Unlocking Us with Brené Brown - Brené on Words, Actions, Dehumanization, and Accountability

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

In this “On My Mind” episode, we talk about shame and accountability. We discussed this a bit last summer, but I’m going deeper today in light of the insurrection at the US Capitol and the resulting calls to unity without accountability. Dehumanization is the most significant driver of insurrection, and it always starts with language. We are all responsible for recognizing it, stopping it, and holding people accountable for dehumanizing language and actions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown, and this is Unlocking Us. Today's episode is what we are calling an on-my-mind episode, where I talk about the things that I'm wondering about, curious about, obsessing over, the things that are sometimes keeping me up at night. And that is definitely the case with the podcast today. We're going to talk about the violent insurrection at the Capitol last week and what I have learned over the past 25 years about shame, accountability, dehumanization, and how the Trump administration has spent many years, the past four years, laying the groundwork for, I think, what happened last week and what I'm afraid will continue to happen until we, the American people, can get our heads and hearts

around the only way to stop it, which I believe, and I believe there is significant evidence to support this, is accountability. That's today's episode. Support for this show comes from Macy's. Fall is in full swing, and it's the perfect time to refresh your home and wardrobe for the sweater weather with new finds from Macy's. From October 9th to October 16th, get amazing deals on shoes and boots on sale at 30 to 40% off. And you can shop new styles during the Macy's Fab Fall Sale from October 9th to October 14th. Shop oversized knits, warm jackets, and trendy charm necklaces and get 25 to 60% off on top brands when you do. Plus, get great deals on cozy home accessories from October 18th to October 27th.

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Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. During and after the televised insurrection, mob overthrow, attempted armed violent coup at the Capitol, I just cannot even count the number of emails, tweets, social media comments that I'm receiving about shame. Specifically, folks lamenting the lack of shame, people calling out for more shame? Why aren't these people ashamed? How could they breach the floor of the Capitol and look so smug and proud and arrogant? And, you know, and why don't they feel shame about what they did? And I, you know, I get it, y'all. I really get it. The idea of just shaming the shit out of people for the trauma and the

hate-fueled violence that we witness is incredibly seductive. And I got to tell you, if I thought it worked, I would do it. I mean, and I'm not proud to say that, but I would probably do it, even fully knowing the pain that it causes. Even fully knowing, sitting on top of half a million pieces of data, knowing not only the pain it causes other people, but how it changes the people who perpetrate shame. I mean, I would do it. I would actually do it. I wouldn't care. I'm that scared and anxious and worn down.

If I thought shaming people could make the world a better place, I would join in. But shame is not the answer. Shame is a huge part of the problem, not the answer. What we need is accountability. What we need is accountability. And I would also argue that we need more empathy, but let's just say we're not in the place for empathy right now. What we need is accountability. shame and accountability are not the same thing in fact shame undermines accountability shame undermines accountability shame corrodes empathy I 100% agree with the people who right now who are saying there will be no unity without accountability. I think that's true. And I think that's true, you know, not only in culture and country and communities and organizations, but in our families. In our families, you know,

it's one of those funny things as someone who has a bachelor's, master's, and PhD in social work. You get into these classes and they start in your bachelor's or BSW and they're classes on systems theory and structural functionalism. And you're like, oh my God, what is this crap? I'm not here to learn this. And you study homeostasis and in boundaries and in permeable boundaries. And you're thinking, this is not why I got into social work. And then one day, it dawns on you that the value of understanding systemic thinking, the value of understanding that what destroys a family system and the way it destroys it is also what destroys an organization in the same way, in a country, in a culture, that systems are systems. And we have such a hard time

understanding that, but think about your family and think about a time when your family was falling apart. I mean, anyone who has a family where addiction has been an issue, which statistically should be almost all of us, and families are coming apart, or there's an affair or there's distress or lying or manipulation. And someone in the family is like, can't we just love each other? And can't we just get along? And can't we just be together? Can't we just have a nice holiday for God's sake? I mean, come on. And you're thinking to yourself, well, I can fake it and just, you know, I can spend maybe tops 40 minutes at Thanksgiving, or I can pretend like everything's okay. But for things to really be okay, there has to be accountability. The people who hurt people in our family, the people who hurt me, or if I hurt people, there has to be accountability. The people who hurt people in our family,

