1 00:00:01,767 --> 00:00:04,234 -My name is Misha Stone, and I'm a reader services 2 00:00:04,234 --> 00:00:07,367 librarian in the Reader Services department, 3 00:00:07,367 --> 00:00:09,100 and before we begin this evening, 4 00:00:09,100 --> 00:00:10,767 I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered 5 00:00:10,767 --> 00:00:14,234 together on the ancestral land of the Coast Salish people. 6 00:00:23,701 --> 00:00:26,834 So together, let us honor their elders, past and present. 7 00:00:26,834 --> 00:00:30,133 We thank them for their stewardship of this land. 8 00:00:30,133 --> 00:00:32,701 Welcome to the library, and thank you for joining us 9 00:00:32,701 --> 00:00:35,300 for this reading with Dr. Robin DiAngelo. 10 00:00:35,300 --> 00:00:38,300 DiAngelo's essays and talks have been so important 11 00:00:38,300 --> 00:00:40,567 and revelatory to me. 12 00:00:40,567 --> 00:00:45,067 I know that I'll be reckoning with my own internalized racism, 13 00:00:45,067 --> 00:00:46,467 with my own socialization 14 00:00:46,467 --> 00:00:48,968 and trying to reduce harm throughout my entire life, 15 00:00:48,968 --> 00:00:50,934 both personally and professionally, 16 00:00:50,934 --> 00:00:53,133 and what I love about the book "White Fragility" 17 00:00:53,133 --> 00:00:56,234 is that it crystallizes so much of what I've heard her say 18 00:00:56,234 --> 00:00:58,334 and write all in one place in a way 19 00:00:58,334 --> 00:01:00,501 that I can continue to move through it, 20 00:01:00,501 --> 00:01:02,667 continue to reference it. 21 00:01:02,667 --> 00:01:04,701 So I'm so honored to be here for the book launch 22 00:01:04,701 --> 00:01:07,367 for "White Fragility." 23 00:01:07,367 --> 00:01:09,601 So we're all here tonight for "White Fragility," 24 00:01:09,601 --> 00:01:11,767 and there's a lot of buzz about this book already. 25 00:01:11,767 --> 00:01:15,133 It's only been out for 2 days, and I think it's a testament 26 00:01:15,133 --> 00:01:19,701 to the fact that this topic's time has come. 27 00:01:19,701 --> 00:01:21,968 Poet Claudia Rankine said, 28 00:01:21,968 --> 00:01:24,133 "Robin DiAngelo's 'White Fragility' 29 00:01:24,133 --> 00:01:26,133 brings language to the emotional structures 30 00:01:26,133 --> 00:01:29,667 that make true discussions about racial attitudes difficult. 31 00:01:29,667 --> 00:01:31,334 With clarity and compassion, 32 00:01:31,334 --> 00:01:33,567 DiAngelo allows us to understand racism 33 00:01:33,567 --> 00:01:37,367 as a practice not restricted to bad people. 34 00:01:37,367 --> 00:01:40,300 In doing so, she moves our national discussions forward 35 00:01:40,300 --> 00:01:43,200 with new rules of engagement." 36 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:47,033 And Michael Eric Dyson, who wrote the lovely forward, 37 00:01:47,033 --> 00:01:49,601 called it a "vital, necessary book, 38 00:01:49,601 --> 00:01:51,067 a bracing call to white folk 39 00:01:51,067 --> 00:01:53,634 everywhere to see their whiteness for what it is 40 00:01:53,634 --> 00:01:56,801 and seize the opportunity to make things better now." 41 00:01:56,801 --> 00:01:59,267 Please welcome Dr. Robin DiAngelo. 42 00:02:03,834 --> 00:02:05,434 -Woo! 43 00:02:13,067 --> 00:02:14,267 Thank you so much. 44 00:02:14,267 --> 00:02:16,200 Okay. That was such a rush. 45 00:02:19,033 --> 00:02:21,434 Before I launch in, the way I'm going to do this is, 46 00:02:21,434 --> 00:02:23,634 I'm going to read a little bit, riff a little bit, 47 00:02:23,634 --> 00:02:25,901 kind of guide you along with some slides, 48 00:02:25,901 --> 00:02:29,834 but I do want to reiterate that this talk is happening 49 00:02:29,834 --> 00:02:32,834 on the ancestral territories of indigenous peoples, 50 00:02:32,834 --> 00:02:34,901 and I believe very, very deeply 51 00:02:34,901 --> 00:02:37,467 that if we don't know our history, 52 00:02:37,467 --> 00:02:40,901 if we cannot trace the past into the present, 53 00:02:40,901 --> 00:02:44,434 we cannot explain current conditions in ways 54 00:02:44,434 --> 00:02:47,634 that are transformative rather than victim-blaming, 55 00:02:47,634 --> 00:02:50,567 and I think today, it's very, very clear 56 00:02:50,567 --> 00:02:55,334 when we see struggles around water rights at Standing Rock, 57 00:02:55,334 --> 00:02:59,167 the Duwamish yet again denied federal recognition, 58 00:02:59,167 --> 00:03:02,601 which denies treaty rights and sovereignty, 59 00:03:02,601 --> 00:03:07,868 these struggles are never separated from the present. 60 00:03:07,868 --> 00:03:10,601 At the same time, a piece of white fragility 61 00:03:10,601 --> 00:03:13,501 is that white people are not taught their history. 62 00:03:13,501 --> 00:03:17,167 We don't know our history, so I want to acknowledge that. 63 00:03:17,167 --> 00:03:20,667 I want to position myself, of course, as a white person, 64 00:03:20,667 --> 00:03:23,300 and I'm talking to a very... 65 00:03:23,300 --> 00:03:26,701 addressing a very, very specific dynamic. 66 00:03:26,701 --> 00:03:30,234 This is arguably the most complex, 67 00:03:30,234 --> 00:03:34,000 nuanced social dilemma since the beginning of this country, 68 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:37,667 and there are myriad roads in, and all of them are essential, 69 00:03:37,667 --> 00:03:42,801 but so consistently left off the table is whiteness, right? 70 00:03:42,801 --> 00:03:45,434 So we often learn about this group and that group 71 00:03:45,434 --> 00:03:47,234 and their struggles and their triumphs 72 00:03:47,234 --> 00:03:51,200 and their heroes and heroines, and yet we don't ask ourselves, 73 00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:54,601 "Struggles and triumphs in relation to whom?" 74 00:03:54,601 --> 00:03:56,067 Right? 75 00:03:56,067 --> 00:04:01,267 And so again, I'm going to focus on white folks and white people. 76 00:04:01,267 --> 00:04:03,167 I do use humor, 77 00:04:03,167 --> 00:04:05,534 and I want to say a little bit about why I use humor. 78 00:04:05,534 --> 00:04:11,300 Some of it is my style, and also because there's so much tension 79 00:04:11,300 --> 00:04:14,567 and so much anxiety and so much charge 80 00:04:14,567 --> 00:04:17,133 and so much defensiveness and on and on 81 00:04:17,133 --> 00:04:20,100 for white people around race that we can... 82 00:04:20,100 --> 00:04:21,534 When we begin to get challenged, 83 00:04:21,534 --> 00:04:26,467 we can shut down really quickly or glaze over or tune out, 84 00:04:26,467 --> 00:04:27,767 and all of those, of course, 85 00:04:27,767 --> 00:04:29,567 function to protect our positions 86 00:04:29,567 --> 00:04:31,968 and hold our worldviews in place. 87 00:04:31,968 --> 00:04:35,334 And so the laughter can help release some of that. 88 00:04:35,334 --> 00:04:41,734 If we can laugh at this and mock it a little bit, to be direct, 89 00:04:41,734 --> 00:04:45,100 it can help us then step back and not take ourselves 90 00:04:45,100 --> 00:04:48,767 so seriously and hopefully again open it up, 91 00:04:48,767 --> 00:04:50,767 and I want to say that defensiveness 92 00:04:50,767 --> 00:04:54,100 this is killing people of color, right? 93 00:04:54,100 --> 00:04:57,067 This is very, very serious, so my humor 94 00:04:57,067 --> 00:04:59,133 is not meant to trivialize that, 95 00:04:59,133 --> 00:05:04,334 but it is a strategy, one of many that I use in order 96 00:05:04,334 --> 00:05:08,267 to try to air this out and open it up. 97 00:05:08,267 --> 00:05:09,667 All right. 98 00:05:09,667 --> 00:05:15,300 So I want to start by reading a bit from the beginning. 99 00:05:15,300 --> 00:05:18,100 "White people in North America live in a society 100 00:05:18,100 --> 00:05:21,367 that is deeply separate and unequal by race, 101 00:05:21,367 --> 00:05:23,501 and white people are the beneficiaries 102 00:05:23,501 --> 00:05:26,300 of that separation and inequality. 103 00:05:26,300 --> 00:05:29,634 As a result, we are insulated from racial stress 104 00:05:29,634 --> 00:05:32,801 at the same time that we come to feel entitled to 105 00:05:32,801 --> 00:05:35,300 and deserving of our advantage. 106 00:05:35,300 --> 00:05:38,167 Given how seldom we experience racial discomfort 107 00:05:38,167 --> 00:05:40,334 in a society we dominate, 108 00:05:40,334 --> 00:05:43,334 we haven't had to build our racial stamina. 109 00:05:43,334 --> 00:05:45,801 Socialized into a deeply internalized 110 00:05:45,801 --> 00:05:47,501 sense of superiority 111 00:05:47,501 --> 00:05:51,634 that we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, 112 00:05:51,634 --> 00:05:55,367 we become highly fragile in conversations about race. 113 00:05:55,367 --> 00:05:59,300 We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge 114 00:05:59,300 --> 00:06:03,167 to our very identities as good, moral people. 115 00:06:03,167 --> 00:06:05,334 Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us 116 00:06:05,334 --> 00:06:07,067 to the system of racism 117 00:06:07,067 --> 00:06:11,100 as an unsettling and unfair moral offense. 118 00:06:11,100 --> 00:06:14,334 The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable. 119 00:06:14,334 --> 00:06:16,901 The mere suggestion that being white has meaning 120 00:06:16,901 --> 00:06:20,434 often triggers a range of defensive responses, 121 00:06:20,434 --> 00:06:22,601 and these include emotions such as anger, 122 00:06:22,601 --> 00:06:26,067 fear and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, 123 00:06:26,067 --> 00:06:30,701 silence and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. 124 00:06:30,701 --> 00:06:34,300 These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium 125 00:06:34,300 --> 00:06:37,934 as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort 126 00:06:37,934 --> 00:06:41,667 and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. 127 00:06:41,667 --> 00:06:45,067 I conceptualized this process as white fragility. 128 00:06:45,067 --> 00:06:46,667 Though white fragility is triggered 129 00:06:46,667 --> 00:06:48,801 by discomfort and anxiety, 130 00:06:48,801 --> 00:06:52,067 it is born of superiority and entitlement. 131 00:06:52,067 --> 00:06:55,067 White fragility is not weakness, per se. 132 00:06:55,067 --> 00:06:58,868 In fact, it is a powerful means of white racial control 133 00:06:58,868 --> 00:07:03,133 and the protection of white advantage. 134 00:07:03,133 --> 00:07:05,200 In my early days of work 135 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:07,300 of what was then termed a diversity trainer, 136 00:07:07,300 --> 00:07:10,000 I was taken aback by how angry and defensive 137 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,067 so many white people became at the suggestion 138 00:07:13,067 --> 00:07:16,133 that they were connected to racism in any way. 139 00:07:16,133 --> 00:07:18,567 The very idea that they would be required 140 00:07:18,567 --> 00:07:22,167 to attend a workshop on racism outraged them. 141 00:07:22,167 --> 00:07:23,667 They entered the room angry 142 00:07:23,667 --> 00:07:26,400 and made that feeling clear to us throughout the day 143 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:29,033 as they slammed their notebooks down on the table, 144 00:07:29,033 --> 00:07:31,701 refused to participate in exercises 145 00:07:31,701 --> 00:07:34,701 and argued against any and all points. 146 00:07:34,701 --> 00:07:37,567 I couldn't understand their resentment or disinterest 147 00:07:37,567 --> 00:07:40,400 in learning more about such a complex social dynamic 148 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:41,901 as racism. 149 00:07:41,901 --> 00:07:44,634 These reactions were especially perplexing 150 00:07:44,634 --> 00:07:48,100 when there were few or no people of color in their workplace 151 00:07:48,100 --> 00:07:49,834 and they had the opportunity to learn 152 00:07:49,834 --> 00:07:52,267 from my co-facilitator of color. 153 00:07:52,267 --> 00:07:54,767 I assumed that in these circumstances, 154 00:07:54,767 --> 00:07:58,300 an educational workshop on racism would be appreciated. 155 00:07:58,300 --> 00:08:01,467 After all, didn't the lack of diversity indicate a problem 156 00:08:01,467 --> 00:08:04,734 or at least suggest that some perspectives were missing 157 00:08:04,734 --> 00:08:07,734 or that the participants might be undereducated about race 158 00:08:07,734 --> 00:08:11,300 because of scant cross-racial interactions? 159 00:08:11,300 --> 00:08:16,400 It took me several years to see beneath these reactions. 160 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:18,033 At first, I was intimidated by them, 161 00:08:18,033 --> 00:08:20,701 and they held me back and kept me careful and quiet, 162 00:08:20,701 --> 00:08:23,801 but over time, I began to see what lay beneath this anger 163 00:08:23,801 --> 00:08:27,901 and resistance to discuss race or listen to people of color. 164 00:08:27,901 --> 00:08:32,434 I observed consistent responses from a variety of participants. 165 00:08:32,434 --> 00:08:34,334 For example, many white participants 166 00:08:34,334 --> 00:08:36,601 who lived in white, suburban neighborhoods 167 00:08:36,601 --> 00:08:38,601 and how no sustained relationships 168 00:08:38,601 --> 00:08:41,334 with people of color were absolutely certain 169 00:08:41,334 --> 00:08:44,501 that they held no racial prejudice or animosity. 170 00:08:44,501 --> 00:08:49,234 Other participants simplistically reduced racism 171 00:08:49,234 --> 00:08:52,367 to a matter of nice people versus mean people. 172 00:08:52,367 --> 00:08:56,834 Most appeared to believe that racism ended in 1865 173 00:08:56,834 --> 00:08:59,434 with the end of enslavement. 174 00:08:59,434 --> 00:09:01,634 There was both knee-jerk defensiveness 175 00:09:01,634 --> 00:09:04,400 about any suggestion that being white had meaning 176 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:09,701 and a refusal to acknowledge any advantage to being white. 177 00:09:09,701 --> 00:09:11,167 And over time, I began to see 178 00:09:11,167 --> 00:09:14,133 what I think of as the pillars of whiteness, 179 00:09:14,133 --> 00:09:18,367 the unexamined beliefs that prop up our racial responses. 180 00:09:18,367 --> 00:09:20,367 I could see the power of the belief 181 00:09:20,367 --> 00:09:22,968 that only bad people were racist, 182 00:09:22,968 --> 00:09:25,934 as well as how individualism allowed white people 183 00:09:25,934 --> 00:09:30,033 to exempt themselves from the forces of socialization. 184 00:09:30,033 --> 00:09:32,667 I could see how we are taught to think about racism 185 00:09:32,667 --> 00:09:36,868 only as discrete acts committed by individual people 186 00:09:36,868 --> 00:09:41,300 rather than as a complex, interconnected system, 187 00:09:41,300 --> 00:09:44,367 and in light of so many white expressions of resentment 188 00:09:44,367 --> 00:09:45,734 toward people of color, 189 00:09:45,734 --> 00:09:48,834 I realize that we see ourselves as entitled to 190 00:09:48,834 --> 00:09:52,200 and deserving of more than people of color deserve. 191 00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:55,801 I saw our investment in a system that serves us. 192 00:09:55,801 --> 00:09:59,200 I also saw how hard we work to deny all this 193 00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:02,534 and how defensive we became when these dynamics were named. 194 00:10:02,534 --> 00:10:05,334 In turn, I saw how our defensiveness 195 00:10:05,334 --> 00:10:08,701 maintained the racial status quo." 196 00:10:08,701 --> 00:10:12,868 Okay, and none of the white people that I identify, 197 00:10:12,868 --> 00:10:14,734 whose actions I describe in this book, 198 00:10:14,734 --> 00:10:16,734 would identify as racist. 199 00:10:16,734 --> 00:10:18,834 "In fact, I think they would most likely identify 200 00:10:18,834 --> 00:10:21,133 as racially progressive and vehemently 201 00:10:21,133 --> 00:10:24,200 deny any complicity with racism, 202 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:27,100 yet all of their responses illustrate white fragility 203 00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:29,801 and how it holds racism in place. 