S2E10: Healing and Understanding Intergenerational and Collective Traumas

To celebrate Star Wars Day ("May the Fourth be with you!)", Will and Amber dress in their favorite colors (pink and green) as "Star Wars" characters, and share "Star Wars" related joys. Amber's joy is attending one of Disneyland's After Dark Nites for "Star Wars" last year - with her mom, Will, and producer Eric Roman. Will's joy is the fun "Star Wars"-inspired details producer Eric Roman has added to their house. Before they get into the main discussion topic, Will shares some "bonus science" about aggression research.  The episode's discussion topic focuses on Intergenerational Trauma, with the conversation ranging from epigenetics and genetics, to how the self-talk of parents can affect their children, corporal punishment and Stacey Patton's book "Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America", and how events such as the Pulse nightclub shooting and the murder of George Floyd create collective trauma for members of related communities. And, importantly, they discuss steps to take to help heal from these intergenerational and collective traumas.   The anecdotes from Story Time include a negative story from Will and how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 directly affected his family and lead to his great-grandfather, who was Chinese and Native Hawaiian, to abandon his Chinese last name. Amber shares about how she helps Black youth in the predominantly White state of Oregon.  The question this month is about how to "be better" when you grew up in a very racist space, and the short answer is that if you're already thinking about how to be better, you're on the right path! Put in the effort, use the tools you've learned from listening to "Diverse Joy", and keep at it.  This month's bias habit-breaking skill is a spin on a classic: Broaden Your Input, but this time via Images in the Environment. Amber and Will discuss many great ways to increase representation in your physical and digital environments.  The episode wraps up with Will's joyful recommendation of "Fire Island" (2022) as part of the lead-up to Pride next month! This movie is a gay, Asian-American take on "Pride and Prejudice" focusing on a group of friends who go to Fire Island for the summer, and all the shenanigans that ensue! This movie is particularly imporant for its representation of diversity in the gay community, since a lot of LGBTQ+ media focuses on White folks, and the two main characters in "Fire Island" are Asian-American (played by the amazing Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang), with Margaret Cho showing up as their group's queer auntie. It's a lot of fun; check it out!  We now have merch! Buy some to support the show at https://www.biashabit.com/store

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Yeah.
And so it's May,which has our producer's birthday,
May the 4th, which is also Star Wars Day.
May the Fourth be with you, Amber.

(01:05):
And also with you.
So we're both dresss upin kind of Star Wars-y
but in our signaturecolors of pink and green,
which in the first season, we discoveredare our mutual favorite colors.
Right, exactly.And favorite color combination.
Yeah.
So we've got a lot of pinkand green-y themed things, which is great.
We love it. We love that.

(01:27):
Outfits.
And, if you look at our nonprofit’s logo,the Inequity Agents of Change logo,
it's kind of like a network-ish brain design
with pink and green nodes in the network.
And you also.
And if you can see,
our mugs are also pink and green.
So, like,
anytime Roman asks us something about,like, color, we're like, well, obviously pink and green.

(01:49):
It's obviously pink and green,obviously pink and green. Yes.
But anyway.
But that’s something - That should be one of our joys. Yeah!
I think we've just explained.
I think we did.You get extra joy from us
this this episode.It's true.
Yeah. But.
So, getting more on to our formalofficial joys
this episode.Yes.
Amber, what's bringing you enjoy this May.

(02:11):
You know, I mean, it is …
Star Wars month - day
and, so I, I think it's fitting to talk about
going to Star Wars nightat Disney with you all.
And your mom!And my mom!
And we went to, so for those of you who are unfamiliar,

(02:33):
we talked a little bit about,Jollywood Nights at Disney,
but Disney has these kind of after hoursnights in - that are themed, for different
things, Pride Night and Star WarsNight and Jollywood and, the,
what is Ooggie Boogie Bash,which is at Halloween time.

(02:53):
So they kind of closed down the parkafter hours
and make it fully themed. There are extra,
you know,
parades and fireworksand all kinds of activities.
The lines are really low. Special food.
And, and and, merchandise,things like that, and, photo opportunities

(03:15):
and special characters that come outthat don't come out during the day.
And so, we went, for Star Wars Night.
Or, well, I guess it technically wasn'tthe 4th, but -
It was the week of the 4th.
It was the week of the 4th,and we got to -
It was Season of the Force.
Season of the Force, yes.In April and May.
And it was just incredible.

(03:36):
I had never done one of thespecial nights before.
And so, I, we all got dressed up.
I was dressed as Rey,and we did a, the lightsaber meet up
and there's a whole scene that happenedaround us, and we got to be part of it.
And your mom was just as Ahsoka.

(03:56):
My mom was dressed as Ahsoka,and we just really got to get into it.
And it's just another level,and being around other folks
that really love Star Wars,just as much as me, but better.
Better, barometer is just as much as the
boys do as wellWill and Roman do because

(04:20):
they really
love Star Wars and knowall of the whole worlds.
And so it's just a reallycool experience to go
and be around other enthusiasts
and dressed up and get tosee the characters and interact
with, you know, Queen Amidala and,and Anakin, and, you know, just everything.

(04:40):
It was just so, so cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.It was as a blast.
It was such a blast.
Yeah.
And yeah, Roman and I love the cool merch. Merchandise
that we got, special.
So much merchandise.
There's so many things happening.
And like I said,all the photo opportunities and
just being interactive with other guests,but also the, the characters

(05:03):
that come out and the theme and the musicand everything, everything, every.
It was so immersive.
So it was very cool.Special food that they had
so many tasty snacks.
Yeah, yeah, I had a Wookie cookieand that was delicious.
Yeah.
All the things.
So yeah, that'sthat's my my joy for this month.
How about you, Will?

(05:24):
Can I interject really quick?Yeah. Please.
So since you mentioned my birthdaybeing May 4th,
as a lifelong Star Warsfan, it is very weird to me
that in the last ten years, my birthdayhas become the Star Wars holiday.
It's amazing!Because it never used to be.
And never used to be.
Yeah, I love that.

(05:45):
I love that for you, Eric Roman.
Yeah, it's quite perfect.
Awesome. So, my joy,since we're dressed up in Star Wars.
I was like,I'll do a Star Wars thing, too.
So Amber’s kind of mentioned once or twice,
my house, my, my and Eric Roman's house.

(06:05):
And how we have itkind of decorated and crafted, but,
over the years,
we've kind of been like, oh,we want to do a Star Wars room.
Like.
So one of our bathroomswe have where it looks like it's,
a building on Tattooinewhere we kind of curved the ceiling.
So, so it doesn't look as, as boxy and,

(06:26):
kind of put in various decorations.
Maybe Roman’ll have pictures.
It's not done yet, but,
but then we were like,okay, when we were remodeling our kitchen,
we had to get a new dishwasher,
and we were lookingat the different dishwashers,
and one of them has the kindwhere you can get a false front on it,
which is so that it can match your cabinets.Right.

(06:46):
But instead. So we got that one.
But instead of the frontthat matches the cabinets, Roman actually
built a front for it where it looks likea, control panel from the Death Star.
So control panel from from Star Wars.
And, we mentioned that our veryfirst episode, we went on the Starcruiser,
which was justa really amazing experience.

(07:08):
If anyone does remember, I'm talking aboutit was the it was kind of a two day
adventure that Disney had where you'rein the Star Wars universe on a ship.
And like in the hotel all the -instead of windows, the windows were like
really high def screens that looked likeyou were looking out at space
and they were really beautiful.
And one day I just kind of texted Roman.

(07:29):
I was looking at this
blank space we had in a wallabove our kitchen sink, actually,
and I was like, what if there was a windowright there into space?
And he built this
amazing window around a specialtelevision set that we bought,
that, that, it's called the Samsung Frame.Not branded content!
It just happens to be a fact.

(07:50):
But what's special about this TVis when you turn it off,
it using very, very little electricity,which, is important for,
you know, environmentalism and all that,Right.
basically like a screen saver on the screen.
It shows, pictures.
And so he built a frame around it.
So it looks like it's the space windowwith like, knobs and special lights

(08:11):
all around the frame.
But then in the frame, it plays pictures
from space in Star Wars,from Star Wars movies,
and TV shows.
And so every time you look at it,it's like,
oh, you're seeing spaceships,Star Wars spaceships.
And it just - sometimesI just sit there and look at it.
I'm like, oh, I feel happy.It is quite incredible.
I feel like every time I comeinto the house,

(08:33):
there's something newand fun to explore and see and find.
And, the Star Wars just
details and like, every, every piece.
And if I have not already said that,
which I know I have, and I will continueto say how talented both of you are
and and and Eric Roman'sjust talent for building and creating.

(08:55):
Yeah.Creating these pieces.
When you say like, oh,I want to have a window here.
Yeah.Like that he could just -
Figures it out and makes it like perfectand perfectly like sized
and has all of the detailsthat are in line with the Star Wars
universe is just really,really incredible.
Yeah.
And I know it sounds really nerdyand it is, but but, you know.

(09:18):
And there’s nothing wrong with that.Yeah.
I think
I have a really good ideasand not really much execution.
And then Romancan just execute everything
so to perfection and, you know, it's,
it's nerdy and some people who aren'tas nerdy as us might not quite get it.
But, you know, wheneverI see one of those things, it's -

(09:38):
Star Wars, part of why it's so successful andso many people love it is its aesthetic.
Right?
So it's just a very different alienkind of aesthetic, but still kind of
has that appeal.
And for people who grew up with it,like the original trilogy
was before I was born, it'sbeen a part of my life.
And just whenever I see those things,I'm like, oh, that's very Star Wars-y.

(09:58):
So. So yeah,.
Again, it brings you joy.It brings me joy!
And like, I think, you know, it'slistening to somebody recently
talking about actually interior designand how we, we've moved,
especially Millennialsmoved to like this kind of very gray,
very like white plain aestheticbecause like,
it helps with the quote unquoteresale value later on.

(10:21):
But like, why why are we thinking aboutwhen I'm leaving or moving?
Like we need to take the timeto create your space as unique as possible
so that you can enjoy it,and it brings you joy in every little nook
and cranny that you look atwhen you're in your space.
Yeah.
And what you're saying is
how we approached buying our housewhen we were doing that.

(10:42):
You know, people were talking about like,oh, a starter home sort of a thing.
And we were like, nope.
Like we we said we knew thatwe were going to do weird things
to the house we already were into,like smart lights and things like that.
And we were like, no, we're going to bedoing stuff that is just for us, like we
we're trying to commit to a forever home.
Yeah.
So that we could do a lot of these things.

