Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Decoding Disruptors: Race Forward

Episode Date: November 29, 2020

The events of this summer plunged us into a period of racial reckoning and soul searching. Waves of protests and demonstrations across the globe pushed race to the center of our social discourse. People are hopeful that this complex, fraught moment is the beginning of a real meaningful movement towards racial equality.But change starts within. The beliefs, attitudes, and stories that we carry shape the lens through which we see other, and ourselves. I had a series of conversations with friends inside out community who are deeply engaged in the struggle for racial equality. The purpose -- to explore how we can build the internal skillsets to create the change we want to see in the world. I’m honored to be doing special episode of the Finding Mastery podcast in partnership with Microsoft. I hope you appreciate the lived experiences and applied insights of these remarkable leaders as much as I do.Joining me for this podcast:Baratunde Thurston, Activist, ComedianTianna Bartoletta, Olympian, 3-time Gold Medalist, competing in 2021 Games.Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Chief Diversity Officer, MicrosoftSelema Masekala, TV Host, musician, former face of ESPN action sportsShea Serrano, journalist, authorResmaa Menakem, Therapist, Author, Expert on Racialized TraumaGary Tyler, Wrongfully Imprisoned, 41 years, Angola State Prison, Louisiana_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Most individual white people in America alive today didn't explicitly do anything to gain racial advantage. They simply didn't do anything to let go of that advantage. It's hard to live in your own skin when you have to put on a different one to navigate the world. We're in the middle of a civic movement that we have not seen in like 50 or 60 years. Like this is a big thing that's happening right now. The events of the 2020 summer plunged us

into a period of racial reckoning and soul searching. Waves of protests and demonstrations across the globe push race to the center of our social discourse. People are hopeful that this complex fraught moment is the beginning of a real, meaningful movement towards racial equality. But change starts within. How can we build the internal skill sets to create the change that we want to see in the world? I learned how to forgive.

Because without forgiveness, you can never move forward because you would always be clouded about the things that you dwell on, what people done you, how people mistreated you. There has to be a willingness to ask the question, to use the wrong word, to risk being misunderstood. How am I going to use my own platform to raise the voices of others and to create systemic

change that will result in an outcome that is different than the one that came before us? This is a conversation with friends inside our community who are deeply engaged in the struggle for racial equality. So welcome to a conversation about listening, learning, and taking action. And I'm honored to be doing this project in partnership with Microsoft. And I hope you appreciate the lived experiences and the implied insights of these remarkable leaders as much as I do. I want to share a bit of a backstory on my relationship with Microsoft.

For the past eight years, my team and I have had the privilege of working with them, beginning with their CEO, Satya Nadella, and his executive team, culture around mindset, diversity, and inclusion with the inspiring mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated writer, a New York Times bestselling author, an activist, and a comedian who tackles challenging issues of race with depth and humor. The clarity of his thinking and the disarming way he communicates is remarkable. In your book, you write, it's an inextricable fact of blackness that one will at some point be referred to as too black or not black enough by white people, black people, and others. And then you go on to say, I've yet to meet the Negro who is just right to everyone. So, okay. So can you take that just a little bit further, the subtext of that, because it speaks to the pressure on being

black in America, that you have to have a relationship with your color that does not happen for people that are white in America. And so can you double click on that just a little bit? There's Dr. Ibram X. Kendi has a very popular book now called, How to Be an Anti-Racist, flying off the digital shelves in this summer of 2020 revolution. But before he wrote that book, he wrote another called Stamped from the Beginning

that really goes into the history of white supremacy and anti-blackness and the idea of our skin marking us. It's kind of inescapable. There are many forms of oppression. This is very visible. And so you're born branded in a society that may chattel slavery, it's bread and butter, you know, in almost all sense. So to wear that skin means to carry some weight with you, and some shame and some fear and some expectations. And I think for non-Black people, and especially white people, there is Black as less than, Black as something to be feared, Black as less intelligent, Black as less capable, Black as more lazy, which is less competent,

less effective, less efficient, less capable. And when you're forced into this group, right? Okay, you're a part of the Black Skin Club, then within the culture, you've got to find ways to survive. And so you create ritual, you have a sense of belonging, you have an us versus them from the inside of the Black community, which says, okay, well, don't stand out too much. And this is what it means to be Black. And then we learn, well, what are the acceptable ways to be Black? Oh, so the majority culture thinks this is cool. This is sellable, monetizable. That kind of black is cool. So this is what black people do. So, okay, they play basketball. So if you're a little boy like me, who was terrible at and uninterested in basketball, you're less black. Because majority culture highly compensates like

10 of you to play this game and bounce this ball. And then inner culture says, we're trapped in this like, you know, apartheid caste, racial caste system. There's a few tickets out that don't involve immediate death. One of them is this game called basketball. Let's internalize that. Let's own that. So to be really black and free, you got to bounce that ball. What kind of black person doesn't play basketball? What kind of black boy is not into basketball? So there's, I mean, look, it's not all that conscious for sure. And that's not 100% of the reason. There's also fraternal male pressures that all groups of little boys put on each other

to define in-group, out-group, and you're not one of us because you think you're... So race is a contributing factor. It's not a solely defining factor, but I think it's significant. One thing I had in mind when talking about too black, not black enough. And so I think when white culture says, oh, this is the kind of black that's good for us, that's good, this is what an American is, this is what a good Negro is, what a good black person is, then we're in the room like, hello, we're here too. It's everywhere. It's in the media coverage, it's in the police state, it's in the economic system. So we're all breathing that. And we can use that against ourselves, not just against

another member of our community, against ourselves. And so you're too black, you're too threatening, you're coming on too strong, you're not black enough. You're not bouncing that ball as good as you should be able to. Why don't you like dancing? What kind of black? I thought you all had rhythm. Isn't that like your thing? It's exhausting. And so how do we disrupt the oversimplified media images of the limited blackness with a more expansive concept that provides shine and dignity to the complicated nature of being a particular race, a particular gender perhaps, but in this case, a particular race in America. How do we re-complicate these

narratives of Blackness? You change the storytellers and you change the views or the minds. You change the minds of the people who make decisions about what stories get released into the world. And you do that in one of at least two ways. For the people who have that power, that decision-making gatekeeping power, you adjust their mindsets, right? You remind them that their view of the world is not the whole world and that there are other stories to be had. There's other money to be made, right? You don't just appeal to charity. You're like, hey, market size, increase that.

Those are some words I know you know, right? Or you change their minds by changing the people those minds belong to and you just get new blood in there. What we risk by not fixing this, by not opening this up, is we limit what the world can be by the pictures of the world we show ourselves. Our experience of the world is heavily through stories. We know it's possible because we heard it from someone.

We know something exists because someone told us. If you just think about it from almost a philosophical level, you have not experienced most things in the world that you know, not directly. Someone told you, oh, this event happened in Oklahoma. Were you there? Do you know? No, you just, you had to believe it. And to deny all that constantly is very exhausting. And reality itself would crumble if we just didn't believe everything we heard all the time. So stories are our primary interface to reality and who tells those stories and who gets a role and who has value in those stories affects how we show up and who we confer value on in our own lives. Tiana Bartoletta, a two-time Olympian and three-time gold medalist.

She has the ability to articulate in ways that only those who intimately understand the amphitheater of risk and pressure. She added an incredible dimension to FOPO, fear of people's opinions, which gave me a whole new insight on the concept. I read where you have a greeting ritual when you go on a run and it's a way to announce your presence. And for me, this is like, incredibly clever. And a bit heartbreaking. Can you talk about that? Yeah. So not caring what people think about you

is a privilege, especially in a country where someone's perception of you can get you killed, right? And so I don't know and I do care what people around me think of me or at least their impression of me. And I try whenever possible to inform that perception of them by how I present myself or how I take up space in any given place. So when it comes to jogging in my own neighborhood, and you know, I'm a sprinter, so I'm only running a mile. It's not, they don't see me every day. And so I'm very aware that there might be people who are like, what is she doing here in this neighborhood? And so I don't know where I learned it, but I announced myself. I smile real big. I say it's a great day for a run.

