Alternative title: Cancel Culture and White Women & Evangeline Weiss

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

What does it mean to hold cancel culture as White supremacist and shame culture?

Loran and Jenny sit down with Evangeline Weiss, founder of Beyond Conflict & co-founder of We Are Finding Freedom to talk about how cancel culture replicates White supremacy culture and the intersection of race and gender as it applies to White women.

Questions include:

• How do we hold the evolving nature of the human experience amidst accountability (and accountability abuse)?
• How do we get more White people to center love in our work?
• What does forgiveness and grace look like in our work of supporting other White people?
• How do we make sense of the intersection of gender and race?
• Do White women have any inherent qualities or attributes?
• What, if anything, do you want to interrupt & expand within White women?
• How do we find other White people to unpack racial equity with?
• What's the role of fallibility in our work?

==========

Evangeline Weiss Projects & Contact Info

==========

linktree for Finding Freedom: https://linktr.ee/wearefindingfreedom.org

Finding Freedom is a 5 part online workshop series for white women and gender queer people to examine our internalized dominance and collusion with racism. Upcoming workshops can be found here. @wearefindingfreedom on instagram

We still have spots available for Seeing the Forest: Reckoning with Our Roots for a Racially Just Future. If there is one thing we know, this work is meant to be done in relationship with others. Here is the Registration link:https:/done/bit.ly/StF2022.

Linktree for Evangeline: https://linktr.ee/evangelineweis

Monthly free, white anti-racist space. The caucus is a drop-in space (no need to tell us you're coming or not) and we ask you to RSVP 1 time, so we can make sure you're on the calendar invite. Next Session is April 22nd, 12:00-1:30pm ET. 

Information about coaching for white people, organizational change and other offerings can be found on Evangeline's website, www.gobeyondconflict.com

Sign up for my monthly Postcard from North Carolina by clicking here and follow her on instagram, @evangelineweis

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At the beginning of the episode Loran and Jenny talk about White people using "Karen" on other White people. Want to explore the use of Karens in the cross-cultural context? Check out this bonus mini-sode with Evangeline.

Jenny references a podcast episode that Evangeline was a guest speaker on. You may find it here. (Finding Hope by Mandy Bird, EP. 20 "Breaking the Silence" with Evangeline Weiss)

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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.

Should we talk about Karen's.

Do we talk about Karen?

I mean, we can.

Yeah, we've mentioned them as like a thing, but I don't know

if we've really gone into like the dissection of the Karen.

To me, the Karen, I don't know if I've said this yet.

I've always felt a very uneasy sense around Karen's.

Um, for two reasons, one, I think the examples that we have in the media

of like Barbecue Becky or the, like the Karen haircut, someone wanting to

speak to the manager, I like get it.

Some of these things are like really frustrating.

They're humiliating that they take away our humanity as White people.

Um, and I get a moral injury when I see them doing awful things.

And I think there's this other piece that.

I think if White men were doing it, like speaking to the manager, which they do all

the time, calling the police, they do all the time, but we like mock women because

there's this like little, like just a sprinkling of misogyny in there, which

just add a little bit of misogyny in here.

I just imagine Julia Child being like, "sprinkle the

misogyny!"

Yeah, I cannot help.

But when someone brings in or talks about Karens, Just like a little bit

of misogyny and just like creeps out of their pores and into the

table or under the conversation.

And it just makes me feel a little awkward because we don't talk about women

and White women the same that we do.

White men.

No

never.

And so that's always, maybe a little uncomfortable.

Yes.

They're doing and have done some shitty things.

And let's also not get out of hand here.

The Karen thing first, my first thought, when I first heard the Kar-, when

I first saw that the Karen was becoming a thing, I was like, "oh, no, poor everyone

named Karen," just anybody named Karen.

Um, but my second thought was like, "okay, I'm not that.

I'm not a Karen.

And if everything I have to do from this moment forward has to prove

that I'm not a Karen" and I, right.

