September 22, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, we talk with Durryle Brooks about centering love in racial justice work, and about how he approaches diversity and social justice learning opportunities for leaders through his organization, Love and Justice Consulting. He's also the author of Reconceptualizing Love: Moving Towards a Critical Theory of Love in Education for Social Justice. We spoke with Durryle Brooks at the 2024 White Privilege Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Durryle Brooks (00:07):
So one of the places where I do the most work with leaders
is to help them understand thathow they see the world and how they
understand a conflict or the driversof it is just their perspective.
And, until we create space to engagewhat the roots of that conflict are,
and to do that in a way where we canhear multiple perspectives on the same
(00:30):
incident, then we can't make an endroad, we can't begin to repair, we can't
be in the right relationship becausewe haven't been able to hold that just
because you understand it that waydoesn't mean that it's actually what
is being experienced on the other end.
Sam Fuqua (00:46):
That's Durryle Brooks and this is Well, That Went Sideways, a podcast
that serves as a resource to help peoplehave healthy, respectful communication.
We present a diversity of ideas, tools,and techniques to help you transform
conflict in relationships of all kinds.
In this episode, we talk with DurryleBrooks about centering love in racial
(01:12):
justice work, and about how he approachesdiversity and social justice learning
opportunities for leaders through hisorganization, Love and Justice Consulting.
He's also the author of ReconceptualizingLove: Moving Towards a Critical Theory
of Love in Education for Social Justice.
(01:35):
We spoke with Durryle Brooksat the 2024 White Privilege
Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I'm Sam Fuqua, co-host of theprogram with Alexis Miles.
Hi, Alexis.
Alexis Miles (01:46):
Hi, Sam.
Sam Fuqua (01:47):
So glad to be joined for this episode of Well, That
Went Sideways by Durryle Brooks.
Welcome.
Durryle Brooks (01:52):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Sam Fuqua (01:54):
Great to be with you here at the White Privilege
Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Durryle Brooks (01:58):
Yeah, it's been a great experience so far, so I'm looking
forward to, sort of, sharing a littlebit about my experience and talking
about, sort of, what the day's been.
Alexis Miles (02:06):
Well, I had the great pleasure of being in
your workshop earlier today.
Durryle Brooks (02:10):
Thank you.
Alexis Miles (02:10):
And you did two things that really grabbed me.
One is, you had us get centered andgrounded in the room by having us
talk about how we were physically,emotionally, intellectually, and
spiritually, and it changed my experience.
So, we had four minutes each toshare our experience with each
other, and afterwards, there was asense of safety and intimacy created
(02:35):
with a person I'd never met before.
And we were able to engage in yourconversation and in your teaching much
more easily and with much more presence.
So, thank you for that.
Durryle Brooks (02:47):
Thank you.
Alexis Miles (02:48):
Can you talk about that format and the importance of doing that?
Durryle Brooks (02:52):
Absolutely.
So, that was my session calledOperationalizing Love and Centering
Love and at Racial Justice Work.
Um, and that particular activityis called The Personal Compass.
I created it in 2014.
I was in grad school at the time, andthere was an emphasis, an over-emphasis
only on the intellectual ways of being.
Um, and, uh, because I'm a blackman, a black gay man, I knew that
(03:14):
there was something else that mybody was needing and telling me.
And so, I needed a framework to beginto allow my mind and body to exist,
and, uh, and so I started doing mywork around understanding both the
importance of knowing in multiple ways.
And so, there's one cognitive way ofknowing, uh, but our body knows too.
(03:35):
And so in that activity, I inviteeveryone to check in with themselves
from the intellectual, spiritual,emotional, um, and physical such that
we can start to push back againstwhite supremacy, which suggests that
we need to live a bifurcated life, thatintellect is more important than what
my body and my heart and my soul feel.
(03:57):
Uh, and so that was myattempt at resisting.
I think that splintering that is apart of this culture and this society
and most systems of oppression.
And so, it was, for me, an importantstarting place because when we feel
connected it creates space for otherpeople to, sort of, both relax and
(04:20):
then to create some connection andintimacy between the persons who are
sharing real things about their livesand to do it in a way that feels like
they can share their truth, howeverthey feel necessary to share it.
And I think, for me, that's areally important part of holding
space for people, holding space forourselves, and doing the important
(04:42):
work of social transformation.
Alexis Miles (04:44):
Well, it really made a difference, especially when you modeled
what that looked like and you gavesome examples like, "I didn't sleep
well, I think it's the mattress."
"My shoes are a bit tootight, but they're cute."
Things like that.
And then you talked about how you'refeeling spiritually, emotionally.
That made a difference tothe rest of us in the room.
(05:05):
It made it feel safe to be in thereand to be open, and to actually allow
ourselves to look each other in the eyesand have deep conversations about things.
And it prepared us for listening to you.
Durryle Brooks (05:18):
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
And I think one of the things that I'velearned partly because of my father,
he's one of the co-founders of the SocialJustice Training Institute, which is
celebrating 25 years, which is a racialimmersion where folks get to spend
five days just trying to be present.
It's a learning lab.
It's not a place where yougo to tell people what to do,
(05:39):
but it's a place where you be.
And what I've learned from watching andparticipating with those sessions over the
years is that if I don't model a pathway,a possibility for us to be whole or for
us to be well, for us to really, uh,co-create a space where, um, everybody,
bodies matter, whether it's around raceor gender or class or sexual orientation,
(06:03):
uh, if I don't set the standard,people have a hard time imagining.
And so, if I can't be vulnerable and tellthe truth, um, how can I invite you or
even expect you to do that in my space?
And so, I always believe in telling thetruth about who I am in hopes that it
creates space for people to tell thetruth, a deeper truth that they might
not, wouldn't share if I just asked themhow they were doing on any given day.
Sam Fuqua (06:24):
So, I know you do a lot of work with leaders of many
different backgrounds, right?
And, how do you address, uh, because I'vefound this in some of my own work life,
the challenge of bringing the whole selfand being vulnerable, uh, when we, at
least I, sometimes just wanted to bringmy intellectual self, maybe a little bit
of my emotional self, but there was abifurcation that was maybe a protection
(06:48):
mechanism or not wanting to "takework home," or, or bring home to work.
You know what I mean?
Durryle Brooks (06:56):
Yeah.
One of the things that I've groundedmyself in over the years is that
there's always a reason that peopleshow up the way that they show up.
And, those reasons usually have deeproots, uh, to things that we are
conscious of and sometimes unconsciousof and other things that we've
completely removed from ourselves.
And so, my first thing is to neverjudge what people bring or not bring,
(07:18):
um, to workplaces or their places offaith or wherever they find themselves.
And, what I begin to invite people intois that your own story about, sort of,
why you felt that you still need to showup like that today, in bifurcated ways
or places where you are not bringingthe brilliance of your mind, but the
knowing of your body and of your spiritand your heart fully into the space.