(11:04):
And, and then having thatlevel of commitment, like not thinking,
oh, I'm going to have to pack this upin a few years, maybe.
Right.
Which often people think that.And then maybe it never happens.
Yep. But.
And you miss out on the opportunities, right?Yeah.
So it's a it's a good way to well,for us to kind of commit and live in and,
and even people who aren't into Star Wars,they come

(11:24):
and they're like, but they, they appreciate it.Exactly.
That's what I was gonna say was like,even if you aren't a Star Wars person,
like, you can really enjoy the space
just as much as anybody elsebecause they appreciate
what you all have done.
And, we have a lightsaberon the table.
Yes. So, I think thecameras are picking it up,

(11:47):
but for our little lightsabers, he builta lightsaber stand for one of them.
And we put it on the tablein front of Amber, and -
So we're done sharing joys.
But, when we put the lightsaber
on the table, it made me think of somesome research that,
when I mentioned it, we thoughtit might be interesting to share.
Yeah.
This is before we get into our main topicof intergenerational stuff, but, so,

(12:12):
back in the day,
researchers who studied aggression,like physical behavioral aggression,
had this theory called,
the frustration-aggression hypothesis,which is basically this idea
that, that aggression always comes from,
frustrated emotional states.
And also when you had a frustratedemotional state,

(12:34):
it always led to either aggressionor at least an impulse for aggression.
So that, frustration and aggressionwere were inherently,
fundamentally linked no matter what.
And that is they are linked.
But it was this idea that aggressionalways comes from frustration.
And, a professor in my,

(12:55):
my old department where I got my PhD,
UW Madison psychology department,a professor
from there named Leonard Berkowitz,who - he was retired by the time
I was there, but he he stayed involved,and I met him several times.
He read some of my papersand, and, was very supportive
and interested in my career,so I always - he's passed now - but I always,

(13:18):
had a special place in my heart for,for, Len.
He came along, and
he was like, you know, the frustrationaggression hypothesis can account for
many instances of instances of aggression,but I think there's more to it.
And he, he did a bunch of studies,but but basically he developed
a different modelor a complementary model of aggression
called the neo associationmodel of aggressive behavior.

(13:41):
And basically,
in some of the kind of most classic,most famous studies, what he did
is he brought people into the laband he had a weapon,
like kind of just sitting on the table,like kind of a messy
area was like,oh, that just ignore that or something.
But then showed that being exposedto a weapon, you know, it activates
ideas in your mind related to aggression,and that can lead to aggressive behavior.

(14:08):
And so it doesn't have to stem froma frustrated emotion.
You can have a cognitive pathway
that just kind of see
a weapon on the table leads peopleto actually behave more aggressively
than people who don't,who are in a different condition
of the experiment,and they don't see that.
And so just kind of havingthis lightsaber on the table.
I was going to say, so, I'm going to ask you to, like,ignore the lightsaber and,

(14:32):
not be aggressive.
But, yeah, also just, you know,Star Wars trivia
for Jedi lightsabers are supposed to beweapons of defense.
Not offense.Defense.
Yes, this is true.
But also, you know,it would depend on when you see it,
what do you think?What do you think it is.
And how do you -do you think of it as a weapon for …?
As a weapon. Right.
Attack.Attack or defense. Yeah.

(14:53):
And I kind of wonder - this is just mespeculating now.
So I'm stepping outside of any actual science,
I wonder with, like, fictional weapons,like a lightsaber,
Like a lightsaber.
Like, do you associate themwith the aggression because you see
lightsaber fight scenes or is it like,oh, it's Star Wars?
And maybe you don't think of that as an aggressive…Right.
I don't know, therethere could be something.
It's a good question.
Or do you just see it as

(15:14):
a toy.A toy.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's. Great.
And then lightsabers are very associatedwith meditation and stuff in Star Wars.
So there could be other things there, but.
Absolutely.
But yeah, just exposure to seeing guns.
It was a gun in the original weapons,
can activate ideas of aggressionthat can influence behavior.

(15:36):
And that goes back tosomething we've talked about
basically every episode,
these habits of mind orthese automatically activated associations
and how they can influence our behavior
doesn't mean if you see a gun,you instantly get aggressive necessarily.
Right.
Again, interacts with other things, but -
There are associations with them.Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So that that was a littlejust extra science talk.

(15:58):
A little extra tid bit there.
A little bit on the historyof kind of science of aggression.
Yeah.
All right.
So, getting, getting - so that was ourlittle kind of, extra science talk
with Will & Amber.Little extra.
But now we're getting into our main topic.
So our main topic today, Amber’sgoing to take a bit of a lead on it.
But it's intergenerational traumaand especially healing,

(16:22):
and also healing from it.
But but we have to kind of understand it,get that salty
part of our Diverse Joy sandwichso that we can then put -
Some vegan mayo, some mustard.
Yes.Yeah, yeah.
So, Amber, what what what are we talkingabout with intergenerational trauma?
Yeah.
You know, I,I think that is an interesting topic.

(16:45):
Because I wanted to bring it upbecause it's really tied to,
collective trauma as well. Right?
And I think collective trauma isboth related to intergenerational pieces,
but also what is currently happening
and how how groupsare really connected to that.
And so the idea ofintergenerational trauma is that

(17:07):
there are traumasthat happen within groups,
particularly in marginalized and oppressedgroups, that they experience.
And as a result of that, whether that's,
a style of food or a hair or,
ways in which they interactwith health care or things like that,

(17:30):
that kind of get passed downfrom generation to generation.
And that can happen from,like habit of mind.
But it can also be very -
physical manifestations of, of trauma too.
So we see things in like Holocaustsurvivors like generations pass,
the Holocaust - kids, grandkidshaving really,

(17:53):
higher levels of, of, mentalhealth concerns and things like that.
And we see a lot of these thingsthat happened,
with - without necessarilyhaving experienced a specific trauma,
but that there are these lasting,lingering effects
of somethingthat happened to your ancestors.

(18:13):
And and there are multiplepathways of that.
So sorry if I'm stealing your point, but,different ways we can think about this.
So one is epigenetics.Yes.
So when you experience trauma,it can actually kind of change
the expression of your genes in your body.
And then later when you have kids,it turns on or off various genes

(18:33):
that maybe you neededto physically survive
the trauma or cope with the trauma or,or what have you.
And then in your kids,those genes are turned on
or off, dependingon which ones we're talking about.
When they're then not in the same sort of
traumatic, environmentsor having the same experiences,
but then these physicaland also cognitive mental sorts of,

(18:55):
sequela is one of the,the fancy words, but consequences,
will be active for them.
Yeah.
So that's one pathway was just kindof this purely biological sort of thing.
And the other is kind of learned.Yeah.
So, you know,going through a trauma, a parent or -
well, the person who's ultimately becomesthe parent,

(19:16):
finds a behavioral way
to cope with something or,they develop a mental habit
through the trauma.Right.
And then they maintain that,and the kids kind of learn from that.
And this isn't fully, the level of traumayou're talking about, but
but one way to think of this is with women,
and kind of self talk about their bodies.

(19:38):
So young girlshear their mom saying things like,
oh, I'm so fat,or I don't like how I look, and so on.
And then the girls,even if the mothers aren't
trying to teach that to their daughters,which is also a thing that can happen.
But the girls hear how their mothersare talking about themselves.
And so then the girls startemulating that.
And then body image issues kind of passfrom generation to generation.

(19:58):
Yeah, yeah.
When I and I think about things like,even corporal punishment
in certain, in certain communities,like Black communities,
and there's a whole -I'll have to find her name
researcher that talks about
how while it is really common
in like, say,Black communities specifically,

(20:20):
you know, the idea of sparethe rod, but, you know, like, spoil the child.
But she actually talksabout how corporal punishment
in, in Black communitiesspecifically is actually the Whitest thing
that we can do to, to Black children,which is a whole - it’s a whole thing.
But really, where it started from, right,was during, you know, slave times that

(20:41):
like the punishment for not obeying
or things like thatwas, was corporal, right.
And and being beat.
And so the idea was thatI have to be harder on my kids
so that they know how to listen.
They know what to expectbecause it's going to be far worse
if they don't do it now.

(21:02):
So I'm going to do this and inflict this on my kid.
This is among the enslaved people,
historically?Right.
But -And that has been passed down.
Right. Exactly.
And then we still we continue to see ita lot in the community because the world,
particularly in the U.S.,like we still get kind of this negative
punishments, you know, and so we still seeit happening in the community.

(21:27):
And so I think that, yes, Stacy Patton,thank you.

Spare the Kids (21:31):
Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America.
And she really talks about how that is -
She talks about thehistorical implications of this
and where and howwe've gotten to where we are.
And can I give a shout out - shout out backto several episodes ago
when we were here with Bernie Hoes.Yup.
And we were talking about kind of writing.
Yeah, yeah.

(21:51):
And composition,like the title has the word “whupping” in it
Whupping.W-H-U-P-P-I-N-G.
Which to my - my immediate reactionis it's not standard English, so to speak.
It's very kind of BlackAmerican English phrase.
And so I, I'm very curious to,to check out this book and see
was she able to kind of, cross that borderor that line that we were talking about

(22:15):
with Bernie of,
you know, standard American English versusAfrican American English and keeping her
voice, especially because I assumeshe's trying to appeal to Black readers.
I was going to say, she's appealing to the the communityand the folks that speak in this way.
So I think it's important.
And I've only read bits and pieces of it.
But, to maintain that language and thatthat voice is really, really important.

(22:38):
But yeah, when thinking about thatintergenerational trauma,
those pieces that are learned, right,there are things that are learned
that started back during slave times,that then
morphed and shifted, but still maintained
because of some of those messages,both physical, mental,
emotional, spiritual messagesthat that were that were,

(22:58):
you know,
imparted and then shifted and passed downthrough the generations.
In addition to epigenetics,
so that's where your kind ofgenetic expression is changed
by things that have happened
and then kind of learningor environmental kinds of things where,
you know, something that you're -
a way your parents do something,you learn it from them explicitly,

(23:20):
there's also kind of a thirdthat that was, hinted at in,
in some of what you talked about,which is actual genetics.
So not just epigenetics where it’s changingthe expression of genes, but genetics
or how in the kind of evolutionary sensethat we think of them,
where certain genes,certain people survived to pass on genes.
And so, in the African-American community,there's something called

(23:42):
the slavery hypothesis for hypertension,which is saying that,
so there's a lot of hypertensionin the Black American community,
more more than in the White community.
And there are different hypothesesand ideas about it.
But one of them isthat there might have been
what some people calla genetic bottleneck, during slavery.

(24:02):
So either when the enslaved Africanswere brought over
from Africa and had long journeyson these boats without proper nutrition,
or some of the conditionsas enslaved people and, in the Old South,
some of this hypothesissaying that maybe, genetics
for kind of retainingsalt would have been selected for.