I ask them how they're doing. And it's from, it can be from up to like 40, 50 meters away. Like I don't ever get too close to someone without having done something that says, hey, I'm friendly and I'm just trying to go on this run and I just want to get back home. And it is clever. It's also heartbreaking. But I don't want to find out what happens if I don't do it. Shea Serrano was a middle school science teacher in Texas. Needing to supplement the family's income when his wife Laramie was put on bed rest during her pregnancy,

he Googled at-home jobs and Ryder came up. Fast forward 13 years later, he's a three-time number one New York Times bestselling author and a journalist who's built a devoted following on social media. For context, Shea is Latino and his wife, Laramie, is Black. And we dive into marriage and his insights on change. What is it like right now with your wife being Black and you being brown? What is that like for you? It's not any different, really, if you Yeah, that's what I would have thought you would have said. You know what I'm saying? It's not. Yeah. This was not like some great revelation. When people realized, oh, like, there's a lot of foul shit happening right now. Because for me, it's been happening for my whole life.

For Laramie, it's been happening in her whole life. Like, you just see it all of the time. It's cool that, like, a lot of these ideas are being confronted now. A lot of the, like, there's an acknowledgment. There seems to be. Maybe it's just the people who I follow on Twitter. You always have to account for that but there seems to be an acknowledgement that people are realizing the the structure of the United States of America is set up as such that

lives of non-white people are regarded as less than and it's cool to like watch this become a big thing we're in the middle of a of a civic movement that we have not seen in like 50 or 60 years like this is a big thing that's happening right now so they you know to be alive during this particular moment is cool it sucks but it's also you know less sucky than if we were all ignoring it. So on the idea, the movement, the center of the movement was Black Lives Matter. And so as soon as somebody says, well, brown lives matter, oh, oh, is that a dilution of this, the epicenter of the experience of being black in America? You know, is that racist? Are you trying to shed a little bit here from the actual core issue? And so my wife, my wife is going back and forth a little bit like, this is epic. And then, and then the other thought, which was like, yeah, you know, like Brown is not included yet.

And I wonder if it will be. And, you know, but it's like this, it's a small note, but I'm wondering what that's like for you. I would say that's a tricky question to answer on the surface, but ultimately, ultimately, ultimately it's very easy there is no experience that you can liken to being black in america there's just not period there's there's there's no like conversation to be had about that i don't know what that feels like i know what it feels like to be mexican in america that's it that's I don't know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to be Mexican in America. That's it. That's all that I know. Same as you know what it feels like to be white in America. And we can be like, we can commiserate me and like Laramie can commiserate over like certain

versions of shared experiences. But ultimately, I can never know what it feels like to look at the news and see a thing and be like oh this is this looks like me um in this in the in the capacity that she can so i like i don't think i don't think there's ever a reason to respond to the the phrase black lives matter with any other version of that thing like it's just that's not what this is you know what i'm saying yeah totally yeah that's you know that's a conversation that larry and i have had on on very few occasions because we both sort of understand the differences here it wasn't like when when when all of the like news was focused on the family separations at the borders she wasn't like oh but don't forget about the police shoot like these things can all

exist at the same time you know what I'm saying. Like these things can all exist at the same time. You know what I'm saying? We can confront all of these ideas at the same time. We don't have to like try to always include every single part of every single thing into these moments. Like don't fucking, don't do that. That's what's up right there is that we can hold space.

We can hold the container to do and stand for all things that are in of injustice how about it yeah go for it yeah right that's the idea that we can hold that space and we can take action in each one of those whether it's the the ones you mentioned or trafficking and or and or and or right yeah right now a thousand of. There are a thousand versions of this story. There are endless groups of people who are being oppressed for whatever reason. We don't have to, you know,

acknowledging that we are specifically talking about one thing at one particular moment doesn't minimize anything else. If anything, it like increases the validity of everything. Resmaa Menakem specializes in racialized trauma. He holds that historical racism is carried in the body. He developed a model and a set of solutions that value the work from within. And as a note on that, conversations on race can be emotionally loaded. You and I both come to this narrative with biases and assumptions and from time to time

with defensive reflexive responses. So as you're engaging with these conversations, maybe take a beat when you notice that something hits one of your tripwires. Maybe sit with it. Maybe take a breath. Maybe examine what it is about your framework, your unique experiences, and your thinking patterns that were involved in this tripwire. We all have them. And this conversation certainly will do that. It will trigger something in you.

At least that's the hope, not just with Resmaa, but throughout this podcast. So Resmaa's insights are incredible. He's flat out a thought leader and he's focused on integrated healing with a well-practiced disruptive approach that drills right into how our bodies and minds are interlinked. He's been at this work for decades and introduces an approach to move through and beyond the racial divide. Somatic abolition. And this is a term that I am not familiar with. I'm incredibly excited to have this conversation with you because it's rare to have a term and go, oh, and then when you put those two words together, you go, I think I get it. Yeah. And you've also studied under somebody that I think is incredible that we've always

already had on the podcast, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. And so can you walk through what that term means? And then I want to wind back to your history and understand the context of why you're having this conversation today. Yeah. So the term somatic abolitionism really is about, we have tried when it comes to white body supremacy to eradicate white body supremacy through intellect, right? All we gotta do is just educate people. Let's just all get in a room and hold hands and sing Kumbaya and go through a DEI training or implicit bias and everything will be all right. And what we've discovered over the last 400 years is that appealing to people's intellect is not the curative element when it comes to addressing race and racism and white body supremacy.

And so I believe that things happen so fast in the body and become decontextualized that these things that these reactions, these protective mechanisms that happen in the body happen way before the intellect or the conscious mind is even aware of it. And so for me, somatic abolitionism, how do we abolish, not how do we, we have to abolish white body supremacy in the body first, right? And what that means is that we have to do work in order to be able to discern what's what. In the collective, and particularly in the white community, the white collective, there is no discernment around race. The white body, so let me say this, whenever I start these conversations, I want to start with a premise and then I spring off of that premise, right? So the premise of what I'm talking about is that the white body is the supreme standard by which all bodies humanity shall be measured structurally and philosophically.

If you don't understand that rubric, everything else will confuse you about America. Okay, let's pull a couple of things apart as I'm, I'm listening as a, as a trained psychologist. And, um, there's a couple of things I want to understand better. So when somebody says, uh, I, uh, that inhabits a white body that says, I am not racist. You say, how can you say that? And is that because you ladder up racism to a systemic position, a benefit, a systemic benefit to certain bodies and not other bodies? So, so, so let me say this. So that's why I started off with the first, with the, with the definition, right? That, that my lens is that the white body has been constructed and the white body is the supreme standard by which all bodies, humanity, shall be measured. In that philosophical and in that structure, the white body gets advantaged in that structure. Every other body is deviant from the standard, right? Before we talk about whether or not you live in a neighborhood that's gentrified. Before we talk about Your friend group.

Yeah. Before we talk about any of that different type of stuff, right? Before we talk about how pollution, how environmental racism works, before we talk about any of that, being housed in a white body advantages you in a structure where the white body is the standard of humanness. I want to wind back to the center of your position, which is we have inherited, we have embodied the trauma that has taken place from generations. And so really what you're talking about is like an epigenetic meets social meets individual trauma, right? So there's this genetic component, there's a social component, and there's an individual component where people are not free

to live the life that we are potentially capable of living because of past trauma? Well, yes. And so the way that I contextualize it is what I call HIPP, right? It's called H-I-P-P. The first, the H stands for historical, the I stands for intergenerational, the P stands for persistent institutional, and the other P stands for personal traumas and difficulties. Right. And what happens is that all each one of those things have a charge to it. Right. And we don't account for the charge. We don't account for that, that charge, that weight, that speed that is connected with all of that stuff. And so when I say trauma, especially when I'm talking about white folks, is that most of the people that are going to be listening to your podcast, most of the white bodies that are going to be listening to your podcast

are descended from white bodies who were fleeing something. Most of the white people have come from descendants whose ancestors were fleeing. Right? Meaning the history of America. The history of white people coming to America is the history of white people

fleeing mostly. And what is the history of black people in that same narrative? Being enslaved here and both here. Not fleeing. Not fleeing, right? So the history of indigenous

people was being genocided off of their ancestral land. We don't have the same pieces. So that fleeing-ness never got dealt with among white people. Hold on. Like, it's so good because, you know, Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk talks about the body keeps score.

