Let's Find Common Ground - Anti-Racism: Fighting Bigotry With Love. Chloé Valdary

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Love is a central force in mitigating conflict, says writer and entrepreneur Chloé Valdary. She founded the diversity and inclusion training company, The Theory of Enchantment, and has a unique take on how we can heal racial division and hatred inside organizations and across American society.  Chloé developed a program for "compassionate anti-racism" that combines social-emotional learning (SEL), character development and interpersonal growth as tools for leadership development in businesses and the workplace. She calls her method "an anti-racism program that actually fights bigotry instead of spreading it." Her three principles of enchantment are: "Treat people like human beings not political extractions", "Criticize to lift up and empower, never to tear down and destroy," and "Root everything you do in love and compassion." This episode is an edited version of a conversation first recorded for Village SquareCast, produced by The Village Square. Both Let's Find Common Ground and Village SquareCast are members of The Democracy Group podcast network. 

Today, we're sharing an episode first recorded by another podcast. This interview comes from Village Squarecast, which is made by a local group in Tallahassee, Florida, called The Village Square. Every year, they organise a series of meetings and events that bring people together and build connections among citizens of different ideological, racial, ethnic and religious divisions. The podcast we'll hear next is an example of that. of different ideological, racial, ethnic, and religious divisions. The podcast we'll hear next is an example of that. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite. And I'm Richard Davies.

We'll be hearing shortly from Chloe Valdery, a 30-year-old African-American entrepreneur and public speaker who came up with an anti-racism training method she calls the theory of enchantment. It's been used in businesses and schools and it takes a different approach for most programs centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Chloe says her practice fights bigotry instead of spreading it.

Chloe has held training sessions around the world, including in South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, and the US. The theory of enchantment includes three core principles. One, treat people like human beings, not political extractions. Two, criticize to lift up an empower, never to tear down and destroy.

And her third principle, root everything you do in love and compassion. Here's Chloe Valdery in conversation with Javita Woodrich of the group, Volunteer Florida. My name is Chloe Valdery. I'm 29 years old. I created the right camera. I'm 29 years old. I created the right jamming. I'm just kidding, that's great.

I created, not at all 30. I created a theory of enchantment about three years ago as an attempt to really revitalize the diversity and inclusion space and really infuse it with an orientation towards love. And we, at the Ravenchantment, believe that bigotry, that prejudice comes from very specific experiences that we as human beings have. We believe that if we experience scarcity, especially of a psychological nature, then we don't have the right tools to deal with that scarcity.

So we're feeling, let's say, a lack of self-worth, then we have a tendency to overcompensate by projecting our own sense of inadequacy and insecurity onto the other. And we do this to defend ourselves, we do this to feel better about ourselves, but it obviously results in very damaging outcomes. And so in order to undo that and to fix that really, we need to enter into the habit and the practice of getting in right relationship catch ourselves. We can catch what we start to project those insecurities, we can catch what we start to project aspects or perceptions of ourselves, even onto the other in an instance of

stereotyping. And there are three principles that undergird or underpin this approach. The first principle is treat people like human beings, not political abstractions. Second principle is like human beings, not political abstractions. Second principle is criticize in order to uplift an empower, not to tear down or destroy. And the third principle is try to do everything you do in love and compassion. So can I say treat people like human beings, am I supposed to do that even if they're wrong? Yeah. And the fact, especially, especially when they're wrong, because being wrong is a part of being human. So it's not outside the human experience. Right.

And facts, everything that could ever possibly be perceived by the human being or be acted upon by the within the human context is human. And we forget that so easily because we want to separate ourselves from it because we want to say this is not us. This is something other. This is something aliens. This is something foreign. But in fact, it's all a part of what it needs to be human. So yeah, that's where the hard part comes in. And so when you, because I think that semantics are huge in this space, well, in general, when we're talking about any sort of whether the hierarchy is socioeconomic, race, anything, when you say other, honestly, for me, as I was listening to you and even in the midst of me trying so hard to think critically about things and engage my heart.

When I think other, I immediately think the majority is the other. So let's define other as in terms relative to what typically people sort of use other as. I was actually thinking about this today, how we we sort of put into this broad category, we say the marginalize, right, which made people on the margin, right? That's what it actually means. But the thing about that concept is that is by definition relative, right? It's related to whoever is not on the margins in a given context. Right. So it's not like a specific group of people are born within a Nate marginalization this, right?

It's relative to their treatment in a given context. So yes, you can have a situation in a context where the people of color are being, let's say not ostracized. And white people are being ostracized for being white, right? In that context, they are on the margin because again, it's a relative term. But of course, vice versa, you can have, and we have had situations, many situations where people of color are ostracized and the people doing the ostracization are white.

