March 5, 2024 • 55 mins
In this episode of the Living Out Loud Discussion Series, I chat with Lindsay Messoline in a candid conversation about understanding and responsibly using privilege. Our discussion covers personal stories, acknowledging privilege's complexities, and the challenge of bringing one's whole self—including various privileges—to professional environments and discussions on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We stress the importance of being aware of oneself, understanding the systemic contexts in which emotions and reactions occur, and the growth that comes from staying present in discomfort. Lindsay shares her journey from a transformative educational experience in Ethnic Studies to becoming an advocate for education and DEI-related efforts, as well as insights into managing internal reactions in tense situations. The goal of this episode is to model openness and provide insights into developing a healthier relationship with privilege.
Our Guest
Lindsay Messoline is an educator and writer with over 20 years of serving students from marginalized, minoritized and racialized populations. She has worked with refugees and migrants in Oregon and Tijuana, Mexico, and formerly-incarcerated and currently-incarcerated individuals in Los Angeles and New York. Her specialties include GED and adult high school completion, foundational literacy and math, English and Spanish-language acquisition, and fostering a sense of self-esteem, self-love and confidence through education. She is highly experienced in curriculum development and design, and works to center people with diverse perspectives to create material that truly serves all learners. In 2021, she founded Collaborative Voices Initiative in order to amplify traditionally-excluded voices in education and beyond. She is a published author and a contributing writer to Educate, a publication on Medium.
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To get in touch with Lindsay Messoline, you can contact her here:
- IG: @lindsay.messoline and @collaborative_voices
- Website: http://CollaborativeVoices.co
Episode Chapters
00:00 Setting the Stage 01:16 Intro to Lindsay Messoline 05:28 Past Experiences and Assumptions 07:16 Understanding Privilege: A Deep Dive 10:19 Lindsay's Personal Experiences with Privilege 12:06 The Intersectionality of Privilege 23:09 Lindsay’s Story 29:28 Privilege in Different Contexts 32:36 Competition in Oppression 42:25 Emotions in Understanding Privilege 44:19 Process of Engaging with Privilege 46:50 Discomfort in Understanding Privilege 55:20 Conclusion: The Ongoing Journey of Understanding Privilege
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
That's not what anyone's saying.
(00:01):
It just means these piecesthat you, the privileges
that you carry don'tmake your life harder.
And that's like that kind ofyou've still had a hard life,
still fought for what you did,no one's saying you didn't.
It's just, you haven't hadthese additional challenges
Welcome to anotherepisode of the Living Out
Loud Discussion Series.
(00:22):
Today we are talking abouthow to be responsible
with your privilegewith Lindsay Messoline.
I am your host, CharmaineUtz, a Relational DEI expert.
If you are new here, weare unpacking real life
scenarios and issues thatcome up in our interactions
in professional settings orin settings where we feel like
we need to be buttoned up.
The goal of every single episodeis to reveal the layers in those
(00:44):
interactions so that we canlearn about them as a community
that cares about diversity,equity, and inclusion.
As always the thoughts, views,and opinions, the things
that are said in today'sconversation, they are my own
and not as a representativeof any of the agencies that I
work for or am contracted by.
(01:16):
Now with me, I haveLindsay Messoline.
Thank you for showing up today.
Hello, thank you for having me.
I knew that we were goingto be friends as soon as
I met you and I have noteven known you that long.
We met in the summerabout, I don't know, six
ish, five ish months agoat a networking event..
(01:38):
And I felt so out of place.
So out of place.
And I don't know what itwas about you, but we just
gravitated towards eachother and started talking.
And I felt, Oh my goodness, thisis a person I want to chat with.
I don't even, do youremember when we first met?
Like, what were you thinking?
I mean, I felt the same way.
I felt incredibly out of place.
Like I'm a teacher.
(01:58):
I don't really donetworking events.
I don't even really knowwhat that word means.
Obviously relationshipbuilding, blah, blah, blah.
As soon as I saw you, Ithink we like made a joke
too, about like how we felt.
And then immediately I waslike, okay, I'm going to send
my Charmaine this entire event.
Because we're onthe same page here.
And we can get somethingvaluable out of it like
(02:19):
meeting each other, but wecan also like call, call
it out for what it is.
Absolutely.
And the more we got intoour conversations too,
I felt like your story,I was really surprised.
I made a lot of assumptionsabout who you are by how
you look, as a White woman.
And when I started hearingmore and more of your story,
I was like, okay, there'sa lot more to this person
(02:43):
I would never have knownhad I not spoken to you.
And it'd be really easy to go toan event like that and just not-
I really wanted to just isolateand go back to the hotel room.
I just didn't wantto do any of that.
But there was a lot that Iwas thinking about myself and
having conversations with youand some other people as well.
That you just every time youshare more and more I realized
(03:06):
there's a lot about your journeyand this internal process that
you've gone through that Ifelt and still feel is going
to be very valuable, especiallygiven today's topic about
like privilege and using itresponsibly and having, I
think we talked about like ahealthier relationship with it.
I haven't really usedthat term before, but that
(03:27):
feels very good to me.
So I just know.
It's going to be a good convo.
I know, too.
I felt the exact same.
Okay.
Yes.
Would you mind taking somespace and sharing anything about
yourself, your own introduction?
Sure.
So my name is Lindsay.
I'm from what we now call Oregonoriginally, but I'm now based
(03:52):
what we now call New York.
I've been a teacherprimarily for about 23 years
now, so all of my adultlife I've been teaching.
I've taught kindergartento college, but the last
15 years specifically I'vefocused on adult education.
So working with immigrantsand refugees, formerly
and currently incarceratedpopulations, and anyone
needing to, progress throughlife, getting educational
(04:13):
certifications, degrees, etc.
The things that kind ofopen up some of those doors.
I've lived abroad.
I speak, Spanish fluently.
I'm an interpreterand translator.
I also speak a functional levelof French, which is new for me.
Yay!
I love learning language.
I love learning, in general.
I'm also a writer.
So I, I'm a contributingwriter to an educational
(04:34):
publication on Medium.
It's called Educate.
And I've published a fewpieces on my own, including
a textbook for learners.
So I love education.
I love to write and I really,really love having conversations
that like, center us as humans.
Like human beings in a commonspace with similar goals.
(04:56):
It's like one ofmy favorite things.
And I think I also reallylove just being very honest
and direct about life.
I don't like, like whenyou said buttoned down, I'm
not a buttoned up person.
I don't.
Certain norms or societalthings, like I understand,
I'm like, okay, I can do this.
And some of them just like,no, I'm not doing that.
Why would I do that?
(05:17):
Or examining where thosethings come from and then
questioning them and thensetting my own terms.
So yeah, I'm super excitedfor the conversation today.
And yeah, let's go.
Yes, let's go.
I feel called to at leastreference that moment when
we were at the conferenceand I remember I referenced
(05:37):
you, and I referencedyou to a group of people.
And then I went internallythis whole time and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I justmade this assumption.
I don't know if these thingsare true about her and
decided in this moment topublicly acknowledge, hey,
I just said this thing, Idon't even know if it's true.
And when I said it, I didn'tknow you well, I just met you.
(06:00):
So there was an elementof, you're going to say
this thing in this place.
And I, it was thetype of place...
that was going to bedifferent for them.
Like just, I knew it was goingto be different to just say
this in front of everyone.
And then I didn't know you.
And I said it to you in theplace where everybody was.
It was this major risk.
(06:20):
I said, Oh my gosh, I feellike I have to do this.
And then I have no ideahow this is going to go.
So then I say it and Ilooked over at you and you
were like, Oh yeah, no, youwere just so cool about it.
You're like, makes total sense.
Yep.
And I remember feeling Oh mygosh, you are so down to have
like conversations in frontof people and just, it's fine.
(06:44):
It's not a big deal.
Let's just talk openly about it.
So thank you for that,cause I legit had no idea
what was going to happen.
You were part of myfirst experience of doing
something like that.
And it didn't go terribly wrong.
That was cool.
Yeah, it was that was a it wasa good experience because like
you said it does representlike how I feel about things.
(07:05):
We just be direct and honestand open and the assumption
you made was exactly right.
So, yeah, you're right.
Let's keep moving.
else can you say?
So, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I feel like a greatplace to start is to be very
clear about when we are sayingprivilege, and when we're saying
(07:25):
to be responsible with it, whenwe're saying have a healthy
relationship with it, to shinea light on what that means.
I feel like I don't want tosay many, but I do feel like
there are plenty of peoplewho understand privilege,
but not everybody does.
So could we just start there?
You can share anything about it,but just one, what is privilege?
(07:47):
And then when we say,use it responsibly, what
are we talking about?
And what does that healthycomponent look like?
Any thoughts to share there?
I mean, what a greatplace to start.
I mean, it's a hugequestion, right?
But like thinking about it inrealistic, bite sized terms.
To me, like, when you look atthe way society functions and,
(08:08):
who holds power and why dothey hold power and what kind
of power are we talking about?
Political power, economic power,the ability to vote, the ability
to own things, And again, likewe're a capitalist culture,
so the more you have, the morevalue you have, which I honestly
disagree with, but that'sthe society in which we live.
So who is able tohave stuff, and why?
(08:29):
Who is like deliberatelynot able to have stuff?
And then going like beyondthe having, it's like,
how do people see me?
What do people think about me?
Where am I safe becauseI look a certain way or
I can do a certain thing?
Where am I not safe becauseI look a certain way or I
can't do a certain thing?
So, for me, that's howI, look at privilege.
(08:50):
You know, I'm obviously,well, maybe not obviously,
but my eyebrows are blonde,so I'm, like, naturally very
white and blonde person.
I have Lithuanianand Irish heritage.
My family's like pretty recentfor white people to the,
to what we now call the U.
S.
my family came like inthe late 19th century from
Ireland and the early 20thcentury from Lithuania.
(09:10):
Um, like, you know, poorimmigrant families, not
coming from any generationalwealth, not bringing property
with them, you know, a lotof them, stow away some
boats that they, you know,refugees, right, basically.
And, what the world they cameinto might have been different.
I know a lot of people loveto talk about, what the Irish
have been through in the U.
S.
and whatever.
But where I am now, what doesthe world think of me now?
(09:34):
Where are the spaces I cango, looking the way I look,
speaking the way I speak,to be safe, to thrive?
Like, where are thespaces I can go to thrive?
And where are spaces thatI have to, keep an eye out
for on my own safety becauseof the way I look or the
things I can or can't do?
And for me, that's just soagain, I'm a white woman,
I'm cisgender, um, which isa major privilege, I'm not,
(09:56):
I'm not heterosexual, I'mvery like pansexual, I'm
attracted to all kinds ofpeople, I've had romantic
and sexual relationshipswith all kinds of people, um,
you know, men, women, transpeople, non binary people.
I grew up really poor, so youknow, I've had some of these,
some real challenges in my life.
But again, when I thinkabout, the privileges that
I have, and the marginalizedidentities that I also
(10:18):
have, that's where I start.
Like, where am I able to thrive?
Where am I able to be safe?
Where am I not able to thrive?
And where am I notable to be safe?
And keeping that in mindas I move about the world.
And in our conversationtoo, like one of I think
we'll get into this becausethat's what the conversation
is centered around.
The, oh wait, pause.
(10:39):
I need to acknowledge thatyou just said a lot of stuff.
It just computed a little later.
Like it came delayed.
Thank you forsharing all of that.
Hello.
This is also me living out loud.
Like sometimes my brain goesso fast and it is what 323.
And I just did this, andI'll keep doing it, which
(11:03):
makes my brain go faster.
So before I do that, Iwant to stop and say thank
you for sharing that.
There's even more informationin that that I did not know.
I appreciate you.
And what I was then going tosay was, there's part of your,
just the way that you've cometo be with your privilege
(11:25):
that feels like you, youunderstand it and you live with
it and you like work with it.
You haven't come to this placewhere, or you've moved past the
place where you acknowledge thatprivilege is real and that you
have it and you moved past thedifficulty, it's uncomfortable.
Like how do I saysomething about it?
You really moved through thatand you're at this place.
(11:47):
I feel like you are, I haveexperienced you to have a
good relationship with thefact that you have privilege.
And you acknowledge it, andyou use it, and it feels like
you are using it responsibly.
And for me, I want toadd that layer to it.
(12:09):
When I'm saying useit responsibly, it's
what I'm describing.
It's at this place of knowingyou have it in certain
contexts, at certain pointsin time, depending on, because
even though you were sayingyou have different parts
of your identity, differentparts of your identities in
different places change theprivilege that you have there.