And I know that that was influential to you. And so that was the title of his book. And so you're saying your body, your, your, your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents, and your other great grandparents, they felt something, they had something that they worked out, but guess what? They didn't have the luxury of sophisticated psychological services. You know, they had, they didn't. And what I would tell you is that they didn't work it out. You made, you made a leap there. No, I know. No, I'm saying the same thing. They did not work it You made a leap there. No, I'm saying the same thing. They did not work it out. They didn't.

That's right. You and I are saying the same thing. I know that to be true. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I know you do. Yeah. Okay.

So is your work, I want to get into how the trauma from a generational standpoint has impacted you individually and the people that look like you. Okay. Well, let me, let me, let me, let me just finish this thought first. Yeah, please. Yeah. So, so, so, so the idea that more, that, that the majority of white people here were fleeing something when they came here, they, the, the, the, the rubric, the thing that shows up among white people that has been decontextualized over time is that elite white bodies, right? So what white bodies do and did and do to Black and Indigenous bodies here in America now, right? Those things were perfected on poor white bodies at the hands of elite white bodies first.

Just pause for a second when I say that. That all of those pieces, all of that barbarian, all of that brutality that you see, white bodies, elite white bodies stole land from poor white bodies, genocided poor white bodies, enslaved poor white bodies. And then those bodies fleed that shit and came here. That never got worked through. By the time elite white bodies offered poor white bodies the idea of whiteness, in juxtaposition to Black and Indigenous people, poor white bodies ate it up.

And that's how whiteness moved through. And that trauma response, the development of whiteness was a trauma response that got organized around the trauma that was happening to them. And then over time, got decontextualized and now looks like culture. Trauma in a person can look like personality over time. Trauma in a family can look like family traits over time. Trauma in a people can look like culture over time. So you're suggesting that, let's say the non-elite, let's call it six, let's be generous and say 70% of white people said, finally, finally.

You mean my babies ain't got to deal with this, this shit that I've been doing? You mean there's a possibility they can get from? Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that. At the cost of? Their humanity. And others.

And others, what you're suggesting. And others' humanity, but theirs first. Theirs first. You got to sell something. You got to sell something. You have to sell something. That's it. And that's the frozenness that you experience in white bodies when you begin to talk about race, because all of that energy, all of that charge is still there. And those pieces have never gotten worked through, but now looks like standard. Salima Masakela, first son of a Haitian immigrant and a legendary South African jazz musician, was the face and voice of the X Games during the

sport's meteoric rise in popularity. He walks us through his insights that stem from a deep investigation. And I love the purity and simplicity of this conversation. He takes us right to the center of many unspoken assumptions. What are some of the racial stereotypes and biases that you experienced that undermine your ability to feel a sense of belonging in the larger culture. Well, like you said at the outset, like I found myself in this place where I fell in love with these activities, with this lifestyle, where also nobody looked like me.

And I got made to feel welcomed by a lot of people as being a success story of what ideally like a black guy that white people would feel super excited to introduce and have around and, you know, maybe even let them date their daughter you know the way people would describe me would be like literally like oh he's more like us like you never believe it he's a black guy who surfs and snowboards and he's really good at it and he knows all this stuff and he speaks so well would always be one of the lead stories. Oh, people come. You just, you speak so well. It's so refreshing.

And, you know, these are coded ways of people saying to you that you don't sound like the rest of them or the ones that I hear on the radio, et cetera, et cetera. And the very popular thing was like, I don't see color. You're not black to me. Like you're just like me. You know, you're more like us. So my blackness, what that meant, the way that I navigated the world, the things that were said to me on the beach, the things that were said to me in the water, what are you doing out here? People dropping the N word.

Isn't it weird that you're not, what do you, why aren't you playing basketball? You know, getting pulled over in a mountain town with people, not what are you doing here? You know, all those things that they took for granted to go and do and play.

Those are things that I had to deal with every day to exist in these spaces that they played in. And, you know, as it progressed in my career, you know, people would literally be like, wow, it's such a novel idea that ESPN, you know, chose this black guy and taught him all this stuff about this culture. And he's got dreadlocks. So that's cool.

Wow, that was really smart of them because he couldn't possibly do that stuff. I would show up at mountains and people would be in shock when they see me in a lift line. Like, this is like a few years into the X Games. Like, dude, I didn't even think you actually did this stuff. You snowboard? You surf? You skate? Whoa. That's crazy.

It's crazy for me, but not crazy for you. That's... And you just got it so much that you learned to get used to it at certain points. Sometimes you just said, uh-huh. But inside, you just want to, you know, tell used to it at certain points. Sometimes you just said, but inside you just want to, you know, tell people to off. And eventually it did get to that place at times. So this is the psychology of two selves, the inner self and the representational self where you were experiencing and people responding to you the way that they thought that you should be and the way and for early days you you came in the way that you thought you should be based on

your social and emotional intelligence to try to fit in but you had an inner self an authentic true self that wasn't easily seen. How did you manage and wave me off if it's, you know, not a fair question, but, or the premise isn't right. But my question is like, how did you manage the two selves? I was on autopilot for a long time. You know, I was really just kind of on autopilot. Like I just learned how to switch on, switch off, and walk into any room and instantly adapt.

Code switch, if you will, which is something you could talk to. I'm not the only black person in America that has had to navigate this, you know, that you can look up code switching and the discussion of, you know, black people trying to figure out as they find these opportunities at success in a world that traditionally has been closed off to them in various buckets, you know, entertainment, business, medicine, et cetera, you, you will find a common theme of ways in which people have to have had to be like, all right, these are the norms here. And let me, um, you know, learn, watch, adapt and show them that I can walk in step walk in line in order to maintain

the opportunity to be here and figure out a way to thrive I think it's something that we in the midst of this racial journey in America that it's just a skill set that you learn in order to,

to not just to survive, but to figure out like in order to thrive in spaces where your people don't look like you. And also people haven't taken the time to get to know your, your journey and your history and the things that might be different for you in this country. What has been for you the emotional cost of that tightrope dance that I need to be something other than who I am to fit in? I think it played a role in my ability to maintain healthy relationships, especially like love relationships. I was only able to show up as my whole self with that person. But when we walked out the house, I had all these other hats that I was putting on and I didn't realize the toll that it would have

on someone who loved me and was there to support me, who just wanted me to be. I didn't know how to just be. And I think it was literally not until I got into my late 30s, early 40s, that I really realized the cost of what that was. I lost a relationship that I was in for seven, eight years. That was my first real, like, devastating heartbreak. And I think it was one of the first times I was able to really look in the mirror at my part,

like start to acknowledge my part, that I have a part in this. I'm continuing in this pattern. And some things I have got to change that have nothing to do with what the world is doing to me, but what I'm doing to myself. Lindsay Rae McIntyre is the chief diversity officer at Microsoft. Her commitment to her craft is extraordinary. She has a deep, almost encyclopedic knowledge of diversity and inclusion that's paired with a relentless curiosity to learn more. She looks to create conditions so that people can come to work without hiding pieces of themselves, pretending to be something that they're not, or live up to somebody else's definition of greatness.

