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Goodpain Podcast Season 02 Episode 20: This Just Ain't Working for Us – Relando Thompkins-Jones, Social Justice Origin Stories
1 Playsin 5 hours
This just ain't working for us...and it does not have to be this way.
Today, our guest, Relando Thompkins-Jones of Social Justice Origin Stories and I explore how power shapes our world. We often say "just" to avoid seeing deeper truths. But maturity requires looking at the actual impact we have. We discuss who gets to set the terms of engagement. This episode explores historical design decisions and systemic harm.
These topics are pointed and may spark internal resistance. Invite your objections to come along for the ride. Do not let them close your ears to the message. You are strong enough to lead with your humanity. We must name what is broken to find collective hope. Let’s engage these difficult questions together.
Relando Thompkins-Jones is a macro social worker, social justice educator, strategist, and storyteller who uses media and education to advance equity and social justice within people, organizations, and communities. For more than a decade, he has worked across higher education, nonprofit, public, and private sectors, planning and implementing experiential activities and projects that advance diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice.
He is also the Founder & Director of Narrative Strategy and Learning Ecosystem at Social Justice Origin Stories, a multimedia storytelling project that explores the personal experiences, defining moments, and influences that inspire people and organizations to pursue social justice. Through conversations with activists, educators, organizers, scholars, and everyday changemakers, the project seeks to reduce isolation among justice-seekers, preserve community wisdom, and help listeners discover their own place in the work.
The phrase "If we can change how we think, we can change what we do" is central to Relando's approach, and he finds fulfillment in engaging with others using the liberatory power of storytelling, education, and authentic human connection to co-create the conditions for collective thriving.
Website: Social Justice Origin Stories | YouTube Channel | Audio Podlink
Media Mentions
Becoming the People Podcast Episode: Grief is the Medicine
Danger of the Single Story TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Jeremy. And I'm Tyler. Welcome
Power Dynamics and Inequality
00:00:03
Speaker
to GoodPing. I'm sharing this information with you because it's beneficial for all of us to know to be able to move about the world, but in reality, it really only benefits the people that it actually benefits. And all the other folks who would never actually reach those outcomes in the first place, because of how it's set up, are still told to follow these particular things.
00:00:22
Speaker
But I think there's there's some... there's some Freedom and collectively acknowledging that this thing ain't working, that ain't it.
Introducing Rolando Tompkins-Jones
00:00:42
Speaker
Today we're joined by our guest Rolando and we explore how power shapes our world. We often say the word just to avoid seeing deeper truths, but maturity requires looking at the actual impact that we have and not reducing that to just formulas of just.
00:01:00
Speaker
In this episode, we discuss who gets to set the terms of engagement in our interactions. We also explore historical design decisions and systemic harm. These topics are pointed and may spark internal resistance. We invite your objections to come along for that ride, for this ride. We trust that you're not going to let them close your ears to this message.
00:01:22
Speaker
You're strong enough to lead with your humanity, but we must name what is broken to find collective hope. So let's engage these difficult questions together.
Rolando's Work in Equity and Justice
00:01:31
Speaker
Rolando Tompkins-Jones is a macrosocial worker, a social justice educator, strategist, and storyteller who uses media and education to advance equity and social justice within people, organizations, and communities.
00:01:48
Speaker
For more than a decade, he has worked across higher education, nonprofit, public, and private sectors, planning and implementing experiential activities and projects that advance diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice.
00:02:05
Speaker
He's also the founder and director of Narrative Strategy and Learning Ecosystem at Social Justice Origin Stories, a multimedia storytelling project that explores the personal experiences, defining moments, and influences that inspire people and organizations to pursue social justice. Through conversations with activists, educators, organizers, scholars, and everyday changemakers, the project seeks to reduce isolation among justice seekers, preserve community wisdom, and help listeners discover their own place in the work. All reasons that resonate with us here at GoodPain.
00:02:41
Speaker
The phrase, if we can change how we think, we can change what we do, is central to Rolando's approach. And he finds fulfillment in engaging with others using the liberatory powers of storytelling, education, and authentic human connection to co-create the conditions for collective
New Voices Amplify Program
00:02:58
Speaker
thriving. Rolando and I are both members of the 2026 New Voices Amplify program put on by the Association of Independence and Radio and sponsored by Apple Podcasts.
00:03:09
Speaker
This is where we met and we're excited to have met so that we could actually do this episode together. With that, we're excited to bring it to you, and we hope you enjoy the ride.
Privilege and Power in Engagement
00:03:25
Speaker
You think that because you want to know that that's sufficient and that you deserve and are entitled to get an answer back. And that and that what what other people then, like yourself, have to navigate is, what's the repercussions for me If I don't answer, if I decide to assert my own autonomy and agency and say, hey, i I don't want to answer that. I have that privilege. Not everybody has the privilege even to assert the right to not answer.
00:03:56
Speaker
The privilege to to set the terms of engagement, that power that you're describing, in and I'm saying it again, like naming it like the power to to shape the terms of engagement, to decide what's acceptable and what's not. It's also can show up in a way of like, you know, the power to sort of claim things like ah rationality or I'm just being reasonable. Right. So like.
00:04:17
Speaker
You know, e could also that same dynamic can be turned around. And then you go talk to other other white folks or other folks with privilege, depending on what we're talking about, and go say, hey, look, I'm trying to be a good person. Like, I just asked this person. I'm trying to learn, right? I'm trying to get to know people, and I'm trying to figure out what their experiences are. And all I did was ask a question, and they didn't want to answer me. It's also the power to be able to kind of take that approach. response back to your people and and get some confirmation, right?
00:04:44
Speaker
That you're, oh, no no, no, no, no. You were actually being very rational there. You were just asking a question. I don't know what their problem is. And then they want to, and they want to know why, like folks don't understand them or folks don't, because I'm just asking a genuine question. Not paying attention to the fact that folks have agency. I was just talking about this with a group not long ago, but not paying attention to the fact that people have agency. So, yeah, it's about power. It's about the messages that we internalize and and what happens, you know, when that power is challenged, even if it's, you know, somebody saying, no, i don't want to go there.
00:05:18
Speaker
That is within their right to do, but the kind of power that you're talking about here can also be used to kind of weaponize the agency too. And to kind of, ah you know, reinforce an assumed like innocence in the
Minimizing Complexity with Language
00:05:30
Speaker
whole thing.
00:05:30
Speaker
This word almost is like a canary in the coal mine for me. It's the word just. And there's something just I was just it's it's this narrowing of intentions. It's this actually almost like waving hands at hey, I'm safe because I was just because you don't want to take a turn and look at actually the other potentially less pure, less values driven, less ethical things that were still in the room. And I think one of the clearest ways of recognizing this, I think, with individuals that like dealing with law enforcement, some law enforcement officer coming up and saying, hey, what you what are you doing?
00:06:11
Speaker
Innocent question. And somebody says, you know, I don't have to answer that. And we have a human condition that says, We want to look on that kind of an interaction and we want to say, well, yeah, he's just asked. He's just asking an innocent question.
00:06:26
Speaker
And the other person asserting the that says, I actually know the dynamics that are at play here. The things that place me at risk. That whatever I say actually might be okay right now, but is in a broader context of where does this lead?
Law Enforcement and Power Dynamics
00:06:43
Speaker
What's your reason for asking me? What's your reason for believing that you have a right to even ask me in your role behind that uniform with that gun strapped to your hip?
00:06:54
Speaker
And and that what we want to do is we want to, as a observing public, reduce the conversation to just well, he's just if you just answer the question, then you'll be safe. That's about us wanting to simplify a world into a reality that doesn't actually exist.
00:07:14
Speaker
that That that officer is actually not just asking a question. He's on the job. There's a function to his role. There's a reason behind why he's asking that question.
00:07:26
Speaker
And even if he was just being friendly, the other person doesn't know that. The other person only knows the context under which this is taking place is responding accordingly. And for somebody that is white, that looks like me, that may be have a predominance of safety attached to it.