So it's very like complex.
(12:29):
And then the responsibilityis knowing that, and knowing
that in any given moment ortime, there might be part
of my privilege that impactsthat space, and that's
okay, and I don't have to beuncomfortable or, angry about
it, or retreat, or dismissive.
I come in here, and I actuallyknow this is literally a part
of me, and what does that meanfor this space, or this group
(12:51):
of people, or this opportunity?
And I roll with that, knowingthat, and that's using it
responsibly versus where peoplemight know they have it or don't
want to admit that they have it.
And then don't engage withthe part of themselves and
don't engage with a partof the group because of
the feelings of privilege.
And there's an impact on theconnection points with people.
(13:16):
There's an impact in theconnection in terms of
what people are tryingto do together, if it's
decisions to be made, if it'sprojects to be worked on.
So that responsibilitypiece is Hey, I get it.
It's in me.
And I'm showing upknowing it's a real thing
and I'm here with it.
And all that that means.
(13:38):
And I believe thatdoing that is healthy.
And doing that with otherpeople is the healthy
relational component to it.
I've seen you do that.
Again, I haven'tknown you that long.
I haven't been inall the spaces.
But I've seen you and I'vebeen with you in spaces.
And I felt like, you know what,that's a thing to talk about.
(13:58):
People haven't seen toomuch modeling of, let's
just own what it is, y'all.
And that don't mean thatwe can't work together.
And you look like you wantto say something, I really
want to know what it is.
Ha
just like wholeheartedlyagreeing with everything
(14:18):
you're saying.
I think specifically whiteprivilege, like that one
obviously seems to be like,at least, you know, I, I come
from a very white state, andit was deliberately made white.
You can read the stateconstitution of Oregon
to learn more about that,what we now call Oregon.
I highly recommend that.
I think You said reallyimportant words, like the
discomfort, the desire toretreat, I would throw in guilt.
(14:42):
I know, a lot of whitepeople who have a ton of
guilt about, the whiteprivilege they know they have.
That's where they're stuck.
And then I know those whojust, completely dismiss it.
And I'm going to use whiteprivilege as the example,
but this I think is trueof any type of privilege.
I think it's important topoint out, I don't have
a physical disability, Idon't have a documented
mental disability either.
(15:03):
and so I have, I have likeable bodied privilege.
You know, there's lots ofdifferent privileges we could
use, but I'm going to use whiteprivilege because I think it
really is like that one thattouches people's buttons, like,
and I think we've, I don'tknow who said this quote, but
I've seen it and I've sharedit a million times is, white
privilege does not mean thatyour life has not been hard.
(15:24):
It means that your skincolor didn't make it harder.
And so, like, for me, Igrew up, I come from, like,
a, like, almost a firstgeneration, immigrant household.
There was nogenerational wealth.
I went to collegeon the Pell Grant.
I didn't even have loans.
I had no loans becausemy, economic level was
low enough to qualify togo to school for free.
I also chose a state schoolin my home state, but, we
(15:47):
didn't have a lot of money.
We qualified for publicassistance, all of those things.
I had to work my buttoff to do the thing.
I graduated in threeyears with honors from
the University of Oregon.
Go Ducks!
But, I, it doesn't meanthat, I haven't struggled
and had hard times.
I'm also a survivor ofabuse, trigger warning.
I'm a survivor ofsexual assault.
(16:07):
I've had all kinds of hard humanexperiences that regardless of
my privilege, I've still had.
But then it's Right, but, ifwe do look at, trigger warning
again, sexual assault, beinga Black woman, being a Latina
woman, being an Asian woman,the chances of me being sexually
assaulted actually go up, soit's it's really terrible to
(16:29):
go through sexual assault,it's horrible, but being a
Black woman, would have madethat situation even harder
because I would have been lesslistened to by the police.
I would have been less respectedor whatever it is that society
does when Black women comeforward with their stories.
So it's not that I haven't,I just escaped through life.
That's not what anyone's saying.
It just means these piecesthat you, the privileges
(16:51):
that you carry don'tmake your life harder.
And that's like that kind ofyou've still had a hard life,
still fought for what you did,no one's saying you didn't.
It's just, you haven't hadthese additional challenges
of a major physical disabilitypreventing you from being
able to enter a buildingthat was designed for people
(17:11):
without physical disabilities.
Or walking into spaces, ifI call the police, they're
going to work their buttsoff to protect my little
blonde face, and that'snot the case for everyone.
So it's just like acceptingthat, there's these pieces that
don't make your life harder.
And if you can, accept thatand realize that, then you can
say, okay, it's not denyingthe work I've done in life,
(17:34):
but it's acknowledging thatpeople, other people are working
just as hard as me and notgetting the results I'm getting
because of their oppressedor marginalized identities.
Period.
Okay, you also saida lot of things.
I know, I can't, I'mnot concise at all.
No, it's not a criticism.
It's like a, oh, there's so muchto do with what you're saying.
(17:56):
And one of my things is ifthere's a bunch of things I'm
trying to figure out, what doI want to do with all of this?
So that was me, but Okay,one part of it was the
acknowledgement of whenwe're saying privilege,
white privilege, we'renot saying what you said.
I feel like that's important.
(18:17):
One of the most consistentthings that when people are
at that place of wanting todistance themselves from it
is, no, I've had the struggle.
And that's not theconversation that we're having.
Just let's just start there.
That's not it.
So thank you for saying that.
That's important.
And, the, like, the, theintersectional piece,
(18:38):
and maybe we can spend alittle bit more time here.
Intersectional piece meaningthat we have different
parts of our identities.
There's, I don't even know ifthat's the right way to say
that, but there's multiple,we are multifaceted people.
We are.
And, when you were saying thatI have these parts of me, and
(19:01):
in certain situations, I couldbe impacted, or targeted, or
whatever it is, I could not haveprivilege in certain spaces,
Yeah.
and even when I don't haveprivilege in certain spaces,
there's the existence of myprivilege- One, there's parts
of my privilege that exist inthose spaces and outside of.
(19:25):
I'm remembering, I won't tellyour story, so I won't do this,
but there's a piece I wantto speak to if okay, I won't,
reveal any parts of that story.
You have a part of yourstory where you were in
a situation and you hadexperienced a lot of targeting
(19:45):
a lot of, maybe like abuse.
I don't know what the rightword is, but you experienced
a lot of targeting and likeabuse in some particular way.
And.
In a professional setting.
And in your reflectionof that, you were like,
actually, this really sucks.
These are all the various ways.
And somehow still inthat situation, I also
(20:06):
had a level of safety inthat because I'm white.
And I sat back, Isaid, whoa, I really.
Because your experience waspretty gnarly, and not great
at all, and still that, alsosaying, and I also had some
safety in there, that is notafforded to other people.
So also, what does that mean?
(20:26):
I thought that was really,really interesting.
And again, you don't have totell this story or anything,
I just I'm calling up thatyou have an ability to see the
pieces of the whole situation.
I'm curious to knowwhat you think, though,
about what I'm saying.
Yes.
Oh, I mean, so there'slike two pieces there.
(20:48):
I definitely can tell the story.
I'll leave out the finetune details because I still
don't trust those people.
But the other piece that Iwant to say is, of course
comes from black women.
Like my best quotes areall from black women.
Like, let's just be real.
This quote is fromIjeoma Oluo, who is a New
York Times bestseller.
She's a Nigerian Americanauthor, activist, right?
(21:09):
Just phenomenal writer.
If you don't know her, oreven if you do know her,
go and read her again.
Her social media isalso very active.
She has blogs you can subscribeto, and she's published books.
But she has this amazingquote that whenever I run
workshops and talk about likerespect in the workplace or
whatever it is, I always bringup this quote, and again,
I'm going to paraphrase it,but she says, when we talk
(21:29):
about privilege, we're notsaying that people without
privilege are always right.
And people with privilegeare always wrong.
We're simply sayingthat there are missing
pieces of the puzzle.
And so when you describe likeall of these pieces that kind
of work around and contributeto who you are as a person,
it's like, there are a lot ofmissing pieces you don't have.
(21:50):
I have no ideawhat it feels like.
To, yeah, to live with apermanent physical disability.
I don't, I don't have that.
You know, I've been, I'vebeen injured a few times,
used to be an athlete, had asprained ankle, that sucked.
But okay, is that apermanent disability?
No.
Is that my entire lifeexperience on a daily basis?
No.
Do I know what it'slike to be a Black man?
And I'm driving a car and Ihave a taillight on, there's
(22:11):
a police officer behind me.
No, I have no idea what that is.
And it's not about me beingwrong just because I'm White.
Well, you're White,so you're wrong.
Well, you're ablebodied, so you're wrong.
That's, I don't know how peopleget that message, but I love the
framing that Ijeoma Oluo offers.
It's not about right and wrong.
It's missing piecesof the puzzle.
So, if I just simply, if I,remove the emotion from it
(22:33):
and simply ask that question,what are the missing pieces
of the puzzle for me?
Period.
Like, all the emotioncan be removed.
I mean, I love emotions.
I'm not saying remove theemotion, but if the emotion
is what's stopping you fromreally, pushing forward and
having a healthy relationshipwith your privilege, then,
just ask it that way.
What do I not know about?
(22:53):
Where can I go tolearn about it?
And how can that informthe way that I think about
my life and others lives?
To me, that's, the mostbeautiful framing and question.
Of course, it's a Black woman.
Thank you.
Praise words do.
Hmm.
I can do, this oneI can do concisely.
So I worked in a very infamousjail, I was teaching, I'm
(23:14):
a teacher, I was teachingGED, I was teaching
English, teaching Spanish,lots of classes going on.
I had huge successes to thepoint where the jail, wanted
to hire my organization andwanted me to train all of
the educators coming intothis space because of how
much success I was having.
All my students wereBlack and Brown men.
And I am, you know very,blonde, White lady.
(23:37):
But no matter what, it was likeI would go into these spaces
and just be able to, connectwith the learners and make
real progress, every week.
For whatever reason or allthe reasons I'm sure we all
know, like, you know, howdare you come in and treat
people who are awaitingtrial like human beings.
So I got a lot of hate fromthe employees who worked there.
I had some support from theemployees also, which I can say.
(23:58):
But I had a lot of, whatis it that you're doing?
A lot of suspicions.
Like, why are you, how, whydo they like you so much?
That's what I got a lot.
And then just some wildaccusations, about my behavior
and my relationshipswith the men.
And obviouslyeverything's on camera.
So I was like, please roll thetapes, like roll all the damn
(24:18):
tapes because I've been teachingfor 23 years and you think I'm
going to come into this space,risk my organization and my life
and my career and my reputationto have an inappropriate
connection with someone who isawaiting trial and being treated
like a worse than an animal.
What are you saying?
I don't, it's so ridiculous.
(24:39):
Obviously, everything was,everything is okay now, but
only because six or sevenmonths have passed, and I never
got official communication.
But I was being treated asthough I was guilty before
proven innocent by even thehigher ups in this space.
I love how I said I wasgoing to be concise, and I
told like a 30 minute story.
(25:00):
Well, I'm too late!
But, I was being treated likeso sim like I could feel the
weight of the carceral stateof just this every I would
walk into rooms and peoplewho didn't even know me
were talking s*** about me.
It was like emails were goingeverywhere, so I saw someone's
email and I was like, Theydon't, they don't even know,
I'm just here to teach a class!
(25:20):
You so these just, she's soguilty, she's so bad, I was
defined and labeled as onething which is what happens
to our brothers and sisterswho get locked up, right?
Like, they are criminal,delinquent, felon, whatever
those, labels are that wejust use forever to ex felon.
Forever that titlejust follows them.
(25:41):
And I, for the first time asa white woman, was just, being
crushed by the weight of that.
I quit all my other jobs, I liketripled up, I like scrambled
my money together to pay forcounseling because my health
insurance didn't cover it, I washaving like literal breakdowns,
panic attacks, and even so, mysister's a lawyer, and I'm not
gonna lie, my sister said thisin the same way that I would
(26:04):
say it, she said, they are 100percent targeting you, and they
may or may not build, try tobuild a case against you, she
said, but the reality is, thesecond that it leaves that space
where things are so ugly, it'sgonna go really well for you.
She goes, this is not fair.
She literally prefaced itwith, this is not fair.
She goes, but theydon't actually drag down
(26:24):
people who look like you.
Word for word,that's what she said.
And I was like, heartbrokenby the solace that
comment brought me.
I mean, first of all, Idid f***ing nothing wrong.
Like, first and foremost,I did roll the damn tapes.
I did nothing.