So it's a relative term. this is very very important to understand in the sense that what we do when we project is we see, let's say if I'm projecting an insecurity that I have onto another human being, I am seeing that human in a caricatured way. Now when I say caricatured, I want you to think of the word object. When we see another human being in such a concrete, objectified way, we are denying the mystery that lies within what it means to be. And so I think that when we see any one group of people as marginalized, what we don't realize we're doing is we're objectifying. We're turning that group of people into an object.

So the other component, and I know I would never ask you to expound on this in the way it's probably going to come out. But when we talk about human beings and human beings versus a political extraction, right? So we could do human beings for hours and hours and hours or thousands of years. But if that's going to be part of our principle, what are some of the things you would kind of define in that way versus political extraction. So my sense is that when I speak about a political abstraction, it's the characterization of that is it comes with that quality of objectification, objectifying someone, putting them in a box of denying the mystery,

for the purpose of political gain. And I think we're in a moment specifically in the United States where this is sort of, you know, not even in the atmosphere. It's like in the water. More sort of everything is seen through a political lens in the sense that every one is seen as a utility through which to gain power in a political context.

And that is defeating the purpose of the first principle. And what we mean when we say human being because to be a human being is to be complex. And not just complex, but and this is something I've been sitting with for recently. It should be unknowable to a certain extent. And this is a part of like individualism that I think has gotten lost. What we mean when we talk about the sacredness of what it means to be an individual.

The reason why, one of the reasons why being an individual is so sacred is because of that mystery. There's a kind of unknowability in the very fabric of being itself. When you forget that or perhaps when you've never known that, perhaps when you've never realized that about your own self, you can be tempted to reduce, in the way that you see others, you can be tempted to reduce people. Do this very narrow lens. And by reducing you're abstracting. You are not being in touch with that beautiful richness.

Right. That is on a on a fundamental level, ungraspable. That would be how what I would offer at the structure. No, and thank you, and that is so rich and so powerful because I think we use terms like love and other and human and an action in ways that sometimes either come across as a cliche or don't represent the work that you represent and are trying to share. And so I think just establishing a little bit of that groundwork helps. And we think about what we're entering into as we have this conversation. It's that each of us have that mystery and it's not just in a way that may feel

it is ungraspable, but it is weighty as well. At the same time, that's exactly. Yes, exactly. I'm going to step back out a little bit just to the theory of enchantment. You wrote looking for an anti-racism program that actually fights bigotry instead of spreading it. And I do want to be primarily proactive about it, but that means looking at what you have learned from in order to get to where you are because it's all a journey and a learning

process. What was going on that you had a sense in the D.E.I. space was was not hitting the nail when it comes to truly moving forward. Yeah. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that. What you mean by spreading it versus not when it comes to D.E.I. anti-racism. Yeah, that's a juicy question.

I know. So my background is in international studies. I have a degree in international studies. My focus in college was the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I had an amazing degree, an amazing education shout out to University of New Orleans, incredible, incredible experience.

And I found that it was interesting that there was an absence of a conversation about love and talking about how to mitigate conflict. And so after I graduated, I moved to New York from New Orleans originally, worked with the Wall Street Journal, worked on the thesis, basically attempting to tease out love as a central force in trying to mitigate conflict. And I did that. I wrote the paper, worked for a nonprofit for two years, basically refining it again, still within the context of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And after that, I didn't know what to do. And I had been told a lot of people and some people were like,

this is applicable to so many things, why don't you try to bring it to high schools as a social emotional learning program. And so in 2019, that's basically what I try to do. Now, I have learned that the school system is, I mean, it's context dependent, but it's rife with webs of, often rife with webs of bureaucracy. And you know, it's very difficult to get a curriculum into a school, but you know, I was, I was trying my best. And then 2020, this ends upon us. So I had done the curriculum.

The curriculum was full of gems. It was full of people like Dr. King and Maya Angelou and all of these incredible minds and thinkers. 2020 descends upon us and you know, there's COVID. So that's the big, that's the first thing. So people are locked down, isolated, feeling alienated, disconnected. And then the summer of 2020 descends upon us.