(07:42):
What pieces of your socialization, yourhistory, your context is still having you
to feel that that's not something thatyou should do or is accessible to you.
Now, if you do all that work, you know,that self work, and still say, "Well,
I don't want to do that," that's great.
That's great.
Because that's your choice.
But my work is really about helping peopleto interrupt the ways in which they, kind
(08:04):
of, operate out of routine and habit.
And, I believe Dr.
Barbara Love's work, where she talksabout liberation, uh, liberatory
consciousness, she talks about, um,living in the world with intention
and not as an automatic response.
And, that a part of us, sort of,disentangling ourselves from systems of
oppression is when we get to know whenwe're showing up is because it is out of
(08:26):
our own choice points, our power point,and not because of the ways in which I
was socializing to trauma or to pain.
And I think that's whatstuck with me the most.
And so, I invite people to consideroften, like, what's your story about what
you're bringing and what you can bring?
And is there something in yourenvironment that's either rewarding a
certain way of being in a space, um, anddisenfranchising others, or is it you?
(08:50):
And it's usually a little bit of both.
Alexis Miles (08:52):
So this morning, you presented a framework that
you use when you're working withleaders, and it included things
like debate versus dialogue,interrogating assumptions, surfacing
assumptions, and some other things.
Could you talk about that?
Durryle Brooks (09:10):
Yeah, so I think, um, my work, as I mentioned, is really
about helping, uh, leaders, and Imostly work with progressive leaders to
provide them with space to do learningand development and capacity building
around a number of issues, whether it'saround healing trauma, to manage and
navigate conflict, specifically aroundracialized experiences and how they
(09:31):
create a lot of conflict and tensionin our lives and in our interpersonal
relationships and in systems.
And so, what I've learned is, isthat because we've been socialized
into a culture of debate, thatwe also, in that, inadvertently
start replicating white supremacy.
And what I mean by that is that myinsistence that there is only one right
(09:53):
way, um, that the right way to do it ismine, that I have the only singular truth
in this space, uh, that I'm often havingto position myself as right and others
as wrong, all of that is tied to beingsocialized in a culture, in a context
that is about minimizing difference,uh, and disrespecting it instead of
(10:16):
inviting us into what I believe dialoguedoes, which is to create space for
multiple truths and multiple realities.
And so, one of the places where Ido the most work with leaders is
to help them understand that howthey see the world, and how they
understand a conflict or the driversof it, it's just their perspective.
And, until we create space to engage whatthe roots of that conflict are, and to do
(10:41):
that in a way where we can hear multipleperspectives on the same incident, then we
can't make an end road, we can't begin torepair, we can't be in right relationships
because we haven't been able to holdthat just because you understand it that
way, doesn't mean that it's actually whatis being experienced on the other end.
And so, my work is really tryingto create the conditions for people
(11:03):
to tell all their truths, and thattogether we get to come to some common
and shared understandings about what'sdriving either conflict or discord
or discontent, uh, in the workplace.
Alexis Miles (11:14):
Well, earlier, you mentioned that knowing a person's
origin story makes a difference, andthat that's one of the ways you keep
from making assumptions about people.
Durryle Brooks (11:26):
Absolutely.
Alexis Miles (11:28):
Could you say more about that and maybe tell us
a bit about your origin story?
Durryle Brooks (11:31):
Yeah, I think one of the principles of dialogue is about
identifying and surfacing of assumptions.
And, we make them quickly every singleday, around the clock for many reasons.
And I think what I've learned in mylifetime is that when I spent time
interrogating the assumptions that Ihave about my own body, my own lived
experience, it creates space for me tounderstand what other people might have
(11:57):
been socialized into and to not makeassumptions about, um, their behavior
or the way that they're showing upbecause I don't have enough information.
And so for me, what I believe atmy core is that when we spend time
creating the conditions for deeperunderstanding and self awareness,
it allows for empathy to show up inreally important and powerful places.
(12:20):
And I think we're going toneed it to help remind us, uh,
and to reclaim our humanity.
And we won't be able to do that withoutleaning in heavily in the empathetic
space, being fully embodied as who we areand understanding how we've come to be.
I'm not just Durryle.
I'm Durryle because I grew up inBaltimore City, in a racialized and
(12:41):
redlined neighborhood, in a spacethat couldn't support a grocery store.
I'm, I'm Durryle because I wasraised in a homophobic church
and there was religious abuse.
And so, all of those things came togetherto produce these really seemingly
intractable pain points that were,um, pressuring me and molding me, uh,
(13:02):
and resulting in trauma, long lastingtrauma that I've been able to work.
When I do my work, it's because of thoseexperiences and doing the healing work
required that allows me to go and supportorganizations and leaders in really
difficult, um, seemingly intractabledisconnection from one another.
And, because of my insistence onunderstanding how I came to be, I
(13:28):
also get to invite other people intosort of, "Huh, you thought that, that
way of showing up was, uh, right?
Okay, so tell me more about howyou came to know that to be right?
And how that might look differentbased on your race or your
gender or sexual orientation?
And how that might be fueling someof the, uh, trauma, the discord, the
discontent, whatever is going on inthe space of conflict and leadership,
(13:49):
uh, leadership teams or organizations."
and when I began to do that, I found thatit's much harder to just point a finger
easily and say you were the wrong one.
If we don't interrogate the systemsthat actually create the conditions
of our own beliefs and our world viewsand the broader context, uh, we, we get
to easily point fingers at each other.
Sam Fuqua (14:12):
You work a lot with progressive organizations where we think there's
a unity of mission, we have the rightvalues, we believe a better world is
possible, and we have this alignment, andwe would hope empathy with one another,
and yet, what's breaking down there?
Durryle Brooks (14:32):
I think we, probably, generalization, are
really wonderful, um, wordsmiths.
And what I mean by that is,I believe we learn to pick up
language and to not interrogatewhat it is and what does it mean.
I do a lot of work with helpingorganizations move through
values, and so, for example,people say, "I value justice."
(14:55):
Then I say, "Well, whatdoes justice actually mean?"
But most organizations don't go deeperthan just, I believe in justice.
But it's actually when you startinviting people into sort of, now
tell me a story about what justicemeans to you into what would it look
like in real time in the day to day.
Then I get to start fielding, huh,there are a lot of distinctions here.
(15:16):
Actually, justice is a word with manymeanings to you because every person is
bringing their own interpretation to it.
So, I have to begin to help peopledesign processes so that they can
think together and come up withshared language and alignment, and
not just language alignment, butreal practical embodied belief that I
understand when you say justice that Iunderstand it the same way too or close.
(15:39):
Because what I see often happensthat people like, oh, we're good.
I'm an anti-racist organization.
