The Spillway is one part — one teensy mechanism of the larger racial justice movement. We are White people talking to (predominately) White people about White people and White culture (however much culture can be isolated in the US). This is an affinity space. At The Spillway we are proverbially cleaning our room.

Evangeline’s work and conversation is such an important reminder that after (and sometimes even during) when we clean our room, we have to clean the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. When White people call other White people Karens and appropriate the term from Black culture, it’s messy and misogynistic. When Black people call people “Karen” it’s connected to a current and historical practice of White women weaponizing competing victimization and our privilege to further transgress and dehumanize Black people especially.

Here Evangeline shares the historic and current use of Karens in a cross-cultural context.

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For more on this, check out these resources:

The Once and Future Karen, NPR

A Brief History of Karen, The New York Times

The Mythology of Karen, The Atlantic

The Origin of the Karen Meme, Buzzfeed Video

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

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.

We recorded Evangeline's interview two days before the first cluster of

episodes came out, our foundational work had yet to even air and Evangeline

graciously agreed to be on the podcast.

I didn't do my due diligence of situating in the context of The

Spillway for her outside of, Hey, we're holding an affinity space for White

people to talk about race and racism.

There's tremendous overlap in our work.

We both want to eradicate racism and all of its forms and manifestations,

and there's a slight but significant difference in our approaches to

holding an affinity space for White people to talk about race and racist.

Of Angela and prefers to work in aBlack Indigenous and people of Color centered

approach to supporting White people.

White people have had the mic, the power and the ability to

stop racism for centuries.

And it's long past time to de-center Whiteness.

The work of The Spillway follows Derrick Bell's critical race theory of interest

convergence, uh, working within a White centered approach to supportingBlack

Indigenous and people of Color.

The theory goes that slavery segregation and Jim Crow were only made illegal when

it was in the interest of White people.

And that's not to say that one approach is better than another.

As evangelism reminds us in the episode, Adrian Marie Brown reminds us that all

organizing is science fiction work quote.

We are bending the future together into something we have never experienced in.

So when she heard the first few minutes of the episode, she reached

out to expand on her framing.

And we're going to share part of that conversation here for two main reasons.

Number one, there's no right way to do this work.

Are there better and worse ways to do this work?

Absolutely.

And that answer is subjective.

And The Spillways approach to this work may work for you.

approach may work for you.

They may both work for you.

Maybe parts of evangelism works and some parts of The Spillways work.

There's no clear cut formula to liberation.

If we had it, we would have used it regardless.

However you need support to do the work we're here to share and build resources.

Just remember not everything on this earth was made for you.

And that's okay.

Just keep these frames in mind when you bring more people into

the work with you and with.

And number two, The Spillway is one part, one teensy mechanism of

the larger racial justice movement.

We are White people talking to predominantly White people about

White people and White culture.

However much culture can be isolated in the U S.

This is an affinity space that is White centered at The Spillway.

We are proverbially cleaning.

Our room of Angela's work in conversation is such an important reminder that

after, and sometimes even during, when we're cleaning our room, we

have to clean the bathroom, clean the kitchen and clean the living room.

When White people call other White people Karen's and appropriate the term fromBlack

culture, it's messy and misogynistic.

WhenBlack people call people White people, Karen it's connected to a

current and historical practice of White women, weaponizing, competing

victimization, and our privilege to further transgressed and dehumanizedBlack

people, especially there's this really important both and to our world.

When it's White people talking to White people, it can look one way when it's

White people in a multiracial space, it's going to look different to both

of these experiences are real, and we can't lose track of either one of

Angela's conversation reminds us that there's more work to do as we slow down

out of the chute box in The Spillway.

So please check out this critical supplement to a better fucking party

than White supremacy with Evangeline way.

I think that, um, So it's complicated.

White people are in pain.

And I think we need to say that we're in pain.

I think that in order for racial justice to be effective in order for the racial

justice movement to be effective in United States in the 2020s and the 2030s,

why people need to acknowledge our pain and our harm, and we cannot equate it

with the pain and the harm that BiPAP.

I have experienced theBlack Indigenous and people of Color have experienced.

And this trigger response to like you can't say White people are harmed.

You can't say White people are in pain.

That is a trauma response.

That's saying I can talk about my pain.

Right.

I can't even think about myself as the victim of White supremacy.

Right.

I can only think of myself as the perpetrator.

Like I can't even wrap my brain around that because it was so long

ago for me, that that was my mindset.

But today, I think that if White people don't acknowledge the pain that

we're in, we will only portray racism.

Like we will not figure out how to be effective in multi-racial

space because our pain.