And I've definitely spoken to the manager before

I have to.

And so for me, I think there's like an additional layer that

Evangeline touches in her work about:

"Yes.

We are also experiencing discrimination on a daily, but we're not having to

experience the things that folks of Color are having to experience at the same time.

And so we need to make sure that we're like tending to our own needs

and wounds and hurts and harms.

And there are these other ways that we can harm folks to."

Right.

Just because we're a, um, victim "victim" seems like a weird word, but,

um, just because we feel how that feels and knowing that it's like we say,

at the beginning of every episode, you know, hurt people, hurt people.

Yeah.

And that's easy to turn around to do when you're hurting.

Well, yeah,

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

People can hurt people because they think what Evangeline is doing, is

trying to support people to move into the "can" territory rather

than just like, "oh, you're hurting.

So you're inevitably gonna hurt this other person" because

no.

Yeah.

I think what you just did is like, you just showed 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, 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 because I sometimes

get tripped up with that too.

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 I'm starting to get there with you.

I still think that you have to want to, and some people, I believe strongly that

some people don't have the, "I want to," and I'm trying to get to the place where

I'm like, okay, let's, you know, but people have to prove to you that they

don't want to like give them that chance.

I have had to walk away from a really beautiful relationships because

people couldn't imagine a can that's

painful.

I'm sorry.

It sucks.

And I have to hope that one day they can see the can.

That one day they will see the "can."

Right.

And you're not going to cancel them because right now, because

right now they can't see the can.

I'm not going to

act all righteous.

I am not going to cancel someone else because they're on a different journey

or because our journeys aren't lining up.

Right.

It doesn't make sense.

Oh, so you don't know the complexities of that person's life.

Right?

Like we know people really well, but we don't know every eexperience they've had.

So

right.

And maybe they have like a whole bunch of harms that they are still working

with and trying to mend and heal and work through and live with and manage.

But yeah, when, when we're ready, we're ready.

But oh weird.

We're just like talking about like cancel culture and White women

simultaneously while preparing for this.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Oh my God "can" can-cel, so, okay.

Can cancel.

Cancel culture is about the inability to believe that people can change.

And whether that's whether those people are us, that we don't believe

that we have the capacity to change, or we believe that other people do

not have the capacity to change oof!

Can can-cel.

Um, I think we're at, uh we went over by three minutes.

Oh my God.

Shut it down.

hello and welcome to The Spillway podcast.

I'm Jenny

and I'm Loran.

We believe three things hurt.

People can hurt people.

White

people are hurting

And are healing is possible.

This is a podcast devoted to understanding the complex nature of

living as White people in America,

Without

supremacy or shame.

A few months ago, Loran started an organization, The Spillway around

supporting White people to work through perpetrator induced, traumatic stress

or PITS, and intergenerational trauma.

Loran offers 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.

Loran seeks to grow the services available rather than redistribute,

where we put our efforts and funding to get this message out there.

Loran asked one of the most compassionate, ferociously tender, hilarious and

incredibly smart humans they know to join them on this podcast journey: me.

Loran and I come from similar yet separate backgrounds.

Importantly, we offer incredibly different perspectives sometimes

just by who we are as people.

And other times, by the different identities we hold,

we are committed to building compassion, understanding, empathy,

and patience into the present and future of Whiteness and White culture.

We cannot change the past, but we can change the future through

the actions that we take today.

We seek to embody the work of James Baldwin, Sonya Renee

Taylor, Kazu Haga, Resmaa Menakem, Kai Chang Thom, 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 minds,

and this work can be difficult and it can be beautiful.

It's an exercise in vulnerability and un- learning perfectionism with

real-world consequences, all of this in the age of 7-second judgements, we

hope that The Spillway and our living in it can give others the courage

that's needed to join us in this work.

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, given our

incredibly different places in the world, we're trying to create a middle ground

where White people can get together to talk and create action around the

paradox of being White in the US, where we are simultaneously the perpetrators

and the victims of race and racism.