204 00:10:29,801 --> 00:10:33,267 These responses spur the daily frustrations 205 00:10:33,267 --> 00:10:38,200 and indignities people of color endure from white people 206 00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:42,234 who see themselves as open-minded and thus not racist. 207 00:10:42,234 --> 00:10:44,601 This book is intended for us, 208 00:10:44,601 --> 00:10:47,100 for white progressives who so often, 209 00:10:47,100 --> 00:10:49,367 despite our conscious intentions, 210 00:10:49,367 --> 00:10:52,968 make life so difficult for people of color. 211 00:10:52,968 --> 00:10:55,234 I believe that white progressives 212 00:10:55,234 --> 00:10:59,334 cause the most daily damage to people of color, 213 00:10:59,334 --> 00:11:00,868 and I define a white progressive 214 00:11:00,868 --> 00:11:03,000 as any white person who thinks he or she 215 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:07,367 is not racist or is less racist or is in the choir 216 00:11:07,367 --> 00:11:10,534 or already gets it. White progressives 217 00:11:10,534 --> 00:11:12,434 can be the most difficult for people of color," 218 00:11:12,434 --> 00:11:16,667 because to the degree that we think we have it, 219 00:11:16,667 --> 00:11:18,300 we're going to put all of our energy 220 00:11:18,300 --> 00:11:22,000 into making sure you think that we have it and none of it 221 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,467 into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives. 222 00:11:25,467 --> 00:11:27,067 Right? 223 00:11:32,467 --> 00:11:36,667 "White progressives do indeed uphold and perpetrate racism, 224 00:11:36,667 --> 00:11:38,634 but our defensiveness and certitude 225 00:11:38,634 --> 00:11:42,467 make it virtually impossible to explain to us how we do so." 226 00:11:42,467 --> 00:11:45,167 So I'm pretty sure I'm speaking to a room 227 00:11:45,167 --> 00:11:50,334 filled with white progressives, so let me just be clear. 228 00:11:50,334 --> 00:11:53,300 You are not the choir. 229 00:11:53,300 --> 00:11:54,634 There is no choir. 230 00:11:54,634 --> 00:11:57,567 I am not the choir. 231 00:11:57,567 --> 00:11:59,234 When I say there is no choir, 232 00:11:59,234 --> 00:12:02,634 it's because my learning will never be finished, 233 00:12:02,634 --> 00:12:05,000 and the moment I think I'm the choir, 234 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,601 I think I'm going to be done, and I'm going to have certitude. 235 00:12:08,601 --> 00:12:14,000 I often joke, but on some levels, it's kind of true. 236 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:16,434 When I first applied to be that diversity trainer 237 00:12:16,434 --> 00:12:18,367 back in the early '90s, I thought, 238 00:12:18,367 --> 00:12:21,801 "Well, of course I'm qualified to lead discussions on racism. 239 00:12:21,801 --> 00:12:27,100 I'm a vegetarian. How could I be racist?" 240 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,400 Now, I would need to be vegan today, 241 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:36,167 but, you know, in the '90s, 242 00:12:36,167 --> 00:12:37,767 that was pretty alternative, right? 243 00:12:37,767 --> 00:12:40,000 I even got called a communist once when I said, 244 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:43,067 "No, I'm a vegetarian." 245 00:12:43,067 --> 00:12:45,334 But, you know, my point is, I just thought it was all about 246 00:12:45,334 --> 00:12:47,334 open-mindedness and alternativeness, 247 00:12:47,334 --> 00:12:50,701 and let me just say that, you know, I love Seattle, 248 00:12:50,701 --> 00:12:52,801 and everything I learned about white fragility, 249 00:12:52,801 --> 00:12:55,501 I learned here working with white progressives. 250 00:12:59,934 --> 00:13:03,868 So chapter one, "Challenges to 251 00:13:03,868 --> 00:13:06,534 Talking to White People About Racism." 252 00:13:06,534 --> 00:13:08,133 Right? 253 00:13:10,234 --> 00:13:11,901 I have never met a white person 254 00:13:11,901 --> 00:13:13,734 who did not have an opinion on racism. 255 00:13:13,734 --> 00:13:15,801 Have you? 256 00:13:15,801 --> 00:13:17,767 If you are not sure that all white people 257 00:13:17,767 --> 00:13:20,634 have opinions on racism, just bring it up the next time 258 00:13:20,634 --> 00:13:23,033 you're around a bunch of white people, 259 00:13:23,033 --> 00:13:25,033 maybe tonight when you have a drink in Ballard 260 00:13:25,033 --> 00:13:32,901 after the talk and see how that goes. 261 00:13:32,901 --> 00:13:35,167 Not only do we all have opinions, 262 00:13:35,167 --> 00:13:38,501 but they tend to be very emotionally charged, 263 00:13:38,501 --> 00:13:43,400 and that has nothing to do with whether they're informed or not. 264 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:45,467 I have an opinion on virtually everything. 265 00:13:45,467 --> 00:13:47,801 That does not make them informed. 266 00:13:47,801 --> 00:13:50,067 I don't believe you can grow up or spend 267 00:13:50,067 --> 00:13:52,133 any significant time in the United States 268 00:13:52,133 --> 00:13:54,200 without developing opinions on racism, 269 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:57,400 and they will be emotional and strongly held, 270 00:13:57,400 --> 00:14:00,334 and again, that has nothing to do 271 00:14:00,334 --> 00:14:02,934 with whether they're informed. 272 00:14:02,934 --> 00:14:05,434 And, in fact, if you are white, 273 00:14:05,434 --> 00:14:10,801 and you have not devoted years of sustained study, 274 00:14:10,801 --> 00:14:13,968 struggle and focus on this topic, 275 00:14:13,968 --> 00:14:18,167 your opinions are necessarily very limited, 276 00:14:18,167 --> 00:14:20,901 and, no, a trip to Costa Rica, 277 00:14:23,267 --> 00:14:29,300 multiracial nieces and nephews, right, 278 00:14:29,300 --> 00:14:32,701 these are not sustained study, struggle and focus. 279 00:14:32,701 --> 00:14:34,367 Now, how can I say that 280 00:14:34,367 --> 00:14:36,601 when I don't know most of the people in this room? 281 00:14:36,601 --> 00:14:38,033 And this, of course, is the first thing 282 00:14:38,033 --> 00:14:39,534 that tends to trigger white fragility: 283 00:14:39,534 --> 00:14:42,534 generalizing about white people. 284 00:14:42,534 --> 00:14:44,334 As a sociologist, I'm really comfortable 285 00:14:44,334 --> 00:14:47,567 generalizing about white people. 286 00:14:47,567 --> 00:14:49,868 Social life is predictable and patterned, 287 00:14:49,868 --> 00:14:51,901 you know, in really observable ways, 288 00:14:51,901 --> 00:14:54,267 and we've got to grapple with those patterns, 289 00:14:54,267 --> 00:14:56,868 but I can say this, that your opinions, 290 00:14:56,868 --> 00:15:00,734 without sustained study, struggle, focus, you know, 291 00:15:00,734 --> 00:15:04,400 mistake making, relationship building, repair, 292 00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:09,067 they're superficial because nothing, nothing in society 293 00:15:09,067 --> 00:15:12,501 gives you the information you need to have more than that. 294 00:15:12,501 --> 00:15:16,300 In fact, you can get through graduate school in this country 295 00:15:16,300 --> 00:15:20,400 without ever discussing racism, can you not? 296 00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:23,834 You can get through teacher education in this country 297 00:15:23,834 --> 00:15:26,467 without discussing racism, 298 00:15:26,467 --> 00:15:29,834 and if you're in a progressive teacher-education program, 299 00:15:29,834 --> 00:15:33,634 you'll have one required multicultural education class, 300 00:15:33,634 --> 00:15:35,767 but that doesn't mean you'll be talking about racism. 301 00:15:35,767 --> 00:15:38,667 You might just be talking about how to introduce ethnic authors 302 00:15:38,667 --> 00:15:41,400 in February. 303 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:42,801 Right? You can get through law school. 304 00:15:42,801 --> 00:15:45,801 You can through social work, right? 305 00:15:45,801 --> 00:15:48,801 You can be seen as qualified to lead 306 00:15:48,801 --> 00:15:52,200 a major or minor institution in this country, 307 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:56,000 to lead a group of people, to supervise people. 308 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,067 You can be seen as qualified to do those things 309 00:15:58,067 --> 00:16:01,701 with virtually no ability whatsoever to engage 310 00:16:01,701 --> 00:16:05,534 with any complexity or nuance in the issue of racism, 311 00:16:05,534 --> 00:16:07,567 can you not? 312 00:16:07,567 --> 00:16:09,167 All right. 313 00:16:11,567 --> 00:16:13,601 So that is the first challenge: humility. 314 00:16:13,601 --> 00:16:14,434 Right? 315 00:16:14,434 --> 00:16:16,767 The second is individualism. 316 00:16:16,767 --> 00:16:21,267 Apparently, white people do not understand socialization 317 00:16:21,267 --> 00:16:24,334 because we really think that we are exempt from it, 318 00:16:24,334 --> 00:16:25,667 and, of course, the irony of that 319 00:16:25,667 --> 00:16:29,567 is because we're socialized to value the individual. 320 00:16:29,567 --> 00:16:31,868 We put a lot of effort there, but we think that, you know, 321 00:16:31,868 --> 00:16:34,400 just because I say I am or want to be, 322 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:37,467 I could be exempt from these forces. 323 00:16:37,467 --> 00:16:42,434 So that is another challenge, and again, generalizing, 324 00:16:42,434 --> 00:16:45,200 suggesting race has meaning for white people 325 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,000 will often trigger white fragility. 326 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,267 We think if we don't see it, it isn't there, 327 00:16:50,267 --> 00:16:51,868 and, "You haven't explained it to me 328 00:16:51,868 --> 00:16:53,534 yet enough so that I understand it, 329 00:16:53,534 --> 00:16:56,267 so I'm not really sure that could be valid." 330 00:16:56,267 --> 00:16:58,200 Right? 331 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:00,801 And we tend to use our reactions as a way out. 332 00:17:00,801 --> 00:17:03,067 There is no way we're going to get where we need to go 333 00:17:03,067 --> 00:17:05,200 from a place of white comfort, 334 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:11,133 and I am comfortable racially virtually 24/7, 335 00:17:11,133 --> 00:17:12,634 so that is not my goal, 336 00:17:12,634 --> 00:17:14,701 but we will often use that lack of comfort 337 00:17:14,701 --> 00:17:17,100 as a sign that something's been done wrong 338 00:17:17,100 --> 00:17:19,834 rather than something probably has been done right 339 00:17:19,834 --> 00:17:21,701 and that we need to use that 340 00:17:21,701 --> 00:17:25,000 as a way into the deeper framework 341 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:29,501 that would cause such upset rather than use it as a way out. 342 00:17:31,834 --> 00:17:34,501 And we don't understand racism as a system, 343 00:17:34,501 --> 00:17:38,834 so this is another key challenge which leads me to chapter two, 344 00:17:38,834 --> 00:17:42,100 which is "Racism and White Supremacy." 345 00:17:42,100 --> 00:17:46,033 Racism is a system, not an event, right? 346 00:17:46,033 --> 00:17:49,400 And it's the system we're in, and none of us could be 347 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,968 and none of us were exempt from its forces, right? 348 00:17:52,968 --> 00:17:55,367 But the way we're taught to think of racism functions 349 00:17:55,367 --> 00:17:57,734 beautifully to not only obscure the system 350 00:17:57,734 --> 00:17:59,734 but to exempt us from its forces, right, 351 00:17:59,734 --> 00:18:03,767 or to have us believe we are exempted from its forces. 352 00:18:03,767 --> 00:18:04,934 Now, as a white person, 353 00:18:04,934 --> 00:18:06,968 I was raised to be racially illiterate, 354 00:18:06,968 --> 00:18:09,267 and I actually think all white people are raised 355 00:18:09,267 --> 00:18:13,033 to be racially illiterate in this culture, 356 00:18:13,033 --> 00:18:17,601 and in gaining racial literacy, I have had to understand 357 00:18:17,601 --> 00:18:21,567 not just the collective dynamics and dimensions of racism 358 00:18:21,567 --> 00:18:25,634 but how racism impacts different groups 359 00:18:25,634 --> 00:18:28,667 who are perceived and defined as people of color, 360 00:18:28,667 --> 00:18:31,701 how it impacts them differently, right? 361 00:18:31,701 --> 00:18:35,234 So not all peoples of color experience racism differently. 362 00:18:35,234 --> 00:18:37,400 The things I have internalized about different groups 363 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,534 is different where and how they are positioned 364 00:18:40,534 --> 00:18:44,667 always in relation to whiteness or far away from whiteness 365 00:18:44,667 --> 00:18:46,467 and how that manifests, right? 366 00:18:46,467 --> 00:18:52,467 All of that must be understood, but after a good 20-plus years 367 00:18:52,467 --> 00:18:56,100 of talking day in and day out to white people about racism, 368 00:18:56,100 --> 00:18:59,300 I feel very confident to say that there is something 369 00:18:59,300 --> 00:19:03,567 profoundly antiblack in this culture 370 00:19:03,567 --> 00:19:06,000 and that nothing seems to turn white people's 371 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,634 cranks of resentment like thinking 372 00:19:08,634 --> 00:19:12,634 Black people got something over on us that they didn't deserve, 373 00:19:12,634 --> 00:19:18,400 and the deeper belief is that they're inherently undeserving. 374 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:21,067 I believe in the white mind, 375 00:19:21,067 --> 00:19:24,601 Black people are the ultimate racial other. 376 00:19:24,601 --> 00:19:25,634 Right? 377 00:19:25,634 --> 00:19:27,667 And that there are these bookends, 378 00:19:27,667 --> 00:19:30,467 and again, your perceived proximity 379 00:19:30,467 --> 00:19:33,100 to each end of that impacts 380 00:19:33,100 --> 00:19:37,133 how you're going to experience your racialization, 381 00:19:37,133 --> 00:19:38,501 so having said that 382 00:19:38,501 --> 00:19:41,834 and not really having time to do history, 383 00:19:41,834 --> 00:19:43,734 I just want to give you one glance 384 00:19:43,734 --> 00:19:46,567 at the trajectory of antiblackness 385 00:19:46,567 --> 00:19:48,667 in this country since its beginning, 386 00:19:48,667 --> 00:19:52,434 and this slide will be deliberately dense. 387 00:19:52,434 --> 00:19:54,000 We can literally think about it 388 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:58,634 as state-sanctioned organized crime that, 389 00:19:58,634 --> 00:20:01,167 at least, discrimination against African-Americans 390 00:20:01,167 --> 00:20:04,133 from the beginning, and it starts with kidnapping 391 00:20:04,133 --> 00:20:08,634 and 300 years of enslavement, torture, rape and brutality, 392 00:20:08,634 --> 00:20:12,334 and it carries on, and about a quarter of the way in, 393 00:20:12,334 --> 00:20:15,300 you see bans on testifying against whites, 394 00:20:15,300 --> 00:20:18,167 which made it technically legal to murder 395 00:20:18,167 --> 00:20:24,434 Black people in this country, and you are now in my lifetime. 396 00:20:24,434 --> 00:20:25,934 And I'm going to say it again 397 00:20:25,934 --> 00:20:29,033 because a lot of white people seem to think a long time ago. 398 00:20:29,033 --> 00:20:31,400 We're in my lifetime about a quarter of the way 399 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:33,734 through that slide. 400 00:20:33,734 --> 00:20:35,567 And then we see, about two-thirds of the way 401 00:20:35,567 --> 00:20:37,868 through, employment discrimination, 402 00:20:37,868 --> 00:20:42,334 and we are in 2018 with copious empirical evidence. 403 00:20:42,334 --> 00:20:43,968 Right? 