartouch points or points of reference.
(18:04):
So Tiffany and I will open and close eachepisode with anecdotes, failures, stories,
or reflections around the specific topics.
But this first episode, this first episodeis really special and important because
it's just about getting to know eachother because that's truly how we start.
And don't be surprised if it's notgoing as fast as you want it to be.
(18:25):
We're building connective tissue here tosupport a sustainable ecosystem of change.
We're not rushing in with abulldozer and some sticks of dynam.
That's not sustainable or altogetherhealthy when we're gonna repeat ourselves.
Some, we always hear things differentlythe second time around, and we're gonna
slow down to 17 miles an hour as Fredjealous likes to say so that we can
(18:48):
easily distinguish our surroundingsand ourselves we'll speed up.
Sure.
But there's a method to this process.
Building our positive relationshipstowards our collective liberation is
another reason why this work is meant tobe experienced sequentially and an order.
This is a cereal.
It's not episodic.
If you think about what makesa relationship, a huge part of
(19:10):
that is time spent together.
If you're absent from half of theconversation or you duck in and
out, when it's convenient for you,you're gonna get a relationship
that's half full and sporadic.
We're here for movement building andnot momentary gains being in good
relation means showing up in the goodand the bad, the fast and the slow.
And you'll notice throughout theevolution of the series, we're talking
(19:30):
about gender as it relates to race.
Race is one social identityand it's a huge social marker.
That means so many thingsto so many different people.
Collective liberation means thatwe're seeing hearing and valuing
all parts of our experience.
So in this first season, we're lookingat the intersection of race and gender
to build on our multiple ways of being.
(19:51):
And ultimately the work ofThe Spillway is about choosing
the path of love and empathy.
But in order to choose this path,you have to understand yourself
as lovable and see, hear, and feelwhat love in practice is and can be.
And that can be sojarring to hear right now.
Because we're constantly hearing:
voices in the media (20:12):
So White people, I am not extending grace
to you because I don't have to.
And nor do Black people, Blackpeople don't owe you shit.
They don't owe you.
Shit.
I don't give a fuck.
I just do not care aboutother people's White feelings.
Like I just don't.
(20:35):
Hello.
I'm sorry, you can't stand White people.
I can't stand us either half the time.
And my job is to shut other Whitepeople down when they wanna interrupt.
My job is to shut other Whitepeople down when they wanna
say, oh no, I'm not prejudice.
I'm a Democrat.
I'm accepting my job is to make surethat they get that they have privilege.
(20:57):
Yes, exactly.
I am the oppressor.
I am racist.
Loran (21:02):
Just for clarity.
These are all White people talking.
These narratives reverberate throughoutlarge swaths of White culture and in some
part for good reason, historically andcurrently White people have literally
shifted mass occurred, decimatedimprisoned, poisoned, lied, and
cheated nearly the whole of the worldto force submission and extraction.
(21:23):
There are calls every day to shut Whitepeople down and shut White people up
because we have had the mic for too long.
But when that call comes from insidethe house, And White people appropriate
the harm, violence and conditions thatAsian, native Latina, Southeast Asian,
Black, and marginalized populationsof Color have been subjected to.
That just creates more harm in the formof distracting from their real harm and
(21:45):
making their pain yours when we cannothold each other, when we cannot make
space for each other as White people.
And I wanna be very clear.
White people are hurting too.
We have specific hurts thatwe experience as White people.
It's not normal or healthy todehumanize, avoid shame or other
(22:06):
people at every waking moment.
There are shoot blocks.
You'll arrive out in this process, whichgo through intergenerational trauma and
perpetration induced, traumatic stress.
Because the data and science thatstructures, The Spillway, all points
to racism and its explicit or implicitor systemic forms is, and has always
been a trauma response of White people.
(22:30):
Long story short, Marshall Rosenbergsaid it best "violence is often the
tragic expression of unmet needs" andthat violence can come in the form
of White nationalism or cancellationcampaigns or White saviorism.