How cool is that? Be yourself and flourish. In your experience, what are the biggest challenges that people of color face in workplaces that are predominantly white? I mean, that's a really long list, right? I think that, you know, being able to have peers and colleagues and people managers who are willing to get curious and invest in their own learning. I think that, you know, there is a propensity to go to this place of like, oh, I don't see color, we're all the same, without understanding that while some might find that to be well

intended as they speak those words, the communities of marginalized backgrounds experience those words as then you don't see me, then you don't understand me. And it starts there, right? So how is it that we can create conversations and education and conversation that will allow people to customize the work experience for the totality of the humans that are in the workplace. And I think for too long, we've sort of been enamored by, you know, and I, you know, I was a part of a company that loved to do sort of huge, large scale initiatives. But, but the call to action now is customization and understanding somebody's wants and needs and aspirations in a way that allow you to help shape that, you know, mentoring isn't just mentoring, sponsorship isn't just mentoring. Sponsorship isn't just sponsorship.

Like there's a way for us to do this in a thoughtful, meaningful way that recognize we do all come from different experiences and backgrounds. You know, I was speaking with somebody from the military who said, Lindsay Ray, like, I just can't get my team to understand why I can't sit in the seat that has the door at my back. And it's really exhausting for me to continue to explain why I can't do that, that I have, you know, I have to be able to see the door. And it's simple stuff, right? That for, you know, members of the community to have to tolerate microaggressions and statements that are offensive. And they don't want to be the person that spends their entire day correcting other people. Like

that is an exhausting existence and prevents them from actually showing up and doing what they want to do too. And so that's worked for the rest of us, right? That, that, you know, I see my role as an aspiring ally every day to think about what I can learn and what I can do and how I can show up in a way that will decrease that tax on other people who are covering and are trying to fit in, in a system that really wants them to stand out. Can you give an example of, I don't know, a handful, six, seven, eight different micro expressions, microaggressions that you hear or that you work to help people understand that they're actually quite offensive? What are some concrete examples of those?

Yeah, I mean, I think there are some really standard ones, right, when it comes to racial and ethnic minorities, you know, potentially, you know, making presumptions about whether they would want then, you know, in the middle of a talent management conversation, making a presumption about whether they would want to be mobile for an opportunity. And like, no, they're in a community that they love, surrounded by resources that are important to them. Community is really important. You know, they probably wouldn't want to move overseas for, you know, an epic career opportunity. And so let's move on to the next person in the queue without holding them whole and just asking them that question, right? Would you want to have this opportunity based on what we've talked about in your career trajectory? This could be something

really interesting. And then not holding it against them if they say, no, I really want to stay here, right? Like in the workplace, we have so many opportunities to just keep asking people. And it's too often the case that we make assumptions in closed quarters and they never, ever knew that they had the opportunity available to them or to say, wow, like so-and-so is so articulate. What was your expectation, right? Oh, my God. I mean, that's the easy come. Well, what was your expectation, right? Oh my God. Yeah, right. I mean, that's the easy come, well, what was your expectation? You know, the marginalized communities hear that as, oh, you assume I'm uneducated. Oh,

you assume I, you know, have a background and an upbringing that would result in me being inarticulate. And so it's a deeply offensive statement. This segment is about laughter as a form of social agreement, especially when we're aligned with the message of the speaker. It's nearly impossible to laugh and disagree with somebody at the same time. And in a way, the idea aligns as a body-centered emotion as well. So there's a linking here of a couple ideas. I want to understand, how do you use humor to open people up to your experience about being Black in America? If you analyze the TED Talk, which is called How to Deconstruct Racism One time. I don't start with racism. I start with me. I start with I. And I learned painfully through years of stand-up comedy that people like to hear about other people. They don't like to start with

ideas. We don't identify with ideas. We're not evolved from ideas. We don't get raised by ideas. We get raised by people. We lust after people. We fear other people. And we identify ourselves in other people. So starting with my own story, with some vulnerability, with some jokes at my own expense, showing very embarrassing images of myself from high school, which I vowed never to show the world. And it's like, oh, that's why I have to show the world. Because my mom gave me these ridiculous strap-on glasses called Rexpex that are made for like racquetball

or skeet shooting or Starcraft warship operations. But those are just my everyday glasses, because she didn't want me to lose them. So starting off with some vulnerability with the first person is a key step. And it's what I've learned in one of the ways to use humor to try to get a point across. Another is much more selfish, which is, it helps me. You know, I traffic in a lot of pain and some of the uglier sides of humanity when it comes to like systemic forms of oppression. It's actually not light material at all. It's very heavy. And it could be depressing and off-putting. And just for me, not even thinking about the other person, that it weighs me down. So I use humor to lighten the

load on myself. It's like carrying your own helium and balloons, like enough balloon that you can kind of help bear the weight of your own journey along the way. And then the last piece that I have learned is that a response to humor is automatic. It bypasses. And I don't know all the neuroscience and anthropology and chemistry going on inside of us and probably psychology as well. Lots of study forms I just cited, don't know much about them, but I'm sure some of them have something to do with what happens inside of our bodies when we laugh at something. And my experience is that laughter is a form of agreement. And when you laugh at someone else's statement or joke or story, you are temporarily fully aligned with their point

of view such that you see the world the same way they do and you agree enough in an involuntary physical response that you laugh. Your body can't hide your agreement. It is like a standing ovation. It's a I vote. It's a here, here. And there's power in that, that every laugh is a little agreement. And so to use those and deploy those opportunities, try to gain that agreement, not through hard argument, not through citation, not through logic, but through something physical, emotional, body-based, it's a great method. And often it's accidental, but the intention is there.

I've never heard somebody talk about it in that way, which is this agreement, this vote with your body, if you will, this standing up. And that is an attunement and an alignment. But from a neurological standpoint and a behavioral standpoint, when people are laughing, there's an exhale. So it's a ha, ha, ha. So it's an exhale that's taking place. And we know this, that when we exhale, people relax.

Yeah. Yeah, right. So there's a natural relaxation thing that takes place. And then the other thing is that our facial structures change. So there's signals that start firing in the brain like, oh, this is safe. This is actually something that is joyful and fun. And that whole thing changes our brain structure, if you laugh a lot. And another thing that takes place is oxytocin.

And so it's a neurochemical. Doesn't that sound good? Yeah. So oxytocin is a neurochemical it's also called the chemical uh i'm sorry the the cuddle chemical and so the cuddle chemical is it's that thing that takes place in people's brains when uh they feel bonded and if there's a binding that takes place and it's it's um explosive during uh just post-pregnancy for women so yeah so there is some science behind it and intuitively you tapped into it and you've used it. Recently I had a conversation,

Ivy League educated professional, and she said, I don't see systemic racism in America. I have black friends, Ivy League educated. There are prominent Black people from the mayoral level to the presidency. You know, she said that she doesn't know anyone who's bigoted. And then my colleagues actually look for ways to promote minorities and, you know, eradicate bias. And then she references Larry Elder and Candace Owens to support her view. How do you respond? So there's, I think there's a split in perceptions of how the world works that will be important to acknowledge and then see if we can overcome. There's a view of the world that says your life and the prospects for it and the outcomes you experience in it are exclusively or super to find a way through it, to work harder, to study better, to outsmart that system. And good for you when you can do that, right?