00:07:43
Speaker
that for Others have a history of being brutalized, dehumanized, railroaded, manipulated. all Well, why would I expect them to just respond like like me? yeah Because it simplifies the world and allows me to look away and not to actually examine the dynamics that are at play in front of us.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and And in that jest, it's this the same down there we're talking about. In that jest also lies the justification. So then if it gets, if the interaction goes south, if someone is harmed or killed, um you know, that whole interaction also exists in a broader context where the asking of questions and the responses to the answers of those questions plays out very differently depending on who we are.
Trust and Assumptions in Interaction
00:08:30
Speaker
I was just talking to a group of folks about this too, in terms of like building trusting relationships, very similar questions, kind of opener. I really appreciated you opening up with that. Hey, you can say what you want to say. You can say what you don't want to say. And I remember one of the folks in the, in the um audience I was talking to just had a, um as a similar reaction, like,
00:08:47
Speaker
you know, hey, but I'm just asking an and ah ah innocent question. And I'm like, hey, what you also have to understand is, one, for the person that you're talking to, sometimes that that innocent question, that could be a hundredth time they've been asked that day.
00:09:02
Speaker
They can have the agency to just be able to say like, well, look, I don't, Can you just look this thing up that you're that you're wanting to ask me? i don't have it right now. Can you just look it up? Have you considered the actual relationship that you have with this person? Because what it comes down to me, a lot a lot of what this stuff comes down to me too when it comes to privilege and particularly for those well-meaning folks out there, right?
00:09:20
Speaker
Sometimes, and everybody's got to take stock of this, man, but I feel like sometimes with the privileges we have, we can have this tendency to think people should just be happy that we showed up, right? this might not be a good great example, but real, real quick, I am a a parent father, right?
00:09:38
Speaker
And I am a a man, a cisgender, ah you know, ma'am. One of the things that I notice is ah in relation to my partner and child rearing, you know, I could be doing some of the most basic things and and I get that affirmation like, oh, wow, you're you're so involved. now there Now, when you add race in, there's a lot of different dynamics that go there. There's a lot of patholization of black men and fatherhood and that kind of thing.
00:10:02
Speaker
But on other levels, thinking about how gender is understood broadly, there's this, what I what i experience in that is that there's this expectation is like, in caring for my children, this is not something that men are supposed to do or are expected to do. And by you doing this,
00:10:18
Speaker
You're this like exception to what is the diaper today. Let's roll out the red carpet for that's world changing. Right. That's world changing. So and I think I think to the degree to the degree that some of us experience that it can kind of develop this ah this sense that, you know, we're always supposed to get this kind of treatment. So when somebody shows up and it's like you were asking a question.
00:10:39
Speaker
and you don't get the answer you want. I'm not giving you any answers today. you know ah you know Where are you headed? I'm headed this way. and Going back to the police, I think, where are you headed? I'm coming from this direction. I'm heading in that direction. If somebody gives an answer like that, like there's this ah visceral reaction, I think, that that some of us can have, and it can manifest in a lot of different ways. Sometimes the highest escalation of that, I think, can be violence, physical violence, but um there are varying degrees to how that shows up, and one of those things can be like, Again, going back to our circles and telling people I was just trying to ask a question or I was just trying to do this or that and expecting that rationalization because they, too, are also in this group. And they're like, yeah, you know, i was trying to do that, too. And here's another reason why, you know, they want us to help or we should, you know, whatever. You know, here's another reason why.
00:11:27
Speaker
whatever negative outcomes are their fault, right? I was just asking a question. Why didn't the person answer? If you were just doing that, you know, if you just would have complied or responded in this way, maybe this maybe you would have still been alive or they would have still been X, Y, or Z, where if we really want to talk about, like, you know, police interaction and police footage, I've seen folks being, white people in particular, being all kind of belligerent and resistant to answering questions and are still able to somehow, you know, make it make it home from those things. So it's it's is this is the conversation we're really having is about power and who gets to have it, who gets to go unchallenged.
Systemic Anti-Blackness and Humanity
00:12:02
Speaker
um Power, and then also, I think on an even look and deeper level than that, is humanity. you know Who gets to be seen and and accepted as as being fully human and what that means? Who gets the range of those possibilities? So even in your police officer example, it's like, man, you know some folks... are raised with this idea that the police are there to help them and their lived experience reinforces that. You have a you have a problem, you call the police, the police come and they help you out and that's it. And then no other folks have experience where it's like, it's more of like an occupying force. It's like, ah it's not like, ah you know, you call for help.
00:12:39
Speaker
Like quite, I mean, just being just being quite honest, quite literally, there are folks out there now, very specific situations, but there there are folks out there now for whom even if something is going wrong, like even if even if they're being and we talked about um I talked a little bit about ah particularly when I was in grad school working with um a supervisor of mine on ah on a program that supported ah ah the male perpetrators of domestic violence. Right. So you bring some some complications to that. Even there are folks like, hey, I'm actively being harmed by my partner, by this person.
00:13:12
Speaker
I want this harm to stop. But also, I know that if the police are involved, i don't want I don't want this person's life to end, right? I want the harm to stop. And so folks are making really complicated decisions around that because there's this knowledge, right, depending on who you are, that that thing, that interaction is going to play out differently. Some folks get to ask questions and then some folks lived experience, teaches them and I showed them in in multiple ways. Like, you know, hey, sometimes the cops come and, you know, shoot first, ask questions later.
00:13:42
Speaker
A lot of challenges exist in like, how can we approach this conflict with the knowledge that people live it differently? For sometimes, you know, elevating a narrative that's different is seen as such a challenge that the goal is really just to like squash it and and say that it doesn't exist. And those people over there, they were behaving in this particular way. And that's why, you know, their outcomes are are are the ways that they are. So yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
For me, I think underlying all of this, yes, it's about power, but then it's also about like humanity and who is who is able to be seen as fully human and therefore treated as fully human in all of our interactions. But you brought up the police thing and particularly in that one, who's able to be seen as as fully human? Because I'm telling you, man, I...
00:14:26
Speaker
there's there's There's footage out there, I'm telling you. i mean, some some folks, celebrities doing it and some folks are just like everyday people, but like, you know, white folks being all kind of belligerent and indignant in their responses to police stops and interactions. And some of those... And some of those, right, and some of those I will even say, ah example, of you know, videos, and I'm just sharing personal experiences, folks, but like some examples of videos that I have seen where it is the white person that is pulled over and is pushing back against the police questioning because they are also fully aware of the fact that, you know, certain rights are being violated in some of the questioning. You can't really ask me that. Or I'm also able to say that I don't agree to this or I don't consent to that. And exercising their rights, again,
00:15:09
Speaker
And, ah you know, being able to survive those interactions and others where it's like, you know, it's a black person or some other person of color doing something similar or even doing less and, you know, getting pulled out of the car.
00:15:22
Speaker
it's ah It's an important conversation to have. And I think um one of the things that can get us there ah in terms of understanding that is the storytelling and, and um you know, being able to communicate with one another. But we got to be in a place where we understand that um we are a part of in particular, you know, for where our privileges are, like we are a part of these groups, right? Like I had a, um the same person I'm talking to that I was responding to that had that similar question i talked about, like ah there was a portion of my, ah my social work career,
00:15:54
Speaker
where I would do like home visits. I was supporting ah families, had loved ones, people with disabilities, um connecting them with services and things. And um I remember having one particular um interaction and not not giving anybody's information away, but one particular interaction where just because that i was a male at the at the place,
00:16:17
Speaker
Person has some has some negative experiences that there was some distrust there. Right. And so which impacted my ability to be able to work with this person and their family. And so, again, you can layer in race and, you know, racism and and those kind of dynamics. And then also there's a part of that, though, where it's like.
00:16:35
Speaker
Men do contribute to a ah large portion, like the the lion's share of the violence and harm on this planet. I am in that group.
00:16:45
Speaker
So I'm saying like, to what degree, I think a lot of it also is like getting to the place and there's storytelling around how people get there, but like to what degree, You know, are we able to own, you know, that, hey, I am a part of this group, even though I might personally consider myself, right, consider myself to be part of the solution.
