Ep 7: Everyone is Racist!

April and Tracie unpack the notion that everyone is racist, naming the trauma and the cost of racism. Their conversation delves deep into the American investment in systemic racism and the human and environmental effects of systems of oppression.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at B’more Incremental

Resources mentioned:
• Joy DeGruy's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
• Vernā Myers on biases
• James Baldwin's actual quote was "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
• Langston Hughes' poem Let America Be America Again
• More on the concept of Restorative Justice
• For more on teshuvah (return) listen to our Yom Kippur episode (S1 E3)!
• Movement for Black Lives Policy Platforms
• More about environmental racism and the disproportionate negative effects of climate change on communities of color from the Atlantic.

Transcript

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- [April] It is an incredibly heavy burden. This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker- [April] In a complex world change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Okay Tracie, so I have something that I want to talk about, I wanna clap like, I wanna talk about, this episode. I really need to burst this bubble, bust this myth, like dissipate this confusion. And I just want everyone who's listening, especially the white folks, especially Americans, especially white Americans, but everyone. And I want us to just ease into the reality that everybody's racist.- That's true, it's true. Like it's true. That's hard to hear.- People are afraid of being racist, but guess what? You don't have to be afraid anymore, because you are.- It's true.- Surprise! Spoiler alert.(laughs loudly)- In my anti-racist-- We gotta unpack that a little bit.- No, we definitely do.- Yeah.- Yeah.- So let me first, let me say that. Let me drop that bomb. And then also like give like some hardcore caveats. And to me, what I mean is like, I don't believe that black people and other people of color, or as I like to refer to people of color, people of the global majority could do a whole session on that later. But so when I'm not saying that people of color can be racist in the same ways that white people can be. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that as,- Against white people?- Correct, against white people. Thank you for clarifying.- Because I think, right.- Right, this erroneous concept, which maybe be, we'll do a whole episode on, or maybe it's not worth a whole episode, about this whole, like, dispelling this whole myth that's-.- "Reverse racism."- Reverse racism.- Is not a thing.- Not a thing, but racism is. And there are a number of scholars from Beverly Tatum and Vern Myers also like in one of a Ted talk, she does, she talks about how we were all outside, when I don't remember whether the toxins were released when the smog came down, that racism is a form and white supremacy is a form of systemic oppression that our nation was founded on and is deeply steeped in. It's within all of our institutions, it's in our schooling system in the education we've received. And so when I say everyone's racist, what I mean is, I say that a little flippantly and jokingly to catch people's attention. And it's just a simple tagline. But what I'm saying is is that virtually all white people in America have internalized racial superiority patterns and benefit and participate in systems that are inherently white supremacist or racist. And even black people also have the smog on us and people of color of all racial and ethnic backgrounds have also been recipients throughout our entire upbringing in navigating U.S culture, racism, and therefore have different patterns and internalized thinking around having internalized racist messages we've received that also needs to be undone. And so, yes. I wanna hear what you had to say, but I wanted to just name that, add a little bit more intellectual wisdom to my facetious beginning and shout out to what's that musical called the, apparently there's like a song that's called, like everybody's a little bit racist. I haven't actually seen- Avenue Q.- Avenue Q.- Yeah.- Thank you, it's not Q Street, Avenue Q.(laughs loudly)- Yeah, so I'm gonna come back to what I was gonna say, but from what you just said, the thing that I want, again, sort of unpacking this, the word you said was systemic. And I think that's an important thing for people to remember. as we hear that word racist- Systemic.- Right, But what our brain says, what we have been taught that that word means is that it means white people who are mean to people of color. White people who are mean to people of color, intentionally. That's what we've been taught racist means. It means skinheads, it means KKK. It means, intentional.- It's not what that means. Those are just extra racist. Those are just the actual-- Radicalized.- Radicalized.- Radicalized. The extreme form of racism.- But that's what we've been taught is what racist is. And so we think about our own sort of private preferences and we think, well, I would never put on a hood. I would never hurt anybody. So I'm not that. And that's why it's so jarring for "polite" folks to sort of hear that word applied to themselves. But when we- White folks.- White folks, yes. But when we recognize we're talking about systemic oppression as you just named it. And as you just named from Vern Myers and others have used similar metaphors that we are steeping in those messages. All the time.