I stand by every action I didinside that space, and I'm proud
(26:47):
of preparing those studentsand making those connections.
But even if they try, you don'thave to have done something
wrong because the carceral stateis punitive for being punitive.
Like, it's punitivefor punitive's sake.
And they drag my brotherswho are in those spaces
for literally nothing.
The space I was in is oneof the most, deadliest,
(27:08):
notorious spaces in America.
And it's a pre trialdetention center.
They haven't evenbeen convicted.
And people are dying.
People are dying of medicalneglect, of suicide.
All these things.
And so, again, I was able tofeel that weight for the first
time as a white woman, but thenknow that my white woman ness
(27:28):
was what would save me, evenif they tried to do a smear
campaign, which they didn't.
It's been six months, I'massuming they're not going to.
I hope this doesn't come outand they're like, let's do it.
But even so, I, I am confidentin my, innocence, but aside
from that, they don't tearpeople down who look like me.
People who look like metypically don't rot in jail.
(27:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And both of thosethings are true.
And again, but what saved mewas the time passing and my
sister who's a fabulous lawyerreassuring me that like at the
end of the day, my whitenessliterally would save me.
And that is f***ingheartbreaking.
It just is.
Mm hmm.
A part of me is just okay,there was a significance to
(28:11):
the story that you just told.
There's lots of pieces.
There's your experience.
And then there's, I just havemy own personal attachment.
It's an attachment.
It's an attachment to theexperiences of people who
are incarcerated in the senseof I feel something there.
There's that.
And then there's the otherpart of the topic that we're
(28:32):
actually talking about, soI don't think there's any
one thing to do with it.
I just want to acknowledgethat there is the presence
of your story and yourexperience and it's real and
important and significant.
I'm really sorry.
And it also sounds like eventhough it's six months later,
there's, it's still around.
It's like a, not fullywrapped up, like an
(28:54):
uncertainty about that.
So I, that's a real thing.
And also, if there's anypart of this that you're
like, I actually want tocut that out, then that's
what we're going to do.
No, tell it.
Okay.
Okay.
And then, yeah, there's nothingI can do other than about
the middle part, which is.
people are incarcerated.
I just, blah, can't stand it.
(29:16):
And that's my own like,familial attachment to that.
And to zoom out, maybe thatcould be its own episode . But,
topic wise, there's also likethe context that we're talking
about, not the context, thevarious parts of who we are.
And the more information,the more information
(29:37):
about a situation.
And these things are truewhen we're interacting with
each other, when we're invarious professional settings.
There's sometimes I feel likewhen, when we're in spaces,
we have privilege and we don'tnecessarily like it very much.
And then we're in a spacewith people who may not
(30:00):
have as much privilege.
And then there'sthis like struggle.
It almost feels like somebattle that comes up.
Like I've experiencedsomething too.
It feels very competitive.
You know, like I want you toknow I've had a hard time too.
And it's.
The point of knowingprivilege isn't to then enter
a competitive space to belike, who's had it harder?
Can you figure it out?
But that's what itkind of feels like.
(30:22):
I feel like, whatusing it responsibly
and using it healthily
looks like is You actuallyhave an understanding of how
some things look and feel.
uh huh, uh huh, uh huh,
you have that, and youwere talking about things
existing at the same time.
huh, uh huh, uh huh,
uh
You can probably connect withpeople based on an understanding
(30:43):
of an experience, and thenthere's parts of it you don't
fully get
huh, uh huh,
uh
from another person's pointof view, because you, that's
not your lived experience.
That's okay.
Can it all be held?
And what does thatmean in this particular
situation with this person?
Or what does it meanwith a group of people?
What gets missed, what getsmissed I believe is there's not
(31:07):
enough people have arrived atthis place of being okay with
having privilege and having ahealthy relationship with it,
knowing it so well that youknow what it means for yourself
and you know what it means forother people in those spaces.
So you can use it.
I just, I feel likehearing like that story.
To me, it gives a reallygood context for how
(31:28):
you are in spaces.
You can hold what you'reexperiencing and what
that means, and you holdthe complexity of what it
means for other people.
Then you adjust accordingly.
And I feel like that'sthe part that I really am
hoping people can get to.
That's what changes yourinteractions with people if you
(31:51):
weren't using it responsibly?
Mmm, I don't wanna say that.
I'm gonna say it.
I already said it.
What it could look like if youweren't further along in your
journey is you've had thisexperience and now when you
interact with other people andmaybe you impacted someone or
maybe someone sharing theirown journey, you may from your
less developed sense of selfhere may want to share yours or
(32:16):
have yours be held more weightor not be held accountable
because you, you know, like,do you know what I'm saying?
Okay.
It's like I'm saying stuffand I just don't know if
I'm capturing it well.
Well, I think, the piecethat, I mean, 1, yes, I just
have a resounding yes toeverything you just said.
I think that, I think,first of all, there's that
(32:39):
competitive piece, which Ialso think is like, um, I
like a tool of our oppressors.
Like, they do want usto compete, you know?
Because if we can justeliminate each other, that
they can just keep sailingaway on their yachts, you know?
Like, oh, let themkill each other!
Let them waste theirtime debating who has it
harder instead of workingto like, remove these
barriers for everyone.
It's a win for the oppressorswhen we all sit there and
(33:01):
do that, first of all.
But I think there's also,again, if we think about it
like missing puzzle pieces,there's a major win there.
It's not about, more or less,it's just missing puzzle pieces.
Like, where can I go?
What can I learn?
What do I not know becauseof my lived experiences?
There was something else Ireally wanted to say, and
now it's it's escaping me,but I don't know what it was.
Maybe it'll come back.
(33:22):
It was about the battling,but then also the
things at the same time.
Well, we may get to that.
Cause I know there's acouple of things that
we wanted to chat about.
So.
So I feel like you'llmake your way to
I'm sure I'll
come
But I want to ask you, I'msure, can you, okay, it might be
helpful for people to understandlike how you got to this place.
(33:45):
Like how did you, I'm imaginingyou didn't just wake up one
day and be like, you know what?
I got it.
Privilege.
You know, like it couldn't havebeen just, emerged one day.
Like how did you get tothis place that you're at
where you're like, cool.
You're not fighting it.
Yeah, okay.
Well, one, I did rememberwhat I wanted to say, and
(34:06):
two, I love this question.
So the first other thing Iwant to say is, I want to just
say that, I think the biggestthing is, for me with privilege
is that, having, belongingto a marginalized identity
or having a marginalized,racialized, minoritized
identity does not cancel outthe privilege that I have.
And so it's not only dowe not have to battle it,
(34:26):
but both things are true.
And so you, it sounded likea, well, because I was poor,
I don't have to worry aboutmy white privilege as much.
Because I'm pansexual,because even as a white
woman, I couldn't getcredit until the seventies
without a dad or a spouse.
I'm good because I'veexperienced assault.
I don't have to, it's no,belonging to one identity
or having a marginalizedidentity does not cancel out
(34:47):
the privilege that you have.
And we can come backto that later too.
But, so, this all started,I can say, I was in 6th
grade, a counselor came intomy very white school, there
were three Black students andlike five Mexican students.
Now Oregon's demographicsobviously have changed,
after NAFTA and all thatgoodness, which could be
an entire other episode.
But this counselor cameinto our 6th grade class and
(35:08):
said, I'm going to show youthis video, it's very sad.
But it's important thatyou guys know about it.
And so they put it on andit was, like civil rights
marchers, primarily Black,like in the 50s and 60s,
being sprayed down with firehoses, being attacked by dogs.
I like started sobbing.
I was like, releasethe white tears.
Like I was sixth grade.
(35:29):
I was just like, what is this?
Like, this is theworld I live in?
What are you talking about?
And I, and then they justturned it off and they
said we can talk about it.
I was just like, okay,time to go to recess.
You know, it was just like, Idon't know how anyone watched
that and then just kept itmoving the rest of the day.
Here I am at 41 yearsold, about to be 42.
(35:51):
I mean, I will never, I cantell you what the counselor
was wearing that day.
And I just, I remember thinkinglike, I don't think I said well,
I'm White, so that wouldn'thappen to me, but I think those
insinuated messages were like,it's because they were Black
that this happened to them.
Started there.
I went to the Universityof Oregon, I was
majoring in education,I didn't really like it.
The classes, no, no, like,shade to that program, it
(36:13):
just wasn't exciting me, I waslike, I think I can be a good
teacher without these classes.
That's not true for everyone,but that's true for me.
And I was back in the day,so I open up the like actual
physical catalog and I'm likeflipping through and I come
to Ethnic Studies, which wasa brand new program at the
University of Oregon, and itsaid all the staff were, I don't
know what the word was at thetime, people of color, whatever
the term was at the time.
(36:34):
It was like very clear thatmy teachers were going to
be Asian, Black, Brown.
In the state of Oregon,that's really hard to come by.
It's hard to come byanywhere, really, but like
particularly in Oregon.
So I just thought whateverI felt in that sixth grade
moment, obviously otherthings had happened along the
way, but this was like, thisis it, this is it for me.
So I signed up for the program,I went to the office, it was
my second year of the program,I met all the staff, and I was
(36:55):
just like All I know is thatno one in my circle has ever
looked like this, and if there'san entire program dedicated to
this, I have to learn about it.
And then there I went, and I,I started on Ethnic Studies
101, started in my class,off I went, and I ended up, I
graduated with honors, I had atiny little graduation class at
a huge university, but there wasonly two White people who even
graduated from that major thatyear, and I was one of them.
(37:17):
And I remember, at thegraduation ceremony, the
Professor who was likeintroducing me to get my
diploma was like, if you wantto see a deer in the headlights
as a person, you look atLindsay in the first year of
her ethnic studies classes.
I was literally probablyjust like this, wait, what?
Wait, what's redlining?
(37:38):
Wait, what?
But you know, like, it wasjust like these, like, And
there was so much discomfort.
You'd think it was comfortablebeing like one of the only
White students for the firsttime in my life, hearing
about what people who looklike me had done for the last
400 years in this country.
I was just like, every daywas a personal reckoning.
But I kept being like just,but but just keep doing it.
(38:02):
Once you see it,you can't unsee it.
You can, but you haveto work to unsee it.
And it was more work andmore pain for me to unsee
it than it was to deal withthe discomfort of seeing it.
And I think, I just wouldchallenge, everyone, like
I was described by like aperson with three doctoral
degrees as a deer in theheadlights at my graduation.
(38:22):
We all have to go throughthose moments, but just
sit there and again, removethe emotion and be like,
it's missing puzzle pieces.
It's missing puzzle pieces.
Like, where can I, howcan learning about this,
I make my life better?
How can learning about thismake other lives better?
Period.
And I, I had all thequestions that everyone
has, like, why don't wehave all White fraternities?
(38:44):
And he was like, my professorwas like, every fraternity
is an all White fraternity!
And I was like, then hewas like, why don't we
have White history month?
Every month's Whitehistory month!
Oh, noted.
It was like, I had all the samequestions that everybody has.
I didn't just wake up with afairy who touched me on the head
and was like, you now get it.
I had to sit throughthe discomfort.
(39:04):
I had to wrestle with it.
I was ostracized by somany members of my family.
Like I was ruining holidaydinners long before 2020.
I didn't know, but Iwas bringing like hot
topics to the table.
And I was like, ostracizeduntil 2020 and everybody came
crawling back being like ohthis is what you were talking
(39:26):
about like yes mean i say betterlate than never but just like
just accept it there's wayworse things than feeling a
little uncomfortable talkingabout privilege like come on
that's the worst thing thathappens to you today like What
a damn good day you just had.
I also felt it.
You just have to sit through it.
And then you just say, it'sa missing puzzle piece.
It's a missing puzzle piece.
(39:46):
I want to gap.
I want to complete thispuzzle and you're never
going to complete it.
But I want more pieces.
I want more understanding.
Life is better when Iknow more, like period.
So just pick up thepuzzle pieces, learn,
listen, be uncomfortable.
Yeah, yes,
I It's your answer it'sI'm not worried about it
(40:09):
being long or anything.
I like the I feel likeit doesn't matter who I'm
talking to there's thistheme of- it doesn't feel
good, that there's needs tobe like this expectation of
it's not going to feel good.
And could you just stay in that?
(40:31):
And if you learn to stay init, it doesn't have to be,
an unpleasant experience.
That building the capacityto be uncomfortable helps.
I'm imagining if you gaveinto it, you might have
been a deer in headlights,but you also developed a
capacity to go to class.
I wasn't there.
I'm imagining.
