What does it mean to be a White man in the US today without supremacy or shame?

Loran and Jenny sit down with Fred Jealous, founder of Breakthrough Men's Community, to talk about the intersection of gender and race as it applies to White men.

Questions include:

• What are we missing when we raise boys in the US?
• What’s so harmful about men being masculine and women being feminine? How does patriarchy hurt men?
• Who’s a better educator: shame or love?
• Men have held power and decision-making capabilities in this country since its founding. Why did they need an additional space like Breakthrough, when the world is their proverbial oyster?
• What does it mean to be fully human?
• How do you feel the societal definition of what a “man” is affects white men and how they approach race and racism?
• In the key practices of the BMC there is mention of a “boy” who needs healing and nurturing, how much of that is related to race for White men?
• In your work of helping men heal, how central to that work was your own experience of Whiteness and masculinity, and how do you believe that impacted your work with men of Color?

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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.

Hello?

Yeah.

I put mascara on my bottom lashes.

Cause I didn't think I was going to cry.

That was very

beautiful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Isn't he

wonderful?

I mean,

I don't know if I ever felt.

In the presence of someone that's just embodies love, but not in a weird

fake way, like, which happens a lot.

Right?

Like there's just so much authenticity that comes with

each syllable, which is just,

I

know, I just, like, I don't even know what to do with myself.

Like my face hurts cause I was smiling so hard.

And then like, I was like, some of, I will have to listen to this again because

some of what he was saying, I didn't even catch cause I was trying not to cry.

So I was like a

mess just.

Fred set a bar here, huh?

Fred, uh, Fred made my life simultaneously more

beautiful and more complicated.

It's really not complicated.

I just, you know, it makes it complicated because we've, we have

actually gone into relationships or situations that we now currently

find ourselves that are conditional.

And so

we're like, oh, how do I break free of that condition?

And just.

Love you, accept you value you at your base just

because you

are, oh my gosh,

I can't function like this.

It's like shitting your pants, but with your face,

you know what?

I'm super conscious of too?

White women tears.

Why?

Because I heard about how much it was hated so much

not to be like, oh, poor me.

But like, you know what I mean?

Like on social media, like I heard, I was like, oh shit, I got a rail that shit in.

And then I'm like, but I am who I am as a person.

I cry all the time.

All right.

So we're going back to the top!

Hello and

welcome to The Spillway podcast.

I'm Loran.

And I'm Jenny.

We believe three things hurt.

People can hurt people.

White people are hurting

and are healing as possible.

This is a podcast devoted to understanding the complex nature of

living as White people in America,

without supremacy or shame.

And a few months ago, I started an organization, The Spillway around

supporting White people to work through perpetrator induced, traumatic stress

or PITS and intergenerational trauma.

And I offer this service with the acknowledgement that healing work is

merely one mechanism within a larger network required to sustain our collective

movement towards racial justice.

I seek to grow services available rather than redistribute, where

we put our efforts and funding.

And to get this message out there, I've asked one of the most

compassionate ferociously tender, hilarious and incredibly smart humans

I know Jenny Skinner to join me on this podcasting journey.

Jenny.

And I come from similar yet separate backgrounds.

And importantly, we offer incredibly different perspectives

sometimes just by who we are as people and other times by the very

different identities that we hold.

But we're both committed to building compassion, understanding,

empathy, and patience, into to the present and future of Whiteness and White culture.

We can't change the past, but we can change the future through

the actions that we take today

and we do that by trying to embody the work of James Baldwin,

Sonya Renee Taylor, Kazu Haga Resmaa Menakem and Kai Cheng Thom well, and

countless others asking for White people to, in so many words, get our shit

together since starting The Spillway

there's been consistent feedback sometimes within the same space that

White people are engaging this work with closed hearts and closed mind.

We know that attempting to be vulnerable and consenting to learn in

public is incredibly terrifying work.

And yet we have to start somewhere conversations of race and racism.

Aren't going away anytime soon.

And given our incredibly different places in the world, we're trying

to create a middle ground where people can get together and talk

and create action around the paradox of being White in the U S where we

are simultaneously the perpetrators and the victims of race and racism.

We seek to embody the work of countless activists of Color who have

been calling White folks to seek our own healing around race and racism.