And we have Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and all of this new interest in anti-racism diversity and inclusion. At this time, I was giving different interviews, showing up on different podcasts, speaking about the work I was doing, and all of a sudden, companies started reaching out to me. And they were like, this is an anti-racism program. And it's different from the anti-racism program or the diversity and inclusion program that has been brought into our space. Interesting. And so that is really when I started to see the difference between what I was bringing to the table and what other folks are bringing to the table. What other folks are bringing to the table was a kind of, I would say, a type of program that causes separation between people and causes

division between people. I don't think it's purposeful. I don't think that people who are doing this are doing this on purpose. I don't think it's intentional. I think the people who are advancing these ideas like Abraham X Kindi and Robin D'Angelo are genuine in their desire to advance a good future for the United States of America for the future of race relations. But I think that they're still responding out of scarcity. Dr. Kindis, for example, who promotes this idea of equity in his book, how to be an anti-racist. And I believe I'm correct when I say that equity in his sort of vocabulary

is defined as equality of outcomes, essentially. Now to remind us all of the first principle of free people like human beings, that political abstractions, because of the inherent mystery, or rather the mystery that is inherent and it's what it means to be a human being itself. It is impossible, it is impossible to create a reality in which all people experience the same outcomes. It is not only impossible, but to try and do so would actually degrade the richness of what it means to be human being. And there's a paradox involved in

this, right? Because when you, when obviously we want to alleviate the suffering of others, right? Obviously, we want to come to a place in our society where those who are on the margins, whoever they may be, have a, have something to catch them, right? Have a net to catch them. We want to be the side of society where we take care of each other, right? But that is a very different paradigm from saying we want to have the same outcome. Chloe Valdery speaking with Jovita Woodridge. We're sharing edited extracts from Village Squarecast. I'm Richard.

I'm Ashley. During July and August, let's find common ground as taking a break from recording new episodes and we'll share episodes that were published previously. This one is from Village Squarecast. Like us, they're a member of the Democracy Group, a network of podcasts about civic engagement and ways to strengthen our democracy. Now more from Chloe Valdorey.

We pick up on another one of the three principles in her training method, the Theory of Enchantment. If you look at that second principle about criticized to uplift, to lift up and empower, never to tear down and destroy. I bet there are people who say to you, that's not possible. If it's criticism, then it is tearing down and destroying.

So like if you were gonna think about that the idea of constructive criticism, the idea of what it does mean to criticize, to lift up. If you have some examples of that, obviously, with that foundation of love, which is a hard thing. Examples, I think, people would appreciate, and then also just, how can you empower through criticism? It just does not.

We don't see a whole lot of it happening that way. I think that a lot of this actually, to be able to criticize in order to uplift another human being, you actually have to be able to do that to yourself. Yeah. And I find that that's the hardest, that's actually the hardest part for all of us, is to, you know, the late great Buddhist monk, Tiktok Han, who was nominated for a Nobel Prize by Dr. Kean, talks about how if you're, let's say I'm angry, and I don't wanna be angry,

I don't like the feeling of being angry, talks about holding your anger with loving kindness. I'm not trying to suppress it, not trying to repress it, but just hold it, just nurture it, just be with it. And so I think that there's a way in which that practice of self critique, but from that compassionate lens or through that compassionate lens, that actually enables you to open up towards the other

in such a way that when problems arise or when challenges arise, that you feel needs to be critiques, you can do so while still maintaining loving awareness and presence. This is very difficult. This is very difficult. It requires practice.

It requires daily practice. Daily practice. I am by no means an expert. I will likely never be an expert because when I feel offended, I feel it somatically. I feel it in the body. Yes. Is there a practice that we can adopt? And I certainly have been exposed to some of them

where you learn to actually notice tension in the body and be with tension in the body. So I think that the first start is actually that practice. We have a game in the theory of enchantment, the 90 minute sprint where we asked people to ask themselves, who am I for three minutes silently. And to be honest with themselves about the good and the bad. And to write down everything that comes to them

and for everything that comes to them, silently states it's to themselves, thank you. That is so hard. It is. Are you only asking the individuals who are white in your workshops to do the sex or sex? You know the answer already. You know this. You know the answer to this question. And that is I want to hit home this, you know, the answer to this question. I don't have to do it. And that is I want to hit home this, you know, and I, I think we can kind of go to this point too, in terms of what it actually looks like when you're doing this, that these hard things you're talking about, because I think pretty much everything that we have talked about, we have barely really talked about race or any of the kind of more divisive things that are have put these rips into our

democracy and into who we are and our our true ability to connect with one another. But part of this is even as I'm listening to you, I will have this subconscious thought in my brain that moves me towards a certain side or not because of the things that are entrenched. So part of my like duh here is because I'm trying to break through even as we're chatting, thinking like, oh yeah, those folks

have a lot of hard work to do. Yeah. So everything you're talking about, I have to, even in this, our time together, constantly remind myself that you were talking to me. And I'm talking to me. Right. I'm talking to me. Right. I think that's very, very, very important to note, like when we stereotype the other as a, the not being the better persons, right? We forget those moments when we weren't the better person, right? Because the thing about stereotyping is people often think of stereotyping only in a negative connotation. Right. Right. But like if I stereotyp someone as perfect, whatever that means, that's perfect. That's still an active dehumanization. Yeah. When I start to type someone as