- Like fish in water. It's so pervasive that it functions invisibly like a lot of cultures do. And I'm really excited for us to do an episode explicitly on white dominant culture or white supremacy culture, because there's a lot like, I think we just have, as I said, to you offline, like, so there's like many episodes and so much content that can come out of that, and just lots of generative conversation.- So the thing I was starting to say that I am gonna say now is that what's useful actually, especially for the white folks who are listening, who are maybe trying to be more anti-racist is, it's not a question of if, it's when and how you express racism. Not because you're a bad person. And so if you can just embrace that, so when I first started on my anti-racist path in a very self-conscious way, and I would lead discussion groups and other things, initially I was really paralyzed. What if I say the wrong thing? And then I decided I've already said the wrong thing. So now what am I gonna do about it? And believe it or not, that was actually really freeing for me. And I think I did that kind of instinctively, but what I was doing was embracing the fact that I am racist. And it's not a question of whether, it's a question of what I'm going to do about it. And so that has been a really, really useful thing that I often have to come back to, to remind myself like no matter how far along I go, no matter how much unlearning I've done, I'm still swimming in the same water. So it has to be a constant effort.- Right, and so and I wanna clarify here that, that when I say that, I don't say that from a place of judgment. To me, that is just a neutral, it's not actually neutral, but an into a certain extent in terms of individual people, it's a fact. To me it's highly unneutral and it's highly horrific. But to me, I place most of that blame on our country as a whole and on the institutions and on specific individuals who were brought into that. But I do believe all of us need to take ownership around some of this awful programming. Like the thing that I want to say is that, and I'm sure somebody has said this before. And so if anyone wants to, that's another. But like racism is as American is as apple pie. Like American and racism or racist is synonymous. And it doesn't.- So much so that-- Deeply, right.- I mean, we see entire political campaigns built on it. It's so American.- And our institutions and our educational system and the monuments we have and all of these different things and a number of them are shifting. And let me be clear that when I say that, that is not a static. That is not a permanent situation.- Right.- If our country were to truly deeply address this issue, which I believe we must, we have to, I think that we're not going to achieve a number like to me, issues around climate change, gun violence, a number of our enduring challenges aren't going to get fixed until we come back and deal with this original heinous sin that was used to weave the fabric of our country. And this may come up again. I think I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Because I think that many people feel fundamentally threatened. And to me, the micro and the macro are aligned here. The thinking that if we were to actually correct this, that it would destroy our country. And in some ways I think fundamentally that isn't true and it is true. It is going to destroy-- It would transform it- and it will destroy fundamental elements of the racism.- Right.- Right? So it would be a new reality. But I think it's also similar to the fears that people have as someone who in my personal life engages deeply in trauma healing work and anti-oppressive trauma healing work, I know from people I've counseled and who have counseled me, that whenever one is working on deep trauma, which racism in the United States is established on horrifically deep, immense, just chattel slavery. Like my mom was just saying the other day, I'm not gonna dive into now that. When people think of slavery in the middle East or even at other times in part of the world, that there are differences between that form of slavery, and American chattel slavery. Like I don't, just the things that were done to human beings, things that were done to black babies and women without anesthesia, the scientific experiments, the rape, the slaughter, it's horrific. It's horrific. And so that is a trauma as professor Joy Degruy mentions in her work and in her presentations is something when you, when a people, when a country, when a community, when there is that level of dehumanization and trauma present, everyone in that scenario just about, experiences a form of not exactly the same form, but the reverse impact of that dehumanization. Everyone is traumatized or nearly everyone is traumatized in that context. And so when we do eventually go and when our country is finally ready, if it ever will be, and I believe it will be, I think it could be the death of this country. I do agree with some people and with my particular valence, that if we don't figure out a way to address these things, the current setup we have is not sustainable. I do however, think that there is any number of ways that involve restorative justice and truth and reconciliation for us to face this. And I'll just speak personally for me, as well as what I've seen with other people that I know for a fact personally, that when I look at some of my early trauma, I have some resistance to it as someone who knows that this works, but there's a fundamental part of my brain that thinks it's going to be the end by looking at something that dark and painful that I'm not gonna be able to get through it. It feels like it's going to be the end, but there's a scene from Finding Nemo where Nemo needs to go through. And what's said in that scene? like-- Dory, I think it's Dory. The "just keep swimming"? Is that what you're talking about?