So here we are two White people committing to the work of individual

and collective healing around race and racism for White people.

Healing ourselves is no one's responsibility, but our own let's

heal together and grow to stop the impacts of race and racism.

And.

in the lives of people of Color and our lives as well.

in social services.

We often look at solving problems.

One of two ways, the first and the most common is through supported service.

Uh, problem has happened and we're trying to fix the problem and we

try to fix it by one, making sure that the client is physically,

emotionally safe following the problem.

And two, by supporting the client with a specific skill or tool needed

to confront the problem again.

Like let's use homelessness as an example, supportive services, make sure that

people experiencing homelessness have a roof over their heads in shelters,

temporary housing or crisis centers.

Then some programs have employment, education and job

training programs to assist with finding and sustaining an income.

And there are variations of this model all over the country.

And what I've grossly generalized in two sentences is far more complex,

but the core of what happens is there.

And yet, without trying to prevent homelessness from existing, this

cycle of supportive services continues over and over again.

So, how do we truly make homelessness a thing of the past?

How do we permanently prevent homelessness?

And to figure that out, we have to figure out what the real

problem of homelessness is.

And it's actually money, income.

It's capitalism.

The most successful transitional housing programs in the country,

supplement clients who have experienced homelessness before in their programs

by paying their rents for months, if not years, they pay people's rents

or they own the buildings outright.

And this helps the clients build savings, build income, and build credit.

These programs work where capitalism is essentially put on pause.

In 1987, our guest Fred jealous founded Breakthrough Men's

Community, a nonprofit organization to provide men with the skills to free

themselves from non-productive painful or abusive aspects of their lives.

What if Fred asked by helping men, the impacts of sexism and CIS

heterosexism would subside not only in the shared culture, but also

for men who are conditioned and trained into a culture of harm.

What if there were a community of men dedicated to making real change

in the quality of men's lives?

The mission statement for the Breakthrough Men's Community.

Was something that I used when thinking about creating the

mission statement for The Spillway.

So I'd like to share that with you here, the Breakthrough Men's Community

empowers all men to participate fully and confidently in building deeply meaningful

relationships and connected lives.

The Breakthrough workshop is a guided life-changing exploration,

where we work together hands-on to tackle the challenges all men face.

The foundation of this is the Breakthrough Men's Community education program.

The natural extension of this commitment brings us to the

following promote clear and positive.

Thinking about ourselves, others in the world.

Celebrate uniqueness and break free from restrictive rules, imposed by

society, create community support systems and encourage all people

to act as leaders, allies, and advocates, and act in conjunction with

other like missioned organizations.

Fred has been sharing this life for the past 55 years with the incomparable

and Todd jealous and has since retired from his role in Breakthrough.

As the organization continues on, he's been a teacher from

preschool to graduate schools.

He loves to garden, read and write, and you should see how his face lights up

when he gets to talk about his family.

Fred, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for that introduction.

If something to hear that read back.

Thank you.

So our first question, um, Fred, is he, you said that your

starting place for Breakthrough was the belief that the mainstream

raising of boys in the United States is socially sanctioned, child abuse.

Um, what are we missing when we raise boys in the U.S.?

I think where, where, well, I think we're missing how normalized

the abusive treatment of little boys is how institutionalized it is.

How so we just, um, in terms of the emphasis on sports and militarism

and toughening, Little boys.

The idea that they, that vulnerability, weakness and fear are taboo things to

experience and show you experienced them.

You'd better keep them to yourself because there's not gonna be any resources

that are going to be forthcoming.

When you show vulnerability feeling.

self doubt weakness.

It's deeply, deeply ingrained right from the beginning.

And if you want to see a grownup man reveal his hidden hysteria, just ask

him to explore the terror that he carries about exposing feelings of

weakness and helplessness and powerless.

Hmm, those are absolutely taboo.

In fact, they're not even considered feelings after a certain point, they're

considered a kind of subterranean reality that you don't want to go near.

So if you begin to experience them, you're going to flip into some

sort of depressed, aggressive, angry, um, withdrawing behavior.

Because there are no many have learned very, very early on.

There's no place for that.

And, and that's, that carries not only fear, it's not only fear of that, but it's

the shame that you're experiencing it.