the people who hurt me or if I hurt people, there has to be accountability. Countries, organizations work the same way. There's no unity without accountability. And I got to tell you, we don't know how to do that very well. We don't know how to do it in our families, and we certainly don't know how to do it in our nation. We're just either not willing or not able to hold ourselves and other people accountable accountable because it is so vulnerable and so uncomfortable and so hard and requires such fortitude and courage that we're just not willing or able to do it sometimes. And so what we look quick, somewhat satisfying fix of shame. We're in a family and let's say I've got a sibling, this came up in the research all the time, it's something I hear all the time,

who struggles with addiction. I hear it in the rooms as a sober person who really struggles with addiction. They've maxed out my parents' credit cards. They've begged, borrowed, and stole money. They've wreaked havoc on just the equanimity of the family. Everyone's always worried. Everyone's afraid of the call in the middle of the night about an accident. And instead of holding this person accountable, which is actually a huge part of recovery, holding ourselves and other people accountable, we just want to pretend like everything's okay, but it's not. And we're scared. We're scared to hold ourselves and other people accountable. So we decide instead of telling my sister, listen, I want everything to be okay in our family. I want us to love each other. I want us to be able to be together, but there needs to be accountability. I just shame her. I just say,

you're a liar. You're a user. And now I feel better, but that's not accountability because there's been no behavior change. And I haven't even really talked about how hurt I am, which is because it's so much easier to be pissed off than it is to be hurt. So if it's hard to get your head and heart around the fact that there is no unity without accountability in our culture and in our nation, think about it in our families, at work. I want to start this conversation by pulling up maybe to 50,000 feet and away from the event at the Capitol specifically. And I want to talk about a concept that is inextricably connected to shame. In fact, shame is a function of this construct. And I think it's the most significant driver of the violent insurrection and what is possibly to come, and that is dehumanization. This is an important thing for us to understand because it is the most powerful tool of white supremacy and certainly has been a primary tool in the Trump administration.

And so let's break it down and walk through it. So David Smith authored the book Less Than Human, and he explains that dehumanization is a response to conflicting motives. When we want to do harm to a group of people, when we want to put them down, get rid of them, silence them, it's pretty difficult, actually, because it goes against our wiring as members of a social species to actually harm, kill, devalue, torture, or degrade other human beings. We're not wired for it. So Smith explains that there are these very deep and natural inhibitions that prevent us from treating other people like animal or game or dangerous predators. He explains dehumanization as a way of subverting those inhibitions.

I've also heard other researchers who study dehumanization call it the loophole to being human. So it's a process. And I've studied it my entire education. And one of the best, I think, teachers around this is Michelle Mays. She's the chair of the philosophy department at Emanuel College. And I think she lays it out in a way that really makes sense. So I'm going to use her framework and some of her work to talk us through it. If you've read Braving the Wilderness, I also quote both Dr. Mays and David Smith in that work as well. So Mays defines dehumanization as the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment. Dehumanization often starts with creating an enemy image.

So let's talk about that. As we take sides, as we lose trust and we get angrier and angrier, we solidify an idea of our enemy. And as we solidify this enemy image, it becomes harder and harder to listen to the enemy, who we've framed as the enemy, harder to communicate, and almost impossible to practice any empathy with this enemy image because we've dehumanized it. We've just shamed it out of its humanity. Once we see people on the other side of a conflict as morally inferior and even dangerous, the conflict quickly starts being framed as good versus evil. In fact, Mays writes, once the parties have framed the conflict in this way, their positions become more rigid. In some cases, zero-sum thinking develops as parties come to believe that they must either

secure their own victory or face defeat. There's no collaboration. There's no empathy. There's no conflict resolution or conflict understanding. It's just zero sum. So then new goals become punish and destroy the opponent. And in some cases, more militant leadership comes into power. Now, I don't want you to think this information is retrofitted to explain the Trump administration. This existed way before. So let me say that one more time. As we get to the zero sum, us versus them, good versus evil, and we frame conflict in a way that people are subhuman evil, the new goals to punish or destroy the opponent arise, and more militant leadership comes into power. Look, as someone who has spent, me, myself, as someone who's spent a decade studying social work and history,