404 00:20:43,968 --> 00:20:45,133 So let's pick it up there: employment discrimination, 405 00:20:45,133 --> 00:20:46,567 educational discrimination, 406 00:20:46,567 --> 00:20:48,534 biased laws in policing practices, 407 00:20:48,534 --> 00:20:50,701 white flight, subprime mortgages, 408 00:20:50,701 --> 00:20:54,100 mass incarceration, the school-to-prison pipeline, 409 00:20:54,100 --> 00:20:57,400 disproportionate special-ed referrals and punishments, 410 00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:00,167 testing, tracking, school funding, 411 00:21:00,167 --> 00:21:01,934 biased media representation, 412 00:21:01,934 --> 00:21:05,501 historic omissions and so much more. 413 00:21:05,501 --> 00:21:07,934 It is a system, not an event. 414 00:21:07,934 --> 00:21:11,133 It's the system we're in, and none of us could be 415 00:21:11,133 --> 00:21:13,901 and none of us were exempt from its forces. 416 00:21:13,901 --> 00:21:16,534 If we want to be unique and special individuals, 417 00:21:16,534 --> 00:21:20,033 then we need to figure out how whatever we see 418 00:21:20,033 --> 00:21:22,234 as special and different about us 419 00:21:22,234 --> 00:21:26,367 set us up into that system because it did, 420 00:21:26,367 --> 00:21:28,734 so I'm talking... I know white people really well. 421 00:21:28,734 --> 00:21:32,567 I'm talking X, and you're like, "Ha! I was Y." 422 00:21:32,567 --> 00:21:33,734 Right? Okay. 423 00:21:33,734 --> 00:21:35,501 You were Y. Most whites are X. 424 00:21:35,501 --> 00:21:37,534 How did Y set you up? 425 00:21:37,534 --> 00:21:40,167 It did. Right? 426 00:21:40,167 --> 00:21:42,267 The question is not if. It's how. 427 00:21:42,267 --> 00:21:43,868 Okay. 428 00:21:43,868 --> 00:21:45,167 I'm going to repeat it. 429 00:21:45,167 --> 00:21:47,667 It's a system, not an event. 430 00:21:47,667 --> 00:21:50,601 And how do we cope with the moral trauma 431 00:21:50,601 --> 00:21:53,200 of what I just read to you? 432 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:54,334 Okay? 433 00:21:54,334 --> 00:21:56,133 Resmaa Menakem has a beautiful book, 434 00:21:56,133 --> 00:21:57,167 "My Grandmother's Hands," 435 00:21:57,167 --> 00:21:59,501 where he talks about racial trauma. 436 00:21:59,501 --> 00:22:02,033 There's a trauma, I believe, to white people of racism, 437 00:22:02,033 --> 00:22:03,834 but I don't think it's... It's a different... 438 00:22:03,834 --> 00:22:06,300 It's a moral trauma, right? 439 00:22:06,300 --> 00:22:08,000 And it's a piece of white fragility, 440 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:12,067 not being able to face our complicity in this system. 441 00:22:12,067 --> 00:22:17,033 Well, historically, we projected our sins onto the Black body. 442 00:22:17,033 --> 00:22:22,367 Right? Lazy, shiftless, criminal. 443 00:22:22,367 --> 00:22:26,634 We projected our sins onto the Black body, right? 444 00:22:26,634 --> 00:22:28,601 Today, in addition to doing that, 445 00:22:28,601 --> 00:22:31,467 we obscure the system of racism that we uphold, 446 00:22:31,467 --> 00:22:34,200 and we exempt ourselves from its forces, right? 447 00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:39,067 And we do this in a way that appears to be progressive, 448 00:22:39,067 --> 00:22:42,000 right, that race doesn't matter to us. 449 00:22:47,801 --> 00:22:51,834 This is the board after the grand champion 450 00:22:51,834 --> 00:22:54,767 "College Jeopardy!" round, right, 451 00:22:54,767 --> 00:22:59,100 and for me, it just speaks volumes, right? 452 00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:02,701 Not, again, knowing our history and being able to trace it 453 00:23:02,701 --> 00:23:08,067 into the present is one of the volumes it speaks. 454 00:23:08,067 --> 00:23:11,100 Another one is: That is the history of this country. 455 00:23:11,100 --> 00:23:12,501 It is not their history. 456 00:23:12,501 --> 00:23:14,367 It didn't happen in a vacuum. 457 00:23:16,434 --> 00:23:19,334 One of the aspects of institutional power 458 00:23:19,334 --> 00:23:23,267 is the ability to disseminate your worldview to everyone, 459 00:23:23,267 --> 00:23:28,133 to position it as objective and universal, right, 460 00:23:28,133 --> 00:23:32,968 and to tell the story, right, the story of the other 461 00:23:32,968 --> 00:23:36,200 when we are not in relationship with the other, right? 462 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:40,200 So I want to give you an example of the power of the story, 463 00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,667 and I want to do it through "The Jackie Robinson Story." 464 00:23:43,667 --> 00:23:46,400 Y'all know Jackie Robinson, right? 465 00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,434 So Jackie Robinson has been quite celebrated 466 00:23:49,434 --> 00:23:50,834 for doing something. 467 00:23:50,834 --> 00:23:52,901 What's the tagline that goes with Jackie Robinson? 468 00:23:52,901 --> 00:23:59,200 He...He broke the color line, right? 469 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,934 Now, so let's do a little discourse analysis 470 00:24:02,934 --> 00:24:04,667 because every year on the anniversary, 471 00:24:04,667 --> 00:24:07,968 we celebrate him breaking the color line. 472 00:24:07,968 --> 00:24:10,334 So think about what that invokes, right? 473 00:24:10,334 --> 00:24:12,601 He was exceptional. 474 00:24:12,601 --> 00:24:14,033 He was special. 475 00:24:14,033 --> 00:24:15,434 He did it. 476 00:24:15,434 --> 00:24:18,234 Finally, one of them had what it took 477 00:24:18,234 --> 00:24:21,200 to break through and play with us. 478 00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,067 Up until him, nobody had what it took, 479 00:24:24,067 --> 00:24:27,467 so subtext: inferior group. 480 00:24:27,467 --> 00:24:28,734 Right? 481 00:24:28,734 --> 00:24:32,033 But he did it, and, of course, the day he did it, 482 00:24:32,033 --> 00:24:35,234 the day he broke the color line, racism in sports ended. 483 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,267 So imagine if we told the story like this: Jackie Robinson, 484 00:24:43,267 --> 00:24:47,234 the first Black man that whites allowed to play 485 00:24:47,234 --> 00:24:50,567 Major League Baseball. 486 00:24:50,567 --> 00:24:52,934 And I want you to notice the difference in that story. 487 00:24:52,934 --> 00:24:56,334 One, that's the truth. 488 00:24:56,334 --> 00:24:58,701 It didn't matter how exceptional he was, 489 00:24:58,701 --> 00:25:03,501 and I actually don't believe he was the first most exceptional, 490 00:25:03,501 --> 00:25:08,000 but if we didn't say he could play, he couldn't play. 491 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,033 If he walked out onto that field before we said, 492 00:25:11,033 --> 00:25:12,968 "You can walk out on the field," 493 00:25:12,968 --> 00:25:15,667 the police would have removed him. 494 00:25:15,667 --> 00:25:18,367 It wasn't up to him, right? 495 00:25:18,367 --> 00:25:19,901 Now, the reason I want us to tell the story 496 00:25:19,901 --> 00:25:22,200 the second way is, one, because it's true and, two, 497 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,968 because I need role models, right? 498 00:25:25,968 --> 00:25:28,601 How did white people get organized? 499 00:25:28,601 --> 00:25:30,367 What did they do behind the scene? 500 00:25:30,367 --> 00:25:33,501 What barriers did they face, what challenges, right? 501 00:25:33,501 --> 00:25:35,334 What strategies did they use, 502 00:25:35,334 --> 00:25:36,934 and could we use any of those today 503 00:25:36,934 --> 00:25:39,200 and adapt any of those today? Right? 504 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:40,968 It's not about me wanting to point out 505 00:25:40,968 --> 00:25:42,667 how bad white people are. 506 00:25:45,634 --> 00:25:49,534 So chapter three looks at racism after the civil rights movement, 507 00:25:49,534 --> 00:25:51,067 and after the civil rights movement, 508 00:25:51,067 --> 00:25:55,834 it made a brilliant adaptation, so post-civil rights, 509 00:25:55,834 --> 00:25:58,968 racism got reduced to the following formula. 510 00:25:58,968 --> 00:26:01,000 "A racist is an individual 511 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,234 who consciously does not like people based on race 512 00:26:04,234 --> 00:26:06,601 and is intentionally mean to them," 513 00:26:06,601 --> 00:26:09,434 always an individual, must be conscious, 514 00:26:09,434 --> 00:26:11,434 must be intentional, 515 00:26:11,434 --> 00:26:14,901 and that definition exempts virtually all white people 516 00:26:14,901 --> 00:26:17,434 from the system of racism. 517 00:26:17,434 --> 00:26:20,667 This definition, I believe, 518 00:26:20,667 --> 00:26:24,400 is the root of virtually all white defensiveness on racism. 519 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,334 Have you guys noticed any white defensiveness on racism? 520 00:26:29,834 --> 00:26:31,200 Yeah. 521 00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,067 It makes it virtually impossible 522 00:26:33,067 --> 00:26:34,701 to talk to the average white person 523 00:26:34,701 --> 00:26:37,400 about the inevitable absorption of a racist worldview 524 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,801 that we get from being socialized in a racist culture 525 00:26:40,801 --> 00:26:43,801 in which white supremacy is the bedrock 526 00:26:43,801 --> 00:26:47,033 because you suggest that anything I have done 527 00:26:47,033 --> 00:26:49,501 is racially problematic in any way, 528 00:26:49,501 --> 00:26:52,767 and I'm going to hear a question to my moral character, 529 00:26:52,767 --> 00:26:56,033 and I'm going to need to defend my moral character. 530 00:26:56,033 --> 00:26:59,601 You know, we've probably seen this a million times, right? 531 00:26:59,601 --> 00:27:03,601 So that definition actually functions to protect racism 532 00:27:03,601 --> 00:27:08,200 even as it looks like progress, right? 533 00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,734 Racism became bad post-civil rights. 534 00:27:12,734 --> 00:27:14,968 So this sets up what I think about 535 00:27:14,968 --> 00:27:18,033 as the good-bad binary that kind of... 536 00:27:18,033 --> 00:27:20,367 It's either or, right? Racists are bad. 537 00:27:20,367 --> 00:27:22,033 Not racists are good, 538 00:27:22,033 --> 00:27:24,100 and we know how to fill that in, don't we? 539 00:27:24,100 --> 00:27:27,667 Ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced, mean-spirited, definitely old, 540 00:27:27,667 --> 00:27:30,300 and when we die off, there'll be no more racism. 541 00:27:33,133 --> 00:27:35,934 You know, I've been working with a lot of these tech companies 542 00:27:35,934 --> 00:27:38,567 that when I walk around, I think to myself, 543 00:27:38,567 --> 00:27:42,133 "God, I guess you have to be under 30 to work here," 544 00:27:42,133 --> 00:27:46,801 and I'm telling you, they cannot think critically about race, 545 00:27:46,801 --> 00:27:50,200 and the people of color that work with these young people 546 00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:53,601 are in so much pain, right? 547 00:27:53,601 --> 00:27:55,267 No. I get asked all the time, 548 00:27:55,267 --> 00:27:58,634 "Do you think young people today are less racist?" 549 00:27:58,634 --> 00:27:59,968 Actually, the question usually begins with, 550 00:27:59,968 --> 00:28:01,501 "Don't you think"... And just a head's up: 551 00:28:01,501 --> 00:28:03,934 If you approach me with "Don't you think," the answer is no. 552 00:28:06,300 --> 00:28:08,000 Because that's not an open question, 553 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,634 but, no, I don't actually think young people today 554 00:28:11,634 --> 00:28:15,767 are less racist because that consciousness 555 00:28:15,767 --> 00:28:17,534 hasn't changed our outcomes. 556 00:28:17,534 --> 00:28:20,601 In fact, they're getting worse, right? 557 00:28:20,601 --> 00:28:21,968 Okay. 558 00:28:21,968 --> 00:28:25,734 So Southern for sure, don't you think? 559 00:28:25,734 --> 00:28:29,067 Around here, I'm pretty sure they live in Fife. 560 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:32,767 I've never been to Fife, 561 00:28:32,767 --> 00:28:34,734 but on the way to Tacoma, I see Fife. 562 00:28:34,734 --> 00:28:37,501 I'm like, "Ooh, boy. It looks like racists live there." 563 00:28:40,968 --> 00:28:45,167 And when I'm on my way up north, it's, like, Smokey Point. 564 00:28:45,167 --> 00:28:46,567 Okay? 565 00:28:46,567 --> 00:28:48,667 All right. 566 00:28:48,667 --> 00:28:50,167 Not racists are good. 567 00:28:50,167 --> 00:28:53,434 We're educated, progressive, open-minded, well-intended. 568 00:28:53,434 --> 00:28:55,434 We're young. We're northern. 569 00:28:55,434 --> 00:28:57,434 We live on Phinney Ridge, 570 00:29:00,067 --> 00:29:04,267 but we're all moving to Portland really soon because Whole Foods 571 00:29:04,267 --> 00:29:06,000 is so corporate now. 572 00:29:11,868 --> 00:29:14,434 Again, this is the root 573 00:29:14,434 --> 00:29:15,901 of virtually all white defensiveness, 574 00:29:15,901 --> 00:29:19,501 and it just functions so beautifully to exempt us, 575 00:29:19,501 --> 00:29:21,801 so we just have to get rid of it, 576 00:29:21,801 --> 00:29:23,767 and when white people hear me, and they feel angry 577 00:29:23,767 --> 00:29:26,367 and pissed off and defensive, can I just say this? 578 00:29:26,367 --> 00:29:27,834 Now that you guys are listening to me up here, 579 00:29:27,834 --> 00:29:29,100 when you laugh at my jokes, 580 00:29:29,100 --> 00:29:31,234 I'm going to keep getting looser and looser. 581 00:29:31,234 --> 00:29:34,000 Damn, white people are pissy about racism. 582 00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:35,901 We are so pissy on this topic. 583 00:29:35,901 --> 00:29:39,234 We're mean on this topic, right? 584 00:29:39,234 --> 00:29:42,267 And so if you're sitting here feeling that, 585 00:29:42,267 --> 00:29:45,501 just see if it isn't rooted in this definition, 586 00:29:45,501 --> 00:29:47,701 and if you cannot let go of this, 587 00:29:47,701 --> 00:29:50,133 you're just not going to be able to move forward. 588 00:29:50,133 --> 00:29:52,267 All right. 589 00:29:52,267 --> 00:29:54,367 So aversive racism is a form 590 00:29:54,367 --> 00:29:57,300 of what sociologists call new racism, right? 591 00:29:57,300 --> 00:29:59,767 And so it's racism that progressive whites 592 00:29:59,767 --> 00:30:02,601 are most likely to hold, 593 00:30:02,601 --> 00:30:06,601 but because it conflicts with our identities as good people, 594 00:30:06,601 --> 00:30:09,834 we're most likely to be in denial about it. 595 00:30:09,834 --> 00:30:11,934 So let me find that piece. 596 00:30:11,934 --> 00:30:14,667 "It's a manifestation of racism that well-intentioned people 597 00:30:14,667 --> 00:30:16,801 who see themselves as educated and progressive 598 00:30:16,801 --> 00:30:18,567 are more likely to exhibit. 599 00:30:18,567 --> 00:30:20,834 It exists under the surface of consciousness 600 00:30:20,834 --> 00:30:23,868 because it conflicts with consciously held beliefs 601 00:30:23,868 --> 00:30:26,167 of racial equity and justice. 602 00:30:26,167 --> 00:30:29,467 Aversive racism is a subtle but insidious form 603 00:30:29,467 --> 00:30:32,868 as aversive racists enact racism in ways 604 00:30:32,868 --> 00:30:36,200 that allow them to maintain a positive self-image, e.g. 605 00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,434 'I have lots of friends of color. 606 00:30:38,434 --> 00:30:40,801 I judge people by the content of their character, 607 00:30:40,801 --> 00:30:44,234 not the color of their skin,' and whites enact racism 608 00:30:44,234 --> 00:30:47,167 while maintaining a positive self-image in many ways, 609 00:30:47,167 --> 00:30:51,367 for example: rationalizing racial segregation 610 00:30:51,367 --> 00:30:57,367 as unfortunate but necessary to access good schools, 611 00:30:57,367 --> 00:30:59,067 rationalizing that our workplaces 612 00:30:59,067 --> 00:31:00,300 are virtually all white 613 00:31:00,300 --> 00:31:04,167 because people of color just don't apply, 614 00:31:04,167 --> 00:31:07,634 avoiding direct racial language and using racially coded terms 615 00:31:07,634 --> 00:31:10,801 such as urban, underprivileged, diverse, 616 00:31:10,801 --> 00:31:14,300 sketchy and good neighborhoods, 617 00:31:14,300 --> 00:31:17,434 denying that we have few cross-racial relationships 618 00:31:17,434 --> 00:31:20,601 by proclaiming how diverse our community or workplace 619 00:31:20,601 --> 00:31:23,968 is and attributing inequality between whites 620 00:31:23,968 --> 00:31:27,667 and people of color to causes other than racism. 