You have overcome a circumstance, you have applied yourself, and you've proven that this is possible. Therefore, because you did that, anyone can do it, right? Your individual achievement is heralded as proof of a general rule. So that's one worldview. And it's a focus on the individual and the potential that lay within an individual. And that's very American. Then you've got the other end of the spectrum, which says your life, your outcomes, your prospects for success and prosperity are heavily, if not exclusively, but heavily a consequence of the systems that you operate within. And the choices that you have available to you are certainly affected by your energetic output, your hard work, your determination, your native intelligence, intrinsic intelligence. But you got to acknowledge that the choices you have available

may have been set by that system before you were even born. And in order for, you know, if you overcome that system, good for you. But that might have been a stroke of luck. That might have been an outlier in the data set. But the general rule is that the system is designed to suppress those outcomes. Look at all this data, look at all this data. And I think there's extreme views of both, right? Even within where you're like, it doesn't matter how hard I work. I'll never be anything because racism. The system is just out to get me. And there probably is, as with any extreme, a harmful version of systemic acknowledgement where it becomes paralyzing. And you're like,

what's the point? America's racist. Why would I even try? Why would I try to go to college? They're probably going to expel me anyway. No one will give me a job because I have a Black name. I've seen the studies. So I think that's possible. I think it's rare, but I acknowledge the possibility. On the other end, you've got the extreme individualistic view. Yeah, so what? Racism exists. Get over it. Work harder. Work twice as hard to get half as far. And don't complain about it. It'll make you tougher. Walk it off like a coach who doesn't acknowledge a concussion. is harm that you can experience because of that internal, because you blame yourself for everything and in your life. I think, now, I think it's clear what camp I'm in and what side of the spectrum I lean toward, which is one of deep acknowledgement of the systems. Even as I, as an individual data point myself, stand as a testament to the power of individuals. I have a Harvard degree, a diploma from Sidwell Friends,

a booming TED Talk. I'm an alum of the Daily Show. I've visited many nations. I rode in a motorcade for the president of Georgia, the country. Like I kind of won. Like I get it. I'm a successful person and a successful black person. For a Black person or not, I'm successful. But I think it is foolhardy,

and I don't mean it as an insult. But I think if we start to look specifically at what is meant by system. In the system that the U.S. designed to establish itself as an economic power, part of that design depended on ripping families apart over and over and over again, which changes the culture of even what a family is. And you do that for like a century or two. Cool. Now we've totally destroyed what family means. And we've killed just for money, just for money. And we've sold you across to states hundreds, thousands of miles away. Cool.

That's done. Now you're free. Cool. You're free. Go forth and prosper. With what? No literacy, no education. Cool, cool, cool.

But we'll do that. We'll do that. We'll try very hard. And you know what? We'll build schools and we'll join the legislature. And that happened. We had a great moment of reconstruction. But it's black people moving too fast with the freedom thing.

Unleash the Klan, right? It's like release the Kraken. And in this case, it's the KKK. And just terrorism all over. And let's just lynch like thousands of them. But you never know which one it's going to be. So you'll live in constant fear of being lynching. The odds are it won't be you,

but it'd be somebody you know, and you never know. Like you create a boogeyman to have people live in total fear such that they flee an entire region and have the largest migration of humans outside of what was done to displace the indigenous people in this country on this land. Okay, cool. So now we're in Chicago and New York and DC, which became chocolate because of terrorism. Okay, cool, cool, cool. But you can't buy a house in

these neighborhoods that are really nice. We're actually going to create laws backed by the government. That's what laws are. It's not just individual choices. It's collective choice because when the government decides it, that's all of us. So the government says and co-signs on, you can't live here because you're black. The government says we will offer advantageous financing, money, we'll give money to people who are white so that they can establish homesteads and thresholds and foundations, literal foundations of wealth. So that happens. You got the World War II, you got the GI Bill, all this money's being made. All this progress is happening, except explicitly for you who we used to keep in bondage explicitly. Now we'll just do it through these other rules. Okay, so we'll strike those off the books, but you're going to have to march forward and get cracked over the head a lot. You're going to have

to push us because we're not just going to do it on our own. We're making a lot of money off of this. It feels pretty good to have power. Who would ever want to give it up? That's a human thing. So great. So you get your John Lewis's, you get your Ella Baker's and you get your MLK's and you get everybody. Okay. So here's the problem now, folks. You're kind of free. You can sort of live where you want, but you're kind of late to the whole real estate game. And where you are allowed to live, well, it's really dense and it's more impoverished and the air quality is really low and the prospects for jobs are low

and the educational outcomes are low and the tax base is weaker because of the aforementioned choices we made. So here's what's gonna happen. We're going to take a bunch of rules and use those, apply them especially to you to put millions of you in the carceral system, to imprison you, to jail you, to arrest you, to police you.

Everybody does drugs. You do drugs. We do drugs. My kids do drugs all the time, but your kids are going to go to jail for it. I find it impossible to ignore the pattern, the longitudinal, consistent pattern of exclusion and differential treatment, which results in different opportunities and different outcomes, which we don't want. We say we don't want as an individual, but what we do in our system says it's absolutely what we want. So I don't know if that's, it's a big ask. You know, someone is

digesting a lot of Candace Owens. She has an opposite story, right? Which is Black people are just whining a lot. And the do-nothing Dems are poverty pimps, you know, and they want to make excuses for every moral failure. And there is a smidgen of truth to that, right? There are people who make money off of racial justice work. There's nonprofits who grant fundraise off of that. But I don't think that's the majority. I strongly disagree with that idea. And I think to ignore the pattern that I've just laid out,

which exists much bigger than what I could fit in a few minutes, is dishonest and incomplete. So I'd ask people to reconsider that and to try to put themselves in that position of think about the wealth that you have right now. Think about the ability of maybe your parents to co-sign on a loan for your first home, to finance your college education because they had a summer home or a first home that's been in the family for years. Think about anyone who owns land in the South right now. My grandmother on my father's side doesn't because they fled South Carolina. Refugees in our own nation, a nation of refugees. So I think that matters. I think history matters, not as an excuse, but as an explanation for the amount of work we have to do to truly create that level playing field we constantly say we want. It's natural to look for strategies and techniques

to do better within uncomfortable and emotionally charged conversations. Tiana has a disarmingly simple approach. Be yourself. People are struggling to have uncomfortable conversations about race, especially. So what do you think is the best way to navigate those conversations? I think you gotta be ready to take some punches. And I say that on both sides, because I have a book club and the whole book club was founded on, we're gonna read like self-help,

self-personal development books to just get better. And then suddenly, you know, racial tensions erupted. And now we can't keep reading about, you know, positive self-esteem and ignore all of this other stuff. So we're reading cast together. And even though it's my book club, I'm actually the only Black person in the book club and the only female. And every time afterwards, after a discussion, I'm told, thank you for creating this space for us. And I think on both parts, there has to be a willingness to ask the question, to use the wrong word, to risk being misunderstood. And then on the other side, I have to be willing to hold space and create that environment for people to be that person that you can come and ask that

question to, and to make sure you leave feeling heard, maybe a little more informed, but never stupid, never embarrassed, because there's no way we can get through this if I'm going to shame you for not knowing. And the reverse is true. So we have to just, the willingness on both sides to be wrong is, I think that's what we're kind of, we have an aversion to right now. Nobody wants to be wrong. No one wants to say anything that is accidentally labeled as racist. But you need to find that person or that community or group of people where you can, where that might happen. And you can be supported through understanding what the correct way or the right thing to say or the questions to ask.

We're not doing a good job of that right now, creating space for these conversations to have, because a lot of us are just re-traumatized. You can't really talk to anybody who's in the middle of being terrorized. And so there needs to be a little bit of a separation and definitely space, but it might be hard to do right now because a lot of people are still just being hurt and harmed. Gary Tyler spent 41 years in Angola State Prison for a crime that he didn't commit. In 1974, he was convicted by an all-white jury and sent to death row.

Released in 2016, Gary now works with young people and advocates for reform of our criminal justice system. I wanted to get the perspective of someone who got trapped beneath the wheels of justice. How do you stay in the place of sadness and hurt and not get consumed with anger and revenge and bitterness and coldness and retaliation? How are you doing this? I learned to survive. I learned to take, you know, just because something negative happened in your life

don't mean that it should remain negative in your life. You should use that as a source of energy. Use it as a source of strength. You understand? You can say to project you further. And that's what I was able to do. I was able to take, you know, take a bad situation and make it beneficial. You understand?

Make it beneficial. Yes, from the beginning, was bitter you understand i i i i i you know i mean i had a lot of hurt in my heart you understand and and i said a lot of negative things but it was out of hurt out of anger you understand but that was the counselor that was really tearing me apart. It was tearing me apart. But thanks to my mother. And that's the thing about a mother who witnessing this and knowing that it is her responsibility to help her child to hold himself together. And that's what she did.

