Here's Where It Gets Interesting - How to Have the Messy Conversations with Carlos Whittaker

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

In this episode, author and speaker Carlos Whittaker joins Sharon once again to discuss everything from 150 year old log houses to how Gen Z will be the generation to break our serious reliance on life-as-performance on social media. The iconic duo swaps thoughts on chickens, Nirvana album art, and more serious topics like fear of the unknown, critical race theory, and the messiness of history. How do we reconcile our greatest national heroes and achievements with the idea that many people have been harmed along the way? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yay! You're here again! I'm still pumped from the last time. This episode I am chatting with my buddy. My buddy, Carlos Whitaker. If you know him, you already love him. He just cracks me up all the time. He also talks about things in a way that makes sense to me. And he knows, listen, you might not arrive at the same conclusion as me, but you're still welcome at this table. And I absolutely love that about him. This conversation is both hilarious and poignant. And let's dive in. This is Carlos Whitaker, the man who named a bluebird after me. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. Hello, my friend. Hello, amiga. Tell everybody who you are and what you do.

Yeah. Well, hello, people that are unfamiliar with me. My name is Carlos Enrique Gutierrez Guzman Achivo Cabello. That's my full name. What my parents would call me when I'd get in trouble when I was a kid or Carlos, you can just call me Carlos. And I'm an author and a speaker. That's kind of what I do full time to pay the bills. But the rest of the time, which is like 23 other hours a day, I'm just kind of sharing my life on Instagram and having a good time kind of slinging in various ways to people. And so, yeah, that's what I do. I live in Nashville, Tennessee with my beautiful wife, Heather. We've been married 21 years, my three kids. So hey, let's say on it and Losaya and some farm animals. So it's a lot of fun. Yesterday you had a post about where, you know, like women

don't actually want diamonds and roses. They want chickens. And I, and I left a comment and I'm like, this is not a fact. Heather might want chickens. Heather might want chickens. If my husband tried to buy me chickens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heck no. Okay, so listen, you left that comment on there. You said, sorry, these are not, in all caps, not facts.

And I replied back. I said, Sharon, I checked Snopes.com, which obviously means it is a fact, but then also someone else replied. Oh, she deleted it. Oh, she deleted it. Somebody replied to you as to why this is, this is actually really funny. Why this is a fact for some people is what she actually said. She goes, she goes, no, I want chicken. So this is a fact for some people is what she actually said. She goes, she goes, no, I want chicken. So this is a fact to me. And then that got me thinking, oh no, this is where the problem lies. People believe that if it's true to them, it's a fact. Oh, true enough. And if it's not, and if you don't agree with it, it's a lie.

That's right. That is a lie. That is right. So, hey, I'm just glad that your husband unequivocally knows not to buy you chickens and to please bring me diamonds. That's right. Diamonds all day. Get out of here with your chickens. I don't need more stuff that I need to keep alive. I have three dogs and four children. Absolutely.

That's a lot of pooping and animals and humans that you have to keep alive i have no dogs and four children absolutely that's a lot of of pooping and and animals uh and and humans that you have to keep alive i don't need any chickens and you know but if other people enjoy chickens yeah i mean listen there's a lot of there's a lot of people in the suburbs that enjoy i feel like i feel like people in the suburbs enjoy chickens more than people in the country enjoy chickens yeah because chicken when you have chickens in the country like they're yeah it's they're not boutique animals. No, no, they're not on your Pinterest. No, no. It's not like, oh my goodness, look at this exotic hen. Like I got an Arakania chicken and the eggs are turquoise. Let's admire them. Yes. You know, like they're utility animals.

Yes, they are. Yes, they are. They come to serve a purpose. You know, like they're utility animals. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. They come to serve a purpose. And thus they are a burden. Things that serve purposes in your life become burdens. FYI.

I want to have you address a problem that I think humans just in general are having. Okay. Nobody can get along with each other anymore. It seems like all it is, is a bunch of fighting 24 seven. And I want to fix what is wrong with humanity. You have 20 minutes go. Let's do it. Let's fix it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Let's fix it. You know, Sharon, I agree with you 100% that it feels like nobody. It feels like. Yeah, yeah.

