Women & White Supremacy

The display of white supremacy and neo-Nazism in Charlottesville demands a conversation on women's roles in perpetuating systems of oppression. E&B break things down with the help of journalist Laura Smith and entrepreneur/activist Marissa Jenae Johnson.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Emily and and you're listening to Steph Mom.
Never told you Now today we are called to this topic. Unfortunately,

(00:25):
because of the horrific demonstration of terrorism and white supremacy
and Nazism on display in Charlotte'sville not too long ago,
we couldn't get into the studio soon enough to cover
this topic. But I wanted to not only pay honor

(00:46):
to the tragic death of Heather Higher in that horrific
day in Charlotte'sville, but also talk honestly about the white
supreme to c movement here in the United States. Isn't
as male dominated as we'd like to think it is,
Isn't that right? That's so right? Um. In doing a

(01:09):
lot of research for this episode, and then also just
in having eyes and being a person that exists in
the world, I think we see that women have a
have a role in white supremacy and unpacking that and
getting to the bottom of that can be really hard. UM.
I also just want to say, as tragic as you know,
the loss of life and Charlie's full was, I think

(01:31):
it's important to lift up that life lost. Also understanding
that so many black and brown folks have been violently
killed because of white supremacy, and I don't want to
frame it as because this white woman got killed, we
don't have to talk about racism in a real way
when it's really a larger, you know problem. I mean,

(01:54):
black lives matter, right, I think we can start there
by saying that there have been far too many lives
as lost in because of the movement around white supremacy
and because of our our nation's really uncomfortable history with this.
I think there's a lot of uncomfortable white folks out
there right now who are forced to reckon with this.
When we see Nazis marching without hoods, when we see what,

(02:16):
you know, these tiki torch wielding, collar shirt wearing average
white guys walking through the streets proudly professing their hatred,
it really forces I think a lot of white folks
to wake up and recognize white supremacies alive and well
in a way that's easier to ignore when you're not

(02:37):
on the receiving end of that kind of persecution. I
think that's so true. Um, in the aftermath of Charlotte's
spill Um, something that I was sort of really taken
by was this rush to have you know slogans like
this is not us, and I get that sentiment, but
you know what, this is us. This is America, this
is white, this is the country that we've built, This

(02:58):
is the stuff our country was unted it on, and
saying this is not us is a way of removing
it and making it less real. But a lot of
folks of color don't have that option exactly. And I
think for a lot of us women, it can be
tempting to look at these photos that are predominantly male, right,
these are mostly men who are marching in the street,

(03:20):
and think, what are all these angry white guys, you know,
feeling victimized about? And that belies the fact that behind
those photos that are white women at home, you know,
cooking a lovely meal for their white man to come
home from that march to consume. Or there are mothers
and sisters, and there are lots of women that have

(03:41):
been instrumental in the movement for white supremacy, not just today,
which we're going to talk about, but historically. Yeah. And
even with the guy who drove his car into the
protests at Chartspell, when they interviewed his mother, you really
got the sense that she had sort of turned a
blind to something toxic that was brewing in her own

(04:02):
son because she maybe did not want to confront it
and didn't fully understand it, so she did let it
go right. And so there are lots of different levels
to people's complicitness with white supremacy, either involvement with or
perpetuation of white supremacy that we want to unpack today,
specifically focusing on women's involvement in white supremacy historically and

(04:22):
in the present day. One of the first articles that
came to mind when I started talking about this on
Twitter a couple weeks ago now was from Genevieve Hatch
for the Huffington Post, who wrote it wasn't just white
men who participated in the Unite the Right rally. In
that article, she says, quote, white supremacy is indeed rooted
in racism and misogyny, but white women have historically enabled racism,

(04:49):
even if it came with the cost of misogyny. And
in Charlottesville, many yet again chose to maintain their white
privilege by choosing subordination to white men over solidarity with
people of color, which I thought was a really interesting
psychological choice. This idea that in the white supremacist movements. Historically,

(05:10):
there's been a lot of patriarchy involved. There's been a
very clear delineation between men's roles and women's roles historically
and today. That's where a lot of the um sort
of moral family values part of the far right movement
in the United States and modern history has said, we
want women to be free to stay at home, we
want women to be free to be homemakers, and really

(05:32):
relegated to that domain. Even in the KKK they said, no,
we appreciate that you're pro white supremacy women, but we
don't want you involved in leading this movement per se.
There was resistance there. I think that idea that women
that their role traditionally in supporting these kinds of movements
is by creating a stable domestic situation at home so

(05:52):
the men can be on the front lines, you know,
doing Nazi stuff exactly. And I hope that I hope
we can have this conversation in the way that we
usually do, which is by putting a little bit of
fun at things and having a laugh in the face
of this really insane stuff that's happening today. But I
hope that you listeners who know that this doesn't mean

(06:13):
we're making light of the subject. Yeah, I mean just
in my own personal life being a woman of color,
there's this old adage of laugh to keep from crying. Yeah,
you know, not everybody embraces that, and that is fine,
But I think that as folks of color, our senses
of humor have have helped us persevere through so much.
And I've gotten a lot of kicks out of making
fun of Nazis the last few days. Um, it's pretty easy.

(06:35):
A lot of them are ridiculous, absolutely rigid. And I
want to bring it back to the point that women
have long been involved, like you said, especially in the
domestic sphere, in perpetuating the movements around white supremacy. In fact,
women were responsible for the erection of many of those
Confederate statues that were paying homage to the Civil War

(06:55):
generals involved in the rebellion from the South. So all
those mass fabricated statues that we've seen come down and
crumble in a surprisingly simple fashion when they tumbled to
the ground. Uh, those were mass produced and put up
thanks to the very organized ladies who lund to the South. Really,

(07:15):
this was like Southern women were at the forefront during
the Jim Crow era of of erecting these monuments to
remind folks of color who they really value. And you know,
I gotta say, I grew up right outside of Richmond, Virginia,
on going to school right near Monument Avenue every day,
and if you ever in Richmond, it's a you can't

(07:38):
walk down the street without constant reminders that you are
in the former capital of the Confederacy. Wow. So some
of the best journalism that I've seen that really unpacks
the history of women's involvement in white supremacy has been
written by Laura Smith. She wrote in New York magazines
The Cut an article called the Truth about Women and

(07:59):
White Supremacy. She's also a staff writer for Timeline dot com.
And we're thrilled that Laura was able to join us
here today. Thanks for having me and thanks for the
kind words to the article. Well, it was really really
eye opening, I know for both of us. Can you
tell us, Laura, what is the truth? What is the
sort of untold story behind women's involvement in the rise

(08:21):
of white supremacy. Well, a couple of things. It's sort
of complicated. Is the short answer um and the launder
answer is that white women have always been involved in
white supremacy, whether it was a more subtle role um
or whether they had a more public faith um as

(08:42):
they did in so that Sarah was sort of the
heyday of the klu Klux Klan and um they had
their own autonomous arm during that period, so it was
called the w KKK for Women's klu Klux Klant, right, yeah, um.
And I mean one thing to keep in mind as

(09:05):
we're talking about this is, like I've heard criticisms that
what we're saying is that women are more blame than men,
and that's not really what we're arguing. What what what
we're saying when we say that we need to look
at the role of white women in white supremacy and
racism in this country, What we're saying is that we
need to look at it as a system wide issue.

