DarkHorse Podcast with Brittany King & Bret Weinstein
Brittany Talissa King is an independent Journalist, Freelance Writer, and host of #AmericanShade with Brittany King on YouTube. Find Brittany on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQVlAwsrGCKLA-3pUudSRjQ Find Brittany on Twitter: @KingTalissa --- Find Bret Weinstein on Twitter: @BretWeinstein, and on Patreon. Please subscribe to this channel for more long form content like this, and subscribe to the clips channel @DarkHorse Podcast Clips for short clips of all ...
I have the pleasure of introducing you today to Brittany Talissa King, who is an independent journalist and freelance writer, host of American Shade with Brittany King on YouTube.
She received a master's in journalism at New York University and a bachelor's in writing at Indiana University.
Brittany, welcome to Dark Horse.
Thank you so much for having me.
So I should probably tell our audience, you and I have spoken before, gotten along very well, and my sense is that we could just simply have a conversation and not say any more in terms of the ground rules or expectations, but just so everybody knows where we are.
I believe, as I think you do, that we have serious issues surrounding race in the country, that there's a lot at stake, and that we are in danger of coming apart in some way that will be disastrous for all of us.
And that the best thing that people like you and I can do is to model courageous conversations.
And I should tell you, I have a thick skin.
I don't love discovering that I've got something wrong, but I would much rather discover it than have it go unsaid.
So please be candid and courageous in pointing out anything you think I need to know that I might be missing, and I will do the same in return.
Okay, awesome.
Does that sound good?
Alright.
Yep, I have thick skin too, so this will be great.
Terrific.
Okay, so, Brittany, I know that you consider yourself to be on something of a journey with respect to your understanding of race relations in the U.S.
Do you want to say something about where you are in that journey and where you started?
Well, where I'm at on that journey is ongoing, to be honest.
And I don't think I'll ever stop because I'm always a student, so I'm always going to continue to be learning.
But my journey started with being a leader of a Black Lives Matter in Columbus, Indiana, which is the hometown of former Vice President Mike Pence.
My journey started kind of before that with protesting for Black Lives Matter after 2013 when they first had that hashtag on Twitter with Trayvon Martin.
And I was doing die-ins for Eric Garner and for him.
And then in 2016 when Alton Sterling and Filomena Castile died 24 hours back to back, I had a very overwhelming sense of anger and rage.
And I felt the best way to get that out was to protest.
That's what I knew to do.
So I went down, got 15 or 20 friends of mine, and we protested in front of Columbus City Hall.
We were there for two hours and I looked at a few of my friends and I said, I'm tired of protesting and I'm sick of the fact that we can recycle these posters over and over again, year in, year out.
And long story short, we spontaneously started a Black Lives Matter of Columbus after thoroughly Going through their objectives and seeing how it would make sense for Clemson, Indiana.
And so that is where I guess my journey began on really diving in on what was going on with race relations in America.
So I know I have a history in protest as well, and I know that it's often very easy to see that things are wrong.
Did you have a sense when you began about what you wanted to take place?
What change you were hoping to bring about?
Yeah, so during this time, this was the first year Donald Trump was president.
This was when a lot of hate crimes was happening.
This is when Charlottesville happened.
And things of that nature, different white supremacist groups were popping up around our city.
And for me, I was like, it's a matter of time before it happens here.
What I wanted to happen was, OK, guys, let's let's finally just pop this bubble of delusion that racism is not here in our city, all because we can smile at each other and all because there's, you know, a bunch of different colors of people here that we have a lot of things to take care of.
And let's Nip it at the butt and get down to what's going on here locally.
And so what Black Lives Matter did was we created respectful, unsafe spaces for dialogue to happen where we talked about national issues going on and then we would talk about local issues.
And we also had another objective where we wanted A bridging with police and with community.
We want the police to see who they were protecting and serving.
And then also we wanted to be more involved with the ways of how the police hire police officers.
And then also that included us going to the city council boards and the police board meetings and things of that nature to see what was happening on a fundamental level.
So that was the three objectives for Black Lives Matter of Columbus.
So, is it fair to say that your activism at that point was targeted at preventing bad things from taking place and affecting black people, rather than transforming the system as we know it into something different than it is?
I would say yes, it was more so the former, but I would also say that it wasn't It was a Black Lives Matter chapter, but the majority of people there and in our organization were 90% white.
There was 1,800 black people in Columbus.
There's 40,000 people there.
So while there might have been 15 people apart of BLM, there was, you know, 100 white people.
So I wanted there to be, and I know we, at that point, when I look back now, I see We were more of an unorthodox BLM, if you want to say, because we wanted white people to get in on the conversations and talk and be candid.
And I know that that raised the eyebrows of some other BLMs.
Not to say they told us, like, you can't do this, but it made more sense when they would come in our city and see what was going on.
But for me, I knew that it made sense.
I couldn't act like we were Baltimore or Gary or Chicago.
I had to see what was going on in our landscape and see how effective we could be locally and not try to shoot for the stars to change the entire world or change the United States but let's just change this town and hopefully that can ripple effect out.
Very interesting.
I must say, in some ways, there's sort of two directions I want to go from here, but one of them is that I have a very mixed reaction to BLM because, on the one hand, the idea of BLM resonates with me and has from the beginning.
My family has a long-standing understanding that there is a chronic problem for people of African descent in America and that that demands a solution.
And so I also believe that black lives are chronically undervalued in the U.S.
and that that is something that can change and must change.
So at the level of the label, I'm on board.
But at the level of what I discover as I try to get closer to BLM, I'm frequently horrified by some of the things that the organization, at least, seems to be about.
And it sounds like your chapter is one where, frankly, I would have been welcome and I might have felt at home.
Is that fair?
You would have had a seat right next to me if you wanted.
I would say, and I tell people this because, and I guess we'll get to that later, but I did kind of publicly in a way kind of announce that I'm distancing, I guess you can say myself, away from the National BLM of 2021.
But I will tell you this, I feel like there's been phases of BLM.
We were in the phase I believe from like 2013 to about 2017 of its most like organic state like when it was about anti-police brutality which I think any American should be for because it benefits everyone.
And then there was 2018 was a particular time I think that was like phase 2 of it of me even looking at it when I was at the last year of leading my BLM.
I started looking at the national BLM and I was just kind of like something's off.
But I internally was questioning it.
I wasn't outwardly like saying like let's get in front of this because it wasn't really peaking but just something was kind of off.
This is when Robin DiAngelo came out with her book White Fragility and this is when a lot of other things were happening.
And I saw that the organization's objectives started to get ambiguous and kind of vague And then also the white people participating who just came in with good intentions of just like, we want to learn, we want to listen, we want to help.
And it seemed very organic.
It felt like, at least in our organization and other organizations, that I was treated like a peer at that point.
To 2018, I felt like, in a sense, that people were selling books and lectures and seminars and things of that nature.
To say being good in tension is not good enough.
You have to showcase how, in a way, show off how anti-racist you can get.
And it became a performative allyship at that point where people were more so invested in BLM to perform allyship rather than to do it, to act like they weren't a part of the problem than fixing the actual problem.
That's fascinating.
So it sounds like, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it sounds like you had an organization built around what seemed intuitively meaningful and worth pursuing locally, and you, it
Was overwhelmed by a perspective on racism and anti-racism that was being sold by big names at a national scale that transformed your organization away from your what sounds like very reasonable intentions and into a movement in which
Effectively, whites were forced to show off and to one up each other in order to remain in the good graces of the of the of the organization.
Yeah, I want to make a point, though, with I'm not not to say that that happened with every single white person, that they became this moral monster or something like that.
No, I would say I was just seen at a national level.
With like just seeing protests and things of that nature.
And just like even on social media, just how I felt like it was a performance art piece for people to post an Instagram photo of their arm around a black person and being like, I'm like, is that for you or for them?
But for my organization, I was pretty tight knit with stuff.
Like I had people, I had a mission.
I said, we invite all creeds, all races.
This is for respectful and safe space.
And I mean, I had it a very clear thing.
To where you had to sign it.
And if you did not abide by this, went rogue, if on social media you were creating hostile environments within your post or whatever, you're out.
So you had a code of honor of sorts that people had to sign.
Yeah, people had to sign it.
And I kept it on file and I gave them the thing.
It was to keep everyone accountable.
Um, and this is the bar it's set and you need to stay at this bar because if you're not, you're not, you are going to, um, you're off the direction in the path that we're for.
But just to pick up on the phases.
So the last phase now, uh, with 2019 to now with Black Lives Matter, I feel like with the blessing of getting a lot of funds and getting a lot of attention.
That can actually be a disservice.
And I think Black Lives Matter, there are so many businesses after 2018 that poured into Black Lives Matter.
And then those people kind of gained control of what was happening, that the three black women I don't feel like had much of a voice anymore, that the money had the voice.
And that I feel like BLM became more of a marketing brand.
It was a way for businesses to buy in to showcase how Racially tolerant they are, like Netflix putting BLM up or whatever.
I'm like, for me, I could see through.
I'm like, you don't, I don't think you really care.
I think you're just trying to save your business.
And like, it's almost like, I'm not going to get biblical, but it's almost in the sense of, you know, putting blood on your door and like the ghost coming by.
Like, I don't know what's going on.
I don't understand it, but this is this.