621 00:31:27,667 --> 00:31:31,200 Consider a conversation I had with a white friend. 622 00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,567 She was telling me about a white couple 623 00:31:33,567 --> 00:31:36,534 who she knew who had just moved to New Orleans 624 00:31:36,534 --> 00:31:40,067 and bought a house for a mere $25,000. 625 00:31:42,067 --> 00:31:43,868 'Of course,' she immediately added, 626 00:31:43,868 --> 00:31:46,133 they also had to buy a gun, 627 00:31:46,133 --> 00:31:49,200 'and Joan is afraid to leave the house.' 628 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,300 I immediately knew they had bought a home 629 00:31:51,300 --> 00:31:53,634 in a Black neighborhood. 630 00:31:53,634 --> 00:31:56,400 This was a moment of white racial bonding 631 00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,667 between this couple who shared this story of racial danger 632 00:31:59,667 --> 00:32:01,200 and my friend, 633 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,133 and then between my friend and me as she repeated the story. 634 00:32:05,133 --> 00:32:08,300 Through this tale, the four of us fortified 635 00:32:08,300 --> 00:32:12,167 familiar images of the horror of Black space 636 00:32:12,167 --> 00:32:15,000 and drew boundaries between us and them 637 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,934 without ever having to directly name race 638 00:32:17,934 --> 00:32:22,234 or openly express our disdain for Black space. 639 00:32:22,234 --> 00:32:26,434 Notice that the need for a gun is a key part of this story. 640 00:32:26,434 --> 00:32:29,501 It would not have the degree of social capital it holds 641 00:32:29,501 --> 00:32:33,000 if the emphasis were on the price of the house alone. 642 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,667 Rather, the story's emotional power rests 643 00:32:35,667 --> 00:32:38,934 on why a house would be that cheap 644 00:32:38,934 --> 00:32:40,467 because it's in a Black neighborhood 645 00:32:40,467 --> 00:32:44,634 where white people literally might not get out alive, 646 00:32:44,634 --> 00:32:45,934 yet while very negative 647 00:32:45,934 --> 00:32:48,067 and stereotypical representations of Blacks 648 00:32:48,067 --> 00:32:50,033 were reinforced in that exchange, 649 00:32:50,033 --> 00:32:53,868 not naming race provided plausible deniability. 650 00:32:53,868 --> 00:32:56,734 In fact, in preparing to share this incident, 651 00:32:56,734 --> 00:33:00,734 I texted my friend and asked her the name of the city her friends 652 00:33:00,734 --> 00:33:02,267 had moved to. 653 00:33:02,267 --> 00:33:04,734 I also wanted to confirm my assumption 654 00:33:04,734 --> 00:33:07,501 that she was talking about a Black neighborhood." 655 00:33:07,501 --> 00:33:09,834 I share the text exchange here. 656 00:33:13,033 --> 00:33:15,000 "Hey, what city did you say your friends 657 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,133 had bought a house in for $25,000?" 658 00:33:18,133 --> 00:33:20,734 She replies, "New Orleans. 659 00:33:20,734 --> 00:33:22,634 They said they live in a very bad neighborhood, 660 00:33:22,634 --> 00:33:25,234 and they each have to have a gun to protect themselves. 661 00:33:25,234 --> 00:33:28,901 I wouldn't pay $0.05 for that neighborhood." 662 00:33:28,901 --> 00:33:35,200 I reply, "I assume it's a Black neighborhood?" 663 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:39,901 "Yes, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay 500,000 664 00:33:39,901 --> 00:33:43,200 and live somewhere where I wasn't afraid." 665 00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:47,067 I reply, "I wasn't asking because I want to live there. 666 00:33:47,067 --> 00:33:49,167 I'm writing about this in my book, 667 00:33:54,434 --> 00:33:56,601 the way that white people talk about race 668 00:33:56,601 --> 00:34:01,734 without ever coming out and talking about race." 669 00:34:01,734 --> 00:34:04,601 She had a very interesting response to that. 670 00:34:07,033 --> 00:34:08,534 "I wouldn't want you to live there 671 00:34:08,534 --> 00:34:10,601 because it's too far away from me." 672 00:34:15,934 --> 00:34:19,067 Notice that when I simply ask what city the house is in, 673 00:34:19,067 --> 00:34:22,801 she repeats the story about the neighborhood being so bad 674 00:34:22,801 --> 00:34:24,901 that her friends need guns. 675 00:34:24,901 --> 00:34:26,734 When I ask if the neighborhood is Black, 676 00:34:26,734 --> 00:34:29,300 she is comfortable confirming that it is, 677 00:34:29,300 --> 00:34:30,968 but when I tell her that I'm interested 678 00:34:30,968 --> 00:34:32,367 in how whites talk about race 679 00:34:32,367 --> 00:34:35,767 without talking about race, she switches the narrative. 680 00:34:35,767 --> 00:34:39,934 Now, her concern is about not wanting me to live so far away. 681 00:34:39,934 --> 00:34:43,100 This is a classic example of aversive racism, 682 00:34:43,100 --> 00:34:47,334 holding deep racial disdain that surfaces in daily discourse 683 00:34:47,334 --> 00:34:48,934 but not being able to admit it 684 00:34:48,934 --> 00:34:51,667 because the disdain conflicts with our self-image 685 00:34:51,667 --> 00:34:54,234 and professed beliefs. 686 00:34:54,234 --> 00:34:55,767 Now, readers may be asking themselves, 687 00:34:55,767 --> 00:34:57,534 "But if the neighborhood is really dangerous, 688 00:34:57,534 --> 00:35:01,501 why is acknowledging this danger a sign of racism?" 689 00:35:01,501 --> 00:35:03,033 Research in implicit bias 690 00:35:03,033 --> 00:35:05,667 has shown that perceptions of criminal activity 691 00:35:05,667 --> 00:35:07,501 are influenced by race. 692 00:35:07,501 --> 00:35:09,467 White people will perceive dangers 693 00:35:09,467 --> 00:35:12,367 simply by the presence of Black people. 694 00:35:12,367 --> 00:35:16,400 We cannot trust our perceptions when it comes to race and crime, 695 00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,734 but regardless of whether the neighborhood is actually more 696 00:35:19,734 --> 00:35:22,267 or less dangerous than other neighborhoods, 697 00:35:22,267 --> 00:35:24,567 what is salient about this exchange 698 00:35:24,567 --> 00:35:27,567 is how it functions racially 699 00:35:27,567 --> 00:35:31,234 and what that means for the white people engaged in it. 700 00:35:31,234 --> 00:35:32,534 For my friend and me, 701 00:35:32,534 --> 00:35:34,534 this conversation did not increase 702 00:35:34,534 --> 00:35:38,501 our awareness of the danger of some specific neighborhood. 703 00:35:38,501 --> 00:35:41,934 Rather, the exchange reinforced our fundamental beliefs 704 00:35:41,934 --> 00:35:43,934 about Black people. 705 00:35:43,934 --> 00:35:47,934 Toni Morrison uses the term race talk to capture, quote, 706 00:35:47,934 --> 00:35:52,534 "the explicit insertion into everyday life of racial signs 707 00:35:52,534 --> 00:35:54,934 and symbols that have no meaning 708 00:35:54,934 --> 00:35:57,734 other than positioning African Americans 709 00:35:57,734 --> 00:36:02,400 into the lowest level of the racial hierarchy," unquote. 710 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,534 Casual race talk is a key component of white racial 711 00:36:05,534 --> 00:36:09,567 framing because it accomplishes the interconnected goals 712 00:36:09,567 --> 00:36:13,434 of elevating whites while demeaning people of color. 713 00:36:13,434 --> 00:36:17,300 Race talk always implies a racial us and them. 714 00:36:19,467 --> 00:36:23,434 So folks who have seen me present before know 715 00:36:23,434 --> 00:36:25,133 that I use this metaphor, 716 00:36:25,133 --> 00:36:27,167 and I do tend to think in metaphors, 717 00:36:27,167 --> 00:36:28,667 and as I do the work that I do, 718 00:36:28,667 --> 00:36:31,100 and I talk on a daily basis to white people, 719 00:36:31,100 --> 00:36:35,167 I literally got this image in my mind of a dock or a pier, 720 00:36:35,167 --> 00:36:38,801 and what it signifies for me are two things. 721 00:36:38,801 --> 00:36:43,868 One, how surface or superficial our narratives are, 722 00:36:43,868 --> 00:36:46,367 but also the dock, if you look from above, 723 00:36:46,367 --> 00:36:51,000 appears to be floating on the water, but it's not. 724 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,801 There is an entire structure submerged under the water 725 00:36:54,801 --> 00:36:57,133 that props that dock up. 726 00:36:57,133 --> 00:37:03,300 It rests on literally pillars anchored into the ocean floor, 727 00:37:03,300 --> 00:37:05,033 and everything I do in my work 728 00:37:05,033 --> 00:37:07,400 is trying to get us off the top of the dock 729 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,367 and under there to examine those pillars 730 00:37:10,367 --> 00:37:14,334 because despite all the bull... 731 00:37:14,334 --> 00:37:19,234 on top of the dock, our outcomes have not changed. 732 00:37:19,234 --> 00:37:20,501 All right? 733 00:37:20,501 --> 00:37:22,334 So we have to ask ourself, "What's going on?" 734 00:37:22,334 --> 00:37:23,367 All right? 735 00:37:23,367 --> 00:37:25,200 So as I listen to these narratives, 736 00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:28,200 I think about them in two overall categories: 737 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:32,067 color-blind and color-celebrate. Right? 738 00:37:32,067 --> 00:37:34,968 So let's start with the first set: color-blind. 739 00:37:34,968 --> 00:37:39,667 Probably the number one color-blind racial narrative is, 740 00:37:39,667 --> 00:37:42,267 "I was taught to treat everyone the same." 741 00:37:42,267 --> 00:37:43,834 Anybody ever heard that one? 742 00:37:43,834 --> 00:37:45,501 Okay. 743 00:37:45,501 --> 00:37:48,801 Let me just tell you, when I hear this from a white person, 744 00:37:48,801 --> 00:37:53,801 and I hear it frequently, there's a bubble over my head, 745 00:37:53,801 --> 00:37:55,000 and it has a few things in it. 746 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:56,868 The first thing is, "Oh, this person 747 00:37:56,868 --> 00:38:01,167 doesn't understand basic socialization. 748 00:38:01,167 --> 00:38:04,400 This person doesn't understand culture. 749 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:10,267 Ooh, this person is not particularly self-aware, right?" 750 00:38:10,267 --> 00:38:13,434 And I need to give a heads-up to the white folks in the room. 751 00:38:13,434 --> 00:38:15,667 When people of color hear us say this, 752 00:38:15,667 --> 00:38:18,300 they're generally not thinking, "All right. 753 00:38:18,300 --> 00:38:21,367 I am talking to a woke white person right now." 754 00:38:26,567 --> 00:38:30,033 Usually some form of eye-rolling, 755 00:38:30,033 --> 00:38:31,767 and actually, it recently cofacilitated 756 00:38:31,767 --> 00:38:34,133 with a Black woman who said, 757 00:38:34,133 --> 00:38:37,634 "That is the most dangerous white person to me." 758 00:38:37,634 --> 00:38:38,901 Okay? 759 00:38:38,901 --> 00:38:41,367 So it's not functioning the way we think it is, 760 00:38:41,367 --> 00:38:43,767 and this is another piece of humility for us. 761 00:38:43,767 --> 00:38:45,767 We are the least qualified to determine 762 00:38:45,767 --> 00:38:47,167 whether we understand this or not. 763 00:38:47,167 --> 00:38:48,434 All right? 764 00:38:48,434 --> 00:38:50,300 Because so often the things that we think convey 765 00:38:50,300 --> 00:38:52,767 that are not conveying that, 766 00:38:52,767 --> 00:38:55,934 and all of these are within that, you know, 767 00:38:55,934 --> 00:38:59,834 "It's in the past, just everyone struggles. 768 00:38:59,834 --> 00:39:02,167 My parents weren't racist. That's why I'm not racist. 769 00:39:02,167 --> 00:39:05,300 Oh, my parents were racist. That's why I'm not racist." 770 00:39:05,300 --> 00:39:07,000 It doesn't matter, really, what we say first. 771 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,934 What comes next must be, "I'm not racist." 772 00:39:10,934 --> 00:39:14,300 So-and-so just happened to be, but it has nothing 773 00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:16,701 to do with race, and it also has nothing to do 774 00:39:16,701 --> 00:39:20,367 with why no one in the office gets along with her. 775 00:39:20,367 --> 00:39:22,367 And this is another one I actually ask white folks 776 00:39:22,367 --> 00:39:23,868 to remove from their vocabulary, 777 00:39:23,868 --> 00:39:26,000 oh, by the way, along with reverse racism, 778 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,400 which there's no such thing. 779 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,634 All right? Right? 780 00:39:31,634 --> 00:39:32,901 Remove from your vocabulary 781 00:39:32,901 --> 00:39:35,167 anything on the topic of race that begins with, 782 00:39:35,167 --> 00:39:37,267 "Just happened to be, regardless," 783 00:39:37,267 --> 00:39:40,234 including that your neighborhood just happened to be white. 784 00:39:40,234 --> 00:39:43,801 All right? 785 00:39:43,801 --> 00:39:48,567 "Yes, but at the human level," 786 00:39:48,567 --> 00:39:52,667 when we make that move, right, get race off the table, 787 00:39:52,667 --> 00:39:56,334 and let's position some kind of shared universal experience. 788 00:39:56,334 --> 00:40:00,200 There isn't one in this physical plane that we live in, 789 00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:04,767 in a society deeply separate and unequal by race, right? 790 00:40:04,767 --> 00:40:06,634 So I call these color-blind because they basically say, 791 00:40:06,634 --> 00:40:07,968 "I don't see it, and if I see it, 792 00:40:07,968 --> 00:40:09,634 it has no meaning." 793 00:40:09,634 --> 00:40:14,400 And there's a question that has never failed me in my efforts 794 00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:19,567 to uncover how we pull this off, right, and that question is not, 795 00:40:19,567 --> 00:40:21,400 "Is this true, or is this false?" 796 00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:22,634 because if we apply that question, 797 00:40:22,634 --> 00:40:24,701 we're going to argue and argue and argue. 798 00:40:24,701 --> 00:40:27,701 The question that has never failed me is, 799 00:40:27,701 --> 00:40:31,601 "How do these narratives function in the conversation? 800 00:40:31,601 --> 00:40:38,133 How does it function?" and if we ask that question, 801 00:40:38,133 --> 00:40:41,167 we can see that all of these narratives function 802 00:40:41,167 --> 00:40:44,934 to exempt the person from any part of the problem. 803 00:40:44,934 --> 00:40:47,467 All of them take race off the table. 804 00:40:47,467 --> 00:40:52,067 All of them close rather than open the exploration, 805 00:40:52,067 --> 00:40:54,200 and in doing that, all of them protect 806 00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:55,634 the current racial hierarchy 807 00:40:55,634 --> 00:40:58,501 and the white position within it. 808 00:40:58,501 --> 00:41:00,701 It doesn't have to be your intention, 809 00:41:00,701 --> 00:41:01,834 and I'll just be blunt. 810 00:41:01,834 --> 00:41:03,667 I'm not interested in your intention. 811 00:41:03,667 --> 00:41:05,501 I'm interested in how this functions. 812 00:41:05,501 --> 00:41:07,300 What is the impact of these narratives? 813 00:41:07,300 --> 00:41:10,434 They are closers, not openers. 814 00:41:10,434 --> 00:41:12,334 Well, probably the folks in this room, 815 00:41:12,334 --> 00:41:15,234 we're beyond color blindness, right? 