The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – VITAL: A Torch For Your Social Justice Journey by Kyle C Ashlee & Aeriel A Ashlee

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

VITAL: A Torch For Your Social Justice Journey by Kyle C Ashlee & Aeriel A Ashlee Kyleashlee.com Kyle and Aeriel Ashlee are married life partners, best friends, and co-social justice journeyers. Deeply passionate about racial justice and gender equity, together they provide empowering facilitations and interactive workshops for colleges, universities, nonprofits, and other organizations around the world. Unearthing the wisdom in the room, the Ashlees bring a dynamic and energizing facilitation style to their work.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in be sure to give us a a uh good referral there on

the iTunes. Give us like five stars. Tell everybody that you'll love us. Hopefully you'll love us. I guess if you don't, I won't get five stars. So there's that. Be sure to refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. TheCBPN.com or ChrisVossPodcastNetwork.com You can see online

podcasts. There's nine freaking podcasts over there. a lot of silos stuff that you'll still hear on the chris faust show here but if you're hearing this on some of our other uh siloed properties uh like book authors podcasts where maybe you just want to listen to all the cool book authors we have on you can do that as well or you can do you know whatever you want really it's a free country last time time I checked. But stay tuned. Anyway, guys, we've been having a lot of great discussions surrounding Black Lives Matter. It's kind of something that we didn't really plan for,

but just kind of serendipity came about. And currently it's a topic in the news, and protests are still going on. People are still demanding their rights as they should. And let's talk about some of the different aspects of it. I invited a brilliant gentleman, a PhD. He is Dr. Kyle Ashley to come on the show. He's a father to his daughter, who he proudly calls his greatest teacher. He himself is a longtime educator with a PhD educational leadership background

and an extensive professional career in student affairs and higher education. He is currently a stay-at-home dad and an influential thought leader on issues related to men, masculinity, fatherhood, and critical perspectives on whiteness. He's authored several book chapters and presents his work at the national conferences around the country. Him and his wife, Ariel, co-authored the book, Vital, A Torch for Your Social Justice Journey. And it's received a few awards and been pretty awesome. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, Dr. Kyle Ashley?

I'm doing great, yeah. Thanks so much for having me. There you go. Welcome to the show. And, you know, I got familiar with you guys. I just happened to see a facebook post popped up and uh it was a facebook discussion workshop you guys were having on a call to white parents what's your role in racial justice so thanks for coming on the show you

guys were having a real insightful discussion give us your plugs so people can uh check you out on the interwebs there yeah uh, folks can find me at my website, www.kyleashley.com. And that's Ashley with two E's. So A-S-H-L-E-E. You can also find some of my work with my wife at ashleyconsulting.com. Awesome sauce. So you guys have a consulting business as well. That's great. You guys are out there getting people educated. So give us a little background on yourself. What brought you into this field? What made you interested in pursuing topics like these? Yeah, so I'm originally from a small rural town in mid-Michigan. And so, you know, I grew up out in the country, kind of surrounded by cornfields. My family was really into hunting and, you know, just kind of grew up in that sort of white bread, very kind of, you know, privileged sort of background. And I never really thought much about any of these topics until I got to college.

But while I was growing up, I think I always felt like I was a little different, you know, I would look around and see, yeah, all these guys in my family who are really into hunting and had their big trucks and stuff. And I was always sort of more into music and poetry and philosophy. And, you know, I was kind of one of those kids that throughout school, people called me a renaissance man. And I didn't really know what that meant. But, but I always felt the dissonance between the way that I, that I felt and sort of what I saw in the world. And it didn't really match. And so I got to college, I just started to experience a different world, really, you know, I met people who were different from me. I started to have my eyes open to the bigger world. And then I went off to

graduate school. And graduate school was really where, you know, I had the rug pulled out from under me. And it was a deep dive into social justice in graduate school. And that's really where I started to explore privilege for the first time. And it was not pretty, you know, it was not a pretty thing, because I did not have any previous experience or background talking about those kinds of topics. And so I was defensive, I was fragile, in all the ways that you can be fragile, you know, minimizing people's experiences and telling them that they were wrong about what they were telling you. They were experiencing a good feeling. No, you're not really experiencing that.

That's right. Yeah. But that's what I did, you know, because it wasn't anything that I was familiar with and it wasn't anything that I was prepared to actually believe in. And so after that experience in my master's program, I went out into the world and kind of decided that this is really important and I want to start having these kinds of conversations with other people because, again, once I had that rug pulled out from underneath me, I realized that even though those conversations that I had were very difficult, they were good for me. I grew a lot from those conversations that I had were very difficult they were good for me I grew a lot

from those conversations and so I set off trying to do that kind of work with with college students around the country at different places that I work and then I met my wife a few years later and we decided that that worked that that we wanted to do that together and that was so important we didn't want to just do it in our jobs but we kind of wanted to go around to teams and organizations and do that kind of work. So we do facilitation. We talk about issues like race and gender privilege, power and oppression. And, and really every time I have one of these conversations, I walk away feeling, you know, a little bit more whole,

a little bit more complete because again just going back to my background I feel like there was a whole world that was sort of hidden from me growing up about the way that that people people of color women that they experienced the world that I didn't know about and so now you know that I'm having those conversations and learning about these perspectives all the time, I feel like I'm getting a clearer vision of what the world is really like. And I think that's good. One of the things that I really focus on in this work is trying to help people like me who have lots of privilege understand the ways that having privilege is harmful to us, actually, that it

actually causes us harm. And so that's a big part of my work and what brings me to doing this. Yeah, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you went on that journey. I mean, I've had to go on that journey not only throughout my life, but it's been, it's been a growth thing. Uh, it's been helpful to learn from some of these things, but yeah, I mean, there's, there's elements of shame to it. There's elements of anger. Um, you know, I mean, when you're, when you're raised a lot of times, white privilege, you know, you're kind of taught to manifest destiny. America is the greatest. And a bunch of us white people came to America and we turned it into the greatest whatever the greatest