So you learn to become obedient to a role and not your own humanity.

And that's the way, that's the only safe way to be in the world.

Wow.

It's more complicated than that, but that's a place to start,

Fred, when you were talking, you used the word taboo a couple

of times and I'm, and I'm wondering how we work with taboos and.

In a social space or a, how do I, how do we learn that socially?

You know, it's, it's, uh, I, um, I interviewed some

of the Breakthrough graduates.

Who've been around a long time because my, uh, I tend to be a harsher

critic of my own work than anybody else, because I'm, I'm looking for

the next step in the evolution.

So I sit in a pretty, um, you know, in a pretty critical place when it's

interesting, what everyone said is, um, the men are invited to have physically

and emotionally intimate experiences with each other as part of the workshop.

And they're paced into that very gradually.

For example, um, when I say gradual, I, I have to tell the leadership

team before the workshop, "Alright you guys no touching each other."

With a generally, when they're engaging, they're very affectionate

and appreciative of each other.

That's kind of the tone of the being together in community.

But if you do, and we've actually had this happen when you do an introductory

workshop, if the guys who come.

See the leaders standing around holding each other or sitting close

together or demonstrating any kind of closeness, then they assume it's a

gay group and they run out the door.

This is like a gay cult or something, sadly.

And.

Um, so what the men that I interviewed told me was we it's the intimate

experiences with men that you would not ordinarily engage with.

That breaks up both the homophobia and the racism and the classism.

It disrupts the pattern in a very safe and intimate way.

So it was interesting that they saw, um, you know, someone might say, oh,

I, you know, I, I never had any contact with a Black person before and now I'm

sitting there active listening with him, holding his hands and discovering, this

is one of the most intelligent human beings I've ever met and it breaks.

So it, it.

Unusually intimate, also open and everybody in the

room is sharing their fears.

So it's that kind of a climate that allows for the shifting

that you were asking about?

Loran, am I answering the question?

Oh for sure, for sure.

I think one of the things that I'm trying to also hold is the idea that why can't

we just let boys be boys, let men be men.

We don't have to do this work.

Why, why is it important for men to be able to be in close contact

with each other to be vulnerable?

What's its value.

Well, you're asking what's the value of intimacy.

Certainly makes the world a lot safer for women for starters, because very

often men are using women, whether it's emotionally or physically or sexually.

To get relief from the isolation and fear.

The, the less fear you have of other men and other men's bodies, the more

grounded you are in your own sense of worth, then the less likely you are to

need to use another human being, to get relief from the isolation that's caused

by that, you know, combination of feeling.

Loran you and I talk a lot about the, the power of platonic touch.

Um, And that I feel that came to my mind when you were talking about that.

But, um, these men living in a world where the only touch that is allowed

is, is, you know, attached maybe to sexuality, um, or a sexual need, um,

and being able to touch someone else in a way that's not tied to that.

Um, ha might have, might have a lot of power.

It does.

It does.

And when you, and when, and when it becomes, safe um, gradually over, you

know, the, the workshop is long for a reason because you have to gradually walk

people into you, provide opportunities for new behavior, you know, and affection and

appreciation, ultimately are irresistible.

You know?

From a point of view of love, but when you put people in a small group

that's different every week and they offer each other physical support

during the time, when it's their time to receive attention, then eventually

people just kind of slide into it.

Always welcoming the no, the no is as good as a "yes"

so it's not manipulative.

It's just like, oh, and then that longing, that's all, that's deep in the

cells of us all for that kind of loving attention calls for what your response is.

If you give people time and don't manipulate them, make

it, you know, insist on it.

Now, if you just keep welcoming, it's like Rumi's quote, you know, 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, but it's that kind of repetitive, welcoming

that allows for the, both the depth of the shifting and the shifting and the

people that I interviewed last night talked about, you know, um, it was the,

it was the, the, uh, the touch and the intimacy and the sense I'm sharing, you

were sharing our fears with each other

and our struggles with each other, honestly, across all kinds of class and

racial and or sexual orientation lines.

And eventually you start to see the person separate from the, oh, the layers.

Not that you still don't have noise in your head or fears to work out, but there

is a shift that they all said takes place.