816 00:41:15,234 --> 00:41:18,434 What do we say? 817 00:41:18,434 --> 00:41:21,234 Right? 818 00:41:21,234 --> 00:41:23,567 Where's my little clicker? 819 00:41:23,567 --> 00:41:26,501 Here it is, okay. 820 00:41:26,501 --> 00:41:27,400 Hm. 821 00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:28,734 We say things like this, 822 00:41:28,734 --> 00:41:33,167 "Oh, I work in a very diverse environment." 823 00:41:33,167 --> 00:41:35,968 If we can't say that, and many of us can't, 824 00:41:35,968 --> 00:41:40,701 we'll come up with some kind of proximity, okay? 825 00:41:40,701 --> 00:41:43,834 "I have people of color in my family. Me? 826 00:41:43,834 --> 00:41:46,033 I'm not racist. I used to live in New York." 827 00:41:51,133 --> 00:41:52,634 This one will get used interchangeably with, 828 00:41:52,634 --> 00:41:56,033 "I'm not racist. I'm from Canada. 829 00:41:56,033 --> 00:41:59,601 I'm not racist. I'm from Hawaii. I'm not racist. 830 00:41:59,601 --> 00:42:05,968 I'm from Europe. I'm not racist. I was in the military." 831 00:42:05,968 --> 00:42:09,200 Apparently, there are no racism in any of those places. 832 00:42:11,634 --> 00:42:13,067 When I hear that one, "I used to live in New York," 833 00:42:13,067 --> 00:42:14,934 I always think, "Oh, my God, you walked by people of color 834 00:42:14,934 --> 00:42:16,234 and didn't lose your shit? 835 00:42:16,234 --> 00:42:18,767 That's amazing." 836 00:42:18,767 --> 00:42:21,701 Okay, so how many of you, 837 00:42:21,701 --> 00:42:23,367 in a conversation with a white person, 838 00:42:23,367 --> 00:42:26,000 have heard some version of those narratives right there, 839 00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:27,334 those three? 840 00:42:27,334 --> 00:42:29,133 Okay. Right? 841 00:42:29,133 --> 00:42:30,467 And if we're going to be really honest, 842 00:42:30,467 --> 00:42:32,834 we've said some version of these narratives, right? 843 00:42:32,834 --> 00:42:35,934 That last one, sociologists actually have a term for it. 844 00:42:35,934 --> 00:42:37,934 It's called the inoculation case. 845 00:42:37,934 --> 00:42:39,167 "I've been near people of color, 846 00:42:39,167 --> 00:42:41,133 and it stripped me of my racism." 847 00:42:44,467 --> 00:42:45,834 And I want you to notice 848 00:42:45,834 --> 00:42:50,501 how often white people invoke proximity as evidence. 849 00:42:50,501 --> 00:42:52,868 This is important because it helps reveal 850 00:42:52,868 --> 00:42:55,100 what's under the dock. 851 00:42:55,100 --> 00:42:58,133 It helps reveal what we think racism is, 852 00:42:58,133 --> 00:43:02,767 that we would invoke proximity to show that we're not racist, 853 00:43:02,767 --> 00:43:05,601 and I need to understand what I think racism is 854 00:43:05,601 --> 00:43:08,667 if I'm going to impact my role in it, right? 855 00:43:08,667 --> 00:43:11,033 So let's do some discourse analysis. 856 00:43:11,033 --> 00:43:14,400 Let's think critically about these three narratives. 857 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:16,501 When a white person invokes one of these narratives 858 00:43:16,501 --> 00:43:18,267 in a conversation about racism, 859 00:43:18,267 --> 00:43:20,467 they're giving you their evidence, right? 860 00:43:20,467 --> 00:43:22,067 Racism comes up. I say this. 861 00:43:22,067 --> 00:43:23,501 This is my evidence. 862 00:43:23,501 --> 00:43:26,434 In my mind, what's that "my evidence" of? 863 00:43:26,434 --> 00:43:27,667 What do I want to make sure you know? 864 00:43:27,667 --> 00:43:30,467 -You're not racist. -I'm not racist. 865 00:43:30,467 --> 00:43:31,467 Right? 866 00:43:31,467 --> 00:43:34,000 So in order to be good evidence, 867 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,801 it must distinguish me from a racist. 868 00:43:36,801 --> 00:43:39,767 So apparently, a racist cannot do these things, 869 00:43:39,767 --> 00:43:42,234 or this wouldn't be good evidence. 870 00:43:42,234 --> 00:43:44,334 So a racist cannot work three cubicles 871 00:43:44,334 --> 00:43:45,934 down from a person of color, 872 00:43:48,067 --> 00:43:50,334 could not have people of color in their family 873 00:43:50,334 --> 00:43:53,033 and would find living in New York intolerable 874 00:43:53,033 --> 00:43:54,801 even though I could think of at least one racist 875 00:43:54,801 --> 00:43:56,400 that lives in New York, so... 876 00:44:02,334 --> 00:44:04,868 Now, I have yet to let go of that little joke 877 00:44:04,868 --> 00:44:06,200 because I do enjoy it, 878 00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:09,300 but it does rest on the good/bad binary. 879 00:44:09,300 --> 00:44:12,400 I'm on the same continuum the person I'm thinking of is on. 880 00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,200 Just want to be clear about that. 881 00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:18,367 Okay, so I'm going to just ask a rhetorical question 882 00:44:18,367 --> 00:44:19,567 to the people of color in this room, 883 00:44:19,567 --> 00:44:20,767 and I'm going to look at my dear friend 884 00:44:20,767 --> 00:44:22,834 Aisha over there and Paula. 885 00:44:22,834 --> 00:44:24,567 And I'm going to say, 886 00:44:24,567 --> 00:44:27,334 "Could a racist work three cubicles down from you?" 887 00:44:30,467 --> 00:44:31,868 Hell yes. 888 00:44:31,868 --> 00:44:33,234 Right? 889 00:44:33,234 --> 00:44:35,767 People of color, do you have white people in your life 890 00:44:35,767 --> 00:44:39,834 who you love deeply and who, on occasion, 891 00:44:39,834 --> 00:44:43,501 reveal their internalized racial superiority... 892 00:44:43,501 --> 00:44:44,868 -Yes. -... 893 00:44:44,868 --> 00:44:46,467 their internalized racist assumptions about the world? 894 00:44:46,467 --> 00:44:47,434 -Yes. -Yup. 895 00:44:47,434 --> 00:44:49,234 -White people, do you hear that? 896 00:44:49,234 --> 00:44:50,300 Could you even be married to them... 897 00:44:50,300 --> 00:44:51,501 -Yup. -Yeah. 898 00:44:51,501 --> 00:44:53,567 -...and they could still... 899 00:44:53,567 --> 00:44:55,234 It doesn't disappear the day they fall in love with you? 900 00:44:55,234 --> 00:44:58,767 Okay. 901 00:44:58,767 --> 00:44:59,868 Right? 902 00:44:59,868 --> 00:45:02,300 So I hope we... 903 00:45:02,300 --> 00:45:05,234 I mock it a bit because it's ridiculous, right? 904 00:45:05,234 --> 00:45:08,000 But it's so ubiquitous, 905 00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,467 so we really just got to ask ourselves, 906 00:45:10,467 --> 00:45:12,234 "What do I think it is, and what am I saying, 907 00:45:12,234 --> 00:45:14,234 and how is that functioning, right?" 908 00:45:14,234 --> 00:45:18,300 And clearly, this rests on that simplistic definition. 909 00:45:18,300 --> 00:45:20,501 Apparently, a lot of white people think 910 00:45:20,501 --> 00:45:24,167 that a racist cannot tolerate any proximity, 911 00:45:24,167 --> 00:45:26,767 even the sight of people of color, 912 00:45:26,767 --> 00:45:28,767 and so if there's any friendliness across race, 913 00:45:28,767 --> 00:45:31,234 there cannot be racism. 914 00:45:31,234 --> 00:45:33,968 This is another thing that makes us so difficult 915 00:45:33,968 --> 00:45:36,234 in these conversations, right? 916 00:45:36,234 --> 00:45:38,067 So I'm just going to put it right out here. 917 00:45:38,067 --> 00:45:40,367 As a result of being born and raised as a white person 918 00:45:40,367 --> 00:45:44,000 in this culture, I have a racist worldview. 919 00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,300 I have deep, racist biases. 920 00:45:46,300 --> 00:45:48,968 I have developed racist patterns, 921 00:45:48,968 --> 00:45:50,901 and I have investments in a system 922 00:45:50,901 --> 00:45:53,133 that has served me very well and is very comfortable for me, 923 00:45:53,133 --> 00:45:54,701 and it really helped me get over sexist 924 00:45:54,701 --> 00:45:57,367 and classism that I struggle with. 925 00:45:57,367 --> 00:46:01,334 And I also have investments in not seeing any of that, 926 00:46:01,334 --> 00:46:03,033 for what it would mean for my identity 927 00:46:03,033 --> 00:46:06,801 and what it would require of me in action, right? 928 00:46:06,801 --> 00:46:08,801 I can choose it. Don't want it. 929 00:46:08,801 --> 00:46:10,467 Got it. 930 00:46:10,467 --> 00:46:13,000 And it's actually incredibly transformative 931 00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,133 and liberating to begin from that premise 932 00:46:17,133 --> 00:46:18,200 so that you can begin to think, 933 00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:20,767 "Well, how is it coming out in me?" 934 00:46:20,767 --> 00:46:23,234 so that I might be able to stop that or ameliorate 935 00:46:23,234 --> 00:46:27,100 that rather than, "It's not coming out in me." 936 00:46:27,100 --> 00:46:30,234 I sometimes think, if I went into the bathroom, 937 00:46:30,234 --> 00:46:31,934 and I came out, and the back of my dress 938 00:46:31,934 --> 00:46:33,400 was hiked into my pantyhose, 939 00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:38,033 and my ass was showing, I sure hope you'd let me know. 940 00:46:38,033 --> 00:46:39,634 And I wouldn't say to you, 941 00:46:39,634 --> 00:46:42,601 "How dare you suggest my ass is showing? 942 00:46:42,601 --> 00:46:45,767 And you better proceed as if it isn't!" 943 00:46:50,467 --> 00:46:53,434 And yet the worst fear of a white progressive 944 00:46:53,434 --> 00:46:55,200 is that we're going to say or do something racist, 945 00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,000 but, "By God, don't you dare say 946 00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,501 that I just said or did something racist," 947 00:46:59,501 --> 00:47:04,334 rather than, "Thank you. I didn't see myself doing that, 948 00:47:04,334 --> 00:47:06,334 and now I can do something different." 949 00:47:06,334 --> 00:47:07,601 All right. 950 00:47:07,601 --> 00:47:09,601 "I was in the Peace Corps. I marched in the '60s. 951 00:47:09,601 --> 00:47:12,434 I voted for Obama. I'm on the Equity Team." 952 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,000 Okay, go on. 953 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:18,334 I already know all this. I told you. 954 00:47:18,334 --> 00:47:22,901 I've been to Costa Rica and tutored there 955 00:47:22,901 --> 00:47:26,300 for a week with the little children, 956 00:47:26,300 --> 00:47:31,834 and this is a real Seattle one. 957 00:47:31,834 --> 00:47:33,767 "We don't like how white our neighborhood is, 958 00:47:33,767 --> 00:47:37,100 but we had to move here for the schools. 959 00:47:37,100 --> 00:47:39,434 What could we do?" 960 00:47:39,434 --> 00:47:40,868 I think it's very disingenuous. 961 00:47:40,868 --> 00:47:43,400 I think we do like how white our neighborhoods are, 962 00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,501 and that's another conversation. 963 00:47:45,501 --> 00:47:47,067 Right? So these are not color-blind. 964 00:47:47,067 --> 00:47:48,067 These are color-celebrate. 965 00:47:48,067 --> 00:47:49,601 I love it, right? 966 00:47:49,601 --> 00:47:50,901 And I'm going to just say this. 967 00:47:50,901 --> 00:47:53,400 I love it in the right doses. 968 00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,100 I like it in the Montessori School 969 00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:57,100 with the children of the international workers 970 00:47:57,100 --> 00:47:58,868 that come from Microsoft. 971 00:48:01,501 --> 00:48:05,033 Right? 972 00:48:05,033 --> 00:48:08,534 So again, if we apply the same question, 973 00:48:08,534 --> 00:48:10,234 not true, fault or right, wrong, 974 00:48:10,234 --> 00:48:13,067 but how do these narratives function in the conversation? 975 00:48:13,067 --> 00:48:15,167 We get the same answer. 976 00:48:15,167 --> 00:48:18,067 They all exempt the person from any part of the problem. 977 00:48:18,067 --> 00:48:19,934 They all take race off the table. 978 00:48:19,934 --> 00:48:21,968 They all close rather than open, 979 00:48:21,968 --> 00:48:24,834 and they all protect the current racial hierarchy 980 00:48:24,834 --> 00:48:26,267 and the white position within it. 981 00:48:26,267 --> 00:48:28,467 They're actually in practice and impact, 982 00:48:28,467 --> 00:48:31,033 not any more progressive, 983 00:48:31,033 --> 00:48:33,167 and they have not changed our outcomes. 984 00:48:33,167 --> 00:48:38,968 So we have to get under here and see what's going on, 985 00:48:38,968 --> 00:48:40,501 and what I think is going on, 986 00:48:40,501 --> 00:48:45,067 what I think of as the linchpins of new racism, right, 987 00:48:45,067 --> 00:48:48,367 is the good/bad binary, man, that one is really effective; 988 00:48:48,367 --> 00:48:52,100 deep, implicit bias, which you can't help but absorb, 989 00:48:52,100 --> 00:48:55,701 this precious ideology of individualism. 990 00:48:55,701 --> 00:48:59,100 At the same time, this idea that we don't speak 991 00:48:59,100 --> 00:49:03,167 from any particular position but speak for all of humanity, 992 00:49:03,167 --> 00:49:05,334 and people of color speak for their group, 993 00:49:05,334 --> 00:49:07,834 and when we're interested in hearing about that, 994 00:49:07,834 --> 00:49:12,367 we'll ask them, but we'll cover everything else, right? 995 00:49:12,367 --> 00:49:14,467 Any people of color get asked to be on the Equity Team 996 00:49:14,467 --> 00:49:20,534 automatically when it's not even necessarily your interest or... 997 00:49:20,534 --> 00:49:22,701 Okay. 998 00:49:22,701 --> 00:49:25,334 Internalized superiority, which you cannot help 999 00:49:25,334 --> 00:49:28,534 but you have if you are raised white in this culture, 1000 00:49:28,534 --> 00:49:32,167 and in some level and investment of not seeing this, 1001 00:49:32,167 --> 00:49:35,901 and finally, the power of segregation 1002 00:49:35,901 --> 00:49:37,501 to hold it all in place. 1003 00:49:39,534 --> 00:49:42,434 I think, for me, the most profound message of all 1004 00:49:42,434 --> 00:49:44,801 is that I could call a white neighborhood good. 1005 00:49:44,801 --> 00:49:47,801 I could call a school filled with all white teachers 1006 00:49:47,801 --> 00:49:50,834 and white children a good school, 1007 00:49:50,834 --> 00:49:54,100 but the fundamental message is that there's no inherent value 1008 00:49:54,100 --> 00:49:58,934 in the perspectives or experiences of people of color. 1009 00:49:58,934 --> 00:50:06,300 So these messages are raining down on us relentlessly, 24-7, 1010 00:50:06,300 --> 00:50:09,767 and we don't have umbrellas, and nothing could, 1011 00:50:09,767 --> 00:50:13,234 and nothing did exempt us from their forces. 1012 00:50:13,234 --> 00:50:16,701 It's on us to figure out how they shape us, not if. 1013 00:50:16,701 --> 00:50:20,234 All right? 1014 00:50:20,234 --> 00:50:25,767 So all of this sets up some patterns. 1015 00:50:25,767 --> 00:50:29,334 All right? 1016 00:50:29,334 --> 00:50:31,901 Preference for racial segregation, 1017 00:50:31,901 --> 00:50:34,200 lack of understanding what racism is, 1018 00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:36,634 seeing ourselves as individuals, 1019 00:50:36,634 --> 00:50:39,100 not understanding that we bring our history with us. 1020 00:50:39,100 --> 00:50:41,000 History matters. 1021 00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:42,767 It's a history of harm. 1022 00:50:45,167 --> 00:50:49,267 Assuming everyone is having our experience, arrogance, 1023 00:50:49,267 --> 00:50:53,100 lack of humility, unwillingness to listen, 1024 00:50:53,100 --> 00:50:56,200 dismissing what we don't understand, 1025 00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:58,100 apathy towards racial justice. 1026 00:50:58,100 --> 00:51:01,033 After, again, 20-plus years, I think most white people 1027 00:51:01,033 --> 00:51:03,767 are pretty apathetic about racial injustice. 