It feels like nobody can get along. But I'll go straight to. I look back at even 20 years ago, not even, let's go back 15 years. And, you know, I've been saying this a lot recently that our souls and our psyches were not created to consume the amount of content we consume. And so we're actually not supposed to have opinions on every single thing that happens in front of us. And we have now been conditioned to believe that we are supposed to. So what does that do? I think it disrupts kind of our human nature. I think it disrupts our human nature as far as like what community is supposed to look like, what relationships are supposed to look like, 150 years ago up from the dawn of humanity up until 150 years ago

like you you live in your little i don't know what you lived in 150 years ago what like huts or 150 years ago i don't know like a house a house maybe a house made out of wood will you help me with my uh with my timeline of civilization homes people have been living in homes or homes not caves years not caves 150 years ago no the actual homes and so so you'd leave your little log home and you would walk to the market and you would get your pigs and your chickens and your hens and you would you would have them at your house or you would have them at your house you live in a lot okay let first of all let's establish let me get a piece of paper let's establish a timeline okay okay let's go show me yeah help me

here if you are living in a in a log house yes a log cabin log cabin, right? Like here's my drawing. I see it. I wish people could see, see my log cabin. Wow. Your drawing has gotten so much better since yesterday. This is my drawing of a log cabin, right? Okay. If you live in a log cabin, you're probably living in a rural area without access to bricks, plaster, building materials, right? And so if you live in a log cabin, then you probably also are surrounded by fences that keep in your chickens. And if you're well off, you might have a cow or a horse or two or some oxen. So this is who settled Tennessee, right? This is where you live in Tennessee, log cabin. This is so good.

Okay. And then obviously in the big cities, we started developing homes that were made of bricks. Yes. Okay. Yes. Look at this. This is so good. Houses made of bricks.

And then if you lived in a house made of brick, then you were probably going to the market to purchase your food items, then you were probably going to the market to purchase your food items as you were saying. So brick equals market log land. That's right. Now, please continue. Go ahead. Okay. Now, now I've got it right. So you walk out of your log house and you, you go butcher your pig or you walk out of your brick home and you walk to the market to get your butchered pig that probably the guy in the log cabin, maybe that's right. He raised it and brought into town. And so you would have conversations about life and about your kids and about kind

of what was happening. And maybe if something was affecting you specifically, uh, which things were affecting people specifically 150 years ago, you know, some bigger things, maybe people in the city were having, were being affected by more things than people that were living on land. Help me and correct me if I'm wrong here. So this is what I'm getting at. I just feel like now everything is just so much. And there's just so much consumption of ideas and ideals and oversharing of things that maybe we weren't meant to overshare. Sharing, capturing things that maybe we weren't meant to capture. And you're hearing the pot calling the kettle black here because I have made my entire living by sharing my life right and so I get it but I am older now and I am starting to see how I think it's not

necessarily that everybody hates each other I just think that we just are sharing too much. And that may be a piece of the bigger problem, Sharon. It's not like we can erase technology. That's never going to go away. So how can we create systems in our lives that allow us to love people more than we hate people, right? I just feel like as I travel around, people are exhausted of hating each other. And I think, to be honest with you, that's why a lot of people follow you and a lot of people follow me, because the goal of what we're doing on our platform isn't to pit people against each other. And there is so much of that happening that I think people are looking for, if I can take this analogy even farther, spaces online even where they feel like they're walking out of their either their wood home online or their brick home online, but they're making sure that they're, they're keeping things smaller.

I just think people are starting to cut those things off in order to get back to feeling like things are more civilized. I know that's not a sweeping answer on how we fix the fact that we feel like everybody hates each other, but I just feel like that's one thing we can do in order to lessen the chaos that's kind of surrounding our souls right now. You want to know what I have pinpointed as one of the roots of the problem is that never in the history of time have we ever had access to each other's thoughts. Yeah. And we now have 24 seven access to the thoughts of other humans. Yeah. And it ain't pretty.