And it got to the point where she watched me grow up in prison to where I no longer exhibited the enemies that I once did. You understand? That I became a man in prison. I became a man that took his lumps in life and was able to move forward and try to make the best of it and hope that he can help other people. You understand? And to a way, I no longer could have had the luxury, you understand, of making some excuses about, well, the system is so and so and so and nothing's never going to change. I couldn't give up under no circumstances.

So I had to change. And that's what I did. I had to change. You know? And I knew one thing. I couldn't give up under no circumstances. So I had to change. And that's what I did. I had to change, you know, and I knew one thing. I couldn't give up under no circumstances. Okay. Gary, this is my, this, you are talking about one of the most difficult things for humans to do. Okay.

Change. But what you're talking about is this internal change. And right now we're being called upon for a revolution of change. And that revolution starts with how you change your thinking, how you work with your emotions and how thoughts and emotions work together to influence behavior. How, how have you gone from a man who experienced all of the pain that you have to orientate his life towards love and forgiveness? I met many people while I was in prison.

When I became a hospice volunteer in prison, and only because at that time back then, we couldn't just get a pass to go visit a friend in the hospital. It was like trying to get Congress to pass an act and make that happen. So friends that fell ill and died alone in a hospital, it became daunting. They always say, wow, you know, what could be done to change that? Because

God was afraid to go to change that because guys were afraid to go to the hospital because they felt they would never come back, that they were dying in the hospital because they wouldn't get the better, they wouldn't get the best of medical attention. So when two ladies,

along with a guy named J.B. Boudreaux, when they came to an event about HIV and AIDS, we did a production about HIV and AIDS, and they felt that it would be a good idea to have a hospice program in prison to help prisoners with their transition to another life. You know what I'm saying? We could kind of like manage, have pain management and have someone die for prisoners. And to me, that was a good idea because I had friends that died in the hospital.

So I became a hospice volunteer. And I'm going to tell you that that was one of the most transformative life experience I'll ever have because having to witness people die before you, people that was a part of your growth tell you how proud they were of me, how I turned out. And we're talking about men who was a part of my life who first started off, that these men was big men,

the statue and physique. Now there was old frail men that's dying and chose me as their volunteer. That itself gave me one of the, I think one of the most extraordinary gift of appreciating life itself and knowing how precious life is because once your life expire,

that's it, that's the last time you ever gonna see that individual in this physical world you know and we're talking about men that you never thought that they would ever leave this world like this you know but yes it happens so you know it's a damn way my experience made me who i am my experience made me able to identify, able to feel and appreciate other people's feelings. You know, and I take my time when I talk to individuals. I know one thing, I refuse to have a barrier in front of me. Because when you have those barriers, it's hard for people to really reach you.

It's hard for people to really figure you out. But if you like an open book, then they become open. They become relaxed. You understand? They become more, you could say, confident that they could be honest and open with you. Especially when you're there and when you listen to them. Not just sit there and just moment, uh-huh, but you can say, interact with them, engage with them with the things that they feel and they want you to hear. And that's something that I learned.

We are faced with a deep challenge, one that can only be solved together, that requires an honest and purposeful and collective commitment to end racism. And change is incredibly hard, let alone collective change. And here's how Baratunda thinks about change. I think a lot of our challenges as human beings, and this is coming up in the context of talking about systemic racism, but it works for a lot. We get very attached to a certain story. We get invested in it. And so that's how we see the world. And we cannot imagine the world working another way. We just can't. It's too painful. A child raised with two parents in love with one another and deeply wed to one another cannot imagine a life with just one of them post-divorce or having custody swap one to the other. That is a reality shattering event. That's a story they're

not prepared to embrace and it affects the story they tell themselves about who they are. I am the child of mommy and daddy who live together. If they don't live together, am I still that child? Am I still me? So what I'm asking people to do with the race thing is abandon a story, one that has come with a certain set of assumptions, powers, advantages, through no individual effort. Most individual white people in America alive today didn't explicitly do anything to gain racial advantage. They simply didn't do anything to let go of that advantage. They passively inherited the processes and protocols and privileges of a system established well before any of us were born. So I'm asking you to let that go.

Because here's a story that I am attached to, that I suspect you as well are attached to, Michael. Manhood. I have ingested for 42 years a bunch of stories about what it means to be a man, about what toughness is, about what independence is, about what it means to cry and to acknowledge weakness. And like, this is what man is. This is not man. Strong as man, weak as man. So I'm working on letting that go because that is a limiting, that is a limiter on my potential. And if I can embrace a bigger story of manhood that says, oh, I don't have to be that. I can be me in this version and be a man. I don't have to speak first all the time. Maybe the reason people have listened to me isn't just

because I'm super eloquent and kind of handsome. Maybe it's because I'm a dude. Does that take anything away from anything I've achieved that some of what I've achieved has come just because I have a penis? Oh, I mean, I could spend a ton of time renouncing that and saying, well, I guess I should turn in my TED Talk. Sorry, I didn't earn that. Cancel the bestselling status on my book. No, it's done. I can't undo that. but I can acknowledge it.

I can start to consider, I might have a bit of advantage. I might have some extra powers. I might have subconsciously behaved in certain ways, which just assumed anyone can do this. Have I given women opportunities to be a part of the things that I have as opportunities? Do I shout out men more than women, even in my retweets and shares on social media? Well, those are some tough questions. Might not like the answer. But fear of the answer is not a good reason to avoid the question. I'm doing this. So it's also important for anyone listening, I recognize I'm asking us all to let something go, including me. I recognize I'm asking us to do something hard that doesn't

come naturally because we're taught to cling as opposed to release these narratives. But I also recognize, back to your question, what do I tell myself? I'm practicing telling myself a story that my story can be bigger than what I've been told. And if we can embrace that, then we are not living in this scarcity model of, well, me letting that go means I'm giving it up to someone else and I have less. The zero-sum story game. It's all made up, folks. We can literally write new stuff.

We can just update the script and the narrative to allow for more. And that is magic. We're magicians as a species in a way because of the power of our narratives and the power we have to change them and the effect that those narratives have on our actual reality. Lindsay Rae McIntyre also believes inclusion is not a zero-sum game. And we often think about inclusion as being about race and gender, but Lindsay reminds us that an inclusion takes into account age, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic differences. Okay, so here's the thing I want to wrestle with just a little bit, is when we're talking about allyship and companionship towards a shared vision, we need each other. Sounds great. And it's purposeful, it's practical. But what about this other narrative, that if I include people in this inner circle, I might be the one that gets bounced out. So now I'm talking about a scared mindset. If the position of power is held by people that

are white males, typically in business, that is an easy narrative to double click on. And then we start to invite folks in. Could I be the one that loses my job? I'm doing the right thing. I want to be supportive of this mission. I believe in it, both from a human standpoint and a business standpoint. Could I be the one that no longer has milk for my family as a provider? So can you wrestle with that just a little bit, that fear response that I think is embedded in this conversation and also that first response to the privilege narrative? Yeah, for sure. And I think this is where, you know, the work that Kenji Yoshino did with Deloitte on the covering study, covering being the concept that we downplay known elements of ourselves to fit into the mainstream. When they did that study and they

looked at the different identities who indicate dimensions of covering in the workplace, 45% of straight white men cover in the workplace. And so you start to get again, a broader aperture to invite folks into a conversation that they historically haven't always found themselves a part of, that is completely inclusive of their lived experience as well. And so, you know, it's those kinds of opportunities to be able to help, you know, members of majority identities understand that this isn't, you know, only a conversation where you're expected to do the work as an ally, but you are a beneficiary of this work as well. And I think that, you know, that's been one of the greatest learnings that we've had in doing the allyship work at Microsoft, because without exception, there are so many different ways for us to be allies for one another. It just so happens that, you know,

non-inclusive behavior transpires across a lot of stuff in a day. And, you know, the ability to be an ally and get close enough to another colleague to understand what would be helpful for them in a business interaction or in a design meeting or in a product creation meeting or a partner meeting. Those are habits that transcend identity that allow men to show up for men, like in a way that they have never done before and a conversation that's never been architected in the workplace before. But now they have language and tools and ways to try on what this might feel like to stand with one another if they're going into a difficult conversation with their teams, with a customer. And so it's the opening of the aperture that has allowed that kind of insight and the invitation for greater participation in the conversation to unfold.