Don't come in here.
It was kind of like just a safety net, safety guard.
See, BLM, we can't be racist, and I think that's the phase we're in.
But the thing is, people aren't really outwardly talking about this, but there's been at least 10 to 15 other Black Lives Matter chapters that started when I started and started in 2014 that have come out.
And I believe it was the New York Times piece, I'm not sure, but there's like 10 Black Lives Matter chapters who called out the national BLM and said, You guys have millions of dollars, and you're not helping any of the chapters.
There's still people homeless.
There's people hungry.
We want funds poured into schools for black children, minority children, and you guys are hoarding the money.
Why are you hoarding it?
Where is it?
Where's the leadership?
Why aren't these steps happening that you said was going to happen six years ago?
People are calling them out, and of course, that's not really shown on social media.
antithesis to what I believed BLM was wanting to be.
But now I don't recognize this BLM.
So I can't, in good faith, attach myself to it anymore and to the national BLM.
But I do support grassroots that are also very frustrated because they believe in the original idea of BLM.
And it's almost like They don't, and I've had these discussions with so many people who are not for BLM at all, and I will have these talks with them, and they're like, you know what, that's awesome that these people are doing great work, but why don't they just change their name?
Like, if they are so, like, disgusted with what's happening right now, I'm like, you know, when you've done something for six years and it's, and you've done a lot, and you poured all of yourself in it, and then, you know, people on the tail end come and try to make it something That it's not, you're trying to fight for the originality of what it's for.
And maybe it is a losing game, but for me, all I can do is my work be separate.
But when I do see people online, you know, talking about BLM, they're all Marxists.
They're all socialists.
They're all communists.
I'm like, really?
All of them?
Like a few people say it and then everyone says, that's everybody.
Um, but then on the same end, they wouldn't want to be generalized by what they believe in either.
Um, so I try to be a bridge, I guess, because even though I, I might go to a BLM protest as a journalist, as someone like to report about what's happening, but I haven't done like, you know, BLM work since the end of 2018.
They do champion the grassroots that are still out there feeding people, doing all the things that they can do that you'll never know about because they're not in it for the clout.
They don't care about the attention.
They're doing it because they care about Black lives and they care about what's going on in America.
And they cannot stand it when they see other BLMs, and I believe it was in Washington, D.C., Where they're telling white people to put their hands up and say, if you don't, you're white supremacist.
And the funny thing is, most of those people were white.
Right.
So I actually called that out on Twitter.
I said, the National BLM, if you don't denounce this behavior, you are tainting your organization.
And the people who did this, majority of them were white, so you guys don't care about black lives at all.
Because when this comes out in the articles and they see a BLM told white people to put their hands up or they're white supremacists, no one's going to think, I wonder if they're white.
No, they're going to assume, of course, that they were black.
And they actually, majority of them weren't.
Yes, this is a pattern I have seen as well many times, that there is this large number of white people, some of them I'm sure think they're doing the right thing, maybe most of them, but it's very destructive and, you know, the bill doesn't necessarily go to them.
There are a couple points I wanted to make just before they get lost here.
Your point about businesses putting up Black Lives Matter signs and things.
My wife, Heather, calls that a don't hurt me wall, right?
And we see them all over the place in Portland here.
And really, once you start seeing them that way, it changes your understanding of what's going on.
You know that power is being wielded, right?
And anyway, it's very important not to Take those signs at their word.
Some of them may mean what they say, and some of them do not mean what they say.
They're really about fear, and it's not healthy.
Yeah, it's not.
That's fun that your wife says that.
I believe that's 100% true.
And it is, like, not to say that some people When they put that up, they don't mean it.
Or if they put a George Floyd picture up, they don't mean it.
But I remember when I was in Bed-Stuy, and this was like right after I would say the George Floyd protests were going on, and I was going through Brooklyn, and I told my friends that were black that, and showing them pictures of these stamps that were on the ground.
And it was saying, it's okay to be black, like everywhere.
And I was just like, excuse me?
I was like, thank you for giving permission that it's okay to be me.
Like I was so mad.
So then after that, I just, it, it, like I did, I would walk by on the street, like every day to go to this place where I would run.
And then I started looking at every business and then it was like, Black Lives Welcome, Black Lives This, George Floyd This, people selling George Floyd shirts.
I'm like, But I thought capitalism was racist, so why are you using capitalism to sell George Floyd shirts?
I was just like, why do people one-on-one sell Black Death?
Why are people wearing these sayings, I can't breathe, and just wearing them just casually out with their dogs and just smiling?
Just the picture of that was just odd.
And yeah, I'm like, Our skin, our tragedies just become trendy and it's just, it's like almost cool.
And it's hard, and this is something I'm working on so I don't want to keep elaborating on this, but just, yeah, I unfortunately when I see that I don't feel it's authentic.
I feel like you're just trying to Safeguard and be like, just don't hurt us.
We're not the problem.
And that's unfortunate, but that's where I am.
Well, it's interesting.
There's a reversal here on the standard narrative.
What it sounds like is you put together an organization.
It had beliefs and objectives that were reasonable relative to what you were experiencing and what you saw.
And then something washed over you and it's hard for me not to reach the conclusion that effectively what you're facing is colonization by a large powerful entity, right?
You had an organic local entity that suddenly got swallowed up by a movement that had beliefs, many of which I would say are clearly not true.
And has motives that you're describing as potentially not pure, not true to the hashtag.
And so that does feel like you got colonized and that those who say, well, why don't you just change your name?
The answer is, well...
You know, one should think very carefully before you tell somebody to surrender the thing that they've built or the place where they've lived and just hand it over to the colonizer, right?
I mean, that's part of the problem.
That's exactly, that's exact.
If they would, they would say it just like that.
They don't want to surrender the mission to what they see isn't the mission.
And like I said, they do their best to combat it, but the media is not on their side, so.
Well, I find myself in a weirdly parallel position here, because I have been a proud liberal my whole adult life.
I come from liberal stock several generations back, and I have watched not only the political party that is supposed to represent me, but the mainstream of liberal thought go, what I would say is insane.
In many cases, it represents views that look more like the opposite of liberalism than they look like liberalism to me.
And many conservatives tell me, well, then You're really one of us and my sense is no I mean even if even if I'm the only person even if there's nobody standing for traditional liberal principles They're still right.
And so the point is I'm not I'm not surrendering them.
I'm not handing them over to anybody else I appreciate that there are conservatives who are now defending these, you know You've got conservatives conserving liberal principles that were consensus principles until 20 minutes ago, right?
That's interesting But I feel the same way, like, well, no, I'm not moving.
I'm sticking with this and these other folks are wrong.
And, you know, win or lose, I'm not I'm not going to I'm not going to surrender it.
Exactly.
And I feel like in ways like I'm independent and I don't affiliate with like being a Republican or Democrat.
I haven't for like five years.
But depending on what I say, people are like, no, you really are a liberal.
No, you really are conservative.
I'm like, I'm just here thinking.
And if it sounds that way, fine.
But I'm telling you, I'm not on a side.
But I think what's going on, especially when I do talk about, you know, cancel culture or With the anti-racist movement going on and I speak out against the movement, not necessarily the people, but the movement.
You know, I might be called, you know, a conservative or whatever, but I'm calling out the fact that they have turned something that's more realistic, which is respecting each other, into some unrealistic goal where it's not even about It's not about progression anymore for them, it's about perfection.
They want everything, no racism ever, and any iota of it, that means we're not done, nothing's changed, we're still, you know, there's still whatever.
Racism's here and the needle hasn't been moved, but you can't end racism and I think that's the goal on that.
extreme side is to end racism, and that is some unrealistic task that you can't do.
It's an emotion.
People choose to be racist.
I mean, with laws and policies and legislation, that's where you can make a change with racism.
So I don't know if we disagree here or not, but my sense is that if I listen very carefully to what I hear from the large mainstream BLM movement, I can't even make sense of the various claims if I try to compare them to each other.
You know, the idea that we have to obsess over the bigotry of whites, and then we're also told that it's incurable.
Right?
These two things don't fit naturally together.
Either it is curable, in which case obsessing about it is at least arguably a reasonable thing to do.
But if it's curable, then you have to ask the question about which whites are cured already and which aren't.
And it's like, in order not to do that, in order just to say, hey, this is actually really simple, all whites are racist, you have to imagine that it's incurable, but then you've undermined the entire rationale for doing what you're doing.
It's really just about retribution.
So you mean in a sense, just so we're clear, like, when they say, like, white people can never not be racist, and like, it's an endless work that forever they'll have to be, okay.
Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, personally, I believe this is actually not difficult for people to sort out in good faith.
And if I can just lay out my rubric, you tell me if I've got something wrong as you see it, but my feeling is...
That racism and white supremacy require, at the very least, one of two things.
They either require that you're actually rooting for your race above others, rather than rooting for a level playing field.
Or that your ignorance of the challenges is willful.
Right?
So my sense is we all have ignorance.
I am forever going to be ignorant of what it is like to be a woman, to be gay, to be black, to be an Indian.
I won't know these things firsthand, but I'm interested.
I want to know as much as I can because it makes me a better human being and it makes me a better partner.
And so I don't want to be convicted of being a bigot if my point is, look, I'm actually working to understand what I don't know, and I acknowledge that I will never know it as I would if it were me.
