Sense of Soul - Systemic Racism and Critical Race Theory

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast,  we have with us the host of Systemic: a podcast about race, Dan Kimbrough he is an Award-winning documentary and visual media producer. An experienced and passionate educator that has taught courses ranging from basic video production to mobile journalism. Successfully overhauled and designed various media production and broadcast facilities.  Dan’s podcast “Systemic, a podcast about race”, explores the aspects of race and racism in America. His goal is to educate and explain the intertwining of race as a systemic part of American culture. Dan shares topics of Slavery, Critical Race Theory to his own personal life experiences. In this episode Dan breaks that shit down so that we all have a better understanding of Critical Race Theory and Systemic Racism. We share Dan’s hope to enlighten and drive Amercans to help work towards an anti-racist future. https://parkmultimedia.com Find Dan’s wonderful podcast Systemic and learn more about him at his website. www.dankimbrough.com Follow Dan’s Journey at his Twitter and Linkden below  @dankimbrough  Linkden Don’t forget to rate, follow and leave us a comment! You can listen to the EXTENDED VERSION of this episode AD FREE on Patreon and NOW on Sense of Soul Patreon listen to Shanna’s mini-series about her ancestral journey, “Untangled Roots” and Mande’s mini series about her two NDE’s has begun.  https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul NEW!! SENSE OF SOUL’S NETWORK OF LIGHTWORKERS! Announcing our Amazing Affliate, Kelle Sparta aka The Spirit Doctor and her amazing programs, you can sign up here through Sense of Soul. https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page Visit us at www.mysenseofsoul.com

Hi Sense of Soul listeners, this is Kelly Sparta. If you are someone who has been interested in being a healer and you're on your healing path and you want to be a better healer, before you go out and take that next certification program, please stop and take a look at the program that I have for you about up leveling yourself as a healer. You can find it by using the link in the show notes or by going to mysenseofsoul.com and check out why it is important to do your inner work before you worry about getting more certifications. Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Dan Kimbrough. He is an award-winning documentary and visual media producer, an experienced educator that has taught courses ranging from basic video production to mobile journalism, successfully overhauled and designed various media production and broadcast facilities. He is also the host of

the podcast Systemic, a podcast about race, where Dan explores the aspects of race and racism in America. His goal is to educate and explain the intertwining of race as a systemic part of American culture. I listened to Dan's podcast. I have learned so much. I was inspired to send Dan my ancestry miniseries called Untangled, and I invited him on to share his wisdom. Mandy and I are so excited to have this conversation today with Dan and also releasing this on Martin Luther King's Day and do our part in helping towards an anti-racist future for all of us.

Dan, thank you so much for joining us. It is such a pleasure and honor to have you on. Hello, nice to meet you, finally. Thank you for the invite. Yeah, you know, oftentimes when I'm trying to help people understand about systemic racism or when I'm going through my own journey with my ancestry, which you read, which you. who for one is African-American for two has experience and some knowledge that is their passion to share because I know for Mandy and I both we could talk about certain things that maybe even were educated on but it's the things that we're most passionate about that we really

reach people and I felt like your podcast is one of those. Thank you. When it comes to, yeah, the name of it, systemic. And so I have sent it out to people because I really feel like you do a great job, episode by episode, really explaining that. And also in a way that people can understand because it's it's i think a very difficult subject especially if you didn't even know it existed right no thank you thank you that's that's that's the majority of the feedback that i get is that you said it in a way that i understand it and i didn't feel attacked which not that i wanted to attack anyone but like those

weren't the goals from the outset. It was just, here's the information. And so I thank you for saying that. And I've, I've sort of, that's been the, the March going forward for this year is remembering to keep it that way. So that it's accessible to everybody. And you know, that word attack, it's interesting. You brought up that word.

I was having a conversation with someone that was feeling attacked by something yesterday. And I always go back to that when you feel attacked, it's a spot within yourself where you need healing and where you need education and you need more knowledge. So if someone does listen and they feel attacked, then that's is a sign that you should even more dive in to the topic and learn more. Agreed. Yeah. And actually, that's how I ended up finding that I would want to learn more about systemic racism in the first place. You know, I definitely grew up white in Colorado at that.

Yes, having roots in Louisiana. My mom is one of seven. So definitely, you know, Louisiana, New Orleans is my home. It's where my soul belongs. But when I did my ancestry, a lot changed for me. I mean, I was looking for this. It landed in my lap. You know, we do have these powerful movements, but this is for me, it's not a movement. It was a journey that I started well before George Floyd died tragically in front of America, which then seemed to affect others, which was interesting to me because prior to that, I really only had Mandy to talk to about it or the kids that would

come over sometimes saying something about it on my podcast as i was going through it i felt like not a lot of people were talking about it then all of a sudden everyone wanted to talk about it and i'm like wow okay we're waking up that's a good thing but like i said it became you know when when you're passionate about something you do, you want to use your voice. It naturally happens within your soul. Like your soul just starts to emerge in the forefront. And it's like, we're going to speak, we're going to use this body, this vehicle and your heart to connect with others. Yeah. Yeah. That's one thing I love about podcasting and audio is if I feel like it's a lot easier to do that and sort of really sort of get to the heart of someone, like they can take it with you and just sort of really dive in and hear. And I think that's the passion of people's voices. Like even when listening to yours, the struggle that you were having going through that and learning all these things and, and you could hear it in your voice of what in the world is going on in my life right now,

but still trying to pressure through and figure out all those things. And so, no, I agree 100%. I'm still in my journey, but I do want to share the way that I see it in my perception, in my eyes. It is systemic. So to kind of have a better understanding about this, can you explain what that word means?

Well, I mean, systemic, it means it's part of a system. It's integral. It's part of it's how things are made up. And so when we look at systemic racism, it's understanding that if you go back to 1619 and even before and looking at the history of this land, you know, that racism and oppression and discrimination are literally sort of woven into the fabric of how this country was built and how many countries are built. So like America is not the only one that has a systemic problem when it comes to race, indifference and oppression. very early on, codified it, made it as part of law, and wove it into the literal fabric of how the country was being ruled, who could own land and property, which in America, owning land and property is what gave you value for numerous years. And so systemic racism, for me, is this idea that it's sort of the way that we have to stop and recalibrate how we think about this country. And that if we want to actually

move forward, we finally, I think, and we talk about George Floyd in 2020, and sort of everyone was captivated because you couldn't go anywhere, right? You're in the middle of pandemic, everyone sort of glued to social media and watching TV. And for once, you know, you really have this captive audience, which you haven't had media-wise for years. And you see this happen. And it really starts these questions because not only are you, you you're stuck at home, but you're stuck at home with your family. It's not like you're at work with the people who have the backroom chatter, where you would blow it off or things of this nature, like your kids saw this, your wife, your significant other, husband, whoever, everyone saw this. And so it gave us a moment in time where we were all paying

attention. And that's what I think is the recent catalyst in it. But for us to move forward, there is a lot of work and shadow work and deep digging and all these things that need to be done in this country and powers that be have been able to shield us from doing that work for a very long time. And you talked about the idea of movement. And I think movements are good. If you go back, if you look at the civil rights movement and look at that as an era, like there is sort of a cap on that civil rights era, right? That movement sort of served its purpose. And I think now we're at a point where there's a new movement starting.