I won't pretend that we don't come across fear-based, sort of scarcity-based conversations. We do, of course we do. But I think that when given the opportunity to allow people to understand the work and the way in which it's being unfolded at Microsoft gives these words less charge. So you mentioned privilege. Privilege has been a swear word in the diversity and inclusion space forever. And, and yet we're starting to talk about it now in a material way. And at Microsoft, we are talking about privilege, not as a binary thing, you have it or you don't, but that each one of us, depending on situations or circumstances, may have privilege. And, you know, if you are on

payroll at Microsoft, regardless of your background, that all by itself has privilege, right? And so by being able to layer it and create texture and context for privilege, again, it becomes a little less scary. You know, people who have multiple identities and intersectionality being able to understand, you know, where privilege does or doesn't show up for them. For me to understand as somebody who's lived all over the world, you know, there are times in which I have privilege and times where I very much do not. And being really thoughtful about increasing my awareness and my ability to understand the environment that I'm in and knowing when to be able to sort of capitalize on privilege,

because in the middle of privilege is also power, right? The opportunity to create opportunity for others in a conversation, in a circumstance, in a system. And so by creating a more sophisticated version of privilege, at least for us at Microsoft. Again, it's inviting more people in to get curious about it as opposed to be completely spooked by it and not wanting to engage at all. And when it comes to taking action, moving from listening and learning to taking action, I asked Baratunde on his insights for a path forward. What would be three things that you hope people could do to take action? I want people to, one, find some part of history and just dig deeper. There's a lot of our

present determined by our past, and we are intentionally miseducated about how we got to where we did. And I think that's the source of a lot of dispute over what's happening now is we don't all know what happened before. I've set up an online bookshop, actually, bookshop.org slash shop slash Baratunde with a great source of historic books. So learn some history. I think that there are many ways to commit to creating some kind of change in the world. And I would encourage people to think internally about, think about the story you've told. We talked about that a lot in this episode. There's a version of that for you. Who are you? What are you capable of? What have you been taught? Just think about it. It's not a formal thing. You don't have to write a check to anybody. I don't

need you to Venmo anyone. It know, it costs you a little time. But consider the story you've been living in. And maybe you'll find some flexibility where you didn't before because you didn't look. I know that's happening. Oh, I guess I was told this. Huh. Is that true? Does it have to be? Cool, cool, cool.

You said three things. So this is a cheat, but I want people to read this book. It's a specific book. It's not a general like finding. It's a book called See No Stranger. The author is Valerie Cowher. And after the election in 2016, she had a very viral moment presenting a poem in December 2016, talking about what felt like a dark moment for many people in

the US. Maybe she said, this is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb. Our country is dying. We're being reborn. Birth is dark and it's very painful, but what could be on the other side of that? And it's an invitation, and her story, I think, is open to so many people, not just self-labeled liberals or activists, just people. And she is kind of this warrior sage of a person. So just read Valerie's book. Just get into it. I think she is a gateway to a lot of the things I would say if we had infinite time. So I'll let her say it.

Tiana Bartoletta has placed a tall flag right at the center of authenticity and awareness. Can you relate to the concept of having two selves? Absolutely. My coach actually in college championed the idea of having split personalities in order to put on a character and show up and compete for your team. And that was useful for me at the time because it allowed me, it allowed me to experience a little bit of mastery that I hadn't really had for myself off the track. But as I got healthier and healthier mentally and stronger, I realized that the two didn't need to be split at all. I could just show up as me and do the damn thing. But I do have a lot of experience with the two selves,

especially from my younger days. What would you hope in that two selves experience? What would you hope that could take place for you to have more of a, you know, authentic self more often? Is it the environment or is it you? Is it the way people are treating you and the conditions that you find yourself in is what splits the two, the two ways of fitting in? Because that's what the two selves is about, trying to fit in to an external environment for ease of success. And there's oftentimes a cost of being the authentic self, whether you might say some things that are not popular and which you have done. And I don't know if you've had a cost to sponsorship or fan base or whatever, but, you know, I find that there's a cost to an integrated self where it's a little bit easier on the outward success.

But the cost is incredible for having two selves from the internal perspective. Yeah. So it's like W.E.B. Du Bois talked about the double consciousness in his book, The Souls of Black Folk. And he is basically saying that every black person has two selves, the one that they show to the world because they can only the two so that I can be authentic all the time I think for me it's more like it's less being of two selves and and more about controlling the volume it's like so I'm still me but I now know you know who I can say this thing to it doesn't mean I'm not going to say it but I now know who I need to say it to. So I'm still being authentic, but I'm being more selective or selectively mute, but I'm not going to just not be me. I think that's the I don't I wouldn't say that I've even experienced backlash because I've learned how to navigate that. But I'm not two different people. It's just,

I kind of know where I can go, where I can say these things and where I don't. That way, at the end of the day, you know, when I'm in the mirror winding down for bed, I don't have to feel like I compromised myself to get through the day. And I think that's the tragedy of a lot of race issues in America is that a lot of us feel like we can't be ourselves outside. And it's hard to live in your own skin when you have to put on a different one to navigate the world. In that navigation and in these separations that we have and these otherness that we experience, what do you think is one of the accelerants to create a closeness and to create less barriers between others? Is it vulnerability? Is it empathy? Is it education? What do you point to? The education is definitely important. I think part of my willingness to even be vulnerable came from how much I read as a kid, just reading about other people's experiences, how much I traveled, seeing that although we are also very different, there are so many things that we are similar in, in all these countries around the world. We often laugh at the same

things. We're upset by the same things. And I think, so it's important, educate yourself, expand your horizons, but also have, have at least one person in your life that knows you, all of it, the dark parts, the demons, the monsters, because that person will serve as a bit of home base for you. And you'll need that a little bit of a security blanket as you go out and try to navigate and see and learn and mess up and succeed, you'll have that anchor. And sometimes it's just your family, but some of us don't have families like that. So then it's your chosen family, but have at least one person who can hold that space for you as you go push the boundaries of the boxes that we are often born into, but don't belong in. And here's how Shea Serrano thinks about closing the racial divide. What do you think the most important step is to close the racial divide? I think a lot of the onus here is going to fall on white people, honestly.

And I don't know if that's like a, a sacrifice most of them are willing to make because we can, you know, the other side of it, we can fuss and like make our points known and tell you all of the things, but you know, think on it like a, here's a, here's a sloppy metaphor. If you've got like two kids playing and one kid has nine toys and the other one has two toys ultimately the kid with nine is going to have to decide to give some of the toys away to the other one that's what that's

you know that's where we are i think with things like we are being very loud and very clear about the injustices that are occurring and now it's time for some of y'all to hand over some of y'all's toys. Gary shows us a way to triumph over racism. And in a word, it's love. What is happening today is a revelation that this country has not as moved as far as many thought that we did. That it was mainly a layer put over something that hadn't properly been addressed. We know you cannot legislate, you understand, racism. Racism got to be dealt with

up close and personal. You cannot reform racism. What does that mean, up close and personal? Meaning that when you see something that is not right, that is unfair, you've got to immediately address that. But you can address it in a way, not so much as an affront to the individual who exhibit those, you know, those enemies, but in a way to make a person think. Because, and the reason I say that is because I encountered many racist officers in prison and we became friends. How? It's because I showed them the human side of me. And to the point where they took a great deal of liking to me when they was calling me Mr. Tyler. When they was bringing their families, introducing their families to me at the rodeo