I believe in love or compassionor integrity, but we don't spend
time doing the work of like,okay so what does that mean.
And, because of that, because we don'thave a good skill set that's pervasive
in our society, that helps people, um,handle multiple realities, multiple
(16:03):
truths, nuance, and complexity,uh, because we're socialized into a
debate culture, uh, it's hard to hold.
Um, and we don't have a, a, a skillset to do that often or very well.
And so, whether or not you're progressiveor not, we still are lacking essential
skills and tools for us to be, uh, inright relationship with each other.
Sam Fuqua (16:22):
Yeah, that phrase "debate culture" really resonates with me and I
hadn't thought of it in that particularphrase, but yeah, we were willing
to debate the point and argue therighteousness of our position effectively.
Sometimes with empathy.
Durryle Brooks (16:37):
Sometimes.
Sam Fuqua (16:37):
Yeah, sometimes.
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (16:39):
Could you walk us through that framework?
There's six components.
Could you walk us through that?
Durryle Brooks (16:44):
Yeah, so that particular body of work is called
The Building Blocks of Dialogue.
Um, and you can go online and look itup and there are actually more building
blocks, but I start with six becauseI think they're really important.
Um, and so, what I often say topeople is that they, because we've
been socialized into being cultureto not in the space of dialogue, that
(17:07):
we can, we begin to conflate simpletalking and discussions as dialogue.
And that, that's actually not truebecause you could be venting at
someone or you could just be offloadingor dumping, whether verbally or
emotionally onto other people.
That's not dialogue.
Dialogue is about mutuality.
It's about coming together and thinkingtogether and that there are actually
(17:27):
skills that are required for us tobe in a space where it is not dumping
but actually sharing and co-creating.
And so, those six skills are deeplistening, identifying and surfacing
of assumptions, uh, suspendingjudgment, which is really, I believe,
a really important piece of lifelesson for me, uh, respect, voicing,
(17:48):
um, and reflection and inquiry.
And that, I believe we have differentand varying levels of, um, skill
working with those particular six, andwhat I often say is that I'm usually
strong in one or two of those areas,but I'm trying to also do some work in
learning and development and others.
And that the hope is that if we began to,sort of, grapple with these six skills
(18:09):
and grow in the areas where we mightneed to and nurture them, that we could
actually create the conditions in thecontainer for real dialogue about deep and
meaningful things, particularly around,um, the ways in which we've been hurt
and traumatized and forced to separateand disconnect from our humanity because
of racism or homophobia or transphobia.
And so, what I found is that healing hasto take place in a dialogic space, right?
(18:35):
It has to be a space where I feel seenor I feel heard and valued that the
conditions of the container for me toinvite you into reflection is such that
you feel like if you say something,it's a truth even if You feel like it's
going to cause ripples or, or creatediscord, you still voice it, um, not
because out, out of any ill intent,but because it's a part of your truth.
(18:57):
And until I can create the conditionsfor me to tell the truth, my truth
that is, not the collective truth orthe total truth, it's hard for people
to do the healing work, to letting theguard down, to letting the empathy in.
And I think that's why I spenda lot of time working through
dialogue, uh, as a framework to,to move us towards social justice.
Sam Fuqua (19:18):
Picking up on the name of our podcast, Well, That Went Sideways!
we always ask our guests to reflect andtell us about a sideways moment for you,
like when something went off track, howyou reacted then, how you handled it,
maybe how you wish you'd handled it.
Durryle Brooks (19:34):
Thank you for the question.
I think one of the things that I'velearned is that, um, if I'm not willing
to, uh, be in deep reflection, criticalreflection about the ways in which
I have shown up in ways that I mightfeel ashamed of today, that I won't
do the learning necessary to change.
And so, um, as a social justicepractitioner, I wasn't always a doctor,
and I wasn't always, uh, having the mostknowledge or the most sophistication
(19:57):
with how to name or understand peopleand what they're going through.
And sometimes, uh, I've learned thatbecause I identify as a queer man or a
gay man, I don't always pay attentionto the ways in which my male privilege
shows up in spaces because I'm oftenresponding from my place of subordinate,
(20:18):
uh, marginalized identity as a queer man.
And so, I was with afriend whom I love dearly.
Um, it was three guys, two cisgender,straight men and one trans man.
And we're all folks of color and withone of my dearest closest friends,
Sidney, and we were at her house inNew York, uh, and we were talking,
we were in just simple conversation.
(20:38):
And, you know, the energy changes,the, the, the guys are doing, uh, the
bro-ey talk or whatever, and everytime she'd interject, we would ignore
her and keep having the conversation.
And she tried three times.
And, she then stopped us and said, "Youknow, I have been trying to get into
(20:59):
this conversation for three rounds,and every time I say something, you
all ignore it, and you don't see me."
And, I lost my breath because I couldn'tbelieve that in that moment, I wasn't
paying attention to my male privilegebecause I was thinking just from my
(21:21):
spaces of marginalization as a queerperson, and I was really excited to be
in space with other men that I began to,uh, sacrifice, uh, paying attention to
her, her needs, her wants and desiresto then collude with the straight
men, the cisgender men in that space.
And I love her.
And I support her, and we've beenfriends for years, and yet, I still, when
(21:45):
I'm not focused and paying attention,I will slip back into the ways, and
allow my male privilege, and I wouldcollude, in order to be liked by men
because that's a part of my trauma.
And I, for me, that was one reallyimportant turning point for me to say,
oh, you have to not only understand theplaces where you have a marginalized
(22:07):
experiences, but I still, we all haveprivilege and privileges, and so,
I need to also be mindful of that.
To allow that not to get lost andend up having a negative impact on
someone who is a friend of mine.
And luckily, she forgave us.
But it was, it was a turning point.
And that went way, way wrong.
To the left, to the sideways.
(22:28):
Back around again.
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (22:29):
And, and in that moment, once you had that realization
that was going on, what did youdo to remedy that situation?
Durryle Brooks (22:38):
Thank you.
First of all, we apologized,and we said we're so sorry.
We had not been paying attention tothe ways in which we had completely
enacted normative patriarchy,male privilege, whatever the
language you want to use there.
And, that we're going to be payingattention to that and inviting you in.
(22:59):
Um, and then, of course,we then apologize.
We asked if she would accept it.
She did.
And then she had the floor.
And then, we reconfigured thespace so that it wouldn't allow
for the easy manipulation or ratherthe erasure of her experience
just because of the positioning.
So let's, so like, okay, so how aboutwe have you more in the center of
us so that we can be fully presentwith you and hear you and see you.
(23:23):
So yeah, so for me, that was definitelysome of the things that we did and,
and then I made a commitment to myselfto be mindful of the places where I
do have privilege and not when I'mcalled out, respond from my minoritized
space, which I've been like, oh,no, I didn't, I couldn't possibly
have male privilege because I'm gay.