You developed a capacity togo to class and you kind of
(40:52):
knew like, oh, it's goingto be uncomfortable today,
but also I can roll with it.
I'm going to learn.
And that's just in class.
So you learn things outsideof, but there is a part of
it that's like, all right,I had a commitment to roll
with it and learn and notknow all of the things.
And it's a journey.
And I feel like people,how can I say this?
(41:17):
I feel like people havegotten to this place where
we can say out loud andacknowledge that you need to
be uncomfortable and it's a
and we're buying into thelanguage without going
through the experience.
It's one thing to say heyy'all, let's do it, but
like, but, but do it and
(41:39):
Mm hmm.
better.
Mm hmm.
get better if you justgo in there and do it.
And a lot of people associateIt being uncomfortable or hard
or even like it not going well.
Cause once you start doingit and you have conversations
with people, there's a lot oflike train wrecks and stuff in
there.
And there's an association,like if it's not going well,
(42:01):
you're not doing a good job.
So you should pull back.
But those moments of itnot going well are the
ones you have to be in,yIou know, and learn from.
That's how they stop happening.
So I just, there's thatpart in there that I.
I really just wanted tosay, I hope people get that.
That's part of why we'rehaving these conversations.
(42:21):
look, this is whatit looks like.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I think it's reallyreally really, important
to talk about this.
And I love to talk aboutthe systemic things that
contribute to our actions.
I think, particularly in theUnited States, I am the same.
If I even have a hint of aheadache, I'm like, ooh, let
me grab that headache medicine.
If I feel a little bit ofswelling in my ankle, let me
(42:43):
grab that anti inflammatory.
One, we're always lookingfor solutions to get rid
of the discomfort, whichI'm not necessarily saying
is a bad thing, who likesthe discomfort, right?
But we've gotten too usedto, acquiring something to
then remove the discomfort.
I think the other piecethat's really important and
problematic is we, my friendand I just had this conversation
about this, sometimes whenwe feel sad, we think it's
(43:04):
like regret and we have to dosomething to fix the sadness.
Sometimes when we feeluncomfortable, we think
there's a problem that needsto be solved and therefore
to remove the discomfort.
When it's no, likesadness is just a thing
that we feel sometimes.
Like discomfort is just athing that we feel sometimes.
And when we're in a societythat's like, I'm a very
solution oriented person.
(43:25):
I love to study and look at andso it is hard to turn that part
off and be like, Well, this iswhat makes me uncomfortable,
why wouldn't I just avoid it?
Problem solved.
If eating too much sugar beforea bath gives me a migraine
in the morning, I'm not goingto eat sugar anymore, right?
And so it's if theseconversations are uncomfortable,
why would I go into them?
But it's look at the systemicway that capitalism especially,
wants us to just, like, buystuff to fix that problem.
(43:46):
Do this to fix that.
Avoid that bad feelingby eating, drinking,
feeling, doing, whatever,buying, whatever it is.
And then just be like, well,I don't have to believe that.
I know that sadnesswill hit me regardless.
I know that discomfort ispart of this regardless.
Like, we don't have to,not, every bad feeling
doesn't require a solution.
Sometimes it's just abad feeling that is there
(44:08):
because something we'relooking at is sad or bad.
Racism sucks.
I don't like looking at it.
Yes.
Absolutely.
I would really like to pullout one more layer of this
conversation and help people seewhat it looks like in moments.
(44:33):
So you've already sharedlike some examples.
There's like a, in realtime situations, it
could be with one person.
It could be witha group of people.
There is an aspect of yourskillset where like you can,
I don't know how I describedit, but it was like, you
have an awareness of self,but also you're attuning to
other people and dynamics inand interaction with people.
(44:57):
And what is yourinternal process?
Because I'm, I know thatone layer is that learning
that you went through.
And the other is in themoments, you also now have
to go through this internalprocess to then be with people.
Cause that's also not a got it.
I know exactly what to do.
I know it's not like that.
I'd be having my owninternal process to be
(45:20):
like, what's going on here?
And like, how doI do this to then?
And it happens quickly,but it's a thing.
I'm so curious aboutyour internal process.
And if you could say it astangibly as possible, because I
think people could benefit from
hearing it's your process too.
It doesn't have to beeverybody's, but y'all.
(45:40):
There's gotta besomething in there.
Do you have one?
Yes, and I have toattribute part of it to
this amazing counselorthat I found in Oregon.
His name is Ross Cohen.
If you're in Oregon,please go see him.
He will, he's amazing.
But he talked a lot about, alot of our, most heightened
reactions come fromprevious traumas, right?
This is not, he's not,revolutionary, but the way that
(46:00):
he helped me approach it, Ifelt, was revolutionary for me.
And so when I'm in thatsituation where I can feel
my heart race, the cortisol,the adrenaline are, like,
pumping into my brain, andI'm just, my face gets red.
I have no poker face.
It's just, like, oh, youknow, everyone knows I'm
feeling something intense.
Mm-Hmm.
He was, like, think of thatfeeling as your little girl
self who went through thepoverty, the abuse that you
(46:23):
suffered, she is like screamingbecause something that you're
seeing now is remindingher of that time and she's
afraid it's happening again.
And then, acknowledge thatyou can feel your heart
pumping, you feel it poundingand you feel it coming.
Acknowledge what you're feeling.
You could, it couldbe a little kid.
It could be a name thatyou give that feeling.
It could be whateveryou give that feeling.
But one of the things I didbefore I was in like heightened
(46:46):
scenarios was he had me take,and this is also another
revolutionary, but I love it.
I got from him.
So, he had me take thatlittle girl traumatized self
on a tour led by my likestrongest the person I'm
most proud of, my adult self.
I took her on a tour of my likecurrent day life, like what I've
accomplished, what I'm proud of,the things I've done, the people
(47:08):
that I've served, all of thesethings to get her to trust me.
And then when she starts whatI call like throwing a tantrum,
I can feel that blood boilingand I'm just nervous or I'm
afraid, or I'm uncomfortable.
She has a lot of differentlike descriptions of
her feeling, right?
But I picture her as a littlegirl crying out, I'm so
afraid or I'm so nervous.
(47:28):
I'm so scared of this thing.
I'm so uncomfortable.
Help me.
And then I like, I'm not joking,like I dialogue with her.
And I talk with heras like my adult self.
And I say Hey, I've got this.
Remember I tookyou on that tour.
Remember when I showedyou all the things that
I'm really good at?
I can do this.
And I always thank her.
I always say- Thank you somuch for being here today.
(47:50):
But I've got this.
And I actually, Ithink she's like in my
stomach for some reason.
So I have my hands onmy stomach and I'm like,
Thank you for being here.
Obviously I'm notsaying it out loud.
But I'm like, Thankyou for being here.
I've got this.
And we're okay.
and again, like she mightkeep screaming a little bit.
But I'm at least then able tolike engage with that, more
emotionally in control personwho can probably do a little
(48:13):
bit better job in these spaceswhere I'm nervous or afraid.
So that's a major part of it.
And then just,like acknowedge it.
Yeah.
I'm scared.
Like, when I go into thosejails, people are like,
you're so brave, Lindsay,you just waltz right in
and teach your classes.
That's definitely what itlooks like, but that is
not what it feels like.
I walk in and I'm just
I'm in this notorious jail!
You know, every, that's unreal.
But I'm just alright,but I can do this.
(48:35):
And I dialogue and Iacknowledge it and then
I just keep it moving.
But I also tell people, likeI told my students, and some
of my students would ask me,are you afraid to be in here?
And I'd be like, yes, of course,this place is terrifying,
I'm also really honest.
Like I said at the beginning,like I'm just like super
honest, super direct.
Again, society wouldtell you, emotions are
bad in the workplace.
And I use a male voice becauseit's like patriarchal BS.
(48:58):
It tells us that's true.
They're like,
silly.
people.
We're all the thingsand all the time.
So just admit whatyou're feeling.
Dialogue with yourselfand trudge on through.
You're so silly.
I can't just, you'reexpressive and it's hilarious.
I love that.
And, to get to that point whereyou're talking about like the
(49:18):
little girl, like any, anybodythat can do like younger self
work, it's a gift to the self.
I really appreciate that.
And a lot of people go totherapy to get to that place.
And maybe that's whatit is for people.
And if not, like I stillif you could get to a place
where someone there's somesupport to, to gather this
information, it's helpful.
(49:39):
And I frequently referencethe importance of the clinical
aspect of DEI work or things inprofessional settings, because
there's power in knowing thatpart of yourself so well.
These are the parts of ourselvesthat we're bringing into work.
These are the parts of ourselvesthat are activated in individual
(50:00):
meetings and in group settings.
So knowing that is, is sohelpful because then you know
what's happening and can speakto this part of yourself.
I just love everythingyou said about it.
And I, there's some otherparts too that I, you
had shared before that Iwant to just like name.
And it was like that youhad said something like
(50:21):
there's always like thats*** show before the moment.
There's all that stuff you'redescribing before like someone
gets into the moment isthe stuff to sort through.
And I connect with thatbecause before I say anything.
I have to do the whole,there's a whole inside process
that I'm having to sort outand it doesn't feel good.
People see the aftermath,they see what's said and
(50:44):
how it looks and theymake assumptions about it.
It's so easy.
Absolutely not, not easy.
There's a whole, like yousaid, there's a s*** show going
on inside before the moment.
And then when you're in thesemoments, there is an importance
to be able to understand whatyou're experiencing and the
feelings and self regulateso you can stay there.
(51:04):
And then I don't remember whatthe other part was, but there
was just like these littlepieces in the moment that I
don't know if you rememberwhat I'm talking about.
If you can just, do youknow what I'm talking about?
Do you
I remember theconversation that we had.
For me, like you said,it's a lot about awareness.
Like the more you knowwhat sets you off or makes
you uncomfortable, theeasier it is to like, check
that little kid again.
(51:25):
It doesn't have to be a littlekid that you, but I labeled
mine a little kid, so I hada lot of compassion for her.
Every time I felt afraidI had compassion for the
little girl who felt it.
Oh.
Something else I always say is
yeah,
The child self is allowed tofeel whatever she needs to
feel, but she's not allowedto make any decisions.
Only my adult self canmake those decisions.
And so when I've identifiedthat I'm feeling stuff that
the child is feeling, I have tolike, calm her down, or she's
(51:49):
going to start running the show.
And I can't like, be out of,losing my s***, anywhere,
but especially not in a jail.
I don't want to do it inmy university classrooms.
I don't, you know, I getstudents who challenge
what I'm saying and they'revery like, what about this?
But you do have to like,maintain, you can't let
the really reactive side,you be the only reaction.
(52:09):
I mean, you can and,but I don't want to.
And so, she's allowedto feel, but she's not
allowed to make decisions.
So again, it's likechecking in with yourself.
It's grounding yourselfin the present moment.
If you have to literally dothat thing where you're like.
What are five things you see?
What are three things you hear?
Take those breaths where youdo like the 7 11 7, you breathe
in for seven, hold it foreleven, breathe out for seven.
(52:32):
Because one thing when you'refeeling those like heightened
discomfort feelings, you've gotcortisol and adrenaline, which
block your ability to actuallymake rational decisions.
That's what cortisol andadrenaline exist for.
And the higher they go, theless able you are to make or
respond in like a rational orlike your best self way, right?
So like the breathingactivity can reduce levels of
adrenaline and cortisol, likewith each round that you do.
(52:54):
Like whatever it is, it'sfinding those strategies to
ground yourself in that moment.
Have a, previously haveawareness about what might
set you off, prepare yourselfto feel uncomfortable and
then do what you can tocheck in and check that loud
little child having a tantrumbecause you've got work to
do, and maybe you probablycare about this conversation,
which is why you came to it,or you care about this job,
(53:15):
which is why you're there.
And so, all of those, the prework and then the present work,
like ground yourself and tryto reduce that stress so you
can interact in the best way.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I could keep going,but I think this is
a good place to stop.
I really thank you for sharingyour personal parts of your
(53:36):
personal journey, allowingus to go into your internal
process and how you've grownand what it looks like now
and struggling through it.
And I just, I reallyappreciate that.
And I hope peoplefound this helpful.
I feel like at least someone outthere has to find this helpful.
Then thanks for modeling whatit looks like to, to you have.
(54:00):
I don't know, you haveparts of you that don't
have privilege and then youhave parts of you that do.
Thanks for modeling just showingup and being like, hey, it sucks
over here, but also it's reallygreat for me over here and
there's nothing wrong with that.
Thank you.
If someone wants to getin touch with you, what's
the best way to do that?