Your choice.
Last, but not least.
They just wanna say this before westart this journey together because
perhaps it's the most important, well,this is all important, but The Spillway
(22:51):
is not a one stop shop right now.
We're trying to build onething and build that one thing.
Well, healing, affinity andcaucus spaces for White people.
Well, we do more things inthe future maybe, but we wanna
get this first thing done.
(23:13):
So I wanna say these twothings in reference to that.
Number one, educating ourselves asWhite people about histories, cultures,
ways of being for Indigenous Black,Asian, Southeast Asian Latina, and
marginalized populations is critical.
There are thousands of books,movies, magazines, podcasts, and
(23:35):
organizations doing this work fromthe position of lived experience.
We cannot stop educating ourselves and wehave to support authors, public scholars,
creatives, and academics of Color.
Two.
Being in good relation with people ofColor is critical and there's a billion
dollar industry devoted to diversity,equity, inclusion, and belonging
(23:58):
in our communities, our workplaces,boardrooms, and shared spaces.
We cannot slink into our individual roomand tend our wounds all day, every day.
Learning about what it means to beWhite, creating White community and White
culture towards our collective liberation.
This is the work of White peoplewe can do and hold multiple things.
(24:18):
At the same time, wecan chew gum and walk.
As my acting teachers used to say, we'vegotta heal ourselves while we continue
educating ourselves and being in goodcross-cultural and racial relation.
And it's not easy for many of us,this feels like so much work and
that can lead to avoidance or shame.
And a large part of that is because we'rejust not used to talking or thinking
(24:42):
about race and racism because ourparents or the communities that raised
us just didn't help us develop thismuscle or these tools in the way that
folks of Color have had to for survival.
So be gentle with yourself.
We're here to hold you and tosee you as White people, as
(25:04):
a White person, let's start.
As you have probably seen already.
We talk with a lot of different peopleof varying backgrounds and specialties
from White people who have startedorganizations to support men or White
women to White people working in somatics,ancestry and restorative justice.
(25:27):
We talk with an Ivy league professorfor anonymous White men, and even the
former president and CEO of the NAACP.
And that's not even all of the episodes.
All of this is given to you with thehope and the intention that you will
bring this and these conversations intoyour homes, your neighborhoods, and
(25:47):
your communities, because we are allin this collective liberation together.
Welcome to The Spillway.
What does it mean to be White in the United States today?
There's not really a consensus.
I mean, across the board, themost consistent voices are full of
White supremacy and White shame.
voices in the media (00:21):
So this right here, this is what
we're not gonna do on my page.
We're not gonna come in with Whitefragility and White guilt and all
don't blame, all White people.
The problem is White people.
That's the fucking problem.
This is gonna get me in a lotof hot water, but I'm gonna
say it unpopular opinion.
So assuming that there is alittle White privilege, let's
(00:42):
just take that for granted.
People never done anything for me.
Didn't you hear White people only doshit when it's like for themselves.
That's you know, that'swhat White people do.
The dysregulation of Whitepeople is what produces violent.
The truth that the most racist, evilpeople in America are White liberals.
This is one of the many, 2 63reasons that I hate my own life.
(01:06):
So, no, there's no such thingas White pride in part, because
there is no White culture.
I feel so attacked right now.
I dunno what to do, but, um,for you to make this about race,
this had nothing to do with race.
I'm definitely gonna get hate forsharing my opinion, but it has to be
said, so this guy's a professional race.
Baer.
The existence of a WhiteAmerican culture would make.
(01:30):
Complicated, right.
I mean, I, I think the country isfragmenting because at the end of
the day, racial differences cannotfundamentally be breached ever.
We're becoming the onlyvirus that needs to be killed
Loran (01:44):
And like any social identity being White isn't about one thing
or another this either, or identity.
What does it mean to be White in theus today without supremacy or shame or
Is that even possible?
