What has season one taught us about what it means to be a White person in the US today without supremacy or shame?

After 9 weeks, 28 hours of recording, and 12 hours of published material Jenny and Loran identify the key findings of season one.

In the conclusion of our first attempt at a community assessment of White people and Whiteness, Loran and Jenny sit down to discuss the incredibly thoughtful interviews, moments, and themes which left a lasting impact on them.

Questions include:

• What clips had the biggest impact on you and why?
• What five themes did you find were being repeated over and over again?
• What three clips keep creeping into your consciousness when you least expect them?
• What was the hardest thing to learn/hold and why?
• If you could have every White person in the US hear one clip, what would it be and why?
• Did anything surprise you in the making of this?
• What would you do over if you could?
• What’s your biggest takeaway?
• What have you changed in your life since the podcast began?

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Loran references Alok's guest appearance on The Man Enough Podcast which may be viewed here.

Bonus materials for select episodes may be found on specific episode's pages on The Spillway's website. Loran references bonus materials for Evangeline's episode which may be found here. ==========

TRANSCRIPT DISCLAIMER: The following transcript was auto-transcribed by Descript software. It will be updated and cleaned in the coming weeks. Please reach out if you would like a transcript in the interim.

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Welcome to our podcast. We’re so glad you’re here refocusing on Whiteness without supremacy or shame. Listen. Like. Follow.

Instagram: @the.spillway | Facebook: @WithoutSupremacyorShame

For a transcript of this episode and more, please visit our website, www.thespillway.org

Mentioned in this episode:

The Spillway Community Guidelines

1. Engage sequentially. The show is a serial not episodic. We do this so we can build relation and find common ground and context. 2. We stay in our own lane. The Spillway is about White people talking to (predominately) White people about White people and White culture. We're not out here to critique anyone's actions but our own. 3. Our combined fabric of destiny. (3a) As Dr. King said, our humanities are deeply interconnected to each other. Racism negatively impacts me, too. (3b) The Spillway is one mechanism within a larger framework needed to sustain racial equity and justice. We're not a one-stop shop. 4. No one right way to liberation. We all share the same goals, but not every method works for every person. If this doesn't work for you. That's okay. Maybe it works for someone else.

I had a personal turning point in 2015, shortly after Dylan

roof had killed a room full of Black church goers in their Bible study group.

And I was looking at a picture of him and he had that same sort of glazed over

dissociated dysregulated look that my autistic son would get in his eyes just

before he had yet another violent tantrum.

He's now a lot better.

Um, but I had this moment where this, this knowing just kind of suffused my body,

which was, I am not separate from him.

The same system that created him also created me.

We are part of the same.

Collective White psyche.

And right around this time, I noticed that the White people around me

were doing and saying things pretty much exactly the opposite of that.

Calling him a monster calling for him to be locked up forever.

No.

And I thought, oh, wait a second.

You know, from this sense of connection, I started to, um, formulate the idea

for these White on White workshops, how to talk to the other White people.

And I brought my sematic body-oriented, um, counseling skills and help people

slow down their reactions to what, like what happens in our bodies

when we monster Ify, if you will.

And even if you want another White person, oh my God, what's

actually happening within us.

How do we slow that down and be with it and consider, just consider the

possibility of engaging them as another human being as if we were members of the

same family and in some profound way, we are all members of the same family.

We would draw them in just like when my son was having a tantrum,

I wasn't going to monster by him.

I wanted to draw him in and say, what's going on?

How did this happen?

How do we make you feel more comfortable and safe so that you do this?

And as White people, I think that's where, you know, some things that

Lynn and Jared have mentioned about doing the work within ourselves.

How do we expand our capacity for being with the hard feelings that come up when

we see other White people doing violent and harmful, sometimes fatal things.

I love what Jill is saying here in episode six.

And I think it kind of speaks for itself.

So I just want to like, stop and appreciate you and just like acknowledge

that I'm loving this conversation.

I don't love you because this conversation's going so well.

I love you, period.

But also like I've been joining this conversation now.

I know, because we've done so much fucking work on this thing.

And so to like sit at it and reflect and share, and like, even when you're

like, oh, a Bandalan says that too.

I was like, did she just used her time?

Like, oh fuck.

Yeah.

Like there's just so much beauty that we fucking trudged through

to get to this final episode.

And then Jill's over here talking about our interconnectedness and our

shared humanity that I'm just like, I got a lot of love on the heart.

Uh, I have a lot-, a lot of love in my heart for you.

I mean, this whole process has been painful and wonderful.

Yeah, that's the best way to describe it as painful and wonderful.

Well,

and I didn't even really have to do much.

I just had to just up and I would still, like the night before we

were going to record, I was like,

that's beautiful.

Um, which I think this is actually a really lovely segue into, uh,

I'm so excited to report out to you on data from our conversations.

Um, and so we have had on the podcast, I want to make sure that I get this

number, correct, 116,014 words of that.

We say White or a weightness, 1,017 times.

Wow.

We ask at a minimum 816 questions.

Um, we say racism 214 times community, 146 times men, 143 culture, 1 28 people of

Color, 118 Black, 107 women, 81, fuck 78.

That sounds right.

I also don't think we said shit a whole lot, but we say 44 times shit.

I feel like isn't the most like impactful curse word.

But when you use strategically, it can be, um, preciousness dirty too.

I mean, that makes sense.

And then tears 13, like I thought we talked, we talked about tears, like White

women tears a lot more than we actually.

Oh,

yeah.

That's one of the things that I have on here.

It's like the themes that keep showing up.

Yeah.

So just by the numbers, is there any word or phrase or it has, yeah,

it has to be a very specific word or phrase that I could look up.

Alamo.

Just curious.

Six that's all.

Sorry.

Yes.

Um, but in all seriousness, um, harm

77, that's

it

dang.

Right.

I feel like that's where I was like, oh, I feel like we talked about this a lot more.

And so when I was like coming up with my themes, I was like, well, maybe we didn't

actually talk about this a whole lot.

And the data says something different about we, we.

1089.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really good.

I mean, let's try us 134, which is more than culture.

What's

culture.

1 28.

Oh yeah.

That's right.

When I was little and this is what I thought, the first thing

that you would, this is something that I thought you had access to.

And the afterlife was how many times you did our set something.

No way.

Yeah.

I really wanted there to be like a database that you could go through of the

life that you had and be like, oh my God.

I said, I love you.

X times I watered the plants X amount of times, I masturbate at X amount

of times and just be like, oh wow.

These are my, these are my stats.

Oh

only you.

Well, maybe not only, but definitely you would be like, baby Loran would

be like, I need a spreadsheet of all.

When I get to get to heaven, I need a spreadsheet of all the things.

Thank you.

Pearly gates.

Where's the database.

Which, which way do I go?

Do we have an Excel spreadsheet?

You would probably bring your own

if you could.

Well, I guess that's the thing.

If you could bring anything across the river sticks, what would you bring?

Seltzer?

Here's my cold one.

Yep.

Just never ending supply of new cells or cause I only liked those first two goals.

welcome to the final episode of season one of The Spillway podcast,

where we try to refocus our lens on what it means to be White in the U

S today without supremacy or shame.

Jenny and I have come up with lists of our biggest takeaways,

incredible moments of learning and highs and lows of this first season.

So this should go without saying, but if you haven't listened to

season one, a whole lot of this is not going to make sense.

And without further ado, let's just jump right on it.

okay.

Um, yeah, let's just start with the biggest impact.

Let's uh, so three, I'll do three first since I have, I have three of them.

You have two.

Okay.

Um, so the first one I have, it's like a penumbra of clips

and it's about the interconnect.

You just say the penumbra, it's a pin number of clips.

What is

penumbra?

I love the numbers.

