Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep910: One Christian’s Change in Perspective on Racism: Kimi Katiti

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Kimi is an artist, YouTuber, skater, musician, and a has been speaking out about her journey through the topic of race and racism. Kimi had absorbed a certain perspective on race that viewed many things as micro aggressions, but it created so much anxiety and depression in her life that she decided to have a more charitable and, in her words, Christian perspective on race, where forgiveness is the key to freedom and reconciliation.  Learn more about Kimi: https://www.kimikatiti.com  Come to Boise to hear Kimi speak at Theology in the Raw’s “Exiles in Babylon” conference! https://www.prestonsprinkle.com/conference  Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Faith, Sexuality, and Gender Conference - Live in Boise or Stream Online In the all-day conference, Dr. Preston Sprinkle dives deep into the theological, relational, and ministry-related questions that come up in the LGBTQ conversation. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today Kimmy Katiti, which if you're not on YouTube, you might not know who she is, but Kimmy has become a fairly popular YouTuber. Her channel is getting tons of hits, and she has been speaking on the issue of race from various angles, addressing things like CRT, systemic racism, equity, angles addressing things like CRT, systemic racism, equity, quote unquote, kind of wokeism, as she might put it. And I just found her so fascinating. And I've been reading her stuff and listening to her, watching her. And I was like, man, I really want to have Kimmy on the show. And she is a solid believer in Jesus. And she's also an artist, a skater. We talk about skating at the end of the podcast. She's a musician, very talented, artistic, and super gracious and wise and humble person.

So we get into all things race-related in this conversation. And Kimmy shares a perspective that is different than the perspective of a lot of people. So please welcome to the show. Oh, also, Kimmy is going to be speaking at the Theology in the Raw Conference in Boise next spring, March 31st to April 2nd. Another plug for the Theology in the Raw Conference. So if you really enjoy this conversation and you want to meet Kimmy, then come on out to Boise next spring, hang out with Kimmy and many other guests who are going to be sharing their stories and giving various talks at the Theology and Rock Conference next spring. Okay, here we go. Let's dive into this conversation.

Be one and only. Kimi Kachiti. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. I am here with Kimi Katiti. Kimi, thanks so much for being on the show. I'm super excited about this conversation. Hey, Preston. Thank you so much for having me. I am so honored to be talking with you and looking forward to this. Yeah. Well, I'm super honored too. I mean, you became kind of a famous YouTuber. I mean, it happened so quickly, I feel like. And all of a sudden, every time I look at your channel, it's getting more and more views. It's getting a lot of attention. So yeah, I'm honored you said yes to be on the show. Why don't we start for people that don't know who you are? Why don't we start for people that don't know who you are? I would love for you to tell your story.

Who are you? And I really want to dive into your journey in the race conversation because you've had kind of major shifts of opinion and would love to hear about that. So tell us a bit about who you are. Totally. So I'm Ugandan ethnically, but I moved to the United States about eight years ago, primarily for education. Like I wanted to go to college. My parents wanted me to go to college here. So we made that happen. And I studied audio production at the Art Institutes of California in North Hollywood. Hollywood. So everything was great when I moved to the States. Mind you, I lived in South Africa for seven years prior to that. I've lived in Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania for about equal parts, like three to four years each. So altogether, it was about 19 years. And so I moved here when I was 19. And I found America to be one of the friendliest places I had ever been to. Just my experience, right? Like given my background in all the other places I was comparing it to.

But then once I went to college, I found that I was being instructed to view the world in a more dark lens. That things are not as they seem, like all that glitters is in gold the reason and you know the funny thing is a lot of it was true when it comes to Hollywood right so I'm learning audio production I'm learning a lot of Hollywood based stuff symbolism that sort of thing and you learn about like the male gaze and the white gaze. But then a lot of these theories anchored in a little bit of truth have a kind of bigger wake of subjective reality attached to it, right? So then I began to anchor what I was learning for film, you know, reading Bill Hooks and feminism and all that stuff to reality and learning other themes and postmodern ideas about the world and how to look at the world

without really knowing that this is what this ideology is rooted in. And through that, I adopted this sense of like, I adopted this microaggression lens and finding the wording for a lot of these things is hard. microaggression lens and finding the wording for a lot of these things is hard but the easiest way to describe it is like I just began to see more grievance in the world like more of the evil more of the negative um than the positive and because as humans we tend to have a negative bias that became like it became more and more encompassing um because I was drawn like, why didn't someone do this? Is it because of race? Is it because I'm a woman? Like, why did they do, why did they do that for someone else and like not do that for me? And I found those microaggressions to really be very anxiety

inducing. Even post-graduation, I graduated in 2017. And from the period of like 2017 to 20, late 2018, I think that was sort of the worst, uh, of this sort of OCD, like microaggression interpretation of the world. would like go out to the street and people's looks like if people looked at me wrong um all of that got interpreted through the lens of race like oh it's because i'm a black woman in america and i just i reached a point where i was so depressed and i'm not looking the two at this time i'm not like oh i'm depressed because of this, right? I'm just extremely depressed. Like I'm very like sluggish. I cannot wake up. Like I was experiencing all those manifestations of, you know, or symptoms of depression. Um, and it wasn't until this one particular day that I was at a, I went to a Bible study in Burbank and I just was, I noticed that my microaggression interpretation became very very very OCD like I remember one of the bible study leader like scooted over like a little bit when I came to

sit down and like that was like I could write a whole essay on the implications of that simply because of my ability to like translate microaggressions and like all that stuff but there were like I would there were like hundreds of a thousand hundred to a thousand microaggressions that happened that evening that were all just like I felt very fragile like I was shaking right I felt like I could feel all these knives in me like tiny little pricks to bigger stabs to like all these things and I went home and I just was like Lord like this can't be right and mind you I've been a Christian since I was 14 so my my fellowship with the Lord has always been very like close but the moment I I felt that I was like this isn't the promise of God. Like the Lord says, like, we'll have peace that passes understanding.