(09:28):
That racism and white supremacy in this country are not
you know, just cross burning and the sort of more
um like picture worthy like uh flash ear like news
flash ear type things. It's really much more that it's
woven into society and women are a part of society.

(09:48):
And so if we're not acknowledging the role that women
are playing, then we're not acknowledging that it's woven into
the fabric of society. I mean, I think that when
we when we see something really traumatic happening, really tempting
to rely on gender tropes and say, you know, and
sort of revert to this idea as like like you said,
like women being the more center, or having more high ground,

(10:11):
or being you know, the center of the home and
love and all of those things. And that's you know,
it's a really old fashioned idea. So it's a Victorian idea.
It was an idea before before the Victorians, you know, um,
that women are somehow more pure, and you know, we
have as a society I think largely rejected that idea, um,

(10:33):
because it led to a lot of horrible things like
being sexually repressed and other things like that, and you know,
and really was unfair to the fact that women are
complicated human beings, complicated desires and all of these things.
And you know, but we are seeing and it is
really tempting to say, no, women have nothing to do
with violence. Um. And like you know, like I was

(10:57):
saying earlier, I think that to not ignore knowledge, that is,
to not acknowledge the violence inherence in society and at
least on half of you know, white people and people's power.
It's really coming to look at the pictures of the
w KKK and be really like focused on that. But
what we all got to remember is that when the
w k KK ended, the women who were active and

(11:20):
that you know, they went back into the school board
and they were you know, a part of local and
national politics. So and that is you know, the pictures
of that are less flashy, but that is important as well. Absolutely,
And there's a beautiful connection that you really highlighted in
your piece for Timeline dot com. Uh. The headline was
the KKK started a branch just for women in the

(11:41):
nineteen twenties and half a million joined, which I thought
was jaw dropping as a you know, just from the
headline on forward. But in that piece you draw this
connection that I found really interesting between women's suffrage and
the early successes of women's liberation in the nineteen twenties
to this sort of warped rise of women's power when

(12:06):
it comes to the movement for white supremacy in the KKK.
Can you tell me more about that connection. Yeah, I mean,
that's like a super weird thing about this whole thing
is that, you know, after suffrage, when when women won
the right to vote, they became more politically engaged and
they felt empowered to do this, and so women with
racist and nativist ideologies, we're looking for other ways to

(12:30):
channel you know, their ideology into political organizations and things
like that. So, you know, and they did it under
the guise of you know, concerned about education and up
holding the American way, which of course we know is
code for you know, the white Anglo saxts and Protestant way,
you know, and so they were really active against Catholics,

(12:54):
so not just black people. And then they think twenties
KKK was really focused on immigrants, um, and you know,
increase in number of immigrants who are coming to this country.
So yeah, I mean I think it's this really strange
thing where it was kind of a weird form of
some of those them. M hmm. Yeah, let's all just
take a beat to let that thing in. I mean,

(13:15):
I have to say, I can't help but draw parallels
to that. Today that's sort of um, white women's, white
women's political power being used in some really toxic ways
that just you know, further really toxic stuff under the
guise of care about national security or I care about
my family's education. I see the same that same rhetoric

(13:38):
being used to sort of gift wrap really toxic political
ideology um into something that's a little bit more palatable
for women. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, we're seeing
the exact same thing, like the Family values movement is
in many ways, you know, very thinly veiled racism, you know,
and there's a lot of talk about immigrants and crime

(13:58):
and other things. And I think, you know, one of
the sort of depressing things about being stray writers that
you just do the same things propping us again and
again and again. It's scary. I mean, what, what are
the lessons learned that we can draw from the twenties,
Because what you really highlighted for me and you're writing
is that women were hugely responsible for the expansion of

(14:22):
white supremacy. It's not just that the w KKK was
this tiny offshoot, it's that they were extremely effective. Were
they not? Well, I think they were effective, And I
think the reason, I mean, it's still like pills in comparison.
I think that KKK in that period with four millions,
but I think the thing that we need to look
at is the ways in which their messaging is still

(14:44):
being used. So in the more palatable forms of their messaging,
they are still being used, which is what you guys
were just pointing out about, you know, the family value stuff. Um.
So one of the lessons that we need to take
away um. Um the w k k K is we
should be looking at the less obvious trombology that they

(15:06):
were using. So not the burning crosses, because those are
really recognizable, but what are the lesser recognizable forms of
racism that still permeate our culture? Um? And I think
we see that in a lot of the you know,
MAGA messaging and you know, make America great again, like
what is that code for? To make America white again? Um,

(15:28):
and other things like that. So I think we need
to It's almost like we need to look less at
the like white coats, because those are such obvious symbols,
and look at the systemic, you know, like less easily
identifiable forms of white supremacy that exists today. Definitely, I
definitely see this temptation, and I get it. It's very understandable,

(15:52):
this temptation of a lot of folks to look at
those more obvious symbols of white supremacy and racism that
you were just talking about, you know, burning cross and
Nazi salutes and things like that, and in a kind
of way, even though those images are very jarring, they
allow people to sort of disassociate because they can look
at those things and say, I'm not that, I'm not

(16:12):
burning across, I'm not wearing a swatska, I'm not you know,
doing a Nazi salute in the street. Therefore, and neither
is my son, Neither is my husband, neither is my brother,
Neither is you know, my good guy friend. Nobody in
my sphere is doing that. And it kind of allows
them to make that other and make it something they
don't have to deal with because it's so removed from

(16:33):
their day to day and they can then make themselves
believe that they are not an agent and white supremacy,
even if they kind of are exactly exactly. It provides
a lot of cover for people to then subtly and
accurate racial you know, policies that are harmful. So like
a great example of this is urban renewal. It sounds great,

(16:54):
like who doesn't want the toy to be renewed? That
sounds like a really great idea, but what that often
means it's taking homes away from black people. So to
go to the Charlottesville example, Um, another piece I wrote
for Timeline was about how Charlotte still had to thrive
in the black community called Vinegar Hill and it was
demolished in the nineties sixties as a part of an

