Good Life Project - Austin Channing Brown | I'm Still Here

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Austin Channing Brown is a writer, speaker and media producer providing inspired leadership on racial justice. She is the author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness (https://amzn.to/2X8qyEc) and the Executive Producer of The Next Question: A Web Series Imagining How Expansive Racial Justice Can Be (https://www.tnqshow.com/). Austin started her career in the nonprofit world, focusing on homelessness and housing, youth engagement, and church operations before blazing her own path in speaking, consulting, media and writing. As a leader, educator, and producer, Channing Brown creates programming that centers the experiences of Black women, dismantling the foundations of white supremacy, while interweaving a way forward for all who will listen. Her nationally-celebrated first season of The Next Question included a slate of incredible contributors. Alongside her co- creators, Chi Chi Okwu and Jenny Booth Potter, the hosts examine complex topics affecting social justice while simultaneously celebrating the stories, personalities, and humanity of their guests.An added note before we dive into this powerful conversation. Our podcast episodes are often recorded weeks or months in advance, as was the case with this conversation. In the intervening time, we’ve all been horrified and devastated by the deaths of Ahmuad Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Because of the gap between recording and air-dates, they are conspicuously absent from our conversation in a way that, I’m sure, would have different and been a part of the discourse had this conversation occurred at a later date. As I’ve shared elsewhere, silence and complacency are not options. Everything we explore in this conversation is as important and relevant as it’s ever been. We're excited to share it with you.You can find Austin Channing Brown at:Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/austinchanning/Website : http://austinchanning.com/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, my guest today, Austin Channing Brown, is a writer, speaker, producer, providing inspired leadership on racial justice. She's the author of I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, and also the executive producer of The Next Question, a web series imagining how expansive racial justice can be. Austin actually started her career in the nonprofit world, focusing on homelessness and housing, youth engagement, church operations, before really blazing her own path in speaking, consulting, media, and writing. And as a leader, educator, producer, Austin, she really creates programming that centers the experiences

of Black women, dismantling the foundations of white supremacy while interweaving a way forward for all who will listen. Her nationally celebrated first season of The Next Question included this slate of incredible contributors, including MacArthur genius, Nicole Hannah-Jones, New York Times bestselling authors, Brene Brown and Jasmine Guillory, social justice leaders Rachel Cargill, Andre Henry, and more. And alongside with her co-creators Chi-Chi Oku and Jenny Potter Booth, they really examine complex topics affecting social justice while also celebrating the stories, personalities, and humanity of their guests. As an added note before we dive into this powerful conversation, our podcast episodes

are often recorded weeks or even months in advance, as was the case with my conversation with Austin. In the intervening time, we have all been horrified and devastated by the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. And because of the gap between recording and air dates, they are conspicuously absent from our conversation in a way that I'm sure would have been different and been part of it had this conversation occurred at a later date. As I have shared elsewhere, silence and complacency are not options. Everything we explore

in this conversation is as important and relevant as it has ever been. Really excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. But it's so good to be hanging out with you. So. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual

results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. I'm in New York right now. You're hanging out in the Detroit area. But you grew up in Ohio. Toledo area?

Somewhere around there? I did. So I've moved around a lot. Yeah. So I grew up in ohio um toledo area somewhere i did so i've moved around a lot yeah um so i grew up in toledo ohio my parents got divorced when i was around eight years old so i spent a lot of summers and almost every weekend in cleveland ohio and i've also lived in chicago and just outside of detroit in Detroit. It's interesting the way that you described growing up also. In a neighborhood which I guess is really predominantly white, middle class, and you sort of trying to figure out, okay, so how do I navigate this space

in a way where I am who I am, but at the same time, I feel like I'm okay in the culture that I'm constantly surrounded by? Yeah, it was like my little secret that I grew up in a household that had Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes on the bookshelves. And my parents had two gigantic posters of Alvin Ailey dancers on their bedroom walls. Tell me one of those was the classic Judith Jameson poster. You know it. It's so beautiful. My mom was a modern dancer also, so we had that up too. Oh, I love it. But we listened to, you know, gospel music and R&B and we just had sort of your average Black lives. But then I would go to school. And because it was a Christian school, you know, they were all about the Christian contemporary music of that time. And so they would rave about Amy Grant and DC Talk and Michael W. Smith.

And I'd be like, have none of you heard of Fred Hammond? You know, I was just so confused. And it finally dawned on me that I just knew more about their lives than they knew about mine. And I was OK with that. I didn't feel the need to teach the whole classroom. I didn't feel the need to correct the teacher when, for example, she told us that we should all wash our hair every day. You know, I just, it was, it was in many ways a source of pride that I knew something my teacher didn't. So this would have been 80s, 90s? Yep.