Like, but that was a thought, andI had to, sort of, wind that back,
um, and to know that even though Iam gay, I was still socialized in a
(23:46):
society that men still ignore, that'swhat we're, that women's opinions
don't matter as much or as equal, uh,equally as others, and inadvertently,
um, reproduced it in that very moment.
Alexis Miles (23:58):
You are one of the few people I've heard who's doing
this kind of work that uses thelove, the word love very freely.
So, you talk about love and it's includedin the titles of some of the work you do.
Why do you do that?
Durryle Brooks (24:13):
I think that's a really great question and I have
been doing a lot of thinking asI've been writing about love.
What I will tell you is that when Igo into spaces, especially progressive
spaces, and I talk about love,people are like, "Oh, what is that?"
"Why do you need to talk about that?"
Um, because we've been socialized andhave lived experience of that, that
has love be most often a traumatizing,ineffective, and sometimes, very
(24:38):
destructive force in our lives.
And so, most of us haven't experienceda love that is transformative, that
helps us to discover fully, uh,and unapologetically who we are.
And when you live in a society that tellsus black people that we are unlovable,
it is no surprise then that when I saythe word love, it invites in, uh, ideas
(25:00):
or beliefs of, um, well, that's silly,that's not going to bring about change.
What's love got to do withchanging these policies?
And so for me, from my perspective,I engage love because it feels like
one of the least untapped spaceswhere we allow racism and homophobia
and transphobia to go unchecked.
(25:21):
Because when you start to analyze theways in which we've been socialized to
love and who to love, they often relyon the same racialized hierarchies,
uh, that say that that some peopleare more lovable than others.
Um, but because we don't have a robustdiscourse in our, our society, we allow
people to suffer in silence, to wonderthat if every time my relationship
(25:43):
failed, it was because something Idid inherently versus a society that
constantly says that you don't matterand then won't give you any tools to
help make sense of the dysfunctionthat might be, uh, it might be creating
in your life, not at the individuallevel, but also at the systems level.
And so, when we spend time challenginglove, and making us think deeply about,
(26:06):
huh, where in how I was taught justwas about reinforcing white privilege
and whiteness and white supremacy,that you actually start to then have an
opportunity to redefine the very idea oflove itself and to pull it from obscurity
and mediocrity into what I believe Dr.
King meant and needed it to be whenhe said, "Love is a love that does
(26:28):
justice and it is about acting in waysthat produce social transformation."
There's a history and a lineageof black folks and black
and brown folks doing work.
And if you talk to a lot of activistsand organizers, they're saying they're
doing what they do out of love.
But yet, they're getting written offas, oh, well, you're just too noisy
or too loud or whatever because wedon't have a robust language and a
(26:52):
lexicon to hold that love is what Dr.
Cornel West says is whatjustice looks like in public.
And so, for me, if we don't do thework of love, we can't provide people
with the tools and necessary resourcesto start stamping out white supremacy
and heteronormativity and ableismthat's embedded in our very notions
(27:12):
of who we love and who we ought tolove or can't love, in some cases.
But when I talk about love in thepolitical context, it is that love
is important to me because it confers
value and it determines whether or notsomeone's going to act on your behalf.
And for me, if we begin to reconceptualizelove, it'll create a pathway for us to
(27:33):
begin to reimagine it in its full powerand capacity to really be the intervention
that we need in today's society.
Otherwise, we just have moreof the same old, same old.
Alexis Miles (27:46):
Could you say a little bit about your critical theory of love?
Durryle Brooks (27:50):
Yeah.
I came to this study of love.
I talked about it earlierin terms of desperation.
I had grown up in a society, ina family, in a community, uh,
that, uh, did not value queerness.
Did not value gay.
It was in the late 80s, early 90s, duringthe height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and
people were literally saying, uh, don'ttouch gay people, you'll get HIV and die.
(28:13):
And so, I was coming up in an erawhere I was explicitly told, because
you're gay, you don't deserve tobe respected, and you're lucky
that we're allowing you to be here.
Or, in some cases, I will kick you out.
And so, for me, the question of lovebecame such that it was inaccessible
to me, that I shouldn't evenexpect to have it in my lifetime.
(28:35):
Or, and if I did, it would beconditional on the condition of what
someone else was willing to offer,not necessarily what was inherently
mine, um, and what I had deep within.
And so, I started the academic pursuitof understanding love actually in
undergrad at a small college called St.
Mary's College of Maryland, examining Dr.
King's philosophy and notion of love andhow he used that as a mechanism to fuel
(28:58):
and animate the civil rights movement.
And that's where I start to getinto the relationship between love
as not just an individual behavior,but as a social movement builder
and necessary force for change.
Um, and so my critical theory is suchthat when we begin to ask questions
critically about love, we get toexpose all of the ways in which power
is used and misused within it, and italso creates a space for us to find
(29:20):
our own power, to give voice to it.
And so, when I use critical, it just meansI'm helping to expose all of the hidden
ideologies that are pervasive in this ideaof love, and then to expose them so that
we get to make choices about how I showup, and do justice and do right by people.
It's a six part framework, but that'sthe, the, the origin of that, and I
(29:42):
believe when we spend time cultivatinga capacity to engage in those hidden
ideologies, uh, that we, we would bebetter for it as a, as a whole population
of people, humans trying to, uh, liveon a planet, uh, that is alive, uh, even
though we're told that it's dead andit's just a rock for capitalist aims.
Sam Fuqua (30:03):
Well, Durryle Brooks, great to spend this time with you.
Thank you.
And thanks for your work.
Durryle Brooks (30:07):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Alexis Miles (30:09):
It was a pleasure talking with you today.
Durryle Brooks (30:11):
Thank you.
Ditto.
Sam Fuqua (30:13):
Durryle Brooks is founder and CEO of Love and Justice
Consulting, an organization thatprovides leaders with diversity and
social justice learning opportunities.
He's the author of ReconceptualizingLove: Moving Towards a Critical Theory
of Love in Education for Social Justice.
(30:33):
We spoke with Durryle Brooks at the2024 White Privilege Conference.
Thanks for listening toWell, That Went Sideways!
We produce new episodes twice a month.
You can find them whereveryou get your podcasts and on
(30:55):
our website, sidewayspod.org.
We also have information on our guests,interview transcripts and links to
more conflict resolution resources.
That's sidewayspod.org.
Our production team is Mary Zinn,Jes Rau, Norma Johnson, Alexis Miles,
(31:17):
Alia Thobani, and me, Sam Fuqua.
Our theme music is by Mike Stewart.
We produce these programs in Coloradoon the traditional lands of the
Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations.
To learn more about the importanceof land acknowledgment, visit
our website, sidewayspod.org.