No. other humans. Yeah. And it ain't pretty. No. Turns out a lot of that is better left in your brain. Yes. And seeing what is going through the minds of other people is sometimes disturbing. Yeah. Right. It's sometimes disturbing. If Twitter had existed in 1863 during the civil war yeah i guarantee that it would not have been pretty right it was just actually a tremendous amount of effort to share your thoughts with people in 1863 and it turns out that a lot of human thoughts are better left unvoiced. And it turns out that even in 1863, there were just as many human thoughts as there are now. There just wasn't the access to those thoughts. I mean, there we are, right?

What's the step? I mean, you're not on my podcast yet, but I'm asking you a question. Where do we go from here? We have all this access. Is this going to be a, and I'll kind of answer this as I'm asking, a generational thing? Is this going to be something that, you know, I interviewed my son for my podcast that came out today and we had this conversation just about how I've been sharing my life every day for the last 15 years. And I asked him about his 15 year old friends and how he's like, yeah,

nobody shares their lives. Like you, you're, he said, your generation, he said, nobody shares their lives. Like your generation shares their lives. So I don't know, this may be a generational thing that shifts back because they're seeing the repercussions of what's happening. seeing the repercussions of what's happening i totally agree with you gen z does not document like hey guys walking through an airport what's up there's a man over there playing the piano look at him he's real cute look at how cute he is he's so cute i'm gonna go see what's up i'm gonna film myself saying what's up no gen z is not at all interested in doing that. And in fact, finds a little cringy that, that, you know, that millennials and Gen X does that. You know what I mean? I wonder if it has to do, like you're speaking about the generational

issues. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that like Gen X elder millennials, et cetera, obtained technology at a more, more pivotal part of their development. And Gen Z is like, they've never known a time when it didn't exist. And so it doesn't have that novelty in their brain in the same way that it does with somebody who was born at a different time. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It's Steve Carell in the studio.

Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. I showed my kids the Truman Show. I had them watch the Truman Show with Jim Carrey and they laughed

the entire time because if you remember when that movie came out, it was a novel, right? That was the whole premise of the movie. It's like, oh, there's people in this bubble. They know they're being filmed. There's cameras following them all the time. And when I first watched that movie, I don't know when it came out. It's like, wow, can you imagine if that was really reality? And then, so now I'm like, no, I am Truman. Like I am the guy in the bubble. I am the guy filling myself all the time, but my kids generation, they, they laugh at the idea of that even being like a question, like a thing, you know?

So, I mean, who knows? I definitely think it could be generational. Somebody asked me recently, I was at a conference recently and we were kind of going around talking a little bit about like, what are you optimistic about? What are you like, that is going to be really good in the future. And people had a variety of answers. Yeah. My answer was Gen Z. Yes. I feel incredibly optimistic about who this generation of currently teenagers and young adults is going to become. Like I feel far more hopeful about them than I do younger millennials. Sorry, you guys, I still love you. I still love you. I think Gen Z is fantastic. And I think that they have seen the pitfalls of what happens when you do give everybody free access to all of your thoughts.

They're like, that actually doesn't work. And that actually doesn't work. It's actually really bad for humanity that everybody can hear each other's thoughts all the time. I'm going to play it closer to the vest and be more strategic about what I share and with home. And the outlook of Gen Z, I find far more balanced and more nuanced than a lot of people that are in their, you know, thirties, forties, et cetera, today. Right. Well, and I feel like Gen Z is not, they're not trying to make a point all the time. Like the goal of their day isn't what's the point I'm going to make today. Everyone's got to make a point like, Oh, tomorrow, what's, what's my point going to be? What's my Instagram square that is going to have so many people feeling things that they're going to share it around. Like, that's not, that's not what they're going to, I don't think they're