00:17:04
Speaker
i might personally want to claim to be, and and and language is always changing, but want to claim to be like an ally or acting in solidarity with
Intergroup Dialogue for Understanding
00:17:12
Speaker
folks. um Can you still have that mindset, right, but still also owned at the same time I am a part of this group? So like some people and um that's that's a part two of my background, too. So social justice education ah um taught at the University of Michigan from 2013 to recently here um all around socialization, social justice education, and then also teaching the skills of intergroup dialogue facilitation. for folks who don't understand what that is, it's like face-to-face, and although some people are doing it virtually now too, but it's face-to-face facilitated long-term
00:17:52
Speaker
ah interactions between ah groups of people who have two or more identities that have some kind of history of conflict or estrangement. So you can talk about lived experiences at the intersection of sexual orientation and religion or race and gender or like a variety of different things. Right. And so, um you know, sharing and and and teaching folks the skills of How can we stay in communication with one another, um even when we might be feeling we might be sitting in close proximity, but we couldn't feel further apart? Like, how do we, you know, have those conversations with one another? And a big part of that is where we talked about this ah offline. But a big part of that one is relationship building. Right. Working in ways that, you know, we're able to see each other as as human beings, but then also recognizing that we're also located in this larger context that even though we might be occupying the same room, the same space, the same virtual space, or people who are listening to us right now, and we might all be sharing this experiences of of listening to to Tyler and I talk, but we live in a larger context where
00:18:53
Speaker
ah the world has assigned you know value to those of us in different ways. And so um how can we see and locate ourselves in that is is really important. So we're able to have that conversation.
Acknowledging Power in Conversations
00:19:05
Speaker
We're able to have a conversation. It's like, hey, we're talking about privilege.
00:19:10
Speaker
And like you were saying, it was important for you to understand, like my my class is not always aware of these things. And um But you still have some recognition, right, of of where you sit in in relationship to all of this stuff.
00:19:23
Speaker
I think that's important. What happens more often than not, I'll say in my experience is folks tend to just get into the conversation without naming in any way, right? Like that was a window, what you did. Like that was, you know, folks just enter into the conversation without naming that these these power dynamics are present. And even in like a tiny like naming like that, it can open up a window to explore things in ah in a deeper way.
00:19:43
Speaker
One of the aspects about myself that I have to mature into being aware of is how much of a desire that i have for this belief that unless somebody can speak in my language, I can't hear them. And it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with externalizing the fact that, well, you're not putting it into my language and that we use language itself for this inherent mythology that in order for me to see somebody in front of me, we need to speak exactly the same language. And what I heard that you were doing with people is is that actually saying you're strong enough, you can mature it into the fact that you can get curious, that you can learn to listen, that you can learn to translate without demanding that in order for you to feel safe and for you to be heard is is that everybody else has to speak your language and that that's also
00:20:39
Speaker
a means for exerting power.
Breaking Language Barriers
00:20:41
Speaker
If i enter into a space and say, going back to what we were talking about, the just, they just needed to speak the language that they were being asked to speak.
00:20:50
Speaker
And then they'll be safe. And then that if they if they say, hey, actually, I don't feel safe here, that actually is a means. However you express that is a means for saying in the person of power, well, you're not speaking my language. What do you mean you're not feeling safe? You must not feel safe because you're doing something suspicious.
00:21:09
Speaker
What you're actually saying is is that doing that work of stepping into people with different identities is not about saying, hey, we're going to standardize the way we talk to each other. No, instead, we're going to talk about what we're trying to accomplish with our humanity and that we're strong enough to surrender to the idea of learning how to listen, of learning how to tell stories.
00:21:27
Speaker
But it takes work. And if you just keep entering into every single venue demanding that everybody speak your language and only your language, well, you're going to experience the world as a pretty scary place. And if you're a scared person that has power and resources, you are actually a scary person. And i and i will say i will say the the weight of that is not equally equitably, I'll say, distributed.
00:21:50
Speaker
you know As we enter and we're learning, we're building relationships, there's also this acknowledgement, again, that we live in this broader context where ah you know certain value has been attached to your life that hasn't been attached to mine. And that's not just from an individual person-to-person thing. That's reflected in...
00:22:07
Speaker
Education is reflected in healthcare, it's reflected in law and all these other places. One of the things I'll often share, particularly with for intergroup dialogue, there's this, ah and there's language, right? But one of the things that's called is multi-partiality, right? It's ah it's recognizing that there's ah there's you and me in the room right now.
00:22:25
Speaker
But there's always a third participant and the third, at least a third participant. And the third participant are those dominant messages that have been crafted by folks with power to, again, like we started with, like being able to decide the terms of engagement, be able to tell the story about like how, for instance, the country came to be and be able to push that information as if it's beneficial for everybody to be able to know that information and know and understand it.
00:22:52
Speaker
When in the reality, it really only benefits folks who have power and privilege, right? So the weight of being open and making sure that folks don't speak the language is is's recognizing that at the at default, it's it's already not equitably distributed. And so the work is to like balance that in a way to where, yeah, we still need to invite the the dominant narratives in there. We still need to know...
00:23:15
Speaker
You know, hey, some people did grow up thinking Christopher Columbus discovered America. Some people might have this idea that white people created all the good things that exist in society, and that might be where they're coming from. So in order to know where we are, we do need to invite that in. But then also at the same time, some ideas must be challenged more than others. So um there's this ah this TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, right? I don't know. Some folks have heard of it. Some folks may not have.
00:23:42
Speaker
heard of it. But one of the things that's being shared there is like, ah you know, if we start the story of America with the arrows, I'll say of indigenous people and not like the the colonization and the ships coming up, we have a very different story. Right. So it's bringing folks together, but it's also acknowledging that power has influenced a lot of what we think we know to be true.
Challenging Dominant Narratives
00:24:04
Speaker
when we sit in these in these circles and in these spaces and try to influence that anyway we want to surface the dynamics and that often go unchallenged and unquestioned and then we want to also um try to elevate uh uh those counter narratives like wait a minute no like some people will say like uh you know, well, my family came here, we had a dollar and a dream or we had, you know, paperclips in our pocket and we made something and of ourselves. And if we did it, you can do it, too. And somebody else is like, well, hey, look, I can't even track my my lineage. You know, a lot of that was like intentionally erased. Right. And in my experience and and when and when you were building that wealth that you're talking about,
00:24:47
Speaker
um legally, right? Depending on who we are, like it was, easy it was not, it was, it wasn't, ah the access wasn't there. Right. And then even when it was right, even when access was opened up, I think about like, everybody's at different places, but I would encourage people to look up, just type in Levittown, right.
00:25:03
Speaker
um Into your, into your search bar and see, and see what comes up, like the resistance to any sort of access, particularly to, to economic um and social, like political power, uh,
00:25:15
Speaker
for for black people and and other folks of color. But I think the through line is, at I think ah personally, I'll say, I think anti-blackness is like foundational. Like when when things get a little murky, when we're not sure of, you know, where we lie and where we stand and things, I think we can always go back I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but I'm saying that the the strategy has been, I feel, um to always go back to anti-blackness, to always um have that be the marker of inferiority or ah the target of punishment and everything to like reinforce these these
Systemic Design and Equity
00:25:48
Speaker
systems and things. You know, have folks who say, oh, yeah, the hey, GI i Bill was a great way for my family to grow up, you know, economically to increase their or get a sort of a foothold on things. And it's like just personally, I have people who also served and could not take advantage of the GI Bill because it was not offered to them in that way. And and it's not and in acknowledging that those those those I call them design decisions. Right.
00:26:12
Speaker
have impacts that reverberate across generations. So absent that kind of context, we can look at like statistics and see how folks are doing socioeconomically in that and say, all right, so, you know, and and then point to, you know, some kind of pathology, you know, oh, well, yeah, maybe maybe black kids just aren't motivated. Maybe they don't care about education. Maybe they don't do, you know, X, Y, It's like, really, no, there's been like this very intentional, very strategic, like divestment of resources, the limitation for resources. But again, that power that we talked about, um and I'm asking folks out there who are listening, who are actively like exploring where you're sitting with all of this, right? That that power that we talked about can then be used to turn towards them and like, look, look at what y'all are doing. Like it's a value thing.