(31:39):
And this podcast is a partnershipwith The Conflict Center, a
Denver-based nonprofit that providespractical skills and training for
addressing everyday conflicts.
Find out more at conflictcenter.org.
So one of the places where I do the most work with leaders
is to help them understand thathow they see the world and how they
understand a conflict or the driversof it is just their perspective.
And, until we create space to engagewhat the roots of that conflict are,
and to do that in a way where we canhear multiple perspectives on the same
(00:30):
incident, then we can't make an endroad, we can't begin to repair, we can't
be in the right relationship becausewe haven't been able to hold that just
because you understand it that waydoesn't mean that it's actually what
is being experienced on the other end.
Sam Fuqua (00:46):
That's Durryle Brooks and this is Well, That Went Sideways, a podcast
that serves as a resource to help peoplehave healthy, respectful communication.
We present a diversity of ideas, tools,and techniques to help you transform
conflict in relationships of all kinds.
In this episode, we talk with DurryleBrooks about centering love in racial
(01:12):
justice work, and about how he approachesdiversity and social justice learning
opportunities for leaders through hisorganization, Love and Justice Consulting.
He's also the author of ReconceptualizingLove: Moving Towards a Critical Theory
of Love in Education for Social Justice.
(01:35):
We spoke with Durryle Brooksat the 2024 White Privilege
Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I'm Sam Fuqua, co-host of theprogram with Alexis Miles.
Hi, Alexis.
Alexis Miles (01:46):
Hi, Sam.
Sam Fuqua (01:47):
So glad to be joined for this episode of Well, That
Went Sideways by Durryle Brooks.
Welcome.
Durryle Brooks (01:52):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Sam Fuqua (01:54):
Great to be with you here at the White Privilege
Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Durryle Brooks (01:58):
Yeah, it's been a great experience so far, so I'm looking
forward to, sort of, sharing a littlebit about my experience and talking
about, sort of, what the day's been.
Alexis Miles (02:06):
Well, I had the great pleasure of being in
your workshop earlier today.
Durryle Brooks (02:10):
Thank you.
Alexis Miles (02:10):
And you did two things that really grabbed me.
One is, you had us get centered andgrounded in the room by having us
talk about how we were physically,emotionally, intellectually, and
spiritually, and it changed my experience.
So, we had four minutes each toshare our experience with each
other, and afterwards, there was asense of safety and intimacy created
(02:35):
with a person I'd never met before.
And we were able to engage in yourconversation and in your teaching much
more easily and with much more presence.
So, thank you for that.
Durryle Brooks (02:47):
Thank you.
Alexis Miles (02:48):
Can you talk about that format and the importance of doing that?
Durryle Brooks (02:52):
Absolutely.
So, that was my session calledOperationalizing Love and Centering
Love and at Racial Justice Work.
Um, and that particular activityis called The Personal Compass.
I created it in 2014.
I was in grad school at the time, andthere was an emphasis, an over-emphasis
only on the intellectual ways of being.
Um, and, uh, because I'm a blackman, a black gay man, I knew that
(03:14):
there was something else that mybody was needing and telling me.
And so, I needed a framework to beginto allow my mind and body to exist,
and, uh, and so I started doing mywork around understanding both the
importance of knowing in multiple ways.
And so, there's one cognitive way ofknowing, uh, but our body knows too.
(03:35):
And so in that activity, I inviteeveryone to check in with themselves
from the intellectual, spiritual,emotional, um, and physical such that
we can start to push back againstwhite supremacy, which suggests that
we need to live a bifurcated life, thatintellect is more important than what
my body and my heart and my soul feel.
(03:57):
Uh, and so that was myattempt at resisting.
I think that splintering that is apart of this culture and this society
and most systems of oppression.
And so, it was, for me, an importantstarting place because when we feel
connected it creates space for otherpeople to, sort of, both relax and
(04:20):
then to create some connection andintimacy between the persons who are
sharing real things about their livesand to do it in a way that feels like
they can share their truth, howeverthey feel necessary to share it.
And I think, for me, that's areally important part of holding
space for people, holding space forourselves, and doing the important
(04:42):
work of social transformation.
Alexis Miles (04:44):
Well, it really made a difference, especially when you modeled
what that looked like and you gavesome examples like, "I didn't sleep
well, I think it's the mattress."
"My shoes are a bit tootight, but they're cute."
Things like that.
And then you talked about how you'refeeling spiritually, emotionally.
That made a difference tothe rest of us in the room.
(05:05):
It made it feel safe to be in thereand to be open, and to actually allow
ourselves to look each other in the eyesand have deep conversations about things.
And it prepared us for listening to you.
Durryle Brooks (05:18):
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
And I think one of the things that I'velearned partly because of my father,
he's one of the co-founders of the SocialJustice Training Institute, which is
celebrating 25 years, which is a racialimmersion where folks get to spend
five days just trying to be present.
It's a learning lab.
It's not a place where yougo to tell people what to do,
(05:39):
but it's a place where you be.
And what I've learned from watching andparticipating with those sessions over the
years is that if I don't model a pathway,a possibility for us to be whole or for
us to be well, for us to really, uh,co-create a space where, um, everybody,
bodies matter, whether it's around raceor gender or class or sexual orientation,
(06:03):
uh, if I don't set the standard,people have a hard time imagining.
And so, if I can't be vulnerable and tellthe truth, um, how can I invite you or
even expect you to do that in my space?
And so, I always believe in telling thetruth about who I am in hopes that it
creates space for people to tell thetruth, a deeper truth that they might
not, wouldn't share if I just asked themhow they were doing on any given day.
Sam Fuqua (06:24):
So, I know you do a lot of work with leaders of many
different backgrounds, right?
And, how do you address, uh, because I'vefound this in some of my own work life,
the challenge of bringing the whole selfand being vulnerable, uh, when we, at
least I, sometimes just wanted to bringmy intellectual self, maybe a little bit
of my emotional self, but there was abifurcation that was maybe a protection
(06:48):
mechanism or not wanting to "takework home," or, or bring home to work.
You know what I mean?
Durryle Brooks (06:56):
Yeah.
One of the things that I've groundedmyself in over the years is that
there's always a reason that peopleshow up the way that they show up.
And, those reasons usually have deeproots, uh, to things that we are
conscious of and sometimes unconsciousof and other things that we've
completely removed from ourselves.
And so, my first thing is to neverjudge what people bring or not bring,
(07:18):
um, to workplaces or their places offaith or wherever they find themselves.
And, what I begin to invite people intois that your own story about, sort of,
why you felt that you still need to showup like that today, in bifurcated ways
or places where you are not bringingthe brilliance of your mind, but the
knowing of your body and of your spiritand your heart fully into the space.
(07:42):
What pieces of your socialization, yourhistory, your context is still having you
to feel that that's not something thatyou should do or is accessible to you.