Right?
So my sense is, okay, broad brush, that's a fair position to shoot for, and it doesn't deserve a conviction for white supremacy.
or racism.
And so what does one do in a world where we're told, no, no, no, you have these things built in, there's nothing you can do, and your intent doesn't matter, right?
It's like, well, didn't you just tell me I lose because I lose?
I mean, it's a tautology.
Mm-hmm.
Malcolm X talked about, and this is one reason why I really like Malcolm X, he talked about a lot with the Black homes, with Black families, just Black people that we can't wait around for white people to change.
We can't wait around for America to catch up to our freedom.
We have to just live free, be free, take authority of our lives and before, you know, someone else does.
And so he was for just go out there and be American anyways.
And I think it's hard to, it's hard.
And.
For me, I don't believe that racism is something that is, on an interpersonal level, terminal.
I think this country, yes, was founded on American slavery, and racism will always be within the fabric of America, inevitably.
Unfortunately, it just will.
We either realize that and try to have different conversations about race to try to unbind ourselves and untether us away from it as much as we can.
Or we keep being in within a fight that we are basically telling to the world we're going to lose.
Because if you're always trying to get white people to not be racist, But they will always be racist.
You're fighting a losing battle.
So if that makes sense, I go on tangents.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is important.
And I think it's exactly where we should be.
I will tell you, I'm less fatalistic about the idea that there will always be racism in the U.S.
I mean, you know, at one level, we can measure with such precision.
You know, it's a big country.
Will there always be somebody somewhere, you know, who espouses obnoxious beliefs?
Of course.
How old are you?
Will it be a meaningful feature of the landscape?
I really don't believe that that has to be the case.
And in part, I think maybe the difference in your perspective and mine might come down to our age.
How old are you? - I'm 31. - 31.
So I'm 52 and I've seen so much change in this, Even, you know, 52 isn't that old, right?
It doesn't take me back into the 60s, right?
This is more recent than that, and yet I still saw a tremendous amount of progress.
And I also, you know, I mean there's a lot.
I don't know if we can even really do this well in a conversation.
It's very fraught at the moment, but My own personal interactions with people cross-racial not just black people but across many different racial divides Gives me an ability to see how this has changed over time and part of that is my own growth as a person but part of that is also just a measure of where we are and
I think the thing that's really is hopeful about the sort of longer term trajectory and very frightening about the last few years is that I know that we are making rapid negative progress at the moment.
We are moving in the wrong direction and relationships that were moving in the direction of better comprehension of each other and more compassion are now definitely disintegrating and You know, I used to... I've never been...
Uncomfortable interacting with people of other backgrounds.
And I noticed that I was in a part of town and I was walking, I don't know, back to my car or something.
And I was passing through a park where there was a large black family.
I mean, it was clearly a familial gathering, probably 15, 15, 20 people, kids playing and all.
They were having a barbecue in the park.
And I know that five years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about walking through this park and that it was almost certain that I would have a nice exchange of words with somebody about the beauty of the day or nice day for a picnic or whatever might have been said.
And I can't speak for what's on the other side of that interaction, but I know that every time I reach across some line and I get back a sense of camaraderie from the other side, it feels good.
It feels like a little bit of building of a project that I know we're all working on, and I know, or at least we should all be working on, and that it's a long-term thing, right?
And instead, When I saw this, it's like, well, I don't even know where I am anymore.
Because I don't know what the assumptions of, you know, a white person walking through a park and, you know, interacting with somebody's Family barbecue.
I don't know if this is the interaction I would expect from the past, or it's a new interaction in which the assumption is that race is the, you know, is definitely the subject of the interaction, right?
And it's, I mean, it's both terrifying and sad.
That's interesting, because... So I want to say, like, is it your hesitation because of No, I think that was a pretty extraordinary event in a number of different ways.
So I just take it as an unusual anomaly.
But I guess what I There's a phenomenon where under normal circumstances, what I'm calling normal circumstances, and who knows what I'm missing, right?
Who knows what I don't know about the interactions on the other side of these interchanges that I've had for my whole life, right?
But my assumption is I read people pretty well.
Um, and that I know when somebody is uncomfortable and when somebody feels at ease.
And there's something that strangers do within race, between race, within sex, between sex.
And it is just like a little, uh, you know, in computer science terms, it would be ping-ack, right?
It's like you send a message.
It says, Hey, I'm here I see you and the other person sends a message back to see you right back, right?
And the point is that could be like tense interaction, right?
You can imagine having an interaction in some part of town where you didn't feel comfortable or in some department of your work where you weren't welcome or who knows and you know that ping ACK would be tense, but in general in public people actually kind of like Comradery that's built of unspoken stuff.
You know, we live in the same town.
We're enjoying the same day, right?
We're, you know, delighted to see the kids playing in the park on the equipment, whatever it is.
There's just something nice about feeling at ease and comfortable with whom you're around.
And so The problem is that I've now seen so many interactions where if there is an interracial dynamic, then race is the subject.
And race is the subject from a perspective of that we have an urgent problem that must be addressed here and now because the problem is definitely here in this park.
Right?
And my sense is I don't know if it's here in this park.
Maybe it is, but maybe it isn't.
And if we don't leave open the possibility that it isn't in this park, then we're in big trouble.
Yeah, so I'm smiling because what you're describing is a sense of like this paranoia, right?
That is something Black Americans have gone through before all of this, I will say.
I know.
So what you're feeling is what we feel, what I felt when I really understood that I wasn't white at like 9, 10, when I really understood.
Before then, I would go in anywhere like, yeah, you know, but then when I I had these encounters where I'm like, I know I'm not white, but dang, I didn't realize there was some difference.
Okay, now I move different in the world.
And then since then, that's how I feel when I would be the only black person going into a white space.
What do they think of me?
Did they say this thing about me because I'm black?
And it could be not that at all, but the paranoia lingers there.
And the same as Am I being followed around in this store because I'm young or is it because I'm black?
Am I not being served because this or because I'm black?
Now I want to shut down those narratives or those notions and just say, it's not about your race.
Quit talking about your race.
If you stop talking about it, it won't be an issue.
And they don't get the paranoia.
You don't like that.
You don't want that.
You wish it wasn't there.
I don't want to go into a store and feel like my race is the one thing people see.
It's annoying.
And now I make sure that if something happens, I make sure I actually think about it before I react.
For me, mostly.
Um, but before what you're feeling in that park is what black Americans feel all the time.
And we're not exaggerating where if someone's like, Oh, you're very articulate.
Yeah.
That I am going to think you think, and I won't the whole script paragraph, you think I'm articulate because you think black people are stupid.
Therefore you're shocked that I can say a sentence like that.
It's just very, and it's annoying.
And the thing is, is like, Sometimes, you know, you or someone else that might feel like, oh, I want to interact with this Black family or whoever, it might feel like a tension of don't come over here.
It might actually be more of us feeling like we're not a danger to you.
So it's a mixed signal thing.
Everyone's on edge.
But if someone could really rewind and listen to what you said, That is exactly what it feels like when you feel people have a problem with your skin and they don't know you and you're like, is it because of that though?
And just that paranoia is like a bug.
You're just so annoyed all the time.
You're like, when will this stop?
And yeah, exactly.
Well, I totally agree with this, not lost on me.
But I would say, A, something I've said many, many times is that the problem with this woke revolution is that it is not interested in ending oppression.
It is interested in turning the tables of oppression.
And so in some sense, I feel that this is, and it's not irrational, right?
I actually do think That people who do have racism, by the definition that I spelled it out, somebody who is actually rooting for one race over another, that such a person needs to experience this in order to just develop compassion, right?
That it is an important experience.
But my sense is that the interactions I've been having for my whole life when, and let's take it out of the racial dynamic here for a second just so that we can see what we're talking about.
I have also watched the same positive thing collapse between men and women, right?
So it used to be that if I was walking down the street and there was a woman walking the other way, there is a way to exchange a look or a greeting or something that diffuses any fear that I'm a creep, that I'm a danger to her, that I'm on the make, whatever it may be, right?
That has become almost impossible.
There is this way in which women walk down a street and it's just short of an accusation.
I don't feel the accusation, but I feel like, you know, I'm attempting not to make eye contact because there's only bad stuff that happens when I do.
And so there's no ability to signal, I'm not a threat to you, and I know that there are threats to you out here, but that's not me.
Right and this so I think the point is a little bit of positive work was done in the past when let's take the the experience that you report That paranoia of not knowing what white people are thinking of you because of your skin color, right?
Do you have the experience that sometimes you meet a white person that you don't know in some circumstance and that Paranoia is diffused by the way they interact with you Um, that they have a problem with me being black?
No, no.
I'm wondering if, let's say you enter an interaction with some white person that you don't know, and maybe the paranoia is there because you don't know what they're going to think, right?
But then in a few minutes of interacting, you realize, oh, yeah, this isn't a problem person.
This is somebody who's, you know, they don't understand what it's like to be you, but they're on board with the idea that race shouldn't matter in, you know, except in the rare case where It has to matter for some reason, right?
Like it matters if you're talking to a doctor about skin cancer or something.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's happened before.
That's definitely happened.
I don't know when this was.
I think this was in Brooklyn.
I know that I was being waited on for a little longer and my Waitress was white and she like made it very apparent of why it was taking a while.