I think my socialmedia, Instagram is the
easiest way to get me.
It's just my firstname dot last name.
(54:22):
So it's my namesomewhere on the screen.
I don't know.
But yeah, Lindsay dot Mezzoline.
I'll put it in the
description.
Somewhere on there, my,my organization is called
Collaborative Voices.
It's an educationalorganization.
You could just Google them.
Collaborative, orsorry, internet search
Collaborative Voices, andour website will come up.
You can also just goto collaborativevoices.
(54:42):
co and send a message andit comes right to my email.
So you can get in touch withme there or via Instagram.
Perfect, perfect.
Alright, well, if this wasof interest to you, or maybe
it would be of interest tosomebody else, please share
and engage in dialogue withpeople in your network.
Of course, like,comment, subscribe.
If you would like to getin touch with me, you
(55:04):
can visit our website atlivingunapologetically.
com.
We have social mediahandles on there.
You can email us.
There's freebies, there'saccess to my book, Bias
Conscious Leadership (55:13):
A Framework for Leading with
Action and Accountability.
And other than that,I think that's it.
I hope to hear from you soonand until next time, bye!
That's not what anyone's saying.
(00:01):
It just means these piecesthat you, the privileges
that you carry don'tmake your life harder.
And that's like that kind ofyou've still had a hard life,
still fought for what you did,no one's saying you didn't.
It's just, you haven't hadthese additional challenges
Welcome to anotherepisode of the Living Out
Loud Discussion Series.
(00:22):
Today we are talking abouthow to be responsible
with your privilegewith Lindsay Messoline.
I am your host, CharmaineUtz, a Relational DEI expert.
If you are new here, weare unpacking real life
scenarios and issues thatcome up in our interactions
in professional settings orin settings where we feel like
we need to be buttoned up.
The goal of every single episodeis to reveal the layers in those
(00:44):
interactions so that we canlearn about them as a community
that cares about diversity,equity, and inclusion.
As always the thoughts, views,and opinions, the things
that are said in today'sconversation, they are my own
and not as a representativeof any of the agencies that I
work for or am contracted by.
(01:16):
Now with me, I haveLindsay Messoline.
Thank you for showing up today.
Hello, thank you for having me.
I knew that we were goingto be friends as soon as
I met you and I have noteven known you that long.
We met in the summerabout, I don't know, six
ish, five ish months agoat a networking event..
(01:38):
And I felt so out of place.
So out of place.
And I don't know what itwas about you, but we just
gravitated towards eachother and started talking.
And I felt, Oh my goodness, thisis a person I want to chat with.
I don't even, do youremember when we first met?
Like, what were you thinking?
I mean, I felt the same way.
I felt incredibly out of place.
Like I'm a teacher.
(01:58):
I don't really donetworking events.
I don't even really knowwhat that word means.
Obviously relationshipbuilding, blah, blah, blah.
As soon as I saw you, Ithink we like made a joke
too, about like how we felt.
And then immediately I waslike, okay, I'm going to send
my Charmaine this entire event.
Because we're onthe same page here.
And we can get somethingvaluable out of it like
(02:19):
meeting each other, but wecan also like call, call
it out for what it is.
Absolutely.
And the more we got intoour conversations too,
I felt like your story,I was really surprised.
I made a lot of assumptionsabout who you are by how
you look, as a White woman.
And when I started hearingmore and more of your story,
I was like, okay, there'sa lot more to this person
(02:43):
I would never have knownhad I not spoken to you.
And it'd be really easy to go toan event like that and just not-
I really wanted to just isolateand go back to the hotel room.
I just didn't wantto do any of that.
But there was a lot that Iwas thinking about myself and
having conversations with youand some other people as well.
That you just every time youshare more and more I realized
(03:06):
there's a lot about your journeyand this internal process that
you've gone through that Ifelt and still feel is going
to be very valuable, especiallygiven today's topic about
like privilege and using itresponsibly and having, I
think we talked about like ahealthier relationship with it.
I haven't really usedthat term before, but that
(03:27):
feels very good to me.
So I just know.
It's going to be a good convo.
I know, too.
I felt the exact same.
Okay.
Yes.
Would you mind taking somespace and sharing anything about
yourself, your own introduction?
Sure.
So my name is Lindsay.
I'm from what we now call Oregonoriginally, but I'm now based
(03:52):
what we now call New York.
I've been a teacherprimarily for about 23 years
now, so all of my adultlife I've been teaching.
I've taught kindergartento college, but the last
15 years specifically I'vefocused on adult education.
So working with immigrantsand refugees, formerly
and currently incarceratedpopulations, and anyone
needing to, progress throughlife, getting educational
(04:13):
certifications, degrees, etc.
The things that kind ofopen up some of those doors.
I've lived abroad.
I speak, Spanish fluently.
I'm an interpreterand translator.
I also speak a functional levelof French, which is new for me.
Yay!
I love learning language.
I love learning, in general.
I'm also a writer.
So I, I'm a contributingwriter to an educational
(04:34):
publication on Medium.
It's called Educate.
And I've published a fewpieces on my own, including
a textbook for learners.
So I love education.
I love to write and I really,really love having conversations
that like, center us as humans.
Like human beings in a commonspace with similar goals.
(04:56):
It's like one ofmy favorite things.
And I think I also reallylove just being very honest
and direct about life.
I don't like, like whenyou said buttoned down, I'm
not a buttoned up person.
I don't.
Certain norms or societalthings, like I understand,
I'm like, okay, I can do this.
And some of them just like,no, I'm not doing that.
Why would I do that?
(05:17):
Or examining where thosethings come from and then
questioning them and thensetting my own terms.
So yeah, I'm super excitedfor the conversation today.
And yeah, let's go.
Yes, let's go.
I feel called to at leastreference that moment when
we were at the conferenceand I remember I referenced
(05:37):
you, and I referencedyou to a group of people.
And then I went internallythis whole time and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I justmade this assumption.
I don't know if these thingsare true about her and
decided in this moment topublicly acknowledge, hey,
I just said this thing, Idon't even know if it's true.
And when I said it, I didn'tknow you well, I just met you.
(06:00):
So there was an elementof, you're going to say
this thing in this place.
And I, it was thetype of place...
that was going to bedifferent for them.
Like just, I knew it was goingto be different to just say
this in front of everyone.
And then I didn't know you.
And I said it to you in theplace where everybody was.
It was this major risk.
(06:20):
I said, Oh my gosh, I feellike I have to do this.
And then I have no ideahow this is going to go.
So then I say it and Ilooked over at you and you
were like, Oh yeah, no, youwere just so cool about it.
You're like, makes total sense.
Yep.
And I remember feeling Oh mygosh, you are so down to have
like conversations in frontof people and just, it's fine.
(06:44):
It's not a big deal.
Let's just talk openly about it.
So thank you for that,cause I legit had no idea
what was going to happen.
You were part of myfirst experience of doing
something like that.
And it didn't go terribly wrong.
That was cool.
Yeah, it was that was a it wasa good experience because like
you said it does representlike how I feel about things.
(07:05):
We just be direct and honestand open and the assumption
you made was exactly right.
So, yeah, you're right.
Let's keep moving.
else can you say?
So, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I feel like a greatplace to start is to be very
clear about when we are sayingprivilege, and when we're saying
(07:25):
to be responsible with it, whenwe're saying have a healthy
relationship with it, to shinea light on what that means.
I feel like I don't want tosay many, but I do feel like
there are plenty of peoplewho understand privilege,
but not everybody does.
So could we just start there?
You can share anything about it,but just one, what is privilege?
(07:47):
And then when we say,use it responsibly, what
are we talking about?
And what does that healthycomponent look like?
Any thoughts to share there?
I mean, what a greatplace to start.
I mean, it's a hugequestion, right?
But like thinking about it inrealistic, bite sized terms.
To me, like, when you look atthe way society functions and,
(08:08):
who holds power and why dothey hold power and what kind
of power are we talking about?
Political power, economic power,the ability to vote, the ability
to own things, And again, likewe're a capitalist culture,
so the more you have, the morevalue you have, which I honestly
disagree with, but that'sthe society in which we live.
So who is able tohave stuff, and why?
(08:29):
Who is like deliberatelynot able to have stuff?
And then going like beyondthe having, it's like,
how do people see me?
What do people think about me?
Where am I safe becauseI look a certain way or
I can do a certain thing?
Where am I not safe becauseI look a certain way or I
can't do a certain thing?
So, for me, that's howI, look at privilege.
(08:50):
You know, I'm obviously,well, maybe not obviously,
but my eyebrows are blonde,so I'm, like, naturally very
white and blonde person.
I have Lithuanianand Irish heritage.
My family's like pretty recentfor white people to the,
to what we now call the U.
S.
my family came like inthe late 19th century from
Ireland and the early 20thcentury from Lithuania.
(09:10):
Um, like, you know, poorimmigrant families, not
coming from any generationalwealth, not bringing property
with them, you know, a lotof them, stow away some
boats that they, you know,refugees, right, basically.
And, what the world they cameinto might have been different.
I know a lot of people loveto talk about, what the Irish
have been through in the U.
S.
and whatever.
But where I am now, what doesthe world think of me now?
(09:34):
Where are the spaces I cango, looking the way I look,
speaking the way I speak,to be safe, to thrive?
Like, where are thespaces I can go to thrive?
And where are spaces thatI have to, keep an eye out
for on my own safety becauseof the way I look or the
things I can or can't do?
And for me, that's just soagain, I'm a white woman,
I'm cisgender, um, which isa major privilege, I'm not,
(09:56):
I'm not heterosexual, I'mvery like pansexual, I'm
attracted to all kinds ofpeople, I've had romantic
and sexual relationshipswith all kinds of people, um,
you know, men, women, transpeople, non binary people.
I grew up really poor, so youknow, I've had some of these,
some real challenges in my life.
But again, when I thinkabout, the privileges that
I have, and the marginalizedidentities that I also
(10:18):
have, that's where I start.
Like, where am I able to thrive?
Where am I able to be safe?
Where am I not able to thrive?
And where am I notable to be safe?
And keeping that in mindas I move about the world.
And in our conversationtoo, like one of I think
we'll get into this becausethat's what the conversation
is centered around.
The, oh wait, pause.
(10:39):
I need to acknowledge thatyou just said a lot of stuff.
It just computed a little later.
Like it came delayed.
Thank you forsharing all of that.
Hello.
This is also me living out loud.
Like sometimes my brain goesso fast and it is what 323.
And I just did this, andI'll keep doing it, which
(11:03):
makes my brain go faster.
So before I do that, Iwant to stop and say thank
you for sharing that.
There's even more informationin that that I did not know.
I appreciate you.
And what I was then going tosay was, there's part of your,
just the way that you've cometo be with your privilege
(11:25):
that feels like you, youunderstand it and you live with
it and you like work with it.
You haven't come to this placewhere, or you've moved past the
place where you acknowledge thatprivilege is real and that you
have it and you moved past thedifficulty, it's uncomfortable.
Like how do I saysomething about it?
You really moved through thatand you're at this place.
(11:47):
I feel like you are, I haveexperienced you to have a
good relationship with thefact that you have privilege.
And you acknowledge it, andyou use it, and it feels like
you are using it responsibly.
And for me, I want toadd that layer to it.
(12:09):
When I'm saying useit responsibly, it's
what I'm describing.
It's at this place of knowingyou have it in certain
contexts, at certain pointsin time, depending on, because
even though you were sayingyou have different parts
of your identity, differentparts of your identities in
different places change theprivilege that you have there.
So it's very like complex.
(12:29):
And then the responsibilityis knowing that, and knowing
that in any given moment ortime, there might be part
of my privilege that impactsthat space, and that's
okay, and I don't have to beuncomfortable or, angry about
it, or retreat, or dismissive.
I come in here, and I actuallyknow this is literally a part
of me, and what does that meanfor this space, or this group
(12:51):
of people, or this opportunity?
And I roll with that, knowingthat, and that's using it
responsibly versus where peoplemight know they have it or don't
want to admit that they have it.
And then don't engage withthe part of themselves and
don't engage with a partof the group because of
the feelings of privilege.
And there's an impact on theconnection points with people.
(13:16):
There's an impact in theconnection in terms of
what people are tryingto do together, if it's
decisions to be made, if it'sprojects to be worked on.
So that responsibilitypiece is Hey, I get it.
It's in me.
And I'm showing upknowing it's a real thing
and I'm here with it.
And all that that means.
(13:38):
And I believe thatdoing that is healthy.
And doing that with otherpeople is the healthy
relational component to it.
I've seen you do that.