Now, if you do all that work, you know,that self work, and still say, "Well,
I don't want to do that," that's great.
That's great.
Because that's your choice.
But my work is really about helping peopleto interrupt the ways in which they, kind
(08:04):
of, operate out of routine and habit.
And, I believe Dr.
Barbara Love's work, where she talksabout liberation, uh, liberatory
consciousness, she talks about, um,living in the world with intention
and not as an automatic response.
And, that a part of us, sort of,disentangling ourselves from systems of
oppression is when we get to know whenwe're showing up is because it is out of
(08:26):
our own choice points, our power point,and not because of the ways in which I
was socializing to trauma or to pain.
And I think that's whatstuck with me the most.
And so, I invite people to consideroften, like, what's your story about what
you're bringing and what you can bring?
And is there something in yourenvironment that's either rewarding a
certain way of being in a space, um, anddisenfranchising others, or is it you?
(08:50):
And it's usually a little bit of both.
Alexis Miles (08:52):
So this morning, you presented a framework that
you use when you're working withleaders, and it included things
like debate versus dialogue,interrogating assumptions, surfacing
assumptions, and some other things.
Could you talk about that?
Durryle Brooks (09:10):
Yeah, so I think, um, my work, as I mentioned, is really
about helping, uh, leaders, and Imostly work with progressive leaders to
provide them with space to do learningand development and capacity building
around a number of issues, whether it'saround healing trauma, to manage and
navigate conflict, specifically aroundracialized experiences and how they
(09:31):
create a lot of conflict and tensionin our lives and in our interpersonal
relationships and in systems.
And so, what I've learned is, isthat because we've been socialized
into a culture of debate, thatwe also, in that, inadvertently
start replicating white supremacy.
And what I mean by that is that myinsistence that there is only one right
(09:53):
way, um, that the right way to do it ismine, that I have the only singular truth
in this space, uh, that I'm often havingto position myself as right and others
as wrong, all of that is tied to beingsocialized in a culture, in a context
that is about minimizing difference,uh, and disrespecting it instead of
(10:16):
inviting us into what I believe dialoguedoes, which is to create space for
multiple truths and multiple realities.
And so, one of the places where Ido the most work with leaders is
to help them understand that howthey see the world, and how they
understand a conflict or the driversof it, it's just their perspective.
And, until we create space to engage whatthe roots of that conflict are, and to do
(10:41):
that in a way where we can hear multipleperspectives on the same incident, then we
can't make an end road, we can't begin torepair, we can't be in right relationships
because we haven't been able to holdthat just because you understand it that
way, doesn't mean that it's actually whatis being experienced on the other end.
And so, my work is really tryingto create the conditions for people
(11:03):
to tell all their truths, and thattogether we get to come to some common
and shared understandings about what'sdriving either conflict or discord
or discontent, uh, in the workplace.
Alexis Miles (11:14):
Well, earlier, you mentioned that knowing a person's
origin story makes a difference, andthat that's one of the ways you keep
from making assumptions about people.
Durryle Brooks (11:26):
Absolutely.
Alexis Miles (11:28):
Could you say more about that and maybe tell us
a bit about your origin story?
Durryle Brooks (11:31):
Yeah, I think one of the principles of dialogue is about
identifying and surfacing of assumptions.
And, we make them quickly every singleday, around the clock for many reasons.
And I think what I've learned in mylifetime is that when I spent time
interrogating the assumptions that Ihave about my own body, my own lived
experience, it creates space for me tounderstand what other people might have
(11:57):
been socialized into and to not makeassumptions about, um, their behavior
or the way that they're showing upbecause I don't have enough information.
And so for me, what I believe atmy core is that when we spend time
creating the conditions for deeperunderstanding and self awareness,
it allows for empathy to show up inreally important and powerful places.
(12:20):
And I think we're going toneed it to help remind us, uh,
and to reclaim our humanity.
And we won't be able to do that withoutleaning in heavily in the empathetic
space, being fully embodied as who we areand understanding how we've come to be.
I'm not just Durryle.
I'm Durryle because I grew up inBaltimore City, in a racialized and
(12:41):
redlined neighborhood, in a spacethat couldn't support a grocery store.
I'm, I'm Durryle because I wasraised in a homophobic church
and there was religious abuse.
And so, all of those things came togetherto produce these really seemingly
intractable pain points that were,um, pressuring me and molding me, uh,
(13:02):
and resulting in trauma, long lastingtrauma that I've been able to work.
When I do my work, it's because of thoseexperiences and doing the healing work
required that allows me to go and supportorganizations and leaders in really
difficult, um, seemingly intractabledisconnection from one another.
And, because of my insistence onunderstanding how I came to be, I
(13:28):
also get to invite other people intosort of, "Huh, you thought that, that
way of showing up was, uh, right?
Okay, so tell me more about howyou came to know that to be right?
And how that might look differentbased on your race or your
gender or sexual orientation?
And how that might be fueling someof the, uh, trauma, the discord, the
discontent, whatever is going on inthe space of conflict and leadership,
(13:49):
uh, leadership teams or organizations."
and when I began to do that, I found thatit's much harder to just point a finger
easily and say you were the wrong one.
If we don't interrogate the systemsthat actually create the conditions
of our own beliefs and our world viewsand the broader context, uh, we, we get
to easily point fingers at each other.
Sam Fuqua (14:12):
You work a lot with progressive organizations where we think there's
a unity of mission, we have the rightvalues, we believe a better world is
possible, and we have this alignment, andwe would hope empathy with one another,
and yet, what's breaking down there?
Durryle Brooks (14:32):
I think we, probably, generalization, are
really wonderful, um, wordsmiths.
And what I mean by that is,I believe we learn to pick up
language and to not interrogatewhat it is and what does it mean.
I do a lot of work with helpingorganizations move through
values, and so, for example,people say, "I value justice."
(14:55):
Then I say, "Well, whatdoes justice actually mean?"
But most organizations don't go deeperthan just, I believe in justice.
But it's actually when you startinviting people into sort of, now
tell me a story about what justicemeans to you into what would it look
like in real time in the day to day.
Then I get to start fielding, huh,there are a lot of distinctions here.
(15:16):
Actually, justice is a word with manymeanings to you because every person is
bringing their own interpretation to it.
So, I have to begin to help peopledesign processes so that they can
think together and come up withshared language and alignment, and
not just language alignment, butreal practical embodied belief that I
understand when you say justice that Iunderstand it the same way too or close.
(15:39):
Because what I see often happensthat people like, oh, we're good.
I'm an anti-racist organization.
I believe in love or compassionor integrity, but we don't spend
time doing the work of like,okay so what does that mean.