Why don't I have the peace that I used to have before I came to America? Like, why don't like, where did that go? Why do I always live this negative, you know, Mr. Negative? I don't know if you're a fan of Spider-Man, but it just felt like everything was inverted. And the Lord was like, you're just offended. Like you're extremely offended. Um, and you, you shouldn't be offended. You need to forgive. And it was very, it was a very simple heart, like gut feeling that I had sitting at my dining table. Is this going on too long? I'm sorry. No, no, not at all. table is this going on too long I'm sorry no no not at all no this is good

this is how I got to this point but like I just felt that nudge go like okay I need to just let go and I started with that bible study I just started with all the names and everything and you know what happened how I felt and that went that process from that moment kind of went on for like a year I would say like a year and even now when I moment kind of went on for like a year, I would say like a year. And even now when I talk about it, it's been like over a year, of course. But yeah, I began to unravel that and began to adopt a lens of, you know, taking the gospel way more literal in that, you know, when he says forgive, we really need to forgive him when it

comes to race, like race, the racism, and it doesn't justify racism. It just means that, yes, this is a sin. Therefore, you should forgive it because it's one of the things I've nailed to the cross as well. But yeah, that's how I started making these videos. I felt like the nation kind of was at a boiling point. And I just wanted to get that off my chest. So yeah. So I'm hearing you say that, you didn't quite say this, but maybe clarify, the microaggressions, did you see them as responses to legitimate racism? Or were you reading into things that weren't there or maybe a blend of both because when you talk about forgiveness you know forgiveness is against an offense that was

committed against you um was it a both and or are you saying that like a lot of this stuff was kind of like your confirmation bias trying to see everything through the lens of race does that make sense yeah totally makes a lot of sense i would say like 20 maybe 20 of it would have been like real incidents of like oh this was like majorly motivated by race right okay 80 was just recalling the recent racism and then kind of just putting it on other incidents because once i worked back those offenses, I was like, wait, did they really mean to do that? You know, like, did they really mean to do that because I'm black? Or are they just, like, grumpy that day?

So I really had to realize that there was so much more on the table than simply race. People's upbringings, that sort of thing. Like when the Bible study lady, Bible study leader moved over, is she a racist? Like, does she not like black people? Or was she trying to give you room? Or is it like, I don't know, like, I don't know the motivation or... Yeah, that's the thing. I will never know.

For as long as I live, I could choose to think that that was motivated by racism, but I'll never know for as long as i live i could choose to think that that was motivated by racism but i'll never know and it's dumb to go back and be like hey why did you scoot over that day you know what i mean it's like those answers are never gonna come and maybe it was racism but and then so what you know like why should i let that affect me so much yeah you know and you you you kind of insinuated that it was really your educational or American context that trained you or taught you or nurtured you into maybe seeing race more than you had. Because you came from South Africa before that, right? Yeah.

South Africa knows a thing or two about racism. Yeah. As you compare your Southan experience versus here would you say now looking back are they about the same the racial tensions or is south africa way worse but you were just trained to see it more here or i would love to hear you compare the kind of the two different environments because they're they're similar yet different in many ways too yeah um it's very weird for me to put into where i'm still trying to find how to describe this like south africa is way like the racial tension is very stark like you can feel it yeah but also the ability to talk about it because of its intensity is so much easier to be like, you

know, did you do this because I'm black? It's just not uncomfortable. Whereas in America, I would say the racism is really down and hence people have a hard time talking about it because it's like this thing that feels so distant. And so when you dig it up, it's like, oh, like, I don it up it's like oh like I don't want to you know I don't want to go there um and people fear it a lot here in America whereas in South Africa it's just it's a very recent part of their history so it's not awkward to be like you know is your dog barking at me because I'm black like people don't find that really offensive, but it's a real topic. It's a real question. And it's just like a normal everyday thing to discuss without a lot of the

sort of getting triggered aspect, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. That's interesting. Hello, friends. I want to invite you to come join us for our first ever Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference, March 31st to April 2nd. At this conference, we're going to be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation, care, American politics, and what it means to love, love, love your Democratic and Republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. Everyone will be challenged to think critically, compassionately, and Christianly through all kinds of different topics. We've got loads of

awesome speakers that are going to be there. Thabiti Anyubwale, Chris Date, Derwin Gray, Ellie Bonilla, Jackie Hill Perry, Evan Wickham, John Tyson, Tony Scarcello, Sandy Richter, Kimmy Katiti, Heather Skreba, Street Hems, and many others will be joining us for the first ever Theology in the Raw Conference. All the information is in the show notes, or you can just go to PressAndSprinkle.com to register. And I would recommend registering sooner than later. Space is limited. You can come and join us in person in Boise, or you can stream it online. Again, PressAndSprinkle.com for all the info. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. That's interesting.

How would you summarize your – because you've been doing a lot of videos and IGTV posts and stuff on your thoughts on kind of the race conversation. How would you maybe start 30,000-foot big picture? Do you see racism as a huge issue that the church should address? Do you feel like it's being framed correctly or incorrectly? Or how would you understand the race conversation in the church today? Or in America and the church today? Yeah, that's a, it's a really good question. I can't relate to it. I just feel like I lost the memo. I felt like once 20, maybe like even 2016, 2017, still kind of woke, but then like 2018, beginning to forgive. I was like, I feel like y'all are talking about something,

but I don't know what you're talking about. And so it's very hard for me to understand. Like, I will literally like, I will look at like the TV or the screen when I'm listening to preachers talk about race, because I'm like, that's, I've never experienced that. I don't know what you're talking about. So I don't know if it's just cause I'm a foreigner that I can't really grasp what's happening. Um, but I feel like a lot of it is just not rooted in the Bible. Cause it's very, I just feel like the Bible has a very specific way to address group difference or, you know, uh, offense, like there's a very, God wants us to forgive. Like that's very like plain. Um, so I do get lost when it turns into like this jargony, like school of thought on its own. I'm like, where are you getting that? That is not in the Bible.