Like why people, like not even like I know you weren't served but just like I'm so sorry we were backed up.
Like being really apologetic and I don't know if she just saw like maybe I had an annoyance on my face and or if she felt like oh she thinks she's not being served but she's black.
I don't know what she thought but she made it a point to make sure that I knew like it's not for any other reason than we are And then that was when I was like, okay.
But I mean those, those happen.
I can't really like, it's not really pinged in my mind, but throughout my life that's happened a lot just with maybe going into certain, especially with Black Lives Matter.
Okay.
Especially when I would be going into meetings.
Where it was like high city officials were there and I'm in the room and we're talking.
And I'm assuming people want to grill me or whatever.
And then just the conversation is just different than I thought.
And it becomes one of the few great conversations I've had.
Just, yeah, things like that happen a lot throughout my life.
And while that might happen, a negative experience happens.
So that is why that paranoia stays and sticks, because you just don't know.
And I hope to always be pleasantly surprised.
But it's not to say that I don't, on my end, I don't make sure that they know I'm open to this exchange, too.
I don't wait for them to think they have to do the work, if that makes sense.
Like, I also engage where it's like, I know there's an elephant in the room, which is our skin.
That's not happening with me.
Yep.
So, yeah.
Well, so I want a world in which effectively it is, you know, everybody is aware of the same thing, right?
I don't know if this is exactly fair.
You can help me correct it if it's not.
But my sense is That there's a gray area, but that by and large a black person knows when they're dealing with somebody who's got an issue.
They may not know exactly what the issue is, but you can detect it, right?
There's something hidden.
You know, I deal with this a little bit being Jewish.
There are people who have some kind of suspicion about what that is.
It's pretty rare that I encounter it, but I do encounter it.
And then there are people who have some very superficial You know, they'll like recognize that my name is Jewish or that I look Jewish and, you know, I have the sense that, you know, it is noted and then in interacting it doesn't typically end up being an important fact and it dissipates.
But my sense is that you probably in general know Whether or not somebody has an issue that's unstated or whether somebody really doesn't have an issue and then there's probably some gray area where you don't know for sure.
Is that fair?
Definitely.
Okay.
And when there is gray, I...
I, like you say, might take notes, but I don't create it into something.
I kind of just let it be.
Perfect.
So imagine that the well-intentioned white folk knew that this was kind of the rubric, right?
That when you meet black people, if you've got a real issue, they'll know it.
If you don't have a real issue, they'll figure it out.
And if you're a little bit uncomfortable, that might get noted, but it's not, you know, it still leaves room to discover that you're cool and that you have, you know, cool stuff to interact about.
You have shared interests or whatever.
If people knew that, and the point was, okay, Most of us.
In fact, I will tell you, I think the thing that I know that you can't know is what gets said when you're not in the room.
Right?
So I know what those conversations are about.
I don't want to know.
Just kidding.
You do.
No, I do.
In general, you do.
Because in general, it's not what you fear.
Right?
I never hear that conversation or almost never.
Right?
You know, so anyway, I'm in a position to help you calibrate because I mean this whole, you know, you mentioned the question of using the word articulate with a black person.
This is now a problem for white people like me who use the word articulate because it's something I value and I would use it for anybody who is articulate and now there's this very difficult calculation which is Okay, I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with the fact that I think being articulate is good.
And if somebody is black and articulate, I can't use that word, right?
That's a problem, right?
But I get why this is an issue.
I get that it is used by whites and it has this coded level to it.
But it doesn't mean that everybody who uses it uses it that way.
And yet, even though I don't think I have a problem with this, I now don't know what to do with that word, right?
It is allowed for certain people and not others.
Yes.
It's sad that that's a word that's taboo, but there's a lot of historical context with that.
I will say just examples of that.
With my American Shade podcast, a lot of people come on and I get these comments all the time.
Let's just say I might have a bandana on in one of my videos and that's all they see in the thumbnail.
Then they click and they hear me talk and then the comment is like, I'm going to be honest with myself and publicly announce this.
I thought you were going to be the typical woke like thug.
Um, yo, yo, yo lakes.
I'm not kidding.
Like they will say this, but they're like, but you're a very intelligent, articulate, young, wise woman and blah, blah, blah.
Thinking that I'm going to like the comment.
Like it's, I understand that they're trying to be open.
So I don't delete these things though.
I'm not like delete.
I let them be because I'm like, those are the moments where like I just really like try to pull in my Christianity as much as I can.
I'm like, you know what?
There are human being vulnerable and there's, even though this is very ignorant, my channel is about these conversations and they are telling me Explicitly what they thought of me.
And now they don't.
So at the end of the day, is this something?
It is bad, right?
But it's something that changed their perception.
So maybe next time when they see a group of kids with bandanas, maybe they won't have the initial reaction that these are thugs.
Maybe, maybe that will help.
But I get these all the time.
When you hear, you know, especially with Obama, yes, he was articulate.
But when you just hear like, this president was this, this, this, and they just are, you know.
But then when it was with Obama, people were like, wow, like he can speak clear.
Yeah, that's going to be annoying.
We're going to be like, well, why is this one president the articulate one?
I mean, weren't they all?
Or is it expected for the rest of them to be?
And this one wasn't.
Well, if I can just say for my part, I should say I have mixed emotions about Obama.
I voted for him once, I didn't vote for him twice, and the problem is I actually really, interpersonally, I like him.
I think he's a very likable guy, and I did find him extraordinary as a speaker.
Like, he stood out, right?
He was really, really good.
It was at a policy level and I still don't know why He I thought he was a mess at a policy level and you know, it's possible that he couldn't do better But there were some things I just can't explain that way, but never mind that I think I think the problem is that in his case He'd be unusual in any Configuration he was a I don't know what exactly explains him unusual developmental history that you know
A very singular human.
So anyway, the problem is that in describing such a singular human, who happens to be singular as a president in this particular way also, right?
Our first black president, these things get tangled up because no matter what you're doing, you're describing, you know, a 1 in 7 billion Phenomenon, right?
No matter what.
Yeah.
And so, anyway, I don't know what to do with it exactly, but the problem is, at some level, let's just both agree, you and I have both encountered a problem with the word articulate.
The problem with the word articulate that we have is inverse.
You don't know what people are really implying when they say it, and I don't know how to use it anymore because I know that that's a hazard, that it's like a word that now has all of this potential energy built up in it.
And even if I'm perfectly even-handed in how I use it, and basically I just use it anytime somebody speaks in a way that impresses me, there's no way any individual could know that, right?
So you can't know if it's charged, right?
So, what we need at some level, I'm certain, is enough interaction that we're not dealing from these anecdotes.
And the problem for me I tweeted about this earlier this week.
I tweeted, segregation causes racism.
And I don't mean that the opposite isn't also true, because I believe the opposite is clearly true.
But I think the problem is much of the what passes for sophistication in these social justice circles is the idea that what we need to do is group by skin color, right?
And while I know that there is the need to be able to do that sometimes, right?
That, you know, it makes perfect sense that if a group of people is facing a phenomenon, they might need to talk about it amongst themselves, right?
So the right to gather in such groups is important and it's a fundamental right.
But the need to always gather in those groups is causing us to know less and less about each other.
And I feel like that's utterly counterproductive, that it is going to create racism, where actually racism was getting better.
I now feel like in the last couple of years, it's getting worse.
And part of the problem is that it is getting harder to have a casual interaction that might actually allow you to understand more.
Yes, I agree with that.
And I think just the Shorter answer is there's just a big trust issue.
It's just a big trust issue.
And it's not with every single American or black American.
But like you said, when you're walking in that park, you don't know if that person has that trust issue with you or not.
And it's better.
Maybe it's just better.
I walk around them and don't interact.
Which then creates more of a trust issue.
Exactly.
Because if you don't Just do it.
You'll never know.
But then there are organizations that really have a trust issue with white people coming in because they don't know if they have good intentions.
They don't know if they can trust them.
They don't know if they're actually another organization trying to infiltrate them or trying to like, you know, co-opt or whatever.
They don't know.
So they're like, well, it's better that we just keep it.
All black, because at least we know that everyone in here is for this cause, and better safe than sorry.
I think people would rather just be better safe than sorry now.
For me, there are definitely times where you have to be, it's better to be safe than sorry.
With conversations, now I will have conversations with anyone and I'll be cautious, but I'd Be like dang that didn't go the way I want it to go.
Like I'd rather that than never talking to someone that I might feel might not be receptive to me or whatever.
But yeah I think at the end of the day it's a trust issue and I don't know how that is tackled other than people just coming out of their comfort zones and yeah.
So let me ask you about something.
I agree that stretching with respect to our comfort zones is the thing that allows us to discover our shared humanity and get past the bigotry, if it's there, or ignorance, which is definitely there.
Reducing ignorance would be a great goal.
It's never going to be zero, but the thing that allows us to do that is contact.
And all of these tensions and suspicions make contact more fraught, more likely to go awry, and less capable of doing what it needs to do.
So, I just wanted to add one other thing to that.
I've, I spend a lot of time listening to conversations and I deliberately listen when I can to conversations that are primarily or exclusively black if I'm allowed to participate.