(24:22):
So people
whose genetics, didn't retain salt as muchwould have been more likely to die.
Those who did retain salt more were morelikely to survive and then pass on those genes.
Interesting, yeah.
And so then now for the modernAfrican American community,
which is of by and large,mostly descended from enslaved people,
they have this propensity to retain salt,which contributes

(24:43):
to hypertension and other problems.Right.
So just to be clear,
you know, that's not genesgetting turned on and off by trauma.
That's just which genes get passed on
or which lead to peoplenot surviving to pass on their genes.
So it's technically a thirdpotential mechanism for this
intergenerational trauma …
… stuff.And that's really interesting.
I hadn't actually heardthat hypothesis before,

(25:04):
which is really interestingbecause I work in health care.
But, on top of that, right,the intergenera-
some of those intergenerationalpieces that,
mixed together is that, right?Oh, absolutely.
Like if we had -“Both and!”
That if there is something that is passedon genetically,
whether that's from epigeneticsor just genetics in general,

(25:25):
that the conditions by which
the, the group is exposed to, right, or,
or behaviors that we are exposed to,they continue to get passed on.
Also make it make things worse. Right?
So we know - and this is megetting off on a little bit of a tangent
around the like the, the impact ofhow our brain and our body are connected.

(25:46):
Right.
And so if, if let's say, for instance,
specifically for the black communityhere in the US,
if this is part of the geneticsthat are passed down to us having
this like higher retention of salt
and we are exposed to higher levelsof stress and trauma in our day to day
life, those things are going to exacerbateeach other, right?

(26:08):
So how stress and trauma impact our bodymakes our body react more, right?
And can interactwith other cultural things like,
so literally just the seasoning of food.
Right.
And then food preferences.Right, for sure.
Which then and pass on as well.Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

(26:28):
And one of the other things I'm thinkingabout is the idea of John Henry-ism.
Are you familiar with John Henry-ism?Not off the top of my head.
So with this story, with John Henry
is that he is a formerly enslaved personand wanted to
he was worked on the railways and,they now have machines
that really didall of the work to put the railroads down.

(26:52):
Yeah.
And his goal was to beat the machine.
And because he didn't want his job taken.
Right, essentially.
And so he worked his selfliterally to death. He fix it -
He did it.
He did beat the machineand worked incredibly hard.
And within days, actually, he - he died.
There's so many different waysin which different things,

(27:16):
that even if I haven't experiencedthis specific trauma,
that the behaviors, the different thingsthat ideas get passed down
generation to generation,that we then have to
address and atone for as well.
And there's this interesting quote,I’m gonna pull up really quick.

(27:37):
While you pull that up,
you know, it's so interesting,
you know, that's a story I grew up with.
I remember I had some oldanimated movie with it, but,
I knew that story, and it's sucha, counter stereotypical story, too.
Because the stereotype would say,oh, Black people, well lazy.
And it's really about extreme, like,

(27:58):
hard workingness andoverworking, like, literally
working yourself to death.
And it's,
it's just interesting how,how something's going to take off
more broadly and don't - and others don't.
Yes. So again, you know, I want to alsomake it very clear that intergenerational
trauma hits all kinds of folk,

(28:20):
folks in different backgrounds.
We talked a lot about BlackAfrican-American here,
but also indigenous populationsacross the world.
But, particularly in the U.S., again,Holocaust, Holocaust survivors,
thinking about Vietnam War and
exposure to Agent Orange,all of those things

(28:43):
have passed downdifferent things to folks,
which then currently also
and I said early on, contribute
to the experienceof collective trauma. Right?
And these things that are happeningcurrently and how connected we are to it.
So when - and using myself as an example,another Black example,

(29:05):
but only because this is my own personallived experience: Post George Floyd,
when things are happening,when it comes to policing,
even if I personally am notor have not experienced something
or I am not connectedor related to George Floyd,
I feel it because theyare part of my community.
There's these things,
that we have been connectedto through the inter generations,

(29:27):
through the collective,through our community.
Yeah.
And, and, adding to that,
again, my lived experience,
so it's going to be a gay example, but,a few years back, there was the
the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub.
And after that happened,I mean, the, the gay community felt it.

(29:49):
And, you know,part of this kind of collective trauma,
it's not just,you know, it's a member of my community,
but it's it it could have been me.Stuff that, you know,
George Floyd happened because of his skincolor and because of his race.
And the shooting at the Pulse Nightclubwas because of who they are,
their identities.
And I remember after thePulse Nightclub shooting,

(30:11):
there was some kind of pride event
that Eric Roman and I and our friendshad all been planning on going to.
And, you know, Eric Romanwas very upset about it, and he was like,
I'm mad that I'm even thinking this,but maybe
I don't want to go to this pride eventbecause there could be another shooting.
Right.
And we do know, from kind of history,
actually, sometimes these things have domino effects.Right.

(30:33):
There are copycats.
There are - this something we see oncollege campuses that's a serious issue.
So little content warning,
we're about to talk about suicide.
But when someone commits suicide and it'svery publicized, often other people
who've maybe been having those kindsof thoughts, it encourages them.
And so you sometimes see,

(30:53):
anyway, lots of negativethings can happen,
but yeah, this idea of collective trauma,
the, the effect,this is part of the reasoning behind
hate crime legislation as well, which was,a big area of stuff that I study
and work with, in addition to studyingprejudice based aggression, which is the
fancy science term for kind of hate crime,aggression and bullying.

(31:17):
And so with hate crimes, you know,the idea is you're not just
it's not just the harm on the one personor people, but on that whole community.
And so some people are like, well,why is there an extra law that's like,
so why is it worse to kill a gay personor Black person than it is a straight
or a White person?
It's not that.
Of course, the human loss

(31:39):
is terrible in either case,but it's this idea of collective trauma
that it's it's motivated by hateand affects a whole community.
And then when you - so thecollective trauma, when you add then
the intergenerational traumato the collective trauma
that we experience, we pass on to futuregenerations of our people.

(32:00):
100%, 100%.
And so I mentioned earlier,
there's this really great Ted talk.
And I'm, I'm going to apologize right
now, but I'm probably not going to sayher name correctly.
But it is called “Trauma Not Transformed
Is Trauma Transferred”
and I'm going to say it again,because I think it's really important,

(32:22):
as we think about what we dowith this idea
of collective or intergenerational traumain general,
is thinking about, like, that
we have to address it, right?
Trauma not transformed is trauma transferred.
And her name is
Tabitha Mpamira-Kaguri
and again, I apologize.

(32:42):
I know I did not say that well,
and I tried to look it upto see if I could see her saying her name.
And I cannot find anything
that shows her saying her name.
I can vouchAmber was doing a lot of research,
just trying to find outthat pronunciation. So she tried hard.
I did, I did.
But, but one of the a storiesthat she tells is -

(33:03):
Well, there are a couple of things.
One of the stories that she tells ishow this little girl
is watching her mother cook.
Cook turkey.Yeah.
And as she's cooking this turkey,she's cutting off bits and pieces
like the legs, and she's cuttingbits and pieces off as she's doing it.
And the the little girl asks her mom, like,why do…? What are…?
Why do you cut this off?

(33:25):
Why do you cut all of these things off?
She goes, you know, I don't know.
That's just how my mother,that's how my mother did it.
And so then they go
to her mother, and talk like, well,why do we - why did you do this?
And like, I, you know,I guess this is how my family did it.
And as I kind of started to look into it,they found out like, oh,
I only did thatbecause my pan wasn't big enough, right?

(33:45):
So the grandmother, the grandmother,they go up the generations,
the pan, and I think maybe the oven, like,wasn't big enough to hold the whole turkey.
To hold the whole turkey.
And so then that's the only reasonwhy they cut all this off all the time.
They're like,
wasting all this really good foodand meat and like, doing it differently.
When it was just because this is this,this thing

(34:06):
that was passed down generationto generation of how we do things.
But it was functional at one pointand now has become something that's like,
not functional or we don't needto do things in this way anymore.
It reminds me of, functionaland also kind of a structural problem.
So, so to speak, like,
not exactly the way we use that word,but the structure of the cooking pan

(34:28):
or the oven, you know, was was somethingthat the grandmother or
great grandmother was facing.Right!
That's no longer an issue.
That’s no longer a limitation.
And so like, but we still hold onto some of these things
and that we need to address it.
So, Tabitha,I'm just going to use her first name
because I can pronouncethat one, appropriately.
She talks about trauma, and

(34:49):
intergenerational traumaas this, like, relay race, right?
We get passed the baton from our familyand generations beforehand,
and our job is to recognizewhat those batons are.
What are we being passed from our family?
What are the narratives?What are the things?

(35:09):
What are the traumas?
What are the behaviors?
What are the things that we're taking
from each generation,from generation to generation?
And our job is when we get to decidewhether or not we're holding that on,
or how we're changing it,or what we're doing with this baton.
Yeah. And,
this is kind of a repeat,
but, slightly different kind of story.

(35:32):
So, so,
I'm not going to say who it is because Idon't, I don't have their consent, but,
I, I, I know of someone who has this story
through the generations of their family,
let's say three generations back.
And this involves abuse.
So also content warning for that,if that's sensitive for you,

(35:54):
that's what I'm going to talk aboutfor the next 30 seconds to a minute.
This - this guy's great grandfather,was very physically abusive
and actually killed his sonby beating him.
Well, the son was deadand then got resuscitated.
And then the next generation,

(36:14):
the next generation of parentswhen they became parents,
also kind of hit their kids,but maybe not as bad.
And so they were like, I, I got hit a lot,so I'm going to hit
my kids as my form of discipline,but maybe weren't as violent.
Right.
Then the next generationkind of the same thing,
but it reduced to kind of just spanking.
Not the beatings.

(36:36):
And then it gets to the generationof, of the person who I'm thinking of
who's just like,it ends with me; no, like, physical,
discipline is not the way to go.
And so it's when you were talkingabout the baton, it made me think of that.
So where the, abuse or thethe way of disciplining
was kind of passed on,but got a little lighter each -

(36:57):
Lighter and lighter, yeah.
And so, you know, it's not just as simple
as the baton metaphor kind of implies,where it's not exactly the same.
Sometimes our copingand changing mechanisms alter it,
where it might not be recognizablein the same way for some of the things,
and this is a case of itgetting better and better, sometimes
it gets worse and worse,depending on what the thing is.

(37:19):
But there are different waysto think about it.
So I want to encourageyou as the listeners
to kind of examine some of these things.
I'm going to
tell you in story time laterabout one for my family, but sometimes,
discovering these things,you don't realize it
until you compare to another familyand you're like,
oh, wait,you don't do things this way. What?
Oh, I had no idea that was weird.Oh, what’s up?