here's what we know for sure. Dehumanization has fueled innumerable acts of violence, human rights violations, war crimes, genocide. In fact, all genocides in recorded history have started with dehumanization and have started with words and language. Dehumanization is what makes slavery possible, torture, human trafficking. Dehumanizing others is the process by which we become accepting of violations against human nature, against the human spirit, and for many of us, violations against the central tenets of our faith, like separating children from their families, putting children in cages, and a huge act of dehumanization, which I can't think of a single denomination where that's okay. But yet, was every pastor, preacher, priest hammering that every Sunday until it got fixed?

No, because slowly over time, these folks trying to come into our country fleeing violence were dehumanized, and they weren't seen as our kids. I didn't see them as I see my kids. They were subhuman children of subhuman people. That's the only way we could let it happen. So how does it happen? So Mays explains that most of us believe that people's basic human rights should not be violated. We believe that as a collective, that crimes like murder, rape, torture are wrong. Successful dehumanizing, however, creates moral exclusion. Groups targeted based on their identity, gender, ideology, skin color, ethnicity,

religion, age are depicted as less than, criminal, or even evil. The targeted group eventually falls out of the scope of who is naturally protected by our moral code. This is moral exclusion. This is dehumanization at its core. I always ask people when I'm talking about this or when I'm teaching it to make a circle with their arms in front of them, put their fingertips together and make a circle. And I always try to explain that inside of that circle is moral inclusion. These are people that I could never hurt or even hate, or that if I saw some violence being perpetrated against them, I wouldn't be able to stand it. And slowly over time, through the use primarily of language and images, we push people outside of our arms and we morally exclude them. And now their demise, violence toward them, oppression, slavery, we don't see it the same

because they are not in this group that we hold in our arms. I mean, dehumanizing, again, always starts with language and it's followed by images. We see this throughout history. During the Holocaust, Nazis described Jews as untermenschen, subhuman. They called Jews rats and depicted them as disease-carrying rodents in everything from military pamphlets to children's books. Hutus involved in the Rwandan genocide called tutsis, cockroaches. Indigenous people are often referred to as savages. Serbs, called Bosnians, aliens. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. I mean, if you wonder about the power of dehumanization,

I just want you to think about slavery in this country? What did we have to say about a group of people that we sold and know and that seems like ancient history but in the 60s we turned dogs loose on them we used water hoses we had separate fountains and today

in order to rehumanize, like what, Black Lives Matter a rehumanizing movement, can you imagine that in this country that we live in, we have to hold up signs to remind people that Black Lives Matter? We cannot deny dehumanization as a construct that this country was built on and that continues to happen. And I know it's hard to believe that we ourselves could ever get to a place where we, I, Brene, would exclude people from equal moral treatment, from basic moral values.

But it's very difficult because we're fighting biology here. We're hardwired to believe what we see and to attach meaning to the words we hear. We can't pretend that every citizen in Nazi Germany who participated in it or was a bystander to those human atrocities was a violent psychopath. That's not the case. And if we believe that that's the case, if we believe that it wasn't just Hitler and those leaders that were sociopathic, that it was everybody, then we miss the point. And we don't protect ourselves or our culture. I mean, the point is that we are all vulnerable to the slow, insidious practice of dehumanizing. Therefore, therefore, we're all responsible for recognizing it, stopping it, and holding people accountable.

I mean, it is not lost on us, nor should it be, that some of the people that we saw on television were wearing Auschwitz t-shirts or t-shirts that had, you know, six million not enough. Like, God, we want to believe we're so far removed from it, but we're not. We're not. And because so many time-worn systems of power have placed certain people outside the realm of what we see as human, our work now is, again, a matter of deprogramming ourselves, holding every single person who engages in dehumanizing behaviors and language accountable for their words, for their actions. And we are edging closer and closer to a world where political and ideological discourse is basically defined as an exercise

in dehumanization. Social media are the primary platforms for this behavior. Twitter, Facebook can rapidly push the people with whom we disagree into the dangerous territory of moral exclusion with no accountability and often in complete anonymity, which is, Jesus, such chicken shit. So when the president of the United States, Donald Trump, calls immigrants animals or uses words like infestation, which he used many, many times right before the mass killing spree in El Paso, Texas, where the killer picked up on that language and also used the language of infestation as he shot down members of our Latinx population, our community, our people, our friends, our neighbors. When Trump refers to a black woman as a dog, as he did in a tweet after firing someone from a position in the White House, when he talks about grabbing pussy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance in our veins.