Actually, it is true of those conversations, but it's actually more generally true of the social justice landscape, not just with respect to race, but there is a pattern in which amongst people who are gathered around an injustice, there's a tendency To be unable to reject any claim that is consistent with that overall concern, right?
So there's almost no assertion you can make that's too absurd to be thrown out.
You won't get a bunch of people who are concerned about racial injustice who will say, well, actually, that thing you're talking about is innocent.
But the problem is real, but that particular example isn't, right?
It's like anything is an example of the thing in question.
You've seen this?
Yes.
I think a very popular example of this is white silences violence or well, actually, well, actually, yeah.
So that was actually something that came up that I was like, this is a contradiction that when it comes to the protests and When it comes to showing up for black people or non-white people at these demonstrations, it's like white silence is violence.
It's like if you aren't there, you are racist or you're part of the problem.
But when it comes to having conversations and dialogue like this or talking about the injustices and what's going on, that we want white people to be silent.
You can't talk.
Like, you, it's, it's our call.
It's our voice.
You support what we say.
And that was some, definitely a narrative that was really, after White Fragility, actually now I'm not going to blame everything on that book.
This was before that, but White Fragility really pushed it for white people just to listen and black people write about race because we don't go through racism.
Even though my organization, BLM, was not participating in that.
I definitely retweeted that, though.
I definitely shared that sentiment online.
Definitely.
Because I thought that was agency.
But then I realized, does that even make sense that white people can't speak?
Because racism, yes, happens to Black people.
There are certain parts of racism that we will never experience from different angles.
And if we allow white people to speak and give their point of view of what's going on, they can let us know of the blind spots we're not seeing and what's going on.
Everyone has to participate in this issue.
Like if we're saying it's not just our issue, it's not just this, go educate yourself.
The best education is dialogue.
It's not reading a book.
It's talking to me about it.
And but I think why we don't want that is because it's like already the stress of the incident and the injustice and then the additional stress of having to talk about it and make sense to it to other people who don't just get it on ground level.
But it's like.
When has racism or race or the conversation promised to ever be comfortable?
It's always going to be ugly and hard and exhausting.
And that's what has sobered me up to this, because I was always like, I'm not talking to white people about racism.
Go Google it.
I'm not exhausting myself.
Like I'm like, at the event, I talk at the meetings, I talk after that.
But now I'm like, when I look back at My lineage, what happened, I'm like, Dr. King and them fought for our civil rights and our voting rights and other rights.
And then my ancestors, everything that they were able to do, fighting for me to be in this moment in 2021.
And I can't have a conversation with a white person because it's exhausting.
But like, tell that to Harriet Tubman.
I'm like, Harriet Tubman would be like, if you don't go and like, when I think of when you contrast it with that.
Now, for me.
I definitely.
I'm human, so I definitely have conversations with people that definitely go somewhere and it might be a four hour conversation at the end of it.
It might have.
So many things might have happened that were great, and I might go to bed crying because it was so hard to do.
And it is exhausting, but I'm like, but what they did for us, this is a luxury.
The fact that I can tell a white person how I feel and they'll listen and then change could happen.
Like now I'm like, now for me, I just, I exhaust myself because what happens afterwards is always good.
Even if, and there's been tension, of course, I consent to being offended.
They consent to getting offended.
We're mature.
We're like, this might happen.
It might get ugly.
Maybe it will.
Probably actually will.
And it always, though, it just is surprising to me of how I felt almost Like, all the things that they did with the struggle that was happening.
And they pushed us along.
Each era pushed the other era, like, okay, we're free, we're free out of bondage, and we're pushing you forward to whatever the freedom is.
And then after Reconstruction era, pushing you.
After Jim Crow, now we're pushing this generation.
And we just, and I won't say we.
I'll just speak for me.
And then I was willing just to sit down.
And fold my arms and be like, I'm not talking to anyone.
When I looked at it that way, I'm like, how lazy?
I'm lazy.
Like, talking is the least I could do, if anything else.
But I don't want to put that on other, on all Black people.
We have different experiences.
And for me, because I grew up in a white town, I do have a tolerance.
Because I'm used to being around white people.
There's people in Chicago and other inner cities that they've experienced encounters with white people way different.
And I'm not going to tell them, like, you need to do what I do.
No, I'm just going to do what I can do.
Which is this.
Well, I would say, yeah, it's not incumbent on any individual, but it is vital for all of us to the channel remain open, right?
That there be the ability to have those conversations.
Yeah, yeah.
And I like your point quite a bit about This instinct to silence white people, especially as we are told that their silence is violence.
But even putting that aside, the silencing of white people in a conversation about race is just simply destructive of the ability of that conversation to reach insight.
Because the point is we're actually talking about a dynamic.
And as much as I don't know what it's like to be black and can't therefore speak from personal experience to that phenomenon.
It is also true that you know you can't know what goes on as we said before in the room when you're not there and interesting to me that your first reaction when I talked about what was said in the room when you're not there was that there was something to fear about that and Can you tell me what you feared might be said in rooms when when you're not in there or when you walk out?
Wow.
I would say.
Honestly, the little things that just came to mind that might be said.
If I walked out of a room.
Maybe like.
I can't stand these people or Just, just, I actually, I don't even, like, I can't stand these people or, you know, why are they always trying to take up space or here we go with another BLM.
Like, just the stereotypical things one might think someone's thinking in their mind when they see them anyway.
Wow.
You know, I. Sounds like that's not what happens.
Never.
Never.
I mean, I do sometimes hear people say stuff that I think might have racial content in it, but it's usually not that a person is saying something that is negative.
It's that a person doesn't know what to do with race, and so they're sort of revealing their ignorance about it or something like that.
But no, no, no, no, no.
You know and and it's funny because I talked to other white people about this phenomenon like, you know I was in fact having a conversation with a journalist Jeremy Lee Quinn and We were talking about He he's a left-wing.
He's actually an anarchist who's done journalism looking at right-wing protests including the one at the Capitol and I He encountered a guy who was overtly racist, and he and I had this little moment.
It was like, oh, you actually met an overt racist in the wild?
And it was like, yeah, I did.
And it's like, well, that's interesting, because you and I, he and I, are constantly being told that it's everywhere, and we never meet these people.
Right?
That's not how it works.
And I'm not saying that there is not severe bias in our system, but it's not written into the system where you would expect it to be, right?
It's much more like your zip code is not racially diverse and predicts how well you will do in life.
Right, that's a very backward thing, but it doesn't, it's not working through the active racism of white people, it's working through a historical fact, which did come from racism, right, the segregation of our neighborhoods, and it has tremendous impact, does lots of harm.
But it isn't working through what's said in the room when the black person leaves or when there are no black people present.
It's a totally different thing.
And so this is part of the problem, I think, is that the picture of racism that is being portrayed is so at odds with what's actually going on.
And so much of people's acceptance that it is right is based in their fear rather than their personal encounters with it, that we're just stuck in this, I think, fake story.
And frankly, it's fake on both sides.
The story about white racism is a caricature of what that actually is.
And really, I think we're dealing more with historical racism that we are being We are failing to address rather than current racism.
It's not to say there's none, but it's to say there's a lot less than people say But you know on the other side to the the understanding on the right is cartoonish because the right is unimaginative about the ways that harm can afflict a population that doesn't require active racism.
They just think it's all made up, or not all of it, but a lot of it.
And so the point is, look, actually, both these stories have to go.
We do have a problem, and it is not primarily active racism by living white people.
It's It works differently than that.
But, you know, so let's figure out what the problem actually is, right?
And not demonize people who aren't guilty of something.
And then in so doing, we could actually address it, which I think is essential.
I don't think the country is complete until we really do address it.
But, you know, that story gets lost.
I mean, it's a little like your BLM chapter that got overwhelmed by some bigger BLM phenomenon that didn't speak for you, right?
That view that like, yes, we have real problems, but it's not based in the active racism of white people, or at least not primarily so.
It's just, there's no oxygen for that discussion because we're so busy having a different discussion.
I think what I was saying, we lost contact here for a moment due to a Zoom hiccup.
I think what I was saying was that we've got two false stories that are taking up all the oxygen in the room.
One of them is that on the right there's a belief that inequality and race-based inequality is much less significant than it actually is.
And by this I mean equality of opportunity.
And on the left, there's a story that the reason that things are so unequal is about active racism on the part of whites that is interfering with the ability of blacks and others to succeed.
And what I was suggesting is that I'm virtually certain, I'd say there's obviously some degree of bias based on the fact that I am likely to encounter white folks who are more similar minded to me than different, but I do a lot of I intermingle with people across the political spectrum.
I've done a lot of traveling and it is exceedingly rare that I run into anybody who is actively rooting for white people over black people.
It is not exceedingly rare that I run into people Who have very little understanding of people of other races.
There's a lot of ignorance But I think very little of it is willful And so the point is what I what really want to see is a discussion in which we say, okay Why are things so unequal and what can we do about it?
because frankly from all of our perspective equality of opportunity is a great thing and But we can't get to that discussion if folks on the right are increasingly emboldened in believing that there isn't a problem, because folks on the left are painting the problem differently and more personally than it is actually occurring.
I want to play devil's advocate on what you said.
Please.
Do you think that you might not encounter overt racists because it's not socially acceptable and it's almost like, you know, someone that is very, let's say,
misogynist or whatever, they might not say that overtly to someone or showcase that overtly to someone unless like they have a commonality with that person, a friend, they're close to someone where they can be like that.