Again, I haven'tknown you that long.
I haven't been inall the spaces.
But I've seen you and I'vebeen with you in spaces.
And I felt like, you know what,that's a thing to talk about.
(13:58):
People haven't seen toomuch modeling of, let's
just own what it is, y'all.
And that don't mean thatwe can't work together.
And you look like you wantto say something, I really
want to know what it is.
Ha
just like wholeheartedlyagreeing with everything
(14:18):
you're saying.
I think specifically whiteprivilege, like that one
obviously seems to be like,at least, you know, I, I come
from a very white state, andit was deliberately made white.
You can read the stateconstitution of Oregon
to learn more about that,what we now call Oregon.
I highly recommend that.
I think You said reallyimportant words, like the
discomfort, the desire toretreat, I would throw in guilt.
(14:42):
I know, a lot of whitepeople who have a ton of
guilt about, the whiteprivilege they know they have.
That's where they're stuck.
And then I know those whojust, completely dismiss it.
And I'm going to use whiteprivilege as the example,
but this I think is trueof any type of privilege.
I think it's important topoint out, I don't have
a physical disability, Idon't have a documented
mental disability either.
(15:03):
and so I have, I have likeable bodied privilege.
You know, there's lots ofdifferent privileges we could
use, but I'm going to use whiteprivilege because I think it
really is like that one thattouches people's buttons, like,
and I think we've, I don'tknow who said this quote, but
I've seen it and I've sharedit a million times is, white
privilege does not mean thatyour life has not been hard.
(15:24):
It means that your skincolor didn't make it harder.
And so, like, for me, Igrew up, I come from, like,
a, like, almost a firstgeneration, immigrant household.
There was nogenerational wealth.
I went to collegeon the Pell Grant.
I didn't even have loans.
I had no loans becausemy, economic level was
low enough to qualify togo to school for free.
I also chose a state schoolin my home state, but, we
(15:47):
didn't have a lot of money.
We qualified for publicassistance, all of those things.
I had to work my buttoff to do the thing.
I graduated in threeyears with honors from
the University of Oregon.
Go Ducks!
But, I, it doesn't meanthat, I haven't struggled
and had hard times.
I'm also a survivor ofabuse, trigger warning.
I'm a survivor ofsexual assault.
(16:07):
I've had all kinds of hard humanexperiences that regardless of
my privilege, I've still had.
But then it's Right, but, ifwe do look at, trigger warning
again, sexual assault, beinga Black woman, being a Latina
woman, being an Asian woman,the chances of me being sexually
assaulted actually go up, soit's it's really terrible to
(16:29):
go through sexual assault,it's horrible, but being a
Black woman, would have madethat situation even harder
because I would have been lesslistened to by the police.
I would have been less respectedor whatever it is that society
does when Black women comeforward with their stories.
So it's not that I haven't,I just escaped through life.
That's not what anyone's saying.
It just means these piecesthat you, the privileges
(16:51):
that you carry don'tmake your life harder.
And that's like that kind ofyou've still had a hard life,
still fought for what you did,no one's saying you didn't.
It's just, you haven't hadthese additional challenges
of a major physical disabilitypreventing you from being
able to enter a buildingthat was designed for people
(17:11):
without physical disabilities.
Or walking into spaces, ifI call the police, they're
going to work their buttsoff to protect my little
blonde face, and that'snot the case for everyone.
So it's just like acceptingthat, there's these pieces that
don't make your life harder.
And if you can, accept thatand realize that, then you can
say, okay, it's not denyingthe work I've done in life,
(17:34):
but it's acknowledging thatpeople, other people are working
just as hard as me and notgetting the results I'm getting
because of their oppressedor marginalized identities.
Period.
Okay, you also saida lot of things.
I know, I can't, I'mnot concise at all.
No, it's not a criticism.
It's like a, oh, there's so muchto do with what you're saying.
(17:56):
And one of my things is ifthere's a bunch of things I'm
trying to figure out, what doI want to do with all of this?
So that was me, but Okay,one part of it was the
acknowledgement of whenwe're saying privilege,
white privilege, we'renot saying what you said.
I feel like that's important.
(18:17):
One of the most consistentthings that when people are
at that place of wanting todistance themselves from it
is, no, I've had the struggle.
And that's not theconversation that we're having.
Just let's just start there.
That's not it.
So thank you for saying that.
That's important.
And, the, like, the, theintersectional piece,
(18:38):
and maybe we can spend alittle bit more time here.
Intersectional piece meaningthat we have different
parts of our identities.
There's, I don't even know ifthat's the right way to say
that, but there's multiple,we are multifaceted people.
We are.
And, when you were saying thatI have these parts of me, and
(19:01):
in certain situations, I couldbe impacted, or targeted, or
whatever it is, I could not haveprivilege in certain spaces,
Yeah.
and even when I don't haveprivilege in certain spaces,
there's the existence of myprivilege- One, there's parts
of my privilege that exist inthose spaces and outside of.
(19:25):
I'm remembering, I won't tellyour story, so I won't do this,
but there's a piece I wantto speak to if okay, I won't,
reveal any parts of that story.
You have a part of yourstory where you were in
a situation and you hadexperienced a lot of targeting
(19:45):
a lot of, maybe like abuse.
I don't know what the rightword is, but you experienced
a lot of targeting and likeabuse in some particular way.
And.
In a professional setting.
And in your reflectionof that, you were like,
actually, this really sucks.
These are all the various ways.
And somehow still inthat situation, I also
(20:06):
had a level of safety inthat because I'm white.
And I sat back, Isaid, whoa, I really.
Because your experience waspretty gnarly, and not great
at all, and still that, alsosaying, and I also had some
safety in there, that is notafforded to other people.
So also, what does that mean?
(20:26):
I thought that was really,really interesting.
And again, you don't have totell this story or anything,
I just I'm calling up thatyou have an ability to see the
pieces of the whole situation.
I'm curious to knowwhat you think, though,
about what I'm saying.
Yes.
Oh, I mean, so there'slike two pieces there.
(20:48):
I definitely can tell the story.
I'll leave out the finetune details because I still
don't trust those people.
But the other piece that Iwant to say is, of course
comes from black women.
Like my best quotes areall from black women.
Like, let's just be real.
This quote is fromIjeoma Oluo, who is a New
York Times bestseller.
She's a Nigerian Americanauthor, activist, right?
(21:09):
Just phenomenal writer.
If you don't know her, oreven if you do know her,
go and read her again.
Her social media isalso very active.
She has blogs you can subscribeto, and she's published books.
But she has this amazingquote that whenever I run
workshops and talk about likerespect in the workplace or
whatever it is, I always bringup this quote, and again,
I'm going to paraphrase it,but she says, when we talk
(21:29):
about privilege, we're notsaying that people without
privilege are always right.
And people with privilegeare always wrong.
We're simply sayingthat there are missing
pieces of the puzzle.
And so when you describe likeall of these pieces that kind
of work around and contributeto who you are as a person,
it's like, there are a lot ofmissing pieces you don't have.
(21:50):
I have no ideawhat it feels like.
To, yeah, to live with apermanent physical disability.
I don't, I don't have that.
You know, I've been, I'vebeen injured a few times,
used to be an athlete, had asprained ankle, that sucked.
But okay, is that apermanent disability?
No.
Is that my entire lifeexperience on a daily basis?
No.
Do I know what it'slike to be a Black man?
And I'm driving a car and Ihave a taillight on, there's
(22:11):
a police officer behind me.
No, I have no idea what that is.
And it's not about me beingwrong just because I'm White.
Well, you're White,so you're wrong.
Well, you're ablebodied, so you're wrong.
That's, I don't know how peopleget that message, but I love the
framing that Ijeoma Oluo offers.
It's not about right and wrong.
It's missing piecesof the puzzle.
So, if I just simply, if I,remove the emotion from it
(22:33):
and simply ask that question,what are the missing pieces
of the puzzle for me?
Period.
Like, all the emotioncan be removed.
I mean, I love emotions.
I'm not saying remove theemotion, but if the emotion
is what's stopping you fromreally, pushing forward and
having a healthy relationshipwith your privilege, then,
just ask it that way.
What do I not know about?
(22:53):
Where can I go tolearn about it?
And how can that informthe way that I think about
my life and others lives?
To me, that's, the mostbeautiful framing and question.
Of course, it's a Black woman.
Thank you.
Praise words do.
Hmm.
I can do, this oneI can do concisely.
So I worked in a very infamousjail, I was teaching, I'm
(23:14):
a teacher, I was teachingGED, I was teaching
English, teaching Spanish,lots of classes going on.
I had huge successes to thepoint where the jail, wanted
to hire my organization andwanted me to train all of
the educators coming intothis space because of how
much success I was having.
All my students wereBlack and Brown men.
And I am, you know very,blonde, White lady.
(23:37):
But no matter what, it was likeI would go into these spaces
and just be able to, connectwith the learners and make
real progress, every week.
For whatever reason or allthe reasons I'm sure we all
know, like, you know, howdare you come in and treat
people who are awaitingtrial like human beings.
So I got a lot of hate fromthe employees who worked there.
I had some support from theemployees also, which I can say.
(23:58):
But I had a lot of, whatis it that you're doing?
A lot of suspicions.
Like, why are you, how, whydo they like you so much?
That's what I got a lot.
And then just some wildaccusations, about my behavior
and my relationshipswith the men.
And obviouslyeverything's on camera.
So I was like, please roll thetapes, like roll all the damn
(24:18):
tapes because I've been teachingfor 23 years and you think I'm
going to come into this space,risk my organization and my life
and my career and my reputationto have an inappropriate
connection with someone who isawaiting trial and being treated
like a worse than an animal.
What are you saying?
I don't, it's so ridiculous.
(24:39):
Obviously, everything was,everything is okay now, but
only because six or sevenmonths have passed, and I never
got official communication.
But I was being treated asthough I was guilty before
proven innocent by even thehigher ups in this space.
I love how I said I wasgoing to be concise, and I
told like a 30 minute story.
(25:00):
Well, I'm too late!
But, I was being treated likeso sim like I could feel the
weight of the carceral stateof just this every I would
walk into rooms and peoplewho didn't even know me
were talking s*** about me.
It was like emails were goingeverywhere, so I saw someone's
email and I was like, Theydon't, they don't even know,
I'm just here to teach a class!
(25:20):
You so these just, she's soguilty, she's so bad, I was
defined and labeled as onething which is what happens
to our brothers and sisterswho get locked up, right?
Like, they are criminal,delinquent, felon, whatever
those, labels are that wejust use forever to ex felon.
Forever that titlejust follows them.
(25:41):
And I, for the first time asa white woman, was just, being
crushed by the weight of that.
I quit all my other jobs, I liketripled up, I like scrambled
my money together to pay forcounseling because my health
insurance didn't cover it, I washaving like literal breakdowns,
panic attacks, and even so, mysister's a lawyer, and I'm not
gonna lie, my sister said thisin the same way that I would
(26:04):
say it, she said, they are 100percent targeting you, and they
may or may not build, try tobuild a case against you, she
said, but the reality is, thesecond that it leaves that space
where things are so ugly, it'sgonna go really well for you.
She goes, this is not fair.
She literally prefaced itwith, this is not fair.
She goes, but theydon't actually drag down
(26:24):
people who look like you.
Word for word,that's what she said.
And I was like, heartbrokenby the solace that
comment brought me.
I mean, first of all, Idid f***ing nothing wrong.
Like, first and foremost,I did roll the damn tapes.
I did nothing.
I stand by every action I didinside that space, and I'm proud
(26:47):
of preparing those studentsand making those connections.
But even if they try, you don'thave to have done something
wrong because the carceral stateis punitive for being punitive.
Like, it's punitivefor punitive's sake.
And they drag my brotherswho are in those spaces
for literally nothing.
The space I was in is oneof the most, deadliest,
(27:08):
notorious spaces in America.
And it's a pre trialdetention center.
They haven't evenbeen convicted.
And people are dying.
People are dying of medicalneglect, of suicide.
All these things.
And so, again, I was able tofeel that weight for the first
time as a white woman, but thenknow that my white woman ness
(27:28):
was what would save me, evenif they tried to do a smear
campaign, which they didn't.
It's been six months, I'massuming they're not going to.
I hope this doesn't come outand they're like, let's do it.
But even so, I, I am confidentin my, innocence, but aside
from that, they don't tearpeople down who look like me.
People who look like metypically don't rot in jail.
(27:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And both of thosethings are true.
And again, but what saved mewas the time passing and my
sister who's a fabulous lawyerreassuring me that like at the
end of the day, my whitenessliterally would save me.