When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately think to ourselves, is this an attempt to reduce someone's humanity so we can get away with hurting them? What's the long game here? Are we calling them this so we can eventually perpetrate violence against them? Is that what we're doing? And you know, for me, I've been in so many interviews over the last couple of years where people have smugly said something like, oh my God, Trump is such a pig, or, you know, what do you think of the Cheeto in command? I said, I don't use that language. They're like, yeah, we know it's dehumanizing, but we're talking about Trump. I don't care.

I don't care. I don't use that language. I am not going to be a willing participant in this country devolving into a place where killing each other doesn't matter. And that's what we do when we use dehumanizing language. So I would ask you to consider or reconsider participating in any conversations that dehumanize anyone. Was it Nietzsche that said we've got to make sure we don't become the monster we're fighting? I think maybe that in itself is dehumanizing, which is interesting because calling people monsters. See how easy it is? About a year ago, two twin brothers in Wisconsin discovered kind of by accident that mini golf might be the perfect spectator sport for the TikTok era.

Meanwhile, a YouTuber in Brooklyn found himself less interested in tech YouTube and more interested in making coffee. This month on The Verge Cast, we're telling stories about these people who tried to find new ways to make content, new ways to build businesses around that content, and new ways to make content about those businesses. Our series is called How to Make It in the Future, and it's all this month on The Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. So you've arrived.

You head to the brasserie, then the terrace. Cocktail? Don't mind if I do. You raise your glass to another guest because you both know the holiday's just beginning. And you're only in Terminal 3. Welcome to Virgin Atlantic's unique upper-class clubhouse experience, where you'll feel like you've arrived before you've taken off. Virgin Atlantic. See the world differently. Let's talk about a study that was conducted by

psychologists Patrick Forsher and Noor Kateli. They recruited people who identified as alt-right to participate in a study, again, to build a psychological profile of the alt-right. And they used a dehumanizing instrument developed and validated by Kuteli. And it's super painful to look at this instrument. It's basically, have you ever seen the image, and I'm sure you have, of an ape becoming a man? And so it starts as an ape, and then it's kind of hunched over and on all fours. And then at image two, it's staying up a little bit more. Image three, it's a little bit more. Four, and then five, it's finally upright, and I guess a homo sapien. It's that image and then there's levers that you move to evaluate how human you think different groups are. And when they did this with

this population of folks who identified as members of the alt-right, on average, they saw Muslims as half-human, 55.4 out of 100. Democrats, a little bit more than half-human, 60.4. Black people, 64.7%, journalists, 58.6%, Jews, 73% human, and feminists, 57% human. These groups appear as subhuman compared to the folks who are actually taking the survey. White people, they scored white people at 91%. This is chilling. This is terrifying. This is true. And I want to make a comment about, it was all shocking, but not surprising. The incredibly brave journalist, photojournalists and journalists at the Capitol last week, you know, journalists at 58.6%. So when people are subhuman, we can hurt them,

we can kill them, we can maim them, we can rape, we can traffic because they are not morally included in people we feel the human need to protect. Really, really important study. And all of this information, all the notes will include where you can find these studies. Look, we don't know if Trump and other high-profile supporters of his administration, including some media outlets, we don't know if they turned non-prejudice people into prejudice people. I doubt it, actually. What we do know for sure is that his language and rhetoric helps justify violence by reinforcing that some groups are less than human. And if you combine our country's long overdue reckoning of our violent and racist

history with a leader, not just any leader, just the president of the United States, if you combine our history with his willingness to incite violence through dehumanizing, you start to get a fuller picture of what's happening. Look, the folks that we saw on TV sitting at Pelosi's desk, the Viking hat thing was just, I don't know. I have no words actually, which is unusual as you can tell for me. But what was scarier is some of the patches on the backpacks and the military jackets. I saw one patch that said, I don't believe in anything. I'm just here for the violence, which I completely believe. We start to get a full picture of these are not shameless folks. I would imagine there are probably many of them. And as we read about them in their lives, they're full of shame around countless issues. Trump hasn't said over and over to these