Who are White people?
What are White people?
Where, when, why are White people?
(02:07):
So many of these questions have alreadybeen answered and in a really significant
way, White people aren't, or haven'tbeen the ones answering these questions.
Data from pew shows thatthe majority of White people
don't like to talk about race.
Or racism.
And we especially don't liketalking about race or racism with
people who aren't White, either.
We've White people we've evengone so far as to legislate how we
(02:30):
can or cannot talk about race orracism in our education settings.
And as of this recording, sevenstates have banned critical
race theory from its classrooms.
While 16 state legislatures haveproposed bans to be debated and decided
in upcoming legislative session.
In total, though, more than threequarters of the country has gone
through this debate of critical racetheory or CRT for short in its state
(02:53):
legislatures and all of this with theprimary emotional argument, being that no
child should feel bad about their race.
And that's a really importantargument and it's not the full
emotional experience required to buildtoward our collective liberation.
At least that's whatthe science is saying.
Research out of the universityof Nashville in Maryland have
(03:15):
found that there's a sweet spot intalking, feeling, doing around race
and racism within White people.
That actually makes an importantdifference for the good there's a,
uh, this like spectrum of responsesthat White people have around race
and racism and researchers identifiedthem as avoidance, guilt and shame.
(03:38):
Avoidance, they actually callit negation in the study.
Avoidance basically says thatrace and racism don't matter.
And then on the opposite side of thespectrum is shame, which boils down
to White people who hate themselvesor other White people and wish that
they themselves were not always White.
Now researchers found that themore psychologically avoidant.
(04:03):
Or emotionally shaming Whitepeople are of themselves or others.
The more likely these two groups ofpeople are to not do anything productive
for our collective liberation.
Let me say this a different way.
If you avoid, or you don't thinkabout race or racism and how it
negatively impacts everyone, butespecially people of Color, you are
(04:26):
likely to do more racist things.
And simultaneously if you hyper fixateon the emotional damage and wreckage that
racism has created in the us leading youto disassociate from your being White or
making you hate yourself or other Whitepeople because of their being White.
You too, are more likely to doracist things to people of Color.
(04:51):
Researchers found that along the politicalspectrum, more people who want to avoid
conversations, vote for Republicans andmore people who have shame around there
being White vote for Democrats Q MalcolmX here talking about White liberals.
Malcolm X (05:06):
There are many Whites who are trying to solve the problem, but
you never see them going under thelabel of liberals that, that White
person that you see calling himselfa liberal is the most dangerous thing
in the entire Western hemisphere.
He's the most deceitful.
He's like a Fox and a Fox isalmost, is always more dangerous
in the forest than the Wolf.
You can see the Wolf coming,you know what he's up.
(05:29):
but the Fox will fool you.
He comes at you with his mouth shapedin such a way that even though you
see his teeth, you think he's smiling.
Loran (05:35):
Interestingly, this third category though emerges from
the data empathetic behavior.
They call it built, but theirdescriptor sounds a lot more like
empathy to me than anything else.
Quote, I feel sad about the historyof racism in the us and quote.
This empathy response had the highestrates to both happier and healthier
(05:58):
emotional, psychological states andthe greater likelihood for action
towards our collective liberation.
People are thinking and feeling aboutrace and racism, which is different
from those who avoid, but not to thepoint of making someone else's pain,
your pain, which is different fromthose who feel and perform shame.
(06:19):
So there's this like sweet spotthat we're aiming for that requires
emotional intelligence of us andnot avoidance or codependence.
But how do we get there in this currentclimate at The Spillway, we're creating
a space using critical race theoryand not just critical race theory as
a pseudonym for talking about race andracism and the misnomers of CRT that
have flooded the mainstream discourse,but the actual legal framework of
(06:43):
critical race theory of interestconversions from CR T's found from CRTs
foundational texts by Derrick Bell, cuzhere's a really hard pill to swallow.