(17:18):
urban renewal project, and it was, you know, essentially marketed
to people as we're going to clean the city up.
And what that meant like closing black businesses, taking away
a black black houses and things like that. Wow. And
so just knowing the history of how cities are legislating

(17:39):
and on whose behalf they're sort of crafting the future,
I think it says a lot about the racial climate
in that community. And it's a good example of racism
or white supremacy. Isn't the equivalent of marching through the
streets with a tiki torch in a in a white
supremacy rally. It can also be baked into our politics,

(18:00):
as you're saying, and into our policies, uh, you know,
starting from the top on down. Exactly when you mentioned
the make America Great Again messaging, I'm looking back at
some of the slogans you referenced that we're used by
the w KKK way back in then hinteen twenties, and
can't help but draw comparisons to what you're describing. They

(18:21):
said things like, are you interested in the welfare of
our nation as an enfranchised woman? Are you interested in
better government? Should we not interest ourselves in better education
for our children? And then you went on to describe
that they organized parades and food drives with the benefit
funneled right back into clan families, and joining the clan meant,

(18:44):
you know, proving yourself as pure an Aryan and non
communist and non Protestant in all those things, and also
being vouched for by multiple clan members too. So this
was very much an insular supremacist society that watched out
for one another. And so that that's a positive framing
of a totally bigoted act. Well, just to add on

(19:08):
to that, just recently online I saw an actual flyer
for a white supremacist organization that used that exact same
framing of you know, concern about education your children, UM,
preserving your ID, your cultural identity, um. Things that all
sound great until you step back and say, wait, this
is a white supremacist organization, right exactly, and so much

(19:32):
of what we're saying. I mean, I live in Berkeley
and I work in San Francisco, and last weekend, you know,
there were two marches that were organized here, and what
you saw people organizing around what the all right claimed
to be organizing around the so called call right um
because you know, there's an argument that we should just
call them what they are, which is white supremises, and
not you know, validate them without a less potent term

(19:55):
to alt right um. But what you saw them organizing
around was free speech, you know, and I think that
it's really important that we not buy into that messaging.
So what they're doing is they're making it about free speech,
and they're choosing, oh, that's the message that we're gonna
organized time, because everybody can get behind free speech. You know,
it's and it's a right that we can all defend

(20:17):
and no one will be against that. So it's a
really smart pr note, you know, it's and you know
the rights has been you know what supremacist particularly have
done a good job of packaging there really important messages
in packaging that is more appealing to everyone that's that's
so right. I wanted to go back to a point

(20:37):
that you made earlier, just a minute ago about this
framing of white supremacists versus the alt right or Nazis.
Um something that I've noticed, and I noticed it's very
very early on, and a lot of people in the
media got clack for it. Was this idea that when
the alt right first kind of entered the cultural zeitgeist,
there are all these articles about, oh, they're dressed so fancy,
and look at Richard Spencer's haircut. He certainly is that

(21:00):
tidy dresser, and it sort of made this very toxic,
messed up political ideology palatable in this way by highlighting
the fact that these white supremacists were not wearing hoods.
They were wearing suits and ties and tidy haircuts even
in the White House now right, exactly exactly what I saw. Yeah,
I'm wondering if you can speak to that, Like, what

(21:20):
do you think was going on with that move to
rebrand from you know, a nazi or white supremacist to
quote the alt right with a tidy haircut, but still
a Nazi, right, Well, not just a tidy haircut, but
like a hip haircutt Yeah, I've had some dudes with
that same cut, and you ditched the haircut. He had

(21:42):
to go on Twitter and like basically disown his haircut.
I feel like a lot of dudes in Brooklyn and
Oakland have to be like, guys, I've always had this haircut.
I'm not an I just really like it high and tight.
It's so funny. I saw a poster at at the
counter demonstration and dark of this weekend um and it
was a guy you know who's demonstrating against white supremacy,

(22:06):
and he said, uh, give gay people their haircut back.
I saw that there are all these other kind of
strange accouterments of modern day white supremacy. New Balance sneakers
like imagine your your crappy, toxic political ideology having a
preferred footwear. What is happening? And hey, did not I

(22:26):
miss the memo on Alan Yes or New Balance that's
a weird position. Yeah, I mean I think that this
is like all of this gets to the point that
like a lot of this is packaging and we have
to be really careful when we're looking at it and say,
you know, what's behind the packaging, what are they actually selling?
You know? And it's behind of the mirror of the
new balance, and you know, the like hipster do is

(22:50):
blatant white supremacy, sexism, um nativism, nationalism, all of that.
How can other people get better? Because I've definitely seen
even outlets that you would think would would get it right. Um,
Mother Jones comes to mind, Washington Post comes to mind.
They did get swept up in this branding and this
great pr of you know, who are these dapper new

(23:12):
Nazis storming into town? How can what can the media
do to be better? So I think a couple of things.
I think that if they're going to write about the
protests or counter protests, they should actually be there. Um.
There was a really alarming Washington Post articles that I
thought really mischaracterized the nature of the counter protests that

(23:34):
happened in Berkeley recently. And I think that, you know,
it just has to like as journalists, these vigilant as
saying looking at what's being presented and then going to
step further and asking what is behind that and what
is the true intention, true nature of this group or
whatever else? And it's really tempting, especially when violence is involved. Um,

(24:00):
too quickly leap to conclusions, and I think that that
must be resisted at all costs. You know, it's up
to journalists to call things as they are, not as bafy.
We're so grateful for Laura for joining us and spending
some time sharing really her expertise in the history behind
women's involvement in white supremacy. When we come back, we're

(24:22):
going to talk about how the movement for white supremacy
and unfortunately women's involvement in that movement perpetuates today. Stay
with us after this quick break and we are back,

(24:43):
and buckle up, white folks, especially because it's about to
get even more uncomfortable. I know that this can be
a really tough topic to get a little self critical
around racism in America and white supremacy and the institutions
and sort of lattice work of white supremacy that persists

(25:03):
in our country. But this is not something that is
relegated to hoodwearing, cross burning, tiki torch wielding people marching
through the streets. It's just not always that overt. It's
not always that over. And if there was one thing
I wouldn't want to impart on people about racism is
you don't need to be burning across on someone's lawn

(25:25):
or wearing a swastika shaved into your head two perpetuate
some really toxic stuff on race. Racism is a system.
We all have, you know, a role to play in
these systems that kind of control our lives and that
our country was founded on. And even if you're someone
who says, oh, well, I don't have a problem with
black people, or I don't have a problem with immigrants,

(25:48):
or you think of yourself as someone who's good or
someone who quote doesn't see race, we all have, which
which is unhelpful thing, but we all have a role
in this because in exactly, and you know what, one
of the best resources I found on this is actually
called the Racism Scale, which was put out for free