And 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 in the lives

of people of Color and our lives as well.

Welcome to our podcast.

AS a White Jewish queer anti-racist, Evangeline has been ruining Thanksgiving

since 1977, a social justice change instigator with a twinkle in her eye.

Evangeline has over 20 years of community building and organizational development

experience working with clients to integrate racial and gender justice

into their missions and activities.

Evangeline facilitates leadership development programs to stain organizers

and leaders on a path towards greater wholeness, intentionality and purpose.

After earning a master's degree in educational policy studies, Evangeline

spent the first 10 years of her career managing volunteers and staff

in HIV/AIDS service organizations.

After moving to North Carolina in 2002, she has worked in the LGBTQ

movement to bring more understanding of the need to center racial justice.

Currently she facilitates transformational change for

organizations and individuals through her consulting practice Beyond Conflict.

Evangeline is a poet, wife and mother artist, and justice worker.

She is extremely grateful to call Greensboro North Carolina home.

In 2015, Jenny, I don't know if you remember that I went to a Creating

Change conference out in Denver.

And the only reason that we went to this conference as well.

So I'm from Colorado and my parents live like two hours south of Denver.

And so I was like, oh, I can go to this conference and I can go like,

hang out with my parents for a second.

And like two birds, one stone, like, that'd be great.

And so I go to this conference and the very first day before the conference

even begins, there's a day long racial justice Institute at the beginning of

this conference, Creating Change, which is like very specifically an LGBTQ

national conference on creating a national movement of change, uh, for the good.

And it was the first time I was ever invited into an affinity space.

And so it was bizarre.

And that I had never been told that White people should talk to other White people.

So it wasn't until I was like 27 years old.

And it was told that White people should talk about the White people about racism.

And so here I was in this space and in comes, the facilitator, who we are joined

with today and my world just kind of like upended of, "oh, wow, this is the work.

This is how we hold each other accountable.

This is how we build love.

This is how we build communication.

This is how we build like safety."

And even that's in like air quotes, but it became this like other world

that I was never even aware of within racial justice or just even within

like connecting to my own humanity.

And so I've always held Evangeline Weiss, very close to my heart.

Um, as someone who, who like showed me the road, like I had

the, I had the keys, I had the car.

And then someone was like, "here's this map?

Like, and I don't know where all of the pieces are.

I'm not a cartographer, but like here's generally an understanding of

the road" and I just like went for it.

And so I'm starting, The Spillway just kept thinking about you and

trying to create a space, very intentionally for White people to

really lean into our own humanity.

And welcome.

Thank you so much for being here.

Wow.

I mean, it's such a beautiful thing to be reconnected because you do these things.

I get up in front of rooms and I do my thing and it's just, you know, there's

always that lingering question of.

"Did it land how?", you know, especially at a conference when there's like

thousands of people and it's just the scale is kind of cuckoo bananas, right?

So it's just really lovely to be reunited.

And to hear that it did it did land and that you have, um, deepened your journey.

And I'm really, really glad that I got to be a part of that.

Well, thank you.

I still remember running up to you after the conference.

I know that there's like so much fatigue that happens

after you facilitate something.

And you just want to like go into like a, like a room by

yourself, maybe smoke a cigarette.

That was definitely me in 27, 27.

And I'm like, "I just need to be by myself."

And I just, I want to learn more like how, how do I do this?

What, what do we do?

And you gave me amazing recommendations.

And I took them with me and I still, I kept my notes with me in my folder

for work so that I could be reminded of why it was doing this work and

what work was so important to.

Pushing me forward in this map.

So thank you.

Um,

I'll

start.

Cause I, I just finished listening to the podcast episode that you

sent us with that sweet, uh, Mandy.

And you said something that really struck me, which was when.

So when you micro aggress, um, to a person of Color, your job as a White

person is to hold space for however, they respond to that and to apologize

sincerely, and then to go find another White person to sort of unpack your grief

and you know, your feelings around that.