I don't know if we have a full name for it yet. Yeah, evolve. Evolve, right, you know, and so hopefully we evolve out of this, but it's this notion that, you know, a lot of the work that was done in the 50s, 60s, 70s was amazing work, but a lot of that work just sort of said, we're here, like you have to recognize us. If you literally think of what sit-ins were, it was taking up space. And that was great 50 years ago, but we've moved to a point now where it's no longer taking up space. It is now listen to what I have to say, hear my voice. Gen Z has done in their movements, like walking out of school or Black Lives Matter, you go and compare the statistics of how many people they were able to collect as children, because most of them are

under 24 years old, compared to the civil rights movement back then, we're talking they were minuscule. Right now, the generations are speaking right now a massive and i think there's a lot of friction because of that you know so like i've got a 10 year old who is continuously yelling at his teacher whenever they've split the class into boys and girls why does gender matter how we split up the classroom right like he's 10 and this is the conversations he's having right he's a very special they are you know but like he's having, right? He's a very special. They are, you know, but like, he's arguing about, you know, the idea of gender identity. And you know, that why do we need to separate the class into boys and girls, there's numerous other ways we can separate it, right? He's 10. And like,

you're right. So generations are doing because that's a 10 year old in school doing that. But you do see 20 year olds who are really sort of picking up all sorts of movements and moving forward. And you still have an older generation who is saying, look at what we've created, you know, like we sort of got this ball rolling. But I think also there's a lot of friction still, because that older generation for them, pushing the line was taking up space. Well, we've moved beyond taking up space, we're walking out of school, right? We're stopping in streets, but doing it in a way that's much different than a march that was in the 50s and 60s. Like we're using our bodies and our voices to do a lot more. And I think that there's friction

generationally because of that, because it's like, whoa, you've gone way too far. And it's like, no, you went too far 50 years ago, but you set the bar. So for us to make an impact, we've got to go even further now. And that's a good thing, right? That's actual momentum in moving this forward. So I think in each moment that we look throughout history, there's always that bar being pushed a little bit further and further, but social media and the way youth are energized and all these things, it's moved three, four, five fold now. You know, it's not what was sort of projected as what was going to happen.

And a lot of that was the pandemic as well. Again, everyone was at home watching these things happen and unfold before our eyes. And it was like, well, wait, well, there was Ahmaud Arbery and then you've got George Floyd. The list could go on and on, right? But it's like, you're seeing them all happen at the beginning of 2020.

And then Juneteenth comes up and it's like, here's this reckoning that we have a race problem in America. And then everyone was like, whoa, what the hell is Juneteenth? And it was like, this is the start of understanding critical race theory, right? Understanding that there's an actual holiday that is based on the last day a slave found out that they were freed, which was not at the end of the Civil War. Well, what do you freed which was not at the end of the civil war well what do you mean it wasn't at the end of the civil war well guess what some folks didn't want to give up free labor and you start all this cognitive dissonance well no no my history book

said slavery ended this day what is this juneteenth nonsense well your history books are wrong well and your mom in one of the episodes with your mother she wasn't even learning like history so i mean yeah that wasn't even taught in schools that sometimes loved that episode thank you thank you thank you i really loved a lot yeah and you know speaking about family um you brought up your son he sounds like a a strong force i it'd be fun to follow him is Was this innate? Is this from watching daddy? And, you know, I would be curious,

what was Dan like as a 10 year old? We didn't get to hear that. No, Dan is a 10 year old. Both my, I was talking about his mom's an English professor. We both, you know, when we were together, we were at the same university and she's very progressive in sort of what she wants to do with the women's movement and sort of women's

liberation and fighting for women's rights. And then I mirror that as well with numerous different movements and things. And so from us as parents, whichever house he's in, he's always hearing a progressive view. And then about all, you know, our friends in our circles are very sort of diverse as well. You know, if we're going somewhere, it's no, it's not odd for my son to run into one of my trans friends or run into someone who's, you know, indigenous or someone who doesn't speak English and like, that's his world. But I

think that's also the world for a lot of kids today. You know, when we talk about why this is a three, four, five fold sort of movement forward, Most kids aren't going to school today where it's an all white or all black or all this, like everyone's around you who is different and evolving in sort of real time. And so, so I think that's where he gets a lot of it. He's just sort of, he's a sponge, but he's very, he's super smart. And so just the way his mind works, he sort of has caught on to, oh, well, you being that way and you being that way makes you no different than me. It's just, you know, one or two things. And so he really sort of gets and understands that. I remember when my nine-year-old, well, it was during 2020, so she had to have been seven. I

think must've been the first time she heard Black Lives Matter, maybe. I don't know, because of the protest. And her best friend that she has had since she was nine months old okay baby is african-american my daughter was so confused yeah and that this is when i was going through my journey and this is one of the things that i learned was very important that i needed to tell her so sometimes people want to protect and i think that that's kind of a um generational thing maybe the boomers were trying to protect all the time and didn't want to share you know the tragic history but the thing is is that she needed to understand that and she needed to understand also that her little friend probably gets treated maybe differently or will be treated differently sometime because of the color of her skin because she's a little

bit darker than mine i mean and that's basically what she needed to understand. Cause she literally came up to me and said, well, why wouldn't their lives matter? Right. And those things are taught though, right? Like for a child, unless you have been told that this person is different than you for some reason, why would you believe that they are any different than you? Right. Like, I remember as a kid going to someone's house and like, you have a refrigerator too? Does everyone have a refrigerator?

Like, what kids' minds work is like, their world is their world. And like, until there's some sort of dissonance that tells them something different, they just assume everyone sort of works the same way and everyone does the same things. And it doesn't matter what color your skin and all those things. It's just cool with all the little things. I up with my mom because of my mom's history we like being told stories of my mom's childhood like a parent would do we're taught we were always taught about the civil rights movement and when I was a little bit after I was 10 my mom met her actual birth father so she grew up not knowing who her dad was. And so when she was 40, she met him

and then sort of my family expanded. And my one aunt was the youngest person to march with King on Bloody Sunday. And like, has written a book about it and there's been a play about it. And her and her older sister, when they were younger, both marched with King on Bloody Sunday. And so like in my family,

when we talk about the civil rights movement, there's an actual connection for us because like my mom marched and was jailed. You know, my two aunts that I met when I was older found out that like they were there and Selma, you know, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They both still do speak and work in these things. And so that was sort of my childhood mirrored against the first time I was called the N-word. I was in kindergarten, you know, and it was a kid who was a friend of mine who was like, Hey, did you know that you're an N? And I was like, what? I had no clue what the word meant, but you know, I went home and told my

mother, Hey little, I don't remember the kid's name. So that was this. And like, I remember clearly the look of fear, terror, and disgust in her eye as she read me the riot act because she was so angry, but I was the only person in front of her. But she read me the riot act because she was so angry but i was the only person in front of her but she explained she goes if anyone ever says this to you again you let me know this is not true this word was ignorant blah blah blah and you know the next day i come to find out she worked with this kid's mom so that did not end well but it was his dad who said it because his mom showed up at my kindergarten to apologize and his dad never got out of the car and it was one of those looking back oh that's who it was like it wasn't that my

friend in kindergarten was racist it was that in that household his dad used the n-word all the time and at some point he'd refer to me as the n-word and a kid being a sponge with no context of understanding what that meant of of course, the next day, hey, my dad said you're this, right? And so when we think about how kids operate, like they're sponges. If you find people who are in elementary, you know, young adults who are that way, it's coming from home. So when we go back to talking about generation, like we still have that work to do.