i don't know what is it the greatest strip mall and the largest prison complex right now be so proud um we we have what is it we have uh 24 of the world's population 25 of the world's population in jail or yeah or something like that. Yeah, good way to go, Merck. Yeah, and it's complicated, right, because, you know, we do have a set of values in this country where we can talk about these things and we can disagree, and that's not the case in other countries. You know, I've traveled quite a bit and worked around the world, and it is certainly a different thing here and we don't have it uh we don't have it

figured out by any means and uh and again the more i learned the more i realized yeah we we made a lot of mistakes along the way um you know you talked about the prison population um you know again even just connecting that back to race right like uh it, it's just, yeah, we got a lot to figure out still. And our country is a unique place. And the statistics speak for itself, if not just the voices crying out for help. And, you know, one of the things you address and talk about is privilege in a lot of different ways because you talk about it in you know issues with misogyny how women are treated domestic violence I'm sure etc etc

yeah that's right yeah so a lot of my work really focuses on on gender and race and so the gender work has been really looking closely at masculinity and what it means to be a man. And all too often, I think, in this country and in my experience growing up, the way that I was taught about what it means to be a man is really around violence. Unfortunately, it's around violence. Violent country. It's really awful. Yeah. And so, again, I don't think that's a good thing for anybody. Violence is not healthy or positive for anybody to be around. And so I like to think about the different ways of masculinity, different ways of being a man, because I really want to, yeah, try and create healthier, healthier ways of being. There definitely is. And, you know, I mean, I learned in my business a long time ago that there's always a way to improve everything.

Nothing is ever finished in its form or function. Even when you make, you know, when I'd make a new widget, I'd be like, okay, how do I make this better? It's perfect now. So how do I make it better? There's always ways to improve. That's one of the things that's frustrating about people who scream, you know, white lives matter, black lives matter isn't anything. You're like, well, no, hold on. Some people need some help. Let's lift them up.

Rising tide lifts all boats. Let's let's figure out what's going on. Let's listen. Let's learn and make things better. I mean, I think, I don't know. I think most people can agree that we've definitely had a problem with race and racism in this country for 400 years. And we still haven't resolved a lot of it and it may take us another 400 to resolve it all. Hopefully it won't take that long, but who knows? So what are some, what are some ways, what are some advice that you would give on these sort of

topics whether they're whether they're with white privilege or whatever that can help people kind of well give us an overview if you want or or you know help us shed some light on on how people can you know look inside and deal with these issues? Yeah. So, you know, I think one of the easiest ways for me, I'll just say, you know, speak from my own experience, one of the easiest ways for me to do work around race and white privilege is to just think about the mistakes that I've made, to think about, you know, the bias and the social conditioning that I've received throughout my life that have been racist. And, you know, thinking about that helps me identify where I can learn and grow. And so in some ways,

it's a really empowering thing to do, you know, rather than just feeling hopeless. I don't know what to do. You know, this whole problem seems overwhelming. It's a very concrete action plan because you look at yourself and you say, well, you know, I learned these values and now I can see that they're kind of messed up. And so I'm going to work on that. I'm going to try to identify it when it comes up in everyday life and really work to try and improve that. So in some ways, it's a really empowering way to do things.

I was talking to a friend of mine who's a person of color, and we were talking about, like, cancel culture and accountability and all that. And, um, I said, you know, what would happen if, if in a conversation about race, people of color gave white people feedback and instead of getting defensive and fragile, uh, what if they, you know, actually just received that feedback with grace reflected on that, that feedback, and then really made a commitment to try and change the behavior.

Like, what would that mean? And my friend basically said, that would be revolutionary. Like, if white people started to do that, it would be revolutionary. Our country would really change. Is the problem with our society that we don't do enough introspection, that we don't do enough soul-searching, that we don't do enough introspection, that we don't do enough soul-searching, that we don't do enough self-actualization exercises? That's a tough question.

Or we just pulled so many out of schools and education and put them into wars that we're just raised dumb. We just keep getting dumber into an idiocracy. I think in terms of introspection i certainly think we are not encouraged to do that in our in our in our culture um we live in a pretty consumerist capitalistic culture that says when you feel uh emotions that you don't like uh the best thing to do is avoid them and hang on, doctor. I've got to get a burger. No, I'm just kidding. Exactly.

Yeah. I think about this with my daughter a lot. So I'm a full-time parent. I stay at home most of my days with my daughter. And she's little. She's not quite two yet. But her fixation on sugar is already so strong. And especially when it comes to strong emotions. So she'll get upset about something you know we'll tell her no and immediately she'll want like a cookie or something

and it you know you start to notice this pattern of behavior where the emotions are are solved and tried to you know be fixed with uh in this case sugar sugar. And really, I think that's just a microcosm of what happens in our country at large. We've got these corporations that say, don't worry about feeling bad. Eat this. Yeah, exactly. Eat this, drink this, smoke that. Exactly. Yeah, but you're right.

It's interesting because a young person hasn't watched all the stupid ads that we have to watch on TV, and yet that's the preclusion of their human nature to go to. Human nature in itself is a pretty toxic little brew. One of my favorite sayings is people are like, we need world peace. I'm like, hey, you want world peace? I'll get you world peace. Kill all the humans. The world will be happy and fine after that um because what are the problem but yeah i think i think i i'm i you know one of the things that will bring up the me too

thing and everything like and and uh a lot of people don't have a life exposure to domestic violence, to a lot of the abuses that were going on in the Me Too movement. You know, I've dated a lot of women over the years being single, but I've never acted, God forbid, in a way that a lot of the Me Too exposed. I've never sent a dick pic. I never would. I mean, if I had a wife wife i wouldn't send it because that'll just be on the internet once i piss her off um and and besides it won't fit in the frame anyway

uh uh there's some masculine toxicity uh i'm still working on that one so anyway uh but no one i you know at first when me too came out i was really kind of like what the hell's going on you know and you're like what and then you started hearing the stories yeah and just the horror stories of of bad behavior you know i've yelled at plenty of my friends who send dick pics to people they don't even know if there's an underage girl on the other end of the line i'm like dude you're gonna you're going to end up in jail, number one. Number two, it's not cool, and it's kind of unethical. But I would never date that way, so I didn't understand the stories. Same thing with relationships.