Create it's what creates the conditions for our acting out our

racism consciously or unconsciously.

It is that pain of being in this system, feeling like it's out of control,

feeling powerless, feeling ashamed.

And I think it's so important to recognize.

So I'm going to take a breath there.

So when I, when I think about The Spillway and the work that we're trying to

do, it is in some ways trying to balance this like broader movement of that trauma

response to say, you cannot say anything remotely positive about the, uh, about

a White person trying to like navigate this or show empathy for White people.

And so by trying to.

Center more empathy in the conversation.

Like what I'm also hearing you saying is you have to balance

it with yes, you're hurting, but there's also this privilege there.

A hundred percent.

I mean, what is, what is collective liberation?

Like, how are we going to do abolition work without

compassion and accountability?

Like all this stuff that, I mean, I'm just going to call them like street

racers, you know, like all the, all the work that street racers are doing out in

the community to like bring abolition, bringing the movement forBlack lives,

bring, you know, um, big mama bailout, you know, all of the work that's been.

That's happening around anti-racism in the street.

I'm not talking about the search committee at your local university,

but so much of that work that's happening in the street has to slow

down enough for people to be able to do.

Um, engaging fruitful conversation and acknowledge like, okay, who's

going to be the action lead.

And who's in charge of the sign painting and how are we going to

handle security and what, like all of those conversations and negotiations

need to happen and why people are showing up in those conversations.

And if we haven't looked at our motivations, And what we're trying to heal

and why we're showing up in multi-racial space and what our expectations are.

Then we're going to show up being like, I got this.

And sometimes that I got this attitude can come across to people

of Color, like take a seat, right?

Like slow down, take a steep.

So there's a lot of you go that has to be managed.

There's a lot of self regulation that has to be managed.

And if I'm not in touch with my, her place, How am I going to know

how to self-regulate, how am I going to know how to be humble?

Like I want to be of service in multi-racial space.

So I hear that The Spillway wants to create this container that can help

and support White people to do both.

That's what I'm hearing you say.

You want people to recognize, like we want White people to recognize

that this is a new era for us.

The invitation is to step in.

Doing this work more actively in a more engaged way, whether that's with other

White people or in multi-racial space or both, we want White people to like

lift our heads from the trough, right.

That we've just been like eating at and not thinking about.

So like let's lift our heads up, let's engage, but let's never forget that we

are, we are hurt too by this system.

And we are perpetuating the system, unless we're doing something to resist it, like

we're in this boat and, and that both, and is so important to how we organize how

we facilitate meetings, how we show up in at the family, you know, Sunday dinner.

And I think that's the place where I would.

I would look for opportunities, whatever is coming out of your mouth.

Whatever's coming out of the guest's mouth, like looking for opportunities

to be like, how has that both and being articulated in this conversation, in these

questions, um, if someone is too focused, if I'm too focused on my pain, oh my God.

I'm in so much pain.

I'm queer, I'm Jewish.

I can't believe that I'd survive.

Trump I'm in so much pain about being Jewish and being a woman and this

misogyny and this anti-Semitism.

It's like compassion, compassion, compassion.

And then at some point it's like, okay.

So help helped me understand how can you use some of the power you have

as a White person or a middle-class person or CIS person to advocate for

that queer and Jewish part of you?

Right?

Like reminding me that I have both.

I think that's why.

That's my vision in her, my, my heart.

Right.

And I think to me, that's what the Karen part speaks to.

It is like, as you're saying, like compassion, compassion, compassion,

like, yes, there is misogyny here.

And like, as, as we say, like later on in that very same little

snippet, um, it's awful and it's humiliating and it's not okay.

Uh, and so it is this, like both this duality, I feel like in the Karen part.

And then that also like bring in you as you come into the, as we start to

introduce you into the piece, like the work that you're doing is very

clearly about like, yes, you have hurts too, and that's not an excuse for you

to like enact this on other people.

And so to me, the Karen part like exists and it can be problematized if it is

like isolated in that singular moment.

But even with that, I feel like the intro, there's this fast expansion of

compassion, compassion, and it's not okay.

And here is this human who is like helping White women to work through this.

Like very, except like this very specific example of, of Karen's in White womanhood.

Yeah, I get that.

I just, I think it was not a lack of balance and I don't

know if in the beginning of.

When you vary it, when you very begin to speak about the Karen thing.

Um, and I it's been a minute, so I'd have to go listen to it again.

Like it's, it's not that clear, but I, I think there's something of like,

well, where did this meme come from?

Right.

Where do, why does it exist?

What is the history of Ms.

San?

What does the history of Karen?

What does the history of Becky and having some understanding that.

This is absolutely a piece of culture that, thatBlack people created.