00:26:57
Speaker
We're here because of this, right? We're here because we worked hard and we tried, you know, hard enough and we we've got grit and all these people. All you're doing is making excuses and and, you know, one handouts and all this other stuff. And so it's really ah it's really again, it just goes back to, yes, the power to be able to dictate who is allowed further context and explanation, like who is ah humanized in a way that really allows us to understand them and then who is like not. um So it's about power, but then ultimately like humanity. I think at the the most basic level, we got to have that sense of humanity. And I think that's missing in a lot of cases. But I've found in my experiences that um that the dialogue piece has really helped folks and getting closer to that place. It's not like it's not something that's like an instant process, but it's it's repetition. That's why it's face to face. That's why it's sustained interaction.
00:27:50
Speaker
um over a long period of time um to get folks to be able to sit with those deeper realities. So I was saying, like, we want to invite those dominant narratives. We want to want to make sure they participate because sometimes in that particular mode of communication, and that's another privilege thing too, is that folks with privilege can be like, okay, I'm just in a learning space right now. Like, I'm just going to learn about your lived experience without offering anything of myself And that can be one of the critiques if it's not handled well, right? If it's not it's not truly a way of having dialogue, it should be where both parties or both folks feel like they've gotten something out of it. So I'm not just this marginalized person and I'm sharing all my experiences and not getting anything, you know, because some people actually say like, I'm not a i'm not a plot device in your character development. You know what mean? For folks who are out there who, if that resonates, like i'm my purpose does not exist solely to educate you in particular.
00:28:46
Speaker
inviting those narratives, recognizing that some ideas need to be challenged more than others. The challenge doesn't always look like, oh, you're 100% wrong. The challenge is like, all right, you've you've shared your experience. This is how you got to where you are in society. Now, let me talk about my family. Let me talk about my experience. And in that storytelling, you see the differences there, right?
00:29:05
Speaker
Now, am I coming at you as an individual? No, ah we're talking about like these larger things that have taken place that you, yeah, you might not have been aware of, But then also in the naming of our stories and the elevating of them in ways that aren't challenged, there's also some power that is being reinforced and built there as well in a good way for folks who experience a marginalization in
Storytelling and Humanization
00:29:25
Speaker
society. You know, hey, your stories matter. They're important.
00:29:29
Speaker
They give a larger and I would say even more accurate picture of what is taking place, you know, in the world. And so. I do think at the very basic levels, it's about power, who gets to shape it. I like to see my work as a way to shift how power is used, but then also who gets to be seen as as in an experience as fully human.
00:29:48
Speaker
oftentimes when we talk about objectifying people, what we're really saying is is that this person who is a subject in their own story, we are reducing them to be objects only in ours. And that actually being relationships, sharing stories is about recognizing that I am at the same time I'm a subject in my story, I'm also an object in somebody else's story and and vice versa.
00:30:15
Speaker
That's important for us to remember and to be able to name the dance between those things and where power is enabling one class or one individual to say, i just want to be the subject. I want to be the subject everywhere that I go.
00:30:31
Speaker
I don't want to recognize that I also am an object. I don't even want to recognize that in the subject of my story, i am objectifying all these others in my story.
Acknowledging Historical Truths
00:30:44
Speaker
One thing that I think we've also noticed in this conversation that we've had so far There may be things coming up in people that is like, whoa, that's bad. Whoa, that like, but but we actually haven't even gotten to a point of saying whether it's good or bad, right or wrong.
00:31:01
Speaker
When we say things like acknowledging, naming, we're actually saying, can we all just agree without jumping to this is bad or wrong? Can we just agree this is what's going on?
00:31:14
Speaker
There's a frailty when you're a part of a class that holds the resources, holds the power for even acknowledging what is going on because the moment that you acknowledge that, we don't actually say, is it right or wrong?
00:31:28
Speaker
The framework i think you already laid out is, Does this move us closer to our humanity or farther away from our humanity? Not whether it's right or wrong, but can I acknowledge what's going on and then say that is moving me closer to being a better human or farther away from that?
00:31:46
Speaker
And we're stuck as a resource holder as a power holder at a point where we don't even want to acknowledge. I could sit aside from so from someone and say, can we acknowledge that Europeans landed on these shores and killed the people that were here? We don't need to argue about the reasons or the justifications or the rationalizations.
00:32:08
Speaker
Can we just acknowledge that happened? And we are stuck at a point of even acknowledging that those things happen. We are stuck at a point acknowledging that Tulsa happened, that that that happened because we don't want to actually reconcile. If that happened, then what?
00:32:26
Speaker
We're not even at the then what yet. We need to acknowledge and and look in the mirror and say we can be strong enough to just name that happened. Then we can start talking about if that happened, why is that problematic? Well, it's problematic because it undermines the very values that we say that we hold to And if I'm doing something that undermines the values that I hold to, then how do i want to confront that? and And my family experienced this with my daughter is is that people always had the positive intentions of helping. They want to help with intentions, but they want to believe that their intentions are enough to carry the day.
00:33:07
Speaker
And then when I give the feedback, particularly to people who are closer to us, with people who were outside that circle, who we didn't know, who had those intentions, we granted the compassion and the grace that say, yeah, you wanted to help.
00:33:19
Speaker
Guess what? How you helped? Actually, it was harmful to us. It was painful. But those people who were closest to us, we would we told them, like you we we ah we want to see the intentions.
00:33:33
Speaker
But the coaching moment is telling you what the impact was that it had on us. And that's where people really get stuck is is that if I tell you the impact it has on me, what it brings up inside of them is, yeah, but that wasn't my intention. have acknowledged your intention.
00:33:48
Speaker
The question is whether you want to start moving towards a more mature view that says, my intentions are not sufficient to actually deliver the impact that I want to. And the learning moment is starting to move those things closer together. And and and that requires sometimes looking in the mirror and seeing that your intentions actually caused harm. Do you want to continue just going through life blindly causing harm, believing that you, you know, everything you do is, is the Midas touch my intentions. I want that to be gold. So I'm going to touch it and it's going to automatically be gold. Even though that person is sitting there saying like, you gave me lead.
00:34:26
Speaker
Now you've just given me a job to do, which is to turn around and actually work on protecting myself again.
Aligning Intentions with Impact
00:34:32
Speaker
That's what I hear we're talking about is maturation is about starting to come to a realization. Your intentions needs to start actually marrying more closely to the actual impact. That's maturity.
00:34:43
Speaker
I've heard you use that that term, more mature, in some of your other episodes, too. I really ah really appreciate it. Look, y'all, folks who are listening, you're you're listening for some reason. You are on some kind. You're out there listening to this show in particular. I think for some reason you are on some path of, ah you know, in some ways trying to figure out how you can be a better human.
00:35:02
Speaker
I think with this show, we've got a yeah an invested audience of of people who are interested in in in being on that path and and and and exploring that journey some. What I'm trusting that that many of you out there who are listening are primed to do is is do right by people, which is which is good.
00:35:16
Speaker
And what you're talking about, I think we're both talking about, but i appreciate what you just said. We got to be in a place where we can accept that feedback, right? One of the ways I've i've seen, and and this is terminology and and things, but in some of my background, I'm working with folks, but I've i've heard um you know that Darvill technique, right? So it's like,
00:35:33
Speaker
deny the thing that the person is saying happened, happened, attack the person for bringing bringing the thing up, and then reverse the victim with the offender. Not only am I going to tell you that, no, my intentions, i that's not what I was trying to do, so it didn't happen.
00:35:52
Speaker
something's wrong with you for even bringing that up. How could you, for you even misunderstanding me, you're off. Like something is wrong with you. I'm offended that you would even, you know, that you, and so the dynamic is flipped. So lord you when you said like you've given this person another job, right?