(26:11):
along with some a bunch of educational resources that you
can find at Racism Scale dot wee BLI that's w
e e b l y dot com, which is really
a labor of love by a few groups formed around
social justice and some activists who put together the scale
that they never intended to go viral, but has in

(26:31):
fact gone viral since Charlottesville because it really beautifully and
visually describes the sort of sliding scale of racist beliefs
that you might catch yourself experiencing on occasion. Now, this
is us calling you in, as you've discussed in a
recent episode, not calling you out, but calling you in,
and especially as someone who presents white, calling in my

(26:55):
white fellow women and men, to think, critic before we
jump to action to help other people, to help folks
of color, Let's begin by doing the really hard work
of self analysis and self critique by looking at this
sliding scale and thinking about where you might lie. Yeah,

(27:18):
I think this scale is a really useful tool. Um.
One of the things I really like about it is
that it lays out what you might think of as
of course that's really racist and messed up, like I
would kill a person because they were black or whites
or the superior race. But it also goes to a
spectrum where it's these smaller, more subtle forms of racism

(27:39):
and things that you might even catch yourself saying from
time to time, things like how am I privileged if
I was born poor? Or I just don't want the ghetto,
or it was just a joke, or what about reverse racism?
If you find yourself thinking these things, these are actually
not the most productive and useful thoughts when you're thinking
about institutions like white sup Yeah. The thing I love

(28:01):
about this is that you don't have to be a
terrorist or an overt racist to fall on this scale.
There really is a huge extent to the scale that
was around denial things like well racism is no longer
a thing all the way to feeling like a white
savior who has to come in and save the day,
or this justification of being woke. Uh, this idea that

(28:24):
there's you know that love conquers all this like can't
we all just get along kumbaya post racial society stuff,
And something that I think is really really important that
we dive deeper into, which is known as the performative ally. Now,
once you get beyond the performative ally the person who
might I don't know, wear a safety pin just to

(28:47):
show everybody that they're not a racist in the era
of Donald Trump in the White House. Once you get
beyond that sort of performative ally ship, which is really
all about you, the ally making sure every one knows
that you're a good person, that's where we can get
to true awareness around privilege and it's continuous impact in

(29:07):
society and real lasting ally ship and to talk more
about ally ship and what that looks like when it's
being done in a thoughtful way versus a not so
thoughtful way. We're really pleased to be joined by Marissa
Jane Johnson. She's a co creator of the Safety Pinbox
along with Leslie Mac and they're amazing digital activists and
really rad black women that you should definitely be following

(29:29):
on Twitter and listening to. Marissa. Thank you so much
for joining us today. Thanks for having me so, Marissa,
first of all, tell me about safety pin Box and
why you and Leslie created it. Yeah. So, you know,
we're three years antibist Black Lives Matter movement, and I
feel like in general, we're in like a soul searching
period where people are really looking for direction in the movement.

(29:52):
And one of the major problems that hasn't been solved
in the movement is we most of the people in
the movement, primarily black women, black queer folks, um are
really struggling to figure out the sustainability piece of this
movement because when everything you know, sort of popped off
with the Ferguson Uprising and with this with the murder

(30:13):
of Mike Brown and everybody was running sort of off
of pure emotion in the channeline UM. But here we
are three years later, Donald Trump is UM president and
people are needing to find out more sustainable avenue for
doing this work. So that's the context set. Me and
my co founder Leslie come out of this being, you know,
activists around us who will be on in this and

(30:35):
DC one day and who we know UM can't afford
by groceries that week, and there seemed to be no solution.
So that's the context that we came out of. And
then the election of Donald Trump happened, and we saw
this overwhelming sort of like emotion and like fake or
maybe not fake shocks from quote unquote liberals or well

(30:56):
to do white people like how does this happen? And
and there was a lot of like UM, and I
think still is a lot of people emoting all over
the places like oh no, we have to stop this.
And what me and Leslie saw all right off the
bat was that people didn't know what to do or
how to actually respond. And one of the one of
the ways that we knew that one of the greatest

(31:17):
symbols that we saw this UM following the election of
Donald Trump was the safety pin fad, which was basically
imported from the UK, which is basically these idea, this
idea that you know, white liberals or good meeting white
people would wear a safety pin on their like lappel
or their shirt or whatever, and that would signal to

(31:39):
everyone else who was around, including like, uh, a Muslim
woman you know, who was being a victim of a
hit crime, or a gay person or a black person
or who was in danger or whatever, that um that
they were a safe white person and that they would intervene.
And this this fad was pretty laughable to uh, to

(32:00):
a lot of uh people of marginalized identities, and particularly
black woman because it felt very performative and and a
lot of people when you talk to them who were
pro safety pin, you like, cool, what's your safety plan
for when someone attacks someone in front of you? I
didn't have a plan. So it was very basically just

(32:21):
virtue signaling the other white people. So say, I took
a little flak on this Very show for being skeptical
of safety pins. Well, we've laughed about them, people, Yeah,
we've laughed about them, and people I don't like that.
People got very people get defensive when you call out there.
I mean, I hate to say it, they're shallow, empty

(32:43):
attempt at signaling virtue. Well, the other piece about this,
I mean that was the first piece that happened was
when I wear in Jamaica, all this was going down.
The center piece was only saw white people to modifying
the safety pins and selling three safety pin necklaces and
and even now you know, we saw pant Nation was

(33:05):
like seventy dollar branded pant suit Nation loking and we're like, okay,
where is all this money going to? Is this money
going to those who are directly affective? And so basically
white people, as white people do, we're making money off
of the emotional or response to it, and like very little,
more likely than not, none of that money was that

(33:27):
directly day he was most effective. So that's kind of
how we came up with the idea to kill two
birds with one stone. Why don't we um create a
product to educate white people on what kind of tangible
actions they can take and what's to use a considerable
amount of that money to directly financially suppoor actives on
the ground. Yeah, so I love that so much. Um,

(33:47):
I just wanted to lift up something that you said
in that it is this idea that after Trump got elected,
it was sort of a spectrum of kind of fake
shock by maybe well meeting whites who were like how
could this happen? And then sort of this sort of
performative safety pin thing, and then this last kind of
gross thing of com modifying that that that ally performance. Um.