And, because of that, because we don'thave a good skill set that's pervasive
in our society, that helps people, um,handle multiple realities, multiple
(16:03):
truths, nuance, and complexity,uh, because we're socialized into a
debate culture, uh, it's hard to hold.
Um, and we don't have a, a, a skillset to do that often or very well.
And so, whether or not you're progressiveor not, we still are lacking essential
skills and tools for us to be, uh, inright relationship with each other.
Sam Fuqua (16:22):
Yeah, that phrase "debate culture" really resonates with me and I
hadn't thought of it in that particularphrase, but yeah, we were willing
to debate the point and argue therighteousness of our position effectively.
Sometimes with empathy.
Durryle Brooks (16:37):
Sometimes.
Sam Fuqua (16:37):
Yeah, sometimes.
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (16:39):
Could you walk us through that framework?
There's six components.
Could you walk us through that?
Durryle Brooks (16:44):
Yeah, so that particular body of work is called
The Building Blocks of Dialogue.
Um, and you can go online and look itup and there are actually more building
blocks, but I start with six becauseI think they're really important.
Um, and so, what I often say topeople is that they, because we've
been socialized into being cultureto not in the space of dialogue, that
(17:07):
we can, we begin to conflate simpletalking and discussions as dialogue.
And that, that's actually not truebecause you could be venting at
someone or you could just be offloadingor dumping, whether verbally or
emotionally onto other people.
That's not dialogue.
Dialogue is about mutuality.
It's about coming together and thinkingtogether and that there are actually
(17:27):
skills that are required for us tobe in a space where it is not dumping
but actually sharing and co-creating.
And so, those six skills are deeplistening, identifying and surfacing
of assumptions, uh, suspendingjudgment, which is really, I believe,
a really important piece of lifelesson for me, uh, respect, voicing,
(17:48):
um, and reflection and inquiry.
And that, I believe we have differentand varying levels of, um, skill
working with those particular six, andwhat I often say is that I'm usually
strong in one or two of those areas,but I'm trying to also do some work in
learning and development and others.
And that the hope is that if we began to,sort of, grapple with these six skills
(18:09):
and grow in the areas where we mightneed to and nurture them, that we could
actually create the conditions in thecontainer for real dialogue about deep and
meaningful things, particularly around,um, the ways in which we've been hurt
and traumatized and forced to separateand disconnect from our humanity because
of racism or homophobia or transphobia.
And so, what I found is that healing hasto take place in a dialogic space, right?
(18:35):
It has to be a space where I feel seenor I feel heard and valued that the
conditions of the container for me toinvite you into reflection is such that
you feel like if you say something,it's a truth even if You feel like it's
going to cause ripples or, or creatediscord, you still voice it, um, not
because out, out of any ill intent,but because it's a part of your truth.
(18:57):
And until I can create the conditionsfor me to tell the truth, my truth
that is, not the collective truth orthe total truth, it's hard for people
to do the healing work, to letting theguard down, to letting the empathy in.
And I think that's why I spenda lot of time working through
dialogue, uh, as a framework to,to move us towards social justice.
Sam Fuqua (19:18):
Picking up on the name of our podcast, Well, That Went Sideways!
we always ask our guests to reflect andtell us about a sideways moment for you,
like when something went off track, howyou reacted then, how you handled it,
maybe how you wish you'd handled it.
Durryle Brooks (19:34):
Thank you for the question.
I think one of the things that I'velearned is that, um, if I'm not willing
to, uh, be in deep reflection, criticalreflection about the ways in which
I have shown up in ways that I mightfeel ashamed of today, that I won't
do the learning necessary to change.
And so, um, as a social justicepractitioner, I wasn't always a doctor,
and I wasn't always, uh, having the mostknowledge or the most sophistication
(19:57):
with how to name or understand peopleand what they're going through.
And sometimes, uh, I've learned thatbecause I identify as a queer man or a
gay man, I don't always pay attentionto the ways in which my male privilege
shows up in spaces because I'm oftenresponding from my place of subordinate,
(20:18):
uh, marginalized identity as a queer man.
And so, I was with afriend whom I love dearly.
Um, it was three guys, two cisgender,straight men and one trans man.
And we're all folks of color and withone of my dearest closest friends,
Sidney, and we were at her house inNew York, uh, and we were talking,
we were in just simple conversation.
(20:38):
And, you know, the energy changes,the, the, the guys are doing, uh, the
bro-ey talk or whatever, and everytime she'd interject, we would ignore
her and keep having the conversation.
And she tried three times.
And, she then stopped us and said, "Youknow, I have been trying to get into
(20:59):
this conversation for three rounds,and every time I say something, you
all ignore it, and you don't see me."
And, I lost my breath because I couldn'tbelieve that in that moment, I wasn't
paying attention to my male privilegebecause I was thinking just from my
(21:21):
spaces of marginalization as a queerperson, and I was really excited to be
in space with other men that I began to,uh, sacrifice, uh, paying attention to
her, her needs, her wants and desiresto then collude with the straight
men, the cisgender men in that space.
And I love her.
And I support her, and we've beenfriends for years, and yet, I still, when
(21:45):
I'm not focused and paying attention,I will slip back into the ways, and
allow my male privilege, and I wouldcollude, in order to be liked by men
because that's a part of my trauma.
And I, for me, that was one reallyimportant turning point for me to say,
oh, you have to not only understand theplaces where you have a marginalized
(22:07):
experiences, but I still, we all haveprivilege and privileges, and so,
I need to also be mindful of that.
To allow that not to get lost andend up having a negative impact on
someone who is a friend of mine.
And luckily, she forgave us.
But it was, it was a turning point.
And that went way, way wrong.
To the left, to the sideways.
(22:28):
Back around again.
Yeah.
Alexis Miles (22:29):
And, and in that moment, once you had that realization
that was going on, what did youdo to remedy that situation?
Durryle Brooks (22:38):
Thank you.
First of all, we apologized,and we said we're so sorry.
We had not been paying attention tothe ways in which we had completely
enacted normative patriarchy,male privilege, whatever the
language you want to use there.
And, that we're going to be payingattention to that and inviting you in.
(22:59):
Um, and then, of course,we then apologize.
We asked if she would accept it.
She did.
And then she had the floor.
And then, we reconfigured thespace so that it wouldn't allow
for the easy manipulation or ratherthe erasure of her experience
just because of the positioning.
So let's, so like, okay, so how aboutwe have you more in the center of
us so that we can be fully presentwith you and hear you and see you.
(23:23):
So yeah, so for me, that was definitelysome of the things that we did and,
and then I made a commitment to myselfto be mindful of the places where I
do have privilege and not when I'mcalled out, respond from my minoritized
space, which I've been like, oh,no, I didn't, I couldn't possibly
have male privilege because I'm gay.