Right?

So like this came fromBlack people as a way to speak about the fear

and anxiety and rage towards.

White women who were not showing up for them.

And I think that without that context, it just sounds like you are having,

uh, your you're in your fragility.

Like, I can't believe this happens and we get called out in this

way and it's super obnoxious and.

I do think if I, I mean, I have felt it's obnoxious.

Like I want to be clear, like it hurts.

I don't love it.

I would not want to be called the Karen.

I don't, it's not what motivates me to do my work.

Like I'm not living from a place of, oh, please let me not be called the Karen.

But I think that at the same time that it hurts me.

It's like, I.

I don't know, I understand the need for this signifier.

I understand the archetype, right.

Of the like liberal White person who will come for you

in a minute if you cross them.

And so that's the.

That's the thing that was missing is like, it's just kind of it, maybe you

circle to it at the end a little bit, but it feels like really out of balance, it

feels like, um, a lack of appreciation or a lack of honoring the, the amount

of racism that especiallyBlack women have experienced from, from White women.

And I don't know, it may, it may be that you are satisfied.

With the way that you frame it out.

And I don't want to, I just wanted to let you know that when I went to listen

and that was the first 10 minutes, I was like, whoa, this is not what I expected.

It did not come across as balanced to me.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's really helpful feedback because I haven't been thinking about trying to

maintain the balance with any Japanese.

Uh, I think, yeah, like returning back, like the serial aspect, like

the script that I wrote, like these ideas, um, that I was thinking about

sharing with you are really about putting it at the top of every episode.

But this is when we talk about White people.

Um, it is.

Because everyone has like their own experience and everyone's having their own

individualized experiences around this.

Um, if we don't talk about it in the exact way that you need us to say

it, um, it's going to turn you off.

Like I've had many people leave The Spillway product before because they

wouldn't talk about a very specific thing they want me to talk about.

Yeah, no, I don't think that that's where I'm coming from.

I mean, I'm not turned off and I'm not, I actually.

I actually, I don't know.

Let's try this on Loran.

Sure.

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

Like I don't, I am so over 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 a piece of this group identity

is because it's meaningless.

It's both 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 meaningful.

It has no meaning Whiteness has no meaning.

Right?

So I don't know who I am.

You're forcing me to absorb a group identity and consent to a group identity.

You're telling me that politically and socially sociologically and culturally,

this group identity has all this meaning.

And yet at the same time it's vapid.

It means nothing.

It doesn't connect me to my ancestors.

It doesn't connect me to my roots.

Right.

So that is so worth digging into it.

Find yourself a beautiful person to talk to you about that.

I could recommend some people, but like that's when, when an individual

White person brings you that their particular need didn't get met.

Yeah.

By not working for not working to meet the needs of individual White people.

And I there's, there may be other moments in the interview with me

that I didn't resonate with or that I might've been like, oh, that was weird.

But the thing about the Karen's thing is you're coming after you sound like

you're coming after something thatBlack people created to protect themselves.

And that.

Bad luck.

Like it's not a bad look because of Angela said, so like, I literally think you

could pay that you could play that nine minute segment for three people of Color.

And I think they would all say, yeah, you don't want that on the air.

Like, I think that it's like, do you know the story of, um, 9

1, 1, like how we got nine 11.

As a service.

So Katie Genovese, 1960 something, right.

She gets killed that.

And 57 people heard her screaming and no one called no one did anything.

No one came to stop.

That's how we got nine 11, a White woman getting killed, creates a national system

for emergency response for the police.

Right?

Like juxtapose that with White women, um, Weaponizing nine 11 to harm, to

like call people of Color out, right.

Calling the police onBlack people for having a barbecue for selling

water for whatever reason.

Right?

So it's like the, the way that White people have, um, Just weaponized

are our insecurity, our fear.

That's where the Karen name comes from.

And I think it's just it's um, it's just, I think it's really important

to, to make sure people know that at the same time that we can talk about

how much it hurts us or it pains us, or we don't like being shamed.

Um, because we're having that conversation in the context of.

A country that was founded on racism and genocide.

Right?

So how can White people talk about, like, I don't like being

shamed by people of Color.

How can I say that sentence outside the construct of likeBlack and brown people

have been not only shamed, but terrorized by White people for centuries here.

And now, now there there's a little bit of a political moment where.

Political organizing cultural organizing.

Maybe we could even see electoral organizing.

Although I hesitate to go that far whereBlack and brown people

have enough power, culturally, that things are being created that

make White people feel ashamed and we're in our feelings about it.

And it's like, well, yeah, of course we're in our feelings about it because

for centuries, we were the shamers.