(34:11):
And so I'm curious, what does it look like to
be a good ally? If you're a white person who
was well meaning and you know, disgusted by racism and
blah blah blah, what do you how do you avoid
falling into this trap of having it be either a
very performative without actually having a a tangible you know,
metric for what it looks like when you actually do

(34:32):
something helpful, or without having it be like this emotional
thing that's all about you and how sad you are,
right right? Well, A one of the things I like
to say is there are no good white people. Um,
and I mean very specifically. Yeah, wait, can you explain that?
Can you explain that a little bit? First as a
as an immediately feeling defensive white person and behalf of

(34:55):
all the defensive white listeners that we have. Yeah, just
if my defensive white persons. Let me finished, I'm explaining
it right, but I'll be very clear. There there are
no good white people. Um. And one of the things
that I encourage white folks who who want to be
useful in the fight for black oboration is to work
through that notion that there are no good white people. Um.

(35:18):
And And why that's important is the first piece is
that um. One of the issues that we see is
that a lot of white people think they're already good
or good enough, right, So they don't do any introspection.
They aren't able to actively engage critique, right because I'm
one of the good ones, right, and so and a
lot of the actions that we see people doing are

(35:39):
preoccupied with looking like a good person or not looking bad,
and so we put folks in the position where they
care more about looking good. So if you're able to
let go of this notion that you are a good
white person or always wanting to see like you look
like a good word person, then ideally you can step
beyond on that to really be self critical and to

(36:02):
be able to um actually receive uh, actually received criticism, right,
actually be held accountable for your actions because a lot
of times when we're talking about racism. You talk to
a white person, you can be very direct and say
you harm me in ex way and they'll say, but
I'm a good Right, There's it's instant sputaneously back, I'm

(36:23):
a good white person. So if you if you let
go of that miss altogether, we believe that's where you
can start doing the work. Now, the flip side of
that um is not masochism, right, It's not self pity
and white people are the worst and like, oh my gosh,
I cannot do anything like That's another thing that we see.

(36:43):
It's also resentering the issue back on the white folks,
right and wellening your self pitty. And what we really
encourage people to do is let's cause this notion as
a good white person, right, and also don't be so
inwardly focused that you're like, well I could do nothing,
Oh but you want to be better, let's do that, right. Well.

(37:04):
I love people who can. Further than that, I want
to lift up what I love the most about safety
pin Box, which is it's really action oriented and targeted
to a white consumer. Right, So you send a monthly
subscription in box form to your white paying customers and
give practical actionable steps that they can take that white

(37:27):
women like myself are white people at large, can take
to begin to really be introspective, be self critical, be
analytical not only about yourself your beliefs, but really your
actions and your community, and how you can start right
in your own home dismantling institutions of white supremacy and

(37:48):
how it really does fall on white folks to be
involved in that process from a critical and analytical perspective.
And then you're taking the money that those clients, that
those consumers of safety can Box are sending to you
and re funneling those funds directly to black women in
the movement, and you're not dictating how those women use

(38:09):
the money, right, it's directly for their own use in
being sustainable in this time, in this climate, which I
just I think is such an awesome model and such
a great example of if someone really wants to know
what it looks like to be introspective, they can go
to your website and get one of those I believe
you have a sample action, right, a sample action like

(38:30):
what comes now? We have a sample test, that's that's
all about. We have a sample test that's all about
assessing power and UM in your community and in your
personal life and seeing how you've can shifted UH to
fight back into white supremacy because UM, I mean we
give the practical piece, you do a lot on the introspection,
right because part of it is white people working through

(38:52):
their own feelings around this, right, because I believe that
UM unpacking whiteness and all of its trappings is part
of the work. So that's simultaneously what people do. But
a lot of times people think that these issues are
so big, right that they're like all they can just
do is just be sad and like re share sad
articles on Facebook, you know, UM. And so part of

(39:13):
what we do is is really part you learn about
an issue, you learn about your role in it, and
be introspective around that. Don't We really part it down
to into like if you had half an hour today
to work on something, or half an hour twice a
week for a month to work on something, like, what
could you actually do? And so that's why the sample
task is around power because we found that a lot

(39:34):
of people say, oh, there's nothing I can do and
they haven't even done an assessment over the power that
they hold in their own lives and do an assessment
there the five You actually don't have a lot of
control um over where your money goes, over your workplace.
If you own a home, you have control over that
space and how safe it can do to marginal or
souls um And even just starting there opens up new

(39:55):
ideas for people. And I can tell you right now
so many of our listeners are right there of saying
what can I do? I feel powerless in this fight
because white supremacy on display in this country right now
especially feels overwhelming. It feels like I don't know where
to begin. It feels you know, that that shock, that

(40:15):
horror where whether it is fake or not so fake,
is baked into our country. Right How do we even
begin to dismantle something that feels so big and so overwhelming? Uh?
You know, even when we have white privilege going for us,
it doesn't always feel like one person can change. So
I just I love how you break it down and

(40:37):
make it really practical. Is there an example you could
give for some of our listeners today who do have
a half hour, who do want to examine their own
power structures at home, who do want to take action
and come up with not just a safety pin but
a safety plan for making marginalized folks in their world
a little safer. Where could we begin or what what's

(40:59):
one action we might able to start with? Right? Well,
I will say that the part of the trip to
this is a lot of people want to do work
that look grant glamorous, and most of the works that
needs to be done is really unglamorous. Is me neal,
it's it takes. It does take a long time. Even
if you only have half an hour times a week,
then they take years for you to build the connections
that you want to do. But one of the um

(41:22):
this month for August our seeing is Forget the Police
hashteg STP and UH. We are learning all about police
abolition and the idea of abolishing the police and finding
me alternatives to police. And one of the really tangible
tasks that we're having our members work on is seeing
as they can get their whole block, their whole neighborhoods

(41:45):
block to agree to a thirty day ban on calling
the police into their neighborhoods. And so we want people
through that process. Part of it, how it first starts
as assessing the needs in your community. Right, what do
people think they need to call the police for. What
we find out when people assess those needs is that
those the police usually don't solve those needs, right or

(42:06):
they're not worth bringing somebody who with a gun in
right um, or that the needs can be taken care
of inside the community. Right. And so one of the
needs is, um, you know we have we have people
on our blocks of mental health issues. Right. Um. There's
ways that we can address that without the police. So
we have people go through with their community and talk

(42:28):
to your neighbors. What are the needs here to me
that you would say you need police for and then
assess are there ways that you guys can fill it?
How how would you accomplish a thirty day ban on
calling the police? Um, and then actually doing it and
seeing what a police free block would look like for you?
Because we know that for black and block people, those
for people with mental illnesses. Um, as soon as you

(42:50):
involve the police in the situation, you're putting that person's
life in danger. And most of the things that we
call the police for are not something that if you
really pressed this on that we would say is worth
somebody's life. Even if you know your your car got stolen, right,
that's you know, people will say, yes, I'm going to
call the police on that. Um. But if you asked,
this person's died because they stow your car, you probably