That's really, really strange to me. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. I've heard you give an example before of maybe a year or two ago, you were at a church that wanted to address the race conversation. And I would love for you to describe that experience because you were, if I remember correctly, you were just really disappointed at how, I don't want to say unchristian, but how like a Christian world, you seem to be not central to how they were addressing the race conversation. Can you explain that? Because I thought that was really interesting that the way you retold that. Yeah. This was, so this was last year, 2020, right off the heels of George Floyd passing away and the protests that were happening. Our church decided to have a racial reconciliation meeting basically every night for two weeks.

There was a commitment to racial reconciliation. Mind you, I was, like, wrecked. I was crying after George Floyd, like, I couldn't stop crying. I was kind of falling into depression. And, you know, my heart wasn't that I was callous towards it. I wasn't like, oh, you deserved it. That was not my, that was not my attitude at the time at all. I was very like wrecked by the whole George Floyd incident. Um, but again, like the word of God is just very clear to me. Um, this is like, this is an opportunity for you to check your heart and see, do I have it within my consciousness to forgive Derek Chauvin? Like if you were in that position, is that the stance you would take? Because there is no mincing of words where Jesus would be on that issue.

So anyway, those are just my thoughts in the moment. We have this racial reconciliation Zoom call with the whole church. And they begin to do these practices like dividing black people into one like breakout room and white people into another breakout room. And I found all of these to be strange. But while I was in the black people breakout room, I mentioned, you know, this whole time we've been having these racial reconciliation talks, but no one's talked about forgiveness and reconciliation in and of itself kind of implies forgiving and making amends and, you know, bridging that gap, whatever rift had been created. And so I didn't say all of that. I just said, Hey, what about forgiveness? Like, are we, would you ever forgive, you know, people

who hurt you in the past when it came to racism and like one of the elders like leaders of the church very strong figure was like no i can't forgive this was like after a minute of silence everyone was just like staring at the screen and then he broke the silence he's like no i can't forgive, was very angry. And I understand, but given the situation, given the fact that this is a church reconciliation meeting, that notion shouldn't have been such a bar-off idea. You know what I mean? And especially as a leader in the church,

I just felt like that response was very eye-opening. And I found it to be very disappointing because I myself had to go through that hard road. I'm there with you. I feel the pain. I'm not just this conservative pundit that is just like regurgitating talking points. I feel you.

But we have to talk about this as a church. Wow. Do you know if they ever... Yeah, that's Like you said I understand The Pain like when you go through such a horrific Situation not you

You know like it's As you see yourself maybe in that Incident and see the Injustice and the murder and link It to a whole history Of these things I can understand that, that pain at the same time, yet forgiveness is never like, it's always the Christian response and it may take you a while to get there. Um,

have you, so have you, you've like learned to cultivate the kind of a, if I can say like a rhythm of forgiveness, can you explain how that's because before you said you were just very fragile you were high anxiety depression what's been the maybe byproduct of cultivating that rhythm of forgiveness over the last year or so Um, I, it's been so like, I guess psychologically my entire ability to even notice my progressions is like next to nothing. Um, and I think I would compare it a lot to cognitive behavioral therapy, uh, which is sort of rethinking and retracing incidents that you were afraid of and really kind of questioning, like, you know,

could it be that this wasn't the monster that you thought it was and really kind of rewiring your neural pathways. And so now there is actually a very big difference in the way I process the world or, you know, my worldview, I guess. So it's not necessarily that I have a rhythm of forgiveness. It's like I don't notice like the foolish things that much. Um, and yeah, I do mean like, I mean, I really sincerely mean like foolish things because I really just don't think you should be spending so much energy in your day consuming and mulling over and meditating on tiny incidents. So I don't really have a rhythm necessarily.

It's just that I don't notice it a lot. If something does happen and it's like, oh, that was awkward. I'm like, you know what? What's the worst that could happen?'m like you know what what's the worst that could happen and am i still alive are they a human you know and it's like okay let me i'll go i'll forgive you and it might not take just one moment it might take a while but those are for bigger yeah yeah incidents you know so do you as you look kind of at the discussion going on in America, would you say that racism, and I'm going to throw in here systemic racism, and maybe I would love to hear your thoughts on that as a concept. Do you see racism and or systemic racism as a serious prevalent issue in America?

Maybe a moderate, it's there, but it's not as big as some people make it out to be, or do you see it as not really much of a serious issue at all? And I know that's a huge question, but I would love, yeah, would love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, totally.

I, for one, will say time is a huge factor in our ability to gauge whether our system is truly racist or not. It's like what structures existed in the past that held up racism and kept those of a different skin color lower than those who are like the white straight males or whatever. I believe in America, that was very, very heightened during the 60s. And a lot has been done since to repair those broken systems. Are we perfect now? I don't think so. But I honestly, I feel like as long as you're willing to look for it and look for the trends and the patterns based on geography, based on skin color, you always find some sort of disparity. I don't think it's at the point now where it's going to prevent a lot of people from doing things.

Whereas if you take South Africa, for example, I can definitely say like, yeah, there's systemic racism. Like, because of the time period between 1994, when apartheid ended, you have their journey from making, you know, everything stable and equal. It's just been what, nearly 30 years. So that's a very short span to correct a lot of those things. Did it take affirmative action in some instances? Yes. Did it take, you know, reparations? Yes, it took reparations.

Like there was so much that was done to fix that systemic racism. On the men, they're on the men, but given that they're still experiencing some of the troubles that come with trying to fix that horrible history. So I do believe it exists in different variations. However, the Bible does say that promotion does not come from the East or West. Promotion comes from the Lord. And as Christians,

I think we need to really be anchored so much in our faith that we trust that God is able to do more than like white people that conspire together. It's like, we can't worship white people as like, oh my gosh, you're holding me back. Like trust that the Lord is stronger than that. I know it sounds silly, but that is something that I had to really confront in my mind. Am I like, do I believe that white people hold the key to my success more than the Lord? You know, and is that true? And do I, is there a flaw in that thinking? So that's my very, very brief answer. Yeah, yeah.

