(00:00:00): I am biracial and present racially ambiguously, (00:00:03): but I do have brown skin and can be perceived as anything from Indian to Latina to (00:00:08): white with a tan to black. (00:00:11): When I was admitted to the hospital to be induced for the birth of my second child, (00:00:14): the white nurse was inputting my background information. (00:00:18): I believe she was perceiving me as black because when it came to the part to put in (00:00:22): information about my baby's father, (00:00:24): she goes, (00:00:25): same baby daddy as last time? (00:00:28): I was immediately offended by the term baby daddy and her lack of professionalism. (00:00:32): I told her that if her question was whether my husband was also the father of this (00:00:36): baby, (00:00:37): then yes. (00:00:38): When I made it a point to complain to more senior staff about the racial assumption (00:00:42): that I had a baby daddy because I was black, (00:00:44): I was dismissed and repeatedly told that the white nurse, (00:00:47): quote, (00:00:48): meant nothing by it and was just trying to be hip. (00:00:51): I also asked for a new nurse and was denied because the hospital was short-staffed. (00:00:56): She caused my whole labor to be distressing with her energy. (00:01:00): She also did a cervical check on me that was extremely painful and proceeded to say (00:01:04): that I wasn't as dilated as I actually was. (00:01:07): She made me so anxious that it was hard to concentrate on pushing. (00:01:11): I almost fatigued out and my OB was one step away from using the vacuum to assist delivery. (00:01:16): I fully believe my whole stressful stalled labor experience was because of this (00:01:20): racist ass nurse. (00:01:22): Hi. (00:01:23): I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood Podcast. (00:01:27): Today, we are talking about white women in the fight for racial justice. (00:01:32): I'm here today with Desiree Stephens. (00:01:34): Hi, Desiree. (00:01:34): Hello, Zahn. (00:01:37): How are you? (00:01:38): I'm great. (00:01:39): I'm so glad you're here. (00:01:40): So Desiree is my IRL very good friend. (00:01:45): She is a friend of the show. (00:01:46): I highly recommend reading and subscribing to her Liberation Education Newsletter. (00:01:52): She is a racial justice advocate, (00:01:54): a decolonization counselor, (00:01:56): and founder of Makeshift Happen, (00:01:58): but she's also just sort of everything. (00:02:00): She is so insightful. (00:02:03): She has her hands in so many projects, (00:02:05): and she's a wonderful person who we can all just learn so much from. (00:02:09): She's been on the show before, (00:02:10): so I won't spend a ton of time on her bio, (00:02:12): and will instead urge you to follow her on Substack, (00:02:16): subscribe, (00:02:16): and know that I'll put all of her info in the show notes, (00:02:19): and you should definitely (00:02:20): stalk her to all of the places because she's awesome. (00:02:23): So thanks for being here, Desiree. (00:02:26): You are so wonderful. (00:02:27): Thank you for being who you are in real life and online. (00:02:31): I really value your friendship, (00:02:33): your thoughts, (00:02:34): and just the way you show up in this work in all of the ways that you do and being (00:02:39): so unafraid to put it all out there, (00:02:43): right? (00:02:43): Because (00:02:45): There is a perception of how this work should be done. (00:02:48): And I love that you seek to shock people. (00:02:53): So thank you. (00:02:54): I love the show. (00:02:55): I love you. (00:02:56): I love, I just love how you show up. (00:02:59): So thank you. (00:03:00): And thank you for having me yet again on the show. (00:03:03): Thank you. (00:03:04): It's just, you know, Desiree, you're just wonderful. (00:03:06): So before we get started, I want to do a little bit of an announcement. (00:03:10): If you're a regular listener, you know that I'm experimenting with a more frequent (00:03:14): case of podcasting. (00:03:16): So we're doing an episode a week, probably through the end of the year to see how that goes. (00:03:21): And I just want to kind of give everyone a reminder that if you like the podcast, (00:03:26): the best way to support it is engagement. (00:03:29): Algorithms look only at engagement. (00:03:32): They don't look at whether you like something. (00:03:34): They don't look at whether you post positively. (00:03:36): They look at whether it keeps you there, keeps you clicking, keeps you typing. (00:03:41): And so the best way that you can support (00:03:44): feminist, (00:03:44): anti-racist, (00:03:46): leftist creators is by commenting, (00:03:49): heart reacting, (00:03:51): sharing, (00:03:51): you know, (00:03:52): if you want to talk about something, (00:03:53): actually talk about it, (00:03:54): post a comment publicly so that people can engage with you. (00:03:57): And that goes for my work, that goes for Desiree's work. (00:04:02): You know, the best way that you can keep this work going is to engage. (00:04:05): And of course, you know, both of us have (00:04:08): paid newsletters, and we're able to do this work solely because of our paid subscribers. (00:04:12): So if you really like it and you can afford to, please become a paid subscriber. (00:04:17): So I'm going to give a little spiel about how Desiree and I ended up doing this episode. (00:04:23): We've been talking a lot lately about white women racial justice work, (00:04:29): converting white women, (00:04:30): pulling white women into the fold, (00:04:33): And we've thrown out lots of ideas. (00:04:35): And I finally said, (00:04:36): well, (00:04:36): I think that we should just have kind of an informal conversation about this on the (00:04:41): podcast. (00:04:43): In my line of work, (00:04:44): what I often find is that I can draw conservative women into the leftist fold by (00:04:50): helping them understand how feminism directly affects their lives and (00:04:54): I think Desiree has a somewhat similar experience, (00:04:57): but also something different happens with her, (00:04:59): which is that white women who may identify as feminists and who often self-identify (00:05:04): as allies often have behavior that undermines both of those identities and show (00:05:09): their whole asses in their interactions with her. (00:05:12): So we wanted to get together and talk about this group of women, (00:05:16): a group of women of which I am part, (00:05:19): because this group of women is unique. (00:05:21): They have a deep and rich capacity to change the world. (00:05:24): They are both victim and oppressor. (00:05:27): But so often white women align with their whiteness rather than with their (00:05:31): womanhood or their humanity, (00:05:32): because half of my people voted for Donald Trump. (00:05:36): So does why don't you talk about why we're talking about white women? (00:05:42): When are we not talking about white women? (00:05:46): Well, I'm going to turn around and say is that. (00:05:51): Trying to think about how to lead in with this. (00:05:53): is that white women are for social change whilst white men are systemic change, right? (00:06:00): So we are going to, we're going to be around each other more, right? (00:06:05): We're going to be in schools with each other, grocery stores with each other. (00:06:09): We're going to be doing, you know, mommy and me things more. (00:06:12): So there's more interaction between black women and femmes and moms with white (00:06:19): women opposed to white men. (00:06:21): So I think that that is why the topic (00:06:25): always feels so woman heavy. (00:06:27): And I know that that could be activating because it's, (00:06:30): especially for white feminists, (00:06:32): it gets activated because it's like, (00:06:33): well, (00:06:34): we're not responsible for men. (00:06:35): We're not, why is all the weight on women? (00:06:37): Why is, because it is like, because welcome to the world. (00:06:40): that we live in, right? (00:06:41): We are raising these children. (00:06:43): We are