Well, you know, that's a possibility, but I would say I'm a very careful student of human behavior.
I mean, it's professionally one of my primary interests, and it's also something I delight in.
You know, I've done a lot of traveling.
I spend a lot of time talking to people and listening to people for a lot of different reasons.
Partly, I hold the view that the If somebody will let you look through their eyes, that that is like an incredible privilege and that you should take that opportunity for the amazing thing that it is and not treat it frivolously.
So, you know, I do sort of discover People's myopia, people's creativity, because I'm sort of curious about what it's like in their heads.
And I did this professionally also as a professor for 14 years.
The college I was teaching at, students and professors took one class at a time.
So professors taught one class, students took one class, and it could go on all year.
So I knew my students really, really well, and they knew me.
And so all I would say is that I can't be certain of what I don't see because people won't say it around me, but I know that I'm not depending entirely on what they say, that I'm actually looking for patterns, and that I frequently find ignorance.
I rarely find what I would call racism, and that I think Yeah, there's bound to be some bias in what people will say to me, and some bias in who I'm talking about, but I don't think that's what explains it.
I think most people across the political spectrum, actually, really do believe that an equal world, racially speaking, is better, and what we differ on is how equal things are.
Yeah, I just wanted to be, say, do that devil's advocate, but I will say, like, After I leave this, that paranoia isn't after any exchange with any white person.
It's certain times where you're going into an unknown territory and you're just unsure what people say and you don't know if they're being pleasant to your face and when you walk out you have no idea what they're really saying.
But it's nothing that I go to bed thinking of and rocking back and forth and like I wonder what, no I don't think that.
Can I ask a question?
And I don't, well this might not be a question for you, but... You're free to ask any question you feel like you should ask.
Do you feel the same way if you left a room of black people?
Or people, non-white people, if they were saying something Yeah, it's a good question.
I think it's a little bit different now than it was.
I never would have worried about it.
But now there's a different question, which is, you know, did I overcome the expectation that there's something hidden in my mind of that nature?
And it's getting harder and harder to overcome.
But no, I never would have worried about that.
And I think You know, I think I deal across my entire social life, you know, race just being one small aspect of this, but I deal across my life with the sense that if you approach people openly,
And you're candid about what you see and you're quick to put things right when you screw up, which we all do, then people get that message pretty quickly.
And, you know, my sense is that It used to be generally true that one could establish that at the very least, I'm trying to live in a world that we should all like a good one, right?
I may be wrong about the details, but I'm shooting for it because I think it's good for everyone, and I'm not doing so trivially.
I'm actually invested in it, and that when people detect that, they tend to accept your decency, and the The difficulty in establishing that now is, I think it's, it could hardly be more dangerous to us.
So I do, I do worry about it more now than I did.
And I will say, you know, I have My social universe changed in 2017 when the story at Evergreen happened.
And I'm in contact with lots and lots of folks, you know, an especially high number of black intellectuals.
And I must say, it is the place that retains this sort of sense that this is an arbitrary issue between us.
It's not a central issue, even though it's become much more a focus of our conversations, because it's happening in the world.
But there is sort of a sense amongst these folks that, you know, We know we're well-intended, we've established that, and we can talk about virtually anything and it seems comfortable, but it's like that general sense that you could talk about anything with anybody
once you established that you were decent has been edited down to a smaller and smaller group of people who are capable of keeping the flame for that style of interaction. - Yes.
I do think though that the more I have conversations with people where I would assume that they would have a visceral reaction to everything I would say that don't, I feel like just the extremes on both sides of the left and the right
I feel like it's such a small pool, but because they're the loudest, they are like almost the brand ambassadors for that side and everyone thinks that they represent what the other side is.
And I think when it comes down to it, I think everyone wants a decent interaction with everybody and everyone's wanting to put the weapons down, but they just don't know, are you really going to drop your weapon and not pick it up?
And I think that's why we carry around the weapon, because we have a paranoia, are you going to use it on me?
I won't use it on you, but I need it just in case you do.
But I think everyone's exhausted.
Really?
I think most people are.
The more I talk and interact with people, and I say this in the sense of, I'll talk to someone that figuratively has the weapon ready to swing.
And the more we talk, the more they're just like, they don't want to hold it.
It's heavy.
That's all I, that's my, and I can't say like my all, my anecdotal interactions are like, that's just everyone.
But when I encounter people who I would find teeter being extremists on the left or right, and I see how they're only Being this way or holding these weapons because they assume the other side wants revenge.
Or they assume an overwhelming amount of people on that side wants to get them.
There are people that do, but the majority of people don't feel like they do.
That is... Okay, so you've now surprised me quite a bit here.
I think maybe similarly to my surprising you with respect to what gets said when a black person leaves the room.
But my sense is that we are, I feel like I'm watching a revolution in which every institution that I know of is being transformed and they're adopting not only beliefs but policy that I know just can't be made to work, right?
Just simply will not work.
It's going to result in all of these institutions falling apart and failing to do what they need to do, which
In some cases will be very sad and in other cases will be a catastrophe but the idea that most of the people who are part of the movement that is driving this might be exhausted and interested in putting their weapons down I don't know I don't know how that deal gets brokered but wow would it be smart for us to figure it out because You know, this is going to be a short ride.
If this revolution wins, it's going to destroy the stuff that makes us strong.
And then it doesn't matter how the pie gets divided.
It's not going to be much pie, you know?
Yeah.
And I do want to be clear.
I guess, I don't know if I heard the full question of what you asked.
Definitely different between interpersonal relationships or conversation happening with me and like, Institutions and universities, like it's that's a different story.
And I feel like these kids are just echo chambers of what their professors are saying, and they don't even know what they believe.
But yes, I do think, though.
Even even them there, they might just feel like this is the way I show that I'm a part of this movement and that I want change.
And but there's been so many people Who have walked away from being a liberal because they're just like, one, they see that it's counterproductive and the whole ideology backfires on itself.
And they say it was exhausting to go into every single room all the time and having to like detect, is this racist?
Is this sexist?
Is this misogynistic?
They were like, and oftentimes I was actually creating it in my head and it wasn't there at all.
And then you can look on the other side, and I'll just use this man as an example, Daryl Davis, you know, befriending Ku Klux Klan-ers, not just people that voted for someone that people might not like.
Ku Klux Klan-ers who say they hate people who look just like him, where his friendship has, you know, allowed them, I guess, in a way to 200 to 300 of them to leave willingly.
Not that he said, you know, if you if we're friends, you can't be in this.
No, he would go there because he knew what he was doing and he knew it was kind of like a strategic move of love on his part.
And that's what I mean, the weapons like people don't at the end of the day, those men.
When I listen to the podcast and I actually saw him in person at NYU and I and he was with a former Ku Klux Klan who talked about How my hate had nothing to do with black people.
It had everything to do with the fact I hated myself.
And he said the majority of people in these movements, Ku Klux Klan-ers, are usually boys that don't have a father figure, who's looking for community, who is looking for a place of love.
He's like, it's almost in the same contrast as maybe an inner city kid looking for love with a gang.
He said it's just like we're looking for something and instead of doing internal work on ourselves, we project it on something and that's easy to project it on black people.
And if I have to do that to have kinship with these people, I'm going to do that.
And.
So when you hear these stories time and time again on other sides, for me, I've come to the conclusion.
People are are exhausted.
But they just don't trust the other side and don't want to be vulnerable for the other side.
But who goes first is the question.
Well, so, interestingly, Daryl Davis is an example.
If I think back, I have heard many, many conversations about him in many different racial contexts.
I've never heard anyone say anything negative, right?
Everybody likes this story, right?
And it's a surprising, interesting Wonderful story and you know, it does it does say all kinds of things You know, I I understand the impulse to do what he did.
I have that same impulse I would not have thought it would work at the level that he made it work.
It's it's a marvelous testament to His insight into the situation and his courage to do it because you know the instinct to do it is one thing the actually Taking the risk of doing it is quite another But in any case, I think, again, you know, I'm still a little bit surprised by your sense that, at least interpersonally, people are interested in escaping this dynamic, right?
I see it accelerating, but if people really wanted it to be stood down, that would be very, very healthy.
Now as for you know, I think you're pointing to exactly the obstacle that will prevent it from happening Which is somebody has to go first and at this moment, that's a very vulnerable thing to do on either side but oh There there's got to be a way and you know, I increasingly think it's probably gonna have to do with With modeling difficult conversations so that people understand what that would look like.
In other words, if we could illustrate the standing down of the tension between individuals where the tension existed, then there's a lot of room for other people to follow suit.
100%.
And that's why I do engage in conversations with people One, the first public person that I think was kind of, you know, well known, Benjamin Boyce.
I had a conversation with him in September after my article came out in Talent Magazine, Free Black Thought.
And one, I had the conversation because I think it was needed at that time.
And two, I knew his base would not ever search for me.
They would not know my name.
Even if people over here might know me, I might not be in their algorithm ever.
And I, I felt like I was not walking to the lion's den, but I didn't, I was talking about Black Lives Matter and I know how his base feels about it, but I felt like if I can humanize this in a way where the weapons are down in this conversation with Benjamin, And we're having an organic conversation, authentic, and they can see into why someone would do a BLM.