And related, I mean, Critical race theory, you created a video. I think it was like why I hate critical race theory or something. Something really subtle. Yeah. I feel like this has become such a divisive issue in the church. And half the time, I'm not sure people on both sides, whether they're for it or against it, can really articulate what it is accurately. What's your understanding of critical race theory? And why do you hate it so much, if I could sum up your own words?

Hey, friends, hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. And if you are enjoying this conversation and others like it, would you consider supporting the Theology in the Raw ministry by going to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to lots of different kinds of premium content like monthly Patreon-only podcasts and blogs and Q&A sessions.

Again, you can go to patreon.com forward slash TheologyNaral or all the info is in the show notes. Why do you hate it so much? If I could sum up your own words. Yeah, there's actually a lot of reasons why I hate it. And I really do feel like I hate it. I don't like mildly dislike it.

I don't disagree with some parts of it. I hate it completely. Maybe define what the it is just so our audience – Yeah, because again, it's thrown around a lot without people understanding what it even is. the theories of Karl Marx and Michel Foucault and a lot of other theorists is ungodly, first of all, to not mince words. And then you have the after effects of actually ingesting critical race praxis, which is critical race theory in practice, and experiencing this subjective reality that is way more oppressive than the oppressors it claims are against you. So I think that one, it's foundation, critical race theory, and it's so vast and very copious that it's hard for someone to be like, this is what it is. It's basically viewing critical race theory praxis and its children, I like to call them the children,

critical social justice and anti-racism. They teach you to view the world through the lens of grievance. This is something that Desmond Tutu talks about. Whereas once you dismiss it, you're able to acknowledge things that might be occurring and say this is a possible reality. However, I'm choosing to view the world through a lens of gratitude. And I think that in and of itself is empowering for the black person, whereas it disempowers the black person to arm yourself with mental patterns that will put you in a pit of depression. Like, how does that empower black people? My heart is for empowering black people, African youth. If this thing is not empowering, if it's not founded in objective reality or the word of

God, throw it away because the Bible can answer all those questions for you fill in all those gaps for you you don't need it as a supplement you really don't so yeah the usc the the byproduct is disempowering actually disempowering black people that's it yeah that is exactly it that's the that's the main thing and from my experience of just ingesting so many microaggressions because you think you're this hyper intellectual that can see everything but you're really just OCD for everything that's negative in your life that made me unable to implement certain productivity hacks like you hear all these great things people are doing to save time and do more and it's like I can't do that because I'm depressed because I'm black in America.

And it's like, cut the crap. Sorry for the language. But like, that's not how God intends for you to live. It's very, very dangerous. So I just, I mentioned offline that I just literally got done recording a lengthy conversation between Rasul Berry and Samuel Say. I think that episode will be released before this one. I'll have to go back and look. So hopefully my listeners can either have heard that or can go back and listen to it. But one of

the things Rasul brought up toward the end, I wanted to, well, they, they kind of got into a little bit. I would love to hear your thoughts on it that, um, uh, Rasul said, you know, we, um, we do have to give, uh, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but basically like there is something to the overwhelming majority of black people in America saying, this is our lived experience that, uh, we do, saying this is our lived experience that we do, whether we can kind of pinpoint in a concrete way, here's where the system's wrong, here's where this is off. We have a lived experience where we do feel these things, these subtle acts of, you know, racism. And how would you, would you agree with that? Or what would you say to that that if the yeah let's just say the and i'm not sure this is true but let's just say the overwhelming majority of black people in america would look at critical race theory and say oh yes i i think

that's true um because this is where i'm you know i you know i'm listening you would represent maybe more minority opinion within the minority on the race conversation. People would say, well, you should give more stock into how most people would talk about their lived experience. Does that make sense? I'm kind of searching for the best way to put it. But yeah, I would love to hear your – It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I would say for one lived experience

predates critical race theory i mean critical race theory did not invent our lived experience we have people like malcolm x and martin luther king jr who were fighting for black rights and black equality heck like we could even go back to you know slavery and and everyone who was involved in emancipation and maybe even go back of like a little you know way back to like the 1700s late 1700s where while race was being created and this hierarchy of races being created in england slavery was beginning to die out because people were fighting for it to be abolished, right? So I think people have been listening to lived experience far longer than CRT was invented. CRT existed in the late 80s and used this lived experience as a sort of motive for it to be,

you know, used and implemented and kind of taken into consideration in law. used and implemented and kind of taken into consideration and law. And I, I think it's important to listen to lived experience 100%. But if you're going to do that, be consistent with it. Because I think we tend to have this confirmation bias where we want to listen to the lived experience that's a bit more dramatic that merits you on how, know how horrible things have been um but i think there are other voices who will say otherwise and then it's like okay no those voices didn't happen that lived experience doesn't count that's kind of a an um a result of crt is that it blocks out lived experiences of people who don't fit the narrative um so i'm all for lived experience just just be consistent with it. Because when you see someone like me share my lived experience, or when you see a lot of other Africans, mind you, like a lot of Africans have still experienced

different forms of racism through colonialism, through apartheid in South Africa. If their lived experience seems to be a little bit different, why are we not listening to that as well? But yeah, just throwing that out there. That would be my little bit different. Why are we not listening to that as well? But yeah, just throwing that out there. That would be my take on that. Within the lived experience, as I've listened and studied and learned and watched things or whatever, there does seem to be,

well, I guess it depends on what question you're asking, but kind of a difference between the African immigrant like yourself and somebody who has been here for several generations. Even when you look at – and if I say anything here that needs to be fact-checked, they're very different, it seems like, from first-generation Africans in America versus people who have been here for several generations. So there can almost sometimes be a tension within the Black community between the immigrant and the person who's been here. So I don't even know what the conclusion is on that, but it is. I think your perspective is really interesting because you're coming from an outside in.

And yet, because you are a black woman, you do have an insider's perspective, but also an outsider's perspective. And also even in another context like South Africa. So you bring in lots of different kinds of lived experiences to the table. you bring in lots of different kinds of lived experiences to, to the table. Yeah. So I'll, I'll let you say, do you think that your take on racism is, might be different than the majority of black people in America because you are an immigrant? Does that change anything for you? Or do you think that that doesn't change anything?