sleeping with these men. (00:06:44): So there is some level of responsibility as women, as a collective that we have to hold. (00:06:51): By all means, (00:06:52): you could stop birthing and sleeping with these people and a lot of these problems (00:06:57): would go away. (00:06:59): So there's that, right? (00:07:01): That is why. (00:07:03): Also, (00:07:03): white women keep the tone of wanting to learn, (00:07:06): grow more, (00:07:07): the book clubs, (00:07:08): the coffee meetups. (00:07:10): When you're talking about white feminism and those intersections, (00:07:13): now you're talking about also financial access. (00:07:16): They have more time, they have more money. (00:07:18): So these are usually the people that come into anti-racism work, (00:07:23): social justice work, (00:07:24): just wanting to understand and be a part of something. (00:07:28): And they hit the wall (00:07:31): at their feminism because patriarchy is the greatest albatross to their freedom. (00:07:37): And why it doesn't cross over from my own experience and, (00:07:41): you know, (00:07:42): as a whole watching, (00:07:43): experiencing and understanding why that wall gets hit in that sort of way is (00:07:50): because the socialization between white men and white women have been so (00:07:56): exclusionary? (00:07:59): Is that a word? (00:08:01): It has been so isolating. (00:08:02): I'm like, there's a word here that I'm searching for. (00:08:05): It has been so isolating, right? (00:08:07): You guys have not been allowed to be socialized around anyone else. (00:08:11): So white feminism, (00:08:12): and I have this conversation often, (00:08:16): is about either becoming equal to white men (00:08:21): which then means you become the top tier oppressor of the globe. (00:08:25): And that is where that, no, but I want, and I'm like, yes, but it leaves everybody else behind. (00:08:32): What we need to be doing is dismantling the system that makes you the victim of it, (00:08:38): as well as the perpetrator. (00:08:39): So I hope that that kind of makes some sense. (00:08:42): Did that answer your question? (00:08:44): Yeah, that does. (00:08:45): One of the things that I appreciate you saying is I think, (00:08:50): I think white women often, (00:08:51): and I do not agree with this sentiment, (00:08:54): I want to be clear, (00:08:54): but I think white women often feel aggrieved in leftist and anti-racist spaces (00:09:00): because they have this thing of, (00:09:02): well, (00:09:03): why is everyone talking about how bad white women are when white men are (00:09:07): objectively worse? (00:09:09): And that part that white men are worse is true. (00:09:13): But the reason that we're talking about white women is that white women are the (00:09:16): ones who say they want to do better. (00:09:19): White women are the ones who have come some of the way, (00:09:22): at least as you mentioned, (00:09:23): into feminism. (00:09:25): And so I want people who are listening to this who might find themselves getting (00:09:30): their hackles up and saying, (00:09:31): well, (00:09:31): why are we going so hard on white women? (00:09:33): To remember that this is not going hard on white women. (00:09:37): This is talking about what we as white women need to do to do better and what all (00:09:43): of us committed to social justice need to do to help bring more white women (00:09:47): together (00:09:48): truly into the fold. (00:09:50): Something that I've seen a lot is there's a shame reaction to being told that you (00:09:58): are not behaving like an ally, (00:10:01): that you're being racist, (00:10:02): that you hurt someone's feelings. (00:10:05): And we have basically two ways of dealing with shame as human beings. (00:10:09): We can try to deflect that shame onto someone else and say, (00:10:12): oh, (00:10:13): no, (00:10:13): no, (00:10:13): you're bad for making me feel bad. (00:10:16): And that's rooted in the idea that we just deserve to feel good, (00:10:19): that we're entitled to not be told we're doing something wrong. (00:10:24): Or we can sit in that shame and we can think about what we're doing. (00:10:29): We can think about whether the criticism is fair and then we can change our behavior. (00:10:33): And this podcast is about that. (00:10:35): It's about sitting in the shame and looking at ways where we can change our (00:10:39): behavior and looking at ways where we can amplify our good behavior. (00:10:46): I like that. (00:10:47): I like that. (00:10:47): And I'm going, if they got their hackles up a moment ago, get ready, take a breath. (00:10:54): Because from whose lens are white men worse? (00:10:58): Yeah. (00:10:59): Right. (00:11:00): So when you're having that conversation, because, yes, I often get that. (00:11:04): And then I'm looking at them and I'm like, OK, but that's your perspective. (00:11:09): Right. (00:11:09): When we're talking about being intersectional and not simply from the from the term (00:11:15): that's been coined by Kimberly, (00:11:17): but like being intersectional in a deeper, (00:11:21): more intentional way, (00:11:22): who says that they are worse? (00:11:24): Because here's what it is on. (00:11:26): I'm not going to deal with Jeff at school. (00:11:29): Right? (00:11:30): I'm going to deal with you. (00:11:32): Jeff is not going to befriend me. (00:11:34): Jeff is not going to be the one inviting my children to birthday parties, (00:11:38): you know, (00:11:39): school functions. (00:11:40): Jeff is not on the PTA. (00:11:42): He is not at the Homosexual Owners Association. (00:11:45): He is not in my social sphere and life, and I don't have as much access, exposure to him. (00:11:53): Right? (00:11:54): So this is what I mean by white women are in charge of social change whilst white (00:11:58): men are in charge of systemic change in that sort of way. (00:12:01): So when white women say that to me, like white men are objectively worse. (00:12:04): I'm like, to you, I don't have the same proximity to them. (00:12:08): I'm not marrying them. (00:12:09): I'm not raising them. (00:12:11): I'm not even dating them, right? (00:12:13): So I don't have to deal with them in that sort of way. (00:12:17): Systemically, they are absolutely worse. (00:12:20): They have a systemic power over me and you. (00:12:22): And that is being... (00:12:25): intersectional in that sort of way, right? (00:12:27): So we do not experience them in our personal lives the same way that you guys do. (00:12:32): So that's one thing, right? (00:12:35): Why I'm saying like, no, we're coming to you. (00:12:37): We're having these conversations with you because I'm dealing with you on a day-to-day basis. (00:12:42): I'm not dealing with him collectively. (00:12:45): Second, when it comes to shame, I love to remind people that shame is not a real emotion. (00:12:51): That's a construct underneath colonial Christianity, right? (00:12:55): And shame keeps us stuck. (00:12:58): Well, I feel bad. (00:12:58): There's nothing I can do. (00:13:00): Woe is me. (00:13:02): And we stop right there and we go in this shame spiral. (00:13:05): Because I cannot accept change large enough, fast enough, or whatever that may be. (00:13:11): Shame is quite literally meant to keep us stuck. (00:13:15): And it's not real. (00:13:16): And we know shame is not real. (00:13:18): Because if you observe children, they haven't any. (00:13:25): Not a shred. (00:13:26): Not an iota of shame, right? (00:13:28): Like your toddler will get up and like go pee in the middle of like (00:13:35): Times Square with a million people watching them and be like, I did a good job, right? (00:13:40): And come back to you with no shame, right? (00:13:43): So that's something that's built in. (00:13:44): That's yet another construct. (00:13:45): So that's something that we could just like kind of, I'm feeling shame. (00:13:51): I can acknowledge it. (00:13:53): I don't need to fix anything. (00:13:55): I just need to acknowledge that it's there and it is a construct. (00:13:58): What can move me forward, right? (00:14:01): And