(37:39):
So. Yeah.
And, you were starting to
and I kind of derailed youa little bit, but,
we were starting to talk about kind ofhow do we heal from this.
And this is something I'mvery interested in hearing from you about.
Yeah.
One that I'm just going tothrow out there briefly.
Is that the idea of,
you know, when healingfrom this kind of intergenerational stuff,

(38:01):
there's kind of two places that I want youto think you, the listeners,
to kind of think about looking lookinginto your family for that kind of healing,
which can very much be a source of that,even if you kind of were
learning this trauma from them comingtogether on that, but also looking outside
of your, your, your family,because sometimes you have to
kind of get out of the situationto really be able to evaluate that.

(38:23):
And that brings upthe idea of chosen family,
which we’ve talkedabout sprinkled here or there.
But sometimes, havingchosen family, people,
you know, friends who are so close to you
that they're kind of they're - they're partof your family in your heart,
are a really good placefor that kind of healing
to help recognize, see how you maybewant to do things differently.

(38:46):
In the case of the LGBT community,that's a really huge thing because,
you know, you generally won't be sharingyour LGBT status with your parents
in 99 out of 100 cases.
And so the collective trauma
as well, that chosen family healingcan can be important.
100%.
Well and that's part of part of what I,one of the things of healing is,

(39:08):
community and communityhealing and finding your people,
especially othersthat have similar background
or identity markersor whatever that is, similar experiences
that in and of itself, being aroundother people where you are reminded
that like this is true, this is validthe way that you're feeling right now.

(39:29):
While maybe somebodywho is not part of this community
or has not experiencedthis might they might think
that this is an overreactionor an overreach or whatever.
They kind of, to use a termthat's really big right now, gaslight you.
Right.
They kind of gaslight you into thinkinglike, this is this is just a you problem.
Like you need to get it together.
But if you are around other people
who have had a similar experience,similar histories or similar identities

(39:52):
and they're like now, but like,yeah, this is I, I feel that way too,
or this is how I'm feelingthat helps ground you.
And it is a part,
it's a, it is a wayis an important means of healing.
And that's so well said.
Thank you for that.And this idea of collective healing,
brings up another topicthat I want to draw people's attention to.

(40:15):
So after after George Floyd,this is something that happened a lot.
So, on, on university campuseswhere, where people were kind of,
reasoning with that and other things - the Pulse Nightclub shooting and things
sometimes there are kind of resource centers
that pull togetherkind of healing circle sort of events,

(40:35):
that depending on how you wordthings can rub some people the wrong way.
So I there was one
I won't be too specific,but but on a campus
I was involved with, they,
a major event like a GeorgeFloyd had happened,
and they were bringing togetherkind of a healing event,
and there were kind of two separate ones,one for, members of that community.

(40:56):
So there were like, hey, for,
members of the black African-Americancommunity, this is your event.
And then for other members ofthe community, there was a separate event.
And the way they worded it,it just sounded very segregationist, like,
oh, and and and like they could haveworded it a little bit better
or explained why they were doing it.
But exactly what you're sayingis the reason for it, for the Black people

(41:16):
to come together,to share their common experiences
related to that and the healing relatedto that, and having members, people
who are not members of their community,that changes the dynamic in a way,
that that would resist, thatwould make the healing not as effective,
potentially, or the collective,experience very different.
Yeah.

(41:36):
And those spaces are so important.
Affinity spaces are so important.
And they do have to be handled with care
and attention, especially if it's,if it's facilitated in that way.
Because if it's not framed appropriately,then it just,
just feels like, well,why are you segregating the Brown people
from everybody else?Right.
And why do the White people have to just,you know, it's like that, the book, like,

(41:58):
why are all the Black kidssitting together
in the cafeteria, right?
This doesn't make any sense. Why would wewhy would we do this?
So it has to be handled with a lot of careand attention and saying like,
this is why we're creating these spacesand even maybe giving opportunity for
for a collectivewith both communities, right?
With all our,all the communities together.
And so I want to encourage our listeners,

(42:20):
I mean, I thinkif they've gotten this far in the podcast,
they're probably pretty thoughtfulabout these kinds of things.
But if you're ever in that,
if you ever see an event like thator something like that happens, you know,
I think there are White folkswho get really offended.
There are also Brown,Black and Brown folks
who get really offended if it's nothandled with care, as you're saying.
But if you're you'reever a part of that or,
you hear that kind of thing, you're like,whoa, wait,

(42:41):
think about this conversation about like,what are the people in the various groups
going through?
How did these collective traumasaffect them differently?
And therefore the collective healingmight need to look a little different?
Yeah.
And not just not just, with race, butit could be gender related violence, LGBT.
Yeah.
Also things that aren't actually aren’tviolence, but other forms of trauma.

(43:02):
So just as always, being thoughtful isis something we encourage.
Absolutely.
Hey everyone.
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(43:26):
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(43:49):
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Now back to the show.

(44:15):
All right, so Amber - welcome back from break, everyone -
you have this quotethat you would like to share.
Yeah.
So, you know, in thinking about, again,addressing,
addressing the intergenerational trauma,or these things, there's
it's not specificallyabout intergenerational trauma,
but it is in a lot of ways.

(44:36):
So I, I'm sure I've talked about thisbook before, but the book is called Caste,
by Isabel Wilkerson.
Is that caste with an E at the endwith like, caste system?
Like a caste system.
It's a fantastic book.
Is was very timely when it came outright at the beginning -
right in 2020when everything was going on.

(44:56):
Both, politically,
geopolitically, like, the pandemic,like so many different things
that were going on.And really what she does is she talks
about race as a caste systemin the U.S. and -
Racism?
Racism and race in generalas a caste.
Race is a, you said race is a, I thought you said racism
Oh. Yeah, yeah.

(45:17):
No race as a caste system,as in other, other countries.
And so, she very rarely, if ever usesthe word race, but it's a fantastic book.
Would definitely recommend it.
But anyway, in this she, she talks about,
how we have to kind of address,

(45:37):
the ills. Whether, whether that'sthe ills of a society or personally.
So it's kind of a long quote,but I'm going to read it in this way.
She says:
When we go to the doctor,
they will not begin to treat uswithout taking our history
and not just our history, but that of ourparents and grandparents before us.
The doctor will not see usuntil we have filled out many pages
on a clipboardthat has been handed to us upon arrival.

(45:59):
The doctor will not hazard a diagnosisuntil they know the history
going back generations.
As we fill out the pages of ourmedical past and our current complaints,
what our bodies have been exposed toand what they have survived,
it does us no good to pretendthat certain ailments have not beset us,
to deny the full truthsof what brought us to this moment.

(46:19):
Few problems have ever been solvedby ignoring them.
Lurking beneath the history of one'scountry specifically,
is like learning that alcoholismor depression runs in one family,
or that suicide has occurred more oftenthan might be usual. Or advan-
with advances of medical genetics,
discovering that one has inherited themarkers of BRCA mutation for breast cancer.
You don't ball up in a corner with guiltor shame at these discoveries.

(46:42):
You don't, if you're wise, forbid,any mention of them.
In fact, you do the opposite.
You educate yourself.
You talk to people who have been throughit and specialists who have researched it.
You learn the consequences and obstaclesand options of treatment.
You may pray over it or meditate over it,but then you take precautions
to protect yourselfand succeeding generations

(47:02):
and work to ensure that these things,whatever they are, don't happen again.
And I really, really like that.One, again,
she's really framing it, from a like,
country national perspective.
Like, let's look at the ails,ails of our country and how
they've been passed down generationto generation, as a whole nation.

(47:23):
But I think that it's a really goodanalogy of how we need to think about that
for ourselves individually,for our communities,
for our spaces of thinking abouthow do we: 1. First acknowledge,
and then we're talking abouthow do we heal from
intergenerational traumaor these collective traumas,
how do we work through them?
One is first by acknowledgingthat it exists

(47:47):
and taking the time to look athow is this manifesting in my own life?
Like, where does this come from?Yeah.
Why did I react this stronglyto this thing?
Or where does this behavioror this thought process come from?
Or this is how
my mom or my parents or my family handled it.Well, why did they do it, right?
Asking the questions,getting some education, figuring that out,

(48:08):
getting the support that you need,whether that is from your community,
which is an important part,like I said before, is that getting in and
and leaning into your communityand that getting that community healing
is an important piece,
but also for your own self,whether that's through therapy,
which obviously I'm a clinicalpsychologist, so I'm a huge advocate
for getting into therapyand making sense of what

(48:29):
what that means for youand how it manifests.
Yeah.
That's a really, really important part.
And then I also think that,like finding ways
in which you can be the, the healing force, too.
Yup.
You know, I think I talkedabout before that like,
advocacy, finding small means
of moving the barometer,shifting the needle,

(48:53):
is also really personally healing.Yes.
So, if I can kind of underlinesome of this,
I mean, this comes back to our corehabit-breaking model.
So, so the MATE acronym.
So you have to have motivation.
So be motivated to address and healfrom this kind of trauma.
Awareness, which is understanding how it plays out,

(49:13):
which you just described beautifully,like understanding,
what it means for you,how how you came to learn these patterns
and how it,how it's showing up in your life.
Tools, therapy being one of the possibletools, but also kind of, the collective
chosen family kind of collectivehealing sorts of things.
And then the working little, little bitat a time that you were just saying

(49:36):
is the effort over time, the Eso Motivation, Awareness, Tools, Effort,
I mean, a good model that we keep coming - like, I don't know
if you were planning it that way,but everything you said I was like -

Yup (49:47):
Motivation, Awareness, Tools, Effort.
There you go.
I mean, I'm just that brilliant.What can I say; just kidding.
But no, it’s good -
You know, we,we usually talk about that model in terms
of changing habits of mindto reduce bias within yourself,
but then to, to use it to address traumain this way too, you know.
Yeah.
And again, I think that it's importantfor us as, as folks that,

(50:11):
practitioners, the folks
that really care about diversity,that we're thinking about it for
ourselves, for our community, butalso those that we're interacting with.
Right.
And keeping that in mindthat some of their reactions, maybe
even towards me, are also,may be influenced
by some of the intergenerationaltrauma or experiences.

(50:31):
And one of the things we startedto talk about, the example that I give is,
when I was working at,a hospital in Baltimore.
Oh, yeah.
And when I was working in Baltimore,
you know, it's a very big, hospital.
And I'll just say the name isJohns-Hopkins, which is a

(50:52):
world renowned hospital.
And also has had a history
of experimentationon, like, Black folks and Henrietta Lacks
being one of the most famouskind of experiences. And,
I remember going and working with,
even Black patients, right?

(51:13):
As a city that is 60% Black,and as a Black presenting
and a Black practitioner coming inthat by me bearing the name Johns-Hopkins,
right?
I am now connected to this history.
To the establishment.
To the establishment of the that, that hasthe history of that establishment.