I mean, definitely does because the majority of my life has been overseas. I've only been here for eight years. So it would be foolish for me to say that doesn't play a huge role in my worldview. But I will say there is a lot of geographical difference and also just like the racism that existed in America, say like circa the 60s, you know, the reluctance from the Kennedy administration to kind of, you know, listen to the civil rights movement. And then sort of the ball kind of began to roll from there. I mean, the assassinations of people who are trying to speak up against, you know, the black suppression, there has been a very tense history in America between black and white. That's undeniable. But there has also been work done since to make the American dream sort of available to all. And I think this is where I would say systemic racism exists in the ether, is that there is this perpetuated idea that you

actually, you can be in America and you can't do it. Like you will live in America, you might be black, but you can't achieve what others are achieving simply because of your skin color. I think that mental slavery in a way is something that's very dangerous and I'm very passionate about breaking that um because I I think that's where the disparity comes in you have a migrant from Africa comes with like zero nothing and is able able to kind of just live and be like I'm in America like let's do whatever we have to do um whereas I do i do it hurts me to see so many people believe this lie of like white supremacy owns your life that for me is like the racism does that make sense yeah well it's what yeah yeah other people talk about like they might talk about like victimhood culture like

if you're constantly believing you're a victim, it's actually more disempowering. I guess the pushback would be, but until we acknowledge that, we can't dismantle systems of oppression and the victim, you know. And I can see both sides of that. And I, yeah, because some people are victims of oppression, right? But then if you, it's hard to get out of that

if all you do is see life through the lens of that. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I just feel like if we are able to acknowledge that there is an oppression or an oppressive force, then are we taking the biblical prescription against it as Christians, specifically speaking to Christians? Because you can acknowledge it and say, okay, yes, sure. Okay. Then what do you do next? Like, what is your next action step? Is this a spiritual

battle? Is this a mental psychological battle within yourself is it a physical battle where you have to go to court and sue people like what are we gonna do um right yeah i would love to hear your thoughts on something kind of related but i mean um and i'm just yeah this is theology in ira i typically am probably even more of an open book than i should be maybe. Yeah, I'm just really trying to understand the race conversation primarily because before the race conversation became such a huge thing in the last couple of years, I was really passionate. And it's still, my main passion is

I want the church to replicate the multi-ethnic, the beautiful multi-ethnic vision that you see throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation that the kingdom of God is intrinsically and ethnically diverse and socioeconomically diverse. And this idea of diversity and integration is just a beautiful theme in Scripture. And I feel like the church has made a lot of progress in that in the last 20 years. And it's being almost stunted by some of the polarization that's happening in the country and trickle down in the church and the race conversations at the center of that and either you're anti-CRT, pro-CRT. And it's just, I just feel like it's, I want to see

the church move forward in that. So all that, I'm giving background for myself here. So understanding the modern, the more modern race conversation, I'm trying to get my arms around that so that I can help, I don't know, play a tiny role in helping the church move forward in its, in its primary vocation of being the multi-ethnic kingdom of God. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. So I'm having lots of conversations about race. And I'll have people, ethnic minorities, give different perspectives on this podcast. And no matter who I have on, I get the email saying, oh, you shouldn't have platformed that person because of whatever.

You know, one of the common responses I get when I have a more heterodox opinion, maybe like yourself, will be like, oh, all that's going to do is help white Christians get off the hook saying, oh yeah, see, I knew it. I knew it. I knew this conversation was blown out of proportion. You just have on kind of somebody

that's going to tell white people what they want to hear. How do you respond to that? Because I'm going to get that email tomorrow. Yeah, you are. How does that response affect you when you hear that? So this is just being completely honest, right? I think there's a very unhealthy obsession with white people. And I think that's a very big problem because if you notice in my story, I barely had anything to do with, I didn't talk to white people. I didn't come out of this mindset through a white person giving me things. It just, it was a very internal transformation, right? Nowhere in my story or even in my life for transformation does this even like refer to a lot of white people because I'm usually dealing with different ethnicities. My neighbors are Armenian. I have Orthodox Jewish neighbors. Like I'm surrounded by a group of different cultures and like there are people from Algeria,

a huge Algerian community here. It's not about like, again, it's really not about if white people agree, if white people are like, okay, this is cool Like that's cool But I don't base my life on white people I don't care about the whether a white person likes my stuff or whether a white person hates me and the white community at large Which I don't know what that even means They go out and you're like, oh we we got to like, you know, deal with Kimmy Katiti. It's like, am I doing what God has called me to do on this earth

right now? Am I obeying the word of God? If the word of God says, do not be offended. If the word of God says, forgive 17 times seven, is that what I'm doing? Are the results great? Do I enjoy the results? Do I feel empowered? That's it. So if someone wants to email you and say, hey, this just makes white people happy. Well, maybe to that person, I would ask, why are you so hinged on what white people think and what white people do and what's going to make white people happy? I think that's disempowering. And I think you should just focus on yourself, focus on whether you have peace with the ideology you have, focus on whether you're in the Word of God every day, are you submitting to His will? And then that's it. If white people respond, if they don't, that doesn't matter. It's what is happening in your life, in your head. That's good. with a wide array of different viewpoints. So I understand where people are coming from so that people are challenged to think on their own

and say, hey, here's one viewpoint. Here's another viewpoint. I just had on a propaganda, Jason Petty on the show and he loves CRT. And I love having that conversation. I love having the conversation with you. And I want people to really think through this. But when it comes to the race conversation, I feel like people are really

have become very sensitive and maybe it's in a good way, but to which voices are you platforming and what viewpoint are you furthering by platforming certain voices? And I just, I don't, I don't think I agree with that whole mindset of platforming like i don't i think we need to engage ideas and do and if you have the opportunity to do so publicly so that people will have to engage the idea and and is that platforming is that bad thing i mean i don't or we can sit in our echo chambers and just listen to the people we think have the right narrative and i don't think that's healthy though Yeah, I do think there's a sense of safetyism where we're trying to protect people from ideas and people who might offend them, right? I think that's very unhealthy.