Like one time I had a speeding ticket, and I had an argument over whether the cop would actually pace me. And in the appeal, they put me in domestic violence court for the appeal. And being my name Voss, I was at the end of the docket. So for two hours, I had to watch domestic violence court cases. And that was a learned eye-opener. I bet. That was a learned eye-opener. And it wasn't just guys either.

There was a couple girls that had beat the crap out of some little guy. But it was mostly guys. And so, you know, listening to people's stories, learning from them. I've been listening to a lot of James Baldwin recently and talking about the experience that he had and what he's raised. And he has a great intellectual conversation style and emotional connection conversation style. That's the best way I can explain it.

But he also is talking to me and he basically talks about how this is your problem. Here's how you should fix it. But maybe we need more self-actualization in this world, more where we put some more personal responsibility. That's something I've tried to do with my life and gone, hey, what am I contributing to this? Maybe it's me. where we, you know, put some more personal responsibility. That's something I've tried to do with my life and gone, Hey, what am I contributing to this? You know, maybe it's me. Yeah. Right. You know, I think when thinking about the me too movement,

one of the most powerful things for me about that movement is the story. You know, there's no denying that those stories, when they came out, they changed the way that we think about sexual violence, gender-based violence, because it's not just this sort of theoretical thing that happens anymore. It's real women in our lives that we know who have these stories. And so, you know, it just changes the whole thing. And I think it really reveals the power of stories to, to, you know, change people's minds and change people's perspectives on this sort of thing. Yeah. Teach this in school with this help in school,

because I don't think we can leave it to parents because parents have too many. One thing I've been talking about with a lot of the authors we've had on recently is i think racism uh and what it is how to deal with it the aspects of it in in school it should be taught there should be just classes on like am i racist or how do you know if you're racist or how not to be a racist um there should be a whole school like you should have a six-month class or whatever i don't know how the schools work nowadays but you know like though there should be a whole school, like you should have a six month class or whatever. I don't know how the schools work nowadays, but you know, there should just be a class that everyone has to take on how not to be a racist and what it is, how it works, white privilege, how to, you know, how to learn, listen and learn.

I really think that's gotta be put in the education system. Cause you can't leave it to parents. Cause I've seen what parents do. Yeah. And, um, you know, it's gotta be more comprehensive than just, uh, in the house, you know, it's gotta be, uh, from, from all around, uh, kids have to hear those messages from all different places. I mean, we have like Dr. Lawrence chatters, who was on the video with you guys and has been on the show twice. I mean, he's, he works in a college and he's an inclusion person. Like why do we have to wait till college to have inclusion people? We should have these, you know, you,

you kind of catch this stuff when it's young because it grows up. Yeah, it's true. And I will say, first of all, my brother is a K-12 educator in Texas, and, you know, they're trying. You know, they're trying to do a lot. It's hard, but I think K-12 schooling has more restrictions with funding and that sort of thing, and parents are more involved, and so it's a different kind of conversation. But I absolutely agree. And as a full-time parent, I think I now understand that having conversations with your kids about this stuff can be tricky.

You know, it can be tricky. My daughter is not quite two yet. And I'm already starting to think about how to talk about this stuff with her. Because you kind of need to set a precedent. You know, you need to say we're the type of family that's going to talk about this stuff, whether it's uncomfortable or not. And so if it's not easy to talk about this stuff at home, then it's certainly not going to be easy to talk about this stuff at school. And so, you know, I just think it takes a commitment from all of us to say, you know, this is not an easy thing to do.

Our country is riddled with a racist history, but we need to face it. And Black Lives Matter is doing a lot of that. And I just hope the conversation continues. I'm heartened that the protest is still going and hopefully still will be going up until Election Day. And I hope they all register to vote. They, I mean, like everybody who's out protesting. And I'm glad to see it being supported from all sides. You know, it's interesting to me,

the journey, uh, I always tried to fight racism in my own head and, and always felt like I wasn't racist. Uh, I had friends growing up that I didn't even realize were African American. Um, and I, um, there, there were moments where I went, oh, I, I actually do have one from school and I've talked about that before in the podcast, but, uh, I, I actually do have one from school, and I've talked about that before on the podcast. But I always tried to, you know, think about, you know, okay, well, I don't want to be a racist. You know, we don't want to hire, you know, I've hired lots of people. We didn't want to be racist in that manner either. But just being a better contributor to the world.

But when Trump started running for election, you know, and the white nationalist stuff started coming out and i started learning some of the codes and the keywords that the white nationalists used because you know trump was using those words as his dog whistle you know like culture you know and then when he says r he doesn't mean like all americans he's like just you know the coded white people he's talking to who support him. And so I had to learn all these things, and I had to re-go back to white privilege and go, wow, okay, so I need a better understanding of what white privilege really is.

And it's kind of given to us. We take it for granted. One of my favorite things was, is, uh, was Chris Rock, I think. Um, and there was another person I think who was, um, I'm not sure who he was, maybe a philosopher, somebody, but he said, he said, basically there's not a white person who would ever trade, uh, lives with a black person. So that kind of tells you what the problem is, um, that it's not fun. Um, Chris Rock, I think one of his bits was, you know, nobody in this, nobody,

no white people in this audience would trade with me and I'm a millionaire. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's pretty plain. Yeah. One of the things that I like to think about a lot with, with my own introspection around this kind of stuff is, is that sort of distinction between good white people and bad white people. And I think, you know, my tendency is to want to believe that I'm one of the good ones, you know, that, that I, that I believe all the anti-racist things and I do all the anti-racist things. And then that makes me, you know, a good one. And in some ways it means

that I don't have to keep working hard on the things that I need to work on. And it separates me from the bad white people who, you know, are the white supremacists and the people who are saying the overtly racist thing. And I do think it's important to distinguish between that sort of overt and a covert kind of racism. And in my experience, having conversations with all kinds of white people about racism, it is not helpful to say, you know, I'm a good one and you're a bad one. You know, Delete half my, half my posts. Well, I don't, I don't claim to be,

I don't claim to be the good one but i do point out the bad ones well i'm on a journey still yeah and i think that's fair um but i also think that uh we are all socialized in a culture of loneliness and uh all of us participate in that uh whether we we want to acknowledge it or not and so yeah it's like parsing, you know, hair here. It's like, to what degree are we talking about good and bad when we're all implicit in this larger system of oppression? Maybe that's the fear that people have that makes them upset and hard to face it is because they feel like they've been bad.