Early 90s. Yeah. So sort of like zooming the lens out, also like exploring what's going on in the world around then. Was that a part of like, were you, like your average kid growing up, middle school, high school, it's pretty focused on generally a pretty small universe. Right. I'm curious, was that you?

Or were you also sort of like more broadly aware and curious? Oh, that's a great question. I definitely was curious about the world, but we didn't have Google, you know? So I used novels to figure out what was happening in the world. Judy Blume in particular taught me a lot about what it meant to be a girl, what it meant to have a crush on a boy, to not agree with my parents, to not agree with my friends, to be curious about periods and makeup and, you know, all these things. And even then, though, it was so clear to me that the culture of my household was different than the culture of the households Judy was writing about. And so I devoured Friends magazines and I turned on the radio whenever I

could. I grew up in a really religious household, so we had rules like you can only listen to gospel music on Sunday mornings. So I would have to sneak with my little teeny tiny boom box and turn it way down so I could hear the latest quote unquote secular music. But yeah, I grew up in a, both households were very intellectual. And so I remember my parents having conversations like, are Black people actually better off because of integration? Or should we have just gotten rid of segregation? And I remember thinking, we ain't talking about that in school. We are expected to just celebrate that we can all sit

in the same classroom together. We are not supposed to be questioning whether or not it's actually been good for the Black community to integrate. So yeah, my curiosity for the most part was just devouring every book I could get my hands on to teach me about the world. Yeah. did you have a desire to have those conversations that you are having and that you're you know like both households are really engaging in did you would you have wanted to have those same conversations in a classroom where you're also sitting in a culture which is profoundly different where most of the kids surrounding you are white and most of the teachers are white. I'm curious whether you, you know, at the time, like your thought was like,

what would it be like to have this conversation in that setting? Yeah, it made me nervous. Because any time race was brought up, a couple of things happened. One, I found out what was happening in my friend's homes and the ways they talked about race. And I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about that. For example, I remember the first time a white kid called me the N-word and I was livid, but I also, I distinctly remember thinking, did your parents use this word? Because I knew his parents. I mean, my classroom has never been more than maybe 25 students. And I went to the same school from preschool all the way through eighth grade.

So I knew everybody. I knew every teacher. I knew knew everybody. I knew every teacher. I knew every student. I knew every principal. And I remember thinking, I have watched your parents come pick you up for like four years. Is that what they've been thinking of me? When you get in the car, is that what they say about me? So between that, learning what the conversations that were happening in white households are not happening in white households, combined with the fact that my teachers always seemed inept at navigating the race conversation, made me pretty happy that most of the time they just stayed away but it also made me trust the teachers who were good at it and I realized that there was a part of me that just didn't trust teachers who ascribe to sort of a colorblind, what race you are doesn't matter, kind of, right? We're all one. I had a real level of trust for teachers who expected white students to step up,

to think critically, to not just fall into whatever notions they were hearing at home, but to really question what is race in America and what does it mean to me even as a white person. But most of the time I was happy to just have my own secret around Black life. Yeah. I remember I sat down with Ruth King in the studio a couple years back. And I just remember having this really beautiful, intense, fierce conversation with her. And she made it crystal clear. She's like, you know what? She's like, no, no.

I need you to see my blackness. When you say you don't see color, that's a bad thing. She's like, because I need you to see this and I need we need to reckon with it. I really hard to have grace because it's been said for so long. I mean, decades that has been said, right? And I try really hard to point out that I think what most white people mean when they say that it's shorthand for your color does not mean that I am going to treat you any differently and therefore I will be blind to it. But the question then becomes, why do you have to be blind to it in order to treat me equally? Wouldn't it be better instead of to not see me, wouldn't it be

better to just rid yourself of these ugly stereotypes and assumptions and prejudices and bias so that you can see me and not feel a need, not feel compelled to treat me differently. Yeah. It's kind of like I need to recognize you in order to have the possibility of being changed by who you are in the context between us. Exactly. Exactly. Otherwise, the intent around being colorblind is failing. It is, it simply isn't possible to not see me and treat me with dignity. Yeah. I know you, you, um, you write about two teachers, uh, who you had early on in high school, one, Ms. Phillips, and one, I guess you shorthand, Mr. Sly. Two really powerful experiences.

So while you're sort of in the early educational experience and describing it as you have, these two people stood out for different reasons, yet kind of in a way, complementary reasons. Exactly. There are a lot of people who read the story of Mrs. Phillips and are like, oh my God, I'm so sorry that happened to you. And I think that wasn't supposed to be a bad story. It just is. There was a teacher who realized that her seating chart was racist. She was using her seating chart to separate students of color, specifically Black students, with the assumption that Black students would be more disruptive if they sat together. And there was a classroom in which she couldn't do it.