going to be using technology for, you know, I don't see Gen Z trying to number one, have a beautiful Instagram number to have an Instagram or even social media that is like, Oh my goodness. I just feel so moved by every time I visit their profile. I just feel so moved. That is not how they view technology at all. Um, and again, as somebody who enjoys social media, I'm not, I, social media is an incredible tool, but I just, it's going to be very interesting to see how this develops over the next 15 years. Yeah. I think, I love that you said that you have hope in Gen Z because I do believe that they are going to fix it. They're going to do their best to fix it. They're going to see, you know, I hate when people compare social media to like cigarettes, right? Like it's like, oh,

well, you know, our parents generation, like we didn't see the warnings. They didn't see the warnings of cigarettes or whatever. But you know, as much as I hate that comparison, like I, I am kind of starting to see how it can really be the same thing, how they're going to be like, nope, I'm not going to do, I'm not doing this to my kids. And you know, things, things may get privatized, you know, which may be a good thing. Okay. We're not going to my kids. And you know, things, things may get privatized, you know, which may be a good thing. Okay. We're not going to fix it. We're going to kick the can down the road. There it is. It's up to you guys. I'm sorry. We created this scenario for you, but it's on you now. Do you guys love the fact that Sharon asked me this question? We're like, you know, this is

what the conversation is going to be. We're going to fix it right now. And we're like, ah, screw it. Hey, 18 year olds, this is your problem. Now can you please? It's not you guys. Oh my gosh. Hasn't that been what every generation does though? I think so. Baby boomers are like, you know what? Social security, you guys are gonna have to figure it out. And here we are trying to figure that out and wondering if there's even going to be any by the time I retire. No, because it's up to us to fix it. It's up to us to fix it. Right. Now we're turning into those people where we're like, get off my lawn kids these days. What is this trashy music? You know, like who is Megan V stallion?

Where you're like, this is trash. Oh, that is us. Yeah. Just exactly what my dad was saying about boys demand and Madonna, you know, same. Absolutely. I mean, it's, I've now reached the point in my life where I'm like, oh my goodness, this trashy music, it's going to ruin your brain. It's going to ruin your mind. This trashy music. I remember that my mother felt like my Nirvana CD was such trashy music. I would love to hear your take about some of the hot button issues that are really inciting a lot of anger in the United States right now. One of them is what we teach our children in schools and the conversation about critical race theory. Do you have thoughts

on that matter? Yeah, I do have thoughts on that matter. I believe that first of all, Yeah, I do have thoughts on that matter. I believe that, first of all, critical race theory is being taught in Virginia schools and we've got to wipe it live that I did on critical race theory, maybe late last year. That unpacks a little bit how it's actually not something to be scared of. And I feel like, and this is exactly what I was talking about. There's just so much disinformation and misinformation that people are fighting in school board meetings about things they don't even understand. And so that becomes a problem. I tell people all the time, have you read any critical race theory books, like collegiate level books that were written and where all this stuff starts on? Or are you just learning about critical race theory from your favorite political pundit? And it's always like, no, they're getting headlines and they're getting talking bits from podcasts, but they never

actually read the book. So what I decided to do was I bought a critical race theory book that was written in like 1982. And I read the whole thing. And I said, wait a second, everything that people are scared of isn't actually what's happening here. So that's my thought on critical race theory. I just wish that people would educate themselves more on what they would call the theory, as opposed to the fear mongering talking points that I see. So that's, that's my hot take on that one.

What do you feel like we should be teaching children people are going to disagree with this, but I feel like our kids need to be taught the full scope of history. I love American history. I love America. I love the ideals that we are chasing after, striving after, but there are a lot of things that blacks in America and their history is being left out of what public school systems are teaching. And so what ends up happening is suddenly when we start teaching that, well, okay, let's just take George Washington, for instance, right? I don't know the guy, you know, I don't, of course, I don't know the guy he's dead. I haven't studied him, but guess what? I think it's okay. And it's fair to talk about, well, a black person that is studying George Washington

and a black kid that's in second grade that puts on the little George Washington wig and is in the play that they do. I am telling you right now, every single person listening to this, that little black kid is thinking about what his life would have been like had he been in George Washington's life. And guess what? He would not have had the wig on and he would not have been playing the part that he's playing in the play. So if we know that that is how a large majority of the black population of children feel when they study American history,

that they feel like their history is being left out, we can no longer siphon this into one month. And we need to begin to overhaul the curriculum to teach the full scope, even the ugly parts of what our history is. Another example, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. There is a Confederate monument that the people in Franklin, Tennessee, which is about 20 minutes south of me, it's at the center of their town square. It's a Confederate general.