I would really love for people to disagree with me and poke holes in what I'm thinking so that I can also re-examine my worldview. And people might think it's crazy, but I honestly, I would not even hate anyone who loves CRT. Like, I will listen to you. I will listen to what you have to say because you have the right to love it and I have the right to hate it. And that's another thing that I hate, I love about a pluralistic society is like we can both have our own opinions and that's what makes us humans with free will and with freedom and rights. So to anyone who's listening,

if you think that Preston is platforming people who should never see the light of day, question your sensitivity towards hearing ideas like if you can't hear ideas how are you going to defend yourself in the face of real like pain in the face of real hardship like question your degree of sensitivity because we need to really become stronger and not build more fragility. And I use this example of when you bubble wrap someone, it's because you believe that they will break if they fall. Whereas if you tell someone to do the hard thing, which is like do pushups, right? It's because you believe they can get stronger and that thing isn't going to hurt them. So are you a bubble

wrap person? Are you a push up person? Like, will you challenge yourself by listening to hard ideas? Yeah. I know you read the book, The Coddling of the American Mind. I saw it on your Instagram. That's actually good. And they draw on Nassim Taleb's book, the whole concept of anti-fragility, The whole concept of anti-fragility, which I, man, it's just in life that it's so important. And so I'm just utterly convinced by it. Jonathan Haidt's approach to these things. I think in the race conversation, it's always as a white guy, right?

It's for me to say, no, we need to build anti-fragility that just can come off poor um at the same time it's like either it is it is a true concept or not and i'm very convinced that we should all strive to be more anti-fragile um it does help for somebody like yourself to say the same thing because if i say it it's like well easier for you to talk down to people that are suffering and say, you need to be anti-fragile. At least that's how it could come off. Obviously, that's never my motivation. But, oh, man. Also, yeah. Yeah.

Any thoughts on that or the anti-fragility? You kind of touched on it, but I just want to say that it's all coming from a place of really love and like a pain for, for not building yourself up to your highest potential, um, because of building this fragile worldview or this, like, you know, ingraining so much fragility. So, yeah, I feel like just remember when someone talks about the sort of anti-fragility to the listener, it's really out of a place of care, concern and love and compassion for the most part. What is some of the criticism you've received over, I don't know, the last year or so? And what are maybe some things that's like, oh, that this criticism did cause me to kind of rethink some things or. maybe some things it's like, Oh, that this criticism did cause me to kind of rethink some things or, um, yeah. What, what, I guess, what are your main criticism you've received since you've been really speaking out last year or so? Well, the, the first one that comes to mind is

someone was like, you, you hate diversity, but you want to see like more black girls on skateboarding, for example. And I was like, I hear you. I hear where you're coming from. Because I did make a video saying this is why I hate anti-racism. And people perceived my disdain for diversity, equity and inclusion as a workplace department as hating diversity, period. So to that, I would say like, no, I don't hate diversity at all. In fact, I'm incredibly, it's not a contradiction. I'm incredibly passionate about diversity. I just think it comes more from an inside place where I'm like, I'm able to go into this white environment without perceiving microaggressions and participate. Whereas I feel like a lot of

people are speaking of diversity in the sense of you have to drag black people into spaces and for photo opportunities, which I think just produces tokenism. And I'm not about that at all. I do think we need to, again, back to anti-fragility to answer that we need to be less sensitive of like, I'm the only white black person in this white space therefore like i shouldn't go um which is something i hear a lot in my skate circles people like i don't want to go because there's going to be a lot of white men or it's going to be a lot of white girls and it's like just do it and see how it feels see how they you know if if they hurt you or harm you and then come back and report and tell us how it was.

But do it nevertheless, you know, force yourself to confront that fear. So, yes, I do care about diversity. I just feel that diversity based on critical social justice, again, which is a child of CRT, produces this fragility. produces this fragility. Whereas diversity based on anti-fragility makes a more organic transition into white-dominated spaces, if that makes sense. No, that makes complete sense. So I've often said like there's, and there's so many slogans thrown around.

This was what drives me crazy. Like you've mentioned anti-racism a few times. Like if people aren't aware of the conversation, that anti-racism is a very specific way of viewing race and addressing race and understanding race. If you're not anti-racist, it doesn't mean you're racist. It just means you don't think that this approach to addressing racism is the most helpful. Or even diversity. addressing racism is the most helpful. Or even diversity, like there's, you know, diversity trainings and diversity, whatever, has become almost like a slogan of a certain specific way of creating diversity. So you could be against, for instance, diversity trainings and how they

go about it, and not be against diversity. You could be against anti-racism as a thing and not be against addressing racism. Am I wording it correctly? Okay. Absolutely. You could be very much for social justice and against the slogan kind of SJW, how it's gone about. 100%. I think that's where a lot of people will say like, Preston, why are you platforming someone who's against diversity? That's where that breakdown of communication happens because it's like, okay, I'm not referring to diversity in its like bigger context. I'm referring to the specific sort of sending out these trainings and this material that is based in postmodernism that I, I am not a fan of because it doesn't achieve the goal of diversity.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that makes good sense. So criticism you've received, so more misunderstanding what you're saying. Have you received criticism for your very explicit kind of anti-CRT stuff or is that too fresh to have received? You know what? Surprisingly, I haven't. I guess I will say I have received more explanations from like kind people who've sent emails, like long emails, sort of breaking down the different levels or tiers of equity. I think that's something that I was very turned off initially in the video that I made on YouTube. But people have expanded on that and that's really broadened my understanding of equity. Also, I read No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu. Highly recommend that book. And at the end,

Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu. Highly recommend that book. And at the end, he talks about equity through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which was just kind of bringing the black community up to par because there was such a disparity in wealth. So I understand that equity can sort of morph in different contexts.

I am still against of the way we're throwing the word around, especially social like equity. Like that doesn't really make sense to me. I don't know how I can like socially be more equitable. But yeah, someone did. A lot of people corrected me on that. So I'm very grateful for that correction. That's awesome. But yeah, a lot of people corrected me on that.