I can keep going.

I keep wondering if I'm just drifting off the topic *laughs*

No!

I'm just

drinking it in

You'll tell me, Loran

We will tell you,

I'm wondering too far afield.

One of the, when you were talking about welcome, welcome,

welcome, and love and Rumi's quote and this kind of repetitive.

Um, exposure to love what that can do to shame.

One of the things that I've been thinking about in preparation for our conversation

was, uh, I was trying to figure out who was a better educator, shame or love.

And I don't know if I know that answer, but I, I think in hearing

you talk about love, I wonder if love wins out in your answer.

Yes.

Um, and to, you know to different degrees depending on your, your history?

I mean, if I'm looking at, you know, watching people go through

Breakthrough, I mean, one of the most dramatic, and it was a common example

for men who had experienced a lot of humiliating abuse in their childhood.

They ended up hooking up with partners who were all, who were humiliated.

So they lived in this paradigm.

People who love you, abuse you.

I mean, they had that confusion in their heads.

Wh-With abuse and love were linked.

And as they would move through the Breakthrough and get a little bit more

self-worth on board from participating in the community and the exercises,

you know, considering the possibility that you've always been good enough

to love or something like that.

They suddenly, they, that, that the link between abuse and love starts breaking.

And the suddenly being, you know, having someone who says they love

you, abuse, you becomes intolerable.

So that that's, uh, and I saw that often I saw that often just tragic, I mean,

kinds of abuse that, and of course you love me because you have sex with me.

Right.

So you can say whatever you want, do whatever you want.

Humiliate me, abuse me, but just provide the relief from it too.

And that's that?

I mean, it was, it was, that was rough to witness.

Ya know?

And also just for us all, to be honest, about how much it's linked up for us, how

much do we supposed to be able to take.

How much mistreatment, are we supposed to be able to take as part of our manhood?

It seems like it's supposed to be limitless.

Right?

I feel like that's, that's probably the, the abuse that you are supposed

to not have any kind of response or reflection as to what you can't do.

You're supposed to be invincible.

Right?

I can take it.

I can take it.

I can take it.

Yeah.

How do you feel the societal definition of what a man is

affects White men in particular?

And then how does that affect how they approach race and racism?

Well, I think the nuances in it for each man are going to be slightly

different, but I do think in the world, uh, mean, um, You know, part

of what happens in Breakthrough is the White men began to acknowledge

that they are racist, that they haven't, they have internalized it.

But not across the board, but for the most part, for the most part, because of the

honesty that unfolds, you know, because to men of Color, it's no surprise that

they carry racist garbage in their head.

And so there's a little, there's a little bit of space.

Once you have done a lot of sharing about fear or once the.

You know, for example, um, you know, a man of Color has admitted

about his, the mythology that he carries around about, you know,

and handsome White guys with money.

Um, no, he won when, uh, I remember in one situation there was a 26

year old White male addicted to pornography, drove a BMW convertible

dressed well, and he was impotent

He could not have a relationship with a real.

And he, when he admitted this in class, there was an African-American

man, but very rough background.

He said my whole

worldview has been turned upside down.

I thought you

guys had it made.

I thought you got whatever you wanted.

And you're telling me, you hate yourself now, what you know, it's like, now what?

It's like what does it all mean?

You know, if this is what's real what's and, and that, that actually raised

a lot of questions for guys who had very, very issues about materialism

and thinking that was the solution.

And so I think the, um, the compete win dominate paradigm

that men are raised with that.

Um, you know, you're supposed to be a success object.

You're supposed to be seen as a success that will get

you a really good sex object.

So you're an object looking for an object.

So to that extent, that that, that, that works out, you know, attract

to yourself to the extent that that.

Works out there.

There is this presumption of there's, this fear of the other is the fear of

the other, the other-ing it goes on and then anyone who's identified as other.

And so I think that that can be.

That can be, uh, um, racial that can be class-based can be appearance based,

can be, you know, able-bodied base, it's difficult to get really inside of it.

It's because the, the, um, it combined with, you know, I'm

not going to admit my fear.

So I'm going to go to judgment.

of I, you know, judgment is a much more comfortable place for me to be in

than admitting that I'm feeling afraid.

Right.