(43:13):
say no. I would hope you reasonable person hopefully would
say no. Yeah. I think that's such a good But
you never know in the United States. Uh. But but
you know you can walk through and say, okay, what
do we do is somebodice cart Well, you can file
the police to report separately, and there's a non emergency
your community, right And a lot of folks don't know

(43:33):
that there's a non emergency line you can call to
that doesn't put someone else's life in danger. I think
that's a really great example. Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah.
I think one last question, so I'm just curious if
you could talk me through what has the response been
like for a project like safety Pinbox. I certainly have
seen instances of people kind of using this political and

(43:57):
social climate that we are in too. I don't want
to say any names, but collect money for perhaps where
that money than goes someplace where you're not actually sure
or sure where it goes, or what he name names
on the same names. I just I just don't want
to get a million on Twitter being like, how dare
you slam already? If you could talk me through what

(44:23):
has been the response that's um to safety pinbox. It
was interesting people that people have issues with us that
they don't have with major organs that actually do squander money. Um.
So we had all these like critiques and stuff literally
the day we watched you know, before we had even
sent out any products, particularly from white men. People were

(44:44):
very concerned about like what are you doing with all
the money, Like you guys shouldn't pay yourself and all
of you should give orders and who are very up front?
Where a business? We're not a nonprofit like boom um,
so there's a lot of welfare queen trope stuff happening,
you know where people basically were like actually, like we
were going to squal under the money and so it
was funny people would be like, oh, well you need

(45:06):
to get to the A C. L U who you
know is trash now or um, oh you should give
all of your proceeds the Black Lives Matter. I was like,
that's interesting, do you know where their money goes? And
then people don't write um and so there was all
of this scrutiny on us placeisely because we made the
decision to be a business instead of a nonprofit, and
also because people white folks expect black folks to educate

(45:29):
them on their own problems for free, which is slavery.
Like you need like to work for you for free
to unlearn the white freens that you learn, so you
could get me to work for you for free. What
what are we? What are we? What are we in here?
You know? It was so ridiculous, But I'll say we
got tons, We got multiple hit pieces written on us

(45:52):
by quote unquote liberal white dudes who had freaking Patreon
accounts of like tens of thousands of dollars, right, so um,
But I will say that all changed the day we
started giving out money, which was months too. And it
was interesting as we got covered by some pretty mainstream
um outlets and publications, particularly when we had a really

(46:15):
good piece published in New York Magazine and in My
Mad which was one of the first outlets to do
a hit piece on us, actually two months before that.
Then you see, all of a sudden, now that we've
become respectable to white people, and like we've been so
assigned by all these white women and like these different platforms,
Like all of a sudden, people who did not uh

(46:36):
mess with us at all at the beginning, did not
support us at all the beginning, like oh now we
want to partner. Now we want to you know, do
this and that, because now they think that we can
give them some form of credibility. But we just tried
to say true to our visions at the very beginning,
and we've given out over a hundred thousand dollars directly
two black women congratulated since the beginning of Genuinely, that's incredible.

(47:04):
I don't understand how people get off on, you know,
saying that you should be doing this for in a
nonprofit way. I'm thrilled that the value you are providing
is valued by this economy, right, that it's actually producing money,
and that you're putting that money where you see fit,
because that's how it should be. That to me is
like capitalism doing its job for a change, right. And

(47:28):
the thing is, I've never seen anybody ask what Tim
Wise does with his PTP. Right. So it was mostly
white men who came after us, and then are our
membership is mostly white women, but also you know, pantcer
nation people when we launched, people were trying to share
our safety can box stuff and pant suit nation and

(47:49):
admins kept deleting the post and then said that they
wouldn't allow the post because we weren't telling the quote
unquote story right but yet like they were publishing other
people's businesses and stuff like that. So we definitely got
resistance from all from all sides. But now that we're
more established, now that we've given out a certain amount
of money, UM, all of a sudden we've become legitimate

(48:09):
in certain people's lives, which is really interesting for me
as an activist who was in this movement for years
right before and very controversially so UM before Take to
Pin Blocks ever happened, there are a lot of people
who refused to recognize my work, particularly was calling out
Bernie Sanders and how that changed conversations within the presidential election,

(48:30):
who all of a sudden now want to get on
board because UM, our work has been credentialed in a
certain way by white people, white Organs, and white women,
and so we definitely see our work through safety Finboch.
We also recognize that the activists that we support are
people that UM folks with folks wouldn't support regularly anyways.

(48:53):
So we see ourselves as sort of a buffer to
collect white folks money um and give it to people
that they normally wouldn't support. That you're not going to
see on the TV doesn't have sense of Twitter followers.
But that's doing great work in their community. That's amazing mersa. UM. So,
where can our listeners find out more about what you're doing? Yeah,
you can go to www. At safety pin box dot com.

(49:15):
Like you said, we have UM the sample task. You
can sign up for a subscription there. We have some
other really cool things. We have our Safety pins Box
Kids Theories, which is an eight week series all about
how to talk to your kids about race. It's like phenomenal.
And then we also have UM right now, Are Not
My President Boss, because there's been a lot of conversation

(49:35):
around how do we respond to hate crimes and there's
not these marching on the streets and you know Trump presidency.
You can go check out Are Not My President Box
and it's that's the box that includes all of the
information around creating safety plans and also has a really
cool task in there about how do you talk to
your kids about Trump? And what Trump's presidency means. So

(49:55):
there's tons of resources and content um on our website.
When we come back, we're gonna talk through some more
ways that you can really be a good ally and
help take down this thing called white supremacy. And we're back,

(50:16):
and now I want to talk a little bit more
about how white women can take some more responsibility for
ending white supremacy and really kind of owning that it's
a thing that we live with. So first, again, I
know this might be hard to do because it requires
some looking within and some introspection, but really acknowledge your
own complicity. Uh, white women voted for Trump. I know

(50:38):
we say this time and time and time again, but
I think that's a really, really really important number, and
it's a really really important thing to just own and
sit with. And I think there's this immediate temptation for
white folks who didn't vote for Trump, for instance, of
which there are lots of us to say, Yeah, but

(50:59):
I'm not one of those white women. I don't even
know those white women. I don't even hang out with
those white women, or I don't even understand those white women.
How can I begin to take responsibility for that? And
then I would argue, who better to persuade those white
women who have bought into this repackaged white supremacy to
point out three point oh five point out wherever we're at,

(51:21):
that is two thousand seventeen and help make the connection
for our fellow white folks between how marching in the
street with that tiki torch isn't all that different than
make America great again? Right? And I'm so glad you
brought that up, because I can't do that, right, I'm
a black woman. I will have no I don't feel