then when we're talking about moving from allyship, (00:14:04): which is, (00:14:05): I love when you said that in the beginning, (00:14:07): right, (00:14:07): is usually a self-appointed term. (00:14:09): You cannot call yourself an ally. (00:14:11): The people that you are dealing with directly can, right? (00:14:14): I can say, I can name you an ally and I still can only name you an ally to me. (00:14:20): I could say Zonda is an amazing ally to me in this fight of social justice. (00:14:24): I cannot say that you are an ally to all Black people. (00:14:27): All Black people may not feel like that, right? (00:14:30): One of the most dangerous things of supremacy culture is the demand of a (00:14:36): monoculture, (00:14:37): the demand of monolithic behavior, (00:14:39): ideals. (00:14:40): And that just doesn't work, right? (00:14:42): So true solidarity comes from recognizing, (00:14:44): well, (00:14:45): hey, (00:14:46): this is where your intersectionality meets my wall, (00:14:50): right? (00:14:51): and how do we go forward, right? (00:14:54): I hear what you're saying. (00:14:56): I can absolutely admit that white men are absolutely your complete and utter (00:15:01): oppressor as they are mine, (00:15:03): but understand that y'all are a package deal and you are your men. (00:15:06): So you also oppress me. (00:15:09): You cannot cross your party line, let's think about it, right? (00:15:13): Like your protest line, come on over here and then go right back home to him (00:15:19): And we haven't done the work of sorting out what needs to happen between us (00:15:25): socially, (00:15:25): the awareness that needs to happen and the admitting and the clearing of that space (00:15:30): and the repair of that relationship collectively before we move forward into that (00:15:37): solidarity. (00:15:38): And then even then, as I often tell white women, I would like to see (00:15:44): White women offering the same grace that we as Black women offer to white women in (00:15:49): this work to white men. (00:15:52): And that, my friend, they stopped hearing me. (00:15:56): They're like, absolutely not. (00:15:58): Hell no. (00:15:58): I'm not doing it. (00:15:59): I've tried. (00:16:00): I've done all the things. (00:16:02): He doesn't listen. (00:16:03): And I'm sitting there like, so were you always this person? (00:16:07): Or how many generations did it take you to get here? (00:16:11): How many book clubs? (00:16:12): How many conversations? (00:16:13): How much system regulation did you need to even get to this point? (00:16:19): And I'm trying to get you to the next phase. (00:16:21): So there's so much there. (00:16:22): So much. (00:16:24): Yes. (00:16:24): Okay. (00:16:25): I mean, there's so much that you've just said. (00:16:26): Every time I talk to you, (00:16:29): and I'm including when we're folding laundry together on the phone, (00:16:34): I feel like I have to start taking notes so that I can go back and pull every (00:16:40): thread that you have thrown at me. (00:16:44): Well, to be fair, I did the same thing, right? (00:16:46): In order to answer you. (00:16:47): So I love our in-depth conversations, inclusive of our folding laundry and law and order chat. (00:16:52): Oh my God. (00:16:54): Okay. (00:16:55): Law and order. (00:16:56): I'm not going to go on law and order right now. (00:16:58): No, we'll do that later. (00:16:59): I haven't been caught up. (00:17:00): So, yes. (00:17:01): All right. (00:17:01): So, (00:17:01): but I want to circle back to this white man and grace thing, (00:17:06): because I think that's one of the harder things for people to swallow. (00:17:10): And I think people often misinterpret what you mean. (00:17:13): I'm not going to get to that yet, though. (00:17:14): I want to address something else. (00:17:17): The thing that I see, (00:17:19): and I felt this in myself, (00:17:21): and not even in just social justice situations, (00:17:24): but just in daily life, (00:17:26): is that we all have this (00:17:28): identity. (00:17:29): And we all want to hold our identities. (00:17:31): We want to see ourselves as good people, as smart people, as moral people. (00:17:36): And often our defense against wrongdoing is like, but I'm so good, but I'm an ally. (00:17:43): And as soon as we start leaning on that identity, (00:17:47): rather than looking at our behavior, (00:17:48): I think that's when we start to get in trouble. (00:17:50): So I appreciate you talking about (00:17:53): you can say this person is an ally to me or maybe even this person is an ally to me (00:17:57): in this context rather than just giving someone a permanent label because what that (00:18:02): ends up being is like a permanent dispensation. (00:18:05): It's like these feminist men who come into feminist groups and say all kinds of (00:18:10): offensive shit and they're like, (00:18:11): but I'm a feminist and you're alienating me. (00:18:14): So I hope that (00:18:16): White women listening to this will understand why we have to judge people's (00:18:21): behavior in the moment, (00:18:22): not on these identities. (00:18:25): But talking about like proximity and talking about how black women and white women (00:18:31): tend to have a lot more proximity to one another than say black women to white men, (00:18:36): as you mentioned. (00:18:38): I had someone leave a comment on one of my posts a couple of months ago, (00:18:41): and I've been thinking about it ever since. (00:18:42): And I'm going to try to do it justice because I think she has something here. (00:18:47): This is from a Black reader, I think, if I'm remembering it correctly. (00:18:52): And what she said is that white women are not just separated from Black women. (00:18:59): They're also separated from each other. (00:19:01): They're separated from womanhood. (00:19:03): They don't have community with one another because they are socialized their whole life. (00:19:08): to focus on men and specifically white men. (00:19:12): And so what that ends up meaning for white women is they actually have no idea what (00:19:17): other women's lives are like, (00:19:18): other white women's lives. (00:19:21): So they're not able to look at the circumstances of their lives and apply a political critique. (00:19:27): When parenting is hard for political reasons, (00:19:29): they think it's a personal or a moral failing because their friends, (00:19:33): if they have them, (00:19:34): aren't in community with them and aren't talking to them about (00:19:38): these realities and I I don't know something about that to me kind of aligns with (00:19:46): this notion that white women and black women are in closer physical proximity to (00:19:52): each other but may not be actually talking meaningfully in the same way that white (00:19:57): women are not meaningfully talking to other white women so I guess my question to (00:20:01): you is do you agree do you think this is a thing that's happening with white women (00:20:04): or is my my reader completely off base (00:20:07): Your reader was preaching such a good word. (00:20:09): I want you to find that reader. (00:20:11): I want you to find them. (00:20:14): I want you to inbox them. (00:20:15): I want you to have a conversation with them on your podcast. (00:20:19): Because yes, exactly that, right? (00:20:22): When we're talking about, right? (00:20:23): Because I do, like when I talk about it, I'm like, I pathologize the system of whiteness. (00:20:29): And I'm actually having some beef right now on Substack because there was a clip of (00:20:34): one of my conversations where I was like, (00:20:36): you are both Charlie and Tyler. (00:20:39): And I was saying, there are no good white people. (00:20:41): And that is activated. (00:20:43): So if you heard that now and you're activated, take a breath, drink some water. (00:20:48): It is not what you think. (00:20:51): What it is saying, (00:20:52): it is offering freedom because supremacy culture and colonial Christianity demands (00:20:58): good and evil, (00:20:59): right? (00:20:59): That's