(51:35):
And so even when I haveBlack patients coming in while
they were incredibly excited,I can't even describe to you
how excited folks were to seethat I was their provider.
And how - and we also mentioned aunties,which we'll talk about more,
more later, but that they really saw meas their family.

(51:57):
Right.
And that my success was their success.
Right. Like, oh my God, you're my doctor.
And they would just like, touch their armlike I wasn't expecting you.
I remember that story.Right.
But on the
same hand or, and on the same handthat I'm holding, I'm
bearing, I'm wearing the badgeof of Hopkins and all of the history.

(52:18):
So when people are coming in, they'reseeing Hopkins first in a lot of ways.
So even though I mightbe approaching them differently
and they might,I'm still having to overcome.
And create a sense of safetybecause I'm still part of that history.
And, you know, what you're talking about
is a combination of the collectiveand the intergenerational.

(52:40):
Yeah.
So the people you're talking about,
they were probably personallynever experimented on. Right.
It's possiblethat maybe some of their, their,
ancestors, family members were,but but also not necessarily.
Right. It was the Black community.That's the collective part.
And it was the black community at leasta generation ago, for the most part,
so collective and intergenerational.
I also want to say somethingI want to underline about that.

(53:01):
So Johns-Hopkins, in academicand I'm just going to -
White academic circles, you know, it'sone of the, the best places.
And so, this is how we met,
when I presented at a
conference there and, itit was a visiting professorship.
Right.
And so, like, I have on my CV -and I have because I'm like,

(53:22):
this is such a fancy, like, it's somethingfor me to be proud of, where it's like
I had a visiting professorshipat Johns-Hopkins University.
That means something in these academic circles.Right.
And it's it's this kind of halo eff-
It's this great thing that I have.
Yeah, but
without knowing you,Right.
I don't know that I, I mean, I guess I didI do know the Black history of bad

(53:44):
things that have happened, butnot realizing like, to me, that's the past
without having you to providesome of this context for me,
it's like, oh yeah, well,
I know that like researchers everywhere,have done bad things in the past,
like we didn't used to have ethics,but to me, it's just like Johns Hopkins.
A-plus.A-plus. Yeah. Great.
But but seeing how an institution,

(54:05):
its reputation can be so differentfrom different perspectives and.
Right.
That that isn't our main topic,but just something to highlight, right?
That, you know,and the joy of different perspectives.
Like we talked a little bitabout last time
with Sandy.Yeah.
The joy of kind of discovering something,it's like, oh, of course,
the way I see things isn't the wayeveryone else is going to see them.

(54:27):
Right.
And again, that that's really important
as we're interacting with folks,even something that can be something
really positive for you, I,I also was trained there.
So I have that on my CV.
I also have had a visiting professorshipthat means something in a lot of context,
and it is also really important for meto be be aware of what that means

(54:49):
to the community and certain communitiesand, and, and not to say that
it's not still a really great thingand a really great space.
I just have to be responsible to know,like what extra work might
I need to do to overcomesome of this intergenerational piece?
As should we all.
And so I think that that's somethingthat we don't always think about, right?

(55:11):
It's not something thatwe always think about.
What is the history of the spacethat I'm entering in?
And or even this, it's not totally -
it's tangential, but thinking about,you know, again, native land,
we do like land acknowledgments and thingslike that to acknowledge the land,
but that even that is insufficient rightto just say, I'm acknowledging the land came from

(55:32):
And to do it now,
we are currentlyrecording on, Ho-Chunk
nation land and -which is now called Madison, Wisconsin.
It was land that was never cededby the Ho-Chunk nation, but was taken,
by White settlers.
I think we've mentioned that once before,but if I haven't, I apologize
for not doing it sooner.
But it's acknowledging.

(55:53):
But it’s -It's only it's one part, one half of it.
Right.
Like, one part of it
is that we have to absolutely dothe ackn- acknowledgment.
And that is something.
And what else can we be doing?
How can we also be giving back?
How can we be pouring moneyinto the into the to the people?
What is the, reparative sideor the responsive side?

(56:16):
Right.
So I think acknowledging isis the first step.
And then the next step isI have to do something about it, right?
I have to do something even,even if I'm not giving back the land
to, I don't have I don't have the poweror I don't have the authority
to give the land back, but I canI can be giving money.
I can be not just acknowledging,I can be pouring resources.

(56:39):
I can be finding ways to give backin other ways.
Can be ampli-
amplifying indigenous voices.Exactly.
In the ways that youhave the power to do so.
Absolutely. Yeah.
As we talked about before, like,we talked about looking at, into your own
talents and how can you use themfor the betterment of others.
You know what areas do you have whereyou can amplify underrepresented voices?

(57:02):
We're, we're continuing ona bit of a tangent, but, just last night,
Eric Roman and I took
Amber to what's calledConcerts on the Square.
And, met, a friend of ourswho's also a listener, Bill
and, you know, Bill works in interiordesign, which is not something we would

(57:22):
usually think of as, as being where DEI,diversity, JEDI kind of work happens.
But he was asking us.
He was like, what can I do to amplify
underrepresented voicesfor indigenous people, for Asian-American
and Pacific Islandersand so on, and looking to us to, to,
see what he can do in that industryin interior design.

(57:44):
And then it was an interestingconversation.
Yeah.Well, that is - the voice
and the representationis so missed in this field,
which in a lot of ways makes sense.
But it's not necessarilysomething that I would have
explicitly thought of -explicitly thought of in that way.
And again,that goes to the responsiveness.

(58:04):
So when we're thinking about trauma,
when we're thinkingabout collective trauma,
when we're thinkingabout any of these things,
not just for myself,I want to acknowledge it for myself,
but I want to acknowledge it for the spacethat I'm in.
And I also wantto find ways of responding.
How do I shift what I'm doing,how I'm saying, what I'm amplifying,
where I'm putting money to to respondto what is happening in this space?

(58:25):
Yeah.
And, Eric Roman shared an ideain response to Bill's question.
We should have say Bill's questionfor the question portion of a future episode
because it was a good one.I know!
But for in the context of interior design,Eric Roman came up with the answer
that, sourcing art piecesfrom members of those communities,
would be a great way to do it.
So with,
kind of Ho-Chunk land,just to stick with that,

(58:46):
because you're talkingabout Madison, Wisconsin right now.
Yeah.
As you're working on it,you know, find a native indigenous artist,
support their workin that kind of indust-
in that kind of interior designkind of capacity.
Partner, partner with and find the waysto amplify their influence and their voice
in what you're doing.Absolutely.

(59:06):
Absolutely. Yeah.
All right.
So do we, do we have moreon the discussion topic
before we we want to move into story time?
I mean, I could talk about this all dayand I've already said
we've already said lots.
So I think that we canI think we can move on to our stories.
Okay. Great.
Awesome.
So as always, you have a morenegative story and more positive story

(59:27):
as everyone knows,
and the stories
don't always fully link to the main topic,but but they do today.
Yeah.
So, the more negative storycomes from my family.
So, we've mentionedthe Chinese Exclusionary Act a few times.
It was a law in the US that bannedpeople of Chinese descent from serving

(59:49):
in the military, from servingin the government, from attending schools.
And, it was very racist law or policy.
So and as the,
listeners and viewers may remember,my mother is of
Native Hawaiian, but also Chinese descent,Native Hawaiian, Chinese, and Portuguese,

(01:00:11):
and the Native Hawaiian,sorry, the, Chinese and the Portuguese
aspects of our family - ancestors
all have been in Hawaiisince the 1850s and Hawaii’s very much
that kind of melting pot of the settlersand the Native Hawaiians.
And so on.I'm, I'm babbling a little bit,
but the, the, the Chinese ancestors,

(01:00:32):
including my great grandfather,
were then subject to thesethis Chinese Exclusionary Act.
And my great grandfather,whose last name was Hee Seck,
and I'm sure I am pronouncing that wrong.
But it's spelled H-E-E space S-E-C-K.
Okay.
That's, the the lineage,

(01:00:53):
at least as close to me as it went,
our last name.
Wanted to join the military.
And was excluded because of that.
And he was, he was Chinese
and Hawaiian.But had the Chinese last name.
And so he changed his last name.
So he was marriedto my great grandmother,
who was, of, as far as we're aware,full blooded Native Hawaiian,

(01:01:16):
and created a new last name.
And that is actuallyour Hawaiian last name.
So it's Auna, it means the gathering.
It was my my mom's last name.
Or my mom's maiden name.
And so he had to change his name in orderto kind of essentially pass as Hawaiian,
not Chinese, in order to,to go into the military.

(01:01:39):
And now, in terms ofthe intergenerational piece,
there's something that I always knewabout my family,
but but didn't really knowthe reasoning behind it, kind of like the,
the cutting up the turkey examplethat you shared.
So my, my aunties and uncles and my mom,they all had different
names in the family versusoutside of the family.

(01:02:00):
So my Auntie Peri,I knew her as Auntie Peri,
her siblings and her parentscall her Peri, but her legal name is Vyan.
My mom, so
within the family, like, with my mom,my dad, and and so on,
know her by the her first name, Valen,which is her legal first name.
But when we were with the extended family,she was Auntie Beebe,

(01:02:22):
and everyone, like, called her Beebe.
And so, so basically mymy mom and her siblings had different
names inside the family versusoutside the family.
And, when I learned the story from my
my grandfather talking about his father,I kind of connected those two things.
It's like, oh, wait, like in the family,we’re ourselves, it's safe.
It's, it's closer.

(01:02:43):
And then you have these kind ofvery formal names outside the family.
And as with many of theseintergenerational trauma things,
I cannot say that is 100%because of this thing.
Like as a scientist, I'm like,I need data.
Like I need to know that someonemade a decision at some point.
But, there definitely is a feeling, ofit's the it's the idea of passing.

(01:03:06):
Right.
So my mom, can pass for White,
you know, depending how she doesher hair or makeup and so on.
She can also pass for very Asianor very Hawaiian, like,
I have images of her in my head,as in all of these kind of categories.
So something that, kind ofmaybe racially more ambiguous people have.

(01:03:27):
And, and when it all clicked,it did just all make sense to me.
And so this idea that going back,what is that three generations
to my great grandfather?That this racist law
made our family start doing this thingthat then then carries forward?
No, it wasn't as explicitin my generation, but my, my,
my family doesn't call me Will.Yeah.