What's the purpose?
Why would they want to be on this mission and just humanize their sentiments?
I was like, it's worth a shot.
And I was shocked by the reception.
It was funny because a lot of the comments and then people will come on my channel and give comments.
And these come subscribers and it wasn't because they agreed with me at all.
I mean, they made it very clear.
I don't agree with BLM.
I don't agree with the fact that you were willing to have this conversation and that you're willing to listen and that I actually did gain some knowledge into something I never would have considered.
That was a win.
I was like, this is okay.
This is what I'm going to continue to do.
I've gotten a lot of comments now with my channel where people are speaking up, and I'm not going to say there's hundreds, but I've gotten at least 15 comments from white, black men and women and other Hispanic and Asian people talking about, you know, I have to do this diversity training or this inclusion training.
And what I tell people is I encourage you to participate and raise the issues while you're doing it in good faith.
Don't just be like, I don't want to do this.
But raise it when you're doing it so they see that you're actually trying and that you're now questioning like, well, this actually, I see a flaw here.
Can we discuss it?
Discuss it when you're there with them because they're not going to hear it if you are just, But then there's a lot of people who are like, these are the thoughts I've had, a lot of black people.
They're like, this is the thoughts I've had.
They're like, I agree with the sentiment of Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter.
But I also have these issues and now and now I'm voicing them, like stuff like that is enough for me.
And then also with with white people saying they're willing to be more open to to hearing other people's point of view and voicing their own point of view.
And feeling like, okay, now I know how to actually shape my conversation where someone's not thinking I'm trying to attack them.
Like, that's enough.
And I think that is what more people need to do, but it's not easy at all.
At all.
It's being made more difficult because you mentioned Benjamin.
I don't know if you know, Benjamin's a good friend of mine, but he is portrayed As I am, actually, as being somehow on the right.
And sometimes we're even portrayed as far right or alt right.
And there is actually zero to it.
It's just simply not accurate.
And so the problem with that is, on the one hand, yes, it's very annoying to be dismissed and portrayed this way.
But the worst effect, and I think the reason that it happens, is because there is a desire to keep the very people who need to hear it from hearing it.
So, if you are on the left trying to figure out what to make of things at the moment, then you're very unlikely to end up going to listen to a channel that you've heard is far-right, alt-right, whatever, right?
So the point is, that stigma means that the number of people who saw your interaction was less than it might have been.
And that means that it can't do as much good as it needs to do, which, you know, frankly, if you take people like you, or Benjamin, and you put them in these conversations, of course it will do good, right?
These are model individuals who are capable of having a model conversation.
The problems aren't zero, but they're solvable, and the way to solve them is for people who don't know, you know, the details of what's on the other side of the conversation to discover it together, and for I don't know what percentage of the problem has to do with people being driven away from channels that are the ones they most need to hear, but I think it's significant.
Yeah.
I read up and watched the Evergreen issue with you and then with Benjamin posts a lot about it before I did the podcast with him.
And I was just dumbfounded at how that even happened.
Like, but the thing is, is I was like, but Brittany, you would have been one of those people five years, six years ago, actually.
Which is why I always give a human, I'm not saying for you to do this because it happened to you, so.
No, no, keep going.
I try to give not try.
I give like this.
Not grace, because who am I?
But like, keep the empathy tie with people that I once was aligned with, because I know what you are feeling and you actually are usually questioning yourself because you're human.
And there'll be times where I would do things to where It wouldn't align with my moral compass inside, but outwardly I'm putting my fist up, but inwardly I'm like, there's something off.
And I feel like there's there, I'm not saying all of them, but there's people over there that know something's off about this.
And the more people have the conversations about why it's off, the more people are going to start listening and being like, you know what?
They're right.
And I, and I have to stop this.
But I would say one thing I did on my channel, Which actually made it, which actually kind of went viral was I knew that, okay, so Jordan Peterson for instance.
I learned about Jordan Peterson after the controversy.
I had no clue who this man was.
Didn't know he was a controversial figure at all.
I just came upon a panel he was on and he specifically just stood out because I was like, wow, he's really challenging.
Um, me not necessarily on race issues just by critically thinking like that is like really insightful how he's thinking about these things and reframing things I never would have saw that way and it makes perfect sense now.
So I kept listening to him and listening and then I stumble across a controversy that says he's a transphobic white supremacist.
I was like, I'm like, wait, let me see if I put that in Google, right?
Cause I don't think that's what they, that's not the same man.
And I'm like, what?
So then I was watching those videos of people, you know, calling him that and chanting him and shutting lectures of his down protesting.
And I watched the C-16 bill all the way through and him and I was just like.
But I would have been those people, too, before I would have went with the mob.
And the fact that these people are so off.
And the fact that I was so off on things too.
I, that's so dumbfounding, but long story short, I'm a fan of, I'm a fan of him.
I like him.
Not to say I love everything, like of course, I don't agree with everything he says, but as a thinker, I think like he is very important.
And I did a video about five things I learned about Jordan Peterson on my channel.
And all it said was, Dear Jordan Peterson, from a former Black Lives Matter, and I knew, okay, yes, clickbait.
Sue me, people.
People are trying to live in this world, but I am.
And I knew people were going to click on it because they were like, this Black Lives Matter person is going to try to grill Jordan and I'm going to, but all they saw was me just, you
Coming in with a funny intro and being like, so I heard about this guy Jordan, didn't even bring up the controversy, didn't just as a man that I just found as if I didn't know anything about the controversy at all and just said I learned this thing and this thing and this thing and now it has almost 400,000 views and almost 50% of the comments are I was coming in here thinking I was gonna have to defend him and then I left like sharing this with someone and then this gives me hope and this this and
And they're like, we might not align politically, but the fact that you see who he is, it's just stuff like that I'll do.
And I know that I don't need to say much.
The fact that a black woman is talking about Jordan Peterson is enough.
I don't have to do his revenge tour, like just me giving that video.
Was me negating the fact that I don't think he is someone that hates women and that is a white supremacist.
Yeah.
Of course there's people that are like, he's the, I'm like, go somewhere.
But stuff like that, like, yeah, and then yes, it's not easy to do.
Like everyone's like, oh, you're so brave.
I'm like, I don't know if it's bravery, but it's necessary.
I think things like that's necessary and so I do things like that on my channel and then I have another video about how Ta-Nehisi Coates was my professor and I love him.
People just don't know how to, they're like, wait, you like Jordan and Ta- how do you like them both?
I'm like, well, you can.
Yeah.
Maybe you should understand why I do.
I wouldn't like a white supremacist, right?
So, yeah.
So that's marvelous.
There's so many things I want to say in response.
I'll try to remember them.
But one thing is, it's pretty clear in your story that if you had encountered Jordan Peterson, if you had encountered his reputation first, and then you might not have even seen his videos.
Right?
If you, you know, heard that he was this vehement white supremacist, you might not have given him enough of a chance to discover that actually you got a lot from his perspective.
Is that fair?
Even with where I am now, if I just came across it...
I wouldn't go out on a campaign against him, but I would just click to another video.
Right.
Definitely.
I wouldn't, yeah.
So, that's amazing, and very lucky that you encountered stuff in the order that you did.
I'm quite fond of Jordan.
But the other thing is what I love most about your perspective is that it's clear in many of the stories that you've told that you start from the evidence or from your experience of the world and you reason from it.
You're not working backwards from the conclusion that This that or the other is true.
And so you keep arriving at places that don't align with these stories that were being told and you have the courage to stick with what you've figured out rather than be bullied into accepting what the crowd is saying.
So that's marvelous.
And you know, I also hear in your in your story you said, you know, I mean amazing for you to say to me that had you been an evergreen you probably would have been
On the other side But I'm I'm glad that you did say it and I you probably have heard from Benjamin when you spoke to him that you know He and I both have maintained from the beginning that most of the people who were on the so-called other side Were good people who were confused about what was going on, right?
There were some bad people but it was not a large number it was a tiny number and they misled a lot of other people and And so, you know, I take a certain amount of flack for saying that.
People, they actually don't like it when I leave that open and I say, you know, good people acting on bad information, that feels like I'm giving more credit than is due, but I know it's not the case, right?
I know that basically there aren't, you know, it'd be hard to accumulate that many bad people, right?
These had to be people who were You know, I think too easily persuaded, but nonetheless people, recoverable people, people who aren't, you know, intent on doing harm.
Yeah.
Um, and so it's, uh, it's actually lovely to hear that from you, that you recognize in yourself that you would have been on the other side and that, you know, and that your, your growth has put you somewhere where you now see that that would have been an error.
That's great.
Yeah.
And encountering Jordan in that way, cause when I went to NYU, The concentration of my journalism degree was in criticism.
So I was already on this journey of going there and thinking, I'm going to be a cultural critic.
Yeah.
But I was being interrogated by my own way of thinking all the time and being challenged and realizing I needed to get a new vetting system on how I looked at stuff.
But with Jordan was such a stark It was this evidence of you have to wait to make logical sense of something for yourself before you make a conclusion.
You cannot just go based on the majority.
Because it was such an example of the majority of people, in a sense, you would say, think this of him and it's objectively not true.
And it wasn't a conclusion that I said with one video.
They're wrong.
No, actually, I would say about a week.