the whole premise. (00:21:01): So like to your point of the white man walking in there and to be fumbling around, (00:21:06): which is allowed when you're learning new paradigms, (00:21:09): new ways. (00:21:10): of existing. (00:21:12): And he's like, I am a feminist. (00:21:13): It is a label. (00:21:15): It is binary because you're either a feminist or you're not a feminist, right? (00:21:19): That's that either or thinking inside of those 15 pillars of supremacy culture. (00:21:23): You're either an ally or you are a racist. (00:21:26): You're either anti-racist or you are racist. (00:21:29): You're either MAGA or you're blue. (00:21:31): And it's like, it leaves no room for humility, for failure, for questioning. (00:21:39): right? (00:21:40): So they are, people are walking into these spaces and they are being admonished almost. (00:21:46): And I try to remind people when I'm doing this work, critique is not admonishment. (00:21:51): I am saying, hey, I need you to release this binary of good or bad, right? (00:21:57): I let it go. (00:21:59): You're going to fuck up. (00:22:00): You're going to be human. (00:22:01): You're going to show up in this space where I am at (00:22:04): I seek to curate brave spaces, right? (00:22:07): I got that terminology from Pam Iverson. (00:22:10): I'm in a girls growing group for years on Facebook. (00:22:13): And she calls her spaces brave spaces. (00:22:15): And they're safe, right? (00:22:17): Because you have to feel safe in order to be brave. (00:22:20): So you get to ask questions. (00:22:22): You get to show up human. (00:22:23): And whiteness as a system does not allow that. (00:22:26): It's a constant performance. (00:22:29): of being good, of being the better wife, the better mother, the prettier girl. (00:22:34): So to the point that your commenter made is exactly that. (00:22:39): So you don't even understand what it's like to show up in spaces together, right? (00:22:46): Like this competition against each other happens young, right? (00:22:51): That mean girl culture. (00:22:53): What you see, like the dog world in corporate (00:22:57): corporate like white man America transfers over into new culture of white womanhood. (00:23:03): And it does sever that relationship, that accessibility to each other. (00:23:08): You click up, right? (00:23:10): So here's the cool girls, here's not the fat girls, there goes this girls. (00:23:14): And it severs that community gathering, that ability to see each other as whole. (00:23:21): You're just not cool enough or you're not cute enough, you're not popular enough. (00:23:24): And that transfers even into your higher learning and education, (00:23:28): you know, (00:23:29): the myth of going to college to get your MRS. (00:23:32): So your whole life is raised around how cute, (00:23:36): how thin, (00:23:37): how well off, (00:23:38): hypergamy, (00:23:39): performing what you need to perform to move up inside of those hierarchies in (00:23:43): whiteness because classism impacts you guys the way racism impacts us. (00:23:47): And so you're so busy not seeing each other, you damn sure can't see us. (00:23:51): Basically, Black women move around white women's worlds like the help. (00:23:56): Like, you don't notice the people, right? (00:23:59): You don't notice the servers in the restaurant. (00:24:01): You don't know what's going on in the back end. (00:24:04): You know whether or not your food is good, right? (00:24:06): I had this conversation this morning on my live about, (00:24:10): there's been conversation about comparing the, (00:24:14): it's laughable, (00:24:16): comparing the No Kings March to the civil rights movement. (00:24:19): And I'm like, what? (00:24:22): What? (00:24:22): What? (00:24:25): It's happening right now. (00:24:26): And I just gave one example of the Montgomery bus boycott. (00:24:31): 381 solid straight days. (00:24:36): 381. (00:24:37): That's a year and some change every day. (00:24:40): Outside, every day. (00:24:43): You know what Black people did not do? (00:24:44): They didn't miss work. (00:24:47): kids still made it to school and that took a lot of concerted community effort (00:24:53): right for 381 days of sustained protesting so when we're fatiguing these things (00:25:00): when we're talking about community it's all of that right so all of a sudden here (00:25:05): goes white women and they're coming out you know and they're feminists and they're (00:25:09): fighting against patriarchy and they're like we're with you sister and i'm like (00:25:12): with who (00:25:13): You don't even like, I often remind white women, you don't like your own poor. (00:25:18): I can't trust you as long as you're still calling them white trash. (00:25:23): Can't. (00:25:24): Because you don't even understand how capitalism works and how it impacts them. (00:25:29): So you could definitely not understand how my womanhood, (00:25:32): my motherhood is political when you haven't understood how yours is. (00:25:38): So yes, absolutely. (00:25:40): Hell yes to that commenter. (00:25:42): It was amazing. (00:25:43): She did great. (00:25:44): Well, good for her. (00:25:48): I was thinking about the kind of like mean girl culture thing. (00:25:51): And you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording. (00:25:54): I've started. (00:25:55): Well, I won't say started. (00:25:56): I've done this for a long time. (00:25:58): I don't really know when I really started. (00:26:00): But I kind of lead with vulnerability in my interactions with new people and not in (00:26:06): a where I'm putting like trauma on them. (00:26:09): But, you know, I always acknowledge, like, things that are hard. (00:26:13): So, (00:26:13): like, (00:26:13): if I'm at my kid's school and, (00:26:15): you know, (00:26:15): I'm meeting a new mom and we're at, (00:26:17): like, (00:26:17): you know, (00:26:17): the Halloween whatever, (00:26:20): you know, (00:26:20): I might talk about, (00:26:21): like, (00:26:21): you know, (00:26:22): all this preparation that went into this. (00:26:23): Like, it sure is a lot of work. (00:26:25): And I noticed that there is a certain type of woman, (00:26:29): always, (00:26:30): always white, (00:26:32): who will rebuff that and say, (00:26:34): oh, (00:26:34): it wasn't hard for me. (00:26:35): It must just be you. (00:26:39): And that behavior, (00:26:40): that refusal to be vulnerable about things that we both know are objectively true, (00:26:46): just maps so neatly onto so many other antisocial behaviors. (00:26:51): So again, it's that refusal of community spirit that you're talking about. (00:26:55): And it's a denial of one's own humanity. (00:26:59): Yeah. (00:26:59): Yeah. (00:27:01): it demands a performance. (00:27:03): Like it's okay. (00:27:04): It was difficult, right? (00:27:06): I'm here on this podcast, (00:27:08): but in between just to get here to sit in this moment, (00:27:12): look at how many times you rescheduled that. (00:27:14): Life is difficult. (00:27:15): Life is difficult and that is okay. (00:27:19): And that is part of what I mean about like, (00:27:21): I need white women to touch their humanity, (00:27:24): their vulnerability. (00:27:26): Like it's okay. (00:27:28): And that, (00:27:29): to the other point of view is like that extension of that grace, (00:27:33): that's me extending grace, (00:27:34): right? (00:27:35): And when I'm asking you to do the same thing to white men, (00:27:38): it is saying, (00:27:39): hey, (00:27:40): Zahn, (00:27:41): I'm recognizing that even though you are cute, (00:27:43): adorable, (00:27:44): and blonde, (00:27:46): life is, (00:27:47): right? (00:27:48): Like you're a top tier white woman. (00:27:51): Like we could recognize that and still say life is difficult at your level. (00:27:58): You only think that because we have cameras off right now. (00:28:01): You should see what my hair looks like. (00:28:04): It's horrific. (00:28:06): Listen, I have a milkmaid bun going on on top of mine. (00:28:09): So when you said no cameras, I was like, fuck yeah, I appreciate