The more we as White people, decenterWhite voices and White needs, the
less sustainable racial justicework will become the further away
our collective liberation is.
(07:06):
Yes, White people havehad the mic for centuries.
I understand the impulseto pull the power cord.
And how do we get this currentcontingent of 231.9 million
weight people in the us on board.
Are we just supposed to replicate thetools of Whiteness and White supremacy?
Or can we at least try somethingelse as interest convergence?
So eloquently theorizes, every step,every single step towards systemic
(07:32):
equity in this country has required thatWhite straight says, men sign off on it.
I'm not saying it's right.
Interest.
Convergence just says that equityin this country has required very
specific people to sign off on.
You, and I both need that policymaker,that legislator, that CEO, that principal
pointed towards our liberation, mindyou policymakers, legislators, CEOs, and
(07:57):
principals decision makers are startingto look and identify as something
different from White straits or men.
And that shift is terrifyingthe hell out of some.
Well, a lot of White peopleright now, and a core philosophy
of The Spillway is just this.
We're gonna get a lot farther inour liberation with honey than
(08:17):
with vinegar and Hey, I get it.
Shaming power holders can feelreally good and can get some
really surprising short term gains.
But, but the energy of shame.
That we put into that person rots and itrots into an insurrection into another
(08:38):
teenager, led mass shooting into 31White nationalists piling into a U-Haul
headed to an LGBTQ pride event in Idaho.
Hurt people can hurt people.
We know this data and more than a centuryof social science backs this up yet.
One of the many things currentlybuilding the White nationalist movement
is the ability for White people to holdand acknowledge other White people's
(09:02):
feelings and hurts that's space.
Doesn't exist outsideof White nationalism.
That's an egregious mistake.
The more we trivializeor minimize these hurts.
The more we fuel that movement.
When in the history of ever haslaughing at or telling someone
to get over it ever healed anemotional or psychological wound.
(09:25):
At The Spillway, a key distinction isthat we see here and hold White pain
and rage with tenderness and movementstowards our collective liberation,
actualizing our full humanity.
And you'll find that everything we talkabout here, unless specifically labeled
as an exception to this rule is this.
We are White people talking to Whitepeople about White people, things.
(09:50):
And if you take that as anything that wesay or do here as a critique complaint
or analysis of people of Color, you'vegrossly misunderstood our work and
perhaps the importance of how holdingthis type of healing space for White
people is so critical to our shared work.
There are safe spaces for White peopleto be in multiracial conversations.
(10:11):
There are braver spaces for Whitepeople to show up in multiracial
conversation and take a backseat.
There are even spaces for White people toshow up and mobilize for people of Color.
And yet what we don't have are spacesfor White people to collectively
or individually heal ourselves.
This space is important because it'sthis really critical work folks of Color
(10:33):
have asked White people to do for decadesthat we just haven't made space for,
or as Martin Luther king says in 1965,
Martin Luther King, Jr. (10:44):
maybe we've spent far too much of our money
establishing military bases aroundthe world, rather than bases of
genuine concern and understanding.
All I'm saying is simply this,that all life is interrelated.
We are tied in an inescapable networkof mutuality, tied in a single garment
(11:06):
of destiny, whatever affects onedirectly affect all indirectly strange.
Strangely enough, I can neverbe what I ought to be until
you are what you ought to be.
And you can never be whatyou ought to be until I am.
What I ought to be.
This is the interrelatedstructured of reality,
Loran (11:30):
Dr.
King, Dr.
King, isn't the first or the last personof Color to talk about healing or holding
White people's hurts, arms and trauma.
White people have been asked repeatedlyto listen center and create action
around the asks of people of Color.
And if we scratch thesurface, just scratch.
A theme begins to emerge fromacademics to civil rights
leaders, to primetime television.
(11:52):
And this isn't from some fringe, civilrights or collective liberation movement.
This is.