folks, don't feel shame about your white supremacy and violence. That's not what gets people to violence. What the Trump administration has said and what Trump has said, including people who support him. And in my state, I would put Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Daniel Patrick, Dan Crenshaw in this group. What they've said, they have perpetuated the dehumanization. They've radicalized people. And then they've made a much bigger promise. You will not be held accountable for your white supremacy and violence. The big difference between, hey, don't feel shame about your white supremacy and violence, because the people who are shaming them are trying to shame them are the same people who would shame them before or after this administration. That's not what's being said. What's being said is you'll not be held accountable for your white supremacy and violence.

People who support white supremacy aren't emboldened by a lack of shame. They're emboldened by a lack of accountability. And how can that be hard to believe when we elect a president who, while he was running, talks about grabbing women by the pussy and mocking a reporter with a disability on national television? There's no accountability. We didn't hold him accountable as a nation. He's not held accountable, and he in return holds no one accountable. I think in the end, there is a line, and it is etched from dignity.

And raging fearful people from the right and people from the left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. That line is dehumanization and we must never tolerate it. It is the primary instrument of violence. It has been used in every genocide recorded through history. And when we engage in dehumanizing rhetoric or promote dehumanizing images, we diminish our own humanity in the process. When we reduce people to animals or things or to less than fully human,

it says nothing at all about the people we're attacking. It does, however, say volumes about who we are and our integrity. And I just did it five minutes ago. This is not going to be an easy undoing. Shaming and dehumanizing people and holding them accountable are mutually exclusive. Shame is not a social justice tool. It's emotional offloading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. Shame is not a social justice tool. It's emotional offloading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst.

I'll finish with these. Number one, there will be no unity without accountability. We've got to find a way to hold people accountable in a real non-dehumanizing way. And we have got a shit ton of work to do there. Our prison system, not the answer. What do you think happens when you put white supremacists in jail or in prison? You think they're dangerous when you put them in? I mean, come on. Number two, shame and dehumanization kill empathy and accountability. Number three, if we hold someone accountable for their actions and they feel shame, that's not the same as shaming them. I've talked about this on the podcast before. As we start to hold people

accountable and say, hey, listen, it's not okay to say that. And people are like, you're shaming me. No, no, no. I'm just holding you accountable. If you're feeling shame about what you said, that's you. That's your thing. Those are your feelings. Those are your feelings. I'm just holding you accountable in a respectful, productive way. Shame and dehumanization, again, are tools of oppression and white supremacy. They'll never be tools for justice or healing. And then I want to leave you with this quote because I've thought about it probably not to exaggerate at least once or twice a week, every week since I've heard it. And it's all I can think about

right now. And it's from Nelba Marquez-Green. She's a clinical fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. She's worked in private practice, community mental health, and academic settings in the US and Canada. She's also the founder of the Anna Grace Project. Anna Grace is her beloved daughter, along with her husband, Jimmy Green, it's their daughter, and also the sister of Isaiah. And Anna Grace's life on earth ended at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th, 2012, a day that none of us will ever forget, but a day that we still have a lot of reckoning to do around. And Nalba posted something on Twitter one day, and it was in response to gun violence. And it just is the thing that just keeps coming back to me no matter what we're up against right now.

And the quote is simply this. White supremacy is not the elephant in the room, it is the room. I think that's true. And I think that along with accountability, non-shaming accountability, we've got to own this history of white supremacy if we want to write a new ending in this country. Otherwise, this history continues to own us and be exploited by dangerous people seeking power over, authoritarian power. I know this is a heavy episode, but it's on my mind. And I trust this community to not listen if it's not your thing and listen if it is your thing.

Listen if you want to have the conversation. I appreciate your time. And I think this week I'm just going to leave it there stay awkward, brave and kind and remember shame, dehumanization humiliation, name-calling. It destroys us.

It destroys our family. And it will destroy our country if we don't start making different choices. Unlocking Us is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Keri Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcasts.voxmedia.com. too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks.

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