I was looking at stuff and I'm like, yeah, I've seen enough.
This isn't real.
But I had, but I understood, like you said, the mob.
If your friends say that's the enemy, this person's bad, you trust your friends.
You trust the people that are on your side, that's aligned with you.
And you don't ask questions.
You pick up your weapon and they're the enemy.
And that is how it would be.
It goes for the majority of the time, I feel, because there's times for me.
So let's just, I don't, I don't know.
I'm sorry if I'm going off.
You're fine.
But I'll say I made a conclusion about this person.
And now we've had Zoom calls and we're, I would say friends.
I hope he would call me his friend.
My piece, Free Black Thought, when I, the reason why I did that was one, that experience with Jordan Peterson and other things and going through my program made me realize that people have to really, the art of critical thinking is very important and not to make assumptions of people.
Um, before hearing out what's actually the evidence.
So Coleman Hughes, when he gave his speech, um, at the congressional hearing against Ta-Nehisi Coates, this is when Ta-Nehisi was my professor.
And I remember being at NYU and I tuned in and I was rooting for my professor.
And as I was reading for him, I saw Coleman.
I'm like, Oh, he's, he's anti-black.
He's confused.
He's a coon, whatever.
But then now, a year ago, when I went through all of this stuff and really taking myself to task on why I've come up with conclusions that are kind of faulty actually, that don't really make sense, that I'm like, am I an echo of something or is this my idea?
I went back and I watched that congressional hearing and I still thought Coates was right in certain, Respects.
But then I listen to Coleman, I'm like, and he's, for me, he's also right.
They have different point of views of this thing.
And yeah, it's controversial, but it's truthful.
Stings a little, but what he's saying, I don't know if it's all the way wrong.
And I still agree with Coates.
And I was just like, wow.
And I remember writing to Coleman, giving him that, not knowing what he'd think, because In the piece it says I call him a coon, so I'm like, oh, I don't know how this is going to go over.
And he was just like, wow, this is amazing.
And he retweeted it and then everyone saw it.
And then him and I have had conversations.
And I think also that's what it comes to.
It comes to when people realizing they're wrong.
And are willing to admit that and make amends with it.
And hopefully people that Down the line who mobbed you to say the least at Evergreen.
Hopefully they come to.
They reassess that moment and maybe realize that they were wrong and.
Find a way to make it right, but.
People just don't want to be wrong.
Yeah, people just want to believe what they're doing is right, because at the end of the day, people Want to be good.
And I think everyone's confused on how to be good.
So they go down, well, anti-racism alley.
I'm going to be the best anti-racist.
I'm going to call out everyone.
Or I'm going to go down this way, this way, this way.
People are trying to find a way to be good.
And not to say someone has the solution, but Obviously right now we're all confused.
Yes.
I'm trying to make sense of it.
That's true.
I say the most any of us are is half awake.
So every so often somebody contacts me and they tell me that they were on the wrong side of the evergreen situation and I get apologies from them and I always tell them I don't need an apology as long as you are willing to be honest with yourself and others that you were on the wrong side and you know that that's good enough.
That's what I need from people and You know, so anyway, I hope maybe some will hear this and think about that possibility based on your courage.
I mean, you obviously weren't there, but your courage and modeling your, you know, you don't even have to say what side you would be on, and yet you're courageous enough to say that you would have called it incorrectly.
But I also, maybe the last thing we should talk about since we've been at this for quite some time is, you know, you mentioned Ta-Nehisi Coates and Coleman Hughes and Jordan Peterson.
And I must say these are all people that I get something really important from.
I'm a huge fan of Coleman's.
There are a couple places in which he and I differ, but overwhelmingly I think he's got it right.
There are substantial places where I differ with Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I will say our family together read Between the World and Me and we got a lot out of it.
And I think it's very valid.
I don't see him in the same light as I see Ibram Kendi, you know, or Robin DiAngelo or other leaders of this movement who I see as
Either so painfully confused that they are beyond help or cynical, you know But no Coates is a very different very different phenomenon And you know Peterson is so anyway, I guess the point is interesting that you and I are coming from very different perspectives land on all of these individuals as
Simultaneously tapped into the truth at an important level and not saying the same thing as each other, right?
So that tells me something.
This is a this is a worthy list and I would love to see more interactions that allowed their differences to be sorted out.
Yeah, and and with that I think people think because if one likes a You know, let's just say Thomas Sowell.
They can't like Ta-Nehisi Coates or Walt Whitman.
You can't like James Baldwin.
For me, I don't take anyone as a Bible.
I don't believe in someone wholeheartedly.
Oftentimes, I find that I look at thinkers and writers and philosophers Not like the solution to, it's almost like arithmetic, like not a solution to it, but like a factor to get to a solution.
Cause there's so many essays that I've written where I will bring in, you know, I'll bring in Thomas Sowell, but Thomas Sowell said something that might not be completely, let's just say finish, but James Baldwin actually says something that helps connect and flush this out.
But then Coleman said this, and then, you know, Tony Morrison said that, and Jordan Peterson actually said something about cleaning up your room, and this actually helped.
I see it all as spices on a rack in the kitchen, and not every spice is for every dish, but sometimes you need to mix it up.
And so that's how I see thinkers.
I don't think because you're on a side or this side.
I think the whole side thing is arbitrary and the binary needs to be squashed.
So I don't even think of it like that.
I just read something and if I get something out of this person and I realize they have a lot to give, then they go on my shelf.
And I pull them off if I need to pull them off and they might be completely polarizing in ideas.
But the thing is, is sometimes They're looking at the same thing from different angles and then I'm adding my angle and that's actually filling out and flushing out the issue more than seeing it through one lens.
Yep, you know, I actually got this from your tablet piece about the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
Du Bois.
I must tell you, I was completely unaware at a historical level about the Two positions and the conflict between them.
And frankly, it's funny, we're almost having the very same discussion to this day about, you know, sort of a personal responsibility versus, you know, active correctives.
And, and, you know, It ain't one or the other.
There's a nuanced conversation to be had about what the right ad mixture is, but we're not having that conversation because of, as you point out, the polarization.
So anyway, I would suggest that people who are interested check out your article in Tablet Magazine, which is available online.
Anything you want to say in closing?
Let's get along.
I like it.
I mean, yeah, I mean.
I think that.
Everyone, if if I can give advice on how I've been able to.
Get on this journey because I'm not done at all.
Interpersonal work, looking at yourself and figuring out what you believe, why you believe certain things.
And seeing what your ideas are made of and trying to reassess the conflicts in your life.
Are they your conflicts?
Why are they?
Just simple answers or solutions to your own self first.
Because if you don't do that, all you're going to do It's the work you need to be doing for yourself.
You're just going to reject that all on someone else and be like, no, they need to fix themselves.
They need to do the work.
And you haven't even touched what you need to consider about yourself.
So be the change you want to see.
All right.
So cliche.
Well, there's a scale at which that advice doesn't work.
But I think at this scale, it works great.
And I would say, based on what we've talked about, I think We need a... I don't want to overcomplicate it.
I think we need people to embrace something that I would label, let's try this, right?
Where people have conversations that are more difficult than they should be in order to see how far they can get.
You know, the conversation you and I are having is such a conversation, but I think you and I are probably both built to make this easier.
But in general, what I want to do is have people who wouldn't ordinarily be sitting down together, and who might fear what would happen if they did, right, trying it out.
And maybe, you know, I think you're idea of setting out an explicit code of ethics or conduct for your BLM chapter when you started it is exactly the right one.
I have advocated this many times that the way to prevent institutions from falling apart is to make what people within the institution owe each other absolutely explicit at the point you walk through the door and not figure it out after things go wrong, right?
So conversations in which the ground rules are clear Right?
That you can set a limit for how bad things can go.
Right?
Let's do this.
Let's have a conversation.
And if it goes completely wrong, it ends here.
Right?
This conversation is what it is, but it doesn't go farther than this.
And then let's be candid with each other.
Because I think, and I hope that it was true of this conversation, That maybe each of us learned something about what we can't personally know that was actually positive.
I know that I did, and I have the sense based on what you said of, you know, your fears about what gets said in rooms when you're not there, and what I'm telling you the reality is, that's a big discovery.
It is.
And that will help.
And yeah, just...
People willing to have the courage just to have the conversation.
What's the worst that can happen?
I mean, what really is the worst that can happen?
Yeah.
Especially on Zoom.
Like, come on, just shut the laptop if it gets too heated.
I mean, that's.
But that actually is like, what is the worst that can happen?
And don't knock until you try it.
Because I've had the best conversations this past year with people that I never, never would have before.
And it could have been a push of quarantine, but it's a push of my curiosity as a person.
But yeah, I would just say, just have the courage to try.
Just try.
Beautiful.
I think this is a wonderful note.
And I'm glad that we did this.
And I hope it serves as a model because it creates exactly that positive sense of having looked a bit through somebody else's eyes.
So anyway, I'm grateful for your willingness to do this.
And the grace with which you approach what has become a very difficult problem.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed this conversation.
Awesome.
All right.
Well, I think, where can people find you?
If you go to American Shade on YouTube, you'll find all my social media handles there.
American Shade on YouTube.
Yes.
Terrific.
All right.
Brittany King, it's been marvelous.
And to everyone who tuned in, thank you for doing so.