And that is f***ingheartbreaking.
It just is.
Mm hmm.
A part of me is just okay,there was a significance to
(28:11):
the story that you just told.
There's lots of pieces.
There's your experience.
And then there's, I just havemy own personal attachment.
It's an attachment.
It's an attachment to theexperiences of people who
are incarcerated in the senseof I feel something there.
There's that.
And then there's the otherpart of the topic that we're
(28:32):
actually talking about, soI don't think there's any
one thing to do with it.
I just want to acknowledgethat there is the presence
of your story and yourexperience and it's real and
important and significant.
I'm really sorry.
And it also sounds like eventhough it's six months later,
there's, it's still around.
It's like a, not fullywrapped up, like an
(28:54):
uncertainty about that.
So I, that's a real thing.
And also, if there's anypart of this that you're
like, I actually want tocut that out, then that's
what we're going to do.
No, tell it.
Okay.
Okay.
And then, yeah, there's nothingI can do other than about
the middle part, which is.
people are incarcerated.
I just, blah, can't stand it.
(29:16):
And that's my own like,familial attachment to that.
And to zoom out, maybe thatcould be its own episode . But,
topic wise, there's also likethe context that we're talking
about, not the context, thevarious parts of who we are.
And the more information,the more information
(29:37):
about a situation.
And these things are truewhen we're interacting with
each other, when we're invarious professional settings.
There's sometimes I feel likewhen, when we're in spaces,
we have privilege and we don'tnecessarily like it very much.
And then we're in a spacewith people who may not
(30:00):
have as much privilege.
And then there'sthis like struggle.
It almost feels like somebattle that comes up.
Like I've experiencedsomething too.
It feels very competitive.
You know, like I want you toknow I've had a hard time too.
And it's.
The point of knowingprivilege isn't to then enter
a competitive space to belike, who's had it harder?
Can you figure it out?
But that's what itkind of feels like.
(30:22):
I feel like, whatusing it responsibly
and using it healthily
looks like is You actuallyhave an understanding of how
some things look and feel.
uh huh, uh huh, uh huh,
you have that, and youwere talking about things
existing at the same time.
huh, uh huh, uh huh,
uh
You can probably connect withpeople based on an understanding
(30:43):
of an experience, and thenthere's parts of it you don't
fully get
huh, uh huh,
uh
from another person's pointof view, because you, that's
not your lived experience.
That's okay.
Can it all be held?
And what does thatmean in this particular
situation with this person?
Or what does it meanwith a group of people?
What gets missed, what getsmissed I believe is there's not
(31:07):
enough people have arrived atthis place of being okay with
having privilege and having ahealthy relationship with it,
knowing it so well that youknow what it means for yourself
and you know what it means forother people in those spaces.
So you can use it.
I just, I feel likehearing like that story.
To me, it gives a reallygood context for how
(31:28):
you are in spaces.
You can hold what you'reexperiencing and what
that means, and you holdthe complexity of what it
means for other people.
Then you adjust accordingly.
And I feel like that'sthe part that I really am
hoping people can get to.
That's what changes yourinteractions with people if you
(31:51):
weren't using it responsibly?
Mmm, I don't wanna say that.
I'm gonna say it.
I already said it.
What it could look like if youweren't further along in your
journey is you've had thisexperience and now when you
interact with other people andmaybe you impacted someone or
maybe someone sharing theirown journey, you may from your
less developed sense of selfhere may want to share yours or
(32:16):
have yours be held more weightor not be held accountable
because you, you know, like,do you know what I'm saying?
Okay.
It's like I'm saying stuffand I just don't know if
I'm capturing it well.
Well, I think, the piecethat, I mean, 1, yes, I just
have a resounding yes toeverything you just said.
I think that, I think,first of all, there's that
(32:39):
competitive piece, which Ialso think is like, um, I
like a tool of our oppressors.
Like, they do want usto compete, you know?
Because if we can justeliminate each other, that
they can just keep sailingaway on their yachts, you know?
Like, oh, let themkill each other!
Let them waste theirtime debating who has it
harder instead of workingto like, remove these
barriers for everyone.
It's a win for the oppressorswhen we all sit there and
(33:01):
do that, first of all.
But I think there's also,again, if we think about it
like missing puzzle pieces,there's a major win there.
It's not about, more or less,it's just missing puzzle pieces.
Like, where can I go?
What can I learn?
What do I not know becauseof my lived experiences?
There was something else Ireally wanted to say, and
now it's it's escaping me,but I don't know what it was.
Maybe it'll come back.
(33:22):
It was about the battling,but then also the
things at the same time.
Well, we may get to that.
Cause I know there's acouple of things that
we wanted to chat about.
So.
So I feel like you'llmake your way to
I'm sure I'll
come
But I want to ask you, I'msure, can you, okay, it might be
helpful for people to understandlike how you got to this place.
(33:45):
Like how did you, I'm imaginingyou didn't just wake up one
day and be like, you know what?
I got it.
Privilege.
You know, like it couldn't havebeen just, emerged one day.
Like how did you get tothis place that you're at
where you're like, cool.
You're not fighting it.
Yeah, okay.
Well, one, I did rememberwhat I wanted to say, and
(34:06):
two, I love this question.
So the first other thing Iwant to say is, I want to just
say that, I think the biggestthing is, for me with privilege
is that, having, belongingto a marginalized identity
or having a marginalized,racialized, minoritized
identity does not cancel outthe privilege that I have.
And so it's not only dowe not have to battle it,
(34:26):
but both things are true.
And so you, it sounded likea, well, because I was poor,
I don't have to worry aboutmy white privilege as much.
Because I'm pansexual,because even as a white
woman, I couldn't getcredit until the seventies
without a dad or a spouse.
I'm good because I'veexperienced assault.
I don't have to, it's no,belonging to one identity
or having a marginalizedidentity does not cancel out
(34:47):
the privilege that you have.
And we can come backto that later too.
But, so, this all started,I can say, I was in 6th
grade, a counselor came intomy very white school, there
were three Black students andlike five Mexican students.
Now Oregon's demographicsobviously have changed,
after NAFTA and all thatgoodness, which could be
an entire other episode.
But this counselor cameinto our 6th grade class and
(35:08):
said, I'm going to show youthis video, it's very sad.
But it's important thatyou guys know about it.
And so they put it on andit was, like civil rights
marchers, primarily Black,like in the 50s and 60s,
being sprayed down with firehoses, being attacked by dogs.
I like started sobbing.
I was like, releasethe white tears.
Like I was sixth grade.
(35:29):
I was just like, what is this?
Like, this is theworld I live in?
What are you talking about?
And I, and then they justturned it off and they
said we can talk about it.
I was just like, okay,time to go to recess.
You know, it was just like, Idon't know how anyone watched
that and then just kept itmoving the rest of the day.
Here I am at 41 yearsold, about to be 42.
(35:51):
I mean, I will never, I cantell you what the counselor
was wearing that day.
And I just, I remember thinkinglike, I don't think I said well,
I'm White, so that wouldn'thappen to me, but I think those
insinuated messages were like,it's because they were Black
that this happened to them.
Started there.
I went to the Universityof Oregon, I was
majoring in education,I didn't really like it.
The classes, no, no, like,shade to that program, it
(36:13):
just wasn't exciting me, I waslike, I think I can be a good
teacher without these classes.
That's not true for everyone,but that's true for me.
And I was back in the day,so I open up the like actual
physical catalog and I'm likeflipping through and I come
to Ethnic Studies, which wasa brand new program at the
University of Oregon, and itsaid all the staff were, I don't
know what the word was at thetime, people of color, whatever
the term was at the time.
(36:34):
It was like very clear thatmy teachers were going to
be Asian, Black, Brown.
In the state of Oregon,that's really hard to come by.
It's hard to come byanywhere, really, but like
particularly in Oregon.
So I just thought whateverI felt in that sixth grade
moment, obviously otherthings had happened along the
way, but this was like, thisis it, this is it for me.
So I signed up for the program,I went to the office, it was
my second year of the program,I met all the staff, and I was
(36:55):
just like All I know is thatno one in my circle has ever
looked like this, and if there'san entire program dedicated to
this, I have to learn about it.
And then there I went, and I,I started on Ethnic Studies
101, started in my class,off I went, and I ended up, I
graduated with honors, I had atiny little graduation class at
a huge university, but there wasonly two White people who even
graduated from that major thatyear, and I was one of them.
(37:17):
And I remember, at thegraduation ceremony, the
Professor who was likeintroducing me to get my
diploma was like, if you wantto see a deer in the headlights
as a person, you look atLindsay in the first year of
her ethnic studies classes.
I was literally probablyjust like this, wait, what?
Wait, what's redlining?
(37:38):
Wait, what?
But you know, like, it wasjust like these, like, And
there was so much discomfort.
You'd think it was comfortablebeing like one of the only
White students for the firsttime in my life, hearing
about what people who looklike me had done for the last
400 years in this country.
I was just like, every daywas a personal reckoning.
But I kept being like just,but but just keep doing it.
(38:02):
Once you see it,you can't unsee it.
You can, but you haveto work to unsee it.
And it was more work andmore pain for me to unsee
it than it was to deal withthe discomfort of seeing it.
And I think, I just wouldchallenge, everyone, like
I was described by like aperson with three doctoral
degrees as a deer in theheadlights at my graduation.
(38:22):
We all have to go throughthose moments, but just
sit there and again, removethe emotion and be like,
it's missing puzzle pieces.
It's missing puzzle pieces.
Like, where can I, howcan learning about this,
I make my life better?
How can learning about thismake other lives better?
Period.
And I, I had all thequestions that everyone
has, like, why don't wehave all White fraternities?
(38:44):
And he was like, my professorwas like, every fraternity
is an all White fraternity!
And I was like, then hewas like, why don't we
have White history month?
Every month's Whitehistory month!
Oh, noted.
It was like, I had all the samequestions that everybody has.
I didn't just wake up with afairy who touched me on the head
and was like, you now get it.
I had to sit throughthe discomfort.
(39:04):
I had to wrestle with it.
I was ostracized by somany members of my family.
Like I was ruining holidaydinners long before 2020.
I didn't know, but Iwas bringing like hot
topics to the table.
And I was like, ostracizeduntil 2020 and everybody came
crawling back being like ohthis is what you were talking
(39:26):
about like yes mean i say betterlate than never but just like
just accept it there's wayworse things than feeling a
little uncomfortable talkingabout privilege like come on
that's the worst thing thathappens to you today like What
a damn good day you just had.
I also felt it.
You just have to sit through it.
And then you just say, it'sa missing puzzle piece.
It's a missing puzzle piece.
(39:46):
I want to gap.
I want to complete thispuzzle and you're never
going to complete it.
But I want more pieces.
I want more understanding.
Life is better when Iknow more, like period.
So just pick up thepuzzle pieces, learn,
listen, be uncomfortable.
Yeah, yes,
I It's your answer it'sI'm not worried about it
(40:09):
being long or anything.
I like the I feel likeit doesn't matter who I'm
talking to there's thistheme of- it doesn't feel
good, that there's needs tobe like this expectation of
it's not going to feel good.
And could you just stay in that?
(40:31):
And if you learn to stay init, it doesn't have to be,
an unpleasant experience.
That building the capacityto be uncomfortable helps.
I'm imagining if you gaveinto it, you might have
been a deer in headlights,but you also developed a
capacity to go to class.
I wasn't there.
I'm imagining.
You developed a capacity togo to class and you kind of
(40:52):
knew like, oh, it's goingto be uncomfortable today,
but also I can roll with it.
I'm going to learn.
And that's just in class.
So you learn things outsideof, but there is a part of
it that's like, all right,I had a commitment to roll
with it and learn and notknow all of the things.
And it's a journey.
And I feel like people,how can I say this?
(41:17):
I feel like people havegotten to this place where
we can say out loud andacknowledge that you need to
be uncomfortable and it's a
and we're buying into thelanguage without going
through the experience.
It's one thing to say heyy'all, let's do it, but
like, but, but do it and
(41:39):
Mm hmm.
better.
Mm hmm.
get better if you justgo in there and do it.
And a lot of people associateIt being uncomfortable or hard
or even like it not going well.
Cause once you start doingit and you have conversations
with people, there's a lot oflike train wrecks and stuff in
there.
And there's an association,like if it's not going well,
(42:01):
you're not doing a good job.
So you should pull back.
But those moments of itnot going well are the
ones you have to be in,yIou know, and learn from.
That's how they stop happening.
So I just, there's thatpart in there that I.