I come from a family that's very open and accepting and non-prejudice and wants to fight discrimination, but that's my family, right? I can't speak for other kids' families, other people's families and what their kids are being filtered through. And so, you know, but that was my journey was that, you know, I ran run-ins with police my entire childhood. The day before I graduated, I got pulled over for robbing my mom's work when picking her up from work. And because I drove in, I drove past the cop because they were already

looking for the person. And they pulled a gun and told me to get out of the car with my mom sitting there. My mom was like, what did you do? And I was like, I came to pick you up from work. And the guy was 6'6", like 210 pounds in a blue shirt. in high school was still playing football but I was 510 probably 280 like we did not I didn't fit any description but it was a black guy in a car in the parking lot and they approached me with guns drawn right and I have a litany of stories in that realm and so like for me this work and that passion comes from, I've lived it all, right? There's not a topic that I've discussed or things that are happening in the world that I haven't been through. And to see a George Floyd or Sandra Bland or whoever, or whoever, whoever, like

in a split second, that's me at any point in time in life, because I've been in that car, in that situation. You're speaking from experience experience and the scary thing that i think a lot of people are finally realizing in 2020 is that it is a split-second decision that can determine whether it's you that is the name that's being memorialized or you telling the story of what happened to you like it's not one of those you had to have done something so egregious right like we have people who are telling the cops i'm a registered gun owner there is a gun in the car i'm illegally allowed to have it and before the sentence is over they're shot and killed i mean elijah mcclain he was here in our city i mean you know he was a massage therapist in my case i mean that was just yeah yeah it's almost like

a lot of children also can become racist without even having knowledge that they are it's almost like a lot of children also can become racist without even having knowledge that they are. It's almost subliminal because of what they're seeing. You know, like in my home, it wasn't talked about. It just was not talked about. Neither was religion. My parents just kind of stayed, you know, like let you live and learn for yourself. You know, we had one African-American family in our neighborhood.

That was it. At school, we were definitely totally separate, which is insane to think of that happening, you know, in 1994. I mean, the African Americans are at one end of the hall, you know, looking back at that just absolutely blows my mind. But it's sad to me that I really was never taught to kind of sit and think about that. And when I had to get real honest with myself and think, Mandy, are you racist? I think, well, I don't think. My answer was yes.

And the reason my answer was yes was not because I chose to be. I almost feel like subliminally through the society I was raised in, I was brought up this way. It's like my bias test. I took it and I was devastated. So in my training, I always tell people, I'm not saying that you are racist. I'm saying that your actions are racist or they're rooted in racism. And this is where circling back to critical race theory, why critical race theory is important. Critical race theory is not even being taught in schools. It's a legal theory that you only get to

when you're working on a PhD, but understanding actual history and understanding sort of the meaning behind these things. This is why it's important because people aren't talking about it. When I grew up, people used to tell me all the time, Oh, you're so you're such an articulate young man. I never understood what they were saying was that for a black guy, you can actually speak the English language, right? Like there's those little things that are microaggressions, which people want to argue about, but but like it's one of those that when those things happen that's rooted in racism the person themselves isn't racist they're reflecting the world around them right it's expected and it's the expectation is that a young african-american

male especially growing up in the late 80s early 90 90s, with the backdrop of hip-hop sort of coming to rise and gangster rap and all these things, there's no way in the world that I could be articulate. There's no way in the world that I can communicate in a way that's not slang or robotics. And so, but that's that microaggression. It's the idea, oh, you are so well-spoken. You articulate very well. The person wasn't, and they may have been, they may have been racist, I don't know, but what they were saying was rooted in racism. And so the idea of that implicit bias, we reflect what we receive in the world. And so if you see others in your community, separating people, even if you don't subconsciously get what's going on consciously, subconsciously, with the black people there and the white people are over there, there's a reason they're separated. You're never going to question it because you're taught not to talk about it.

And the reasoning could be very well, very much, we don't want races intermingling because Black people are this or this, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Well, you'll never get there if you don't talk about it. And so I think that we have to have conversations with kids about what's going on in the world

and be willing to have the difficult ones and confront those things. Because if not, what happens is the generational and worldly sort of embedded racism moves to the next generation because we never stopped to confront it, which again is what I think that that's what needs to be done when we're looking at systemic racism is we have to start confronting these things very, very early on. Back to my son being crazy, his social studies book said Indians. And he was like, when are we going to get a book that at least says Native Americans? Like, if not Indigenous people, something that at least says Native Americans, right?

So for his generation of kids in 2020 and learning social studies in the fifth grade, the word Indians is still being used in their books. So until they get a book that course corrects them, they may graduate still calling Native Americans Indians, right? And so in this area, the Italian population, this area was sort of founded by Italians. And so like, we got Christopher Columbus statues all over this area. And it's very, it's a very hot button issue, because for most Italian Americans, that's their lightning rod is Christopher Columbus, which the entire story was fabricated, but no one wants to hear that when that's your lightning rod. You know, this is, this is our guy, it's Christopher Columbus, but there was a lot of tragedies and things that go into that.

And so in defending that they're not being racist towards indigenous populations, but their defense from their parents from their school from their community is rooted in that oppression and racism and so I think there always has to be a line drawn. grown up in. And unless someone's willing to call you out and check you on your implicit bias, how do you know what you're doing is wrong until it escalates to a point where someone's like, you're racist. What you just said was racist. And you're like, whoa. You get defensive. You know, I remember I discovered that I had this implicit bias. It didn't agree with my soul. So I had like these things that were put in my brain as a child that I'm watching, like I felt almost brainwashed in so many ways. And then my soul didn't agree. And I had like this battle, but I, I can't remember who said it, but racism it's multi-dimensional in many ways, right? Stems from generations. Our listeners know that my ancestors became

my biggest teachers. The history, the true history that I've never even knew existed, that happened here in America, that has never been taught in our history books, is what taught me. It sounds like your mom carried the stories, right, onto you. These helped you understand where you came from, you know, the strength in you. These things were denied for me because of race. And so I needed to find out why that was. How important are your ancestors to you? To me?

Oh, my family's in the middle of the world. Like, I'm a nomad. So I've lived all over the United States, but like we have a family reunion Labor Day weekend every year. And outside of about a five or six year gap where I was working really crazy hours, if I can get to Chicago, I'm in Chicago. I drove back from Seattle once because I couldn't get a flight. Drove to Chicago from Seattle to get back to the family reunion. Like that's my soul, right? And it's just being with them and being around them is something that I don't get to do often, but it is my connection to the rest of my family. And, you know, at two o'clock in the morning, after all the young ones have gone to bed and we're sitting upstairs still playing

spades and whoever gets a little too drunk and starts spilling beans. And it's like, tell us more, please. You know, those are the moments that I look back and remember as a kid, like those were the big things. And the episode you heard about my mom is a moments that I look back and remember as a kid, like those were the big things. And the episode you heard about my mom is a documentary that I've been working on for too long, but where I sort of explore a lot of those roots where understanding sort of the pain and the triumph of them growing up in lower Alabama, you know, their entire lives and the things that they went through, like they went to the doctor on Saturday mornings. And if you weren't seen by Sunday, when the doc closed, you couldn't come, you, you come back to the next weekend because you were black. Like that was the way it worked going to the doctor. And so for me, then understanding, like thinking of that, that's my mom and my family. And you sort of translate that to numerous families across the country. we have a lot of

issues in the Black community where we just don't go to the doctor for, right? Rub some dirt on it and you'll be fine, you know? I used to have ibuprofen, like we don't, that's a generational thing though where like our parents couldn't go to the doctor. Like you just figured out how to deal with these things. And so now when they're raising kids, if you're not bleeding or a bone is showing, i'm gonna take you to the doctor right but those are those that's the you know the terrible things that come through but then like just being around my family and knowing all the things that they've suffered in the south and seeing the joy that they have of being around one another and hearing the fun

stories and knowing that like my mom tried to shoot a mosquito with a shotgun once right like just like silly little things that you hear when they're telling stories and knowing that like my mom tried to shoot a mosquito with a shotgun once right like just like silly little things that you hear when they're telling stories and reminiscing like that's your family and that's those things and so for me ancestral wise like that's amazing but i'm also an african-american my ancestry stops at a specific point because records on ships were completely destroyed slave families were broken up intentionally to break down the bonds of African-Americans. And so, you know, this slave gets pregnant by this slave. Well, dad's going over here. Mom's going to this plantation and hopefully they'll never see each other again.