And the Black people that live in Franklin are, I mean, it nauseates me. I drive this by this thing once, once a week, and it's just up and everyone, you know, I'm like, can we do something with this? So, so this is what they did. And I love it. This is what I think is called growth. They didn't remove it, but you know what they did this week, they put up a statue 20 feet away from that Confederate general. And they put up a statue of a black civil war hero that is marching on. And guess what they did? They left the history of the one general up. They left that statue up. We can learn about him, but they also honored somebody else within the scope of that. Did that change the history? No, but it, it allowed the history to be more

fully told. And I just feel like that is what we need to be teaching. That is what we need to be looking at. And people get scared when we start teaching bigger, when we start having bigger conversations about some of our national heroes, that doesn't mean their ideas weren't good in the day. That doesn't mean that they have not added value to our nation, but I think it's important that we look at the full scope of our history. What do you say to people who feel like when we are judging characters of the past, going back to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or a myriad of other founding fathers who enslaved people. What do you think about this idea that people wrestle with that it's not fair to judge somebody who lived 250 years ago by today's

standards? You know, today, it's morally reprehensible to enslave other humans in the United States. Although, interestingly, there have never been more enslaved people in the world than there are in the year 2021. It's now certainly very illegal in the United States and something that the vast majority of Americans find morally reprehensible. What would you say to somebody who is wrestling with that? That is, it's not fair to judge people by today's standards. Yeah. I would first of all say, why are you wrestling with that? I think, I think the important question that you have to ask yourself is, well, why am I wrestling with this? If your answer is because I grew up loving the founding fathers and thinking they were like the best

thing that's ever happened to this country. And just have to be honest with yourself. Is it hard for me? Because this is going to, this is now changing everything I ever believed about them. If that's the reason, well, okay, good. This is a great starting place for you. This is great. So that's your answer. I would say to that person, I believe 100% that George Washington was doing what his parents did, what his grandparents did, what they did, that still does not make it right. And that still does not make it disappear. That still does not make all the pain disappear. I can only fathom if we were to go back and have a conversation with his slaves, that they wouldn't be like, you know what, this is just what white people think. You know, like, like we need to give them, just give them a pass, celebrate them for the next 200 years. And in 200 years, when you guys start to figure out this is

bad, then you can start. No, no, no, no, no. It was horrible back then, but that doesn't make him a horrible human being holistically. We have to continue to hold everybody to the standard that we hold people to today. And it's hard and it's complicated and it's messy. And people, I just don't think, want to step into the mess. But it's going to be messy and it is okay. I love to play the little, you know, little patriotic music on Fourth of July. I love to sing the Star Spangled Banner.

I love hearing my friend Natalie Grant sing the Star Spangled Banner this weekend at the Seattle Seahawks game. My heart still swells when I hear that. But there are some messy things about the writer of the Star Spangled Banner. My heart swell when I hear it? No, but it is still messy. And we've got to be okay having these conversations, you know, because other people were affected. And if other people were affected, and if you do begin to build empathy in your heart, that empathy, if you start to practice empathy, that empathy is going to be the muscle that I think is going to allow you to maybe wrestle with some of your heroes from the past. That's a great example that by today's standards, none of us view anything positive that Hitler did, right? Like he's wholesale a bad character from history. And we look at the, you know, systematic extermination of millions of people as absolutely morally reprehensible. And we do not fear judging him by today's standards. Right. Right. We do not fear that. And yet we do, I think, have a different relationship to race in America than we do to something that was happening overseas. It was easy for us because we were not living in Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany, it's easy for us to just cast him as a historical bad guy, a man wearing black,