I really just wanted tosay, I hope people get that.
That's part of why we'rehaving these conversations.
(42:21):
look, this is whatit looks like.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I think it's reallyreally really, important
to talk about this.
And I love to talk aboutthe systemic things that
contribute to our actions.
I think, particularly in theUnited States, I am the same.
If I even have a hint of aheadache, I'm like, ooh, let
me grab that headache medicine.
If I feel a little bit ofswelling in my ankle, let me
(42:43):
grab that anti inflammatory.
One, we're always lookingfor solutions to get rid
of the discomfort, whichI'm not necessarily saying
is a bad thing, who likesthe discomfort, right?
But we've gotten too usedto, acquiring something to
then remove the discomfort.
I think the other piecethat's really important and
problematic is we, my friendand I just had this conversation
about this, sometimes whenwe feel sad, we think it's
(43:04):
like regret and we have to dosomething to fix the sadness.
Sometimes when we feeluncomfortable, we think
there's a problem that needsto be solved and therefore
to remove the discomfort.
When it's no, likesadness is just a thing
that we feel sometimes.
Like discomfort is just athing that we feel sometimes.
And when we're in a societythat's like, I'm a very
solution oriented person.
(43:25):
I love to study and look at andso it is hard to turn that part
off and be like, Well, this iswhat makes me uncomfortable,
why wouldn't I just avoid it?
Problem solved.
If eating too much sugar beforea bath gives me a migraine
in the morning, I'm not goingto eat sugar anymore, right?
And so it's if theseconversations are uncomfortable,
why would I go into them?
But it's look at the systemicway that capitalism especially,
wants us to just, like, buystuff to fix that problem.
(43:46):
Do this to fix that.
Avoid that bad feelingby eating, drinking,
feeling, doing, whatever,buying, whatever it is.
And then just be like, well,I don't have to believe that.
I know that sadnesswill hit me regardless.
I know that discomfort ispart of this regardless.
Like, we don't have to,not, every bad feeling
doesn't require a solution.
Sometimes it's just abad feeling that is there
(44:08):
because something we'relooking at is sad or bad.
Racism sucks.
I don't like looking at it.
Yes.
Absolutely.
I would really like to pullout one more layer of this
conversation and help people seewhat it looks like in moments.
(44:33):
So you've already sharedlike some examples.
There's like a, in realtime situations, it
could be with one person.
It could be witha group of people.
There is an aspect of yourskillset where like you can,
I don't know how I describedit, but it was like, you
have an awareness of self,but also you're attuning to
other people and dynamics inand interaction with people.
(44:57):
And what is yourinternal process?
Because I'm, I know thatone layer is that learning
that you went through.
And the other is in themoments, you also now have
to go through this internalprocess to then be with people.
Cause that's also not a got it.
I know exactly what to do.
I know it's not like that.
I'd be having my owninternal process to be
(45:20):
like, what's going on here?
And like, how doI do this to then?
And it happens quickly,but it's a thing.
I'm so curious aboutyour internal process.
And if you could say it astangibly as possible, because I
think people could benefit from
hearing it's your process too.
It doesn't have to beeverybody's, but y'all.
(45:40):
There's gotta besomething in there.
Do you have one?
Yes, and I have toattribute part of it to
this amazing counselorthat I found in Oregon.
His name is Ross Cohen.
If you're in Oregon,please go see him.
He will, he's amazing.
But he talked a lot about, alot of our, most heightened
reactions come fromprevious traumas, right?
This is not, he's not,revolutionary, but the way that
(46:00):
he helped me approach it, Ifelt, was revolutionary for me.
And so when I'm in thatsituation where I can feel
my heart race, the cortisol,the adrenaline are, like,
pumping into my brain, andI'm just, my face gets red.
I have no poker face.
It's just, like, oh, youknow, everyone knows I'm
feeling something intense.
Mm-Hmm.
He was, like, think of thatfeeling as your little girl
self who went through thepoverty, the abuse that you
(46:23):
suffered, she is like screamingbecause something that you're
seeing now is remindingher of that time and she's
afraid it's happening again.
And then, acknowledge thatyou can feel your heart
pumping, you feel it poundingand you feel it coming.
Acknowledge what you're feeling.
You could, it couldbe a little kid.
It could be a name thatyou give that feeling.
It could be whateveryou give that feeling.
But one of the things I didbefore I was in like heightened
(46:46):
scenarios was he had me take,and this is also another
revolutionary, but I love it.
I got from him.
So, he had me take thatlittle girl traumatized self
on a tour led by my likestrongest the person I'm
most proud of, my adult self.
I took her on a tour of my likecurrent day life, like what I've
accomplished, what I'm proud of,the things I've done, the people
(47:08):
that I've served, all of thesethings to get her to trust me.
And then when she starts whatI call like throwing a tantrum,
I can feel that blood boilingand I'm just nervous or I'm
afraid, or I'm uncomfortable.
She has a lot of differentlike descriptions of
her feeling, right?
But I picture her as a littlegirl crying out, I'm so
afraid or I'm so nervous.
(47:28):
I'm so scared of this thing.
I'm so uncomfortable.
Help me.
And then I like, I'm not joking,like I dialogue with her.
And I talk with heras like my adult self.
And I say Hey, I've got this.
Remember I tookyou on that tour.
Remember when I showedyou all the things that
I'm really good at?
I can do this.
And I always thank her.
I always say- Thank you somuch for being here today.
(47:50):
But I've got this.
And I actually, Ithink she's like in my
stomach for some reason.
So I have my hands onmy stomach and I'm like,
Thank you for being here.
Obviously I'm notsaying it out loud.
But I'm like, Thankyou for being here.
I've got this.
And we're okay.
and again, like she mightkeep screaming a little bit.
But I'm at least then able tolike engage with that, more
emotionally in control personwho can probably do a little
(48:13):
bit better job in these spaceswhere I'm nervous or afraid.
So that's a major part of it.
And then just,like acknowedge it.
Yeah.
I'm scared.
Like, when I go into thosejails, people are like,
you're so brave, Lindsay,you just waltz right in
and teach your classes.
That's definitely what itlooks like, but that is
not what it feels like.
I walk in and I'm just
I'm in this notorious jail!
You know, every, that's unreal.
But I'm just alright,but I can do this.
(48:35):
And I dialogue and Iacknowledge it and then
I just keep it moving.
But I also tell people, likeI told my students, and some
of my students would ask me,are you afraid to be in here?
And I'd be like, yes, of course,this place is terrifying,
I'm also really honest.
Like I said at the beginning,like I'm just like super
honest, super direct.
Again, society wouldtell you, emotions are
bad in the workplace.
And I use a male voice becauseit's like patriarchal BS.
(48:58):
It tells us that's true.
They're like,
silly.
people.
We're all the thingsand all the time.
So just admit whatyou're feeling.
Dialogue with yourselfand trudge on through.
You're so silly.
I can't just, you'reexpressive and it's hilarious.
I love that.
And, to get to that point whereyou're talking about like the
(49:18):
little girl, like any, anybodythat can do like younger self
work, it's a gift to the self.
I really appreciate that.
And a lot of people go totherapy to get to that place.
And maybe that's whatit is for people.
And if not, like I stillif you could get to a place
where someone there's somesupport to, to gather this
information, it's helpful.
(49:39):
And I frequently referencethe importance of the clinical
aspect of DEI work or things inprofessional settings, because
there's power in knowing thatpart of yourself so well.
These are the parts of ourselvesthat we're bringing into work.
These are the parts of ourselvesthat are activated in individual
(50:00):
meetings and in group settings.
So knowing that is, is sohelpful because then you know
what's happening and can speakto this part of yourself.
I just love everythingyou said about it.
And I, there's some otherparts too that I, you
had shared before that Iwant to just like name.
And it was like that youhad said something like
(50:21):
there's always like thats*** show before the moment.
There's all that stuff you'redescribing before like someone
gets into the moment isthe stuff to sort through.
And I connect with thatbecause before I say anything.
I have to do the whole,there's a whole inside process
that I'm having to sort outand it doesn't feel good.
People see the aftermath,they see what's said and
(50:44):
how it looks and theymake assumptions about it.
It's so easy.
Absolutely not, not easy.
There's a whole, like yousaid, there's a s*** show going
on inside before the moment.
And then when you're in thesemoments, there is an importance
to be able to understand whatyou're experiencing and the
feelings and self regulateso you can stay there.
(51:04):
And then I don't remember whatthe other part was, but there
was just like these littlepieces in the moment that I
don't know if you rememberwhat I'm talking about.
If you can just, do youknow what I'm talking about?
Do you
I remember theconversation that we had.
For me, like you said,it's a lot about awareness.
Like the more you knowwhat sets you off or makes
you uncomfortable, theeasier it is to like, check
that little kid again.
(51:25):
It doesn't have to be a littlekid that you, but I labeled
mine a little kid, so I hada lot of compassion for her.
Every time I felt afraidI had compassion for the
little girl who felt it.
Oh.
Something else I always say is
yeah,
The child self is allowed tofeel whatever she needs to
feel, but she's not allowedto make any decisions.
Only my adult self canmake those decisions.
And so when I've identifiedthat I'm feeling stuff that
the child is feeling, I have tolike, calm her down, or she's
(51:49):
going to start running the show.
And I can't like, be out of,losing my s***, anywhere,
but especially not in a jail.
I don't want to do it inmy university classrooms.
I don't, you know, I getstudents who challenge
what I'm saying and they'revery like, what about this?
But you do have to like,maintain, you can't let
the really reactive side,you be the only reaction.
(52:09):
I mean, you can and,but I don't want to.
And so, she's allowedto feel, but she's not
allowed to make decisions.
So again, it's likechecking in with yourself.
It's grounding yourselfin the present moment.
If you have to literally dothat thing where you're like.
What are five things you see?
What are three things you hear?
Take those breaths where youdo like the 7 11 7, you breathe
in for seven, hold it foreleven, breathe out for seven.
(52:32):
Because one thing when you'refeeling those like heightened
discomfort feelings, you've gotcortisol and adrenaline, which
block your ability to actuallymake rational decisions.
That's what cortisol andadrenaline exist for.
And the higher they go, theless able you are to make or
respond in like a rational orlike your best self way, right?
So like the breathingactivity can reduce levels of
adrenaline and cortisol, likewith each round that you do.
(52:54):
Like whatever it is, it'sfinding those strategies to
ground yourself in that moment.
Have a, previously haveawareness about what might
set you off, prepare yourselfto feel uncomfortable and
then do what you can tocheck in and check that loud
little child having a tantrumbecause you've got work to
do, and maybe you probablycare about this conversation,
which is why you came to it,or you care about this job,
(53:15):
which is why you're there.
And so, all of those, the prework and then the present work,
like ground yourself and tryto reduce that stress so you
can interact in the best way.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I could keep going,but I think this is
a good place to stop.
I really thank you for sharingyour personal parts of your
(53:36):
personal journey, allowingus to go into your internal
process and how you've grownand what it looks like now
and struggling through it.
And I just, I reallyappreciate that.
And I hope peoplefound this helpful.
I feel like at least someone outthere has to find this helpful.
Then thanks for modeling whatit looks like to, to you have.
(54:00):
I don't know, you haveparts of you that don't
have privilege and then youhave parts of you that do.
Thanks for modeling just showingup and being like, hey, it sucks
over here, but also it's reallygreat for me over here and
there's nothing wrong with that.
Thank you.
If someone wants to getin touch with you, what's
the best way to do that?
I think my socialmedia, Instagram is the
easiest way to get me.
It's just my firstname dot last name.
(54:22):
So it's my namesomewhere on the screen.
I don't know.
But yeah, Lindsay dot Mezzoline.
I'll put it in the
description.
Somewhere on there, my,my organization is called
Collaborative Voices.
It's an educationalorganization.
You could just Google them.
Collaborative, orsorry, internet search
Collaborative Voices, andour website will come up.
You can also just goto collaborativevoices.
(54:42):
co and send a message andit comes right to my email.
So you can get in touch withme there or via Instagram.
Perfect, perfect.
Alright, well, if this wasof interest to you, or maybe
it would be of interest tosomebody else, please share
and engage in dialogue withpeople in your network.
Of course, like,comment, subscribe.
If you would like to getin touch with me, you
(55:04):
can visit our website atlivingunapologetically.
com.
We have social mediahandles on there.
You can email us.
There's freebies, there'saccess to my book, Bias
Conscious Leadership (55:13):
A Framework for Leading with
Action and Accountability.
And other than that,I think that's it.
I hope to hear from you soonand until next time, bye!
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