So I can only go back so far. And then things get real murky. And well, you know, they look like this part of the family and their last name is spelled this way so i only have you know five or six generations that i can pull from and as they're dying off it's like well damn like how do we go back further and figure those things out but like legally a lot of records weren't kept records were destroyed you know if you're an african-american whose family was in a town like a tulsa or things of that nature where there was those massacres a lot of those records were destroyed to cover people's tracks so it's ancestry is amazing but as a culture we are one that really

has a hard problem because we can't go back so far i think it was the drummer Questlove from The Roots. There's an episode of Finding Your Roots that's on PBS. And he's a lucky one. They were able to trace his family back to the slave ship that left Ghana. So he actually knows where his family came from, from Africa. He's one in a million. That's a rarity so like for me when i talk about ancestry like the family that i know and i have that's it you know without following you know doing an ancestry which i still think should be free for all african americans but um but like

it's one of those like unless i do one of those things but even still you're going to hit a roadblock at some point because how do you get past intended oppression and destroying of records and ripping apart of families like at some point you're just guesstimating well like they were in the same town for x amount of time you're probably related to these people but there's no real way of knowing, you know. I was pretty successful on my journey with one particular, her name in my tree showed up as Slave of Therese. Yeah. And that just really bothered me that she didn't have a name. So I went on this journey and I kind of was obsessed a little bit in many ways,

but I wanted to find her name. Of course, I didn't find her last name. Many times the slaves took their master's last name, but I did find her name. Yeah. And it was very emotional for me that I gave her a name and that she didn't have to be slave of Teresa on my tree. But yeah, it was difficult, but I I'm always up for the challenge. So if you ever want, I probably done about 20 trees. You know, I listened to your episode where you talked a little bit about Thanksgiving and, you know, Shanna, speaking of ancestry, I, in my lineage found that Thomas Hunt kidnapped and

captured Santos and a bunch of the other Native Americans and enslaved them and sold them. And that's my family. I mean, so when I saw that and learned the truth about Thanksgiving, I sat in something called shame that you talk about. It can be shame. It can be empathy. It can be power to be more knowledgeable and to spread the truth, which is what I chose. But I really did feel shame. And that's all throughout my lineage. I mean, it was like, what can I do with this? What can I do with this shame now? It was a difficult spot to be in that that was in my family. And so that's where Shanna and I kind of, at the same time, she was going through her ancestry and I was going through that. And that's when it became really important. But I also have shame around the fact that it took me almost 45

years to get to a place where I'm talking about this. Why? Why? I think each individual is different in that aspect of sort of where they're going to go. The fact that you found out about it and you felt an emotion, I think is, is sign enough that you're going in the right direction. I think there's a lot of people that would find that out and be like, all right, well, that was the past. It wasn't me. So why should I care? You know, they sort of blow it off as that, that doesn't affect me. Not realizing that like that action literally affects people who still are alive today, right? Like the lineages of people are affected by those things. And so I think that that's the fact that there's an emotion tied to it is a good thing. We can get people to at least have an emotion when they find those

things out. I think we're moving in the right direction, but outside of that, I still, I think the, whether it's shame, whether it's empathy, I think you're right. It's, it's what you do with it, which is also, you know, speaking on the idea of implicit bias, you know, just being checked. I think this is another way that, you know, you've been checked by reality of whoa this is this is my history but i that's not me it's that notion of what do you do next because i think often people learn these things or are checked by someone and they go all right well now i know but they still make the same mistakes because they don't sit with it you said that we need to do the work. Who needs to do the work? Black folks.

Yeah. So the problem with that is, I mean, you, you mentioned shadow work is people don't even want to work on themselves. People are lazy. People don't want to have to look at themselves in the mirror so like I mean holy crap is with yourself I'll tell you the one thing that came out of my ancestry journey all of that was so colorful and crazy and I learned some of the most amazing things I mean the fact that Marie Laveau is in my tree is like the coolest thing in the world well to some people what came out of it when i sat with it was that i realized that i have the typical story and if you have ever doubted people that white privilege is not a thing i am proof of it right here my family whitewashed for generations

for me to be the color that i am right here. And that is privilege. And they did it because they knew the color of their skin, the lighter than the paper bag, that they would have more harsh truth, but it is the truth. And that's what, when I sat with it, that's what I discovered. And I went through the same thing too. And the shame then turned into anger, anger, then turn into passion to share my story and to talk about this with people because I I wanted to share because I wanted to see change in the world I think that's awesome yeah okay I'm gonna I'm gonna ask some uh some questions that some people have raised to me during tough conversations and when I've sat down with them. One of them was,

if CRT is the truth, then why is it a theory? So, all right, here's the difference. Critical race theory is a framework. So it's like putting sunglasses on and walking outside and going, what do you mean? Everything's orange today, right? The sunglasses are just tinted the way you've seen the world. All critical race actually is is a lens through which we look at history to see if and when race has had an effect on the world today so it's and it's a legal premise so the big way i always say people to think about what critical race theory actually is is if you go back and look at the late 50s through early 70s in the interstate highway system, right? No matter where you are in the U.S., if you look at the interstate highway

system, the majority of the time, the interstate highway system separates the good side of town from the bad side of town, because the interstate highway system was built through Black neighborhoods. They condemned the neighborhoods, said that they were derelict in slums, which then gave eminent domain to cities and the state to then go in and bulldoze those neighborhoods and put up the interstate highway system. So without critical race theory, if you just look at the decisions that were made, sure, right? But this is also the time in which there was a broken window theory, where if there's a broken window in a neighborhood, clearly this neighborhood doesn't care about themselves. Let's increase the police presence. All right, so there was a broken window theory where if there's a broken window in a neighborhood clearly this neighborhood doesn't care about themselves let's increase the police presence all right so there's 100 police in town 90 of them are in this neighborhood you're never going

to catch the rest of the crime that's happening in other neighborhoods so this neighborhood has the highest crime rate which is now the bad neighborhood which is now the derelict neighborhood which is now shut down the businesses take people move them out of their homes at a rate that's much less than the actual market value, force them to relocate, and let's put up our interstate highway system here. Critical race theory allows you to see all of the different levers that were pulled to make this action happen. And that literally nationwide, when you look at interstate highway systems, this is what was done.

Another way to use the link about critical race theory, Jackie Robinson was not the first Black person who was good enough to play in the major leagues. He was the first acceptable Black person, right? There's literally an entire Negro league system that was already existing, which is why we have night games, because they couldn't play during the day. So they had to build lights on the fields so that they could play at night, right? So then Jackie Robinson comes in and becomes the poster child and nothing against Jackie Robinson. He's a great man,

but he wasn't the first person who could play at the major league levels. In fact, he probably wasn't the best, but he was the most acceptable. He was the one that was chosen to move forward. Well, you also know what happens when Jackie Robinson integrates baseball? The Negro League dies

because now you can play over here. Well, integration works the same way. If we look at integration through a lens of race, white people didn't start going to black establishments. Black people were allowed in white establishments. There were already black restaurants. There were already black hotels. There were already black banks. Black were already Black hotels. There were already Black banks.