Sonya Renee Taylor,
Sonya Renee Taylor (12:00):
without taking care of your trauma.
It is the tool you'll always goto acting in violence, to the
people of Color in the world.
While you're proclaiming you wanna be agood White person, a woke White person.
You, you know, you disavow racism,but you're still using Whiteness as
the, the tool to reestablish power.
And it's cuz you haven't dealt withyour trauma, go to therapy, deal
(12:20):
with your shit, deal with your shit.
So you can stop harming people of Color.
Loran (12:24):
James Baldwin,
White people in
James Baldwin (read by Jesse L. Martin): this country will have quite enough (12:26):
undefined
to do in learning how to acceptand love themselves and each other.
And when they have achieved this, whichwill not be tomorrow and may very well be
never, the Negro problem will no longerexist for it will no longer be needed.
Loran (12:42):
Tony Morrison.
Toni Morrison (12:44):
How do you feel?
Not you, Charlie rose, but don't youunderstand that the people who do
this thing who practice racism right?
Are bereft.
There is somethingdistorted about the psyche.
It's a huge waste and it's acorruption and a distortion.
(13:04):
It's like, it's a profound neurosisthat nobody examines for what it is.
It feels crazy.
It is crazy.
And it leaves, it has just asmuch of a deleterious effect
on White people and possibly.
Equal as it does Blackpeople, my feeling is White.
(13:27):
People have a very, very seriousproblem and they should start thinking
about what they can do about it.
Take me out of it.
Ru Paul, if you can't love yourself, howthe hell you gonna love somebody else?
Loran (13:46):
Reverend angel, Kyoto williams,
Rev. angel Kyodo williams (13:49):
once you are aware of how you are being pleased,
you can begin the process of self Liberfrom the position of realizing the
mutuality of our liberation, ratherthan suffering under the delusion
that you are doing something for.
There is an intimacy in that realization.
Loran (14:06):
Jasmine Syedullah,
Jasmine Syedullah, PhD (14:07):
we wonder how Whiteness could be both the
problem and the best exit strategy,the problem, and the final solution.
Loran (14:16):
mind you, not every person of Color feels this way that White
people need to work on healing andloving ourselves, or to reframe
that, getting our shit together.
Folks of Color are not a monolith before,during, and after starting The Spillway.
I've heard in no uncertain terms thatsome folks of Color cringe at our mission
while others exhale a sigh of relief.
(14:38):
This is not the onlypath towards liberation.
This is merely one of them.
And if this doesn't work for youas a White person, that's okay.
Not everything in thisworld was made for you.
White people reallystruggle with this one.
One of the first lessons of TheSpillway is that we have to make
our own informed decisions as Whitepeople, as Resmaa Menakem says, and
(15:01):
this is an excerpt from his book.
My grandmother's hands on audiobook.
Resmaa Menakem (audiobook by Cary Hite): There are no shortcuts or workarounds. (15:05):
undefined
There is simply a choice.
Clean pain and healing ordirty pain and more trauma.
There is possibility.
And there is peril toall my White countrymen.
I say this not only is it not mybusiness to lead you out of White
body supremacy, but I would do you aprofound, disservice by trying to do so.
(15:30):
You need to develop, lift up andfollow your own leaders in the work
of dissolving White body supremacy
if you don't, if you choose to follow aBlack pied Piper, you will collectively
reaffirm the myth of White fragilityand helplessness in racialized contexts.
You will also have no one to passthe Baton to when your Black savior
(15:53):
retires dies or moves on, or turns outto be flawed, like all human beings.
Loran (15:59):
So to do this work, we have to jump into some uncharted territory.
Because this isn't about replicatingor appropriating the works of folks
of Color, which a lot of Whitepeople working in anti-racism do.
This is actually White people talking toWhite people about White people, things.
And before you get all flustered andunleash your unbridled shame culture at.