- Yeah, yeah, exactly.- Yeah, so Dory is Ellen DeGeneres character, and she has very short term memory and she says, "just keep swimming." She sings it."Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." I'm not sure what that has to do with trauma.- And that's what our country... Right, it does. So, right. So it does, so like when we are in a process of healing, I've seen for myself, like it feels hard to look at things, but we need to remember that we're not, we've actually learned a lot more. So whether it's in the context of being an adult and looking back at early childhood trauma or being a more developed nation, and looking back at the beginning of our country, it already happened. That can't be undone. But what we can do is go back and get healing around our thinking and rewrite certain things and rescript certain things of saying that there's no way that this can fully change, but we can go back and say that this should not have happened. And if there were hundreds of years of unpaid labor, and if this part of our nation, Native Americans, and speaking of someone with Native American descent and heritage and family members who were involved tribal leadership, which I think I mentioned before, but I want to name that because that's often an invisible identity. So shout out to my family and to native people. And native heritage people that we need to engage deeply in truth and reconciliation. I was just mostly planning on talking about how everybody's racist, but like we're going into the deep end here. And say that I believe on the other side of going back in and as a country, officially reviewing this stuff and looking at all of the different treaties and the broken promises with native people and the broken 40 acres and a mule and the broken promises and lies and deceit and theft, fundamentally of our bodies, as well as our livelihoods and exclusion from different efforts. Like the GI bill that helped build the white middle class, that we do need to go back. And that, I believe that in doing that, in doing that thoughtfully and mindfully and lovingly, and using some of the best thinking, the movement for black lives policy platform has some wonderful recommendations, as well as there are a number of a range of scholars and policy experts and analysts who have all kinds of ideas and suggestions of ways of engaging in reparations and other reparative processes that can work in the context of our broader economy and can work out for all of us. To me, it's so fundamental despite the scarcity model that we've been raised with, of us versus them, that the more everyone in our country is thriving, the better we all are.(chuckles) And I will just share one more thought, I know I've been talking a lot and then like, I just, I remember thinking when I used to, for several years, when I lived in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which is a predominantly black community, that's experiencing some significant gentrification, but still, I think overall, the Dorchester is mostly black area of Boston. And I just remember riding the bus and the train station and seeing a number of beautiful, brilliant black and brown people, many of whom we're clearly struggling, or we're either working class or poor or struggling with issues around poverty and thinking how many of these individuals like in this car, there could be someone if they had an opportunity could actually cure cancer. Like could be the phenomenal leader we need to help us figure out climate change. Could be any number of different things. And instead, they have to fight to barely make it. If they do make it through systemic oppression, and all the different ways that that impacts and impairs and limits the lives of people of color and specifically black people. You were going to say something.- I just want to raise up two things that are coming up for me, two voices, both from the past. So one is James Baldwin, who said,"You cannot face this what you haven't.""You cannot change what you haven't faced." I'm paraphrasing poorly. I think he said it much more eloquently. But basically he said sort of in response to your sense of like, can we do this? He said, I don't know, but I know we can't, if we don't try, if we don't face it. And that was 50 years ago. And the other one is even older, which is from the thirties, Langston Hughes wrote a poem called America, where he says, "America never was America for me." Where he really sort of lays out what the American ideal is of who we think we are, who we say we are. And he says it, "it was never that for me." And he was saying that in thirties with the Harlem Renaissance. I mean, it's a really powerful poem. Especially with the echoes of like, Make America Great Again today. But even before, even before sort of the contemporary political scene, that the power in Hughes' words in that poem, like I come back to it regularly as sort of a reminder that, and he wasn't talking about just sort of race issues. He clearly talks about class and other ways that sort of the ruling elite, other intersectional identities that the ruling elite use to maintain their power. So those two voices from the past of Hughes and Baldwin were coming up for me as you were talking.- Thank you for mentioning those. And it might be worth us revisiting one or both of them. And like in a whole episode, and just really diving into that text and brilliance. And so to circle back,'cause this went deeper than I was planning on.