They didn't mean to maybe because they were closet racists or, you know, unconscious bias, and maybe they didn't mean to maybe because they were closet racist or, you know, unconscious bias and maybe they didn't mean to and, you know, being told that, oh, you were being bad. You're just, it's, you just fall right into denial. Yeah. I know for myself that has been true. It's easier to try and deny the reality of other people's suffering and how you've contributed to that than it is to own up to it and say, yeah, yeah, maybe there was something, whether I knew about it or not, uh, that I was a part of that, that led to these people's pain and suffering. Um, but again,

I think for me, uh, once I recognize that and I'm willing to acknowledge it, it feels way better to just say like, yeah, actually that's true. And how do I do something different rather than to continue. One of the, one of the things I talk about too, that I don't hear a lot of people talk about is the scarcity element of it. One of the factors in the, in the i remember reading and i want i just want to make one last point going back to chris rock thing you know if you want trade places with chris rock and who's a millionaire you know that tells you we have a problem that's the indication um the uh but the scarcity element of it because a lot of people look at they see black lives matter

and they feel intimidated because they're like oh well if i have to help uh you know minorities rise up then it takes away from me um i think uh eddie glod made a comment on on the show where he talked about how a lot of white people will be like we support you know uh we support black people and minorities, but yeah, we don't want affirmative action. So you've got to make some choices here. But a rising tide lifts all boats, and a lot of people operate from the scarcity thing. When Trump was, after Trump was elected, we all looked at what went on and went, what the hell? And one of the elements was is a lot of people were in the rust belt a lot of people that were the old union working people were like no one cares

about us no one gave us jobs um the minorities took our jobs and now we're upset because we're not getting we're not getting paid and there was a writer it might have been van jones or somebody but they wrote a great article on you know what's interesting about what we're hearing about the rust belt white experience this has been going on in minorities with cities in you know major cities for you know 100 years the only time that they decide to care about it and vote for a giant racist is uh you know it's finally gotten to them so welcome to you know our world that's been there for 100 years. And it's really true.

And part of their vote at a very core, deep closet level was, I'm American, I manifest destiny, and I have a right not to be poor and F the rest of you people. And that's kind of what you see in the message of what's going on with all lives matter and, you know, Trumpism and all this sort of thing could be, that could be my theory, but that's, uh, that's what I'm going with. Yeah. There's a really interesting story from, uh, from America's history during, uh, sort of the colonial days where, you know, there was sort of the indentured servants

who were brought over from Europe, you know, they were sort of on this like seven-year deal where, you know, they had to work so long and then they could sort of have their freedom if they worked for it. And then, of course, there were the slaves that were brought over from Africa. Well, at some point, there were, you know, were brought over from africa um well uh at some point there were

you know the indentured servants who were white and the black slaves who had kind of escaped and were sort of plotting this uprising against the the wealthy white elite landowners um and before this time the the term white uh was not like an identity it wasn't something that like anybody in this country really identified with if you look back through the history it was christian or european or you know they didn't they didn't use that racialized term and so what happened was they they sort of made a law that said um you know if if any black slave is caught out and about, they can be returned for a handsome reward. And so essentially in the law, they created this divide and conquer strategy where they essentially made the white indentured servants white through this law and rewarded them for returning the black slaves into slavery. And so, you know, again, dividing conquer them.

It was basically turning your plotters, the people you're plotting, into a sort of policy? That's right, yeah. That was Dwight A. Garker. Wow, that just hit me. So that kind of divide and conquer politics has existed in our country forever and continues to play. I mean, that's sort of one of Trump's go-to political strategies. It's to sort of pit poor whites against people of color. They're infighting with each other rather than working together to, you know, work for their rights and their freedom and liberties against the wealthy boy elite. So these dynamics still play out today.

We have a lot of – is it all packaged in human nature between toxic masculinity, racism, and violence, and just all the ugly parts of human nature? You know, I might be an optimist here, but I don't think that human nature is necessarily a bad thing. I do think that fear and pain are part of the human experience. And those are difficult. And we find ways to avoid processing those emotions. And I think oftentimes they lead to isolation and division between different kinds of people, different kinds of pain.

There's like one thing I saw a mix of it the other day. There was a guy in Australia, I believe it was, and he'd asked, I believe, an Asian woman out in a hallway of their apartment, and she said, you know, I don't want to go out with you. And so he immediately just started yelling and screaming or threatening to chop off her head, which is not good, not appropriate in any way, shape, or form. And then racial epitaphs. So he was mixing the whole toxic masculinity with the racial epitaphs and the violence.