Like, but that was a thought, andI had to, sort of, wind that back,
um, and to know that even though Iam gay, I was still socialized in a
(23:46):
society that men still ignore, that'swhat we're, that women's opinions
don't matter as much or as equal, uh,equally as others, and inadvertently,
um, reproduced it in that very moment.
Alexis Miles (23:58):
You are one of the few people I've heard who's doing
this kind of work that uses thelove, the word love very freely.
So, you talk about love and it's includedin the titles of some of the work you do.
Why do you do that?
Durryle Brooks (24:13):
I think that's a really great question and I have
been doing a lot of thinking asI've been writing about love.
What I will tell you is that when Igo into spaces, especially progressive
spaces, and I talk about love,people are like, "Oh, what is that?"
"Why do you need to talk about that?"
Um, because we've been socialized andhave lived experience of that, that
has love be most often a traumatizing,ineffective, and sometimes, very
(24:38):
destructive force in our lives.
And so, most of us haven't experienceda love that is transformative, that
helps us to discover fully, uh,and unapologetically who we are.
And when you live in a society that tellsus black people that we are unlovable,
it is no surprise then that when I saythe word love, it invites in, uh, ideas
(25:00):
or beliefs of, um, well, that's silly,that's not going to bring about change.
What's love got to do withchanging these policies?
And so for me, from my perspective,I engage love because it feels like
one of the least untapped spaceswhere we allow racism and homophobia
and transphobia to go unchecked.
(25:21):
Because when you start to analyze theways in which we've been socialized to
love and who to love, they often relyon the same racialized hierarchies,
uh, that say that that some peopleare more lovable than others.
Um, but because we don't have a robustdiscourse in our, our society, we allow
people to suffer in silence, to wonderthat if every time my relationship
(25:43):
failed, it was because something Idid inherently versus a society that
constantly says that you don't matterand then won't give you any tools to
help make sense of the dysfunctionthat might be, uh, it might be creating
in your life, not at the individuallevel, but also at the systems level.
And so, when we spend time challenginglove, and making us think deeply about,
(26:06):
huh, where in how I was taught justwas about reinforcing white privilege
and whiteness and white supremacy,that you actually start to then have an
opportunity to redefine the very idea oflove itself and to pull it from obscurity
and mediocrity into what I believe Dr.
King meant and needed it to be whenhe said, "Love is a love that does
(26:28):
justice and it is about acting in waysthat produce social transformation."
There's a history and a lineageof black folks and black
and brown folks doing work.
And if you talk to a lot of activistsand organizers, they're saying they're
doing what they do out of love.
But yet, they're getting written offas, oh, well, you're just too noisy
or too loud or whatever because wedon't have a robust language and a
(26:52):
lexicon to hold that love is what Dr.
Cornel West says is whatjustice looks like in public.
And so, for me, if we don't do thework of love, we can't provide people
with the tools and necessary resourcesto start stamping out white supremacy
and heteronormativity and ableismthat's embedded in our very notions
(27:12):
of who we love and who we ought tolove or can't love, in some cases.
But when I talk about love in thepolitical context, it is that love
is important to me because it confers
value and it determines whether or notsomeone's going to act on your behalf.
And for me, if we begin to reconceptualizelove, it'll create a pathway for us to
(27:33):
begin to reimagine it in its full powerand capacity to really be the intervention
that we need in today's society.
Otherwise, we just have moreof the same old, same old.
Alexis Miles (27:46):
Could you say a little bit about your critical theory of love?
Durryle Brooks (27:50):
Yeah.
I came to this study of love.
I talked about it earlierin terms of desperation.
I had grown up in a society, ina family, in a community, uh,
that, uh, did not value queerness.
Did not value gay.
It was in the late 80s, early 90s, duringthe height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and
people were literally saying, uh, don'ttouch gay people, you'll get HIV and die.
(28:13):
And so, I was coming up in an erawhere I was explicitly told, because
you're gay, you don't deserve tobe respected, and you're lucky
that we're allowing you to be here.
Or, in some cases, I will kick you out.
And so, for me, the question of lovebecame such that it was inaccessible
to me, that I shouldn't evenexpect to have it in my lifetime.
(28:35):
Or, and if I did, it would beconditional on the condition of what
someone else was willing to offer,not necessarily what was inherently
mine, um, and what I had deep within.
And so, I started the academic pursuitof understanding love actually in
undergrad at a small college called St.
Mary's College of Maryland, examining Dr.
King's philosophy and notion of love andhow he used that as a mechanism to fuel
(28:58):
and animate the civil rights movement.
And that's where I start to getinto the relationship between love
as not just an individual behavior,but as a social movement builder
and necessary force for change.
Um, and so my critical theory is suchthat when we begin to ask questions
critically about love, we get toexpose all of the ways in which power
is used and misused within it, and italso creates a space for us to find
(29:20):
our own power, to give voice to it.
And so, when I use critical, it just meansI'm helping to expose all of the hidden
ideologies that are pervasive in this ideaof love, and then to expose them so that
we get to make choices about how I showup, and do justice and do right by people.
It's a six part framework, but that'sthe, the, the origin of that, and I
(29:42):
believe when we spend time cultivatinga capacity to engage in those hidden
ideologies, uh, that we, we would bebetter for it as a, as a whole population
of people, humans trying to, uh, liveon a planet, uh, that is alive, uh, even
though we're told that it's dead andit's just a rock for capitalist aims.
Sam Fuqua (30:03):
Well, Durryle Brooks, great to spend this time with you.
Thank you.
And thanks for your work.
Durryle Brooks (30:07):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Alexis Miles (30:09):
It was a pleasure talking with you today.
Durryle Brooks (30:11):
Thank you.
Ditto.
Sam Fuqua (30:13):
Durryle Brooks is founder and CEO of Love and Justice
Consulting, an organization thatprovides leaders with diversity and
social justice learning opportunities.
He's the author of ReconceptualizingLove: Moving Towards a Critical Theory
of Love in Education for Social Justice.
(30:33):
We spoke with Durryle Brooks at the2024 White Privilege Conference.
Thanks for listening toWell, That Went Sideways!
We produce new episodes twice a month.
You can find them whereveryou get your podcasts and on
(30:55):
our website, sidewayspod.org.
We also have information on our guests,interview transcripts and links to
more conflict resolution resources.
That's sidewayspod.org.
Our production team is Mary Zinn,Jes Rau, Norma Johnson, Alexis Miles,
(31:17):
Alia Thobani, and me, Sam Fuqua.
Our theme music is by Mike Stewart.
We produce these programs in Coloradoon the traditional lands of the
Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations.
To learn more about the importanceof land acknowledgment, visit
our website, sidewayspod.org.
(31:39):
And this podcast is a partnershipwith The Conflict Center, a
Denver-based nonprofit that providespractical skills and training for
addressing everyday conflicts.
Find out more at conflictcenter.org.
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