Black-owned businesses existed pre-integration. But integration was a one-way street. And when we look at it through a lens of race, there was no way in the world white people were going to start going to Black restaurants, especially in the 60s, right? That was not going to happen. But they grinned and bared it and allowed Black people to come in. Well, they all brought their money. Well, if all the money leaves the Black community and goes to the white community,

what happens to the Black community? Oh, wait, the derelict systems. This business has been underperforming. Enter state highway system. So critical race theory allows us to, again, look at all those little things. So that's why it's a theory. It allows us to look at history in that manner. What we find from that theory allows us to then look at education and sort of start looking at how we're teaching things, right? So critical race theory, you don't even need critical race theory to know this one, right? Texas, a few years ago, tried to change books that said that slaves were immigrated to the United States of America. No, no, no, no, no. You kidnap and stole them, right? But even the word slavery, they weren't slaves,

they were enslaved people, right? Like they were kidnapped and put into slavery. They weren't born slaves in Africa, right? And so that's what this allows us to do. And so it's just like the theory of mass relativity is a theory that exists, but from that theory, how many things have we learned about physics and science based on that theory? Same thing with critical race theory. This allows us to

look at the world one way. And from things that we find out, we can start changing what we're teaching people about history. And it's American history. Almost everything with African-Americans mainly has had to be forced to be in the system because it wasn't going to be, it all had to be forced. And that's what I think that people that don't really understand right here is that, okay, yes, you may think it's unfair that you didn't get the scholarship because someone African-American got it in front front of you but that had to be forced right america and if we're talking about affirmative action white women are actually the biggest recipients of all my affirmative action okay like most minor people call it most minorities like it's white women right because if affirmative action says you need to diversify your workplace

who is a white man going to hire first a white woman yeah diversified a long time ago your mother you know was talking about stuff that you know this is in her lifetime this is not long ago in my lifetime my mom remembers two different water fountains i mean people this was not long ago i feel like people think it's like oh but that's intentional but that's part of the intentionality of it is that if we have a black history month and we only talk about water fountains during black history month that phrases it and puts it in a framework of it's historical it's literally black history right all of these things and so they're framed in a way that it's not meant to be looked at as now because the civil rights era again when we talk about it it's intentionally thought of

as this historical thing not realizing that most people's parents not grandparents most people's parents were living through that like it's not that it was your grandparents because your grandparents probably are old enough that like they were living during the second wave of the kkk your parents critical race theory isn't necessarily about that old history because you just brought up very current things like putting in interstates again from a legal standpoint if we look at if you go from 1619 through the Civil War, there are literal rules that are put in place where Africans are, what was it, if you're from a country that does not have Christianity as its base religion, you are not allowed to be free. If you are, but if you're baptized, you are. Now, if you're baptized, even if you're baptized, but you're from a country that doesn't have Christianity as the base religion, you're not allowed to be free.

If you are, like all these things happen, but they are happening legally, right? Not just sort of people are adopting them. And then like the big one is like, if you live in almost any other country, if a king dies, their children are the successors, right? The queen and then their children, right? But it's a patriarchy. In the United States, we changed it literally legally that your mother determines your lineage, which means that if your

mother was a slave, when you were born, guess what? You're a slave, right? Because what would happen if you didn't? Well, if this white guy rapes this black woman, that child has access to the white guy's fortune in life. So if we flip that around, you no longer have access, which led to numerous situations where

women were being raped and children were being born. But guess what? All those kids are now legally considered slaves. Well, that does come from understanding criminal race theory, because that legally was a change that put into place. So when you look at the slave population in pre-Transatlantic slave trade, most countries at the end of seven years or when you paid off your debt, you were a free person. And that happened through like 1670. Like early on, there were small pop-ups

of different African communities because they had been released from slavery. While there were too many African communities popping up because they had shipped so many people over and they were becoming free, which meant who's going to work the fields. And so you're running into an issue when it comes to commerce as well. All of a sudden, you start putting in these rules legally that determine who is a slave. Well, the Irish were indentured servants, yeah, but they were set free at the end of their paying off their trip to America. Africans never

got that luxury. So critical race theory allows us to understand those legal ramifications, which then informs how we look at actual history. That was actually one of the questions. Wouldn't it be fair to say socioeconomic status is a bigger indicator of future success, not race? But based on what you're saying, well, and what history shows, is that that socioeconomic status was actually very calculated and placed. If you can't own land, you can't make money. That was the way this country worked for the longest. Legitimately, you're looking at, what, 1865 was technically the end of the Civil War,

but you're looking early 1900s before you get to a point where African Americans can own land, right? But even then, if you look at Tulsa and Rosewood and Ottawa and all these places where like there was a black wall street and it was destroyed, which means that those businesses, the finances and all of those things were taken away. But if you look at gerrymandering and redlining, there are communities you couldn't buy a house in, and the rent was too high, so had to rent well most white americans can even if they are below the poverty line right there's a history of land ownership in their

family right i know plenty of people who live where i'm at now who like when they graduated college they moved into grandma's house because it was still in the family for black folks that's a rarity where like there's two or three lineages where there's an empty house that you still own because it's in the family, right? So when we talk about socioeconomic status, if I have to pay rent or buy a house or all the things that other people are inheriting, right, well, you start to have a wage gap that's there. Then you look at what people are being paid versus not being paid. And so if you're making, you know, in 1960, you're making $1,000 a week, but African-Americans are making $200 a week, right? Well, you can save a lot more money

than that $200 can. So when your kid goes to college in the mid 80s, before the inflation, when it comes to tuition rates, right, you could probably pay for your kids school, whereas the African American is now taking out student loans, right? Like you can see where the wealth gap really starts to go because 567 generations ago, socioeconomic status, while money wasn't as crazy back then, you couldn't get ahead because you weren't being paid enough. Well, most people, what's the problem with kids today? Well, they don't have to work for the money. They're living off their parents' money.

Their parents are paying for them to go to school, right? That's a white problem. Dan, I have to say that when you were saying that, I was really imagining what I had learned through my ancestry. Many of them were landowners and they were free men of color. And they were like that for a very very long time and it was when america had purchased louisiana that then they lost their land and then they became not free because they were incorporated into america exactly but i think that people don't

know and that i'd love to share is that the majority of Louisiana which was not just the state people okay it was bigger than France itself was a majority of mixed race people yeah now I mean I bet if you we did the DNA of most people mean, we're all mixed race now. What I discovered too was that they stayed enslaved a lot longer than when slavery ended. You did mention this. I had found it through the census because I noticed that you had this plantation because I have lots of people who own plantations as well in my tree. One was a French Creole. He was also considered mulatto, right? They had a plantation and they had a slave schedule. And you could see what was interesting is that they never left. Now, instead of a slave schedule, they were on a census

and next to them, they were housekeeper, field worker. So they were not free because they still lived there. And whether they were paid a dollar a year, I don't know. But I'm sure that that lasted generations in its own. So you free the slaves and say, all right, you're free to go. 40 acres and a mule never actually happened, right? So if you were to go to get your 40 acres and mule, you would have land. That doesn't happen.

So let's say you were in Louisiana or Alabama or any southern state where the Civil War ended, but that did not end racism. No. You're free. Well, where are you going to go? Guess what? If you do one bad thing, I'm going to put you in jail. Now you're enslaved again, which is what I found. I was like, why are so many of my grandfathers always in jail? Well, because the 13th amendment ended slavery, unless you were considered a criminal and then you could be put back into slavery,

which was intentional as well. So you, you may not be a slave, but you're the housekeeper, right? Well, all that changed was I'm no longer your master.'m now your boss and i'm not paying you you live out over there in that little house rent free so you have a place to live and you have food that's the barter now right we go from slavery to bartering for people's lives and so yes they didn't leave because where are they going to go so you're disposable you're uneducated because educating slaves and africans and african-americans is illegal at that point in time it was illegal if you left the property you could be considered running away even though you were free you can be considered running away and if you're running away now you're arrested because you're a criminal which puts you back like there were so many reasons that

staying became the better option unless you were in a town that had enough african african-americans that could start their own sort of separate community to defend against that. But if there's a plantation here in Louisiana, there's miles before you may get to another one. So like, where are you going to go? And if this plantation is here, the next one's 20 miles over, but if they're friends, you're just getting shipped back. And who are you going to tell the police? Slavery ended, not racism.