I mean, it was like he just made stew of disgustingness. And so I watched it, and I went, man, I mean, there's – if we could figure out how to surgically go in and cut out whatever that part of human nature is, that disgusting ugliness. You know, one of the things, and the sexuality of it too. And another example, I was going through James Baldwin's stuff. And James Baldwin was, and I think Eddie God talked about in his book, Begin Again, whichever you should check out. But he was talking about how James Baldwin went on a tour through the South and he got hit on sexually by other race, racist dudes who were racist,

racist, had issues with him. But he talks about how it goes in the psychology of these white men who are racist and have this penchant for violence with this confused sexuality and they they don't like they're just and and i i forget a lot of what he really goes into some good analogy of it but but this whole thing of where um it's the stew of of ugliness that that's in their head and they don't even understand what what's going on they're conflicted you know uh i think we talked uh on some prior shows about uh you know andrew jackson i think it was who had you know

he's fathered a whole um army of people uh through his uh, and a lot of slave masters did. And so you're like, wait, you hit these people and you beat them, but then you want to have interpersonal relationships with them? Mm-hmm. It's kind of weird. Yeah. So one of the things I think about is sort of this idea that we create our own demons. You know, we create our own enemies.

And I think in the building of systems like patriarchy or sort of like male-dominated society where men sort of have more access to power, same could be said about whiteness and what people call white supremacy, in the very nature of building those systems from the founding of our country, we also created our own demons, right? And so, again, this is something I talk about a lot, the ways in which those systems, while privileging people who are white or men, they also harm us in many ways, right? So for the example of the guy in the hallway who sort of, you know, blew his lid at the woman who refuted him,

that couldn't have been a fun experience for him. But he was raised in a culture, even though it sounds like it was maybe Australia, but I think they have a lot of the same cultural codes that we do. He was raised in a culture where, as a man, he was led to believe that he's entitled to a woman's body. And if he doesn't get that or if she denies that to him, then he's also entitled to inflict violence on her. And so, again, this is an example of the ways that the systems that we built to privilege us also harm us. And so I do a lot of work with fatherhood and thinking about dads. And a big issue in the fatherhood community is around paternal leave.

So dads being able to take some time off work when their kids are born. You know, again, as we sort of built this country, men were in charge and they said, we don't need to care about that because that's women's work. That's what women do. And so we've established this whole sort of like, you know, culture, especially around professionalism and work where we think of the family as sort of a woman's thing and work as a man's thing. And now, you know, after feminism and the feminist movement, we're starting to get a little bit more enlightened. And men are realizing, hey, you know, maybe actually it's a good idea for me to be home with my family a little bit. Maybe it's a good idea for me to help try and raise my kids. And so now there's this whole movement of men trying to advocate

and fight for paternity leave, which essentially they're fighting against the system that we as men created for ourselves. So it's a feminist effort, I think, that men are fighting for in terms of paternity leave. And so, yeah, those are all, I think, great examples of that kind of dynamic that you're talking about. And I think it comes down to the same thing of scarcity, too, where we feel that, well, I have to give up something to contribute something, when you really don't. I mean, we talked about this at the pre-show. I've been single all my life.

I dated a lot when I was younger. And I would always have to hear the stories from women of how their dad didn't hung him enough as a child or there was other issues, rape, molest, incest. I mean, you name the story, I've heard it all. Bad boyfriends, beatings, almost killing, domestic violence. I mean, I've heard every story. Oh, I hope every story, geez. And I've seen the damage and the fallout. Like I've seen the result of what that looks like at age 30 or 40 or, well,

I've never dated anybody who's over 50. But I've seen the damage. Like I've had girlfriends that are still cutting, not as teenagers. They're cutting at 45, you know, which isn't good. And they haven't resolved whatever caused that from their things. And so whenever I see a young girl who's cutting at teenagers, I just worry sick because I know what that looks like at 45 and the damage. I've seen a lot of damage.

I've seen damage from fathers not being there, fathers not giving enough attention, fathers using toxic masculinity and misogyny to not give their daughters enough love and attention or treat them as respectable human beings. And then, you know, they just go out and find another guy who's like their dad. And most of us, you know, that go find relationships, we're trying to resolve the relationships our parents had. And unfortunately, we get ourselves in the same situations and scenarios to resolve those scenarios and we don't because they're not resolvable.

Yeah, and we don't have the tools, right? Yeah, you don't have the tools. The reason your parents didn't get along is because anybody you find who's like you and them isn't going to get along either. It's just you've got to fix a lot of stuff that's broken first. That's probably why I'm still single because I'm still trying to fix what's broken with this one. Um, and once I, once I get it right,

then I'm going to share this idiot, uh, if he's better with other people. Um, but no, I, I, I gotta tell you,

I've seen the fallout and I don't think a lot of men see the fallout. I don't think a lot of men have had the same experience that I've had in life, you know, where they see the fallout and they go, wow. Okay. So this is the end product or not even had in life, you know, where they see the fallout and they go, wow, okay, so this is the end product or not even the end product, you know, wherever I meet it. And, you know, they'll talk about the damage. This isn't a perception of mine. They go, this is what happened. This is how it affected me. You know, sometimes it's pretty evident on

their life patterns, you know, oh, you've been divorced six times. Okay. Something went wrong. Um, and, and that's not, I'm not saying that's their fault specifically, but come on, man. Uh, yeah. Um, you know, I, again, I talk about parenthood a lot cause I'm a new parent. Um, and, and I definitely think that a lot of women, you know, identify with this idea of having a difficult relationship with their father. I also think a lot of men have that same issue as well.

I know for me, I have a, you know, I won't call it a difficult relationship, but it's complex. And, you know, again, I attribute a lot of that to masculinity and the ways that masculinity has told men that they can't be involved with dads. They shouldn't be involved with dads. They shouldn't show emotion with their kids. You know, those kinds of things. And it creates complicated relationships.

And I think for me, one of the beautiful gifts about parenthood, about being a dad, is that it's an opportunity to try and unlearn some of that stuff. So you get to do it again and say, okay, do I want to do the same thing that I saw my dad do, or do I want to do something different? And it's hard to do something different because, yeah, if you haven't had that training, you don't have the tools, right? You don't have necessarily the skills. But you do have the opportunity to make a different decision, I think.