So I'm gonna do what I do to myself, which is I'm going

to turn him into an object.

Other if I can qualify him as other, turn him into an object

and judge him rather than, yeah.

Rather than look at, rather than get underneath my own treatment

of myself as an object of the male role that makes sense?

Yeah, no, it does.

It does.

It does.

I'm just, I'm also just trying to fit all of that in here in terms

of, you know, like it's all, so.

Interconnected all of that.

Um, in, in the key practices of BMC, um, there's mention of a boy

who needs healing and nurturing.

Um, how much of that healing that's needed with that boy, um,

is related to race for White men.

I have to take that on a case by case basis, because there are,

there are stories of the boy.

Um, there are stories of boys being separated from friends who were of Color.

There are stories of boys in a White boys having been beat up by boys of Color.

So they're terrified from that kind of violent experience.

Right?

Um, a lot of it, most of it, I would say is in the process of the workshop

where you've got, um, you know, men of Color and I mean, it's, I would say.

The workshop probably 75%, you know, White men who identify as

heterosexual, the rest is, is a mixture.

Um, you know, and just cause that's where we live.

Um, so the isolation there's also isolation is another fact there weren't

any kids of Color where I grew up.

I never had any interaction.

So I just know that crap that's in my head.

Um, so there's, so there's, everybody has a slightly different story,

but the isolation, you know, abuse and separation would probably

be the three different themes.

This has

Made me wonder if there's any inherent character or a trait

that's associated with men

is there anything that's inherent when you say, oh, or, uh, you, you meet a man for

the very first time someone male identify to go, oh, then you automatically do this.

You are inevitably, this, is there something like that?

Well, I know this may sound simplistic, but 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 training us into a role is profound.

I've never seen such rage come out of a man as when we get to that point.

After, you know, 30 weeks and weekends being together where we

look at early hurts and sexuality.

And, and we ha and we, we, we raised the question about, when is rage sacred?

When is it a sacred?

When is that anger and rage that you feel sacred?

Well, it's when it's about that time, you really were helpless and

powerless when you were dependent on the big people for survival.

And they told you that it wasn't about love.

This is about you being a little man being obedient, not making us uncomfortable,

making the adults superior and value, you know, the adultism and all that stuff.

And, um, in that exercise, we say you can't stop because you feel tired.

You can't wait, we're going to go past tired because tired is

where the depression and the hurts and the everything else.

And when you see the, the physical, the physicality and the stuff put

into the fury about, you know, why was my childhood not about love?

So that would be, that's a long way of getting at the answer, but I think,

you know, we're part of the fabric of life and life is, you know, life's

happening and it's feeding us that it's inviting us to be a part of.

And here we are in this hyper individualistic, isolated role,

how do we come back?

How do we, how do we build that connection or that community.

Uh, in an, in an open or online space?

Um, like I think about with Breakthrough, one of the really lovely pieces is that

people were invited into the workshop.

Um, and it was a designated physical space that people got to go to,

uh, that you could enter, uh, or you could pass, pass a threshold

and say, okay, well now I'm here.

Now I can be present.

And when I think about.

Uh, how individualized we've become through social media

or through an online presence.

Uh, our community sometimes is in our phone.

It's in our hands.

Um, even though we don't get to cross some sort of threshold.

And I'm wondering how, or if it's possible to translate those experiences,

uh, into building community digitally.

I don't think you can go as far as, I mean, I think men are so isolated

and so desperate for attention and support that, getting it digitally.

I mean, Breakthrough has discovered that, you know, going on to zoom and

doing whatever the guys are now doing, um, which is significantly, I mean,

it's taken the easy parts of what I did.

Um, you know, they're all positive and helpful, but just being in a

place where you can get support and be honest, having that level of community

is so different than what most men have that, although it doesn't go as

far as I would like it to in, in it still is a break from the isolation.

You get a break from.

And that can encourage men to keep going.

And I guess people I'm, I'm pretty kinesthetically oriented too.

So, um, I know for some people the visual and the verbal it's, you

know, that's where they connect.

So they might get, you know, they might get more out of it than I would guess in

thinking about space.

Now, Fred, I'm also wondering.

Why why the, that space is needed given the social power that men have.