So it's when multiple things kind of overlay themselves, they're

all very different and distinct.

But once you see this overlay and you like, look through them, it

makes its whole own entire thing.

So like the thing I think of like a power point or something, no.

Okay.

It is, yeah.

It's like a thing that exists, but doesn't exist in the actual electric.

But like the feeling, the gist of it kind of does.

And so I think you'll understand as soon as they say, and it is

the interconnectedness of artwork.

And like, when I started The Spillway, I, it was kind of around this, like,

don't you want to stop fucking hurting yourself and hurting other people?

Like, is your life really that good when you talk about race and racism?

Because I kept seeing people like, like cringe and recoil from conversations

of race and racism and like that to me, like registered as this trauma response.

And it was like, oh, like that, doesn't like, I think even Lynn Burnett says

and the White to the round table, Yeah.

Lynn says in the episode, you know, if you're a White person and you're wrestling

with experiences of guilt or shame or feeling embarrassed or being worried that

you're racist or being worried that people will perceive you as racist, or if you're

feeling defensive, um, or if you have fear and anxiety around Black and Brown people,

or if you're turning on Fox news and you're feeling, you know, a fear reaction

to the narratives, they're like, none of that is a positive life experience.

You know, like all of that is taking away from you having a beautiful life.

Like that's not a good quality of life.

Right.

And that's why I started the spelling of like, no, like let's

increase your quality of life.

And then I think, uh, like through, beyond White supremacy and then the

focus group with the men and its impact on GLBT folks and women, like

my healing is tied up in your healing.

My wellbeing is tied up in your wellbeing.

And it reminds me of the, uh, the Martin Luther king quote of, I cannot be fully

who I am supposed to be if you were not fully who you were supposed to be.

Uh, and so that was like never really explicitly sad throughout the piece.

But I feel like there was a couple of times throughout the series

where it felt like, yeah, there's, there's this really like beautiful

interconnectedness to our world and to our work within the, uh, the combined

destiny, our shared fabric mutuality.

But Martin Luther king talks about that's my number three.

Okay.

What

clip was that?

Oh, was it the Lin one?

Um, so the clips, so it is, um, Fred and Pablo

talk about interconnectedness and beyond White supremacy.

Um, of the importance of shared stake in harms, um, and recognizing

that we have obligations to be in good relation with each other, right.

Um, to care for ourselves and our collective community.

So it's very much tied up for me in this kind of concept of collective liberation.

You know, this off quoted idea that, that Loran brought forward that

Fred talked about, but none of us are free until all of us are free.

Right?

And that, that our liberation, as, as White men is directly tied into

the liberation of women, of, of Black folks, of indigenous people,

of people, of Color and, and all sorts of other, uh, subjugated,

uh, othered or minoritized groups.

to say that we as White men are not impacted by racism or sexism or

these other systems that power is I think, a total misrepresentation.

Right.

Um, and then the focus group with men, uh, to see them talk about.

It's interconnectedness and race and then interconnectedness and gender.

Sure.

And I think that that's what really like brought it home for me was the beyond

White supremacy and the focus groups.

There were, you know, White men talking about racism.

And then there were White men talking about gender and to see

both of those times the impact that it has on people of Color and then

on women and gender nonconforming, non binary, transgender folks.

That, to me, it was the like, oh, here's this thing that we're not talking about.

That's actually here in those two pieces.

Does that make sense?

Yes,

it sure does.

Okay.

I was just trying to like, not visually, cause you don't see anybody cause it's

a podcast, but like in my head, think of like examples though, overlay Palumbo

era or whatever you open them, bruh.

All right.

What was your number two?

My number two was.

Um, in the men's focus group when teach said,

and I'd say to all White people, that the only thing you're entitled to is

love.

So the reason why I think, and also our discussion about it tied

into that where you said your view

was, I just need to say this around the, the only thing you're entitled to

is love, because I feel like this was a really important Eureka moment for me.

When I hear that there is part of me, this really, uh, unfortunate

shaming part of me, this is my shame culture talking that says a White

man is entitled one of course, huh.

But then to, to love is skeevy.

It sounds rapey.

Um, And it sounds manipulative.

I don't know.

I am entitled to your lab.

I'm entitled to your body.

And however I'm defining love.

And it has taken me like a couple of weeks of like listening and sitting

with this, this episode specifically to like really set in acknowledging

my like roots and shame culture and how deeply embedded I was in that and

how it wasn't until there was a moment like this, where someone who, and we've

talked about this multiple times, how this person basically just repeats Fred

jealous, but I couldn't hear it from him.

I couldn't hear it from teach, but I could hear it from, from Fred and just the work

that I need to do unpacking my fucking

shame.

My feeling was, you know, like, oh, how you know how hopefully.

You know that a straight White man is, is saying this.

And I think that highlighted for me how differently we hear the same words, not

you, you and I specifically, but anyone.

Right.

And how much of that is impacting how people approach the work

specifically White people?

Um, because we can say.

Anything, and two people in the room will hear them completely differently.

Right.

And also there's the difference on how you, you are saying something and your

context and your lens through which you are saying, these things, they,

they're not gonna know that the people who are listening to you or reading

whatever you're writing necessarily.

Right.

So that has made me very mindful of what I read and consume and say to

folks around race and racism, which is humbling, you know, like I don't

know where people are coming from.

Yeah.

Um, so when I'm talking, when I hear somebody say something racist, I,

I step into the conversation with more compassion, which is, which

is not what I would've done before.

I would've just been like, oh my gosh, that person is racist.

Fuck off.

You know, but now, you know, I gently, I gently probe I'm like,

oh, what makes you feel that way?

Or, um, what do you mean?

You know, just trying to open up more of a conversation.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I think

that's what that did to me.

It's interesting because my number two is also shame and that's not also

shame, but it's like sh it's about shame.

And I think, because for me in that moment, it was shame culture.

Speaking of shame on you, White man, you're not entitled to anything.

Right.

That's what you said.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and having to, it's interesting that you bring up that clip.

I wasn't thinking about that clip as much as I was thinking about and

talking about shame and social justice as being this intercultural kind

of legacy that we leave for each.

Oh, I've thought about this a lot.

And it's because it's because of power for so many years, perhaps all

of our modern existence, the only social political power that queer

people have had is the power to shame.

That's it?

We weren't elected officials who weren't teachers.

In many cases, we weren't parents, we weren't bosses.

We didn't have the ability to hire and fire people.

We didn't have the ability to shut down businesses or to regulate.

Our only power was to make people feel like crap in the hopes that

they would feel bad enough that they would stop doing harmful

things against the queer community.

It was our only tool.

And so we got really used to using it.

And I don't think that the queer movement has sufficiently evolved for

people to understand like, If you, if whatever, where they say, like, if all

you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

People are acting like, all

they have is hammers.

You don't like, um, and we've taken to fighting ourselves

rather than it places and policies that can be changed or be made.

Shame shows us our otherness, just wanting to be seen, heard, and respected, but

how collectivized that shame has become when we as like leftist, liberal social

justice types project, that racism that happens to POC onto ourselves and feel

like it's ours and that's not empathy.

That's a lack of boundaries or self regulation skills.

And then we experience that as an emotional contagion and

it's really fucking unhealthy.

And that cycle turned into how hurt people can hurt people like

I was doing with fucking Teej.

Right.

Beautiful human.

I don't know.

You're entitled to love "fuck you, White man."

Yeah.

It's so easy though.

So fucking easy.

It's so easy.

And I, I just finished before we started recording, listening to

the Evangeline episode cause I wanted to get some stuff from it.

And one of the things that she says in there is like, it's so

lazy to just canceled people.

It's so lazy to just be like, Angry and shut down.

That's why cancel culture is so

easy

because it doesn't require anything of us.