and telling me, say, this is Mr. Tyler here. We're talking about white men, you understand, who was raised to believe and hate black people. But to have them telling their children and their daughters and their wives, this is a good man. I would have this man live in my neighborhood. You know what I'm saying? And I think that once you're able to interact with people

like that and show people that you're a human being and that you, despite the way they feel, that you do care for them and their well-being, their mental well-being, that kind of like have a way of making people feel different. You know, even if it's thought about, well, I like that person. Eventually, if they start off liking you, then it may start off liking the next guy too. You see what I'm saying? But you got to start somewhere. You just can't shut people off like

that. This insight from Resmaa is about pain and choice. And either way, we're going to experience pain in life. The question is, are you going to choose capacity building pain or the regular basis and do that at scale to create the right change, the real change that you want to see in the world. It's a really cool thought. So when I go into organization, when I go into big companies, one of the things that I do is I say, look, y'all got 5,000 people here, right? There's no way I'm going to be able to do that. I'm one do. I can't do 5,000 people. So here's what I'm going to need to do. For the first year, I need to know that there's at least 10% of the people here that want to do this work. If there's not 10%, and I get this straight before I even start with it, if there's not 10% of the people in your organization in terms of vertical and horizontal that want to do this work, I will not come. Right.

And then I take that. So let's say it's 500. So I take that 50 people. I take those 50 people and I say for the next one to three years, we are going to be doing this work with each other. I'm going to take you through a year of learning. And so what I'm doing is I'm creating a container, right, with those people. Now, by the time that first year is over, right, I'll be down to 25 people, maybe 20 people. Right. Everybody was rah rah rahing up until they had to get into a room with with it with other people and start to begin to do some of these processes. Right. So now I got

20 people in that organization or in terms of a cross section. Right. But they are 20 dogs. Right. They have they have they have worked together. They have done this work together. And so I'm doing it with the white group. I'm doing it with the black group or the bodies of culture. And I do that. And then every now and then I'll bring them together and have them grind on each other. Right. And then bring them back out. Right. So what's happening is that over time you are developing a cultural container, a cultural languaging, a cultural embodiment that now when you get ready to say let's do some work in the larger organization, you got 20 people that you didn't have at the beginning and from a cross section from all the way across. So that's how I do it. So one of the things that I say about this work, Somatic Abolitionism and Race, is that if you do it right, it will push you up against your suffering's edge.

Right. It'll push you right up against that suffering's edge and nothing's going wrong. The suffering's edge is asking you, do you want to keep doing this or do you want to do that? Do you want to do do you want to be clean about this or do you want to be dirty? I don't give a what you want, what you choose, but you got to choose something. As adults, we don't get a choice between pain and no pain. As adults, we get the choice between clean pain and dirty pain. Some of the ways that I think about this is as a musician or as an athlete, right? That if I'm getting ready to play basketball, I'm playing basketball, right? And I can do a lot of different type of stuff, right?

And then my coach pulls me over and he goes, you're a good basketball player. He said, but if you don't learn or figure out some type of way to start going to your left, you are putting our whole team at risk. Yes, you score 30 points in a game, right? But you are putting us at risk by your refusal to develop your left. So you either need to come in early before practice, or you need to stay late after practice. But if you don't, right, I need you to know that that's your suffering's edge. Whatever you, now there's clean pain and dirty pain, right? Right there. I can decide the dirty pain of keep going right. Right. And he probably won't bench me because I'm scoring 30 points a game. But I could also choose the clean pain of starting to come in and go left. And be mad at myself and look crazy doing it and not quite know what to do about it, not understand nuance. But in that process, I'm tempering conditioning myself and I'm learning

and creating some learning some things about myself that I wouldn't have had. What makes us think that race is any different in process? So what are the skills? What are those building block skills? Because going left, it's like, okay, you know, dribble this way for a little bit, then dribble, you know, that way, plus a little bit extra. And so there's a skill building process. No, no, no, I would argue with, I don't think the skill building process is first. I think the process first is deciding whether or not I'm going to get my black ass up and go to the gym early. But this is important. The pain and the cooking that happens in deciding what I'm going to do is the point of you can't go over that to skills. That's what I'm saying, is that you have to sit with that first.

And so when you ask what are the skills, I don't know what they are. I don't know what the skills will be for you. I don't know what the skills will be. That will emerge when you decide you're going to get your ass up and go do it, right? The skills will emerge up out of that with you and another body. They're not going to, but the cooking in, what am I going to do? You got to stay with that first. And when I'm talking about the race stuff, white folks really have a whole lot of built in dodges to not deal with the cooking of that first. They always go to skill first. Right. What do I need to do? I'm not telling you what you need to do.

Well, how am I going to get better if you don't tell me what to do? That's your that's your rubric to kind of figure out. Right. But the first piece is cook. So the value of what you're suggesting is to feel pain. Is to experience pain and decide whether or not the pain is a capacity building pain or an avoidance pain. Yeah. So you wouldn't know this, but most I get asked all the time, you know, like, well, how, how do people do the extraordinary life? Like what, what, what, what, what? And so I'll say, well, the first thing is people have to understand that change happens from pain and there's either avoidance of it or an approaching toward it. And so I think you and I are saying in that vein, the very same thing is that you got to sit with your pain.

And then if you want to do real change across a culture, not only my pain, but your pain, the first is my own pain and the end from the end. But, but Resmaa, I believe that that is a skill. So when I'm saying skill, I'm not talking about technical skills of what to say and not say, or the physical skill of like the putting it, my hand, my hand on the ball in a certain way.

But the obviously my life is around mental skills. So the mental skill of being able to sit with pain requires practice because there are so many things that we can do to drink and drug and avoid and de-stimulate against that because it's hard. And why do it? Really, why do it? Because that's the only way you're going to bring about the person that you were put here to be. That's the only way you're going to bring it about, right? And here's what I would say. I would say pain and discomfort. And in the process of going through that, you also begin to understand the texture of joy differently.

The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix's song all along the watchtower, it was evident that it was a masterpiece. And I can still hear the first few riffs where he somehow was able to get his guitar to seemingly sing. And then when I found out it was a rendition from Bob Dylan, I was equally blown away because the cover was better than the original, in my humble opinion. But Salima has a different idea about cover songs. And I think he's right. You can try to pattern yourself after what others are doing with a little bit of you in there, but it ain't you. It's not you.

You're in a version. You're doing a cover song. You're doing a cover song you're doing a you're doing a cover song and nothing and there's no cover that ever has outdone the original the hit so once i started to realize the manner in which that's what i was doing um and saw what a disservice I was doing to the totality of my life and the relationships that I care about, especially building relationship, beginning to build real relationship with myself and intimacy with me, like an into me I see that's when

I started having way more fun taking chances speaking from the from the wholeness of who's Mabena Mastichella is and not Sal Mastichella here on day two

of the X Games or here at E! Entertainment you. I stopped being defined by what I was doing and started really getting into who I am and that who I am and what I do, one might fuel the other, but they ain't the same. Thank you for listening. And I hope that you've been able to do more than listen. And as we are faced with a deep challenge, one that can only be solved together, that type of challenge requires an honest and purposeful and commitment for all of us to end racism. And as I mentioned before, change is incredibly hard, let alone collective change.

And if you're like me and are working to better understand how to do right, how to think right, how to act right, how to stand up for humanness, this conversation hopefully fueled you to continue or to begin to take action. So this conversation probably stirred something up in you, maybe even tripped a few wires for you. Any revolution, your revolution, our revolution, it begins with revelation. It begins with awareness. And the people who just shared their life's work are hoping that their words revealed something to you to help you create the revolution that you want to be part of. Thank you. Thank you, protesters and demonstrators. Thank you, teachers and leaders.

Thank you, Microsoft, for creating the space for us. And thank you for being part of the Finding Mastery community to help develop systems and ecosystems and a network for us to explore the reaches of humanness together. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of of humanness together. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com

slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same.

So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional.

So seek assistance from your health care providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.