If men, if men have access to all of leadership positions, to decision-making

power to choice, why is an additional space required when the whole world is

proverbially, proverbially, their oyster.

Why is, why is an additional space needed for men to work through this?

Because they are living conditional lives.

What does conditional lives mean?

Meaning that their values conditional on that

performance and status.

And that's a bad thing?

Yes.

Well, it's it's if you don't know, I mean, if it's for fun, you know, if I'm, if I'm.

If I'm engaging in an activity because I enjoy it.

And it's an expression of who I am.

And, um, that's one thing.

But if any hope of being seen as good enough lovable, um, worthwhile

having value is dependent on my performance, then everything is about.

My performance, you know, I'm an object to myself.

So if I'm seen as a quote success object or a successful success object,

you know, then I have a certain friends of entitlement and you see

that, I mean, look at the stories.

Yeah.

Or the whole Me Too movement.

What's that about?

I it's about a success object thinking that he's entitled.

So I think that's where it is.

It is conditional.

Um, remember that movie, Private Ryan.

Very very end of Private Ryan, but very good man, but that man from

the movie, you know, is standing at some sort of a graveyard.

I can't remember.

I can't get a clear picture of it now, but he's basically asking,

do you think I was a good man?

Right?

Was I worth the death of the others?

"Do you think I'm good?"

You know, I mean, if that's not a child voice

looking for, you know, you know, is there any hope of me being

loved because it's all conditional and Love's not conditional.

And as long as they hooked up, it's not, it's not about love.

Right.

But even thinking about Saving Private Ryan and saying, am I

lovable after invading Normandy?

Right.

Cause that's what the movie is about.

Right?

The,

Right.

I think Jenny's got the best memory *laughs*

Good work, Jenny!

You're like, it's this, um, really dangerous slope to

say, oh, I'm only in lovable.

If I do X, Y, and Z.

Right.

And part of that is this, uh, this engagement in, uh, military

forces to say, okay, well now I'm lovable because I've done this or

because they've served my country.

And what does it look like when we don't follow those tropes of manhood?

Are we still lovable?

Um, if we don't fit into the familial understanding of what being success

is or being a success object,

But listen to the question you're answering, asking, you're

making it conditional is saying you're.

I think what you're asking is, is there any way out of the conditionality?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, I'm part of the way out is just to realize if it's

conditional it isn't about love.

Which is why in Breakthrough, we gave them, you know, here's, here's a

functional definition of love when you're doing these five things you're being

loving and none of them are conditional.

You know, when you're accepting someone, appreciating them,

you know, being affectionate.

Um, being, allowing, being appreciative, all those, when you're doing those engaged

in those behaviors, you're being loving.

That's what being loving is, but they needed something that concrete,

but it's a wonderful question.

I mean, I mean, it's, it's a beautiful question.

Is there any hope of it ever being unconditional enough for me to know

that I am loved, loving and love.

Where does, or how does forgiveness work, um, joined into the, the work

of being loved, loving, and lovable?

Because I feel like I'm thinking of two different ways.

There's any that that's like inner child work and kind of shadow work

that comes up, but then there's also.

Uh, sometimes just writing an open letter to your parents.

You don't even have to send it.

My mom would do that all the time.

Just try to write something, get it out of your system.

Um, but where does that forgiveness come in?

And what does that look like in, in our

repairative work?

Um, you have forgiveness will come naturally.

When you have honored the breadth and depth of your pain

and anger about what happened.

Otherwise it's a rip off and you know what I'm saying?

You don't have to do that with your parents or whoever the offender

was, but for your, for ourselves, we have to honor the depth of our pain

and anger, and then it will flip.

Are there any, um, kind of like breadcrumbs or indicators

that it's about to flip?

Um, I think

our willingness to be, uh, ruthlessly, honest with ourselves

about the pain and the anger.

Can you think about what that person did to you without feeling any

pain without honestly saying you don't feel any more pain and anger?

If we do, we have to honor it.

Otherwise it's self abuse.

I'm forgiving you.

So I'll be a good person or they'll accept me in the 12 step program.

I mean, I saw that so many times when people I'm not

objecting to the 12 step program.

So the great parts of 12 step programs, but so many people are coming to

Breakthrough from 12 step program.