It's just lose your

temper.

And like the only place that I'm down with calling out is like, if

I'm standing in front of Capitol hill

holding a sign, like, yes, let's call, like we call out up.

Right.

It's like we punch up.

We don't punch down.

That's what's so intoxicating for so many people about cancel culture.

Is that it's lazy.

It's easy.

Right?

I can just block you.

I can just discard you.

I don't need to engage you.

I can walk away from those 53% of White women who voted for Trump.

I don't need to try to figure out how to talk to them.

Right.

It's it's an incredible shift

to think.

Well, actually, how do I support?

How do I support people to make another step in their journey?

All right.

Carlin Quinn talks about that.

And the, uh, she had, uh, Education for Racial equity and she said,

"whenever I feel comfortable.

I know that White supremacy has a foot whenever I'm at

ease or things are easy for me.

I know that White supremacy is a foot."

I don't think that that's like a really good example of, oh yeah, this is so easy.

Like let's just fucking roll into it.

Don't even have to stand up just fucking slide and do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a huge impact on me because it has reminded me how fucking, yeah.

Some names lazy that I am intellectually,

emotionally.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Because also being alive asks a lot of us, just everyone in general.

So, and you can't possibly emotionally show up for everything in life

there's you wouldn't, you can't.

So, so being intentional about showing up for this work.

Takes effort.

And, and then also just being, being present for it is work also.

So, so it's easier just to like, you know, shut people down because then

you don't have to do any work yourself.

Okay.

I've never even thought about it that way, but that's exactly

why the shutdown happens.

Yeah.

Cause you're like, oh, okay.

I hate you.

You're awful.

Or, Hey everyone, look at this awful person.

Okay.

By

holding multitudes, I have a feeling we're both going to say

the same thing for number one.

If there's one word that you could say, say it in 3, 2, 1

preciousness.

I think I would ask them a question.

I would just ask them, can you access the truth of your own preciousness and that's

the starting place for the discussion.

Can you access that?

And if you can access that, that place, can you stay there?

And you use it as a starting place to, from which to connect to all of life?

And from which, and from which to take a look at where you put

your attention with other humans?

I'm so shocked.

It's amazing.

No,

it's like changed how I operate in the world.

Why?

Because when people are being shitty or I'm being steady or things feel shitty,

and it's just like, I don't want to deal with anyone, including myself.

It reminds me that I have to, and it's not at first, I was like, oh, I can

just feel that everyone's precious.

There's that laziness.

Right.

But it actually call it calls you to.

To be active about it.

Like at my favorite coffee shop, there was a human wearing these

shorts that had the American flag made out of a K assault rifles.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

And he was standing next to an elementary school kid who was probably

around the same age as the Uvalde.

This was after the shooting, um, there, and, and I looked at the parent of the

kid, I'm assuming it was the parent.

I don't know for sure.

But the, the adult that was with the child and we like had this moment

where we looked at each other and spoke to each other through our

eyes, because we were both looking at the shorts at the same time.

And then we looked at each other and.

I was so angry at first.

And I was like, well, fuck that guy.

And then I was like, I remembered preciousness in my hand.

And I was like, wow, somebody feels so unsafe in their skin and their environment

that they have to put on clothing that speaks to potential violence to go to the

coffee shop in their neighborhood on a whatever day it was, it was like a Friday.

And that person's inability to feel safe, clothing themselves in violence.

It doesn't just affect them.

It affects everybody.

And especially, you know, this child who probably didn't register the shirts

as much as we did, but maybe I have no idea, but that human, the adult

that was with the child was so aware.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, this guy probably thinks, I shouldn't say what he

probably thinks, but you know, that's my shorts, my personal property.

I'm an American do what I want type of deal.

Not thinking that like this parent or caretaker of this child is

experiencing anxiety or trauma.

Right.

Um, because of the shorts he's wearing.

So then I also was like, oh, they are also precious.

And it.

Fucked me up.

It's like, like crying over my muffin, just like in this coffee shop.

Um, but yeah, that, that's how, that's how that has changed me.

Also, the remembrance that, that human that was wearing those assault rifles

shorts was once the age of that child and the children who died by died.

in Uvalde..

Yeah.

I mean, I just want to sit in that for a minute.

It just feels like.

I'm holding what you're saying.

It's interesting because when you talk about preciousness, you're thinking

about other people's preciousness.

And because I was so invested in shame culture, I didn't

think that my life had value.

And so I always centered the parts of me that were marginalized because those

parts have social credit and social power and social justice, leftist spaces.

But like my full humanity didn't mean anything.

It was, oh, no, no, no, no.

I'm going to make myself this two dimensional, queer and trans human.

Um, but that my life has value and my life has meaning like my

full, complete complexity of it.

And not because of any identity that's associated with it, but just because

inherently we are all precious.

And I lost that.

Or perhaps they like never had that understanding or that kind

of connection to my own humanity.

And so that's why it was so easy for me to take away other people's

humanity, because I was trying to gain something from myself or trying

to like, Hey, if I take some of yours away, maybe I can add it into my bucket.

Um, and yeah, this like, um, really limited understanding of power.

The power is not infinite power is this, this scarce resource that

I have to extract from you and that's takes away my preciousness.

What do you think in,

I'm just sitting with that for a minute because we've

known each other for a long time.

So I can see that, you know, if you hadn't have said that, I don't think

I would have associated, um, Past you with with that and how that plays out.

But that, it just makes me really sad because we don't, life is very

short and we've spent where, you know, mid thirties, so spent a lot of our

lives, maybe all of our lives, not being connected with our preciousness.

But I think when we're both, when we were born, that was there, you know, that was

something like, I don't know how much babies know, but I think the feeling of.

Being alive and in the world.

And, and knowing that there are things that will care for you

is something that babies have.

That's just my own view.

And then something happens along the way where we lose that.

Yeah.

I mean, my theory is we start to talk because, and I genuinely believe

that, um, well, there's a couple of quotes out in the universe that are,

you know, an infant is nothing but a reflection of the parent before you talk.

It's literally, it's everything that the parent wants the kid to be.

Um, infants don't have a personality.

It is who their parents.

And how their parents interpret or express who the kiddos, but then as soon

as you start talking that fragments and then, oh, wait, you're actually your own

person with your own hopes and dreams and aspirations and wants and desires.

You're not me.

Oh shit.

And so there's like these years where you build this, like,

oh, this is an extension of me.

This is an extension of my body.

And so of course you love.

And you're like, oh my God.

Now I can like, literally hold and love myself.

And then this fucking thing starts to talk.

And you're like, what?

Okay.

Who, and it's not you anymore.

And so that's where I think.

And as soon as we start talking, we start memory and we start development

and, uh, like developmental cognition around our understandings

and environmental assessments.

Um, and that's the shit that we start to remember.

And like Fred was saying,

no, I think underneath it all, we're built for love, you know,

as part of the fabric of life, And you know, that the, the disappointment

that our childhoods weren't about that, that they were about a training.

us into a role is profound.

Hmm.

We are so pissed that our childhoods weren't about love, but

our infancy probably was better.

And I think that that distinction between infancy and childhood

is a pretty important marker.

You know,

we assume that babies are blank slates.

As people say like, oh, it's just a mushy mush of nothing, you know,

which is always what I assume.

I'm like, oh, very cute mushy creative creature, but they're starting to find

that babies actually understand the world better than we think they do.

So.

People do project themselves onto babies because they think

that that's blank slate time.

And then when they start talking, it is very jarring because they're

like, oh wait, you have all of these things and you're not just

gonna do whatever I want you to do.

And like parenting, I think, I mean, I don't know, but I think

it's how you respond to that.

Like, do you get angry?