this. (00:28:14): Well, what I'm saying is I could still recognize your humanity. (00:28:18): I could still recognize that even though you are those things, right? (00:28:22): Because whiteness relies on stereotypes. (00:28:24): And what white people do not recognize is it stereotypes you first, right? (00:28:29): It gives you the boxes first. (00:28:31): This is how supremacy culture impacts you first, right? (00:28:34): It has told you what womanhood is, right? (00:28:37): It's told you that your highest purpose is to achieve marriage, children, (00:28:43): a home. (00:28:45): And then feminism came in and was like, (00:28:47): you need to maintain all of those things and have a career. (00:28:51): And it's like, golly. (00:28:52): So that gets passed on to all of us, right? (00:28:56): Because you guys are the curators of this culture that we're living in. (00:29:01): So womanhood has always been defined by white womanhood. (00:29:04): Manhood has been as well. (00:29:06): And so when I'm saying extend that grace is I could say, hey, (00:29:09): You know what, Zahn? (00:29:10): Your life may be easier in one aspect of supremacy culture and difficult in this one. (00:29:16): And what does that look like? (00:29:18): Me saying, hey, I could see that this is difficult for you. (00:29:21): And me then saying, can you extend that to Jeff? (00:29:24): Can you see that though he may be successful in X, (00:29:27): Y, (00:29:28): and Z, (00:29:29): that this is tough to maintain for him, (00:29:31): that he has to show up and perform manhood the same way you have to perform (00:29:38): womanhood and wifeness and (00:29:41): motherhood and you do not ever get to drop the fucking ball neither does he and (00:29:46): that is the grace that we consistently have extended to white women like listen (00:29:51): you're gonna drop the ball you're gonna screw this up you're not always going to be (00:29:55): anti-racist you're damn sure not going to be always anti-black and we're still (00:29:59): saying show up we will teach you we will guide you but white women too often meet (00:30:03): us with defensiveness like no because i'm an ally i'm like okay bye (00:30:10): So, (00:30:11): okay, (00:30:12): you've talked a lot lately about the punitive nature of whiteness, (00:30:16): and you've talked about this in the context of the way people react to your work. (00:30:21): And this is something that also exists in male supremacy. (00:30:24): But often white women who notice this punitive authoritarianism in male supremacy, (00:30:29): who, (00:30:29): for example, (00:30:30): see how punitive their partners are with their kids, (00:30:32): they're (00:30:34): still take that punitive culture into their anti-racism and other activism work. (00:30:38): And I want to give an example from your work that I actually just revisited this (00:30:43): morning because I'm still mad about it. (00:30:46): You wrote an article entitled, Jesus's Lord is a Battle Cry Against Empire. (00:30:51): This was not an article really about Christianity or about how people should be Christian. (00:30:56): It wasn't propaganda. (00:30:58): But here comes this little white woman into your comments. (00:31:01): And throwing a tantrum, (00:31:03): accusing you of propaganda based solely on the headline for the article that she (00:31:07): did not read. (00:31:08): And then she loudly announced that she would be unsubscribing. (00:31:12): And a couple of people liked this comment. (00:31:13): And I have to start with an apology because she was my subscriber first and I sent her to you. (00:31:18): So, oops. (00:31:21): I do not blame you. (00:31:23): I appreciate you sending people and I recognize that they're going to have difficulty. (00:31:28): I don't talk about easy topics. (00:31:30): Carry on. (00:31:31): So interestingly, I corrected her in the comments pretty gently. (00:31:36): It's like two sentence correction. (00:31:39): And she continued to subscribe to me even after she angrily unsubscribed to you, (00:31:44): which I think that's an interesting just data point. (00:31:48): But then... (00:31:49): Weeks, months, sometime later, she ran her mouth on my page too. (00:31:55): And I gently corrected her on my page and she did the same thing to me. (00:31:58): Well, I'm unsubscribing now. (00:32:01): And so this person has obviously bought into the notion that she should punish (00:32:06): people for their ideas. (00:32:08): And she should punish people with the only currency that matters in capitalism, which is money. (00:32:12): And, you know, people can subscribe to whoever they want. (00:32:15): We're not entitled to anybody's affection or loyalty or money or subscription. (00:32:21): But, (00:32:22): you know, (00:32:22): throwing these public tantrums about I don't like your headline or I don't like it (00:32:27): that you disagreed with me. (00:32:28): So I'm going to make a big deal about how mad I am about it. (00:32:32): That's what you've argued is related to white supremacy. (00:32:36): So can we talk a little bit about this punitive policing aspect of white supremacy (00:32:42): and how we just end up like eating our own tails with it? (00:32:45): Oh, God, yes, absolutely. (00:32:48): And like you said, like you tied it into, let me try to wrap this up in a bun. (00:32:54): White women will always see that as part of patriarchy, right? (00:32:57): But patriarchy is merely a branch of the tree of supremacy culture, right? (00:33:03): Similar to racism, classism. (00:33:06): And we are trying to dig up the root and just (00:33:10): replant something different. (00:33:12): So it comes from that colonial Christian view, right? (00:33:15): Like I said, again, of that binary, of that good and evil, heaven or hell, punishment or bliss. (00:33:22): And instead of, (00:33:23): it's very interesting to me because the white women that do this on a regular basis (00:33:28): will inevitably claim themselves to be allies, (00:33:34): gentle parents, (00:33:36): all of these really cool buzzwords, (00:33:39): all of the woke leftist language will be thrown around and I'm like, (00:33:45): So do you punish your children? (00:33:46): I mean, (00:33:47): like you said, (00:33:47): I do agree that I'm not entitled to anybody's money, (00:33:52): anybody's space, (00:33:53): anybody listening to you. (00:33:54): Do what you need to do for you. (00:33:56): I remind people to choose themselves all the time. (00:33:59): Do what you need to do. (00:34:00): At least make it an informed decision. (00:34:01): I know that you didn't read that article and come to that conclusion. (00:34:04): But alas, that punitive nature is something that gets passed down, right? (00:34:10): Whiteness as a system is a cycle of abuse, right? (00:34:14): husband smacks wife, wife smacks kids, kids kick dogs, like shit rolls downhill. (00:34:19): So this idea of, (00:34:22): you know, (00:34:22): you can only have this if you're making me feel good is always around us in all of (00:34:30): the ways. (00:34:31): where she could have got curious in this very specific thing and said, (00:34:36): okay, (00:34:37): I am, (00:34:37): you know, (00:34:38): one reader who I absolutely loved was like, (00:34:41): so I was activated by this and I didn't read it. (00:34:46): I was like, good job, basically. (00:34:47): That was the gist of it. (00:34:50): And I may revisit it, but I don't want to right now. (00:34:55): But I'm going to sit with it and get curious. (00:34:57): And that's what I ask for people to do. (00:34:59): And that's how you move away from the punishment. (00:35:03): Is $8 a month killing you? (00:35:05): If you like 10 of my other articles and you didn't like this one, (00:35:11): it's like the baby with the bathwater sort of thing. (00:35:15): And (00:35:15): What it does is it demands another performance, right? (00:35:18): Because whiteness, like I said, demands performance. (00:35:21): What I was supposed to do was say, (00:35:23): oh no, (00:35:24): how could I make this better for you and be comfortable? (00:35:28): Now, (00:35:28): when