(01:03:49):
My family calls me Taylor,which is my second name.
And at some point in school,you know, in school,
I started going by my actual first name,which is Will; none of them call me Will.
Interesting.
It's Taylor.
And that that includesall my extended family.
Yeah. Wow. Wow.
Well I think that that's, you know - Thank you for sharing, Will
I think,

(01:04:10):
we see that really explicittype of trauma,
intergenerational traumahappens a lot the, the passing thing.
Right.
And that the internal versus externaland what's okay at home
and what's not okay in -from public facing spaces.
And we see itI think one of the most explicit examples

(01:04:31):
is in particularly Native Americanand Indigenous populations, that
there was this there's a protective part
of being able to pass as White.
And then but then theintergenerational pieces of
that is also the loss of cultureand loss of connection, loss of -
If you’re emphasizing, passing so much, you know,

(01:04:53):
how you displayhow you do your hair, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
And the, you know, we see a lot of folksand particularly our generation,
and, and, and, Gen Z really trying
to reclaim the, the historyand the language and those things.
But a lot have been lostjust because of, you know,

(01:05:14):
the trauma experienceand these anti exclu-, you know,
anti-Black and racist and
exclusionary laws andpractices before, so yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Well thank you for sharing that.
That's a - that was a sad
but a really good example of exactlywhat we're talking about.
So my, my storyis, maybe on the more positive side,

(01:05:37):
How do we heal from these? What are different ways …?Again going back to the ways
in which we heal some of thecollective and community and
and intergenerational trauma?
And I've, I've talked a lot aboutor I've talked a few times about my

nonprofit (01:05:50):
For Us By Us Kinship Coalition.
But that really came out of a time,
the whole purpose of building this,this nonprofit was specifically
to address, the experiences of
Black youth in Oregonand particularly rural Oregon.

(01:06:11):
And for me, as somebodywho grew up in that space
and, and I and I've said several timesthat my mom was amazing,
she did a really great job of exposing usand finding spaces where we could
we could, know what it meant to be Black.
And we were in spacesthat there just weren't people like us.

(01:06:32):
Right? We just didn't.
There just wasn't anybodythat looked like us.
We didn't have thatsense of that community.
And so it it was bred out of this placeof saying like, how can I give back?
You know, I talked about the
the ways in which we can we can heal fromtrauma is giving back to the community,
finding those ways where we can make -we can change the needle.

(01:06:53):
And so building this mentorship program
is this way of beingable to say, like, I want to
mitigate the
harm of not having a sense of community;giving back and
and creating a space that will help,
help the youth of today,

(01:07:14):
create the communityand the coping mechanisms
and all of the things that they need to beequipped with, the things that I didn't
have, that I didn't get,or that I had to learn in other ways.
I want it to be more accessible for them.
I want them to be able to have,aunties and uncles that look like them,
that they can go to,that their families, that their parents,

(01:07:35):
whether they're Black, White or otherwise,to also have a community of people
that can that they can come to uswhen racist things are happening
to them at school,
or they have things that are said to themthat now we have built this space
that is a collective, that is a communitythat is a healing space for them.
And again, going back to that placewhere they can be grounded,

(01:07:57):
they can be groundedin reality, like, yeah,
know that thing that that person saidthat wasn't great.
And this is how we go aboutand this is what we do.
This is how we handle it.
This is how I have personally managed itwhen things like this have been said.
And then again, equipping parents also to
how to navigate the school systemand those kinds of things. So,
it’s not a specific example,but as far as a 1 to 1,

(01:08:21):
but it is this,this idea of how we created
this nonprofit, this organizationwhere we are
intentionally building it to center -
1. also center joy and not,
and not the trauma.
Because oftentimes when we're,marginalized folks get together,

(01:08:43):
we it's very easy to center the traumaand not the joy.
And so the whole purpose of this is,is to say, like, we're here
to support the trauma when it happens,but we're here to center the joy.
But also, you - to give you more creditthan you're giving yours-
even more credit thanyou're giving yourself.
You know, in a past episode, you actuallyshared a very specific example,
the going to HBCUs.Right, yup.

(01:09:04):
So for you, you couldn't picture yourselfthere and didn't even apply.
Yeah.
You remembered that for yourself.
And that's part of what youyou went on those trips with your kiddos
so that they could see,oh, I could belong here.
So right there, you know, the Black persongrowing up in White Oregon.
Right.
That was a collective kind of

(01:09:25):
trauma or or similar experiencethat could have been just passed on.
But because you experienced it and thenlooked back and had hindsight about it,
you helped them with coping skillsor not even a skill, a tool, though
going and visiting and feeling that theythey can be there.
Exposure. Yup.
So so yeah.You -
intergenerationally and

(01:09:46):
collectively helped heal
or prevent some of that harm.And I think that's beautiful.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
All right.
So we're going to, take one last break,then we'll get back
with our question and our skilland wrap things up to our recommendations.
Sounds good.Dance break.
Okay.

(01:10:06):
Yeah. Welcome back.
And we're going to jumpright into our question.
So, we got this questionfrom an audience member
and, and listener and, and it'sI think it's a really great question.
Essentially what they're asking isthey said that, you know, they grew up
in a space that was particularly racist,and a racist family and household,

(01:10:32):
that really, infuseda lot of kind of more bigoted ideas.
And so the question is,how do I navigate that?
How do I navigatecoming from a family that,
instills these things and
continues to have someof those thoughts and beliefs
while also trying to shift and changemy thoughts and ideas?

(01:10:53):
Yeah. That's a great question.
Thank you, for sending it in.
And also all the rest of you, pleasecontinue sending in your questions.
You can do that at DiverseJoy.com.
Also your ideas and stories.
So, so with this questionabout how to kind of
be better when you grew upin a kind of very racist space.
I think, you know, it's really everythingwe talk about in the skills section.

(01:11:14):
So all these tools abouthow to kind of rewire some stuff,
broadening your input and so on.
So, so think through that.
But, but I think if you're,if you're already at the point
of recognizing that your upbringingand your context was especially racist,
you're kind of already doing the work,you're already, already recognizing it,
and I think it's just puttinga little bit of extra effort and care.

(01:11:37):
Yeah.
So a lot of what we've talked about,how we learn these bias habits,
is, is kind of ordinary.
So it's not necessarilyfrom having a super racist family.
It's everyone learns that kind of stuff.
But if you know, there'sthat kind of extra force, extra,
kind of turning up of the racist flamesbehind what you learned,

(01:11:58):
then I think you just need to meet it
with an equal but oppositeforce of putting extra work in.
And I want to encourage you - you the person who submitted this
and everyone toto kind of think about that stuff.
And it just means, you know,doing the same kinds of stuff
we've been talking about
and just just putting that effortin and believing that it can work.
And believing that you can workagainst those things over time.

(01:12:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think any time that you are,
you're dealing with a family,family members.
It does come back to thislike the E of MATE.
Right? The effort over time.Yeah.
And figuring out what is,what is my relationship with my family?
1. Doing your own personal work,continuing to do that.

(01:12:44):
But then as you're navigating,working with your family,
is thinking about, like, how do I,
what do I want my relationship to be?
And if I want to maintain my relationshipwith my family,
going in guns ablaze in - to use,you know, use a colloquialism -

(01:13:05):
may not be somethingthat your family really appreciates.
And so how do I how do I navigate that?
And I think finding those, you know, my -one of my - another bingo term for us is my,
I like to say, success of approximations,of those small things of how can I have
constructive conversationsthat aren't blowing up

(01:13:27):
into full blown arguments all the time,but small ways in which you can share your
perspective or to kind of add those thingsand that effort and diligence
over time, we often can see shiftsin our family members, or even if it the
maybe their, their, their thoughts,their views don't totally shift,
they may be able to shiftand change the ways

(01:13:49):
in which at least they'reinteracting with you
and the boundariesthat you're setting with them as well.
And so and I but I do believe thatover time we can see shifts in our family.
But I think that you do have toyou have to be really intentional
about how you're going inand what kinds of conversations
and how you're havingthose conversations with them.
Yeah.
And I want to, if you haven'tlistened to last month's episode,

(01:14:13):
so that's episode nine of seasontwo with special guest Sandy Eichel.
They modeled something really well,I think.
So in I believe it was one of the storiesthey talked about setting boundaries
and saying, you know,first off, with a difficult person,
it wasn't within a family,but similar sort of thing.
Like, first off, the boundary iswe have to treat everyone with respect
that all humans have valueand and aren't less than.

(01:14:37):
And this idea of kind of a very racistfamily, I think, if you can think of
what is that core valuethat is important to you,
that maybe be a disconnectwith your family?
So if something racist starts happening,you can say,
you know,I believe that regardless of skin color,
people, are of equal valueand worth and respect
and like, we - we just,you know, can't violate that boundary

(01:15:00):
or I am not comfortablewith, with anything otherwise.
And sometimes, you know, the racism …people are saying racist things,
but they aren't saying, I believeBlack people are less than.
And so by putting out like my beliefis this and what you're saying
violates that, having itjust kind of direct and clear.

(01:15:20):
They, they can't handle that.
I think or, they, they didn't realize thatwhat they were saying implied that.
And so I think if you can think, thinkthrough things ahead of time, thinking
ahead, being one of the toolswe talk about,
and, and based on what I have planned,it's one of the things
we're going to talk about againnext next month for our skill.
Thinking ahead, this is what I believe.

(01:15:41):
This is how I want to say it to my family.
And being clear on that ahead of timecan, can help it,
because once you're in the moment,things are emotional. Things get heated.
But if you can think it through ahead of time -It makes a difference.
And as far as kind of changingthese deeply held beliefs,
this is a story from my lifethat I've told before.
You know, my family wasextraordinarily anti-gay.

(01:16:02):
The Mormon churchdoes not like the LGBT community.
I think some people will talk abouthow they've made progress.
To me, I don't think they have.
They still fundamentallybelieve it's a sin
and that gay relationships are not valid.
But, my family threw me out for being gay.
That's kind of the heightof kind of extreme prejudice.
But over the years, you know,

(01:16:24):
exposure to me, understanding
of this wasn't just some choice,something I was going to change.
You know, maybe it took 20 years,but now they are very accepting.
They love Eric Roman.
It’s hard not to.And accept him as a son.
True, true.
Thank you.Accept him as a son.
I can personally attest tothe fact that that,

(01:16:46):
that kind of change is possible,but does take time and effort.
Yes. Yep.
And that's the thing, is like getting - not getting
discouraged by recognizing that
it's going to take some time and effort,
to get to some, some maybe successiveapproximations or some movement.

(01:17:06):
And, and it is your choice.Absolutely.
Going lower contacts or no contact withyour family is also an option.
100%.
And again, that that's important, right.
To say, what are my boundariesand if my family is unable to,
to respect those boundaries,that it's also okay to limit

(01:17:26):
what they have access toor limit what,
your contact with them, too.
Yeah.
All Right. Thanks again for sending that in.
Yeah it was a great question. Thank you.
So Will that being our question
and we mentioneda few of the skills already,

(01:17:48):
but what is our skillspecifically for today's episode.
So our skill for todayis one of those tools.
It's one we've mentionedin different forms before
this is a tool that there aremany different ways to use it.
So, so, it's broadening your input.
So we've talked about this for
in term - last season - in terms ofbroadening your input via the media.
Right.
That's something we do every episodewith our recommendation at the end.