as, you know, having all these great qualities. I'm denying the fact that these qualities are also within me. Right? So every active stereotype is not just a a attack if you will on the other person is also a degradation of yourself. And this is why Dr. King talked about the mutuality. How everything is interconnected. This is also why the Lion King, up culture shout out, circle of life, right? Everything is connected under the sun. This is not just like a like, you know, cute thing for young people. It is a deep profound wisdom

that we as a species have yet to internalize. That takes a lot of practice and patience with ourselves to internalize. But I think that once a person internalizes it, the way you start to see, both yourself and the other, right, is completely transformed. And there I say, it is enchanted. I see what you did there. I see what you did there. Now I want to, can you, can you share just real quickly what and then we're gonna kind of backtrack a little bit, but when you talk about, because these concepts are broad, they are lifelong because we are human.

It encompasses the fact that we have human limitations so we're not able to execute these things. You know, so in my head perfection could be executing, executing your three principles correctly all the time, right? Like it could look a whole lot of different ways which will dehumanize in a different way. But when you are doing a workshop and you've got these three principles

and you're sitting there, you're hearing some probably really interesting things based on some of the other DEI principles and other spaces. You've got individuals who are white, who are black, who are other, not other capital, but who have a variety of different backgrounds. What does that look like?

And what can people kind of wrap their heads around who are listening right now in terms of, what do you do when you get these folks in a room. That's a great question. So we have two different day orientations. We have the 90 minute sprint and then we have like a full day workshop. Perhaps it'll be easiest to go through the 90 minute sprint just like broadly speaking. We start with the who-at- I practice. Right. And then we go on to a question in query, something like, what does your vision of a racially harmonious future look like? It's a discussion. So we have that discussion and then I say, well, what are you seeing? It stops us from getting there. And inevitably, words like fear come up or a big one,

which is the central piece actually, is fear of the unknown. I ask people, what's another word for the unknown? I'll ask you, what's another word for the unknown? Okay, well, I was like, yes, I can't wait for her to mention this rhetorical, I was like, yes, I can't wait for her to mention this rhetorical, you know, I think mystery is right, is is is a powerful word, although we use that one a lot. And I think sometimes people think mystery means solve potentially solvable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah which is a lot of fun. You know, I think just based on my faith that mystery has a more of a that unknown, mm-hmm, um, component to it, um, I have adjectives that I could put to unknown, like terrifying, and scary, and a bit, you know, and now like a bis. I like this because we play this game, We see what people, words associations are. And only a few times the word that I then have on my next slide comes up. And that word is darkness. Specifically, we, and let's call it the West,

because of our fear of the unknown, fear of the dark. We associate the darkness with things like evil and with impurity and the light, with goodness. And so we have this split. We like to split the human beings, right? Yes, we do. And then I move to, so what, how do we do with this?

We have to make peace with our own darkness and we have to become integrated essentially. And this is a term that, as you know, has a lot of cultural, yes, residents, history, clout, and our nation's history. But the beautiful thing, one of the unique things about the Civil Rights Movement was that it wasn't merely seeking integration on a societal level. It understood, those leaders understood that society cannot integrate unless the human being individually is also integrated, also knows how to be in right relationship with themselves, also knows how to show nurture for their dark sides and their light sides. The integration is where the word integrity comes from.

What these words have lost their power, we're trying to revivify them. So I talk about the culture and the history, and then we go into a few exercises that are really about teasing out that first principle. Where we, as participants start to see what it means to be human, what we need to live and thrive as human

beings, what happens when we don't have those things, our in scarce moments, and how we, what we do in scarcity and times of scarcity, our default mechanism is just split. It's to say all of this over here is good, all of this over here is bad. Right, it's not integrated. So we go through these practices and these exercises and it's sort of populated with pop culture references to also help along the way. That's the general 90-minute sprint. And then in the full day workshop, we do that plus the other two principles.

We bring in stoic practices because we're trying to alter the lens to which we see the world which can only happen by altering the lens to which we see ourselves. Chloe Valbrie in conversation with Jovita Woodridge. Here a longer version of the 90 minute event at the Village Squarecast website. You'll find it at villagesquare.us. And this is a two-way street. They also shared one of our recent episodes with Ted Johnson about different ways to think of patriotism. Thank you Liz Joyner and everyone at the Village Square who were involved in recording the conversation with Chloe Valdery. Learn more about Chloe at our website, commongroundcommittee.org slash podcasts. Bye, Ashley.

I'm Richard and thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.