And I think that's the same with this work, you know, learning

to not be reactive, but to be curious and thoughtful.

Yeah.

I

think that's really interesting for them on parenting too.

I've been thinking I'll, I mean, you know that I've been

thinking a lot about it, um, and it's sort of seeped into other parts of.

My life, like, how am I responding to these things?

Why am I responding this way?

Who does that harm?

Who does that help?

You know?

And I think, yeah, responding out

of curiosity,

which I don't regularly do.

Like I have to think about doing that.

Like, I'll get mad if somebody cuts me off and start cussing, and then

I'm like, well, what's going on in their life, but it takes, you

know, I have to make that switch.

And like we just spoke about I'm lazy.

I mean, the more repetitions we do of anything the better we're

going to get at it's true practice.

Yeah.

All right.

So let's maybe do this next one as well.

In the reverse order.

3, 2, 1.

The three clips.

What are the three clips that kept, what are the, what three clips

kept creeping into your consciousness when you least expected them?

So, number three was

it's, like we say, at the beginning of every episode, you know, hurt people,

hurt people, and that's easy to turn around to do when you're hurting.

Also, I think I just want to like name that the tagline is hurt.

People can hurt people because they think would have Angela is doing,

is trying to support people to move into the canned territory rather

than just like, oh, you're hurting.

So you're inevitably gonna hurt this other person.

Yeah.

I think what you just did is like you show.

Exactly what, like the liberal left movement is like, oh no, you're

this woman, you will always be hurt.

Oh, you're White.

You'll always be racist.

Right.

That's like the, always the inevitability of your

experience.

Yeah.

And it's not like the echo, it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be that way.

And

so like, I totally get what you said it because I sometimes

get tripped up with that tail.

Right.

Because yeah, I think I've also heard it so much without the

can, like just in the world, like, I've heard that phrase before,

but in my head it's always hurt.

People, hurt people, not hurt.

People can hurt people.

Right.

It goes back to redemption.

It goes back into reformation.

Can you do, do humans have the ability to change?

And that can, to me makes the world of difference.

Yeah.

And that made me think about how I did assume that

all hurt people, hurt people.

Um, and that possibility.

Has followed me every day when I see something because.

Should always happens.

And I see shitty things and I think, okay, hurt people can hurt people,

but that doesn't have to be how I respond to this, whatever it was.

So that one, that one, I think about a lot.

My number three is it's actually in the bonus materials.

That's listed on a website.

It's the conversation that Evangeline and I have.

Uh, about fuck the individual experience.

I actually,

I actually, I don't know.

Let's try this on Loran.

I don't give a shit about people's individual experience.

Like I don't think I am so over a White people's individual experience and

every little snowflake that exists.

That's where the term snowflake comes.

Right?

Think like I'm special and unique.

You need to understand my particular perspective here.

And if I was going to just like, maybe it's cause it's 9:00 AM on

Friday and I've had a hell of a week.

But like my response, when you say individual people is like,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't care about individual people.

I'm building a conversation that is across the group, a group.

And the thing with White people

is we hate.

Our

group identity.

We hate it.

That's where the trauma is.

We are not at peace with this group identity.

And the reason we're not at peace with this group identity

is because it's meaningless.

It's both the, one of the most meaningful social constructs in the country right

now because of structural racism.

But the reason that it's traumatizing is that it's meaningless.

It has no meaning.

Whiteness

has no meaning.

And how Evangeline really tries to pull the micro work into a macro lens.

And it's like, when you're talking to people, they're telling you

all of their cultural shit.

And so it's, it is, it's like universalized within Whiteness thing

that's happening, but we are so hell bent on being these individuals and

individual freedom and individuality, which is like a huge, like cornerstone

of our American democracy and founding, uh, that we have taken it and just

obliterated the concept of community.

And I was, it actually reminded me of, um, did you watch the, the,

Alok on The Man Enough podcast?

Yeah.

Yes.

That I didn't watch the whole thing, but I watched

the clips on Instagram.

There's this actually want to bring this into the two hour podcast here for

a second, just for educational purposes, because they feel like they're saying the

exact same thing and it reminds me again of the interconnectedness of our work.

And I read and I read your book and I understand gender pronouns.

And yet I still find myself sometimes feeling nervous because I don't want to

mess up or, or hurts you or say the wrong thing, or feel like I'm, I'm taking away

from your identity by calling you a hero.

Um, and so I'm just wondering, do you feel people be nervous that

they're going to say it wrong?

This is a, a 1 0 1 class for listeners because I just, cause

I noticed I felt nervous and I didn't want to make you feel bad.

And so I apologize if I did, I tried to correct it right away.

But for anybody who's listening who maybe has never been around a

gender nonconforming person, because there's way too many, uh, people that

haven't, um, what, I'm just curious.

So that's kind of where I wanted to start.

Sure.

I guess I would say welcome to the awkward choreography of being a human

we're always going to mess up because we

are indoctrinated into a world.

That teaches us ideology,

not compassion.

So it's not

you speaking when you mis-gender me.

It's everyone that has spoken to you

before

and in my

life.

What?

I always try to remind people as

I was not born with gender literacy, I was born hating

myself and hunting myself.

I don't want to do the whole thing because people just need to go

over and listens last, watch that.

But it feels like they're saying the exact same fucking thing.

This isn't okay.

Sure.

Yeah.

You have individual experience.

I get that.

And you were taught everything that you're saying to me right now

was taught to you from someplace.

And so we miss that as White people.

And that's what like always keeps creeping up into my consciousness of, oh wow.

Someone taught you this.

Someone taught you to think, believe, or behave in this very specific way.

Yeah.

And so that's why when I, when I hear something that like really just feels like

nails on a chalkboard of all right, cool.

This is, this is,

um, my number two is from the men's focus group from Sam's,

vulnerable, vulnerable confession of the sexual abuse slash violence.

And I think part of that is that it scared me.

And part of that is that that lives in that capacity to be violent

and angry or so angry or violent or whatever is within everyone.

So how far away am I?

Like, where does mine lie?

Because I know it's in there.

And what keeps me from, from projecting that onto the actual people.

Um, so that, that one, that one, it also makes me think

how well do you know people?

You can't just look at someone and know, and even if you've known someone for

years, like you and I have, we're always one, we talk being like, oh, I didn't know

that, you know, whatever the case may be.

So, so that one, that one, I think about a ton

I love that there's this connection between your humanities and that too,

but like in such a, a very scary, violent place, it's so easy to go.

Oh yeah.

That's him.

He's having that experience, but also knowing, oh, wow.

I'm also capable of that.

Yeah.

And where do I lie on that?

And it reminds me.

Uh, in the never-ending story where a tray has to look into the mirror,

um, before he goes through whatever gateway, and he's told that men see

their true selves in this mirror.

And a lot of it causes a lot of them to go crazy and kill themselves.

And a lot of people die.

So when he looks in the mirror, he sees whatever the other kid's name is.

Oh my God.

I don't remember.

Um, but the other kid who is actually reading Elliot or whatever his name

is, is reading the neverending story.

So Trey's living the neverending story and Elliot's reading it and.

I, I thought of that scene when I was thinking about Sam confessing to this

thing that happened, and me standing across from him, judging him and

being afraid, but then tying in Fred's preciousness thing and being like,

oh, I'm just looking at myself, I'm looking at a possible version of myself.

Um, so that's what I thought of

this feels connected independent, but that if you I'm so

excited to go back and revisit the focus groups in like a year, a couple

of years, and listen to us talk.

The focus group, as much as it is trying to understand these White

men's perspectives, it's such a reflection of who we are and what we

were thinking about or what we were saying or what we thought was important

to bring into the conversation.