And one of the things that Loran is coming across in starting The Spillway is that

when you try to go find those White people to, to hold space for your grief and your

frustration and, and all the pain that comes with with causing hurt to a person

of Color, you get, you find on either sort of either end of the spectrums,

you find a lot of accountability abuse.

So, so my question is how do you hold the evolving nature of

the human experience and amidst.

Essentially cancel culture.

So how are we able to reach out to other, you know, or find other White

people to hold space for us in that?

Yeah,

that's a great question.

Um, I think that building community, having a caucus space or a regular

space that you can dip into, so you're not having to like build relationship,

introduce yourself, give context, explain your heart, and then ask for

accountability all at the same time.

So if you have two or three people, like it could be the two of you who

have a little, you know, first Friday of the month, let's have a little

check in on how our Whiteness is going.

Um, and it's like a cup of tea, a virtual cup of tea.

I don't know if you're, if you can hang out.

Um, but I think it's really important to anchor in a community

that that is meaningful, that can, that knows all of you and that can

give you permission to screw up.

And that will, you know, I need that.

I need to be loved through my.

Trespasses.

I need to be able to go and speak to the places where I make mistakes.

I make mistakes all the time, and I don't want to have to have that community like

reinvent itself every week or every year.

So I think there's something about like longevity and being

held in the community over time.

That really matters.

And I think, you know, cancel culture is, uh, is a beautiful

example of White supremacy culture.

It's really ineffective.

And if we want, um, you know, w we need to throw a better party

than White supremacy, right?

And so if we're fighting an anti-racist, you know, for doing anti-racism

work, we have to make it inviting.

We want more people to join us.

We right.

Maybe we need, we need to build our numbers.

And the only way to do that is to be able to love people in their

imperfection, in their mistakes.

Um, and I think it's helpful to remember, like I had a journey.

I didn't, I didn't wake up one day just.

You know, quoting Ibram Kendi, you know, it's like, I, I, I had to

have my own awakening and I think there's some humility in that.

And recognizing I'm on, I've been on a journey, I'm on a journey.

This person's on a journey.

Th the mistake that Jenny made today might be the mistake that I make tomorrow.

And that Loran makes next week, like, how do we have some humility in that?

Um, I mean, I have a lot more to say about cancel culture,

but I, I think I'll pause there.

I mean, I think that's, that's fair

when I hear the, the mistakes piece.

I think why can't we catalog that somewhere?

And that to me becomes The Spillway of, oh, Hey, there's this mistake that I made.

I want to be honest about it.

And I want to share in my vulnerability that this thing just happened.

And one, you can learn from my mistake so that you don't have to replicate

this, that, that saves your humanity.

And it also saves a person of Color from having to go through this experience too.

Um, but then it builds community and it builds like a positive White anti-racist

community, but that requires that we be vulnerable and White people love to

cancel other White people, especially when it comes around vulnerabiltiy.

Yeah.

I

have this great story.

So my first ever, um, I knew I was way and I was like going, I was showing up

in spaces with my individual analysis of my own Whiteness as a Jew, as a queer.

Um, the first time I ever put myself out there to like invite other White

people to join me, um, was down here in North Carolina in 2002.

And I.

I was working on a university campus and I was doing these talks where I would

get up and I would like talk about like how messed up we were and how White

people needed to figure out our stuff.

And I was like finger point finger point finger point, and I would be done and

people would like run for the door.

They could not get out of the room

fast enough.

And I, I had, um, a mentor at the time and he was into Union

Archetypes and I have a High Warrior.

I've a High Warrior justice, seeker archetype.

And I have a very low, um, Orphan, a very low, um, ask for help.

I've gotten better over the years, but at the time.

My Orphan was like really exiled.

So he suggested to me that I give the talk, not from my Warrior

stance, but from my Orphan stance, like what was my Orphan say?