And so there were many reasons we're staying put just made more sense and so it seemed like well but now they're choosing to be slaves well again you've removed all of the other inroads for them to really embrace freedom unless they can literally get to the north but then you still don't have a place to live like you still are homeless and you have to figure out an arrangement where you need a place to stay, which means you're probably not taking as much money as you should be paid, which gets back to economic and social economic status. Like all of these things combine and sort of compile on top of one another so that it's almost impossible to get out of the system

because the system isn't designed for your success in any way, shape, or form. All right. So I'm going to ask you a question that just like makes my insides so uncomfortable. It seems that a lot of white people will instantly go, well, if it's systemic, then why did we have a black president? Why do we have a black president? This is terrible, but from the democratic side, what are your two options black president or a woman a black man is still a man so hierarchically how we view things in this country a man is still going to beat out a woman especially but specifically hillary clinton tied to the clintons which for many republicans there's no way in the world that clinton's coming back in

the white house right they would rather vote for ob. But then the other thing is, when you look at voting numbers, right? African Americans voted more in that election than they have in almost any election prior, because there was a real shot for him to actually win. And once he comes out of the primary into the general election, and Obama is the front runner, right? There's this humongous surge, but there's also a push by Democrats to now go into minority communities and start registering voters. There was all the rock the votes from MTV and this and that, right? But think about pre Obama, right? How many Stacey Abrams, and not that she was part of this, but like, how many people do we have that are doing that work at a ground level,

going into minority populations with that level of push, trying to get people to vote, right? And like, you can go to any large minority city, and there are minorities who are trying to get people to vote all the time, right? You had a flood of white women going into these cities right going into the south chicago and setting up booths and sitting at stores you had democrats saying we got a chance to now get the minority vote well it's almost like you said about the doctor you know when you said your mom only went every other saturday couldn't go and then safety with voting voting was so difficult and that's the thing legal and think about the older population right you need a driver's license to prove your uh identity right they're new york first of all that's that rule shouldn't exist because of new york most people

in new york don't have a car they don't have a driver's license right but let's go to the south right people above the age of 60 at that point in time so that's what 2008 so now they're 80 ish right because they couldn't learn in schools because they couldn't go to school 60 years before right they weren't allowed to be in school in the first place so they survived that entire entire jim crow era so like they were the ones who couldn't vote when they were younger because of jim crow laws and you know asking how many state senators there are in alabama before they will give you an actual ballot so you have those that population right but let's be for real and i grew up in northern

indiana in fort wayne but like 10 miles outside of fort wayne is all country how many people who drive have licenses who grew up in the country think about all of the reasons why you need an id to vote because they know that there are large swaths of populations who don't have an id not because they're illegal or any of those things they've never needed one trying to vote as an african america during that point in time was almost impossible so you have all of these people who are now showing up in these communities saying we will do whatever it takes to get you, like, we will drive you down and sit with you all day. Like, we will do these things. We will do the paperwork.

But think about it now, right? You go to any summer farm festival, especially here in NEPA, if you go to the farmer's market downtown every day during an election cycle, there's somebody that's sitting there who will sign you up to vote. Wow, but you in Pennsylvania, that shit ain't happening here. All right, so here's the other one you'll hear a lot. I've heard people are against the CRT because it's counters to MLK's vision of looking at people not for the color of their skin, but content of character. CRT inherently focuses on race and skin color which is counter to mlk's goals which is a whole lot of nonsense um my other king literally they came to sanitation workers march and a few other things he before crt existed was using race as a lens on which how he looked at things that's literally the foundation of his work was saying that when we

look at america african-americans indigenous individuals hispanic people are being paid less wages they're not getting like his argument was critical race theory before critical race theory had okay okay yeah that was that was how he was doing it and the argument against critical race three oddly goes back i'm gonna say it was like 2018 somebody found out about it and started making this argument against it long before we got to the sort of curtain state of things so there were sort of footholds in this notion of why does this exist and the big thing now is we don't want this taught in schools. And it's this perfect storm of we are starting to teach history as it actually happened and not through a white lens. And people are talking about critical race theory. So they've made the assumption that critical race

theory is this. And it's like, no, these two things are happening independently of one another, right? As a country, there are scholars who have who have said you know if we stop and look at x right pick a point in time and look at it from a racial lens what do we actually see about what's going on in this country what happened at this point in time that's happening at the same time as people are saying why are you still using the word indian in our school books? It's to be an indigenous person, right? Or they're going through and saying, look, you can't, like the statue is commemorating a civil war leader

that should not be at the center of our town. That needs to come down. They're not related to one another. They're happening in the same space, right? It's like when you look at the original anti-vax movement, they expanded the spectrum of what autism was at the same time that we mandated vaccines for children. Well, wait a minute, more kids have autism than they did before and we mandated vaccines. No, we realized that these things are actually autism and not some other random disease.

So now they're considered autism. So yes, there's an initial spike in the amount of people who have autism. They've always had it. We just figured out what it was called. That happened at the exact same time that we started mandating vaccines. So they're like merging them together. And they're making a Venn diagram when there isn't one.

Okay. It's interesting, right? It's all about the timing and how it's presented to us through media or through, you know, whatever. printed once and gets put out into the news cycle people will bring it up and so centerline media has to write an article well they don't have to that's a whole different podcast but they write an article saying that critical race theory is not why schools are changing when other two articles that mention critical race theory in schools changing well there must be something there so then blogs and everyone else pick it up and then social pundits blah blah

blah you have a firestorm they're two different things all together and you know i hear a lot of parents their biggest fear around it is that their children are going to feel something what's wrong with that um patriotic you know ideas well and it's funny the the majority of the feedback that i've gotten from that specific episode is people who were looking up what it is and that their school and what it's parents reaching out saying my school board is voting on whether or not critical race theory should be taught in schools and i wanted to know what it was and now i realize that it's not actually being taught in schools right like a it's not being taught in schools but b the other feedback that I get is why is this

I don't want my child to grow up and be angry at America or think it's bad to be white and it's one of those uh if your kid's angry at America I can't help you there that's whatever but no one's saying that it's bad to be white it's accountability for what has happened in this country and that accountability falls squarely in the lap of white america what you do now that you know that systemic racism exists now that you know that your family may have owned slaves right now that you know that your family has whitewashed history, you know, in the family, literally, in your case, you know, sort of whitewashed who the family has, right?

What you do determines how your child will feel about you going forward. That is nothing to do with critical race theory or teaching the truth. You should be angry that at your age with a child in school, you're just now learning the truth about the country. Like that's where the

anger needs to lie what that anger and those emotions how what are you going to do about that's you know just push him down like the rest of the generation not speak it goes back to everything we talk about shanna awareness right now i will say you changed something that i say all the time that I don't even know if I can use anymore. It's like one of my, it's like one of my favorite go-tos. What's the Shanna? What's one of my favorite go-tos?

Think about it. Progress, not perfection. That's one. Okay. So it's, it's concentrate on the solution, not the problem. Oh my God, I hate when she tells me that. I was thinking about that last night and I was like, well, you have to have awareness around the problem in order to come

up with a solution. Figure out the solution, right? The problem will go away if you can come up with the solution, right? Well, but we know the solution in the situation, right? The solution is awareness. The solution is accountability. The solution is figuring out how do we close the wage gap, right? Looking at reparations and all these other things. The solution is looking at transferring land rights back to individuals. There was a town in California who just transferred back a certain plot of land to a family. Oh my God. Right?

That's beautiful. Right? And it was one of those, like, I forgot what the land was currently being used used for but they gave the rights back to this family because they were able to trace that we took this from your family you get this back now right so like i think part of the problem is we've known the solution to ending racism for decades right if not centuries we can take care of systemic racism by educating ourselves by by being aware, and by having accountability. As a country, we have the financial footing to make an actual payment forward on reparations that's not going to hurt white Americans, right? We've done it with Native

Americans. We've done it with the Asian population. Like there are numerous times that we've given reparations for things that have happened in the past, but this is tied systemically into who America is. And America does not want to, and even during Obama, we never really got a full apology, right? About slavery and what happened because that acknowledgement. Yes. I was going to say, doesn't accountability have to come first? Exactly. And no one wants to be accountable because, and this is true, America would not be where it is today without slavery.

