Change Your Brain Every Day - What Can You Do to Fight Racism? - Pt. 4 with Miles McPherson

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

The conversation surrounding racism in this country has seen an escalation towards new levels of awareness amongst people of all races. But for some, it may feel that they are perceived as being racist even when they’re not trying to be. What’s a person to do? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen, Tana Amen, and pastor Miles McPherson talk about what one person can do to help effect a positive change.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We're talking about racism in the brain and Pastor McPherson's new book, The Third Option, Hope for a Racially Divided Nation. You can get it on Amazon or at milesmcpherson.com. The Rock.

How did they learn about The Rock? sdrock.com. S-D-Rock. So for San Diego. San Diego rock.com. They go watch services live. It's amazing. I had the blessing of being able to speak at the services with Pastor McPherson a couple of

weeks ago. But let's get really practical. All of us are affected by racism. What is it I can do as an individual to combat it in my life and in my world? Yeah, I'd like to see it community-wide. I know it starts with you, but then how do we extend it? Step number one is accept that I can be offensive without being a racist. One of the ways to look at third option is if you ask someone if they're racist, they'll say no. Some will say yes, but the reality is a third option is we're all biased and we all have less than neutral opinions about things. Some will say yes, but the reality is a third option is we're all biased.

And we all have less than neutral opinions about things, which is human. I need to learn about that. I need to accept that that's true and ask friends about my blind spots. One of the probably most practical things you can do is when you have a conversation with someone, every time you talk to a human, you are having a race conversation. I'm looking at you right now and I'm guessing what I think you are. Right. I like it. Right. But a race conversation, it shouldn't be viewed as a race confrontation. It should be viewed as a race consultation. In other words, when I meet you, I should want to learn about you. And when you tell me you're Lebanese and okay, now I want to

know. And you told me about something, you hinted to what you are. And I've been thinking ever since you said something about your background that I want to know what that is. I should want to learn about you and allow you to self-disclose versus me impose on you my assumptions. Because my assumptions come from my social narrative, my flawed view, my genetics. It's wrong. It's incomplete at best. So every time I see someone, or even if I see someone on television that I may never meet, let me listen to what they're saying and believe them and not call them a liar. So give them the benefit of the doubt. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Or judge them. Exactly. Judge them as bad. Before I have a chance, you know, the NFL kneeling situation, everybody has an opinion. You know, they shouldn't kneel. They shouldn't kneel. But I think let's step back. And a third option is to consider this. Why?

If I was laying in the street and you were driving down the street, the first thing I would hope you would say was, why are you laying in the street? Not get up because I got to get to work. And the guys in the NFL are 20-something-year-olds making a lot of money that can lose their job the next day and not get paid, some of them. They are risking a lot. Why? Why? Why would they do that? Now, you may in the end say, I don't agree with them kneeling.

But before you say that, ask yourself why. These guys are not criminals. They're not knuckleheads. These guys, they've worked hard. I was one of them. I know them personally. They are intelligent guys who are working in the communities, who are giving lots of money away. And they have pain.

If they're really people like me, how can I honor them as a human? Because if that's a human, I know what it would take for me to risk everything. And would you risk that much money in that career? And the career is going to be this long anyway, no matter what you do. So they have a short period of time in their money. So I think having conversations with people and giving people a chance to self-disclose their pain, their burden, their dreams before we impose our assumptions on them. If we just did that and you went around and met people, go to the mall, meet somebody. Don't just say, oh, that's a black person, that's a white person, that's white privilege, that's black, that's Hispanic, that's an immigrant.

Spend time to listen to their story and put yourself in their shoes. There was a lady when I was writing this book, she told me, why can't you just get over it? And I said, you need to be the other. And she's a very dear friend of mine still to this day. And I said, you need to go someplace where you're the only white person. So in this book, I challenged six white people to do that and to answer certain questions about their experience. What they felt like when I asked them, what they felt like when they went there, how they were treated, what did they think was going to happen to them. And they all had great experiences.

And nothing they feared happened. And I don't think any of them told me that what they feared had ever happened. And so I think we need to… That's an interesting point. Their fears had never actually happened. Never happened. Well, that's so often true for my patients who have panic disorders and say, come up with all these negative thoughts as we're going to talk about next.

They come up with all these awful, terrible thing that's going to happen that mostly never happens. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So we can honor people by putting ourself in their shoes, learning about what they really are. We can honor ourself and our ability to love self-sacrificially and change by listening to our thoughts. What am I thinking about them? Where do I get that information?

Why do I think that? I don't even know this person. I don't know why that person's angry. I don't know. That person, I was talking to a guy the other day, and his grandfather was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. His great-great-grandfather was a slave. Can you imagine having that history? Yeah. And he's a man of God. But we have to give people a chance to self-disclose to us what they feel and educate us. And they should be also gracious to let you educate them.

I actually really like that. So if we look at me, it's I don't have to label myself as a racist, but I am racially biased. All of us are. All of us. Everyone. And so just own it. Own it. Right.

John 8, 32. Know the truth. Own it. And the truth will set you free. For you, it's I need to know about you as opposed to label you, which is to lump you with all of the Mexicans I've ever known and go, you're this way to actually know you, not just the color of you. And we can put this together. Yeah. This is a little bit different,

but I just want to sort of bring together through a story. So I told you earlier, I'm judgmental. I also take a lot of self-defense classes. I was attacked when I was 15 walking to high school. And so, but it was really interesting. I was taking a self-defense class and the guy leading it, he was a police officer and it was a lot of cops in this class.

And so he was asking, so what does your idea of a criminal look like? What does your idea of a perpetrator look like? What is your idea? And so he was going around the room and I'm sort of confused by the whole way that people are answering. But I'm like, okay, it must be based on their experience. Obviously. So when they got, I mean,

that's where it comes from, right? So a question like that. But when they got to me, I'm like, it's a big white guy in a suit. Literally everyone turned around and looked at me. And I'm like, that's who attacked me. And I wasn't expecting it. Because I wasn't expecting it and because we have an idea of what someone looks like, whether it's a criminal or a perpetrator or the bad guy or the whoever in your life, I got attacked by someone who didn't look like that.

Right, right, right. So it was a big wake-up call for me. Like when he asked that question, I'm like, why are they even thinking that? And to this day, I look, I mean, I'm always looking behind me. But it's an interesting concept, isn't it? That they all had this idea. And for me, it's a big white guy in a suit. Right.

And what you see on television and the frequency with which you see people who commit crimes on television doesn't match the facts. Right. And so media is shaping what you should think criminals look like. Right. Which is a whole other story. Which is sure ridiculous because that's why I got attacked because I was thinking that's what they look like. They don't look like that guy and I walked right by him. Well, the media attempts to shape so much of what we think and we have to be very careful about that because the media is after clicks and advertising dollars. Well,

they want to trigger fear. Whatever they can sensationalize, they, and we begin to think that sensationalism is normal when it's abnormal. Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to talk about such a practical topic. We're going to talk about how to kill Pastor Miles McPherson's aunt, the automatic negative thoughts in our conversation when I was at The Rock a few weeks ago. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review

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