00:36:05
Speaker
I'm just calling on folks out there who are listening, who have been listening to this conversation. I think a lot of it is really asking our ourselves and you talked about it too, the values, right? Can we, are if we're in this place of trying to align our decision-making, our actions with our stated values, Can we be in a place where we hear that feedback from somebody and we we take it as a way to to get us closer to actually living out the values that we want to actually live out? Now, if you've been that person and have have done the things that I'm describing, that we're describing here, if you've gotten defensive, own that for what it is, hopefully you have made or can attempt to try to make some amends with the with also the understanding that the person
00:36:46
Speaker
you know, harmed can decide like, no, i actually don't want to hear more from you right now. or I'm actually done with it. They can decide that. But if if it's if you've tried, you know, you try to do that. But but moving forward, though, like, how can we be in this place of seeing that feedback as a gift, as a way to get us closer to what we're, you know, living out what we're actually trying to live out, man? Because um I think that's at the heart of a lot of it. And I think that will influence, like being in that place, influences can influence how we interact with people.
00:37:14
Speaker
Like if I'm out in the, I'm moving out in the world as a cisgender man, having certain abilities and things like that. If I'm talking to folks who are different than me and in in some capacity, realizing that, hey, man, you know,
00:37:27
Speaker
Cisgender people, heterosexual people, in some ways, like the world is built for us in particular ways that it's not like, it's not saying everybody who experiences some kind of marginalization, not saying their story is the same. But if I can understand that, hey, these things are happening in the world and that there's a chance that There's a chance just me being who I am that because of that larger history, like they have good reason to not trust me, right? Like, and I think, I don't know if I talked to you about this before when we talked earlier or not, but it does make me sad sometimes. the The sadness comes from there's a lot of reasons for us to mistrust one another in different ways. Like there's a and even for those of us out there, those of you out there who are trying to be a part the solution, oh, you might want this kind of closeness or this understanding to the degrees that it's coming from a genuine place. And I'm, I'm assuming you listening to this show and and some level is coming from a genuine place, right?
00:38:17
Speaker
There's, you want that closeness. You want to be a part of, uh, you know, acting solidarity. You want to be a better man or a better person, you know, whoever, We just got to recognize there's a lot of baggage that comes with what has already happened.
00:38:29
Speaker
And how we respond to people's feedback can contribute to that in compounding the harm or it can contribute to that in like, okay, here's one person or here's some possibility, right? I think your last episode, you're possibility too. Just this acknowledgement, like, yeah, that has to be proven. And accept that. Sometimes that has to be proven because the overwhelming, you know, all these events and things have been so overwhelming that for us, you know, with some privilege in some ways, we got to work a little harder to actually like earn that trust. Right.
00:38:59
Speaker
So you can earn it a little bit more if you're able to kind of temper the defensiveness a little bit. And I'm including myself in that conversation for all the ways that I have some privilege. Right. um I think we can we can earn that trust a little bit more in those times where it's like, oh, you know what?
00:39:13
Speaker
Yes, this is what I wanted to do. I'm here in dim land that way. I'm so sorry. Oh, However, however that comes out for you. Right. But some some acknowledgement that you're understanding what the person is saying and some commitment to commit that to memory. You don't lose anything. So sometimes I'll say my wife and that has a lot of significance for a lot of people. You know, hey, strong, loving feelings.
00:39:35
Speaker
And they're also ah I've been incorporating more ah lately. My partner. You know, I say lately, but it's been some time. But my partner, right. A part of my journey in the feedback that I've gotten is like, you know, that for folks or some folks that could be more inclusive to use that kind of language. And so I have incorporated that into my practice in in many ways and how I interact with people. And even in that, like it it challenges. There's there's a certain challenge in there, too, because there are certain expectations there. but We don't lose anything because there's still there's still a lot that this society is sort of built around cisgender heterosexual relationships. So there's still a lot given. We didn't really lose much by that, but we we can challenge in that way. Right. um As an example for me. Right. There are still folks who are still supportive of people and incorporate. you know, the language that they incorporate. But um I'm just saying, y'all, like, can we be in this place where we're open to hearing feedback and not totally take it as it as a personal attack? And then if we are, like, I'm just going to encourage you to, like, think about where that might be coming from. Like, where is that reaction coming from for you? What does that was that mean? Because I...
00:40:42
Speaker
There's a tendency for us, I think, to really want to be a part of the solution so much to where any challenge to that, any like feedback that we get, again, goes back to what I was saying earlier, this tendency of like, y'all should just be happy that I'm here. And if you have that orientation of your interaction with people, that they should just be happy that you're here. They should just be happy that you're interested because i'm at least I'm not like those other men over there or I'm not like these other white people over there or not like these other, you know, whatever. Go down the, um you know, go across your...
00:41:10
Speaker
your, your, you know, identities in which you have some privilege, if that's like, at least it's it's very similar to that, that jest we were talking about too. At least I'm not like these other folks, but what you're doing in this particular moment, you are actually, you are like, I see it, you don't see it, but I'm trying to bring it to your attention and how you're responding is actually like proving the point.
00:41:31
Speaker
And also like recognizing like not everybody is able to Respond in that way too So sometimes Like This is another dynamic ah Tyler i don't know ah To what degrees You thought about this But I'll just say this too Like consider the fact that um In some ways man People are just trying to get To their next thing To those degrees That you have some privilege It's like Sometimes you gotta you know People are being managed every day. like Managed.
00:41:55
Speaker
I already know this white man is going to be on whatever time he's on, so I'm going to say this thing because I don't really want to talk to you right now. I just want to get to you know wherever my next thing is. and so If you're really wanting to... um uh again like have that closeness be able to experience people in their fullness and not just be managed you know i mean i'm telling you it happens all it had gender it it go across uh you know across identities i i feel like people are being managed every day it's a survival thing it's like i don't i don't know how this is gonna go i'm i'm not really trying to trying to go there with you because i don't know you haven't proven to me in any way that you're actually invested in disrupting the networks, the systems that that give you all
Managing Interactions and Authenticity
00:42:42
Speaker
this privilege. So I'm just going to say whatever. I'm going to laugh at this little joke that ain't really funny. That happens to some folks. And there's a cost to that, too. One is the cost of the person who's doing the managing, right? Because, you know, in ah in ah in an ideal world, folks can be themselves um and and share whatever their reactions are. But again, like I was saying earlier,
00:43:01
Speaker
Some of the responses to that pushback can be, it can it can vary in a lot of ways. Violence is the highest, I think, or one of the strongest kind of manifestations of it, but it can work out in a lot of different ways. So folks are protecting themselves. So that comes at a cost. But then also, you trying to be this enlightened person, you're walking around actually not actually knowing the impact of of what you're doing because you're being managed in that way as well. so Again, it's a values thing. You want those things to align. That has to come through the conflict. That has to come through you being able to hear... feedback about how you're showing up to people and be able to take it in a way that's like, don't take it personal in a way that, again, will will flip the dynamic and how dare this person like bring this to my attention, but take it in a way that's like, oh, you know what?
00:43:45
Speaker
I'm going to take this personal to the way where it's going to impact how I show up with people, how I relate to people, the decisions that I make, those sorts of things. you know That's I think that's at the heart of this too. Now, some people are okay, might be okay with being managed. It might be okay and living within that world. And and and across your journey, listener, you might've had those experiences too, where you maybe you are okay with that. But for some reason, I think, like I said, you're listening to this thing because you're trying to go a little bit deeper. And I i see this as an opportunity to bring that to to your attention as well. It's like, if you really want to get closer to being fully human, it involves that conflict in those heart conversations and you listening together.
00:44:22
Speaker
to what folks are actually saying without getting so defensive about it. Or if you're going to get defensive about it, you know, hey, have your people where you can do that with who might also share some affinity and identity with you that will also challenge you too. But um it's just more work. Like you said, you said earlier, you've just given this person another job to do, which is to somehow comfort you whatever. And Yeah, that's ah that that's still false, though. That's not that's not ah an authentic human experience. That's just somebody just trying to survive. Like, do you want to be that person out there that people are trying to survive?