I'm not taking that away from you. It's still wrong. Like for me, in the end world, Black, white doesn't matter anymore, right? Like Black, white, Hispanic, all of those terms would go away in the long run because i can appreciate an individual and their culture without it being coming down to the understanding of racially who they are right and racial race is a social construct in general right white doesn't exist there is no white race it only exists to counteract black because you brought in people from Africa, you labeled them black. Well, if they are black, what are we?

And originally there was no white, right? There was Italians, there were the Irish, there were the British, right? All of those things didn't exist until early 1900s with the KKK and the sort of, you know, black people wanting more freedom, all of a sudden they codify together and become white. And that's, so it's a new term in general, but white does not exist. And if white doesn't exist, Black doesn't exist because it was created to categorize people together. So I would love for me in the ideal world that we get away from all of that.

And I can just learn to love who a person is and their culture and hear about it from them and not have indoctrinated preconceived notions as decades, centuries from now that we would ever get to that notion. Do you see hope? Do you see hope with these new generations? I do only in, they are growing up in schools cities, in home lives where they aren't the only person who looks like them. So even if you grow up and your parents are homophobic, when you go to school, the likelihood that there are children who are out now, right? Not the likelihood that there are children who are gay because they were always gay. They were always there anyway, but the fear of coming out kept them from doing so.

So you didn't know who was around you. The likelihood that your best friend is going to come out in today's world is infinitely higher than it was 15 years ago. So those kids will have internally to deal with, you're my friend. And while you are different than i am does that change how i feel about you it's no longer going to be the parents coming down on them and i think

we you know the thanksgiving talks that we hear about nowadays like kids coming back from college college ruined my child now they accept everyone okay um you know like i think more and more of that is happening so i think that's the hope going forward is that I think that just because the world is naturally diversifying, which is what scares a lot of people who are against the truth and accountability and hearing these things, is that they will no longer in number be in charge, which we're already almost at that point in general, but they're afraid of losing power and ego. Not realizing that if everyone has fair say in what's going on, we do better as a culture, right? Like we see it in business. The numbers show that if you have a diversified boardroom or managerial staff, you make billions more a year because you have a diversity of thought

helping you work through problems, right? If this is the solution, how do we get we get there well if that's the solution you have now 10 people who are very different working on the problem to get to the solution as opposed to one person in nine yes men that's going to be society going forward is that we know the answer, right? We need to stop discriminating and stop using difference as a mean of how we categorize, judge, and allow people to have access to things. Eventually, it's not going to be an issue because everyone's going to be

some sort of mixed race at some point, outside of like pockets of Minnesota, which will always be Scandinavian. But like almost everyone's going to be of some sort of racial diverse mix-up your circles are going to become more diverse and as each circle becomes more diverse you choosing to discriminate becomes a very different choice than it is now because if everyone around you is different and you still hold on that you are superior that's a whole different thing than when it's you and 10 people who look

like you and one who doesn't. If all 10 are different than you and each 10 is different than someone else, how can you have a superiority complex? Because you're relying on those who are different than you to move yourself forward. Yeah. You know, I love that the generations that are able to get on and listen to this when i was young i didn't have a place to listen to people talking about racism definitely not in my home right yeah i was teaching yankee doodle came to town riding on a pony resources yeah if people want to start educating themselves what are some of your top like documentaries if you're going to look up critical race theory read read 50 articles.

It sounds crazy, but read 50. And the 10 things that stand out the exact same, that's probably the nuggets of truth. I just tell my students when looking at news. When it comes to just sort of understanding sort of where we are in race and all those things, like read everything by James Baldwin. Anything he's ever done, watch any James Baldwin program. He offers a perspective of someone who left America, felt guilty about his success and leaving his family behind. And when he came back, his mission came to tell the African-American story. I would say read up on the Harlem Renaissance. It was one of the first times in American history where Black people were allowed to freely express themselves.

And you'll see a very big difference in sort of how the writing is and the freedom and the tone of it all. Watch the documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay on Netflix. It really breaks down a lot of factual information that exists. Yeah, it does. Wow. And it's rough. And it's a rough watch. Another one that I love that isn't so much a punch in the face but it just sort of it'll move you it's called uh it's done by john legend it's about the music of the civil rights movement soundtrack to a revolution that's a great one to understand sort of the link between music but there's a lot of information hidden in that documentary what's it called soundtrack to a revolution no amanda you said you've seen it yeah the two aunts that i talked about uh joanne bland and linda lowry they're

featured in the documentary it was so good and i didn't i didn't actually like the pat but i was so excited that they were coming out with a passing documentary on Netflix. And I'll have to be honest and say that I wasn't too crazy about it. It's based on someone's book. So yeah. So it's, it's a fictional work. Cause that was one of the things that people said that was like for documentary, this was, this didn't hit. I was like, it's not a documentary it's just, it's someone's book. It's an, it's a fictional piece. You want to know what I find that would be my piece of advice is just stay curious listeners and just stay willing to be open.

I would almost even before you go into the documentaries and sort of the truth telling things, one thing I say is just expose yourself to black media. One of the funny things that I've always noticed is that when a black movie comes out, finding friends to go watch it with me, because it's a black movie is a hard thing to do. And if you want to understand black culture, it starts with understanding black culture. So like go watch Friday and Friday after next go watch. Are we there yet with ice? Like, it sounds silly, but like, these are movies that are right. You know? And so,

but people don't think about the idea of watching these to understand other people okay and what you have to realize is that these are movies made about the culture folder so if you really want to sort of outside of educating yourself on the idea of systemic racism blah blah blah understand the culture how many books on your child's bookshelf in their bedroom you know has black characters in it yeah and i think that that's the thing is that it's not it's not always the heavy stuff that you need to expose yourself to it's just finding the everyday things if you're buying if you're buying books for your kids if you're buying 10 books buy four books that are from people who aren't that are written by people who don't or at least

the images are different right my son and mind you if the weird thing with my son is i didn't always think about race first because he's i'm black like he knows this right like we understand these things but when we watched a snowy day they made a they animated it he was hooked in a way that i had never seen him drawn to something before and it took me a long time to realize this may have been one of the first things that we've watched. We're like main characters black, but they're also talking about difference and he understood it. Right. And it was one of those.

But it didn't dawn on me. And I've got the books and I've got this or whatever, but like we would go on Netflix and he would watch paw patrol or whatever was hot at the time and this and that. and a lot of ways that producers get around these things is using animals as opposed to using people because they don't always want to diversify things and like we watched this and like the majority of the cast or the characters in it aren't white but it's about learning about oh at christmas my family cooks this and my family cooks this and let's have a big meal together as a

community and he was blown away and he was oh my god that was really fun and he really wanted to sort of take this dive and i was like huh it didn't even dawn on me we were reading the books but he wasn't watching a lot of these things but then i had to stop and look at well if you turn on netflix you're going to dig to find media that is a cartoon for young kids that has minorities at least, you know, as part of the overall cast, that's not action or race cars or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's just an actual story. And so a hundred percent with the, you know, the books in the bookshelf, you know, if your kids are watching TV or watching a cartoon, make sure that the characters aren't all white, right? Like I think there's a Jurassic Park cartoon that's, that's out on Netflix right right now and one of the girls is in a wheelchair the i think the

second lead male is a black kid and then there's another girl who's clearly asian not the weird other that we don't know what what uh ethnicity they are coarse hair olive skin tone we won't discuss what they are but they're not white but like expose your kids early on to just difference and the toys and the tv shows your podcast and my podcast shout out come on yes systemic um which will be upping will be doing more episodes this year so but systemic is another good. You walked me on that question. I entirely missed it, didn't I? Really.

Don't be so humble, dude. It's so good. It's so good. I fenced the shit out of it. I sent it to everyone. You know, the funny thing is, that podcast was born out of a lot of anger and frustration.