I think that's why they should teach more of this in school, too. You know, early on, I could have used a few psychology lessons in school as a young person. Because, you know, I woke up at 50 and went, man, I got a whole mess left behind me. And, I mean, learning to understand about the privilege these issues how they impact you know i grew up in the generation i you're probably a lot younger than i am but i grew up in the generation where men don't cry you know we hold it all in we just deal with it uh and we just go out in the garage and break things or something i don't know um that are you know i mean some guys

you know beat people and you know there's all sorts of ways that comes out um but but uh yeah the roles of of who they were um our our parents have a great impact on us which i think is another reason why we need to have more school stuff um but it's like for me if we if we fix this stuff early in school like racism what is it how not to do it what it's about privilege um all that good stuff we fix that early we can start creating generations that are going to grow up hopefully eradicate most of racism and then they're going to raise kids and then maybe we teach them some psychology too. I'm a big proponent of where I think that before people become parents, they should have to go to a two-year course on how to be not only great parents, but how to get along with their spouses.

Because a lot of people, including me, go into relationships with their little broken glass, you know, that they grew up with and all their issues. And then they got their broken glass, and you're like, hey, let's play. I'm sure this will work out fine. Let's take your toxic stew of dysfunction and my toxic stew of dysfunction. And then guess what? Let's raise some kids that are innocent-minded and an open page and let's screw that crap out of them too.

And you're just like, wow just like yeah what could go wrong and then you know 400 generations later um so so i'm a big believer that somehow we have to we have to either attempt to stop it or try to stop it and create new new thought processes you know right now we're in this stew of with black lives matter where uh you know, right now we're in this stew of, with Black Lives Matter where, you know, everyone's at a different point, you know, everyone's like, okay, am I a real racist? And I don't think, I don't think they're doing that in their inspection, but you know, people are going, okay, so maybe I'm closet racist or maybe I have unconscious bias. What am I doing to contribute to this problem? Clearly there is a problem. But a lot of people are on different levels. Like I have friends that I'll talk to and I'll be like, you're really in the closet with your racism. And they're

like, how, man? I mean, it's just our culture, you know, and you're like, okay, well, you got a long ways to go, baby. And then, you know, there's some people who like me kind of get it. We understand white privilege. But there's still things that you see, and there's still things that you go, okay, am I supporting something that isn't, that's contributing to the problem? Do I have some sort of thing? There's nothing I can do about certain things about white privilege. If a guy pulls me over, there's nothing I can do to change how he's going to deal with me. But there's different things that I can do to support things.

You know, one thing we talked about earlier, and this is a great sort of analogy that I saw the other day, is about schools and wars. And how you mentioned how, you know, we don't put a lot of our money into schools and educations enough to really teach this sort of thing. And I saw a great analogy of a political cartoon that showed this picture of, you know, this guy walking up to a giant police department and he goes, here's a trillion dollars, go hire a bunch of police and police our cities and everything. And then they go to the school and they go, yeah a bunch of police and police our cities and everything and then they go to

the school and they go they go yeah uh we just paid the police a bunch of money so we don't have a lot of money to give you so um just kind of do your best and they showed a picture yeah figure it out and they showed a picture of uh the people leaving the school looking at this police army armada going yep we're just waiting for you yep and it just really spoke to how how you know i believe in police officers i don't think they should be 100 defunded but we definitely need to look at why we've been on this path for i don't know two three hundred how many years of police departments why this isn't working for us, why it's always been racial, why it's always been violent, why it hasn't succeeded in doing anything except being incredibly racist.

There's a book I actually saw on Audible today that's called The Second Coming of Jim Crow or The New Jim Crow. And it's about how basically Jimim crowish type laws that supported the the um that supported putting people into prison and creating the prison industrial complex that we have that's that's mostly minorities um those laws were basically like a jim crow sort of law to i mean instead of putting you uh, black and white bathrooms, uh, we just put you in prison. So, um, so that's going to be interesting book to read and get some introspective on, but I really think we have to address these issues. And I think the hardest part is to get people

to, uh, admit to them or start down that path. I got somebody on my Twitter the other day. She's like, I'm so sick of hearing about racism. Everyone's a racist and everything's racist, and I'm sick of it. There is no racism. And you're like, wow, man, how do you get her on the ramp? Yeah, I do think that that's a huge challenge in our country, especially with the idea of colorblind racism, which after the Civil Rights Movement, I think a bunch of white people said like, okay, the civil rights movement was difficult and a

lot of the hard conversations happen. If we just ignore it and pretend like it didn't happen, then we won't have to face these problems. And so we had a couple of generations of sort of colorblindness. And I think we're starting to now realize that that's not really a great way to address problems, ignoring them. It's not really a great way to address problems, uh, ignoring them. It's not really a good way to, uh, the whole shush and run. The whole great American way. It just showed in the carpet. We'll deal with it later. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, you know, I think it's, it's like TSA, right?

You see something, you say something. Um, you know, my, my big thing, uh, is that talking about, about really hard issues like racism or sexism, it's good for us. It's actually good for us to talk about these things. Even though it's hard, it's good for us. It's good for us personally because it means we're learning, growing, maybe healing and doing some of that personal introspection work that you're talking about. It's good for our kids because they might actually grow up in a culture where it's okay to talk about this stuff.

It's not socially shunned or, you know, they're sort of made to feel strange for asking questions about this stuff. And then, you know, it's good for everyone. So imagine a whole country of people who are committed to talking about these things and committed to talking about these things and committed to understanding, like you said, a rising tide with small boats where if we're going to solve the serious problem, it really involves all of us. You know, that,

that's the kind of country that I would be really proud to live in. And one that I would be really excited about in terms of living in the future, but we're not there yet and uh but i do think that that we're making strides every day you know the black lives matter movement has uh done incredible work in terms of raising people's consciousness uh in terms of starting conversations about this getting people i mean i just went home for the fourth of july and had one of the most intense and in-depth conversations with my family about race that I've ever had before.