I suspect mine. Because my name trips people up a lot. And she made the confession. She made the confession in front of the entire class and held herself accountable by choosing to no longer use a seating chart for any of her classes. So that she could no longer use her power in that way. Use her power to separate students of color. And though it made me uncomfortable. And though I wasn't sure what to do with it. Her action.

I don't know what's better. I don't know if she should have confessed it or not confessed it. I don't know. But she definitely should have held herself accountable, right? What she did in response to realizing, I am acting in a racist way, and I'm going to stop. That's good. That's a good story. Because there are so many teachers who have these biases for students of color and never interrogate them. And if they do realize that they have them, never fix it. And so to have this nun who dropped F-bombs like nobody's business, right? To say, you know what I mean? I mean, she was fantastic. She was fantastic. But to have this very real, authentic moment around race with her. I don't know.

Some part of me doesn't want to have a conversation about whether or not it was the right way or the wrong way. I am much more interested in the fact that she did it, that she changed the behavior. Yeah. I mean, one of my curiosities around that too was that, but the second one was, as you've described your class, I'm guessing you were one of Right. Very few. Very few students of color in that room at that moment. And I'm wondering, as she's saying this, in your mind, are you thinking, even if all the other students' heads aren't turning to look at me. Are they effectively turning to look at me? You know, it's a thing that I'm going to say Black students here. I'm sure it is true of other students of color as well.

But my experience as a Black woman is pretty specific. I have been so used to everyone in the classroom turning around and looking at me that it has actually made it hard to wonder what everyone else in the classroom is thinking. At least for me, I end up in my head trying to figure out what does this mean for me? What assumptions did I make about my relationship with the teacher that maybe weren't true? Most often, I wonder, have I wasn't particularly loud and because I really loved academics and was a good student because I had a lot of honors classes where I was the only Black kid in the class, have my teachers assumed that I was somehow different from all of my Black peers. And that made me sad. But moments like that often kicked off sort of this own dialogue happening in my head that had very little to do with everyone else

in the classroom, honestly. Yeah, well, on one hand, very little, and on the other hand, everything. Right. It's sort of like it's bouncing between these dualities. Totally. And then you've got mr sly you know like who kind of takes the exact opposite direction and it sounds like was a really you know we i think we all dream of having sort of like random people touch down and just somehow opening something in us or for us or around us. And it sounds like he was one of those people for you.

It's the truth. I had three teachers in high school who are amazing. And I talk about Mr. Sly because he adjusted his entire curriculum to include Black lives. So he was an English teacher who had us reading Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. And he expected white students to engage with the topic of race. And it was really special because it was one of the few times when the conversation turned towards race and I didn't become the default substitute teacher. That's what was really special about it. It was that he remained in control of the classroom. He didn't need my voice to validate him. He didn't need me to fill in the blanks. He didn't need me to affirm what he was doing. It gave me the

freedom to just be a student while talking about race as opposed to being the expert in the room. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. There was one moment, i guess one poem in particular that uh was super powerful we wear the mask i was like mr sly what are you doing to me

um my my my stepmom was a high school english teacher and And so it was pretty rare for, or at least it felt right in my like 16 year old, I know everything, right? It felt rare for someone to mention some sort of Black literature that I hadn't at least heard of, even if I hadn't read it. And so when he put this poem in front of me and I started reading it and realized I have never read this before, we wear the mask that grins and lies. And I was like, oh, this is feeling really familiar. This is feeling so familiar. And I had to really think about how often, you know, we go back to the conversation we were having earlier about Black life feeling like my secret. And I think the other side of that coin then is that I work to maintain the secret.

And so how often have I used the reference for Ferris Bueller's Day Off to make a point instead of using the color purple to make a point, right? Like how often have I let racist commentary pass because I just didn't feel like dealing with it? How often have I worn a mask? Do I wear one every single time I go to a classroom? And I didn't really have answers for that as a 16-year-old kid. But I vividly remember the questions I was asking myself in that moment.