And so as much as it is this like analysis and exploration of White men,

it's this huge analysis and exploration of us as humans and how we like receive

and interpret something like violence or something as mundane as them

introducing themselves and us being like, oh my God, there's so inconsistent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that, that goes back to when we were talking about teaches, all

you're entitled to is love, you know, how we hear things, how we, how we

take in somebodies words or actions,

which I feel that leads perfectly almost to my number two.

And that's when Fred was talking about Rumi's quote.

Now, if you just keep welcoming, it's like Rumi's quote, you

know, uh, there's one quote from Rumi about, um, welcome, welcome, welcome,

welcome you 10,000 times, if that's what it takes for you to come to the

world of love, something like that.

I'm paraphrasing.

And as many times, as I've tried to look up this

Rumi quote, I cannot buy that.

Like Fred Fred changed.

It's not, but I just, I keep thinking of that whenever there is

like this quarter disconnect, when someone's like, oh fuck you Loran.

Or like, fuck The Spillway.

It's like, okay, that's fine.

I'm just going to keep welcoming you back.

Like at some point you're going to be ready at some point, you're going

to be here and like, that's fine.

But like, I just have to keep like holding space for you to know that

this is a space where you can be angry and that you're angry is valid here.

And then so many other places, your anger is not, uh, please

come back when you're ready.

And sometimes even when you're not ready, but we're here.

Just come back.

Anyway.

Welcome.

Welcome, welcome.

And we're going to keep loving you.

That's me.

Number two.

Yeah, that just keeps fucking creeping in because so many people

like to project their shit to me

and The Spillway.

So

welcome to the work of healing.

Yeah.

Um, so my, my number one is.

So love

is an important tool and it, it can't happen outside of

an accountability context.

I want both, right.

I want support, which is my word for love, but y'all are calling love.

Like I want, I want support, but I also want accountability.

If all I'm getting is love and support, that's like sappy and

vapid and I don't really believe it.

And if all I get is chastised and yanked on and told I'm doing

it wrong, then I'm only going to stick around for five minutes.

What we, what I would say is what we really need in our organizing

spaces is we need that balance of

support and accountability.

And that can only happen

in relationship.

Evangeline taught me that love can be support plus accountability.

That's just, I just don't even know, like that's.

So much harder than hat just being like, I love you and then

never showing up for anything.

So like here's an example.

My, one of my best friends had here had a birthday party for her granddaughter.

And I was like, oh no, I don't want, I don't know anybody other than

my friend and her husband really, I'm going to be all by myself.

Now, this friend has driven me to the hospital.

This friend put together a COVID bridal shower for me when I got married.

Like this friend is, is legit.

And I thought of evangelism.

I was like, God damn it support plus accountability.

So I showed up, I went, it was uncomfortable.

And I was like, for half of it just sitting there by myself, like, like trying

to enter people's conversations, what was going on, but she felt, my friend

felt so loved that I just showed up.

Right.

You know, I was just there.

And that that's an example, but that's what,

and I love that your example is a difficult conversation that with

yourself, we constantly think about this dialogue as this interpersonal thing,

rather than an intra-personal thing.

I love that example.

My number one just keeps fucking creep and.

Sam, just like, as a human.

Sam's, humanity just keeps fucking creeping into my consciousness

when I'm not even expecting it, I could be doing nothing.

And all of a sudden here comes Sam

it's it's that like, these people grew up, like spend their

lives, thinking that they were good.

And all of a sudden they were told no, you're the problem.

And they were like, but I followed what I was supposed to do.

I, I was good to my family and I was good to my church and

did all these great things.

And now you're telling me that I fucked up and Sam, Sam, forties

and fifties, I'm so old that like, I couldn't even fathom doing it

different, but I like my life is over.

And now my world has been turned upside down, struggling to break

free of the cultural scripts that we place around straight White men.

And I think of the, to me, I feel like the good ol' boys club, the

good old boys network turned into this inescapable co-constructed prison.

And Sam just wants to be loved and to love and to feel valued.

And so when I it's, it's so interesting.

I see Sam everywhere.

Wow.

Everywhere.

Whenever I see her, I see someone who's asking to be loved and it reminds me

a lot of the, the Kazu Haga quote.

Uh, well actually I think Kazu was quoting Marshall Rosenberg.

That violence is the tragic expression of unmet needs.

Yeah.

And so then that just like it's yeah.

When I see violence and so.

While we've been recording this and the world has turned more violent.

I think of Sam a lot.

And it's not that Sam would do this violence.

I don't want maybe I don't know.

Um, but that it is all from this desire to be loved and

seen and have their needs met.

Yep.

And Evangeline talks about that too.

And then we have to

invite discord, but that discord has to be relationship relational.

I think we live in a very conflict avoidant world.

We have, we have lots of examples of conflicts going really badly, right.

Bombs dropping that's, you know, people losing their tempers,

being violent with one another.

Um, and then we have lots of examples of avoidance, right?

Like, mommy, why does that man only have one leg?

Oh, shut up.

Don't talk about that.

Let's go.

Right.

So like, we don't want to talk about the hard things or we

want to drop bombs on people.

It's like, these are the extremes that we're living in.

And if we want to be in a negotiated space where we're trying to figure

out what does justice mean, or what does equity mean in this organization?

Or what does power look like?

Whatever the question on the table is that negotiated space needs to be able

to tolerate a certain amount of discord.

What was the hardest thing to learn?

Slash hold and why, as we're talking about the pain and the sludge and the

shit for me, it is the cancel culture is an extension of White supremacy culture.

And it reinforces White supremacy culture just by using the same tactics.

Not that it's trying to say that White people are more important, but that the

tactics which have rooted White supremacy cancel culture, which is supposed to be

about liberation and justice and equity and diversity are using the exact same

tools that are shown to be divisive and to hurt people and to create conflict.

And so Audre Lorde's "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

It just makes me fucking wonder, like how and why I drank that juice for so long.

And it just like gives me so much empathy and love.

For the people who are still deeply invested in cancel culture, because I

know that they can come out of that.

I know that we can change.

I know that we can evolve, but like the hardest fucking thing is to know like, oh

God, the amount of damage that I have done by perpetrating White supremacy in the

name of justice, in the name of diversity.

And that I was not that I was like fighting fire with fire, but like the

image that comes to my mind is that like I was trying to help drowning

people by adding more water, like White supremacy is a fucking piece of shit.

Like everyone's just drowning in White supremacy.

And I was like, here's some more water get out, you know, like

it's not a ladder arms, like throwing buckets of water in there.

Uh, and so, yeah, that's been really, it's been hard to hold and hard to learn about

the ways that I have perpetrated harder.

And how I can, like still, if I'm lazy, I'm not thinking about it.

So mine's very similar, but not because I didn't come

to this work until The Spillway.

Let's be honest about that.

But so mine, mine was that I'm both a perpetrator and the victim of racism.

And as you were talking, I thought about something you said to me, I said,

uh, I said something, it's not coming to mind what, what it was right now.

I don't know.

But I said something and you kind of, you were very kind and said, you know,

um, You shouldn't say that because of X, Y, and Z or whatever, not you

shouldn't, but you know, a lot of times when people say that it's connected

to this, I can't remember what it was.

Oh yeah.

It was.

Yes.

And I said, oh my gosh, I wouldn't even have thought of that.

Cause I use, you know, the articulate to say someone is articulate.

I use that for everyone, you know?

Um, and you said exactly, like, if you didn't know, if you

don't know, you don't know.

Right.

And so that's.

It makes me think of, of you pouring water into the drowning people's full

because if you don't know, you don't know.

Right.

And even evangelists and tells that story of when she first started doing

this work and she went, I know she went in full of, you know, hell and brimstone

and everybody was like, no, thanks.

And then she went in with like humility and vulnerability and

was like, here's what I've done.