00:44:54
Speaker
Or do you want to actually, like, you know, experience people and experience yourself, too, and your total, like, humanity or getting closer to that point?
Embracing Life's Uncertainty
00:45:03
Speaker
one of the things that takes us farther away from embracing what it means to be human, what it means to be humane or embrace our humanity is, is that everything about this is uncertain.
00:45:16
Speaker
The moment that I forget that and I start believing that the only way I'm going to be safe is if I can somehow control what the future is going to look like or control. If I take two steps, will I be alive or not? If I'm That is incredibly anxiety producing if I'm constantly monitoring for control. If one of the factors in my control complex is other people, and then I seek to, the only way I'm going to feel safe, the only way I'm going to convince myself of the lie I'm telling myself that I actually can control is to control other people, I start debasing their humanity.
00:45:54
Speaker
I start running away from what it is, to to step into the risk of living, the uncertainty of living. When I do that, curiosity, listening, all of those things get shoved to the side. and And that's what I hear you even advocating for, which I think is is great.
00:46:13
Speaker
Advocating for falling in love with our human condition that we we have to lean into risk. And that if if I'm going to help Part of the risk that's associated with that is I'm going to make mistakes. And if I'm uncomfortable with making mistakes, then I'm going to consistently just stay on the sidelines, giving the job to the other people to assure me, to tell me, you won't make mistakes. I'm putting them in the position of the job of telling me that I will be perfect. I am not here to be perfect.
00:46:43
Speaker
I'm here to make mistakes and then to learn from those. And one of the best ways to do that is to bump into somebody else that might be having and have had a different experience than me and give me the gift of their experience. And by the virtue of them sharing their story with me, I have to risk hearing that it might conflict with my conclusions, my judgments about the world and how it operates. And am I strong enough to do that? Well, some people, they're at a point where, yes, they can.
00:47:17
Speaker
They can embrace that risk. And then others, they're not there yet. And the bumping in and getting triggered and having those defensiveness come up, all of those pieces come up, that's now your data to tell you, hey, the next thing you got to change is your relationship to the risks, the uncertainty of what it means to be alive.
00:47:34
Speaker
what it What it means to be like, you got to be able to have those mistakes. The galvanizing, I'll say, like the call to action in that though, there's something there where you're where you're trying to do better. So that's one of the things I also appreciate but about being able to listen to the stories of other people, because there's also that reality. Sometimes you might be in communities where you're having this kind of reflection, but you don't have access to a lot of people who are thinking the same way or who are on a similar path and that in itself can be isolating.
00:48:04
Speaker
So again, I'm just going to say, hey, if you're listening to this, that you're you're in good company there. But I think the good thing about this, one good thing about it is you're still and wherever you are on that path, you're still like on that path. Right. So if you can then continue down that road, taking feedback, trying to learn from it. And then in the time that you don't like being able to be honest about when you are and when you're not being true to that, you can then talk to somebody else who might be in a different place than you, right? Who might be in a different place than you and you can support them um in their development, right? And you can also, um you know, maybe throughout doing that, you might even find folks who are a little bit, out you know, it's not a race, but who are in different places, maybe in a place that you would prefer to be or like to be for yourself in terms of being able to take that risk, being able to see that.
00:48:50
Speaker
i remember hearing the story about how malcolm x shared there was a white woman who came up to him one time and uh was like what can i do and that and there was one at the time he said like there's nothing you can do right there's nothing you can do to help us right but he later will went on to to recall that and say you know what i wish i would have would have told her and i'm paraphrasing right but i wish i would have told her to go know go talk to her people right go talk to You know, you you are here. Obviously, you showed up to say, what can you do? And again, acknowledging there's a whole lot of history. There's a lot of reasons why we have this mistrust. So, hey, initially, I'm like, there's nothing you can do. But then later on thinking like, OK, one of the things I wish I would have been able to say was like, yeah, go talk to your people. So in in that sense, I think that's what's coming up for me. I'll say if you're in this place, even if you're struggling with it, like I'm struggling with it myself, like even if you're struggling with it, right, you can then find find other folks, you know, you know, if you're white, find white people, white men, find our people in our in our groups who are open to it and and start having those conversations with them. and ways to support. it's It's taking a lot of time to get this way. And I think each of us has a role in playing and trying to undo and recreate things.
00:49:59
Speaker
I think if you do it in groups and not do it alone, I think that helps the process go by faster. But like, yeah, can we be in this place? Can you be in a place where, hey, I'm just trying to say hello, or I'm just trying to reach out to this person and know that that's the intent or whatever the thing is. I'm just i'm just making some up right now, but like whatever the thing is and know, but there's a chance that this person might not trust me. There's a chance that might think, what's the angle here?
00:50:20
Speaker
What are you trying to do? Or there's a chance it's like, hey, depending on, you know, what kind of uniform you're wearing, like, hey, you're just another one of those folks out here trying to oppress me or what have you. It's like, can we have that understanding and know that that's the reality?
00:50:33
Speaker
And how will that understanding influence how we interact? I think that'll influence the interaction and in a good, in in a better way. You know, how we're interpreting things too, right? it It'll influence it in a better way.
00:50:45
Speaker
What you just said that, I mean, going back to that, you know, I'm just trying to help is, is actually potentially even using that word just as almost like this flag that goes up and says, Oh, this is real quick.
Power Dynamics in Personal Stories
00:50:58
Speaker
Do you have the ability to catch your breath, go a little bit deeper and say something like, really, when I say I'm just trying to help what I'm trying, what I'm trying to say is, well, one aspect of that, I'm trying to convince myself that what I'm doing is helping.
00:51:13
Speaker
At the same time, what do I really mean by help? I i want this person to feel comforted. i want them to feel seen. and And those are more reflective of the values. And i want to learn if my chosen technique is doing that or not.
00:51:30
Speaker
I think your story has an element of of actually bringing this to life. Let's make the the jump to this metaphor story of you going on the run in Detroit. One of the things this this story brought up for me, again, it's like messaging and the power to tell the story and like who, you know, to to frame it however you want to tell it, who has that power, who doesn't. So I grew up with a lot of anti-black, anti-poor messaging, um a lot of... ah You know, hold over from the the ah the the Reagan era around the the language of like welfare queen and like folks who um are ah in poverty or folks who need government assistance or there's like some angle there. They're trying to manipulate things and whatever. And I would contrast that with, yeah, seeing people working hard in my in my neighborhood, man. It's like, I've talked to you about this before, too. It's like sometimes seeing people, hey, they come in and they change from one uniform, they go to the next uniform. It wasn't like a work ethic thing. I would always see that and I would wonder, like, yeah what's what's the... yeah
00:52:32
Speaker
But it's not adding up because I'm hearing that people are not I'm hearing externally. Right. Internally, I was hearing some good stuff. Yeah. You're intelligent. You know, you're bright. you Do whatever you want to do.
00:52:43
Speaker
um Outside messages were like, well, um you know, hey, ah ah Detroit is like this crime ridden place and people don't care about their neighborhoods.
00:52:54
Speaker
and i would also see too like folks coming in and like dumping like trash white people in particular like coming in and dumping trash and driving off but the messages i would hear that would be like detroiters more commonly like black detroiters are just like oh y'all don't care about your community i don't do and so i i was hearing all these conflicting messages because i was getting positivity from my environment but externally um is a lot of It was a lot of ah negative messages. So I talked about running long distance track and field when I was in high school. And I started running like there's particular intersection um in a neighborhood I grew up. And the further I ran down this one street, this one road, I would start to see like the landscape change and the the houses would start getting bigger. The lawns were like more manicured and stuff. The resources like, you know, grocery stores and different things. It just it just looks so different. And I was also noticing it was racialized. Like there are more white people here.
00:53:45
Speaker
Because I would run that route regularly, it would bother me because I was ah I would run away from my neighborhood, run further out into the suburbs and then turn back around.
00:53:56
Speaker
And I would see on my way out, I would see from my neighborhood, I would see sort of like this increase in and and resources and things. And then when I would come back. turn around because I didn't live there, I would see like the decrease in things.