Yeah. And I mean, also, when you start to ask this question also, you know, I would imagine part of that, you know, when you start to sort of like follow it down the rabbit hole is, you know, dot, dot, dot. And what is this doing to me and for me? Or what is this stopping me from doing or becoming? Or becoming. Yeah. Or becoming. grateful for those three or four teachers I had who had actually done the work around race to include it in their classroom so that at least a couple times a week, I didn't even have to wonder

if I was wearing a mask, you know, because I was welcome. All of me was welcome. But it's a question that I have come back to over and over and over again in my adult life as I navigate whiteness, trying to figure out, one, am I wearing a mask? But two, do I need to? Is it safer for me to wear a mask and to have white people believe that I am just like them when there are things about my world and my thinking and my culture that are different. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting dance. And when you use the word safety, you know, it's, I think people of color

and white people code switch at various different times and for different reasons. Right. But my sense is that not a lot of, and white people code switch at various different times and for different reasons. But my sense is that not a lot of, if yes, you're an average white person, how, when, and why they do it. The word safety is not necessarily going to be top of the list, if even on the list,

but it's a very different experience. So, and it's interesting that that for you is it rises up there as like, okay, so it's not just about am I being fully expressed? It's not just about am I being seen for who I am? It's not just about am I allowing myself to blossom into all I can be, to be joyful and open and live as one person in all parts of life it is also there's some like glorious questions like they sound like privileged questions you know i i wish those were the only questions that i needed to ask yeah yeah yeah i

mean the safety one is really um it's powerful and it's not just my own safety. It's safety for everyone who looks like me. Yeah. Right? So I go back to that funny nun who made an assumption about all Black, I presume all Black girls. Now, she didn't say girls, but I presume. She was, you know, imagining Black girls. Now, she didn't say girls, but I presume.

She was, you know, imagining Black girls popping their gum in the back and, a professor, a supervisor, a counselor, a coach who believes that there is something inherently wrong, bad behavior, disobedience, right? Whatever that they have to look out for for Black students. And what is my responsibility to all the other Black students that they'll ever have? Right. So it isn't even just just my safety that I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about what will happen if I lean into the stereotype, whether that's who I am or not, and confirm the bias. Yeah. It's sort of like, what is the depth of the potential harm and how far out does the ripple go? That's right. Not just in real time, but what do I leave in my wake?

That's right. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to hear you reflect on these conversations, especially in the context of different teachers and schools. Because I know you then land not long after, like North Park University in Chicago, where you find yourself in another professor's class, Professor McNath, and have a profoundly different experience. And one that I know you've described as, it's not just the curriculum, it's not just what you were studying,

but there's this, you don't have to create your own sense of belonging for the first time. And it sounds like that is not only a grace-filling experience, but also kind of jarring to a certain extent. So because Professor McNath is my first Black professor, to this point, I have only ever had white teachers. And even though there were teachers who were really great about teaching Black literature or Black history or sort of this academic understanding of Black life, which was wonderful.

I had no expectation that the cultural realities of my life would ever make it into the classroom. So I was very used to teachers using references like sailing or skiing or hockey or movies that they just assume every student has seen or music that every student is listening to. And I would be sitting in the classroom smiling and nodding, having no idea what you're talking about. I don't know what rigging is. I don't know what you're saying right now. And then I walk into this Black woman's classroom and she has us work on this project. She's a marketing professor. And she says, okay, let's pretend that you're all going to open up a salon and we need to figure out the prices for everything. We need to figure out overhead. We need to figure out how to make this work.

How are we going to make this salon successful? And so she begins listing out all the things that we need to price. So she says, how much is a shampoo? How much is a cut? How much is a deep conditioner? And she says, how much is a relaxer? And it was like a record scratched in the room.

All the white students were like, a what? And I was about to fall out of my seat because it was the first time that something that's just cultural, that is just a normal part of Black girls' lives was brought up in the classroom. And I remember thinking, is this what it's like to be white? Is this what it's like to just understand all the cultural references, to not have to interpret the explanation for a concept? Is this what it's like to just understand? It was amazing. I, I really was, I had to work to maintain my composure because I was so tickled. I was so tickled to be in a room full of white students who didn't understand. And she was so funny because she kept, she kept asking them, don't you know what that is? You don't know, you don't relax her. Like she just drew it out. And I, oh my gosh, I may have,

I may have fallen in love with her that day. It was... I imagine, obviously, I mean, I was at a private white Christian institution, but I imagine that's what it would have been like to go to an HBCU. And here I was having it surrounded by white students. And there was something really special about that yeah so she's a marketing professor also which is interesting because it wasn't like she was sort of saying okay so this is a class on racial justice or this is a class and so so we're going to intentionally bring in cultural references just like no this is me this is is my life. These are my references. And I am not

going to make that jump to translate them into your references to make it okay. I'm just- Here I am. Deal with it. Here I am. Yeah. And figure it out. And if you need to learn it, then learn it. In many ways, she was figuring out how to take off her own mask right so instead of just limiting her example to a students white students would understand she was like no you're opening up a salon you know how to do a relaxer and um i learned i learned a lot from her about simply bringing your whole self, whether race is the topic or not, to show up as you are.