That's not okay.

And, and she says that you have to be able to fail.

So I think, because my thing was that I'm, I'm a perpetrator when I don't do

anything when I stand by and allow shitty stuff to happen without doing anything.

Cause I'm like, oh, it's not me.

So.

So, but, you know, having that compassion for ourselves and the willingness to

see and move forward is I think big and the fact that you were putting

anything in the pool, you know, you didn't just walk away from the pool.

Sure.

You may, or you may, you know, turn on some water and some faces, but

you, you were there, you showed up.

Right.

And then when something different presented itself, you didn't

just keep doing what you had been doing, because that was comfortable

right now that you know, that, you know, are you going to change?

What are you going to do?

Right.

Yeah.

And sometimes, sorry, I keep going back to Evangeline and I think it's partly

because I just listened to that up.

That was like the, the one that I was needed to listen to, to

remember something that she said.

So, um, but she said, you know, you need to say you get

something on the 58th, try will.

You need to have failed the 57 times before that.

Right?

You, you do stuff.

You fail, you learn, you do it again.

And you're like, damn it.

And then, you know, you keep going,

failure is such an important part of our work.

It is such an important part of our work.

And to me, this connects to my hardest thing to hold them learn

is perfectionism being this tenant of White supremacist culture says

that you cannot make mistakes.

And so for us.

Massive majority of my life.

It has been about perfectionism.

And so if I can't be messy, if I can't make mistakes,

then I can't grow or change.

And I think when you apply this to a social justice framework,

it is, well, when you make mistake, people are dying, right?

And so it becomes this very like elevated hypervigilant stance around mistakes,

but then where are we supposed to, if I can do trial and error, right?

Where are we supposed to learn and grow and share and do?

Cause it's like, we're saying, like we have to keep putting these reps in, in

order for us to be able to do this work.

And so we have to be able to do these reps, these repetitions with

each other and cancel culture.

Doesn't allow that.

And the people who.

Are pointing and saying like, oh no, you know, you screwed up whatever, you're,

you can't be a part of this work anymore.

Like, are they really doing anything?

Because if they were, they'd be screwing up too.

Right.

Well, and I think that that's where this is.

If this is a hard thing for me to have to learn too, is that not everyone

is invested in healing spaces.

It's true.

Uh, and so that's been really hard to hold them learn.

And so there, there are many, many, many White people who listen and

learn from, uh, BiPAP authors and intellects and scholars who are hurting

and then they turn around and then they use the hurt that is not ours.

And then they say, no, you don't have space or time to heal.

Right.

As White people.

And that's part of that is very legitimate.

And another part of that is, well then how do we change?

How do we grow?

And it's this incredible, both end.

But if you, Jenny could have every White person in the

United States here, one clip.

So it would be you stop at the beginning.

Well, it's not the very beginning, but at the intro to the men's focus group,

I mean, I have come to love to these men

and I also wonder who they are as one of the participants says, "the more likely

we are to understand each other, the less likely we are to harm each other."

We can't fully understand each of these four men as individuals and 60 minutes.

Well, and also if you think, you know, these literal men and who they

actually are in real life fuck off, they bravely agreed to talk with us so that

we can have this conversation today.

If you come for them, you're committing to setting the movement back.

If we can't make space for other White people to be vulnerable

and show up in the work, we have to meet people where they're at.

And the reason why that's powerful to me is because one of the

things that I think perpetuates racism and harm and patriarchy, and you

know, all that stuff, capitalism is that we think we know who people are.

We think we know who people are and what people want.

When we do that, we get in trouble because then people aren't human anymore.

They're an idea in our head or an object.

No.

Yeah, exactly.

So I have four.

I fucked up.

I

know we've got to get started, then go.

I wrote the rules.

I'm going to break the rules.

Um, one, everyone in the U S just needs to listen to the Fred

jealous episode from start to

finish.

That's the classic.

Well, and I didn't say that one because we've talked about that

one so much that I feel like it's obvious, but yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Um, and to me, it is also this like women and non binary folks are

so implicated in our shared fabric.

And so, yes, it's about White men and like buzzing beneath the surface.

Is this like huge gendered conversation that a far extends beyond the masculinity.

Uh, second are the Chute Blocks they are the most under listened to episodes.

Of the entire series and it baffles me because this is the foundational

work of The Spillway visit.

Like stop trying to like, guess what The Spillway is.

There's literally these two 20 minute episodes that tell you exactly what

we're doing, why we're doing it and the data and research that goes

into the work that we're doing.

But they're the most under listened to episodes.

And it just, yeah, because people like jump into an episode out of context.

I'm like, what the fuck is this?

Well, okay, we're a serial.

You didn't listen to the whole thing.

Relax.

Also, I think they don't have a name attached to them.

Like I think a lot of people.

Maybe came and you can correct me if this is wrong.

Cause I don't know the data, but came to the episodes because of a name or

a person or an organization that maybe posted it or was attached to it, I think.

And I think when people share stuff, they're like, oh, listen to me.

In this episode of the podcast, not listen to this whole podcast and I am on episode

because that's, that's what anybody who's promoting themselves would do.

Um, so I think that might be part of

why.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Um, but then the actual literal clips, since I'm trying to answer the question,

like I was dead, it's a mashup.

It's just about the theme.

The idea of inconsistent.

And inconsistent ideology.

And so Pablo Cerdera's introduction on beyond White supremacy when

Pablo first starts talking.

And then Amy Hillier's piece on interest convergence, uh, both

with like restorative practice and then critical race theory and how

these are like these huge buzzwords in liberal and leftist spaces.

But then we're so very often, like cherry picking, which parts of

restorative practice and critical race theory to actually engage and do.

But if we actually did them, Pablo says, here

we are.

As partial or total beneficiaries and as Loran and Fred talked about in the

spiritual and psychic harms that happen as a result of being perpetrators

or benefiting from armful systems.

So recognizing that we all have needs that require attention, um,

including those of us who cause or benefit from harm, I think is a really

critical part of the restorative philosophy and resonates really deeply

with, with what's been said so far.

Um, so if we're working on healing and we're ignoring folks who are causing

harm, uh, we risk doing a lot more harm, uh, in the, in the longterm.

Um, and I'll add also, uh, you know, I think that Loran, you talked about sort

of hatred within Whiteness and White folks distancing themselves from each other.

Um, I think a lot of that also needs to do.

Trying to separate ourselves from these harms distance ourselves from these

harms to set ourselves up as, as the good White people or as blameless, or

as not implicated in these systems, um, through our critique and saying, and, and

through, uh, a diff identification with Whiteness, um, as opposed to thinking

about what our individual and collective harms needs and obligations, right?

As people who are implicated in these structures, in these systems and these

patterns, um, And I also will say to build on Fred and then I'll wrap up for now.

It's um, this idea about the centrality of community, um,

the importance of community, uh, I couldn't second it harder.

Um, I really do think that we need practice.

We need support to be vulnerable with one another, especially as men, um, especially

as White men, who, as you said, are, are trained from youth to, uh, shy away

from vulnerability and deep connection.

And so a big part of what we do in restorative work is try to create

containers where that vulnerability can be accessed and where people can practice

being in closer realer, a more authentic relationship with each other, which I

think has a huge role to play in healing.

And then as Amy says here

And histories, not personal motivations:

but if we look at sort of big changes, like the 1964 civil rights,

That this, this idea of interest convergence is really helpful, right?

To power can power.

People do not give up power, right?

Like people have ways of protecting power and they may look like

their concessions to civil rights.

Um, the, the, the call for de-centering Whiteness.

Um, I I'd like, I don't want my White students to take that as don't

say anything in class, like don't speak up or to a person of Color.