(01:18:11):
We've also talked about it in termsof broadening your input through contact;
several episodes backor many episodes back now,
I told the story of how Amberand I met as one way to kind of illustrate
this, having, you know, meaningful peoplein your life who are from
kind of different social groupsis another way to broaden your input.
We also talked about kind of being mindfulof your input as the kind of precursor
to this, where we learn these biasesand stereotypes.

(01:18:35):
So we're going to talk about
broadening your inputthrough images in the environments.
And yet another way, to, to do this, but,
but all, all of these different ways,they're, they're, synergistic.
So what I mean by broadening your inputthrough images in the environment
is that our, our environmentsare replete with images,

(01:18:56):
full of images that that whetherexplicitly or more unintentionally
or implicitly relay, ideasabout who's important,
whose perspectives are valued,who belongs.
Yeah.
So think about whatever your work is.
What are the images on your website?
The kind of people in those imagesor when you look around,

(01:19:17):
what kind of art do you see?
And who are the artists andand what are they representing?
And, and these kinds of images
in the environment historicallyand in many spaces particularly,
I'm talking in a U.S. context,but but not just here, are going to be,
historically powerful group members.
So very often, more often men, more oftenWhite, more often straight and and so on.

(01:19:39):
And, what this is aboutis about being intentional about how
to kind of increase representation,as people like to say in culture,
and we haven't
I don't think we've said it very muchthis season, but last season
it was definitely oneof our bingo squares.
Representation matters.
100%.
And so to the
extent in both your physicaland your digital environments,
see what you can do to increaserepresentation of underrepresented groups.

(01:20:03):
One big example of this
I'd like to share a colleague of minedoes this with her computer screen saver.
I love that.
So she really cares, in particular aboutcombating stereotypes about women of color
in the sciences, who we very oftendon't see as represented as much.
And so she made a screen saverfor all her computers.
That's women of color scientistsas a picture of them with next

(01:20:24):
to the picture, a little descriptionof some of their important,
contributions to their area of science,maybe something about their lives.
Right.
And so whenever her computergoes to sleep and she's,
you know, sitting in her office or whatever,she can kind of look over at it
and be reminded of these great womenof color scientists.
All of that is this input.
Again, we're trying to broaden the inputinto your brain, into your cognitive

(01:20:45):
into your cognitive systems.
All that's input that helps us
push back against the narrowstereotypes, against the biases and so on.
And our longtime listeners
will remember some of the other skillsand some of the awareness skills.
We've talked about,such as attentional spotlight,
where your brain's attentional processesare going to be drawn away
from people who violate stereotypeslike these women of color scientists.

(01:21:08):
Confirmation bias where your brain,even when its attention, is drawn
to these counters, stereotypicor stereotype disconfirming examples,
Your brain doesn'thold them as, as as, well,
as tightly in memory, and so on.
And untested assumptionsis the other kind of big way
that our brains try to ignore evidencethat might counteract stereotypes.

(01:21:30):
Right.
This is a direct way to contradictall of that.
It's giving you more input.
It's a dosage effect where you'reincreasing your dosage to your brain.
The input to your brain of these peoplewho counteract stereotypes
to push backagainst all those those processes.
And I want to I want you to think aboutmany different ways to do this.
So digital images, things on your phone,things in physical environments like art

(01:21:54):
that I mentioned as I was talking aboutthis once, I was, I was giving this
that my, my full bias habit-breakingtraining with, a group of chemists.
One of the people,he has a social media account
where he posts stuff relatedto chemistry and so on.
And his profile picture was,I believe, Pasteur.
So, you know, White male chemist.
But they're also lots of amazingfemale chemists and chemists of color.

(01:22:16):
And he was like, oh, right now.
And he changed the image from LouisPasteur to, to a woman chemist.
That's, you know, one kind of way to do this.
Also, I want people to think about,so if you're an academic,
I know we have a lot of academicsin the audience.
You're syllabi, you're syllabuses.
So when you have a bunch of readingsfor a course, look through what,
what kinds of people are represented there.

(01:22:38):
I had one, person who shared that,you know,
they wanted to get more authors of color,
in their, their syllabuses,
and they actually weren'tsure how to do that at first
because what they were taught,this is intergenerational stuff,
again, you know.And colonization.
Yeah,
the, their PhD advisors and stuff,you know,

(01:22:59):
they were familiar with particular papersthat covered important topics.
And so of course, that'swhat they put in their syllabi. Right.
And what they did to,to increase representation
in this way and broadenthe input of what they were teaching,
is they they made it anassignment in their class.
Yeah.
They were like everyone, you know,
we're trying to work onincreasing representation; find papers
that make some of the sameimportant points

(01:23:20):
we covered in this class,but from a different author,
because as much as we scientistslike to believe that we're very precious
snowflakes, and we're the only ones whocould write the paper that we wrote
there very often there are multiple papersthat make very, very similar
points, review similar literature,but from different kinds of authors.
Absolutely.
And so, so, this this professormade this assignment in his course.

(01:23:44):
He had his grad students find papers fromsometimes just from their own identities,
from people who shared their ownidentities and sometimes not.
But he he was then able the next semesterto diversify his syllabus much,
much better.
And it's also a great it was also agood experience for the students as well.
Yeah. Yes.
Absolutely.

(01:24:04):
So, so finding the waysso I said images in the environment
that was maybe readingsin the environment,
somewhat similar kind of thing.
Now, I've mostly emphasized this in termsof kind of working on our own biases.
So like the screen saver example,you know, that,
colleague of mine who's trying to workagainst the own biases in her mind.
But if these are public facing thing.
So like the syllabus,like arts in a public space,

(01:24:28):
and so on, it also has benefitsfor members of those groups.
Absolutely.
So, so one example I like to share,
you know, I fly all over the worldgiving our bias habit-breaking training,
and I fly with Delta, again,
not branded content, just,it happens to be.
And in many of their jet bridges,Delta has these images
of the types of peoplethey imagine as their customers.

(01:24:51):
And one of the images isa same sex couple.
It's two guys who are clearly kind ofintimate with each other, kind of they're
they're reading something together,looking at something together.
And I'm like, that makes me feel good.Right!
So as a gay man,
every time I walk on the plane, I'm like,they care about the perspectives
of folks like me.
They they want me as a customerbecause they're trying to appeal to me.
And I also realize they might, be,putting themselves in a position

(01:25:15):
to get hate from other people.
I hate people like me, butthey're still, on my side on that issue.
And I am not -
They're welcoming you.They're welcoming me.
It's a signal to inclusion that they'reincreasing representation in these images.
And also, I am not naive.
I know that they are a corporation,they are capitalists,
they probably think that it will help get them money. Right.
And so so with with companies,what I'm talking about, I also,

(01:25:39):
try to be aware of like what are theirpolicies for LGBT employees?
Are they doing good things?
Delta actually is and does.
But the point being,those images are, signals to inclusion.
And members of those groups
like seeing themselves represented, donein a respectful, thoughtful way,
of course.Absolutely.
Well, I think about that, even in like,

(01:26:00):
offices, as I was a clinical psychologistand an academic,
what is my how how am I creating a spacethat is reflective of me,
but also reflective of my values?And creating a space
that allows people to see themselvesor see that I'm
welcoming them in my spacesand also reminding myself.
So I have lots of quotes from folksof all kinds of backgrounds

(01:26:23):
in my office, and images and thingslike that, that hopefully my students,
when they would come into my office,or patients that come into
my office, can see themselvesreflected in different ways.
Right.
And it's also a reminder for me,how do I counteract any,
any biases that I might haveor only have a singular
input of Black creatorsor Black scientists or, or folks?

(01:26:46):
That I'm expanding my own input through
message - images andthrough quotes and things
that I'm consuming on a day to day basis,but also are creating that space
for people to see themselvesreflected as well.
Absolutely.
And I want to underline this, this ideaof doing it genuinely and thoughtfully.
So with all of our skills,I want to encourage you
to apply them genuinely and thoughtfully.

(01:27:07):
It's not just kind ofevery problem is a nail.
And so every tool is a hammer,and you just do what I say
because I said to you,it's doing it thoughtfully.
So, for instance, there's onebad example of someone doing this poorly.
I mean, this is in the public eye.
So I think I can just saywhat institution…
UW Madison, where I waswhen this happened.

(01:27:30):
So it's a, it's a very White university.
Not, not exclusively.
And, and I don't think it's much worsethan other universities, but
there was some promotional materialthat they were putting out,
and it was a picture from a football game.
Yeah.
And they very obviously

(01:27:50):
Photoshopped a Black personinto the photo, and it, I mean, not
not that it would have been betterif it were a good Photosh-
well, I guess it would have -
not that it would have been rightif it were a good Photoshop.
But on top of it being a Photoshop,it was a bad Photoshop.
It looked likethey didn't even do it in Photoshop.
They didn't like MS Paint
where they just cut out the pictureof this Black guy's face and just
plastered into thiscrowd of White students.

(01:28:13):
Maybe maybe Roman can get an image of thatfor the video viewers.
Because it became a big issuebecause they, they, they, they found the
the news media found the Black studentwho was pictured, and he was like, yeah,
I was not at that football game.He was not at that game.
And it ended up, he or a group,
he was associated with ended upsuing the university and they won.

(01:28:34):
Yeah. Eric Roman says he found it.
It's on Snopes and validated.
Right? My - how I'm telling the story.
So we can cut me saying that out.
Yeah, it's it's widely knownif you if you know these things.
So he sued and won because of course,they were misrepresenting him,
but actually, he donated thethe money he won back to the university
earmarked specificallyto create our Black cultural center,

(01:28:57):
which we are a Black student center.Oh, wow!
Excuse me.Wow.
Which we didn't have prior,
we had a multicultural student centerbut one devoted specifically
for Black students and programsrelated to supporting our Black students.
So, like, frankly,
if it had happened to me,if they were using as gay representation
or something in a waythat I could have gotten money. Yeah.
I mean, I'd like to think I were that noble.
Yeah.

(01:29:17):
I, I really do, but I'd be like,I'd keep some money.
Oh, yeah.
But he donated back to make things betterfor Black students at UW Madison.
But this is an example.
Eric Roman pulled up the image,which he'll put in the video
and Amber can -
Not nly is he poorly Photoshoppedinto the photo,
but he's on the marginand then covered by a rule line.