So I'm very grateful for that correction. That's awesome. For the most part, they've been personal. People just saying like, hey, what you said hurt my feelings. That's been the majority of a very small percentage of pushback, which I do take into consideration. And if it's like a close friend, I'll be like, hey, I'm not saying this stuff to hurt you. I just really feel like I should say this because no one else is saying it. But please know that I still love you as a friend

and my intentions aren't to hurt you. How have other, if I can say, other black people responded to your videos and stuff? Like, is it all just a bunch of white people saying, see, I knew it. Or are there other people that have contacted you saying, man, I, this is, this, your story kind of feels very similar to my own story or. Overwhelmingly. So, um, more people have been very supportive. I would say like 90%, um, especially people who are minorities or

immigrants so not necessarily just African American but just a minority just not white and a lot of people who are even queer a lot of queer people a lot of like the percentage of people who would be categorized as marginalized is very high at least who come to me they've also been you know white people who are like in the south they're a part of that mix but it's been very diverse and i'm saying that authentically like i i also was like i said the thing that's just gonna draw all the right-wing people and they're just gonna go crazy and it's like i i'm embarrassed but it's also like that's not what has happened though. A lot of, um, it's just been diverse.

Yeah. That's interesting. What can we learn from South Africa specifically? You mentioned Desmond Tutu and, uh, man, you talk about, uh, one of the main historic Christian leaders in addressing racism and segregation from an explicitly Christian viewpoint. I'm curious because you know Desmond, his work and his ideas very well from what I gather. What would Tutu, where would he stand in the American race? where would Tutu, where would he stand in the American race? If he was going to come over here and kind of play referee or whatever, trying to help us understand the race conversation in America, how do you think he would view it?

What would be his words of experienced wisdom in it? Yeah, I love Desmond Tutu as an example, because if you love CRT or if you hate CRT, you will find that Desmond bridges the two in a very sensible way. Because he is the one, I will say he is like the very few people on earth who implemented a lot of the ideas that CRT espouses because of the context that he found himself in, being the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, having to negotiate reparations in real time for people who killed, just randomly committed violent acts, murdered people. He was dealing with reparations. He was dealing with equity.

He was dealing with all the things that we talk about now. But, and mind you, he was a part of protests, right? Like he was on the front lines with other clergy, like other, like white, black, Indian, other people just fighting against apartheid. Like he was on the front lines, got shot at with rubber bullets, had his daughter and his wife just intrusively searched by the police, and he's not able to vote in his own country. So tell me why someone who has had to deal with reparations, who discusses equity in the South African context, who has been on the front lines of protests, right? Tell me why that person would write a whole book titled The Book of Forgiving. And it's about this thing and wrote another book titled No Future Without Forgiveness. Why would someone who has gone through all that make his ultimate thesis in life forgiveness? So it's something to think about. I think that his experience is,

if we're talking about lived experience, right? You want to talk about the lived experience of someone who's been in the heat of racism more than we could ever fathom and who's been alongside Nelson Mandela in prison for 27 years. Why they came out with this thesis, which is we need to forgive. So I think that's something to take into consideration and something that we need very desperately in this American context, because again, I think the degree of systemic racism is far lower than the South African context in the 90s. And I think that if they came to that conclusion, how much more do we need to embrace that?

That's super good. Yeah. Man, I'm curious. You mentioned you're a skater. And I've seen some of your videos. You rock. I'm not a skater, so I think you're wrong. What is it? This is more of just a practical random question. What's it like being a, yeah,

a black female in a very white male, I think it's a white male dominated sport. Like when you go to the skate parks, probably not a lot of people look like you. Is that, what's that experience been like? Do you experience racism in that kind of white dominated culture or oh there's so much i could talk about with that whole thing um skateboarding was another thing a kind of like another domino that broke down my whole idea of um you know that white men or like white straight men be specific, you know, just inherently hate black people or black women or like whatever is like the complete, like, you know, opposite. Yeah. Going into these spaces because I was, you know, kind of dealing with my fragility and forcing myself to be stronger in these like contexts of like oh my god my my

biggest nightmare right as coming out of microaggressions it's like i'm putting myself in like the shark you know shark infested waters and people a lot of people were nice that's that's where i was like wait something isn't. This is not matching my worldview. Because once I actually go to these spaces, a lot of that breaks down. It's based on individual. It's really based on the individual. Like, was this person brought up with manners? Has this person never seen black people before?

You know, it's like varying degrees of ignorance, varying degrees of like, I'm just focused on my skate trick right now. So I'm in a, I'm in the zone. Don't talk to me. There's people who are just like extremely friendly. I mean, it's all down to the individual. To me, it just didn't have anything to do with the immutable characteristics. anything to do with the immutable characteristics. So through skating a lot, going to skate parks, I will say this is where affinity groups in the sense of being a female skater and getting other female skaters, I will say that's very important to break the ice. It helped me a lot because that

can be very intimidating. I found that a lot of the things that I really believed out of college to just not really be that helpful or true. Um, not to mention, I was, I mean, if, if I just said you were a horrible person and you were nice to me, that's being a false witness. Again, like my spirit just couldn't like lie. I'm like, they're nice. They're nice people. So yeah. Does that answer your question? It does. No, yeah.

Yeah. No, it does. And it's almost like there's two aspects to this whole race conversation. One is your kind of day-to-day embodied routine. You know, your neighbors, your coworkers, you go shopping. But then there's this like online kind of news-driven, media-driven conversation. And I'm not saying they're two different worlds,

but sometimes they can be. Your Twitter world could look very different than your actual world you're living in, for some people at least. And that's why I asked the question, like here is a situation where, yeah, this is a good kind of microcosm, like an example of high potential for discrimination, mockery, racism, explicit, implicit, you know, guys maybe talking over you or maybe thinking you're a black. Maybe they're not even thinking about it, but unconsciously even responding in a way that like you're a black female skater. Therefore, I'm not going to take advice from you.