1028 00:51:07,067 --> 00:51:08,968 Inability to or lack of interest 1029 00:51:08,968 --> 00:51:12,667 in sustaining relationships with people of color, 1030 00:51:12,667 --> 00:51:14,968 wanting to jump over the the hard personal work 1031 00:51:14,968 --> 00:51:18,834 and get to solutions, 1032 00:51:18,834 --> 00:51:23,200 confusing not agreeing with not understanding. 1033 00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:25,334 Is it possible that you're not actually informed 1034 00:51:25,334 --> 00:51:26,734 enough to disagree? 1035 00:51:26,734 --> 00:51:31,067 Have you ever had someone say, "No, you misunderstood. 1036 00:51:31,067 --> 00:51:32,634 No, you misunderstood." 1037 00:51:32,634 --> 00:51:35,434 What if the person understood you perfectly, 1038 00:51:35,434 --> 00:51:37,334 in fact, they even understood what you meant, 1039 00:51:37,334 --> 00:51:39,400 and you don't understand how what you meant 1040 00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,501 comes from a racist framework? 1041 00:51:42,501 --> 00:51:44,100 Right? 1042 00:51:46,234 --> 00:51:49,067 A need to maintain white solidarity, right? 1043 00:51:49,067 --> 00:51:51,033 That's the unspoken agreement amongst white people 1044 00:51:51,033 --> 00:51:55,734 that we'll keep each other comfortable around our racism. 1045 00:51:55,734 --> 00:51:57,868 Highest priority is saving face. 1046 00:51:57,868 --> 00:51:59,033 I always like to say... 1047 00:51:59,033 --> 00:52:00,701 When I do a caucus group or something, 1048 00:52:00,701 --> 00:52:04,167 and the white people are afraid I might think they're racist, 1049 00:52:04,167 --> 00:52:05,834 I think you're racist. 1050 00:52:05,834 --> 00:52:10,667 I do because I think I am, too, right? 1051 00:52:10,667 --> 00:52:12,634 But, yeah, let's be done with that. 1052 00:52:12,634 --> 00:52:15,501 And actually, your carefulness and your hiding yourself 1053 00:52:15,501 --> 00:52:17,200 and your not contributing to the conversation 1054 00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:19,901 won't actually change that assessment at all, 1055 00:52:19,901 --> 00:52:24,934 and people of color don't find that to build trust. 1056 00:52:24,934 --> 00:52:26,901 Right? 1057 00:52:26,901 --> 00:52:29,200 Defensiveness, of course, 1058 00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,067 and a focus on intentions over impact, 1059 00:52:33,067 --> 00:52:38,033 so when any of this is triggered, 1060 00:52:38,033 --> 00:52:42,067 we get off our white racial equilibrium. 1061 00:52:42,067 --> 00:52:43,534 Right? 1062 00:52:43,534 --> 00:52:45,901 So what is white racial equilibrium? 1063 00:52:45,901 --> 00:52:49,634 Well, racial comfort, that's for sure, 1064 00:52:49,634 --> 00:52:51,300 seeing ourselves as individuals, 1065 00:52:51,300 --> 00:52:55,767 seeing ourselves as just human, obliviousness. 1066 00:52:55,767 --> 00:52:58,033 Well, it's this funny... 1067 00:52:58,033 --> 00:52:59,767 There's a stew inside of white people 1068 00:52:59,767 --> 00:53:02,100 that makes us really irrational on this topic, 1069 00:53:02,100 --> 00:53:05,300 and I've tried to kind of identify some of those pieces, 1070 00:53:05,300 --> 00:53:06,834 but one if them is that we really 1071 00:53:06,834 --> 00:53:09,033 are taught not to see this. 1072 00:53:09,033 --> 00:53:12,100 So if you're a person of color scratching your head thinking, 1073 00:53:12,100 --> 00:53:14,300 "How can they not see this? 1074 00:53:14,300 --> 00:53:17,200 I just don't believe they don't see this." 1075 00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:19,701 We actually really don't see it. 1076 00:53:19,701 --> 00:53:21,634 Oh, and, hell yes, we know it. 1077 00:53:21,634 --> 00:53:25,701 And we do see it, but we cannot admit that. 1078 00:53:25,701 --> 00:53:27,901 Both these things are actually true. 1079 00:53:27,901 --> 00:53:30,667 We don't see it, and we do see it but can't admit to it. 1080 00:53:30,667 --> 00:53:35,434 And it's part of what makes us so irrational, right? 1081 00:53:35,434 --> 00:53:39,334 Apathy, dominance, control. 1082 00:53:42,767 --> 00:53:47,000 I'm working on this huge contract with racial justice 1083 00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:48,367 for a large organization, 1084 00:53:48,367 --> 00:53:50,767 and they asked us to take the word white 1085 00:53:50,767 --> 00:53:52,334 out of all the slides. 1086 00:53:54,834 --> 00:53:58,701 That's a great example, isn't it, of white fragility? 1087 00:53:58,701 --> 00:54:00,667 So don't name white. 1088 00:54:00,667 --> 00:54:03,067 Don't name... 1089 00:54:03,067 --> 00:54:06,267 That's our racial equilibrium, right? 1090 00:54:06,267 --> 00:54:09,701 And entitlement to people of color's bodies... 1091 00:54:12,467 --> 00:54:13,434 -Yes! 1092 00:54:13,434 --> 00:54:14,834 -Russell Minnikin talks about... 1093 00:54:14,834 --> 00:54:17,968 It's really been only in the last couple of decades 1094 00:54:17,968 --> 00:54:23,501 that people of color have had dominion over their own bodies. 1095 00:54:23,501 --> 00:54:26,167 And so entitlement to people of color's bodies 1096 00:54:26,167 --> 00:54:28,300 comes out in lots of ways, right, 1097 00:54:28,300 --> 00:54:32,300 from just violating the space to touching the bodies, 1098 00:54:32,300 --> 00:54:35,667 to expecting you to carry the emotional burden of race, 1099 00:54:35,667 --> 00:54:38,501 all of that, but you want to know, 1100 00:54:38,501 --> 00:54:42,334 for me, a really great example of the white fragility triggered 1101 00:54:42,334 --> 00:54:45,934 when my entitlement or white entitlement to Black bodies 1102 00:54:45,934 --> 00:54:48,434 is a man quietly, 1103 00:54:48,434 --> 00:54:54,834 solemnly and respectfully going on one knee, 1104 00:54:54,834 --> 00:54:59,934 and the eruption, right, the criminalization, right? 1105 00:55:03,934 --> 00:55:07,000 The great example of white fragility 1106 00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:08,868 connected to this last bullet here 1107 00:55:08,868 --> 00:55:13,534 is the eruption of umbrage and criminalization 1108 00:55:13,534 --> 00:55:18,133 when a Black man simply went down on one knee respectfully. 1109 00:55:18,133 --> 00:55:24,968 Talking about Colin Kaepernick, what an example! 1110 00:55:27,934 --> 00:55:31,834 So what interrupts our racial equilibrium? 1111 00:55:31,834 --> 00:55:36,300 Well, if you challenge objectivity, 1112 00:55:36,300 --> 00:55:40,434 if you talk openly about race, all right, 1113 00:55:40,434 --> 00:55:43,334 if you challenge white entitlement to racial comfort, 1114 00:55:45,367 --> 00:55:48,234 if you challenge the expectation that people of color 1115 00:55:48,234 --> 00:55:50,667 will serve us and do our work for us, 1116 00:55:53,067 --> 00:55:55,701 if you break with white solidarity, 1117 00:55:58,901 --> 00:56:02,300 you challenge white racial innocence. 1118 00:56:02,300 --> 00:56:03,667 Right? Oh, and by the way, 1119 00:56:03,667 --> 00:56:08,434 you can download all this on handouts from my website. 1120 00:56:08,434 --> 00:56:11,234 Oh, oh, wait a minute, and it's in the book. 1121 00:56:11,234 --> 00:56:13,968 It's in the book. 1122 00:56:13,968 --> 00:56:15,868 Right? 1123 00:56:15,868 --> 00:56:19,133 Challenge to individualism, challenge to meritocracy, 1124 00:56:19,133 --> 00:56:22,033 challenge to white authority, 1125 00:56:22,033 --> 00:56:26,300 all right, challenge to white centrality, 1126 00:56:26,300 --> 00:56:29,734 challenge to universalism, right, suggesting that maybe, 1127 00:56:29,734 --> 00:56:31,801 in fact, we don't speak for all of humanity. 1128 00:56:31,801 --> 00:56:34,901 We speak from a particular perspective, 1129 00:56:34,901 --> 00:56:38,167 and it's deeply limited, okay? 1130 00:56:38,167 --> 00:56:41,300 So this leads to white fragility. 1131 00:56:44,033 --> 00:56:46,801 And we actually have the poster boy for white fragility 1132 00:56:46,801 --> 00:56:50,767 right here in the front row because I'm married to him, 1133 00:56:50,767 --> 00:56:52,834 and I made him pose in the kitchen. 1134 00:56:56,534 --> 00:56:57,701 And he's like, "Everyone is going to think 1135 00:56:57,701 --> 00:56:58,734 I'm an asshole now!" 1136 00:56:58,734 --> 00:57:01,133 I'm like, "Mm-hmm. Yeah, they are." 1137 00:57:05,634 --> 00:57:07,734 Open the dictionary. Look up "white fragility." 1138 00:57:07,734 --> 00:57:08,868 They're going to see your picture. 1139 00:57:08,868 --> 00:57:10,501 Okay, so back to something more serious. 1140 00:57:10,501 --> 00:57:12,467 Right? I couldn't resist. 1141 00:57:14,834 --> 00:57:18,701 So when all of this insular, 1142 00:57:18,701 --> 00:57:26,167 coddled environment builds an inability to bear witness, 1143 00:57:26,167 --> 00:57:31,334 an inability to have capacity to hold the discomfort, 1144 00:57:31,334 --> 00:57:32,734 I've been thinking lately that part 1145 00:57:32,734 --> 00:57:39,133 of what it means to be white is to never have to bear witness 1146 00:57:39,133 --> 00:57:42,367 to the pain of racism on people of color 1147 00:57:42,367 --> 00:57:44,400 and never having to bear witness to the pain 1148 00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:46,334 I've caused to people of color, 1149 00:57:46,334 --> 00:57:50,567 never having to be accountable to that pain, all right, 1150 00:57:50,567 --> 00:57:56,467 and all the ways that I push off accountability, right? 1151 00:57:56,467 --> 00:58:01,100 And so when I thought of this term "white fragility," 1152 00:58:01,100 --> 00:58:04,367 the fragility part, we're fragile in that 1153 00:58:04,367 --> 00:58:08,033 we can barely tolerate the slightest challenge, right? 1154 00:58:08,033 --> 00:58:11,100 I mean, I'll show you my e-mails. 1155 00:58:11,100 --> 00:58:14,567 Just the suggestion that being white has meaning 1156 00:58:14,567 --> 00:58:17,834 will set us off, but there's a continuum. 1157 00:58:19,901 --> 00:58:22,100 And so we're fragile in that way, 1158 00:58:22,100 --> 00:58:26,067 but it's not fragile at all in its impact. 1159 00:58:26,067 --> 00:58:28,601 It's really effective, right? 1160 00:58:28,601 --> 00:58:33,200 "I need you to stop. I need to get back into my position 1161 00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:34,734 and my entitlement and my comfort, 1162 00:58:34,734 --> 00:58:39,334 and I will do what I need to do to get you to stop." 1163 00:58:39,334 --> 00:58:41,968 And I think that white fragility functions 1164 00:58:41,968 --> 00:58:47,033 as a kind of white racial bullying. 1165 00:58:47,033 --> 00:58:50,033 We make it so miserable for people of color 1166 00:58:50,033 --> 00:58:52,701 to talk to us about their experiences, 1167 00:58:52,701 --> 00:58:56,601 to call us in, that most of the time they don't 1168 00:58:56,601 --> 00:59:01,334 because it's not worth getting punished more. 1169 00:59:01,334 --> 00:59:02,801 Trust me. 1170 00:59:02,801 --> 00:59:08,334 They take home so much of it because it so rarely goes well. 1171 00:59:08,334 --> 00:59:09,667 Right? 1172 00:59:09,667 --> 00:59:10,634 And I'm just going to ask a rhetorical question 1173 00:59:10,634 --> 00:59:11,834 to people of color in the room. 1174 00:59:11,834 --> 00:59:13,067 How often have you tried to talk to white people 1175 00:59:13,067 --> 00:59:16,100 about our inevitable and often racist behaviors 1176 00:59:16,100 --> 00:59:21,133 and have that go well for you? Okay. 1177 00:59:21,133 --> 00:59:24,567 I mean, literally, not even once, right? 1178 00:59:24,567 --> 00:59:29,200 And so it's weaponized defensiveness. 1179 00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,367 It's weaponized hurt feelings. 1180 00:59:31,367 --> 00:59:35,868 It's weaponized denial and obliviousness, 1181 00:59:35,868 --> 00:59:38,501 and so I'm not the 1 percent. 1182 00:59:38,501 --> 00:59:41,267 I've never even been a manager, 1183 00:59:41,267 --> 00:59:43,434 but I can control the people of color 1184 00:59:43,434 --> 00:59:47,133 in my orbit through white fragility, right? 1185 00:59:47,133 --> 00:59:48,701 And so I also think of it 1186 00:59:48,701 --> 00:59:52,734 as a form of everyday white racial control. 1187 00:59:52,734 --> 00:59:55,901 "You can be in my orbit, 1188 00:59:55,901 --> 00:59:59,133 and I'll use you as diversity cover 1189 00:59:59,133 --> 01:00:02,200 as long as you keep me comfortable. 1190 01:00:02,200 --> 01:00:05,501 But if you challenge me, you're going to become 1191 01:00:05,501 --> 01:00:08,033 a personal problem, and you're going to be ejected," 1192 01:00:08,033 --> 01:00:09,467 and, boy, do we see this in the workplace. 1193 01:00:09,467 --> 01:00:11,367 "We want you on the committee. 1194 01:00:11,367 --> 01:00:12,767 We're not going to pay you anymore, 1195 01:00:12,767 --> 01:00:15,067 but we do want you on the committee 1196 01:00:15,067 --> 01:00:16,400 as long as you don't actually do 1197 01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:18,267 what we asked you to be on the committee to do." 1198 01:00:18,267 --> 01:00:19,868 -Yes. -Right. 1199 01:00:23,300 --> 01:00:24,901 Right? 1200 01:00:28,634 --> 01:00:31,033 Oh, I got to read a piece from 112. 1201 01:00:40,634 --> 01:00:42,767 I got a story that I really want to read. 1202 01:00:48,434 --> 01:00:49,601 Okay. 1203 01:00:49,601 --> 01:00:52,234 "So I was working with a group of educators 1204 01:00:52,234 --> 01:00:55,100 who had been meeting regularly for at least eight sessions. 1205 01:00:55,100 --> 01:00:57,200 The group was composed of the equity teams 1206 01:00:57,200 --> 01:01:00,467 for a public school system, self-selected by people 1207 01:01:00,467 --> 01:01:03,734 who wanted to support equity efforts in their schools. 1208 01:01:03,734 --> 01:01:08,000 I had just finished an hour-long presentation titled 1209 01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:09,801 Seeing the Water: Whiteness in Daily Life.' 1210 01:01:09,801 --> 01:01:12,934 This presentation is designed to make visible 1211 01:01:12,934 --> 01:01:16,334 the relentless messages of white superiority, et cetera. 1212 01:01:16,334 --> 01:01:17,901 The room appeared to be with me, 1213 01:01:17,901 --> 01:01:21,801 open and receptive with many nodding along in agreement. 1214 01:01:21,801 --> 01:01:23,501 Then a white teacher raised her hand 1215 01:01:23,501 --> 01:01:25,267 and told a story about an interaction 1216 01:01:25,267 --> 01:01:27,567 she had as she drove alongside a group of parents 1217 01:01:27,567 --> 01:01:31,200 protesting the achievement gap in her school, 1218 01:01:31,200 --> 01:01:33,801 and she then proceeded to imitate one mother 1219 01:01:33,801 --> 01:01:37,667 in particular who offended her. 1220 01:01:37,667 --> 01:01:39,400 'You don't understand our children,' 1221 01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:42,868 this mother had called out to her as she drove by. 1222 01:01:42,868 --> 01:01:44,868 By the stereotypical way that the white teacher 1223 01:01:44,868 --> 01:01:49,901 imitated the mother, we all knew that the mother was Black. 1224 01:01:49,901 --> 01:01:52,067 The room seemed to collectively hold its breath 1225 01:01:52,067 --> 01:01:56,734 at her imitation, which was bordering on racial mockery. 1226 01:01:56,734 --> 01:01:59,834 While the teacher's concluding point was that on reflection, 1227 01:01:59,834 --> 01:02:02,400 she came to realize that the mother was right 1228 01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:05,534 and that she really didn't understand children of color, 1229 01:02:05,534 --> 01:02:07,334 the emotional thrust of the story 1230 01:02:07,334 --> 01:02:11,701 was her umbrage at the mother for making this assumption. 1231 01:02:11,701 --> 01:02:14,033 For the room, the emotional impact 1232 01:02:14,033 --> 01:02:16,067 was on her stereotypical imitation 1233 01:02:16,067 --> 01:02:18,367 of an angry Black woman. 1234 01:02:18,367 --> 01:02:22,100 As this story came to a close, I had a decision to make. 1235 01:02:22,100 --> 01:02:23,601 Should I act with integrity 1236 01:02:23,601 --> 01:02:26,901 and point out what was racially problematic about this story? 