Which from White peopleusually sounds a lot like this.
voices in the media (16:22):
I do not believe that White people should
ever position themselves asexperts or leaders in this work.
We are to do our work, get our people andjoin in efforts in our local communities
to do the work, to dismantle all of theways that structural racism manifests.
I believe that Black, Brown, Indigenousand non-Black people of Color are
(16:43):
the best qualified to lead us throughthe dismantling of White supremacist
violence, ideology, and delusion.
When White people set ourselvesup as experts and earn money off
of the efforts of our anti-racism,we are causing violence.
Loran (17:00):
We've got episodes and bonus materials for you.
If you wanna stick around and checkout our frequently asked questions
on our website, or you're freeto shame the book by its cover.
I'm joined on this journey with oneof my favorite humans in the world.
Jenny, Jenny shares with me anunconditional love for our love together.
We've known each other for nearly 20 yearsand I'm only 73 days older than she is.
(17:22):
We've been around the sun, nearlythe exact same amount of time as
each other and have loved eachother for longer than before.
We never knew each other.
Importantly, Jenny comes to thiswork more from a place of avoidance
as I, from a place of shame.
Because this work is so relational,I thought it would be really
helpful to ask Jenny to be myco-pilot for this adventure.
So you can feel anchoredin our love for each other.
(17:43):
And for you in showing upconnection and relationship building
has to be our starting point.
If we see each other as someonethat needs to be fixed, how
do we build trust from that?
We just don't.
We want you to feel part of thisprocess and in digital and remote
format that requires creating familiartouch points or points of reference.
(18:04):
So Tiffany and I will open and close eachepisode with anecdotes, failures, stories,
or reflections around the specific topics.
But this first episode, this first episodeis really special and important because
it's just about getting to know eachother because that's truly how we start.
And don't be surprised if it's notgoing as fast as you want it to be.
(18:25):
We're building connective tissue here tosupport a sustainable ecosystem of change.
We're not rushing in with abulldozer and some sticks of dynam.
That's not sustainable or altogetherhealthy when we're gonna repeat ourselves.
Some, we always hear things differentlythe second time around, and we're gonna
slow down to 17 miles an hour as Fredjealous likes to say so that we can
(18:48):
easily distinguish our surroundingsand ourselves we'll speed up.
Sure.
But there's a method to this process.
Building our positive relationshipstowards our collective liberation is
another reason why this work is meant tobe experienced sequentially and an order.
This is a cereal.
It's not episodic.
If you think about what makesa relationship, a huge part of
(19:10):
that is time spent together.
If you're absent from half of theconversation or you duck in and
out, when it's convenient for you,you're gonna get a relationship
that's half full and sporadic.
We're here for movement building andnot momentary gains being in good
relation means showing up in the goodand the bad, the fast and the slow.
And you'll notice throughout theevolution of the series, we're talking
(19:30):
about gender as it relates to race.
Race is one social identityand it's a huge social marker.
That means so many thingsto so many different people.
Collective liberation means thatwe're seeing hearing and valuing
all parts of our experience.
So in this first season, we're lookingat the intersection of race and gender
to build on our multiple ways of being.
(19:51):
And ultimately the work ofThe Spillway is about choosing
the path of love and empathy.
But in order to choose this path,you have to understand yourself
as lovable and see, hear, and feelwhat love in practice is and can be.
And that can be sojarring to hear right now.
Because we're constantly hearing:
voices in the media (20:12):
So White people, I am not extending grace
to you because I don't have to.
And nor do Black people, Blackpeople don't owe you shit.
They don't owe you.
Shit.
I don't give a fuck.
I just do not care aboutother people's White feelings.
Like I just don't.
(20:35):
Hello.
I'm sorry, you can't stand White people.
I can't stand us either half the time.
And my job is to shut other Whitepeople down when they wanna interrupt.
My job is to shut other Whitepeople down when they wanna
say, oh no, I'm not prejudice.