It was hard. It was uncomfortable. There were tears. But, you know, even though it was hard, I think it was really healthy for us to talk about those things because it's a topic that we really never addressed openly as a family. And, you know, again, it's like there's all these parts of the world that are happening,

and if you're, again, it's like, there's all these parts of the world that are happening and you're not talking about it. Then you're basically just, just, uh, ignorant to, to the way the world is. Yeah. It's what I, it's what I told my niece and nephew this Christmas. I said, I said, there's three things in life. There's the things, you know, there's the things you don't know. And there's the things you don't know that you don't know um uh so technically it would be the things you know the things you know you don't know and the things you don't know you don't know

and and those are the aspects that i think a lot of us uh always need to be learning and experiencing i mean i'm 52 now i'm still learning stuff i'm still always getting the stuff uh seems to be a lot more because uh what's what's uh interesting about these days is i've got quite the pattern to look back on and go wow okay there's some uh wreckage there's like a whole strew of it going back 50 years maybe that was me no i find the thing the older i get uh the more I feel like I need to learn. The more I realize I don't know, you know, and the more I realize, man, I was really, yeah, like you said, just sort of ignorant to whole parts of myself and parts of my life. And I think you're right.

What we need to do as a society is, and this has been brought up in some of the prior topics we've had on this discussion is we need to have policies like government policies that support this stuff but we seem to always fail on policy because um like with eddie glad jr's book begin again he he paints the arc of where we go from civil rights to different presidents who are either good for racism uh bad for stopping racism, like Nixon. Nixon was a real supporter of racism, and the drug war is a race war that he created. And Reagan, he talks about Reagan. He talks about how people felt with a lot of people took the assumption, well, President, you know, President Obama is president, so we fixed that whole racism thing.

And we've got to quit relying on the government to make these policies. I think it's important that we, you know, do our soul searching, do our internalism, be self-actualized, fix our stuff internally. And I think that's how we're going to be as a country, like you say. We're going to be as a people first. And then hopefully we go elect people that are going to be uniters and people that are going to, you know, not be dividers, especially on the prominence of race or anything else for that matter. Women, you see the holes stew we got going on um and um yeah one thing i want to ask you about is incels what do you think about these incel i mean we talked about toxic masculinity a little bit these incels are an interesting little creatures um that i don't fully understand because i don't know you know i don't know I, if I wanted to ask a girl out,

I went and asked her out and she said, no, that's just part of life. Um, but I guess I wasn't, I mean, these guys really have some toxic masculinity problems going on, don't they? You know, um, yes, the answer is yes, of course. Um, and, um, you know, I look at the i look at men like that groups like that and it's really difficult for me to not see just the blatant pain and suffering that those people must be experiencing in order to to behave and act the way that they do and so uh what is it about their experience where they're feeling like they're not being heard or they're not being validated in some way. And not to say that, you know, these people are victims or, you know, anything like that. But again, coming from my perspective as a straight white man,

these are people that I feel like are, one, my responsibility. You know, if we're going to do education around sexism, racism, these people need to be part of the conversation clearly because they're doing some damage. And if it's anybody's responsibility to do that education and to train them, it's me. You know, it's somebody who looks just like them, who's probably had some similar feelings and similar experiences. And so, again, going back to that idea of good men versus bad men

or good white people versus bad white people, it's like, yeah, I don't think what they're doing is great. And if I want to have any kind of productive conversation with somebody like that, I need to level with them and try and understand where they're coming from first. And the, and are they products of bad parents that taught them toxic metals? Have you ever studied what causes them? Cause I haven't, but that's what I'm asking you.

Yeah. Um, you know, parents have a lot to do with it. Uh, certainly, uh, I think just our culture at large, you know, we, if you watch any TV, there's, there's going to be the strongman character, you know, so media certainly has a lot to do with it, but it's, it's everywhere. It's for bases. And so dependent on parents, I think is, is not necessarily a complete story, but we all have a part to play and change the message around who men can be. That was the next point I was going to bring up with you is how much, um, and this comes from, you know, us all having our problems and then it gets

put into movies, ads, TV. Um, you know, I, I talked, uh, I talked about how I, you know, one of the men definers that I looked to when I was growing up was John Wayne and James Baldwin talks about how you grow up watching John Wayne and you see a lot of the racism issues too. And then there's a lot of misogyny in there. And so even just recently I had to start looking at deconstructing my John Wayne sort of psyche and element and the contributions he had.

And that's been kind of hard because I kind of liked John Wayne when I was a kid. But now looking back on it all, I can go, wow, okay, oops. But what's interesting about these incels, and I just had an epiphany when you were talking, is how much is the sameness if i was to replace the word privilege with entitlement are those two the same i think a lot of times uh entitlement is a byproduct of privilege so uh if you have privilege then you feel entitled to whatever it might be.

I certainly think there's a strong relationship between them. But you wouldn't say they're the same? No, I don't think so. I think anybody can feel entitled, but not everybody has privilege. Is an entitlement, though, a privilege of, I don't know, maybe semantics of the English language. But to me, it's interesting to me with those incels. And it is level of entitlement. And you see the entitlement, too, with the manifest destiny issue.

Well, we're Americans. And you're like, yeah, but we know that means it's white people for some of you um and uh and you know the the the manifest destiny and then also you know like the religion part of it well we came this country and built it and you know no you actually came here and slaughtered the indians and slaved them and then you did it says people in africa and you just kind of been on a hell roll ever since of being awful people. But there's kind of that entitlement, like, well, we built this country, so it's owed to us or something. You know what I mean?

Like the African people didn't come here. We brought them here, so they should thank us for it. I think someone on a recent podcast talked about that. And so it's kind of interesting that segue between the two junctions of privilege and entitlement and the feeling that, well, it's our right. And I've heard people say that. They're like, it's our right, and, you know, we should be first in line. And you're like, but that means somebody else has to take a less or something.