"Oh, I forgave my parents a long time ago."

Lie.

That feels so tricky

because they can, I can see, I, it, it, um, like being recalled into

trying to support people and asking them if something had resolved and

they kept saying, yes, yes, yes.

But it was this.

I actually don't want to touch that box because that has Pandora's box.

And the second we touched that.

Things are going to unravel in a really dangerous way.

And I think that that's something that I've experienced a lot with The

Spillway is, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

We just don't talk about race.

Just don't talk about it.

I don't want to touch that.

And so I'm not racist.

I, I don't see color actually.

*laughs* Right.

And because of that, I don't have any problems.

And I think about that in terms of forgiveness, because someone and maybe

that's what colorblind racism is to a certain extent they've forgiven themselves

prematurely in this racial contract, they've forgiven themselves in something

they couldn't forgive themselves in because they didn't have the authority

or the responsibility to do that.

And a lot of people are profoundly ignorant about the history.

Do you think that there's more, uh, education or relation needed in the

racism conversation and ending of racism?

Both.

Yeah.

I agree.

Um, we are two minutes to close.

And so Fred, I just want to, uh, you very literally have

this microphone in front of you.

Um, but if you wanted to talk to White people directly, if you wanted to have an

open and vulnerable, authentic moment with White people, as if we haven't been having

that for the past 45 minutes, what do you.

Uh, want to tell to the person who is going on a walk right now, or doing

the laundry, or just sitting there in traffic, listening to the podcast, what

do you need them to know right now?

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?

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.

So I'd use that as a place to start.

I love that change starts with understanding your own preciousness.

I know!

Like I can't like that's when I was like, like I just, even

now, like I'm, I can't like I understanding your own preciousness.

Fuck Fred, wherever you been

for me.

Precious.

Like, I can't even go there yet.

I don't even know what that means in terms of myself.

Like I can't even,

yeah.

I feel like that's, that's my homework this week, trying to

figure out why I'm precious.

Yeah.

I mean, not even why you are, you just are

Fuck, you're right.

That's what Fred was saying.

That's why it's so fucking crazy because Fred's like, no, no.

There's no.

Why can you just see that you are?

And I'm like,

no,

you're right.

Thank you for that reminder.

I forgot.

Yeah, because I'm so conditioned on the condition.

I am so predisposed to have to cre- to have to do, to receive that.

It's not just like, oh no.

And even when I was like, oh, so like when you meet a man, like

he's inherently, what a lovable

I'm sorry, what,

what does he

also, I don't know how comfortable you feel talking about this.

But you were raised in that, what Fred's talking about.

Like that's not your reality now in terms of like how you identify and the

life you're living, but you were raised in what Fred was fucking talking about.

Like all of that was what you were mired in

and I think that that's when Fred was talking about the 12 step

program and saying that people come in, oh no, I forgive my parents years ago.

I think about so much therapy that I have done and been in and engaged

in and like really committed to over the past couple of decades, uh, that

I was like, oh yeah, no, I feel like I've healed from a lot of those.

Um, and then in comes, Fred being Fred

it's like, you're lying and not, and even when he says that, it's

not like, he's not like you're a liar.

He's just like, no you're, but you're lying.

Right.

I love you.

And you're like,

right.

Oh my God.

Cause Fred is so fucking affirming I love you in your lying and you're like,

damn.

Yeah, you, that's what I think we should do that for each other this week.

Like, just like, Hey, just popping in to reaffirm your preciousness for no reason.

Other than that, you exist and you are precious.

Like, I can't like every time I like get Misty, like,

there's like a knot right here.

I like.

I just keep

smiling.

There's so much like tension in my cheek bones.

Right here, like just here, because I mean, what, why is this

person not everywhere in the world?

Like I just like, I'm like, what the fuck have I been doing with my time when

there are people like Fred in the world?

How

precious

oh, my God.

What if precious, this became like a tagline from The Spillway?

I, or like for The Spillway?

"You're Precious."

Yeah.

What if we did that at the end, we told each other we were precious and then we

told the audience or something like that.

Yeah.

Jenny, you're precious

You're so

fucking precious.

*giggles*

What

What

You're precious

You're precious.

We're precious.