(51:42):
like I would have any chance of converting women like that. Yeah,
someone who presents white is going to have a much
easier time than me black woman with natural hair, who's
you know, wearing a hands off aside a T shirt
to convince them that they that they got us, that
they've gone down a bad path. And not to mention

(52:02):
you shouldn't have to because a minorities are tired of
fighting these fights and be the folks who are being
persecuted on the receiving end of injustice. It's not on
them to change the oppressor. And so I think it
really just lights a fire under my butt to think

(52:23):
of as a white woman, How can I talk to
white people more, not just donating to causes, although those
are good things to do too, but not just working
with people of color, not just working on behalf of
and four those folks. How can I talk to my
relatives who voted for Trump? How can I look inward
into my community, into my neighborhood talking to my lift

(52:44):
driver on the way to the studio today about you know, well,
why do you feel like the Black Lives Matter movement
is racist? Tell me more about that, like why do
you feel about having those conversations with other white folks?
And I think that goes back to something that Marissa
said when she mentioned one of the tips for this
month was too if you're a white person and talk
to the other white people in your neighborhood and get
them to, you know, sign on to not calling the police.

(53:05):
That the idea of how of having a white asking
a white person to talk to another white person about
white supremacy, that sounds really hard. That is a high ask.
And I think if you aren't really dedicated to dismantling
this and understanding how it shows up in our in
our lives and in our spaces and in our world,
it's gonna take those hard asks right, working with people

(53:26):
of color and showing up as a woke ally probably
feels like it feels. It feels good talking to your
racist auntie, who you've been, you know, spending years and
years ignoring her racist jokes at Thanksgiving for twenty years.
That is hard. That is hard, definitely. And you know
who can help is Jodi Pico, who you might know
as being the kind of author of a good beach

(53:48):
read that You're racist Auntie enjoys reading at the beach. Uh.
She also, in addition to her incredibly lovely uh, I
think it's mostly fiction writing that she's been a part
of pennd this op ed for Time Magazine, which will
make sure to include in the show notes. And let
me tell you, Jodi Pico demonstrates and sort of models

(54:10):
what it looks like to be a white woman talking
to other white folks about her own revelations on race
and coming to not just confront racism but also acknowledge
her complicity and her responsibility in changing it. In that
Time op ed, she wrote, Here's the grievous mistake I
had made for the majority of my life. I assumed

(54:33):
that racism is synonymous with bias. Yet you could take
every white supremacist and ship them off to Mars, and
you'd still have racism in the world. That's because racism
is systemic and institutional, but it is both perpetuated and
dismantled in individual acts. So what she really goes on
to elaborate is the systemic ways in which white privilege

(54:56):
is a thing, which is the basic baseline. We should
do a whole episode on my privilege. That's really the
baseline conversation. We have to meet folks where they are
on this sometimes and say, as she goes on to right,
it's more challenging to see the tail winds of racism,
not the overt stuff, but quote the ways that being
white makes it easier to achieve success. We like to

(55:18):
believe that we succeed because we worked hard or because
we were smart. It's harder to wrap our heads around
the idea that the reason we might have a job
or have gained admission to a college is a direct
result of the fact that a person of color was
never given that opportunity. I think that's so, so, so powerful.
Um again, when you look back at that racism index,

(55:39):
saying things like you know, they just need to work harder.
I worked hard, or you know, things like that. She
that that really nails why those comments don't actually get
at the root of what white supremacy actually is. Right,
That systemic acknowledgement of yes, it's at the core of
our history in the United States of America is also

(56:00):
pervasive and lots of ways across the globe. And these
are systemic, sort of baked in institutions that we can
also make changes on in an individual basis. But instead
of you know, white folks focusing on helping people of color,
we got to turn around and talk to our fellow
white folks if we're going to really dismantle the institutions
of white supremacy totally. Because look at again, look at

(56:23):
Charlotte's Ville. You know, I am just so struck by
that interview with the you know, Charlotteville's Charlotte wille Killer's mother,
where it was just clear she had not really checked
in about what kind of toxic stuff her son was
up to. And so talk to your son's talk to
your daughters, talk to your cousins and your your you know,

(56:43):
your husband's. Don't just let something toxic Bester within them
because it's uncomfortable to talk about. Right, if we had
experienced the same kind of tragedy, except it was I
don't know, a Muslim American and instead of a car
being driven into a crowd, it were an explosive device,
we would be blaming his friends and family for not
alerting the police. But instead, because this is a white perpetrator,

(57:06):
and because this is an act of racist violence, we
don't treat that like the terrorism that it really is.
And that's that's a problematic framing in my opinion, that
has everything to do with race. And that's really quite
similar this idea that letting something like racism fester because
you assume it's benign or you assume it's not going

(57:27):
to kill someone or harm someone else, is really problematic
and it's something that April Harder, a licensed counselor and
social worker, wrote about on medium dot com when she
wrote the blog post how America spreads the disease that
is racism by not confronting racist family members and friends.
She writes, racism is complex and scope because it is

(57:49):
both a mental illness and a value. In other words,
it is a valued, sheltered and protected mental illness. One
might even say it has been incubated and allowed to
fester throughout the course of American history. She goes on
to write, quote, like all illnesses, it needs to be
treated in order for it to be cured. The problem
is that we don't see racism as a problem because

(58:10):
we don't see it for what it is, an infectious
disease that has been an epidemic plaguing our nation. I
think that's so fascinating. I can't help but be reminded
of this movie from a few years ago, American History X.
The guy who was completely a skinhead, right nas you know,
the works, and he does all this awful stuff throughout

(58:31):
the movie, and then at the very end of the
movie you realize that the early seed of his ideology
is that his dad, who is presented as the stand
up grade guy, firefighter, community guy father, would make comments
about black people at the dinner table, casual things, and
that seeing that that was an it's implied that that

(58:51):
was an early seed that kind of grew into something
that wasn't a comment here or there, but that was
v the violent right. I'm so glad you brought that up,
because it's about his rehabilitation and then his return home, right,
and it is treated like going to rehab It's treated
as that kind of a thing where it's not you know,

(59:11):
it's not like, oh, I became friends with a black
guy and then it went away. It's like, no, it's
a it's a the same way that you would have
to get something out of your system through work. That's
what it's presented as. It's getting rid of hate, right,
and that is admirable work. Um that a lot of
folks are doing, a lot of folks need to do. So.