00:54:08
Speaker
And I would notice it was racialized. Just had like a lot of questions around that, man. i was a first-gen college student, and I had a professor who broke down like redlining, who broke down like housing segregation and like policy. like A lot of things that connected dots to questions I had, but I didn't always get like the um the explanations for it that made sense to me. So it's like living in this ah this this world, I'll say, or operating in this society where you're dehumanized in a way.
00:54:38
Speaker
And it's like I knew the messaging that I was hearing wasn't correct, right? but But it was so loud in terms of like the reinforcement. Like it was being reinforced in television and all these other places. And then when I'm just out like having interactions and stuff, like people would treat Oh, you're from Detroit? like Even later on, as I would you know work in a higher education, being an administrator and supporting students, some of my students from ah Detroit would even say, like, oh, I'm going through the res halls and somebody found out I was from Detroit.
00:55:06
Speaker
And they would just ask me, like, have you ever shot anybody? Are you on drugs? Are you doing X, Y, and Z? And like all these stereotypes and things that were just loaded onto them, right? so um and ah And me having similar experiences to that. So education was really a ah ah gateway, really. Somebody being able to connect ah history and policy. And I keep saying, like I've said before, like
Education and Systemic Inequality
00:55:29
Speaker
design decisions. So it's like, there's also this element when I say that, like it wasn't an accident, right? That these um that these things happen, like that this on my route, that the resources were different.
00:55:39
Speaker
um And that it was racialized. Like, that's not an accident. That was that's the result of, ah you know, years of of policy and divestment and things. And so for me, that knowledge was very helpful because it took the weight of one. it it It took off some of that like confusion because it's really disorienting to see the yeah the contradiction between what.
00:56:01
Speaker
I'm hearing about myself and then also going out into this broader world outside of my home, outside of my neighborhood. And then folks just interacting with me in a way that's like, y'all y'all think I'm here to do something that i'm not like, you know. um And so, ah yeah, man, that that particular um ah experience has stayed with me. But it showed me like, one, the power of storytelling, the power of what I call counter narratives. Right.
00:56:26
Speaker
So I said it's always that third participant. it's It's you, it's me, and then it's the dominant narratives that have been influenced by people in power and control that really dictate what everybody is. And you can't see me on radio, but like it's – I'm putting my hands up in christian quotation marks – is ah is supposed to understand as as universal and true.
00:56:48
Speaker
So it's like it's supposed to be understood that, you know, hey, if people are poor, it's because of some failing on their part. Like it's supposed to be, and again, in quotation marks, supposed to be understood, you know, that it Black folks are crime prone and all these other like stereotypes and things. What that educator, I would say, did for me was really, um it really broke a lot of that up.
00:57:10
Speaker
It really broke a lot of that. Like I knew, like I knew that it wasn't right. I knew it wasn't correct. um But again, I'm being treated as I'm moving, you know, just moving through the world, being treated in this way as like it as as if it is right. And that's having impacts on my experiences and stuff. there's something to that too. That's one of the reasons why, even when I went into social work, I started off kind of in the interpersonal, uh, practice kind of person to person thing. And I've, I still have some of those skills, but then I eventually, uh, moved into more of a macro social worker, like looking at systems and stuff like, um, You know, I think I think resources will solve a lot of a lot of things that might show up as, you know, mental health ah things or that might show up in different ways. Like resources help with some ah with some of those things, access and resources, opportunities. Even my time, like working with folks with disabilities and their families, sometimes the roadblocks that I would come up with were policy policies.
00:58:06
Speaker
related things. There's something for everybody to do. So yeah, we're pop, but for me, I just, I just realized like, yeah, I gotta, I gotta keep going, keep going up upstream a little bit to see where some of the the root causes of this, these things are coming from. So I kind of look in terms of ah ah look at things in terms of webs and networks and systems and how, you know, policy influences so many of the, like the lived realities of people.
00:58:32
Speaker
For some people, they might find that kind of like boring. But for me, it was like, wow, all this time I'm hearing all these things about myself and my community. If I just would have stayed on that face to face personal kind of level with with with internalizing those messages, it would have impacted me in a way where it's like I'm still not getting the answers I need. I know this isn't right. But then to see like, wait a minute, this is a moment in time that you're experiencing. But here are all these things that happened before that.
00:58:56
Speaker
Here are some things that happened that are still influencing those ah these outcomes to this day. It is not your fault. It is not, you know, ah you know, all people who are poor are not only are not poor because of some like decision that they made, some personal decision. And then ah i would encourage folks to go out there and look up a professor, scholar, Melissa Harris Perry. She had some. ah And she she has said some some things about, like, just how expensive it is to be poor. Like, if you really understand and some people don't understand. Sometimes I think some of this feedback comes from folks who are insulated from the experiences um and they think is as simple because they're, again, not recognizing the ways that their connections, their networks, their privilege affords them.
00:59:42
Speaker
things that other people don't have. Right. But yeah, it's really expensive. Like one, one emergency like compounds, right? If I spent a hundred dollars on something that's going to last 10 years, but I don't have a hundred dollars for that. And so I have to spend $25 every year for the next 10 years. The net effect 100 versus $250. It's expensive. It accumulates it keeps the cycle going.
01:00:08
Speaker
We got to come off of some of these like, easy but I think there's, you know, again, I think it comes back to a lot of what you were saying, too, or what I was getting from what you were saying, too, is like we don't want to see ourselves as, you know, being part of the problem. We don't want to see ourselves as having the capacity to cause harm or at least participate in it.
The Myth of Hard Work
01:00:25
Speaker
Even if it's passively, one of the sort of medicines for that is to just have these quick responses or these quick explanations for problems that are actually systemic. So if I can believe that I'm where I am because I totally earned everything, you know, or I've worked hard for it, you know, a person's out there thinking that. It makes it easier to be like, yeah, there's there's a formula to this. Like, I followed all the rules. I did the thing. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, um I want y'all to tune in. I want y'all to really, really think about what' what's wass being said here, because I think a lot of folks are actually waking up to the reality. And I think you said this a little bit on one of the last episodes that I've heard from you, too, is like this idea that.
01:01:05
Speaker
Basically, y'all told me this is what the script was. If you do this, you do that. I did those things. You're supposed to have this kind of life. And a lot of folks are realizing, like, that's actually not guaranteed in the ways that they were told, right? You know, we we talked about this report, the the Nobody to Call, about um men without college degrees ages 25 to 45. Yeah. who have all been put into this kind of same bucket, this stereotypical bucket. And then what you were just referencing in our last episode on legacy around, we also talked about this sameness, this making yourself the machine, following the formula, finally getting there and then finding out like, no, this was a pipe dream. And what I think that I hear is
01:01:48
Speaker
The tyranny of the same. And I heard it in your story, and this is why to try to take your story and what you shared and tie it together. What we were saying is is that tyranny of the same is also the tyranny of just. Just work hard. Just put you know your elbow grease into it. Just get a college degree, and then it will just trickle down. going to make the reference to the Reagan stuff. like And we we know that that's actually the just.
01:02:14
Speaker
That tyranny of it is not... a a tyranny of those who are not getting the trickle down, who are never going to get the trickle down because the structure and the infrastructure is designed actually to extract it in the opposite direction. It's also a tyranny for those who are a part of that
Diversity and Structural Change
01:02:34
Speaker
class of the dominant class, because what we really want and what we really value is the variety, is the diversity, not just of an outcome, but of the experience itself. That on a side-by-side, that if there's two people that have exactly the same things, that they they have the exactly the same um opportunities, that their expression is also going to be different within that. And I don't want to require that individuals who are going to bring something new into the world devolve or be reduced to the same and in order to get a living in order to survive and that that's what we're doing to ourselves with this increasing push towards just do these things and and we do need stability and structure those are important but that's actually the conversation we should be having amongst all of us is is that what's the stability and structure that we need regardless of what our skin tone is regardless of that we need to build and that's going to require some sacrifice, some leaning into the risk, some uncertainty, and that we're strong enough to do that. We may not know it yet. We may need to get to the future and look back and say like, wow, that was tough work.