you add in a racial dynamic, (00:35:31): what it feels like for me and my body is you want me to tap dance for you? (00:35:35): Oh no, master, I shows, we'll fix that right on up for you, missy. (00:35:40): No, like carry on, by all means, block me. (00:35:44): do yourself the favor because you're going to be consistently uncomfortable. (00:35:50): So when people come up to that, I just ask them to get curious. (00:35:54): Like, what do you, why? (00:35:56): Why do you want to harm someone? (00:35:57): Because that's what it is. (00:35:59): You have to see that as a violent act. (00:36:02): Like you said, no, we're not entitled to anybody's money. (00:36:04): But if you have been receiving information that has been good for you all of this (00:36:09): time, (00:36:10): and something has activated in you, (00:36:12): something got your heart goes up, (00:36:13): something (00:36:16): you need to take a breath with and lean into why not get more curious why question (00:36:21): your own self why do you want to punish this person why do you want to bring harm (00:36:25): to them right a follow-up to that was um when I had spoke about uh Charlie and (00:36:34): Tyler being both inside of whiteness right um (00:36:38): I lost so many people. (00:36:40): I was like, here's my offering right now. (00:36:44): I'll give you 31% off, prices are going up. (00:36:47): I'm not doing this with you guys. (00:36:49): I say something that you don't like, I lose 10, 15 people. (00:36:51): People unsubscribe all the time. (00:36:53): That is not sustainable. (00:36:55): Why do you want to punish people? (00:36:57): That is the question that you have to ask, why? (00:36:59): Why do you wanna be harmful? (00:37:01): And then you want those same people (00:37:05): to understand how patriarchy is punitive and punishing you, (00:37:10): yet you will pass along that violence. (00:37:15): Go ahead. (00:37:15): Get curious. (00:37:16): Yeah. (00:37:17): Yes. (00:37:19): That's all I know to say. (00:37:20): Yeah. (00:37:22): No, I don't even know if I answered you fully, but those are the words that came up. (00:37:26): OK, good. (00:37:26): But I have kind of like a reciprocal question to this. (00:37:33): I'm really interested, (00:37:34): and I actually had a piece come out today when we're recording this, (00:37:37): it'll be old news by the time this recording comes out, (00:37:40): about converting white women, (00:37:42): bringing them into leftist politics. (00:37:44): And I've had some pretty good luck doing this. (00:37:47): And when I say pretty good luck, I mean I fail 99% of the time because it's so fucking hard. (00:37:53): But I'm thinking about this punitive spirit that often happens and the defensive spirit. (00:37:59): And if we're gonna convert people, we have to be mindful (00:38:03): that this is what comes out. (00:38:05): So my question is, (00:38:06): do you have any insight on what white women like me who are working with other (00:38:11): white women can do to not activate that punitive spirit and to instead get to the (00:38:17): person behind it? (00:38:19): I would say that you have to know that you're going to activate that, right? (00:38:23): It's kind of like when I'm talking to people about white supremacy, (00:38:27): anti-racism work, (00:38:29): I'm like, (00:38:29): you guys keep looking for the shark, (00:38:31): right? (00:38:32): Oh, there it is, there it is. (00:38:34): And I'm like, no, supremacy culture is the water that we swim in, right? (00:38:38): So everybody's in it. (00:38:39): The shark, the coral reef, the anemones, you know, tiny fish, big fish, little fish, the sand. (00:38:47): We're all in it. (00:38:48): We're just all in it and it's all around. (00:38:51): So I would say prepare that it's coming, right? (00:38:55): Here's what it is. (00:38:56): I am never shocked by it. (00:39:00): I think why I have such sustainability in this work (00:39:03): is because I fully expect it. (00:39:05): Chris Rock had a joke a thousand years ago, (00:39:08): and I'm going to botch it, (00:39:09): but he basically, (00:39:12): the premise of it was, (00:39:13): he's like, (00:39:13): if I am sitting next to a white person and they took a pencil and stabbed me in my (00:39:19): neck, (00:39:20): I would say, (00:39:21): my bad, (00:39:22): I shouldn't have had my neck out. (00:39:26): because you anticipate it, right? (00:39:29): Like, it's going to happen. (00:39:31): It's going to happen sooner or later. (00:39:32): It's going to be uncomfortable. (00:39:34): So for me, when I have those spaces, I just know that that's going to happen. (00:39:40): And this is exhausting. (00:39:41): This is why there are Black-only spaces. (00:39:44): The same way there are women-only gym spaces, (00:39:47): women-only dating spaces, is because you want to be outside of the male gaze, right? (00:39:54): I don't want to go to the gym and be hit on. (00:39:56): I don't even want to go to the gym and have the possibility of being hit on. (00:40:00): This is why Black-only spaces exist. (00:40:03): I don't want the white gaze. (00:40:06): Because you're going to have to anticipate it. (00:40:08): That's my whole point. (00:40:09): The whole point of that is (00:40:10): You have to anticipate that if you are in the spaces with these people, (00:40:14): you are going to be harmed, (00:40:16): right? (00:40:17): If you are in a relationship with an abuser, you're going to be abused. (00:40:22): And white women have an issue with taking on the role of recognizing that they are (00:40:29): an abuser in this system of supremacy culture. (00:40:32): So if you're going to have proximity to an abuser, you have to anticipate being abused. (00:40:37): That's what it is. (00:40:38): You go into it knowing I'm probably going to get my teeth kicked. (00:40:42): How do I avoid that? (00:40:43): It's an ugly reality. (00:40:46): Right. (00:40:47): It's unfortunate. (00:40:48): I'm sorry. (00:40:48): Take a breath. (00:40:49): But that's the truth, right? (00:40:51): I love you. (00:40:51): I will not be surprised if something you do and or say would be harmful. (00:40:59): Where the repair, (00:40:59): though, (00:41:00): because I want to offer that really quickly before we go into anything else, (00:41:03): where the repair is, (00:41:04): right, (00:41:04): where that problem, (00:41:05): that tension that exists is I fully expect, (00:41:09): as a white woman, (00:41:11): you are going to say something that is going to aggress me, (00:41:14): harm me, (00:41:14): be anti-Black. (00:41:16): All of the things where the restoration and repair is between you and I is me being (00:41:21): able to say, (00:41:22): hey, (00:41:22): Zahn, (00:41:23): when you said that, (00:41:24): this is what it activated in me. (00:41:25): And I'm able to explain why the pedagogy behind it, (00:41:30): the suppression, (00:41:31): the cultural, (00:41:32): the systemic issues. (00:41:33): And I need you to receive that. (00:41:36): That's what makes you safe. (00:41:38): Not that you'll never fuck up. (00:41:40): It's that you're willing to do the repair. (00:41:41): You're willing to sit with it. (00:41:42): Even if you can't hear it in that moment, Des, you know what? (00:41:46): I don't know about that. (00:41:47): I need to sit with that. (00:41:48): Great. (00:41:49): Please reflect. (00:41:50): Come back to me. (00:41:51): It's the restoration and the repair where white women mess up in that. (00:41:57): intersectional relationship is me saying that to you. (00:42:01): And you say, absolutely not Desiree. (00:42:03): I have five other Negroes that would say different. (00:42:06): And I'm like, well, go be friends with that. (00:42:09): Yeah. (00:42:12): Yeah. (00:42:13): Well, my friend said, and I don't give a shit what your friend said, I'm telling you something. (00:42:18): And that's super important. (00:42:20): So there you go. (00:42:21): That's where I land on that. (00:42:22): This is this is completely unrelated to what you just said, (00:42:25): but it just reminded me of this