And I tried really hard to do that in the book. And I try really hard to do that when I'm speaking somewhere that I don't I don't adjust my references anymore I don't I center the experiences of other black women and say if you're not sure what's happening here google it yeah I mean it's interesting also because I think when I read your book it resonated deeply and it made me think on so many different levels. And at the same time, it was also really clear that it wasn't written to or for me. You know, that it was, you just weren't, you know, you use the word centering, which I know comes up a lot in the conversations around race and racial justice these days. And the book really,

I think what I realized at the end is like, this is actually, it is, I mean, the subtitle of the book, you know, it's a book centered around black dignity, not white fragility. Right. For, you know, and it's probably like great that white people are reading it and starting to think about it. But it felt like that's not who you wrote it to. No, no. I imagine Black women reading this book and then sliding it across the table to a co-worker that they're tired of trying to explain race to. That's what, that's really what I imagined white people walking into their local bookstore, seeing it, getting curious, opening it up and putting it right back on the shelf. I just, I had very little expectations from white people, which is not to say that I didn't think white people would read it like at all, you know, but my, my expectations were around how black women would feel affirmed and how they would in turn use the book for white people who are ready to have that conversation.

And I'm pretty, I'm pretty clear about that in my life too. I, at this point I'm, I'm pretty clear about that in my life, too. At this point, I'm done trying to convince white people that there is a race problem. I'm finished defining, my editors were wonderful. But there were a couple of times when the question, at least the question was raised, should you, Austin, do you think you should just put a little definition here? Or there was a reference that someone didn't understand. They'd be like, maybe you should just like tease this out a little bit. I'm like, no, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. If it's confusing to Black women, then I want to enter the conversation? That's right. And having a sense of agency around that, saying, yes, I understand that there is a conversation and there are ideas and terms and definitions that need to unfold for certain people that come before this. For sure. that need to unfold for certain people that come before this. And yet I'm at a moment in my life in the work that I'm doing where the part

of the conversation that is most nourishing and most important, where I feel like I can make my biggest impact is a bit further downstream from that. It makes a huge difference to enjoying my own work. You know, I don't. And, and I think in many ways, it honors the work that's already been done. It honors the work that's already been done. I once, I once was speaking somewhere. And the person who spoke before me did a very academic level of here are definitions, here are terms, here's how these all fit together, here's how these play out in history. Just like a beautiful rundown for anybody who was like new to the conversation. And then I get up and use not one term,

I'm weaving stories left and right. And at the end, someone asks me for a definition of something. And I say to them, didn't you hear the first person? Didn't you hear the, like, did you need me to repeat everything, like all the work that the first person had done, that beautiful PowerPoint, those very clear terms? Is that what you really needed from me? Isn't it better to say that that was really beautiful and helpful and effective work? And now we're going to let Austin do her really beautiful and effective work that builds on the first one. It's just I don't think it's joyful for anyone. I don't think it's joyful for the people who have already done that work. And it's not joyful for me to repeat it. Yeah. And I think it's also,

there's something really powerful about getting to this place where you understand there's a, there's value in different parts of the work and different stops along the way, but this is where I am. And what's interesting too, to me is that you did a lot of that work was your day-to-day life for years before this. You graduate college, you end up getting a master's in social justice at Mary Grove, and then you're out in the world, largely in sort of white Christian slash education in nonprofits and homelessness. And, but a lot of the work you're doing is you are that person in the room doing a lot of the sort of like the building block work, the ABCs of the conversation work for years. And so it's interesting

to me that, you know, it's not that, you know, you're making a very deliberate choice that I've done this. This is defined a season of my life. And I'm now ready to step into the next season of conversation and ideas and engagement. You know what happened? So I had been doing teachings and trainings within those organizations that I worked in. And at one of those organizations, instead of me teaching, I decided to create a series where I brought in all my friends to come teach, all my friends in the Chicago area community. And one of them did this whole lesson that required sort of separating out all the people of color from the white people in sort of to show the stratification of race and experience and history and all these things. And at the end of it, she was taking questions and answers, but we were still stratified. So we were still separated in the room. And she, because of

the way her body was turned, she could only see the people, the white people who were raising their hands. She simply could not see that there was, I think, a Latinx woman, I think, I think in the room who was also raising her hand to try and contribute to the conversation. And in that moment, a light bulb went off that all the people of color in the room weren't there to be educated. We were there to be tools for white people's education. And I thought, I don't think I want to do this anymore. Because I had been, right? That is not an indictment on the teacher.

I had been doing the exact same thing in the way that I taught. I was assuming that all the people of color were at a certain knowledge base and what we needed to do was come together in order to teach all the white folks so that they could catch up. And in that moment, I thought, could this, could this work toward racial justice toward understanding toward communicating still be done if we just moved the focus of our lens from white people to all the people of color in the room. And that aha moment has produced a very gratifying journey for me. And it's a journey that's not over.