I don't know. Yeah, well, there's this whole idea of the myth of meritocracy, right, where we believe you can sort of work hard and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and it doesn't really matter where you come from. And the reality is that in this country that's just not true. Yes, we have a capitalist system where people can make money. There's no questioning that. But depending on where you come from, your background, your skin color,

your gender, all these things, you have different access to opportunities. You have different access to resources. And so, you know, to claim that we, and speaking on behalf of sort of like white people or men, that like we built this country i think is uh just very short-sighted because it's very clear if you look back the people who actually built this country like the brick and mortar like the people who laid down the foundation for this country are not people that look like like me right they're mostly slaves mostly people who didn't didn't come from

uh from europe and so um you know to claim that like we deserve entitlements uh i think it's just sort of ill-sighted um and i think there also is a strong claim for reparations right like because people of color actually built this country i think there there's probably a case to be made that maybe those people should be compensated in some way for the hundreds of years that they weren't able to accumulate wealth because they were enslaved and actually building the infrastructure for the country that we now get to enjoy and they they still don't and and you look at you look at too i mean um how how the the environments are, especially in inner cities, lower funded areas as well, and they're racially built that way to have prejudice,

is something where it's hard to get ahead. I mean, when you're being pulled over by the cops all the time and you're being thrown in jail all the time for every little offense by a racist cop, it's a little hard to get that great job and get ahead. Dr. Lawrence Chatters, who was on the show, he recounted a story of when he grew up, how he had himself and two brothers. And very early on, once he started becoming aware of what was going on, he read or heard that one out of three African-Americans, black people, end up in prison.

And so he sat literally and looked at his two other brothers and went, which one of us? I mean, can you imagine having that sort of expectation when you're growing up as a young boy? I mean, that's almost disabilitating. Yeah, absolutely. I would just – I'd probably be going to jail too because I'd be like, hmm. I remember – well, this is a – I had a – you know,

I've had different examples in my life where I had like a – I had a driving school teacher who was like, you're all going to flunk. And I was like, screw you, dude. And I flunked. So I'd probably be the guy in jail. But no, I mean, you look at it and people are asking for help. And it has to mean that we should listen and we should come into our own analogies of privilege and what it's about. Recognize that it's there. Recogn uh there recognize that people are hurting like one of the analogies i've been using recently is is if you know you were drowning

uh in a river you're like hey chris man you're on shore there uh can you help me i'm having a hard time here i'm actually gonna drown and die if i don't get some help. And, you know, because last time I checked, drowning lives matters. And I'm up on the shore, you know, eating my, I don't know, my picnic food there, and I'm like, hey, man, I'd like to get up for you, but, you know, I just want you to know all lives matter, not just drowning people. So I really can't help you right now because I really don't feel your pain, but good luck with that. You know, that's kind of when you hear people say all eyes matter, that's pretty much what they're saying.

When, you know, like we've talked about, really, you should say, hey, man, there's some people are hurting. I think we can admit there's some problems. I mean, come on, man. There's so many signals. Like, if you can't see there's problems right now uh you know i i i mean even if you don't admit to them you can you can at least see that uh there's a lot of problems and if you can just tune in and watch the black lives matter protests and um i'll give you some clues um so anything more you want to cover here this has been a great discussion we've had with you kyle

yeah no i mean um i've've really enjoyed talking with you. You know, I think one thing that I would sort of plug and encourage people to look into is my book that I co-authored with my wife called Vital, A Torch for Your Social Justice Journey. We put it out there a couple of years ago and we self-published it. And really, it was a way for us to kind of capture the values that we both bring to to the social justice work that we do and it just got really positive positive reviews and was positively received by a lot of folks

it's like you said it's won a couple awards and um it really i think one of the most sort of resounding reviews about the book is that it's very approachable so regardless of where you're coming from and the background that you have about social justice about talking about race or gender these things um you're going to find it probably helpful and it's going to meet you uh where you're at in in that conversation and so you can find it on Amazon ebook copy or paper book copy. Yeah. And again, you can check me out at my website, kyleashley.com or my consulting website at ashleyconsulting.com. Awesome sauce. We, and we should have you on again to talk about fatherhood.

We didn't really get into fatherhood much and, and how to be a good father and impact kids. I know I saw some really great things in other countries, like I believe it's France, where they have people work for the government who come and help mothers, I think, when they're going through their pregnancy or shortly after they've had kids, and they help them with the chores in the house uh they also give fathers leave time and they just find that that just makes for a more healthier society and a lot of this stuff is you know taxed through the corporations that which are interesting enough for the same

corporations that we have here in america and we just don't ask them to step up but they're they willingly step up in other countries and they kind of have to but they're fine with it because they're like okay that's just how it goes and it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said

it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said

it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said it's like you said I don't know if we've all seen, but many of us have seen the challenge of, of what our parents have to go through. I've never been a parent,

so I never had to deal with that, but I see, you know, my friends go through parenting. Uh, one of the reasons I don't have kids is because that is really hard. I'm just sticking with dogs right now. And, uh, that seems to be my lane, but even then they wake me up in the mornings and I'm just like, maybe I should just not have dogs. But you know, I love my dogs. But still, it's hard. And in trying to make money and life and provide and health and health insurance and just all these things, especially in today's world with the collapse of the middle

class, it's really a challenge to do. So we should have you on again and talk about fatherhood, how to be a better father, better parenting and stuff like that. I'd love to have that discussion with you. Everyone check out. Go ahead. Yeah. Just going to say that would be awesome. I'd love to be on you.

Awesome sauce. Everyone check out Dr. Kyle Ashley's book and check out his website and all that good stuff. And hopefully we've given you some great tools for my white people to learn not to be racist or to start thinking about down the pathway because it is a long pathway. I don't feel like I've fully gotten rid of everything, any unconscious bias. I'm always concerned about that. I don't think I've fully gone through maybe how I've

contributed or how I'm contributing or how I can stop contributing or what I can do, but I'm definitely having those conversations. I'm trying to share the education and get us down those roads. Thanks, Monique, for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys. Go to thecvpn.com, chrisvosspodcastnetwork.com. Refer

the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. If you want to see the video version of this, you can go to YouTube.com. We've got some incredible more authors on the show coming up that you're going to be really blown away by and you'll love the experience so far. Anyway guys, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you guys next time.