story. (00:42:27): And I do talk about dating. (00:42:28): So I'm going to I'm going to share it anyway. (00:42:30): And you can you can share your horror. (00:42:32): So early in Jeff's and my relationship, (00:42:36): like three months in, (00:42:38): we went out with his sister and we both drank too much. (00:42:43): And we got in a dumb fight, like not an abusive fight, just a really stupid fight. (00:42:48): We're like, (00:42:49): whatever the central thing was that we were fighting about, (00:42:52): like was something that didn't even exist. (00:42:55): Like people do. (00:42:57): And so he went back to his apartment for like the night and I went back to my place (00:43:04): and I was, (00:43:04): I was devastated. (00:43:05): I was convinced we were going to break up and you know, (00:43:08): it was, (00:43:08): it was a horror and it was just the end and I just could not cope. (00:43:12): So I contacted like five of my friends and I got them to write statements about me, (00:43:19): countering what we were fighting about to prove him wrong. (00:43:25): And I emailed him along with like, you know, a statement of facts. (00:43:30): And like, I called it like my motion for summary judgment on our relationship. (00:43:34): Yeah. (00:43:35): it remains one of the most like banana crackers things I have ever done, (00:43:40): but it was also really effective. (00:43:41): So, um, I promise I will not do that to you. (00:43:45): Um, that is wild. (00:43:48): Please don't ever do that to me. (00:43:50): And I think that what, (00:43:51): what that shows is just the monolithic demand of supremacy culture, (00:43:57): right? (00:43:57): Like I, um, (00:44:00): white womanhood is so violent to white women and femmes underneath (00:44:07): this is hetero Christian white male patriarchy, right? (00:44:11): It demands for you to never be wrong, never falter, always be pretty, always be performing. (00:44:16): It's exhausting. (00:44:18): I would never want to be a white woman. (00:44:21): Just not, right? (00:44:22): And it's like, (00:44:23): because that competition is built in, (00:44:24): it's like, (00:44:25): oh no, (00:44:25): there's going to be somebody that's more agreeable to him that wouldn't argue with (00:44:29): these things. (00:44:31): All of that comes into play. (00:44:33): And that fear, (00:44:35): because now you've found someone, (00:44:36): because also supremacy culture disconnects us from self, (00:44:41): the land and community. (00:44:43): And this person is the one person you should be cleaving to because he's my man and (00:44:48): I'm a stand by my man. (00:44:52): And this is also the reason why community is so important. (00:44:55): Because yes, (00:44:56): I'm very much a my man, (00:44:57): my man, (00:44:58): my man girly, (00:44:59): but my friends, (00:45:01): my family, (00:45:02): my children and myself, (00:45:05): And that is the full breadth of humanity. (00:45:08): All of those things exist at the same time. (00:45:10): And whiteness as a system demands fealty. (00:45:17): to a concept, to a person, to this one way of being. (00:45:22): Again, (00:45:23): if people do nothing else, (00:45:25): please go and download my very pay what you can 15 pillars of supremacy culture, (00:45:31): understanding them and how to dismantle them. (00:45:33): Because you will recognize how they play in your life. (00:45:37): And it is a foundational work. (00:45:40): to dismantling oppressive systems. (00:45:41): It is a necessity to recognize what comes up there is that only one right way, right? (00:45:48): There's only one way of being a person, (00:45:50): only one way of being a woman, (00:45:51): only one way of being a friend, (00:45:53): and it constantly demands performance. (00:45:56): And then that defensiveness comes up, right? (00:45:58): Des, no, because when I said that to so-and-so, that's not how they received it. (00:46:03): And that's not real. (00:46:05): That's fine. (00:46:06): But they don't have those lived experiences that I have. (00:46:09): I'm going to come to this situation with mine the way I anticipate you coming with yours. (00:46:14): And we are having an individual interpersonal relationship. (00:46:18): It is not your relationship with all Black women. (00:46:20): It is your relationship with me in front of you. (00:46:24): And as long as that repair work is there, (00:46:26): right, (00:46:27): that willingness to show up in your humanity, (00:46:29): and that is really what anti-oppression work is about, (00:46:33): is offering people a path back to their own humanity and releasing these (00:46:37): constructs. (00:46:38): So yeah, there you go. (00:46:40): I love that. (00:46:41): That's beautiful. (00:46:42): And I just want to echo, please do download the Pillars of White Supremacy. (00:46:47): It has helped me understand so many of the interactions that I have with people, (00:46:53): especially in the work I do. (00:46:56): You and I actually talked about this a year ago, (00:46:58): I think, (00:47:00): where like every time I do an AMA, (00:47:02): I'll get all kinds of interesting questions, (00:47:04): but I will also get people asking me, (00:47:07): about these kind of like trivial side issues or about topics that are just like not (00:47:13): my topics, (00:47:13): not things that I know a lot about. (00:47:16): And it's very clear based on the way those questions are framed that what they're (00:47:21): doing is testing me to see if I'm the right kind of feminist, (00:47:26): to see if I have the right opinion on lipstick. (00:47:29): That's one that comes up all the time. (00:47:32): And on lipstick, I can't. (00:47:34): Oh, my God. (00:47:35): Of all the things I write about, (00:47:37): the two things that make people unsubscribe the most are beauty and diet culture (00:47:44): and sex work. (00:47:47): Any opinion that differs on those issues and people want you dead. (00:47:53): They just do. (00:47:53): And it's this it's this purity culture. (00:47:57): And I don't mean purity in the sexual purity. (00:48:00): I mean, (00:48:00): this idea that you have to be the one true feminist, (00:48:03): the one true activist who gets everything right. (00:48:06): according to this one person's weird definition of what... (00:48:10): All of that right there is built into what I'm saying is that monoculture. (00:48:15): Exactly. (00:48:15): That colonial Christianity because like how could you stand by... (00:48:19): And talk about and say sex work is work because I'm saying it's a job. (00:48:24): Yeah. (00:48:24): Because I said it. (00:48:25): That's how. (00:48:27): How is that? (00:48:28): I mean, (00:48:29): even if you like regardless of how you feel about sex work, (00:48:33): like it's obviously a job because you're getting paid for it. (00:48:37): Like this should not be controversial. (00:48:39): But oh, Lord, is it controversial? (00:48:41): It just really upsets people. (00:48:44): So understanding the perfectionism. (00:48:47): of white supremacy has really helped me understand that behavior. (00:48:51): And of course, the policing actions that go with it. (00:48:55): So thank you. (00:48:57): It's a wonderful contribution. (00:48:59): Everything you write is a wonderful contribution. (00:49:01): So I think we're probably going to wrap it up here, except I have one final question for you. (00:49:10): And that is... (00:49:13): I think the thing that we're gonna focus more sharply on, (00:49:16): but we end up talking about all this other stuff. (00:49:19): How do we bring the right wing white women over? (00:49:23): What do we do? (00:49:24): Oh my God, what a wonderful question. (00:49:27): And I think it's gonna touch on what we were talking about before, (00:49:31): kind of like the deserving, (00:49:33): like the right kind. (00:49:37): It goes back to Grace Zahn, right? (00:49:42): None of us were here. (00:49:43): Right. (00:49:44): I am a completely different person than I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago. (00:49:50): Right. (00:49:51): I remind people that, (00:49:52): you