I have no idea what other ways I will change in the future. But it really has defined a good portion of the last two to three years of how I approach this work, I really believe that Black women's stories in and of themselves are powerful. That Black women's questions in and of themselves are powerful. That Black women's histories in and of themselves are powerful, and that when we learn from all of that, it isn't just Black women who reap the benefits. We all reap the benefits from the stories of Black women, and it's been fun to explore that.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series

10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what's the difference between me and you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk and at the same time you you start the book in the in about as direct a way as you possibly can. Right. I don't remember the exact language, but I think you basically start saying like white people are exhausting. Yeah, that's the first sentence.

So like middle-aged privileged white dude picks up the book and I'm reading. I'm like, oh, this is going to be interesting. Because I want to know. I'm like, okay, I'm open to this. And also because I've had similar conversations with so many friends who are people of color over the years, especially black people. And because I think it's really easy to paint this broad stroke, you know, like POC. It's all the same experience. And it's not.

And I've learned that from friends. It's really, there are unique experiences for every individual as well as every group, as every culture. So I read that and then I'm reading on and I'm hearing all these stories. And there's a moment where you describe when you finally get out of college and you're in the working world and you're like, okay, so let me walk you through my day. Yes. And you're literally like 810 and then like 842 and 903. on the surface is all about equality and justice and equal treatment and faith and acceptance and embrace. And yet even in this culture,

which you would assume would be even more rooted in sort of like doing and seeing and being the right way than your average big organization, right? You're recounting all of the micro moments doing and seeing and being the right way than your average big organization. You're recounting all of the micro moments where you're expected to code switch to make the people around you comfortable, where you're invited because you wanna be there

as long as you don't do something that makes us change or affect the culture, because we kind of like it the way it is. We like it this way. But that lands on you. And this is where it was like really powerful for me. That lands on you as stacking burden. And, you know, I remember reading research

on how repressing choices or or actions it's the more you do it the it builds up so over the course of the day if you're stopping yourself from doing or if your willpower you know it's a depletable resource and it really drains you and and what i'm thinking as i'm very much like for you to send that to me. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm thinking as I'm reading this, I'm like, yes, I've had similar conversations, but the way you laid it out really landed powerfully for me. So I'm like, oh, wait. So there are probably hundreds of micro moments throughout the day where you're in some way

making the decision to not be you in the name of making everyone around you okay. And then when I reflect on that opening line about exhaustion, I'm like, oh yeah, that would be brutal to move through every day and not just have to do the job that you signed up to do, but to actually have a second job. That's right. That's right. When I wrote that line, I was imagining a Black woman coming home from work, putting down her purse, collapsing on the couch, just staring up at the ceiling. Just done. Just done for the day.

Because that line isn't personal. It's not personal. It has everything to do with the amount of work it takes to navigate a culture that doesn't know it's white. And it's so funny because often when I am in front of a predominantly white audience and say that line, not only do the people of color in the audience laugh, so do the white people. Because if a white person has been in this conversation for more than about two minutes, chances are you've encountered some pretty exhausting white people. It's not hard to imagine why Black women would be exhausted by white people. And I think that whole passage where I lay out the burden of being the outsider, the burden of not being included, the burden of needing to prove that I'm grateful, needing to prove that I'm one of you, having to prove that I belong.

It does get stacked. And I think when we talk about microaggressions, we make them feel micro. You know, so it's like, the Asian woman who gets asked, where are you really from? And now she has to make a decision about whether or not she's going to say New York or whether or not she feels like she has to give her entire ethnic background. But it isn't just that. It's that you probably aren't the first person to ask her that that day. It's that she also had to prove that she can be as leadership worthy as everyone else. It's also that she had to stay late so she could prove that she's grateful for her job. It's also that she had to endure four other microaggressions. It's also that even though she tried really hard to make herself as small as possible,

she still got pulled into her supervisor's office and was told that she's just too aggressive. It's the combination of all these microaggressions and never knowing what day they're coming. You know, it would be one thing if I could wake up in the morning and be like, okay, Austin, you are going to endure exactly six microaggressions before lunch. Brace yourself. But I never know. I never know where they're coming from. I never know when they're going to pop up. I never know what else I'm going to be doing or thinking about when they arrive.