1237 01:02:26,901 --> 01:02:29,300 After all, making racism visible 1238 01:02:29,300 --> 01:02:32,634 was literally what I had been hired to do. 1239 01:02:32,634 --> 01:02:34,868 Further, several African American teachers 1240 01:02:34,868 --> 01:02:36,367 in the room had certainly noticed 1241 01:02:36,367 --> 01:02:39,200 the reinforcement of a racist stereotype. 1242 01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:42,868 To not intervene would be, yet again, another white person 1243 01:02:42,868 --> 01:02:44,767 choosing to protect white feelings 1244 01:02:44,767 --> 01:02:46,701 rather than interrupt racism, 1245 01:02:46,701 --> 01:02:50,200 a white person who built herself as a racial-justice consultant, 1246 01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:54,501 no less, yet I would be taking the risk of losing the group, 1247 01:02:54,501 --> 01:02:57,601 given the likelihood that the woman would become defensive, 1248 01:02:57,601 --> 01:03:00,501 shut down, and the room would split into those 1249 01:03:00,501 --> 01:03:05,000 who thought I had mistreated her and those who didn't." 1250 01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:07,801 This happens every time you actually call it out 1251 01:03:07,801 --> 01:03:10,667 in the moment in the room, right? 1252 01:03:10,667 --> 01:03:13,701 And I decided to do what would maintain my integrity, 1253 01:03:13,701 --> 01:03:15,100 and I called it out, 1254 01:03:15,100 --> 01:03:18,300 and I called it out as diplomatically as I could. 1255 01:03:18,300 --> 01:03:21,000 I just said, "Ooh, you know, teachable moment, 1256 01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:24,601 I'm going to ask you not to tell that story again. 1257 01:03:24,601 --> 01:03:27,934 Here's why. Here's how you could tell it 1258 01:03:27,934 --> 01:03:29,901 in a way that doesn't reinforce that." 1259 01:03:29,901 --> 01:03:32,334 We went back and forth a little bit, 1260 01:03:32,334 --> 01:03:34,834 to make a long story short, of course, 1261 01:03:34,834 --> 01:03:36,701 the room did erupt in twos. 1262 01:03:36,701 --> 01:03:38,067 She left the group. 1263 01:03:38,067 --> 01:03:40,434 She quit the group. 1264 01:03:40,434 --> 01:03:44,901 This was the eighth session for the equity teams, 1265 01:03:44,901 --> 01:03:48,634 and again, all the focus was on, 1266 01:03:48,634 --> 01:03:51,400 "How'd I or how didn't I mistreated her?" 1267 01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:55,400 All right? And this is often what happens. 1268 01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:58,801 So whites receiving feedback above and below, right, 1269 01:03:58,801 --> 01:04:01,634 what feelings do white people have when we often try 1270 01:04:01,634 --> 01:04:05,400 to give them feedback on our racist patterns, right? 1271 01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:06,968 Tell me if you don't recognize these: 1272 01:04:06,968 --> 01:04:11,133 attacked, silenced, shamed, accused, insulted, 1273 01:04:11,133 --> 01:04:15,501 judged, angry, scared, outraged. 1274 01:04:15,501 --> 01:04:18,000 Yeah? 1275 01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:20,567 Now, how do we act when we feel this way? 1276 01:04:20,567 --> 01:04:21,901 Right? 1277 01:04:21,901 --> 01:04:23,567 Well, we withdraw. 1278 01:04:23,567 --> 01:04:25,067 We cry. 1279 01:04:25,067 --> 01:04:26,334 We go silent. 1280 01:04:26,334 --> 01:04:27,701 We argue. We deny. 1281 01:04:27,701 --> 01:04:29,300 We focus on our intentions. 1282 01:04:29,300 --> 01:04:31,033 We seek forgiveness. 1283 01:04:31,033 --> 01:04:32,601 We explain. 1284 01:04:32,601 --> 01:04:35,400 We insist there was a misunderstanding. 1285 01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:37,367 Right? 1286 01:04:37,367 --> 01:04:42,367 And so what kind of claims do we make 1287 01:04:42,367 --> 01:04:48,067 to justify behaving this way and feeling this way? 1288 01:04:48,067 --> 01:04:50,868 "I know people of color. I marched in the '60s. 1289 01:04:50,868 --> 01:04:56,767 I took this in college. I was a minority in Japan. 1290 01:04:56,767 --> 01:05:01,901 The real oppression is class. You misunderstood me. 1291 01:05:01,901 --> 01:05:03,467 You're playing the race card. 1292 01:05:03,467 --> 01:05:06,634 If you knew me or understood me, you'd know I can't be racist. 1293 01:05:06,634 --> 01:05:11,334 This is not welcoming to me. You're making me feel guilty." 1294 01:05:11,334 --> 01:05:13,534 I want to say something about shame. 1295 01:05:13,534 --> 01:05:15,701 Whenever white people jump to a narrative 1296 01:05:15,701 --> 01:05:18,567 really quickly on racism, I'm always suspicious of it, 1297 01:05:18,567 --> 01:05:22,534 and shame is one we jump to really fast. 1298 01:05:22,534 --> 01:05:23,934 white progressives really, 1299 01:05:23,934 --> 01:05:29,767 really like to lean on how much racial shame they feel, 1300 01:05:29,767 --> 01:05:34,734 and I would actually ask you to think about on a daily basis, 1301 01:05:34,734 --> 01:05:39,567 how often do you, if you are white, feel racial shame? 1302 01:05:43,501 --> 01:05:45,133 Seriously. 1303 01:05:45,133 --> 01:05:47,234 Well, first of all, probably just when racism comes up, 1304 01:05:47,234 --> 01:05:48,501 and even then? 1305 01:05:48,501 --> 01:05:52,000 So maybe 2 percent of the time? 1306 01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:54,267 Right? 1307 01:05:54,267 --> 01:05:55,801 "I was in New York recently, 1308 01:05:55,801 --> 01:05:57,868 and I stepped over a homeless man 1309 01:05:57,868 --> 01:06:02,467 who was Black on my way into Whole Foods, 1310 01:06:02,467 --> 01:06:04,300 and I felt shame for just a minute. 1311 01:06:04,300 --> 01:06:06,667 But then Rainier cherries are in season, 1312 01:06:06,667 --> 01:06:08,667 and I forgot all about it." 1313 01:06:08,667 --> 01:06:09,934 I'm serious. 1314 01:06:09,934 --> 01:06:12,267 That's how that functions. 1315 01:06:12,267 --> 01:06:16,200 I really don't think we feel that shame that much, 1316 01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:19,000 but even if we do, then you have to ask yourself, 1317 01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:20,634 "How is it functioning?" 1318 01:06:20,634 --> 01:06:21,968 What does it do for you? 1319 01:06:21,968 --> 01:06:25,701 What is the cultural capital that you get from that? 1320 01:06:25,701 --> 01:06:28,767 And if you can't answer that it's somehow 1321 01:06:28,767 --> 01:06:31,133 moving you forward in your anti-racist efforts, 1322 01:06:31,133 --> 01:06:33,767 then you're going to have to get through it. 1323 01:06:33,767 --> 01:06:35,434 Right? 1324 01:06:35,434 --> 01:06:37,567 Okay. 1325 01:06:37,567 --> 01:06:40,567 "It's just one little, innocent thing." 1326 01:06:40,567 --> 01:06:41,901 Some people find offense. 1327 01:06:41,901 --> 01:06:44,367 "You hurt my feelings. This is political correctness. 1328 01:06:44,367 --> 01:06:46,901 I don't feel safe." 1329 01:06:46,901 --> 01:06:48,968 I'll just really quickly say, the word safe coming 1330 01:06:48,968 --> 01:06:50,234 out of the mouths of white people 1331 01:06:50,234 --> 01:06:52,701 on the topic of racism is illegitimate. 1332 01:07:00,901 --> 01:07:02,834 Because what does safety mean from a position 1333 01:07:02,834 --> 01:07:04,434 from social, historical, institutional, 1334 01:07:04,434 --> 01:07:07,467 cultural power and privilege? 1335 01:07:07,467 --> 01:07:09,901 No, it's generally, "We don't feel comfortable," 1336 01:07:09,901 --> 01:07:12,100 but that doesn't have as much cultural capital. 1337 01:07:12,100 --> 01:07:13,100 It's not as precious. 1338 01:07:13,100 --> 01:07:18,267 "The problem is your tone, 1339 01:07:18,267 --> 01:07:20,434 and I know what it is to be oppressed." 1340 01:07:20,434 --> 01:07:23,601 So if we think about the dock, right, the feelings, 1341 01:07:23,601 --> 01:07:25,234 the behaviors, the claims, 1342 01:07:25,234 --> 01:07:28,567 what could be the underlying assumptions 1343 01:07:28,567 --> 01:07:32,834 that would lead us to make these claims, right? 1344 01:07:32,834 --> 01:07:35,467 "Well, as a white person, I will be the judge 1345 01:07:35,467 --> 01:07:37,300 of whether racism has occurred. 1346 01:07:42,667 --> 01:07:46,167 My learning is finished. I know all I need to know. 1347 01:07:46,167 --> 01:07:47,701 Racism can only be intentional. 1348 01:07:47,701 --> 01:07:51,367 Not having intended it cancels it out. 1349 01:07:51,367 --> 01:07:54,067 White people who experience another form of oppression 1350 01:07:54,067 --> 01:07:57,767 can't experience racial privilege. 1351 01:07:57,767 --> 01:08:01,300 If I'm a good person, I can't be racist. 1352 01:08:01,300 --> 01:08:07,934 My unexamined perspective is equal to an informed one. 1353 01:08:10,501 --> 01:08:12,367 I'm entitled to remain comfortable, 1354 01:08:12,367 --> 01:08:17,534 so you have made a very serious social breach. 1355 01:08:17,534 --> 01:08:20,701 As a white person, I know the best way to challenge racism, 1356 01:08:20,701 --> 01:08:28,968 and you're doing it wrong. Nice people cannot be racist. 1357 01:08:28,968 --> 01:08:31,100 If I can't see it, it's not legitimate. 1358 01:08:33,400 --> 01:08:35,434 If I have any proximity to people of color, 1359 01:08:35,434 --> 01:08:38,367 I can't be racist. 1360 01:08:38,367 --> 01:08:40,601 If I have no proximity to people of color, 1361 01:08:40,601 --> 01:08:44,701 I can't be racist because I'm racially innocent." 1362 01:08:44,701 --> 01:08:46,501 I would make a case that white people 1363 01:08:46,501 --> 01:08:48,734 who grew up on farms and rural environments 1364 01:08:48,734 --> 01:08:51,033 where there are no people of color around 1365 01:08:51,033 --> 01:08:54,701 actually are less sheltered from racism 1366 01:08:54,701 --> 01:08:57,767 because you are left to rely on the most problematic sources 1367 01:08:57,767 --> 01:08:59,934 for your understanding of people of color. 1368 01:09:02,968 --> 01:09:07,033 "My worldview is objective, and yours isn't." 1369 01:09:07,033 --> 01:09:10,467 I don't know what else could be functioning under there, right? 1370 01:09:10,467 --> 01:09:13,667 So how does all that function? 1371 01:09:13,667 --> 01:09:16,868 Maintains white solidarity, closes off self-reflection, 1372 01:09:16,868 --> 01:09:19,334 minimizes, silences the discussion, 1373 01:09:19,334 --> 01:09:24,400 makes white people the victims, protects limited worldview, 1374 01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:26,501 takes race off the table, 1375 01:09:26,501 --> 01:09:29,501 focuses on the messenger, not the message, 1376 01:09:29,501 --> 01:09:34,100 rallies more resources to white people, protects racism. 1377 01:09:40,334 --> 01:09:42,000 I could get into this really deep, 1378 01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:44,234 but here is what I want to say about this. 1379 01:09:44,234 --> 01:09:47,000 The reason I like this picture when I do presentation 1380 01:09:47,000 --> 01:09:48,634 is because, 1381 01:09:48,634 --> 01:09:53,200 for me, this is an amplified visual of institutional power, 1382 01:09:55,701 --> 01:09:58,267 and if I walked in that room as a woman 1383 01:09:58,267 --> 01:09:59,901 because that would be the salient identity 1384 01:09:59,901 --> 01:10:03,167 for me in that room, 1385 01:10:03,167 --> 01:10:06,868 it would be visceral to me the lifetime of entitlement 1386 01:10:06,868 --> 01:10:11,067 exuding out of these men's pores, right? 1387 01:10:11,067 --> 01:10:14,067 And so if you can see that, 1388 01:10:14,067 --> 01:10:16,801 if you can see not only the lifetime of entitlement, 1389 01:10:16,801 --> 01:10:18,367 but if you were to suggest to them 1390 01:10:18,367 --> 01:10:19,834 that maybe they should have some women 1391 01:10:19,834 --> 01:10:22,734 or people of color in that group, I can't know, 1392 01:10:22,734 --> 01:10:26,934 but I believe to my core they would feel contempt 1393 01:10:26,934 --> 01:10:29,467 because they don't see the perspectives of women 1394 01:10:29,467 --> 01:10:32,234 and people of color as valuable. 1395 01:10:32,234 --> 01:10:33,567 I believe that to my core. 1396 01:10:33,567 --> 01:10:37,000 I don't know them, but I'm pretty damn sure. 1397 01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:39,434 If I can see it in them, then... 1398 01:10:39,434 --> 01:10:42,934 And I don't relate to them, right? 1399 01:10:42,934 --> 01:10:47,167 But what version of that is coming from my pores? 1400 01:10:47,167 --> 01:10:50,601 What version of that is visceral for people of color 1401 01:10:50,601 --> 01:10:53,200 when I'm in the room, right? 1402 01:10:53,200 --> 01:10:55,334 So... 1403 01:10:59,767 --> 01:11:03,934 Women of color, you want to be the one that goes in there 1404 01:11:03,934 --> 01:11:06,701 and helps those white women see their racism? 1405 01:11:06,701 --> 01:11:09,300 Does that sound good, all by yourself? 1406 01:11:09,300 --> 01:11:13,701 They need some diversity. 1407 01:11:13,701 --> 01:11:14,834 All right. 1408 01:11:14,834 --> 01:11:16,767 So my point is, I can be in this room 1409 01:11:16,767 --> 01:11:21,400 experiencing sexism and patriarchy, 1410 01:11:21,400 --> 01:11:25,567 and I can be in this room perpetrating racism, right? 1411 01:11:25,567 --> 01:11:27,100 white women don't actually land 1412 01:11:27,100 --> 01:11:30,334 any more softly on people of color, 1413 01:11:30,334 --> 01:11:33,200 and I think when we don't back people of color, 1414 01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:36,200 the betrayal and the hurt is deeper 1415 01:11:36,200 --> 01:11:38,667 because we have a potential way in, 1416 01:11:38,667 --> 01:11:40,200 and we use it often as a way out. 1417 01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:41,968 If you don't think I'm an angry feminist, 1418 01:11:41,968 --> 01:11:44,567 ask the poster boy for white fragility over here. 1419 01:11:47,634 --> 01:11:50,334 But our resentment about sexism can cause us 1420 01:11:50,334 --> 01:11:51,868 to not back people of color 1421 01:11:51,868 --> 01:11:54,634 and actually collude with the benefits of whiteness 1422 01:11:54,634 --> 01:11:56,701 to get a little bit ahead, right? 1423 01:11:56,701 --> 01:11:58,300 Okay. 1424 01:12:04,834 --> 01:12:09,400 So I'm going to end by just bringing this question up 1425 01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:10,667 so that I can preempt it 1426 01:12:10,667 --> 01:12:14,734 because I really don't like this question. 1427 01:12:14,734 --> 01:12:21,968 And if this is the question you have right now, if you're white, 1428 01:12:21,968 --> 01:12:23,334 and this is the question you have right now, 1429 01:12:23,334 --> 01:12:25,534 then I have one for you. 1430 01:12:25,534 --> 01:12:27,167 What has allowed you to remain ignorant 1431 01:12:27,167 --> 01:12:29,000 about how to interrupt racism? 1432 01:12:32,634 --> 01:12:36,601 Why, in 2018, is that your question? 1433 01:12:36,601 --> 01:12:40,300 And that's actually a sincere, challenging question 1434 01:12:40,300 --> 01:12:42,200 because if you really start to map it out, 1435 01:12:42,200 --> 01:12:43,934 you'll have your answer. 1436 01:12:43,934 --> 01:12:48,801 So I want to share what could be under that dock 1437 01:12:48,801 --> 01:12:51,534 if we had a transformed framework, 1438 01:12:51,534 --> 01:12:53,934 but before I do it, I want to give an example 1439 01:12:53,934 --> 01:12:55,767 of a moment of racism 1440 01:12:55,767 --> 01:12:58,667 that I recently perpetrated, okay? 1441 01:12:58,667 --> 01:13:00,200 Instead of reading it from the book... 1442 01:13:00,200 --> 01:13:02,000 It is written in the book, but it's easier for me 1443 01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:03,767 to just say it. 1444 01:13:03,767 --> 01:13:06,501 I used to be the director of equity for a large nonprofit, 1445 01:13:06,501 --> 01:13:10,033 and on the equity team were three people, myself, 1446 01:13:10,033 --> 01:13:14,133 the co-director and executive assistant. 1447 01:13:14,133 --> 01:13:18,033 And Debra and Marsha were Black women, 1448 01:13:18,033 --> 01:13:19,968 so there were three of us. Two of us were Black. 