you know, metaphorical black. He's our opponent. We have to take him out. We have to end his reign of terror, right? Versus in America, where we have a, I mean, Germany has a complicated history with race, of course, but as, as descendants of people who fought the civil war, et cetera, et cetera, we have a differing viewpoint. And we also have more of an emotional connection. Absolutely. Characters from the past. And it raises questions in our own minds about, well, was what I taught wrong? Am I believing things that are harmful to other people?

What is my responsibility in something that happened hundreds of years ago? It's not a choice I would make, but am I now supposed to feel bad about something that somebody did hundreds of years ago? It's easy for us to put Hitler in a different category. It's harder for us to put other people in a category by today's standards. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. And gosh, you're so good at summarizing my thoughts because that is just it here in America. Listen, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I live in the South. People love the South. And I have to walk around with this complicated relationship with a lot of things that I see here because I'm living inside of it. And I do think that in a hundred, 200 years, we may get to the place where we're like, you know what? That was

absolutely reprehensible. What some of these founding fathers, their actions were, how they treated black people from another race. And we may get to the place, but the fact that it's taking so long, that troubles me every day, Sharon, it troubles me. And I still can find those things morally reprehensible. And also believe that when I hear, you know, the little patriotic, you know, whistles and songs, and I hear a speech that somebody is reading, pretending to be read the declaration of independence, I think, oh, you know what? They had a good idea. And, and that, that idea and that experiment called America was actually a good idea. Thank you for that idea, but no, thank you for how you treated people while you were pulling that idea off. And I think that's okay. It is okay to not have everything sorted

out. Yeah. It's okay for things to be messy. It's okay to not have everything figured out and have a little bow put on it. That's the human experience. Yes, it absolutely is. Well, this is my sort of North star when people are asking me the question of like, how do you judge characters from the past against today's moral standards. And one of the questions that I find helpful is, did they know it was wrong in the past? And they did it anyway. Were there people against slavery in 1700s America? There sure were. Half the country was against it. It wasn't like some new scientific truth that was uncovered of like, we found out there are germs. What? You know, like it wasn't like they didn't truly did it. No. 1776 America. They didn't know about germs.

They didn't understand antibiotics that, that it is unfair to judge them by today's standards, right? Like all of our scientific discoveries, they didn't, how would they know? They truly did not have that knowledge. And yet they truly did have the knowledge that enslaving other humans was wrong. And they chose to do it anyway for other reasons. Just like people knew it was wrong to cheat on their wives and did it anyway.

Right? But it was 1790. Right, right. It's not like they didn't know it was wrong to cheat on their wives and did it anyway. Right. Like, but it was 1790. Right. Right. It's not like they didn't know it was wrong. Have you not seen Hamilton? Have you not heard about the Reynolds pamphlet? They knew that was wrong then too.

Just like they knew it was wrong to enslave people and chose to do it anyway. Just like Hamilton knew it was wrong to cheat on Eliza. I did it anyway. That's right. That's right. Oh, that is good for the day. That is my let's go for the day. Just like Hamilton knew it was wrong to cheat on Eliza. I did it anyway. That's right. That's right. Oh, that is good. My high horse for the day.

That is my high horse for the day. No, well, it's for your day, but yeah, no, it is. I'll let that be your high horse for the day. This is my Instagram square for the day. There's your Instagram square. Everybody, please, please share DM for collab. DM for collabs. No, absolutely don't.

I will never see it. Tell everybody where to find you so that they can go follow you. Yeah. Come find me at Loswith, L-O-S-W-H-I-T on Instagram. Unless you're listening to this in 2027, where I prophesied that there will be no Instagram. You can just go to my website, carloswhittaker.com with two Ts. Thank you so much. I always love to see you. Love you, friend. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you.

And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review, or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.