It is exhausting. It's really exhausting to have to fight for my humanity, even in the smallest of ways, especially in the smallest of ways. It's exhausting work. Yeah. And then you add to that the context of the actual J-O-B that you're being paid to do It's exhausting work. much of this do I actually step into or not? Because the organization that you're with, like you, you want on the one hand, you're sharing all these ideas. On the other hand, you want, you want to play nice. That's right. Because there's like this, like, I want to feel like I'm, I'm okay when I show up every day. That's right. And, and I want what everybody else wants. I want to contribute. Right. I want to be considered a member of this team who is needed and wanted and who is creative and helpful. And it's disappointing. It's disappointing

when I can't show up as myself or when I have to expend extra energy to try to make white people feel comfortable so that my contribution will matter. There was one gig that I did where I knew there were a lot of people who were sort of still at that 101 level of understanding and investigating and interrogating. And the host of that audience had done a fantastic job explaining why having this conversation around race mattered, how her own transformation, it was really beautiful. And so I took a risk, a little bit

of a risk in diving even further into the conversation, pushing on a little bit. But I was, I think, the first morning of the conference. So I still had two days to go. And when I tell you, I felt like Pac-Man dodging people to tell me all of terrible thing that they had done or their parents had done or this terrible thing that they believed or how the Confederate flag hung over their living room or how their parents told them they could never date a black man or like just on and on and on. And I thought, I don't want to hear this. This is in no way edifying to me to hear about the number of ways that overt and casual racism just exist in these homes and workplaces and worship places. This isn't edifying to me. In fact, it is really discouraging. It's really discouraging. And so if you could just like keep that to yourself, that would be wonderful. I have actually had friends who have suggested that when I go speak somewhere,

that the host organization has some sort of spiritual advisor in order to speak with people who feel this profound sense of righting a wrong. Because I wasn't trained for that. I wasn't trained for that. I wasn't trained for that. And I'm grateful for people who can make the transition to, oh, this requires action on my part, right? This isn't just that I get to confess and leave. This isn't that I just get to confess and leave. This isn't that I just get to confess and now it's done. Now I've apologized and now I'm good again. It makes me grateful when people take the leap, the mental leap to, oh, this is requiring more of me this is about how I show up in the world this is about who I'm reading

and who I'm talking to and the people that I am responsible for like this is this is supposed to be transformative and so when people ask me what should do? I answer very honestly and say, I have no idea. I have no idea. And to try to answer that question for you would be cheating you because I believe that the universe is probably going to demand more from you than I would. I think my answer would be too easy. And so I want you to do the hard work of figuring out what God, the universe, you, you demand from yourself. How are you going to show up in this world differently? I can't answer that for you. But I believe there's an answer.

Yeah, it kind of takes us back to the beginning of our conversation to Miss Phillips, right? There you are in that room where she effectively confesses to the room, but you wonder in hindsight whether she was confessing to you. That's right. And, but then she also doesn't stop there. And she says, I will now change my behavior. This like, this is the action I have. I have grappled with this and it's clear that an action needs to be taken. And this is what I'm going to do. And I never could have said that to her.

I never could have said that to her. So if she had pulled me aside and said, oh, so I just really want to have a conversation about race. At what point was I, the student, going to tell her that she should eliminate a racist classroom policy? None. None. I don't know that she ever would have told me right that seems that seems like maybe not a good idea to tell the one black student in a private conversation that you have a racist seating policy that probably wouldn't have happened she had to do the hard work herself and she had to figure out what that work required of her

I couldn't have done that for her she had to to do that for herself. And I think that's another big aha for white people is that in so many ways, holding on to racism, continuing to live out racist ideas, continuing to be the source of microaggressions isn't just harming people of color. It's harming you. That your own understanding of humanity is limited when you carry all these biases. And I think it's what drives the desire for confession because you're trying to lift yourself out from underneath all this burden. But the work requires more than the confession. It's not that it doesn't require confession.

It just really requires a transformation, a turning toward your own humanity and saying, this isn't working for me. I want to be a person who honors the dignity of all people. How can I do that? Yeah. It's interesting. You used the word hope for a heartbeat in there. I remember reading Ta-Nehisi Coates and then hearing him interviewed shortly after. And I think you may have talked about this at one point, I can't remember now, but I

remember hearing him interviewed and being asked, you know, like, it's a beautiful, powerful letter to your son, yet it's also kind of bleak. Like, are you hopeful? Like, none of that's out. Are you hopeful things will change? Right. And he's basically, not really. No, not so much.