Um, what I wanted to, what I want de-centering Whiteness to be as just

an awareness of how you, as a White person who may have been socialized,

you know, in, in spaces, private institutions, you know, elite institutions

like Penn might make it easy for you to jump in and answer a question.

Where might somebody longer hasn't been sort of socialized in those spaces to

speak to, to just, to just be aware, like, am I speaking because I have something

really thought full to sane or am I

speaking because it's really comfortable

for me.

I feel really comfortable in this classroom, in the dead space.

I want to call it.

Um, I, you know, I don't want White people to shut up.

Um, I, you know, I do think that listening to folks of Color is, is a big part of it.

And, and, and, and, and reading things written by people from different

perspectives is a big part of it.

Um, but I don't, I, yeah, I don't know if that's an answer to your

question about how you can cycle.

This idea of interest convergence and de-centering Whiteness.

Um, I think it's more shining a light on, you know, and Dubois talks about this

so WEB Dubois wrote "The Souls of Black Folks", which most of us know brilliant

book about what it is to be Black, um, and to be considered less than, you

know, and everywhere that he turned.

But he also wrote "The Souls of White Folks".

Um, and, and he, it's remarkable that, you know, somebody who's

writing, writing so early.

So this early 20th century he's writing about, like, we just acknowledge that

this is something that, that, that it's not just about anti-Black racism,

um, that why does it, he didn't use White supremacy, um, but that, but that

people use their Whiteness all the time.

And I know that as part of my installation, as I walk over out

through an institution like Penn,

then if we're actually engaging in things that we keep trying to hold.

Sure we could move mountains.

Um, did anything surprise you when making all of this,

how resistant I was?

What were you resistant

to?

I was afraid of so afraid.

Um, I think, I mean, obviously there's the cancel culture thing, which you knew

about, but there was also that I was afraid that I would have to uncover my

own racism and biases, which did happen.

Um, and then I would have to like grow afraid of growing.

Um,

and I did it anyway.

Right.

And actually what motivated me wasn't that I necessarily wanted to change.

How I operated to begin with that was, was because I love you so much.

So even though I was scared and I didn't want to do it, I

showed up anyway, because of you.

And then that opened the door, me just processing what we were learning.

And now I show up, I've shown up to spaces, both in-person and online

that I wouldn't have had, I had I not been engaged in this work.

I've read books and watched things that I wouldn't have if I, I would've,

you know, overlook them and been like, or been like, oh, that's not for me.

Or, you know, what kind of difference can I make?

You know, those kinds of, you know, avoidant thoughts, um, and.

I realized that I really love people.

You know, if you had asked me before this, I'm like, oh, people are the

worst, which sometimes I still do say, but that's just because, you know,

they kind of are, but also I love them and I didn't want to do that either.

I was like, I love who I love, but everybody else get outta here.

Yeah.

So that's that surprise.

Those are, there's a lot in there, but that's what,

um, just a little behind the scenes magic.

Um, folks don't know that we actually recorded an episode, our very

first episode that we never aired.

We required a whole thing.

And then, uh, I think I even edited it and then you listened to it and you were

like, I, I don't want this out in the

universe.

Can't do it.

Yeah.

Cause I was such a weenie.

I wasn't ready.

Yeah, well, but I think too, it was just like, it was this lesson

in vulnerability, I think for both of us, like the ask that I had of

you, but also the ask that you had of yourself, like there's, there was

a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

I think for someone who's never done this work, this isn't your

like your vocation or like your line of work to be like, Hey, do this

thing, jump into it, be vulnerable.

But if you had an absurd on me in the pool, I wouldn't have done.

I mean, if we keep using that metaphor, but also like, there was not

a lot of, there's a lot of water in the pool, but I wasn't actively putting water

into the pool, but rather to, no, you

weren't, you, you gave me a life best.

And then you were like, you didn't throw water in my face.

You were just like, here's your life best?

And then you went, boop.

And I went and then how that went.

Um, mine is boring and that it's only a repeat.

Um, but the thing that surprised me was that cancel culture

is White supremacy culture.

Like I knew that White, that cancel culture was bad, but I could never

really like point my finger on it or like figure out what the pulse of it was.

And I think of Angela and, and then Tristan, just like doubling

down on it was like, oh God.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah.

Like I think even in some of the earlier social media posts for this

boy kind of like hint towards it.

Uh, but to hear the articulation from of Angela and interest in

was like, oh, whoa, here it is.

Um, speaking of, is there anything that you wish you could do with.

I

wrote two words on my paper, the Alamo.

And you would think that I would have looked it up, did to

look up the Alamo yet.

That's totally fine.

I just, I really listened to that.

And I was like, oh my God.

And we were talking about what my, my husband, that was so funny about

it was that you and I were actually talking about how people perceive people

from, um, the west, like Northeast folks, see people from the west as

not having as good an education.

And then I'm like a cornerstone of my, um, my history education.

I don't know what it is.

No, that's fine.

I think it's fair.

I would also like charge any new Englander to perfectly recite what

happened at the Alamo from memory.

Yeah.

Yeah, I am sure there's going to be a few sure.

Exception to the rule, but a majority of we're all with you, we're all with you.

I know like my parents wouldn't be so mad at me though.

Um, mine, if there was ever a do-over I, I love the do over question and

I hate the do-over question only on that.

Like, I wouldn't be sitting in this place of knowledge if I hadn't made

all of the mistakes that I had made.

And so I love mistakes and trying to like encourage the messiness of growth

and learning and changing and knowledge.

Um, so one, if I could do this again, and this is definitely going to be

incorporated in this season, two is planning with time allowing for time,

because I so deeply, deeply, deeply regret not having a women's focus group energy.

It'd be focused.

And so much of that came down to timing issues.

I'm like, no matter I started trying to find those focus

groups all around the same time.

Um, but for one, for personal reasons, the GNBT focus group, uh,

needed to just like, be put on pause.

And then second, uh, there, I was just like in the middle

of a cancellation campaign.

And so people were really nervous about working with me or The Spillway

because I'm was in the process of getting canceled in this sad little

community, this hurting community.

Um, and so I just needed to plan for more time.

Also, it was your first venture, so you didn't really know

how long things were going to take, you know, and it felt very urgent.

Like we needed to get it done.

And also momentum is definitely important when you're doing something like this.

So, so I get, I hear you.

I understand what you're saying.

And I think it is definitely something that'll make season two,

not only better, but also easier, not easier, but like more livable, more

on the football.

Yeah.

I don't think I should be producing, writing and directing

and editing the episodes the week or two before they come out.

But rather like a month or two before they come out.

Yeah.

And also.

You're doing it all by yourself right now.

Yeah.

So I feel like in between the time of now and season two, once you know,

you're going to do some stuff while we're away and then hope maybe you'll

have somebody who can help you with that kind of stuff, which I can't do

because I don't know anything about it.

And B I've got a kind of business

coming into like our last three major questions here.

What's your biggest takeaway from the series?

Mine is that community has to happen.

Community just has to happen.

That's the biggest takeaway.

And I remember starting The Spillway social media channels,

and there was a friend of a friend.

Talk to a friend about The Spillway super complicated, because no one would

talk to me about what was going on.

I would see all of these people like looking at, uh, The Spillways posts,

because I think that that was the other shit with starting The Spillway.

As you can see, who's looking at your shit and not because

you have this business account.

Um, and so it's the obvious people looking at it and

engaging in it behind the scenes.

And so I was like, what's going on on this friend of a friend said, oh,

it's because we don't have an ask yet.

We don't know what to do.

So I was like, oh, we actually have to like do something.

We have to like mobilize it, do something.

And then through this community assessment, it's like, oh no,

actually I was already doing what we needed to be doing.

And that was trying to build community.