know, (00:49:53): when I was sitting in my sociology class at 18 years old, (00:49:57): I was a white Republican woman. (00:50:01): I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God. (00:50:04): I had all of the talking points, right? (00:50:07): Slavery ended hundreds to 300 years ago. (00:50:10): Like, what are you doing? (00:50:11): Nobody's stopping you. (00:50:12): All of the indoctrination that comes with American exceptionalism and the pseudo (00:50:18): educational system that we talk about, (00:50:20): right? (00:50:20): At 20 something years old, I didn't even know what redlining is. (00:50:24): And now look at me, all militantly black and educating, right? (00:50:28): So (00:50:30): It's about creating those brave spaces and those safe spaces and releasing the binary. (00:50:35): What I tell people is for decolonization work, (00:50:37): your very first step is releasing that binary because there's no safe space. (00:50:42): And I look at whiteness as a system as in IPV, right? (00:50:47): Like that in-partner violence or domestic violence in my day, it was called. (00:50:53): And it takes on average seven times to escape that. (00:50:56): Right. (00:50:57): But in order for people to leave DV situations, (00:51:00): there has to be safety nets inside of society and in community. (00:51:07): Right. (00:51:07): Like, where are they going? (00:51:09): How are they going to eat? (00:51:10): How are they going to survive? (00:51:12): What white people, (00:51:14): leftist white people, (00:51:15): woke white people forget, (00:51:17): you know, (00:51:17): well, (00:51:17): they're voting against their best interests. (00:51:19): No, no. (00:51:22): It's worked. (00:51:22): It's been working for thousands of years to side with patriarchy, (00:51:28): to side with the regime that we're currently seeing. (00:51:33): It has worked for them. (00:51:34): It is survival. (00:51:36): They have learned (00:51:37): the very bare ability to survive this very violent system. (00:51:42): So if you're asking people to leave those spaces, (00:51:45): you have to create spaces where they can land, (00:51:48): where they can ask questions, (00:51:50): where they can be wrong, (00:51:52): where we can turn around and say, (00:51:54): holy shit, (00:51:55): I'm agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene, (00:51:56): shoot me, (00:51:57): but she's right. (00:51:59): Right. (00:52:00): And giving her giving her her kudos on that. (00:52:02): Giving her her giving. (00:52:03): Yeah. (00:52:04): Give her her flowers. (00:52:05): She's right on what she said. (00:52:06): Oh, well, she's only right because it's about to be midterms. (00:52:09): I don't give a shit why she's right. (00:52:11): I don't care what motivated her. (00:52:13): Right. (00:52:14): How do you make a safe place to keep to move her? (00:52:17): Yeah. (00:52:17): Let's bring her in. (00:52:18): Like, let's say, okay, well, okay, let's go. (00:52:20): Let's take that one step further, Marjorie. (00:52:23): You notice that. (00:52:24): Can you notice something else? (00:52:26): Can you see how this works with that? (00:52:30): And she may say, uh-huh. (00:52:31): She may say no. (00:52:33): But that's the grace. (00:52:35): Because you were once Marjorie Taylor Greene, too. (00:52:37): The birth canal of whiteness is the alt-right. (00:52:41): Right? (00:52:41): Like, some white people that think that they're leftists are centrists at best. (00:52:47): At best. (00:52:48): compared to others that have been doing this work generationally at best, right? (00:52:54): When I see people like when it was, (00:52:57): you know, (00:52:57): the Biden versus Trump, (00:52:58): I was like, (00:52:59): y'all are the same to me. (00:53:01): You talking about Biden with 50 years of racist policy. (00:53:05): Trump is an idiot. (00:53:07): You know what I'm saying? (00:53:08): We can't quantify harm. (00:53:10): You can't quantify racism. (00:53:12): You can't quantify antisemitism. (00:53:15): You just simply have to say it shouldn't exist. (00:53:17): And what are we going to do to dismantle it? (00:53:19): And that's going to take a lot of grace. (00:53:21): That's going to take a lot of humility. (00:53:23): That's going to take a lot of work generationally. (00:53:26): And you have to make space for people to be wrong. (00:53:30): You have to allow them in. (00:53:31): And you have to say, everyone is worthy, right? (00:53:37): Every person is worthy of that. (00:53:39): No, not every person is deserving. (00:53:41): I will land it right here. (00:53:44): Worth is inherent. (00:53:45): We are all born worthy of being free from oppression. (00:53:49): Not everybody is deserving of being in the spaces that you are curating, right? (00:53:56): You have to, like where I said, you know, (00:53:59): If you aggrieve me, which will happen because we're human, right? (00:54:03): But if I bring it to you and you're not willing to do the repair work, (00:54:06): you don't deserve my presence. (00:54:09): It's that simple. (00:54:10): You do not deserve access to me because you're harmful to me, (00:54:14): not because you're less than me, (00:54:15): not because you're unworthy, (00:54:17): not because I think you trash, (00:54:19): but you're not willing to do the repair work with me. (00:54:22): So therefore you do not deserve access to me. (00:54:25): That has to be earned. (00:54:26): You're worth it. (00:54:28): But you don't you haven't done the work to have access. (00:54:32): So that is how I would say, (00:54:33): you know, (00:54:33): use your discernment when you're offering grace to people is, (00:54:37): you know, (00:54:37): anticipate that you're going to be harmed in this work. (00:54:40): If you are doing this work of any type of anti-racism, (00:54:44): pro-humanity, (00:54:45): anti-oppression, (00:54:46): if you're doing this work with your husbands, (00:54:47): with your friends, (00:54:48): anticipate being harmed. (00:54:50): because these systems have been going for thousands of years. (00:54:53): So anticipate that, (00:54:54): but offer the grace, (00:54:56): and the grace says, (00:54:57): do this restoration and repair work with me. (00:55:00): If they are not willing to do it, cut them off. (00:55:03): They are harmful to you, (00:55:04): and they have no desire to actually be in true community with you, (00:55:09): and they will just continue to do harm to you. (00:55:12): You could leave an access point, but that's about it. (00:55:16): I think that's amazing advice. (00:55:17): I love that. (00:55:18): And I love encouraging us all to reflect on our own wrongness, (00:55:22): the times that we have been wrong, (00:55:24): the ways that we have evolved, (00:55:26): because it's so easy for us to judge other people. (00:55:29): And it's often very difficult for us to judge ourselves. (00:55:34): Yes, very much so. (00:55:37): There's a whole... (00:55:39): whole idea, a whole psychological pedagogy in regards to how we perceive ourselves. (00:55:46): I would love to pretend I have always been this person, this evolved, this calm, this woke. (00:55:54): And that's just not true. (00:55:56): And to negate that truth is to deny my own humanity and to deny my growth. (00:56:02): A lot of you guys have done some heavy hitting movements. (00:56:07): and really evolve to this space and to pretend that you've always been there really (00:56:13): cuts you off from your own self and really just doesn't even allow your humanity in (00:56:19): that. (00:56:19): I love sharing those stories. (00:56:22): I love being aware of how wrong I was in the past because it reminds me of how (00:56:26): human I am and how evolutionary I am and how much we can grow when we are so (00:56:33): willing to show up as our true selves. (00:56:36): That's beautiful and perfect. (00:56:38): And I just, I love you as always. (00:56:41): I'm so glad that I got to have you on again. (00:56:43): Thank you for coming. (00:56:45): And we'll be back next week with our next episode. (00:56:49): So thank you for listening.