(01:29:39):
Well, maybe that's how they werehiding the bad - trying to hide the
bad Photoshop but they did not do well.Oh, I see it.
Oh. Wow.
That's just. Oh, wow wow wow.
Sad, sad, sad.
Well, I'm sorry, I'm laughing about ita little bit, but.
Yeah.Inappropriate.
And and I'm glad that he,he stood up for -
Yeah. Oh, I, I thought it waswhile I was at UW Madison,
I guess it was before. All right. Well,

(01:30:01):
2002.
Anyway.
That that's, you know,the intention behind it,
I can see where it was probablylike we're trying to show some diversity,
trying to increase representation, but,
shoving someone in where they weren't,
where they didn't actually,they weren't attending that game.
No, not the way to do that.
Not that, is a misrepresentation.

(01:30:24):
And if you don't have
actual representation, there are otherways to go about doing this.
So I must have been talkingabout images of people.
Right.
But it can also be thingslike slogans, statements of values,
because there are many places
where part of the problem is, well,we don't have the diversity yet.
Right.
We don't have representation yet,but so like in a psychology department

(01:30:46):
that I, that I worked with, you know, theyhad pictures of all their past faculty
and their past faculty were weremale and White.
And so, like,what are they supposed to do with that
when they didn'tactually have the faculty yet?
Well, what they ended up doingis they made a display where they're
honoring psychologists from history,not just from their own department,
and made sure there are lots of greatBlack psychologists,

(01:31:09):
Asian psychologists, womenpsychologists, all of the above.
And so they showcased, those, using thisother kind of display that they built.
So it was one way to do it in a waythat's genuine.
Yeah.
In a way that's, thoughtful, inclusive,without trying to kind of fake something.
Yeah.I have more to say on this.
I was mentioning, you know,not just images of people,

(01:31:31):
but value statements and things like that.
This is also in a more everyday way,like we're not always in control of what
our company does or organizationdoes, but, people do things
like they have stickers
on their laptops or their notebooksor the back of their phone cases.
They can be things that are aboutdiversity, about inclusion, about, stuff.
And when others see that, like if I'm, I'ma gay student walking around on campus

(01:31:56):
and I see a professorwho has an LGBT related sticker on their
on their laptop, I'm like, oh,this is a person who cares about folks like me.
Yeah.
Also, if I'm ever having a problem,if I'm facing some kind of
collective trauma, for instance,to go back, maybe I know that's
the person I can go and talk to about itwho will be more accepting.
Well, and one way

(01:32:16):
I, I know I've noticed evenin your house and your yard

you have the sign that says: in this house, we believe (01:32:20):
undefined
Black lives matter,women's rights are human rights,
no human is illegal,
science is real,
love is love,
kindness is every- is everything.
And I think that that's another way,right,
of saying like, here I'm, I'm makingit really explicit what my values are and
what what I believeand who is welcome here.
Like everyone, kindness is everything.

(01:32:43):
And this is - these are our values.
And with these values,
all of these things are also part of whatwhat we welcome, too.
Exactly.
So so there are lots ofdifferent versions of that.
Oh, for sure.
People - And I wasn't fishing for youto give me a compliment on our yard sign.
But yes, it does mean a lot to us.
And it's somethingwe put a lot of effort into.

(01:33:06):
And, people's email signatures
Right, for sure.
is one way that a lotof people can do this.
Even statements like, like Black LivesMatter and and so on.
Think about that.
But something we talked about with,with Sandy last time
and other times,kind of displaying your pronouns.
That's one way to signal that, like,I've at least put a little bit of thought

(01:33:28):
into my gender identityand someone who's trans or non-binary,
like, there's actually researchshowing that people see that as a signal
to inclusion, in fact,not just LGBT people.
In some of this research doneby my colleague Megan Bruun, Black folks,
people of color seeing kind of someonedisplaying their, their pronouns
see that as a signal to inclusionrelated to race as well,

(01:33:50):
because it shows some kindof thoughtfulness related to inclusion.
So if someone's displaying their pronouns,they think, oh, they've also done
some of the work related to kind of race biasor culture or other things.
So that's something that's just so simple.
If if your gender identity, your pronouns,if they're not a big deal to you,
displaying themcan be a signal to inclusion for others.

(01:34:10):
So images in the environment, slogansin the environment and so on,
both serve as a signal to inclusion for others andhelps you work against your own biases.
Even the pronoun email signature thing.
Anytime you see your own email signature,it reminds you: These are my values.
I care about these things.
And it can be a reminderto double your efforts
on working against biases,working for inclusion,

(01:34:34):
and so on, this kind of feedback loop.
All these things start …
I'm losing my words.
All these things kind of feedback to oneanother and have synergistic effects,
to kind of keep things going.
And that's partof how this work of breaking bias
habits gets easier and easier over time,because you get better and better at it

(01:34:55):
by coming at itfrom all these different angles.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah.
And, and I, I appreciate hearing the, the,
email signature thing. It's definitelythat - that's something
that I do with pronouns.
And then I also have like a link to -for, for educational purposes -
Right.
So like next to it says like what's thisand has links to like what our pronouns.

(01:35:16):
Why is this important.
So for those that maybe don't know whyI'm, I'm displaying my pronouns or what
that means, it gives them an opportunityto kind of have some of that exposure.
I also have a land acknowledgment
and links for ways in which they can giveback to indigenous folks in,
Native Americans in my area specifically.

(01:35:38):
So like, yup - using all of those different ways
and images and spacesto broaden your own input,
but also the input of of other folksthat have that come across your space,
whether that's your email or your officeor your home.
How else can we, or even like the clothesthat you're wearing, right?

(01:36:00):
Like, can you - being another image -is, are there artists
or there's clothing linesor things that jewelry that you can wear
that's supporting another,another person group,
that you canthen broaden folks like cultural
input or things, despite the thingsthat you're wearing, too.

(01:36:21):
Absolutely wonderful.Yeah.
Well that's great.
That's a great skill. Thank you.
Okay.
So as we round out our episode,
we have our recommendation, and, Will,you've got a recommendation for us today.
I do, I do.
So, this this episode's coming out in May.
And, next month is going to be,you know, Pride Month.

(01:36:44):
Yes.
But, for Pride Month, we're,
well, for the Pride Month episode,we actually have, Nicki Vander Muelen
coming back, to talk aboutsome really great stuff she's done.
She was a past guest,
and she's going to be talking aboutgiving us some legal guidelines,
on kind of discrimination andand what what legal things

(01:37:06):
we're allowed to say or not say or door not do involving the hiring process.
And so whenever we have a guest,we let them do the recommendation.
So this is my Pride Month recommendation,just a little bit early.
You can watch it in anticipation of Pride Month.There we go!
As you're getting excited for Pride Month,check out this movie.
It's called Fire Island.
Okay.

(01:37:26):
So in case you don't know, Fire Island,it's an island up in New York or New Jersey,
New Jersey,
I think it might be, but - Of the New-s.
Yeah, especially during,
summer season, becomes kindof a little mini gay town.
So a lot of LGBT people vacation thereand kind of take it over.
And this movie is kind of the story of,one group of friends kind of doing that.

(01:37:49):
And it is goofy.
It's funny.
It's it's surprisingly thoughtful.
Like, for the most part, it's a fun romp.
But then there are a few conversationsthat the characters have
that are really insightful,thoughtful, detailed.
I'm going to look to Eric Roman Beining…
… it's loosely based on, I believe, a play
or a classic piece of classic literature.

(01:38:10):
He's going to look that up for us.
And one thing I haven't said about it, yetis it's, this group of friends
I'm talking about,they're Asian, Asian and Asian American.
And it's very rare that we see
people of color represented in gay media.
Gay media is - tends to be very White.
And so this is onegreat exception to that.

(01:38:31):
And, and again, watch itbecause it's just a great,
funny, goofy movie.
But also you'll end upkind of seeing some diversity
within the gay Asian experienceor Asian gay experience.
These, these - this groupof 4 or 5 gay guys,
have different perspectiveson their role in the gay community
and what it means to be Asian versusWhite in the gay community.

(01:38:53):
And they have different personalities,
different approaches to romanceand things like that.
Of course.Eric Roman did the research for me.
Yeah.
Natural diversity among, you know,
we said in the previous episode,you know, Black people are not a monolith.
Not a monolith.
Asian people are not a monolith.
And even getting, another intersection inthere, Asian gay men are not a monolith.

(01:39:15):
And I think they do sucha thoughtful, interesting.
But but all all, all around entertaining,
joyful, exploration of this and
the general plotline is inspiredby Pride and Prejudice.
Thanks for looking that up, Roman.
It also, has Margaret Cho in it.Right.
Who is a hilarious comedian.She’s hilarious, yes.

(01:39:36):
And she's kind of their auntie.
Yeah.Back to our -
Maybe that'll be another Diverse Joy.

bingo square: (Both) Talking about aunties. (01:39:41):
undefined
Yes. Well,she's kind of their, their lesbian auntie.
Yeah.
And, and it’s just -
It’s got Bowen Yang, if I remember. Right?
So for those of you that watch SNL.Yeah.
Because I remember him talking about it!I haven't seen this movie yet,
so I need to watch itbecause it sounds amazing.
But I do remember himtalking about being in the movie.
Yeah. So funny.

(01:40:01):
Fun for everyone. Not just for gay folks,not just for Asian folks.
Anyone will, I think, find itvery hilarious and interesting.
Awesome.
And, so check it out.
Yeah, check it out.
All right.
I'm Dr. William Cox.
And I am Dr. Amber Nelson.
Diverse Joy is produced by Eric Roman Beining

(01:40:22):
With music by Jay Arner.
It is accessibleas a video podcast on YouTube,
Or an audio only podcast whereveryou get podcasts or at DiverseJoy.com
Follow us. Check us out.
Subscribe to us @DiverseJoy onpretty much every social media platform.

(01:40:43):
On Facebook,search for the Diverse Joy page.
The URL is facebook.com/diversejoypodcast
all one word.
Like and follow us! And what we do,
I don't think we've said this before,
each month we put outlike an additional extra picture
or video related to somethingwe talked about in an episode.
So maybe something from myStar Wars-ified house, from our joy

(01:41:06):
for this month, or picturesfrom when we went to Star Wars Night
from Amber’s joy or things related tosome of the topics we talk about.
So if you follow us, you'll not only getinfo about when each episode drops,
but also some additional thingssprinkled throughout the month.
Yep.
If you enjoy the show, help us reachmore people by leaving

(01:41:26):
five star reviews in your podcasting appsor recommending it personally to others.

Word of mouth (01:41:32):
Number one way that podcasts reach more people,
so you can help us out.
Diverse Joy is the official podcastof Inequity Agents of Change,
a nonprofit devotedto evidence-based approaches
to reduce bias, create inclusion,and promote equity.
All that good
(both) JEDI work!
Which we’re dressed for.I know! I was going to say, it’s very fitting.

(01:41:56):
And JEDI stands in this casefor justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
In addition to being a fictional thingthat's owned by Disney.
Learn more about our nonprofit at BiasHabit.com.
Thank you for joining us.
Now:
(both) Go find your joy! Bye!