But people wanted this like more and people need, yeah, people do need this,

like really tangible, oh, I need this like 10 point list about what we need

to do so that I can like mark these off.

But rather it's Hey friend, all of the people that you unfriended

because they're racist, maybe number one, they need to do number two.

Um, check in with each other's humanity, three, be empathetic,

compassionate patient, understanding patient, all these things.

Um, and that list is so much harder.

That was just so much harder.

Um, because it's about building relationships and the, um, the relational

aspects that forge our work forward.

Great.

And they're never done, like you can't check them off really

well.

I think that they are in that they can be and should be only, well, like

community can get larger and bigger.

But one of the things that I like to push back against within, uh, like social

justice spaces is this idea that our work has never thought because then like,

what the fuck are we fighting for sure.

Sure.

Like, there's never this time where you can like, take a breath or

like be at ease, just being human.

Right.

That's like, actually there are some places these like milestones that we

have to like co-create and co identify to say, okay, this feels better.

We can take like a breath.

Oh, sure.

I mean, like there's always going to be something in our lifetimes, for sure.

Yeah.

Like we're planting seeds.

And I think we talked about this episode, somebody about planting seeds for

trees that you're never going to see.

Um, I don't know who said, that's not something I came up with that was a quote

from somebody, but I don't know who it is.

Um, but I think, yeah, so, so not that we're not.

Well, there's not an end goal, but that we're always going to come

up with more ways to make things better because that's what humans.

Right.

And I think for me, it is, I really like that.

See it, and treat metaphor.

Because as soon as you plant the tree, you still have to water it.

You still have to tend to it, but you don't have to be like hypervigilant and

focused on it in a way that's only going to be detrimental to the tree survival.

Because if you over-water something it's going to fucking back, it's

going to die.

Also.

You don't have to be the only one watering the tree.

Like you can plant the tree and like bring somebody over and like

show them how to care for the tree.

And then you can move on to plant another seed somewhere else.

If that's your thing, or you can stick with that seed and just take care of

that, you know, like there's, that's one of the things Tristan talks about that

was so powerful is, you know, everybody has their own way to approach the work.

Like you don't have to, you know, if you're an artist and you're

doing artwork around social justice and, and, you know, inclusion and

whatever else, um, you know, if.

Have the capacity to March in the streets or can, or don't want to like that's okay.

Like find your thing and do that.

So my, one of my biggest takeaways is, um, how everything that we do affects

others and with the not with remembering that we're all human and we're going

to make mistakes and that's okay.

And also being mindful of that.

So my biggest, so an example of this would be the White woman tears.

So I've always just been like, well, I was sad, so I cried.

Yeah.

And I've had to look at my tears and think, yes, I've

weaponized my tears before.

Not necessarily against people of Color.

Although I can think of a couple of times where I may have done that.

I don't, I have to dive deeper into those things, but again,

you know, to get what I wanted.

Absolutely.

Like, yes, I was sad.

And also as like, I'm going to cry these tears.

So I got what I want, not necessarily that conscious, but definitely.

And so being aware of how I respond in situations and it's made me a

lot less reactive and it's made me.

You know, a lot of times when I would cry, I would shut down.

And now when I'm feeling sad and I'm crying, I try to reach forward.

Like as somebody actually, like my husband's trying to comfort me instead

of just being like, no, leave me alone.

I like actively try to engage and give love.

Also, even though I'm in a sad place and that makes me so much

more aware of what's happening.

Um, so that's, that's my biggest takeaway.

I mean, there's a lot of them, right?

Like you can't just boil it down, but if I had to choose one, I think that would be,

and they feel like you've already touched on this a little bit.

Maybe you've got something else to share about like what in your

life has changed since the series.

Began as flash and then since the series success.

Yeah, I think it does go back to what I said before.

I, I go towards the spaces where I know I'm going to feel uncomfortable.

Um, um, I'm aware of how my physical presence are more aware of how

my physical presence and how, how I'm reacting to certain situations

is affecting people around me.

Um, and finding a balance between being self-conscious and aware is

something that I'm also working with.

Um, I speak up more.

I am very aware of the things that I consume.

So books, movies, you know, stand up.

Clothing, anything I'm trying to be aware of where those things come from and who

they support or who they don't support.

Um, and even in my business, um, I'm trying to be aware of not picking clients

based on who they believe or what they believe or what they, how they operate

politically or socially or whatever.

Um, but being aware of where they're at and trying to engage

in appropriate ways and see if I can just leave a seed of thought.

Right, right.

Um, so yeah, that's, that's how my life has changed.

That's a pretty big change

and it's, I mean, I don't always operate in those way every day.

Right.

Like I have some days where I'm like, I'm so tired.

Right?

We'd like default back to the laziness,

maybe laziness.

Isn't the right word.

Maybe it's like defaulting back into patterns.

You have patterns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think laziness is also part of it though.

Like not lazy in that where we don't want to do the work.

It's that we're tired.

Yeah.

Right.

We know that the work is there.

We know we need to do the work.

And also, and

also, yeah, we're all I think, I don't remember who said this.

Maybe it was Evangeline and like, you can't do it at all by yourself.

And sometimes it just feels really overwhelming and it's like

other things happen in life too.

Right?

Like death and, and loss of jobs and, um, moving, you know,

all those things that are huge.

Personally.

So then it's like, you don't have a lot of space left.

So really trying to take time to rest and rebuild because if you, you push

through, as the Ventolin says, you're just perpetuating supremacist culture,

which that laps into the thing that's really changed in my-- in my life

is pushing back on White supremacist culture that I didn't even know was

inside of my body, uh, perfectionism one, right way mentality either or thinking.

And so now I'm trying to embrace curiosity and contradictions

a whole hell of a lot more.

And so when I receive frustration and anger and pushback, Um, I'm, I'm just

greeting it with so much more love and curiosity now, uh, rather than, um, I

think earlier in The Spillway process, I think before the podcast, more of

it was this like righteous petty, uh, because it was so like overlapped

in that I think, um, cancel culture.

Um, I feel like I have the, I have the answers and you

don't and this is the answer.

And now it's, oh, if someone had the fucking answer, we wouldn't be

having this conversation at all.

If this work were profitable, this work wouldn't exist.

Yeah.

So those are the things.

Let's go into the themes.

This is the like overarching out of everything we've talked about.

What are like the most common things that we've been talking about, but also

maybe there's something else that hasn't come up and it really is just like

a connection of these multiple dots.

What's the very, uh, do you have yours in an order?

I don't really either.

I'll just start with one and then that of this contradictions

contradictions seem to be a huge theme.

I think starting with Amy was the first one.

I think that we started to really talk about it with these contradictions

by episode three were already there.

And it's interesting to see it kind of show up throughout these pieces

of, uh, the multitudes that we hold.

And then how that can like re be reembody with Sam or how it can be in

leftist spaces where we're not fully working through critical race theory

or interest convergence, uh, how cancel culture is White supremacy culture.

Just these contradictions are massive and how we embody that.

It seems to be like a pretty massive theme.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, one of minus community, community, community, you have

to do this work in community.

It's not a nice it's you can't do it in isolation.

That seems

I also have community.

And I'm thinking about.

Fred talked, I think twice about he would only start an organization or another

group if there were multiple people on board and then he would start up, it has

to be done in a group so that if someone leaves other people can join on Amy's

working in classrooms of Angela and is working on accountability and enjoy Bennis

talking about like White men and suicide for not having fucking community Pablo

and vulnerability with other White men.

And then Tristan, even coming on the podcast was like, this is like, the

pandemic has made this really isolating.

And this is a way for me to connect with community that feels really lovely.

And the men's focus group, um, when you asked the question about

COVID and they misunderstood what you were asking, they went and immediately

to White people being isolated.

Yeah.