I forgot which incident set it off, but I was at a point that like, I was ready to get in my car and drive somewhere and go protest and probably do something stupid. And it was like, why are people not getting this? Like, why are we still having these arguments? Why are we still fighting about these things?

This makes no sense. And I was just, I was really pissed off. And I'm by no means a violent person. I'm not a pacifist, but I choose to be nonviolent. And I was at a point that I felt that strain breaking. And I was like, I got to find a way, a creative way of dealing with these emotions. And the original artwork and the original name for the podcast were much more in your face and angry.

And I sat with it for a while. And what you have now is systemic um but it's always funny that people talk about how accessible it is it's easy to binge it's so approachable i'm like if you understood where this started sometimes i still worry with each episode like did i go too far did i piss off the world with this one and i always get this feedback of it's so accessible and i'm like clearly my level of what's going to piss off the world and what pisses off the world with this one and i always get this feedback of it's so accessible and i'm like clearly my level of what's going to piss off the world and what pisses off the world two entirely different things but it was it was born out of a lot of hate and frustration thank you thank you i mean sometimes you literally have taken you know the words right out of my mind

and i aligned so very much with it and i appreciate it like I said I give it out to everyone because I feel like this is something that needs to be talked about and I too had gone through so many emotions and in that I'm like what do I do with all these emotions and you can get angry and angry is not going to change the world what's going to change the world is talking about it, you know, and using your voice. You have a voice for a reason. First of all, your resume was like, oh, my God. I printed it out and I was like, this is beautiful. You broke her printer, man.

I was a nomad. I was a nomad. Well, you should just be so proud looking at that I mean and you've done some really cool things I mean thank you thank you talk a little bit about that journey I know we could keep you on forever because I mean we didn't even touch base on like 90 things so we'll have to have you on again but talk about um just this journey I mean you used to even do documentaries for ESPN. What brought you to this place? And what's your passion currently now?

So where I'm at now, I work in Northeastern Pennsylvania. If you've ever watched The Office, I'm just out of Scranton. So I came here to teach, actually. Before this job, I was working in cell phone media, where if you remember back, you had to pay to download a video file. And that's how you got it on your phone. And the iPhone came out and I said, I'm going to have a job real soon. Prior to that, I did.

I traveled all over. I did sports with ESPN. I did do documentaries with them. But I would do local games with ESPN, shooting sports. And so I've been in and out of tons of arenas. I lived in Seattle for a while, working in television there. I've done grief counseling. I have a dual psych degree. I have a dual psych and communications degree. And so I used to always say I made more money with my psych degree than communications,

even though it was my field. I used to answer third shift calls for crisis headlines and deal with a lot of things in the nature. So my passion though has always really been just the idea of storytelling. And so in all sort of every aspect, everywhere I've been, even with working in grief and counseling and when I was an RA or an RD when I worked at Syracuse, it was always how can I use this to help people tell stories? Often I was driven to diversity and difference. I think some of the best stories we can tell are rooted in difference and in conflict, not always combat, but conflict. And the best stories are, you know, if there's no conflict, you don't have a story because there's no arc, there's no growth, there's none of those

things. And so that's always been my passion. And so whether it's been photography, whether it's been in counseling and working with people and telling them, them telling their stories, a company now is called Park Multimedia. And our literal tagline is we tell stories, what's yours. And so it's working with companies and individuals to whatever they come up to us with and helping them tell their businesses story. Or if it's an individual working on a project, how can we best tell your story and get it in front of an audience so that you can grow? I'm sort of against paid advertising and marketing, just because I think that a good story that's well-crafted and from the heart and authentic

will get you more followers and more attention than spending money and the last longer. And so, so yeah, no. So going into 2022, podcasting clearly is something that I'm enjoying. And I started in radio 20 some odd years ago. So it's sort of been a fun switch to come back to audio. We still do photo, video.

We work a lot with live streaming with individuals. And so the, you know, it's best, it's how of been a fun switch to come back to audio. We still do photo, video. We work a lot with live streaming with individuals. And so, you know, it's best, it's how do we tell stories? And then personally, continuing this DEI work and sort of digging into the work of sort of dismantling the mystery, all the mystery around systemic racism, helping people understand sort of topic by topic and sort of building a database of, hey, I don't understand this. Sort of like Shannon said, she shared it with everyone. Oh, you have a question about this? Here's a podcast that you can listen to. Doing work in that way and getting back into documentaries that deal with sort of this history and what we are missing from society.

And so long-winded answer. I like telling stories about diversity. Freaking love it. You know, Shannon, I kind of always diversity freaking love it you know shannon and i kind of always have talked about you know with with sense of soul it's about turning pain into purpose taking all the hard ass shit that we've been through our ancestors have been through and and taking that instead of letting it harden us and fester and create resentment or more hate trying to find a way to alchemize it into uh you know our purpose and to make um this world better for those after us right that's awesome yeah i 100 agree i think that uh i used

to conflict mediation and our favorite phrase is that conflict is inevitable but combat is optional um and the idea being that you know combat's a destructive force and so out of conflict you can either create something or you can destroy something. But that choice is ultimately yours at the end of the day, because you can't have a middle ground. You're going to create or you're going to destroy. So as best you can take conflict, take life and create what you can out of it. So your ancestors are so proud of you. Oh, thank you. Because I often think that they chose me to receive this because I was the one who could receive it and speak on it. And I've never, ever been an out fourth person to speak on anything.

It's not my family, right? We don't talk about nothing. Shut up and cook gumbo. Yeah, just shut up and cook gumbo, girl. You know what? It does start with you. And they did choose me. But I think they chose this time.

Like, it's time. This is it. Well, I think it think they chose this time like it's time this is it well i think it's i think i really do think it's a culmination of a lot of things i think the the pandemic has accelerated a lot of things in the world sort of to a tipping point but it is you know again it's the generation before us laid a lot of the foundation and then there was a lot of it that was destroyed but we're at a point where diversity is in our homes it's on our tv screens it's in our kids schools it's all around us and again there's a conflict right it's either we move forward and create a new path or we stop this create we stop all of this and we sort of go backwards and i think we're at a point where there are enough people finally and who have enough agency, voice, and platforms that even if it's small things

happening on a day-to-day basis, change is coming, but understand that the more change we push for, there's going to be more pushback. And so I think we're at a point that I don't think we can slip backwards. I think we have to keep pushing forward. And it will happen. And it will happen. You see it kind of go in waves. Like you get these incidents and everyone's hyped and then it kind of go in waves like you get these incidents

and everyone's hyped and then it kind of dies off like we cannot let that happen yeah no and i think that was my biggest fear in 2020 and that was part of where the podcast came to from as well as that was part of that anger was that all of these people care right now but when the world up where will they be you know and even in my town like seeing my the mayor and the police commissioner take a knee in public square during a rally but then then turn around and shoot down the idea of a community uh citizen review board for police and decisions you know well we can't do that it's not in the city's charter well yeah it's charter right like you can't be with us here and then swat away all the solutions so you know

trust me numerous ones of those that happened but while the each of these incidents are important and we need to remember these individuals and understand what happened that the movements have to get bigger and it has to be about actual change and sustainable change and sort of we're done with these happening like we know they're going to continue to happen, but this is bigger than that right now. Like it's much more about how do we stop these situations? How do we change power structures? How do we remove obstacles and hurdles?

And how do we have dialogue? And anything that gets in the way has got to be moved out of the way. So where can our listeners find you? I am online at park multimedia and at dan kimbrough just about everywhere and now it's time for break that shit down i think the big thing is just listen to people look at people as individual authentic beings and give them a chance to tell you their story and share yours with them and hope that you can find some

sort of common middle ground there. So. Thank you for the opportunity. Definitely. This was amazing. So I would love to do it again if you ever want to. I appreciate you. Thank you for being an authentic, genuine person who's willing to share their self and their stories. Thank you all. This was amazing. Thanks. Thanks, Dan. Nice to meet you.

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