(59:33):
A couple other quick takeaways, some actionable items for especially
the white women listening who are saying, Okay, I get it.
I have to talk to my uncomfortable relatives who don't
want to talk about race. But that's part of my
job here as a white woman to dismantle white supremacy.
What else can we do. There's an article that I
also want to just shed light on by Courtney ariel

(59:54):
Uh called for our white friends desiring to be allies,
and she just has some really quick, great tips that
I found very instructive, and the first was for white
women to listen more and talk less. And the way
I like to think of this is to pass the mike.
I love that, because, again, like we were talking about before,

(01:00:16):
it can be a weird balance of either making it
all about you and your emotions and spraying your emotions everywhere,
or just feeling really resigned, like I'm so sad, what
can I do? Both of those are a way of
sort of making it about you. But it's important is
to not make it about you. Yeah, and the first

(01:00:37):
temptation might be to go on Facebook and screen virtually right,
to just share every you know, every thought and feeling
and tweet about it and write your own peace. But
there's also a really strong case for saying this is
not a moment for you and your brand to capitalize on,
which as a business owner was challenging to figure out
exactly how do we respond to these kinds of crises

(01:00:58):
without saying that this is our issue and that we're
the experts on this. It's about passing the mic and
making sure that we're being megaphones, especially for women of color,
people of color who are doing this work every single day,
not just when tragedy strikes, and not just when it's
all in the headline, and not just when it's in
style because it's in style to call out Nazis right now,

(01:01:20):
it's in style to call out white supremacists right now.
It hasn't always been so fun. It hasn't always been
in vogue. You know. I've spent a good portion of
my life being called things like a social justice warrior,
or you know, the PC police, or you know several
other things that I can't say on this show. It
hasn't always been a cool thing to stand up against

(01:01:41):
racism and against white supremacy. And I think it's a
good thing to do, but I think it's worth noting
that if you do things when it's easy to do,
you should examine that other ways to be a true ally,
other than simply not wanting to be racist, which Cordiney
ariels rights, thank you for that, by the way, But
she says being an ally requires you to educate yourself

(01:02:01):
about systemic racism in this country. So if you are
looking for a reading list, if you are aware that
you're unaware of this stuff, here's a great reading list
that Cornarial actually gives you some some literature to start on.
And I'm sure, I'm sure we have stuff to add
to this, but Michelle Alexander's The New Jim crow Tony
you see Coats is Between the World and Me and

(01:02:23):
Claudia ran Keyes Citizen. There are really so many other
great books and articles that will link to in the
notes below, but we encourage you to use your voice
and influence to direct folks to educating themselves and to
do the hard work of educating ourselves too. Yeah. I
think it's hard work. I think it's important to do. Um.
Just one note, when you get really fired out about

(01:02:44):
all the all these things you're reading, don't reach out
to your friend of color unless their job is working
in an anti oppression space. Don't reach out to your
friend of color who doesn't work in the anti oppression
space and ask them to do this lay of helping
you unpack this for you. This is something that a
journey that folks should be taking on their own, finding resources, googling,

(01:03:08):
using resources that are out there like safety pin Box
or other anti oppression trainings. But don't put this on
your black friend because they're probably going through enough right now. Yeah,
and they're probably asked to do this more than they
should be. So just remember it's not on minorities to
solve and end white supremacy and the other way I
thought that we as well meaning white folks can be

(01:03:31):
let us stray. Sometimes it's something that Courtney points out
in this article, which is the chiming in on social media,
the idea that she writes, for one out of every
three opinions or insights shared by a person of color
in your life, try to resist the need to respond
with a better or different insight about something that you've

(01:03:52):
read or listened to as it relates to their shared opinion.
Sometimes your unique take isn't all that helpful or appreciated.
I would say I've definitely had times where you know,
I'm trying to I'm trying to have a dialogue with
other women of color and very well meeting, but like
a little un appreciated. It's like, oh, well that's just

(01:04:13):
like blah blah blah, and we're all thinking, oh, well,
thanks for your insight. Um, just be a little rightful, yeah, listen,
I mean it's hard. I get it. I'm the clean
interrupter over here. I get it. The instinct can be
to jump in with your opinion and your thought and
you're sharing sometimes asking questions and listening intently and just

(01:04:33):
letting yourself learn is the best possible thing you can do,
and it's it's a balancing act because it can feel
even writing this episode, coming up with this topic saying
wait a second. At one point, very early on after
Charlotte's well, I asked my Twitter followers, what do you
think white women's involvement or white people's involvement in dismantling

(01:04:55):
white supremacy should be Because for a second I was
hearing and reading white women, this is not your time
to make this your moment to speak out? And I'm thinking,
is it not, like should I not take the initiative
on this? But I ended up coming to the conclusion
that I'm not going to capitalize on but we sure

(01:05:15):
as hell are going to take the time, and I'm
I want to make it my prerogative to cover this
topic thoroughly. Well, I think you just you just highlighted
kind of an agual debate of do we uplift women
of color and folks of color or do we speak out?
Do white women speak out themselves? I think that's I
think I see a lot of folks wrestling with that.

(01:05:36):
I don't have the answer. I think it's about a balance.
I think it's about speaking up and using your white
privilege when you can in a way that it's not
making it about you, that is not capitalizing, that's certainly
not taking money because of the suffering of folks of color,
um that should go what that's saying, But in a
way that is that is brave, and that is real
and authentic. I also think that they're not mutually exclusive.

(01:05:57):
I always like to say lift as you climb, which
is a phrase that's been involved in the social justice movement,
especially on behalf of women of color for a long time.
I learned when I saw it imprinted on a banner
at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
here in d C. But lifting as you climb, to me,
is about, yeah, do the work, make your voice heard,

(01:06:19):
but make sure you're bringing women of color up with you,
and you're make, you know, making sure that their voices
are heard too. I think I dare to say that
this podcast is a pretty fine example of that in action.
I hope so, right, I hope so. I think so.
I think we can always strive to continue to learn
and grow together. That's our artificial motto. Now, these are

(01:06:41):
just some of the ways that you can take practical
instructive action and white supremacy, and for us women in
particular to own the ways in which women have always
been a part of white supremacy here in the United
States and beyond. And I really want to thank you
our listeners for or leaning into the discomfort that can

(01:07:02):
be this topic, and for listening with hopefully open minds
and hearts and understanding that it's our intention here at
Stuff Mom Never Told You to not shy away from
really tough, early complicated issues like this and somehow hopefully
package it together in a in a research driven and
actionable snippet for you to to consume on your way

(01:07:25):
to work or back. Yes, you want to hear from
all of y'all out there, whether you're a white lady
who's sort of grappling with this, whether you're a set up,
piste off person of color. Because I'm there with you
much of the time, we want to hear from you.
How has white supremacy played out in your life? What
are some ways that you've been tackling it, How are
you dealing with it? You can reach us on Instagram
at Stuff Mom Never Told You, on Twitter at Mom

(01:07:47):
Stuff Podcast or via email at mom stuff, at how
stuff works dot com. There to roo