1449 01:13:19,968 --> 01:13:23,934 One was white, and we hired a consultant. 1450 01:13:23,934 --> 01:13:25,667 The organization hired a consultant to come in 1451 01:13:25,667 --> 01:13:29,801 and design the website, 1452 01:13:29,801 --> 01:13:33,033 and so she was going around setting meetings 1453 01:13:33,033 --> 01:13:36,367 with all the departments to find out what we did 1454 01:13:36,367 --> 01:13:39,200 so she could build each department's particular page. 1455 01:13:39,200 --> 01:13:41,701 So she scheduled a meeting with the equity team, 1456 01:13:41,701 --> 01:13:43,234 and it was 3 in the afternoon. 1457 01:13:43,234 --> 01:13:47,701 And we went in, and it turns out that she was also a Black woman. 1458 01:13:47,701 --> 01:13:51,467 I will call her Angela, and right away, 1459 01:13:51,467 --> 01:13:54,234 she had this survey that had lots of questions 1460 01:13:54,234 --> 01:13:56,133 about what we do, but it was the afternoon. 1461 01:13:56,133 --> 01:14:00,267 I found the survey kind of annoying, and it was tedious, 1462 01:14:00,267 --> 01:14:01,868 and it didn't really speak to what we do. 1463 01:14:01,868 --> 01:14:05,167 So I kind of shoved it aside, and I said, "Let me explain. 1464 01:14:05,167 --> 01:14:08,200 We go out into the different satellite offices, 1465 01:14:08,200 --> 01:14:12,534 and we lead racial justice trainings." 1466 01:14:12,534 --> 01:14:15,968 In fact, we went up to the far north one recently, 1467 01:14:15,968 --> 01:14:20,834 and Debra was asked not to come back. 1468 01:14:20,834 --> 01:14:23,300 I guess her hair scared the white people. 1469 01:14:23,300 --> 01:14:24,434 I make this little joke, right, 1470 01:14:24,434 --> 01:14:27,300 because Debra has long locked hair. 1471 01:14:27,300 --> 01:14:29,501 The meeting ends, and I wish I could tell you 1472 01:14:29,501 --> 01:14:32,534 that I realized what I had said, but I didn't. 1473 01:14:32,534 --> 01:14:35,634 So a few days later, Marsha came to me and said, 1474 01:14:35,634 --> 01:14:38,400 "Angela was really offended by that joke you made 1475 01:14:38,400 --> 01:14:40,033 about Black women's hair." 1476 01:14:43,901 --> 01:14:46,601 I know better, right? 1477 01:14:46,601 --> 01:14:49,167 And so I immediately understood and said, 1478 01:14:49,167 --> 01:14:51,234 "Thank you for letting me know." 1479 01:14:51,234 --> 01:14:55,100 And so I followed a series of steps to repair that, 1480 01:14:55,100 --> 01:14:57,133 and the first thing I did is I called a friend of mine, 1481 01:14:57,133 --> 01:14:59,234 another white woman named Christine, and said, 1482 01:14:59,234 --> 01:15:02,434 "I need to process something with you." 1483 01:15:02,434 --> 01:15:07,667 And I vented my anxiety, my embarrassment, 1484 01:15:07,667 --> 01:15:10,434 and then when I kind of got that off, 1485 01:15:10,434 --> 01:15:12,234 we put our heads together, and it's like, 1486 01:15:12,234 --> 01:15:15,033 "Let's think about how your racism 1487 01:15:15,033 --> 01:15:19,167 was manifesting in that meeting. Get really clear, okay?" 1488 01:15:19,167 --> 01:15:23,334 I got clear, and I felt ready to then come back to Angela. 1489 01:15:23,334 --> 01:15:27,367 So I called her, and I said, 1490 01:15:27,367 --> 01:15:29,000 "Would you be willing to grant me 1491 01:15:29,000 --> 01:15:32,100 the opportunity to repair the racism 1492 01:15:32,100 --> 01:15:35,634 I perpetrated towards you in the meeting last week?" 1493 01:15:35,634 --> 01:15:37,501 And she said, "Yes." 1494 01:15:37,501 --> 01:15:40,234 Now, she could've said, "No," and I was prepared. 1495 01:15:40,234 --> 01:15:41,734 In fact, I thought she was going to say, "No." 1496 01:15:41,734 --> 01:15:45,501 I thought she was going to say, "Whoa, are you a hypocrite?" 1497 01:15:45,501 --> 01:15:48,567 and if I could not hold that, then I was not going to be 1498 01:15:48,567 --> 01:15:51,234 making an authentic repair, right? 1499 01:15:51,234 --> 01:15:53,100 So she didn't say, "No," however. 1500 01:15:53,100 --> 01:15:54,000 She said, "Yes." 1501 01:15:54,000 --> 01:15:56,033 And so we met, and I said, 1502 01:15:56,033 --> 01:15:58,667 "I just want to own that racism and that joke." 1503 01:15:58,667 --> 01:16:02,400 And so we talked about it, and she basically said, 1504 01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:05,200 "I don't know you. I have no relationship with you. 1505 01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:07,000 I have no trust with you, 1506 01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:10,834 and I do not want to be joking about Black women's hair 1507 01:16:10,834 --> 01:16:13,267 in a professional work meeting with a white woman 1508 01:16:13,267 --> 01:16:14,734 I don't know." Right? 1509 01:16:14,734 --> 01:16:16,868 I just want to be really clear so that white folks understand 1510 01:16:16,868 --> 01:16:18,501 that piece of it. 1511 01:16:18,501 --> 01:16:21,634 The other piece that I owned was that in my cockiness, 1512 01:16:21,634 --> 01:16:24,667 I was being the woke white person 1513 01:16:24,667 --> 01:16:26,801 and making fun of the white people who didn't get it, 1514 01:16:26,801 --> 01:16:28,000 so I was making that move. 1515 01:16:28,000 --> 01:16:33,133 I was credentialing myself, so I owned that. 1516 01:16:33,133 --> 01:16:34,467 And then because I knew that Christine and I, 1517 01:16:34,467 --> 01:16:35,567 as two white people, 1518 01:16:35,567 --> 01:16:37,000 would probably have missed some things, 1519 01:16:37,000 --> 01:16:40,734 I said, "Angela, is there anything I missed?" 1520 01:16:40,734 --> 01:16:43,000 And she said, "Yes. 1521 01:16:43,000 --> 01:16:46,467 That survey you so glibly shoved aside, 1522 01:16:46,467 --> 01:16:49,968 I wrote that survey, and I have spent my life 1523 01:16:49,968 --> 01:16:54,000 justifying my intelligence to white people." 1524 01:16:54,000 --> 01:16:58,100 Okay, that was just like a... because I immediately got it. 1525 01:16:58,100 --> 01:16:59,834 It never occurred to me she wrote the survey, 1526 01:16:59,834 --> 01:17:03,534 and then looking back at how I just dismissed it, 1527 01:17:03,534 --> 01:17:04,701 so I owned that. 1528 01:17:04,701 --> 01:17:08,567 I apologized, and then next step I took was, 1529 01:17:08,567 --> 01:17:10,868 "Is there anything else that needs to be said 1530 01:17:10,868 --> 01:17:13,534 or heard that we might move forward?" 1531 01:17:13,534 --> 01:17:15,400 And she said, "Yes. 1532 01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:18,534 The next time you run your racism at me"... 1533 01:17:18,534 --> 01:17:19,834 I want to pause right there. 1534 01:17:19,834 --> 01:17:22,000 Notice that she didn't say, "if." 1535 01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:23,868 She basically said, "If we're going to be working together, 1536 01:17:23,868 --> 01:17:26,434 I know you're going to run your racism at me again, 1537 01:17:26,434 --> 01:17:28,734 so the next time you do it, 1538 01:17:28,734 --> 01:17:31,334 would you like your feedback publicly or privately?" 1539 01:17:38,434 --> 01:17:41,300 Yeah, I loved her for that, and I said, 1540 01:17:41,300 --> 01:17:43,434 "Oh, publicly, definitely," right? 1541 01:17:43,434 --> 01:17:44,868 I think most white people would've said, 1542 01:17:44,868 --> 01:17:48,367 "Oh, God, no, privately," but it's really, really... 1543 01:17:48,367 --> 01:17:49,934 I told her, "It's really important that 1544 01:17:49,934 --> 01:17:53,100 other white people see that I am now free of these patterns." 1545 01:17:53,100 --> 01:17:54,334 I run them less. 1546 01:17:54,334 --> 01:17:56,067 I'm not defensive when I run them. 1547 01:17:56,067 --> 01:17:58,634 Notice I never explain my intentions. 1548 01:17:58,634 --> 01:18:02,334 I have very good repair skills, but I have these patterns, 1549 01:18:02,334 --> 01:18:04,601 and it's important that other white people see that 1550 01:18:04,601 --> 01:18:08,634 and that I have the opportunity to model non-defensiveness. 1551 01:18:08,634 --> 01:18:10,234 "And so anything else?" "Nope." 1552 01:18:10,234 --> 01:18:11,634 "Are we good?" "Yep, let's move on." 1553 01:18:11,634 --> 01:18:15,300 And we moved on, and actually, there was more trust there 1554 01:18:15,300 --> 01:18:16,801 because one of the things she said to me is, 1555 01:18:16,801 --> 01:18:19,934 "What you did in that meeting happens to us every day. 1556 01:18:19,934 --> 01:18:23,534 This what you're doing right now, this does not happen. 1557 01:18:23,534 --> 01:18:25,300 Thank you. 1558 01:18:25,300 --> 01:18:29,133 What I'm looking for is, where can I go with you?" right? 1559 01:18:29,133 --> 01:18:30,601 Repair. 1560 01:18:30,601 --> 01:18:34,334 So I want to end with what could be under that dock 1561 01:18:34,334 --> 01:18:36,801 if we had a transformed frame 1562 01:18:36,801 --> 01:18:38,434 because we can't get where we need to go 1563 01:18:38,434 --> 01:18:41,601 from where we are right now. 1564 01:18:41,601 --> 01:18:42,567 Right? 1565 01:18:42,567 --> 01:18:44,801 Being good or bad is not relevant. 1566 01:18:44,801 --> 01:18:46,167 All right? 1567 01:18:46,167 --> 01:18:50,701 Racism is a multilayered system infused in everything. 1568 01:18:50,701 --> 01:18:52,367 whites have blinders on racism. 1569 01:18:52,367 --> 01:18:55,400 I have blinders on racism. 1570 01:18:55,400 --> 01:18:57,033 Racism is complex. 1571 01:18:57,033 --> 01:19:01,734 I don't have to understand it in order for it to be valid. 1572 01:19:01,734 --> 01:19:04,534 white comfort maintains the racial status quo. 1573 01:19:04,534 --> 01:19:08,400 Discomfort is necessary and important. 1574 01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:11,167 I must not confuse comfort with safety. 1575 01:19:11,167 --> 01:19:15,534 I am safe in discussions of race. 1576 01:19:15,534 --> 01:19:18,901 The anecdote to guilt is action. 1577 01:19:18,901 --> 01:19:20,634 I bring my group's history with me. 1578 01:19:20,634 --> 01:19:21,934 History matters. 1579 01:19:21,934 --> 01:19:26,033 I might see myself as just an individual. 1580 01:19:26,033 --> 01:19:30,934 The people of color in my life see me as a white individual. 1581 01:19:30,934 --> 01:19:33,868 The question is not if but how. 1582 01:19:33,868 --> 01:19:38,868 Nothing exempts me from the forces of racism. 1583 01:19:38,868 --> 01:19:41,033 Whites are unconsciously invested in racism. 1584 01:19:41,033 --> 01:19:43,601 I am unconsciously invested in racism. 1585 01:19:43,601 --> 01:19:44,901 I want you to imagine, 1586 01:19:44,901 --> 01:19:48,601 if white people internalized this framework, 1587 01:19:48,601 --> 01:19:52,734 how revolutionary it would be. 1588 01:19:52,734 --> 01:19:53,701 Right? 1589 01:19:53,701 --> 01:19:55,234 Bias is implicit. 1590 01:19:55,234 --> 01:19:56,534 I don't expect to be aware of mine 1591 01:19:56,534 --> 01:19:58,200 without a lot of effort. 1592 01:19:58,200 --> 01:19:59,434 Right? 1593 01:19:59,434 --> 01:20:02,033 Feedback from people of color indicates trust 1594 01:20:02,033 --> 01:20:04,767 because it is a huge moment of risk 1595 01:20:04,767 --> 01:20:07,901 across a deep history of harm. 1596 01:20:07,901 --> 01:20:09,901 Right? 1597 01:20:09,901 --> 01:20:12,834 Feedback on white racism is really difficult to give. 1598 01:20:12,834 --> 01:20:17,100 How I receive it is not as relevant as the feedback itself. 1599 01:20:17,100 --> 01:20:21,367 If you bring it to me upset, bring it to me upset. 1600 01:20:21,367 --> 01:20:27,634 There are no rules for how you should tell me 1601 01:20:27,634 --> 01:20:30,868 that I've harmed you. 1602 01:20:30,868 --> 01:20:33,100 It takes courage to break with white solidarity. 1603 01:20:33,100 --> 01:20:35,701 How can I support those that do? How can I back? 1604 01:20:35,701 --> 01:20:38,300 If I'm not willing to step out and take a risk, 1605 01:20:38,300 --> 01:20:39,667 how can I back other white people 1606 01:20:39,667 --> 01:20:43,534 who do instead of tearing them down, 1607 01:20:43,534 --> 01:20:46,901 finding that one thing that I said in this talk tonight 1608 01:20:46,901 --> 01:20:48,734 that you can grab onto 1609 01:20:48,734 --> 01:20:52,834 so that you don't have to look at yourself? 1610 01:20:52,834 --> 01:20:55,200 Given socialization, it's more likely that 1611 01:20:55,200 --> 01:20:57,434 I am the one who doesn't understand the issue. 1612 01:20:57,434 --> 01:21:00,534 Can you imagine if white people were coming from that place? 1613 01:21:03,501 --> 01:21:08,267 Racism hurts, even kills, people of color 24-7. 1614 01:21:08,267 --> 01:21:11,467 Interrupting it is more important than my feelings, 1615 01:21:11,467 --> 01:21:13,167 ego or self-image. 1616 01:21:13,167 --> 01:21:14,767 Thank you. 1617 01:21:19,234 --> 01:21:20,467 I only have time for two questions, 1618 01:21:20,467 --> 01:21:23,133 so here's the one I'm going to answer. 1619 01:21:23,133 --> 01:21:25,267 "Will your book be available in audio?" 1620 01:21:28,534 --> 01:21:31,934 Yes. 1621 01:21:31,934 --> 01:21:34,801 Okay, this one, "How can a person of color 1622 01:21:34,801 --> 01:21:36,067 navigate around white fragility 1623 01:21:36,067 --> 01:21:38,000 in the workplace when direct confrontation 1624 01:21:38,000 --> 01:21:40,167 usually ends in retaliation?" 1625 01:21:40,167 --> 01:21:42,934 Yeah, I mean, the first I just want white people to understand, 1626 01:21:42,934 --> 01:21:45,901 how much psychic and emotional labor 1627 01:21:45,901 --> 01:21:51,033 people of color go through to walk on eggshells around us. 1628 01:21:51,033 --> 01:21:52,734 You know, white people so bitterly complain, 1629 01:21:52,734 --> 01:21:54,100 "Oh, you mean I can't say anything anymore? 1630 01:21:54,100 --> 01:21:55,634 I have to walk on eggshells?" 1631 01:21:55,634 --> 01:21:59,234 Please, the emotional labor 1632 01:21:59,234 --> 01:22:02,000 and the knots people of color tie themselves into, 1633 01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:06,834 so they don't trigger us: It is just heart-wrenching. 1634 01:22:06,834 --> 01:22:10,067 And so I guess the first thing I want to say is, 1635 01:22:10,067 --> 01:22:12,734 I want us to knock this nonsense off 1636 01:22:12,734 --> 01:22:15,267 so that this doesn't have to be the question, 1637 01:22:15,267 --> 01:22:17,400 but it is the question. 1638 01:22:17,400 --> 01:22:21,267 So there are different strategies. 1639 01:22:21,267 --> 01:22:24,434 I actually think that choosing not to address it, 1640 01:22:24,434 --> 01:22:26,400 for people of color, can be an empowered choice. 1641 01:22:26,400 --> 01:22:28,901 "I got to get through the day. 1642 01:22:28,901 --> 01:22:32,000 I'm not throwing my pearls, so I'm going to let it go. 1643 01:22:32,000 --> 01:22:33,434 And that's actually a choice I'm making, 1644 01:22:33,434 --> 01:22:36,601 and it's an empowered choice." 1645 01:22:36,601 --> 01:22:39,467 Another strategy can be to elicit 1646 01:22:39,467 --> 01:22:42,901 one of those white progressives who says they are an ally 1647 01:22:42,901 --> 01:22:46,000 and then say, "Then step up and"... 1648 01:22:46,000 --> 01:22:48,934 Not to take care of you, but there are times 1649 01:22:48,934 --> 01:22:51,133 when that's a really good strategy, is... 1650 01:22:51,133 --> 01:22:54,767 So much of my training came from women of color saying, 1651 01:22:54,767 --> 01:22:56,267 "You go talk to that person 1652 01:22:56,267 --> 01:22:59,400 that's giving us a hard time in the training." 1653 01:22:59,400 --> 01:23:00,868 They're going to hear it from you better, 1654 01:23:00,868 --> 01:23:02,934 and I'm from Seattle. 1655 01:23:02,934 --> 01:23:07,167 I'm as conflict-avoidant as the rest of us who are white, 1656 01:23:07,167 --> 01:23:11,667 but that really built up my stamina, right? 1657 01:23:11,667 --> 01:23:14,834 So just really quickly, those are some strategies. 1658 01:23:14,834 --> 01:23:16,767 And because I know it's late and because the time, 1659 01:23:16,767 --> 01:23:19,300 I'm going to close, so just thank you, guys, all. 1660 01:23:19,300 --> 01:23:22,133 Our work will never be finished, okay?