I'm a Democrat.
I'm accepting my job is to make surethat they get that they have privilege.
(20:57):
Yes, exactly.
I am the oppressor.
I am racist.
Loran (21:02):
Just for clarity.
These are all White people talking.
These narratives reverberate throughoutlarge swaths of White culture and in some
part for good reason, historically andcurrently White people have literally
shifted mass occurred, decimatedimprisoned, poisoned, lied, and
cheated nearly the whole of the worldto force submission and extraction.
(21:23):
There are calls every day to shut Whitepeople down and shut White people up
because we have had the mic for too long.
But when that call comes from insidethe house, And White people appropriate
the harm, violence and conditions thatAsian, native Latina, Southeast Asian,
Black, and marginalized populationsof Color have been subjected to.
That just creates more harm in the formof distracting from their real harm and
(21:45):
making their pain yours when we cannothold each other, when we cannot make
space for each other as White people.
And I wanna be very clear.
White people are hurting too.
We have specific hurts thatwe experience as White people.
It's not normal or healthy todehumanize, avoid shame or other
(22:06):
people at every waking moment.
There are shoot blocks.
You'll arrive out in this process, whichgo through intergenerational trauma and
perpetration induced, traumatic stress.
Because the data and science thatstructures, The Spillway, all points
to racism and its explicit or implicitor systemic forms is, and has always
been a trauma response of White people.
(22:30):
Long story short, Marshall Rosenbergsaid it best "violence is often the
tragic expression of unmet needs" andthat violence can come in the form
of White nationalism or cancellationcampaigns or White saviorism.
Your choice.
Last, but not least.
They just wanna say this before westart this journey together because
perhaps it's the most important, well,this is all important, but The Spillway
(22:51):
is not a one stop shop right now.
We're trying to build onething and build that one thing.
Well, healing, affinity andcaucus spaces for White people.
Well, we do more things inthe future maybe, but we wanna
get this first thing done.
(23:13):
So I wanna say these twothings in reference to that.
Number one, educating ourselves asWhite people about histories, cultures,
ways of being for Indigenous Black,Asian, Southeast Asian Latina, and
marginalized populations is critical.
There are thousands of books,movies, magazines, podcasts, and
(23:35):
organizations doing this work fromthe position of lived experience.
We cannot stop educating ourselves and wehave to support authors, public scholars,
creatives, and academics of Color.
Two.
Being in good relation with people ofColor is critical and there's a billion
dollar industry devoted to diversity,equity, inclusion, and belonging
(23:58):
in our communities, our workplaces,boardrooms, and shared spaces.
We cannot slink into our individual roomand tend our wounds all day, every day.
Learning about what it means to beWhite, creating White community and White
culture towards our collective liberation.
This is the work of White peoplewe can do and hold multiple things.
(24:18):
At the same time, wecan chew gum and walk.
As my acting teachers used to say, we'vegotta heal ourselves while we continue
educating ourselves and being in goodcross-cultural and racial relation.
And it's not easy for many of us,this feels like so much work and
that can lead to avoidance or shame.
And a large part of that is because we'rejust not used to talking or thinking
(24:42):
about race and racism because ourparents or the communities that raised
us just didn't help us develop thismuscle or these tools in the way that
folks of Color have had to for survival.
So be gentle with yourself.
We're here to hold you and tosee you as White people, as
(25:04):
a White person, let's start.
As you have probably seen already.
We talk with a lot of different peopleof varying backgrounds and specialties
from White people who have startedorganizations to support men or White
women to White people working in somatics,ancestry and restorative justice.
(25:27):
We talk with an Ivy league professorfor anonymous White men, and even the
former president and CEO of the NAACP.
And that's not even all of the episodes.
All of this is given to you with thehope and the intention that you will
bring this and these conversations intoyour homes, your neighborhoods, and
(25:47):
your communities, because we are allin this collective liberation together.
Welcome to The Spillway.
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