I'm going to go first. I'm going to talk over you. I don't know. Like, did you maybe did you experience? Have you have you experienced some of that maybe not the explicit like name calling but maybe more implicit like kind of you're looked down upon as a female black skater in a male dominated area or oh yeah that's been there for sure okay but it's really been like to the extent that i believe that that would be my entire

experience it's really been such a like pocket though. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whereas like everyone else is kind of like, I think it has, again, it has a lot to do with me, the skater. Like, how am I going? Am I going into the space timid and afraid and making myself small? Or am I just like, hey, I'm here to skate.

It's a public park. Move out of the way. Like, okay, not being aggressive but you know just kind of doing what i have to do it really it all kind of comes back to that anti fragility thing like just do what you have to do and you will find like within seconds a lot of the attitudes change they're like oh she's just she's skating okay she's doing this line over that one feature like i'll you know I'll let her go. Like, it's, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. It's sort of like how you present yourself in a space has a lot to do with it as well. Whereas if you invite, if you invite this sort of dominant, like, thing from the other dudes at the skate park and make yourself small and you're, like, staying in your little pocket, then sure perceive it to be like oh they pushed me to the corner but it's like okay did you actually go down the quarter pipe like did you do the thing so I find it to be like incredible field research for like in my life like am I pinning all the things on all of my shortcomings on outside factors or was it that I just was lazy on Sunday and just wanted to play video games all day? Like, does that? Yeah.

That totally does. Well, and it touches, we're over an hour now, so I'll try to wrap things up. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on intersectionality because that's kind of what, that's the term given to kind of what we're talking about here. because that's kind of what that's the term given to kind of what we're talking about here so if i can my off the top of my head explanation intersectionality would talk about different when different levels of marginalization kind of converge you know so being let's just say for instance you know um being black and and being also you know well being black has one level of marginalization being female has another level when you could combine those two, it's increased exponentially. You embody not,

I mean, black, female, immigrant, like there's lots of, you're kind of the poster child of intersectionality, if I can put it so boldly. What are your thoughts about that as a concept? Because that does kind of intertwine significantly with CRT and a lot of things we're talking about. Totally. Man, people who love CRT are like not going to like me right now. But I'm sorry, but like intersectionality is like, it's like a privilege in a way. Because the more like out of the box you are, it's like, it's like a privilege in a way. Because the more like out of the box you are, it's like, it's like, ooh, you know?

And I've seen so many people who fall into different intersectionality categories. Literally in the skate, I'm speaking skate specific, right? Get way more opportunities. I'm talking like sponsorship, modeling, like the works. and they can barely do like skate tricks it's like the anomaly of like whoa like you're like a black queer trans like

non-binary like oh my god like we gotta have you for this spread right now and i i think it's just it's a it's just it is what it is it's is. It's not a, it's not a disability. It's not really an ability. It just, I'm black. I'm a woman. It's like, okay, that's how God created me. And I have both in certain circumstances, I will experience different things, but there's also a lot of privilege attached to it that people don't want to talk about in 2021. privilege attached to it that people don't want to talk about in 2021 um and so like yeah i mean i really don't think anything of it apart from the fact that sometimes you are sort of because you're the anomaly like you do get a lot of attention um man people are not gonna like me for saying that i'm so right i'm so sorry And this is where I want to, the person who likes or doesn't like, it's who cares about life? It is what it is. This is your take on it.

It's based on your experience, based on thoughtfulness and they can agree or disagree. Or maybe somebody else says, no, I also have an intersexual experience, intersectional identity and it's caused me great havoc. Other people might say, no, I do do too and it has given me opportunities and like you said it is yeah i don't know i don't

know if i can say much more about it but i just wanted to hear your uh yeah thoughts on it because you could like you could be in a space depending on your like intersectionality slice like you could be in a female dominant space and you're also a female and there's also someone in the room who's like a male. It just, it's too weird for me. It's just sort of like, shoot, at the end of the day, I'm what God like made and I'm going to take what I have and be grateful for every aspect of myself and my history. So yeah. my history. So yeah. Final words for the church, Kimmy, like as people are listening to this, most of my audience, I mean, 90 plus percent are probably Christians. I would say maybe 60% would probably identify as evangelical. Maybe I don't have the hard statistics, but based on the,

based on my awareness, you know, pretty diverse audience, but mostly Christians. What would be your challenge slash encouragement to the church as they are wrestling with this race conversation? I would say there is life on the other side of forgiveness. I think a lot of people are hesitant to implement forgiveness, especially when it comes to race, because you feel like I'm going to lose. You feel like there's a loss because you're letting go of this pain and you're not getting justice. I just want to remind you, forgiveness is not a subversion of justice. I feel like if someone's done something incredibly unjust to you, you feel like you need to take

legal action. Take legal action. This is for anything. It doesn't have to be with race, right? But you still need to forgive. Even in Desmond Tutu's book, he talks about the fact that you might go through the course of justice, the person goes to jail, but if you haven't forgiven, there's a lot that isn't complete yet. So I want to encourage you that there is so much more life on the other side of forgiveness. Otherwise, God wouldn't have instructed us to do it. Do it. Jesus says he's the way, the truth, and the life. And the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So trust his instructions. Trust his, especially the ones he emphasizes over and over again. It's really for your benefit. And I can attest to that.

So yeah, Christians, don't be afraid of the message of racial forgiveness, because I really love that God has such a great promise of peace for us on the other side. That's a great word to end on, Kimmy. I am so excited that you're going to be at the Theology in the Raw conference in the spring. It's going to be, oh man, I still have a few more people that are this close to saying yes that I'm excited to advertise if and when they do. But I'm so excited to have you. We're going to have a three-hour-ish race conversation. All Christians, somewhat different perspectives. I think there's going to be a lot of overlap and some healthy differences. We're going to dialogue and everything.

So if you all listening or watching want to hang out with the Kimmy Katiti, bring your skateboard to Boise, Idaho. Thanks so much, Kimmy. We'll definitely see you in the spring, if not sooner. See you. Thank you so much. And hope you have a blessed, if not sooner. See you. Thank you so much. And hope you have a blessed rest of your day. God bless. you