01:03:44
Speaker
But we're here because we leaned into that uncertainty rather than the deterministic, reductive view of just live by this formula. You talked a lot about possibility one of your previous episodes, too. Even in you saying that, like, i I feel like we're on the cusp of something. Like, I feel like the answer is actually within a lot a lot of what we're talking about here. But it's it's sort of are we able to commit to and acknowledge that this thing ain't working? So I talked about like the power to have the ability to like frame the story and explain what the rules are. Here's how things happen. I'm sharing this information with you because it's beneficial for all of us to to know, to be able to move about the world. But in reality, it really only benefits the people that it actually benefits. And all the other folks who, like you said, would never actually reach those outcomes in the first place because of how it's set up are still told to follow these particular things
01:04:36
Speaker
But I think there's, and I i don't know, man. i I think there's there's some there's some freedom in collectively acknowledging that this thing ain't working. That ain't it.
01:04:50
Speaker
the The script that you said to follow, like, that's not actually the thing. So can we then ask some of the questions that you were saying? Like, what are what are the things that we actually need to thrive? Like, what are the things that we actually need? And and can we go about then, you know, focusing on that and building that? But, yeah.
01:05:05
Speaker
But yeah, man, there's there's there's that part of it, too. Like the whole story. And I think a lot of folks are... Waking up to it. It's like, hey, this thing y'all laid out and said I was supposed to do this and that. It's not it.
01:05:17
Speaker
And generationally, too, like, I don't know um where folks are listening out there, but it's it's some folks who were like, wo maybe even just at the cusp of starting to sort of get a foothold and then like, oh, no, that's that's ah that rug has been snatched right out underneath a lot of people.
01:05:34
Speaker
And there's also those folks who have been struggling the whole time, you know. um But I do feel like there's some. There's so much possibility. And can we just, sit can we, y'all, can we just acknowledge that this isn't working?
01:05:47
Speaker
Like this whole thing, it hasn't worked for while. It's not working for everybody. And it hasn't worked for, it it hasn't worked. It is not working for everybody. It hasn't worked. And I think as um more folks experience like um all of this loss, man.
01:06:01
Speaker
So there's a podcast called Becoming the People by Prentice Hemphill. The episode I'm referring to, it's called Grief is
Denial of Grief and Healing
01:06:11
Speaker
the Medicine. One of the things that we were talking about that I found really significant is this idea that what we're experiencing is this like denial of grief.
01:06:21
Speaker
So in order to become white, for example, right, in order to become white, a lot of folks had to give up certain aspects of their culture, right? And and in the and idea was to consider like on ah and a large level, folks haven't really come to to terms with the grief of that loss either. Having to assimilate into a sort of singular ideal of what whiteness means and what it's supposed to be like. The denial of the grief is also the denial of the acknowledgement, right? Because if it's not acknowledged, how can we actually grieve the thing? Just from my experience, just thinking as a black person being conditioned to see, you know, on the news,
01:07:00
Speaker
you know especially these last few years, black folks being gunned down, being killed, and just having to like move on, right? Not having that space to because the the society, right? The society does not allow that space to actually, this is what just happened.
01:07:15
Speaker
Human lives were lost here. This is not normal. This is not okay, right? But to some folks, it has you know it is normal. It's like, oh, no, there's another another black person. kid Again, depending on what the messaging we've kind of bought into around that and and how power has shaped that. But... um But yeah, just this idea that we're experiencing this collective like denial of of grief, man, is ah I think that's a that's a that's a core piece of it, too. We're back to naming. We've already said some of the interpersonal things or or the that why people want to avoid naming collectively.
01:07:51
Speaker
Sometimes what what people don't want to name because they feel very ill equipped on then what do I do? If I acknowledge this, if I name it, then what do I do? And and for me, the conversation with grief is the what do we say?
01:08:07
Speaker
We name it. Then how do we treat that is the next one that we also don't have, which is mourning. The mourning of when you acknowledge the grief.
01:08:18
Speaker
Then there's a invitation to mourning. And what is mourning? It's the, it's not just the I'm sad. And I think that's where people are like, I'm going be overwhelmed by this sadness. And that's, that's the nature of grief. But mourning is also that beckoning. The sadness invites you to now honor what was lost. And we don't know how to do that.
01:08:39
Speaker
We don't need, we, because what we want to do is we want to say, well, I feel the sadness. Now I have to make the sadness go away. And so if and we're going to do that, and I think this is where things like the conversations with reparations um gets really sideways is it's like, well, we were going to give this as if it's going to make the sadness go away. No reparations is about honoring what was lost, not only for those individuals who were oppressed, but but for what we lost, what we sacrificed for ourselves, the ways we killed parts of ourselves to uphold this thing that is deeply dehumanizing. And that's the part of the conversation of saying like, how do we reclaim that that aspect of our humanity by mourning what we lost within ourselves and our and and who we were, who we could have been. And that's where we need to get to a point that says there are leaders that need to stand up and say, yeah, we need to grieve and we need to mourn. We need to go through the ritual of honor, of honoring not only what was lost and what we could have been, but now what we want to become and that what we're embracing and saying that, you know what, we're rewriting the rule book.
Courage to Change Narratives
01:09:49
Speaker
And we're throwing out this enslavement to what we say we need to hold on to that we can't acknowledge. Because if you do that, you might actually be transformed into something else.
01:10:02
Speaker
Transformation is scary. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what we need. Yeah. i and And so, yeah, everything you said is we don't know how to do that. And that's you going back to what you said. The hope that I'm starting to see is, is that at the very least, I'm seeing more and more people say, oh, I want to learn how to do that. That's what I want to learn how to do.
01:10:23
Speaker
And I'm at a point right now where this, you said it so many times, this thing ain't working for us. That's the invitation here. And this kind of conversation that we've been having is really painting out the picture of, hey, we can have these conversations where we consolidate and we say, okay, we've named these things. This ain't working. So now where do we go from here?
01:10:44
Speaker
So now where do we go? That's where hope I start continuing to anchor to because there's a lot of noise right now that is just pushing for trying to convince people that, hey, it's too hard. going to take a lot of strength. It's going to take a lot of courage in order to do this. And guess what? We could just go back to the way things were.
01:11:05
Speaker
We can just double down on this and we need to remember that. Do you hear what that person just said? It's going to take a lot of strength. It's going to take a lot of courage to step into this. Those are the very values that we actually want. We want strength. We want courage. And what that's going to get tested is actually saying this ain't working. Let's do something different. It's not going to be perfect. Let's do something different, though. Let's do something different.
01:11:29
Speaker
Let's do something different. It doesn't have to be this way. Like that's, that's the part where it's like the sadness is like part of the sadness I experienced around this stuff is because yes, because of what has happened, but then also because of this deep knowing that it does not have to be this way. It does not have to be this way.
01:11:45
Speaker
I know y'all listening to this because y'all want to be a part of the the solutions in some ways and in many ways you are. um But yeah, just keep keep going down that path. If you can recognize that you do have the capacity to cause harm, even though you don't want to and try to move in a way, but you're aware of that, that you have that capacity and you're also open to hearing feedback. I think that's going to put you so much further down the road for sure.
01:12:12
Speaker
Because truth is we need, it we need, we need as many people as possible to be engaged in trying to make things better for humanity. Thank you for sitting with us in this conversation for bringing your own story, your own questions and your own hard won wisdom to what we're building together.
01:12:29
Speaker
If you want to keep this going, subscribe to Good Pain on Apple podcasts or Spotify, where you can also leave us a review that helps others find their way to these conversations. And for weekly doses of conversations that go beyond quick fixes or surface level advice, subscribe to our kindling newsletter at goodpainco.com.
01:12:48
Speaker
Good Pain is recorded in Colorado on Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne Ancestral Alliance. And let's remember, we are not alone in this. Our struggle is not our shame.
01:12:59
Speaker
Whatever we are carrying today, we don't have to carry it alone. We will see you next time.