I have a minor obsession with Ta-Nehisi Coates. He is just such a phenomenal thinker, but also such a phenomenal writer that I just, like, the goosebumps, like, just go on and on and on when I engage with his work. And so when he was regularly being asked about hope, at some point, I wish I could remember which interview this was. Yeah, I've listened to so many, I don't know. But there was a particular interview where,

yet again, he is asked about hope. And he says, he says, you know what I wonder? I wonder if people who say that they have hope or who do this work from a place of spirituality or Christianity or whatever. He says, I wonder if they would do the work if they didn't have all that. Would they continue to do the work if they didn't have all that would they continue to do the work if they didn't have hope if they didn't have this like eternal heaven if they didn't have if all that got stripped away would they still do the work and I was like holy shit shit. It's like, oh my gosh. Whoa. Whoa. I think his exact words were, if you didn't have faith that it was all going to work out,

would you still do the work? And it blew my mind. Which is why I have a minor obsession with him. Because it really made me question the importance of hope in my work. This, this, after, after, after reading this honest, weighty, in some ways vulnerable work about what it's like to navigate Blackness in America. It one seems strange to me that the first question would be, are you hopeful? It just seemed like a very odd question to me. But then him questioning the importance of it produced a shift inside of me. And I began to envision having a conversation with my great-grandmother who was born in 1908. She lived until I was 19 years old. And so I was very close

to her and knew a lot of her, her story, her history, her background. And I can hear every inflection in her voice still. And so I imagined right now sitting down with her and saying, you know what, Nana, just not feeling very hopeful right now.'s just everything just feels so bleak and I imagine she would scrunch up her face and be like so okay I guess go take a nap but we get back to work you know I don't think she would put a whole lot of stock in and hope you do the work. You do the work. And maybe there will be this magical moment of racial solidarity. Maybe there will be this breakthrough at an organization. Maybe someone will choose to live a more inclusive life. Maybe, maybe there will be change. Maybe someone will choose to live a more inclusive life.

Maybe. Maybe there will be change. Maybe there will be transformation. Maybe we'll produce new policies and new laws that protect the most vulnerable. Maybe. But even if I don't get to see it,

that doesn't mean I don't get to do the work. And so I've decided to do the work. And so I've decided to do the work. It's almost like it's a difference between faith and hope. Yeah. You just do it

because you know it's the work that you're here to do and you have faith that that is. That's just the way it is. I have decided that it is more important for me to embody hope than it is to

feel it. Tell me more about that. It is my job to write as if it could be encouraging to someone. It's my job to write as if change is possible. It's my job to speak with every ounce of passion I have in my body because maybe, maybe, right? But it's my job to embody hope. It's my job to show up at the protest. It's my job to write about Black Lives Matter. It's my job to call out injustice. Like that, that's what I do. I embody, I work toward the possibility of change. But I do that regardless of whether or not I feel hopeful that things are going to change.

So for example, I feel the same. People often ask me because I write a letter to my son and my book as well, you know, will I teach my son how to navigate racist things? Like, will I teach him how to react when the police pull him over? Or, you know, like, of course I will. Of course I will. Because I have zero hope that all of society is going to treat Black men differently by the time he's 18. I don't. I don't have hope in that. But it is my job to write as if that's possible. There's a Buddhist tenet that translates roughly to abandon hope. And I never understood that for a long time. I thought it was so defeatist. I thought it was like, how could that be what it really says?

What I realized is that at least my interpretation, the thing that makes me understand how powerful that is, is that it's essentially saying, if this was you for life, if this was your community for life, if this was culture and society for life, what would you do now to make it as good as you can? And maybe over the context of you and dozens or hundreds or thousands of people doing that work together somehow somehow there is something that shifts down the road and that would be fantastic. But if it doesn't, you know, and you need to navigate this world that you're living in now, what actions

would you take? And it's sort of like this dualistic thing, right? Which I think we all struggle with a lot. Like, for sure. How can you abandon hope and simultaneously, like, hold it a little bit. But at the same time, you know, if you live entirely in the space of hope, then you're not focused on doing what you need to do to be safe and expressed and present and engaged now. That's right. That's right. Yeah. There's a lot there.

It's really powerful. And I think it speaks a lot to the moment that we're all in right now. Oh man, I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking the same thing. I did not wake up feeling very hopeful today. but I'll tell you, I was really grateful knowing that I was going to speak with you. You know, I was grateful that there was just a teeny hour in my day in which I knew I was going to be able to talk about the thing that I love the most. And today that's going to have to be enough. So it feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So sitting here in this

container, which now stretches from New York City to Detroit, we're widening it these days. That's right. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? So many things because of this moment that we're living in, navigating the pandemic. And I really miss my work I really miss being in conversation with people all over the country around what this transformation looks like for them and so I feel really really blessed in some ways to have this passion, this calling, this vocation that I miss. And whether it's for racial justice or not is not, for the purpose of this question is not nearly as important to me as the fact that so much of the good life for me is being in community with others trying to figure out how to be better humans i live for that conversation.

And I miss it tremendously. It's a big part of the good life for me. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks for having me. what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in

this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot.

Flight Risk.