- Yeah, like you started like really like, you were a little bit glib in the beginning, but you went deep. It's great, I love it.- Right, so that being said, like, I don't think that this is something that needs to be set in stone, but more so than any little specific actions, all of which are helpful and important, it's really time, especially within the Jewish community, as well as in broader society, for us to take on and think about what would it take for us to have conversations that could shift fundamental systems in terms of the prison industrial complex and healing and addressing these original sins that still impact us today. Original sins that then continued with lynching and all these other patterns, oppressive patterns that lead into wrongful and over-incarceration today. So when I say that racism is everywhere and it's on all of us, that is a serious issue. And it's also not one where people need to feel deep shame or get paralyzed by, Again I think I'm touching upon a number of things that could be so many additional episodes. But what I would say about this is is that this is something that it is an incredibly heavy burden. It's something that our country has yet to figure out and ultimately is upon our national leadership and government and the people to help leverage them and how to help push them and pressure them to do that. For us to collectively address. And in the meantime, obviously there's many different things individually that it's helpful for us to do, but ultimately that's the big goal that we need to move toward is a restorative justice process that holds and honors the humanity of everyone involved in this scenario and says what are the different actions we need to do to right the wrongs of the past and now, and begin. And it's not gonna be a one year thing. This is likely gonna be at least a 20 or 40 year or a hundred year process. To do all the work that needs to be done. But I want to encourage us. And I know that's a bold vision, but I'm one for bold visions and I've seen how they can come true in terms of the context of some of my movement building work and in my own life. And so I continue to be a bold dreamer for us collectively of what would it mean for us to consider lobbying for and taking action toward our country engaging in a deeply loving, accountable restorative justice process around racism and white supremacy in this country. And that really is where a lot of the focus should be. And then also how and less on fearing being a bad person. I believe that with maybe a few freak exceptions, I believe that, which I don't even know if that's true. It's just, I've seen too many movies about psychopaths, but that, I believe that my understanding of Judaism is that people are inherently good and our country needs to engage into teshuva, which means the process of return. Return to our inherent goodness and beauty of our humanity and right the wrongs of racism, which is a social ill and a disease, a virus, a poison that's infecting and hurting many of us. And that's how I think of this. So I don't approach when I say that many people are racist, I'm not coming from a place of judgment, I'm coming from a place of, oof, Well, this is something that's hurting all of us, we need to get these toxins. We need to detox. We need to get this off our skin and out of our system, because I don't believe it's in our DNA. I believe right now it is in the DNA of the country, I don't believe it's in human DNA. I believe it's in our system and like any good detox as someone who loves eating healthy and eating green, this is some stuff I needed to detox and it's going to be funky and it's going to be uncomfortable at first. And we may need to vomit some garbage out, but over time we will be healthier and it will lead just like detox leads to healthier living for people. In simple terms, there's all kinds of unhealthy detox. I'm talking about the healthy kind, not weird fad things. But getting healthy nutrients in, getting healthy nutrients in around, truly valuing every human life and having that be reflected in all our institutions will be a painful process, but it will be a process that will ultimately lead to the sustainability and welfare of, I think not only our country, but as an empire and as a colonial and Imperial empire in the world. And again, I'm bringing into the depth here of analysis that, that it will also be good for the planet. Like the better and healthier our health is as a country and our collective mental health and wellbeing around actually being honest about what's happening and stopping the lying and the covering up of things, the better it will be for this planet.- Yeah, and not just in mental health, I mean, not just in a spiritual sense, but in a literal sense, because-- Yeah literally, practically.- Climate change is inextricably linked to systemic racism. Because, well "it's okay that, that the smoke from that power plant are poisoning folks.'Cause it's communities of color." And so we don't, as a nation, we don't care about those communities as much. And so we allow that pollution to continue. So yeah, in a literal sense.- And it's affecting all of us.- Oh gosh, yeah. Oh yeah, I mean, no question.- People of color are more, but we all gonna die if we don't figure this out.- It's killing people of color first, but that doesn't mean it's not killing white folks. I mean, I think there's a lot of analysis around that.- So I think that's it for now.- It's a lot.- Yeah, yeah. We covered a lot in 30 minutes.(laughs loudly)[April] Thanks for tuning in. Our shows theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @elliothammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.