And so it was, it was like MLK day on this college campus.

And I got asked to speak and I was like, I'm going to go for it.

I'm going to give the talk from my orphaned.

And I called the talk "six mistakes that I've made as a White person."

And you could have heard a pin drop people were totally into it.

And when it was, when I was done, I had a line of like 20

people that wanted to talk to me.

And I was like, holy shit, this is a game changer.

Like I have to model being.

Scared and making mistakes to, if I want other people to join me in this space.

And it really impacted me, um, to just see how receptive, like White people

were yearning to talk about our mistakes and there wasn't space to do that.

There's plenty of like yelling and screaming or go read a book, be

in my book group, give me money.

There's plenty of that, but there's not a lot of, um, that, that

kind of like, hold me my shame.

Cause I don't want to spin, I don't want to spin out and get paralyzed and go into

a shame spiral and never be seen again.

Right.

Uh,

also that doesn't help anyone.

Right?

Like the shame spiral.

It doesn't, I mean it

helps Netflix.

It helps Ben and Jerry's,

they'll be okay with other things.

I think Ben and Jerry's

they don't no.

Oh, it helps Netflix.

That was.

It's so true

For me, but I think, I think we need more White failures.

I think that that is so important that we allow for fallibility within

our movement and that perfection.

And I feel like perfection is such a tenant of White supremacy.

And what I've really experienced with The Spillway is every time I try to

post something new on social media or a new angle, or a new invitation

into hurt into vulnerability, into compassion and empathy, I get, "oh, this

is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

You're wrong."

And then you try to engage in conversation and they never come back

because they're just so taken off with oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We have to do this right.

We have to be perfect.

We have to always be diligent so that nothing.

No weakness.

Is ever kind of explored

can't you?

I mean, if you, if all you do is power through racial justice work, then

aren't you replicating White supremacy culture through your anti-racism?

And how do we help people see in the mirror that, you know, you can come

up with your KPIs and you can have your, your dashboard of anti-racism

work and check all your boxes and make all your assumptions, but isn't that

alienating and not culture building?

So, you know, there's something about wanting to your, what you're

talking about is actually creating a culture that has never existed.

And so I'm interested in like how to support this, the imagination,

the White imagination of like, what does a concerned vulnerable.

Um, curious White culture look like, and, and people may feel really

uncomfortable with that role, as opposed to the role of like, I have

my clipboard, I have my checklist.

Don't get in my way,

we talked to one other guest about what's a better motivator, shame or love.

And, you know, he came back and said "love.

Absolutely."

So assuming that we believe that's true.

How do we get more White people to center love into this work?

Well, I think it's, I think it's a both, and I think that

we have to, we have to recognize that White people are in vast.

White people can be in vastly, different places.

Um, and so.

The short-term gain that comes with shame.

Is that a person's like, "oh, I shouldn't say that.

Okay.

I'm clear.

I just, I won't say that again."

So there's like a short-term gain and that I've been schooled around my

language, or I've been schooled around taking up too much space or whatever

the particular shame bot thing was.

But I think the, and that's, we need that.

I mean, I, I needed to get somebody who needed to.

"Jerk my slack," as my wife, likes to say, somebody needed to jerk my

stack and I needed to sit up and go, oh shit, I can't do that again.

There are moments where that's necessary, but that's not a

movement building strategy.

That's not a teaching tool.

It's a, it's a moment in time.

It's like an isolated thing.

I don't want my kid to touch a hot oven.

I yank them back from the hot oven, but that's not the sum

total of my parenting skills.

And so I think where where White anti-racists can sometimes this,

this idea of a moral imagination.

Like we lack the permission in some cases, or we don't make the time or

someone tells us it's not strategic.

So that's strategic to use your imagination.

Um, and so we, maybe we're waiting for people of Color to do it for us.

I mean, Adrienne Maree Brown writes prolifically about the

importance of the, of using our imaginations to get out of here.

And that all organizing is science fiction, but do White

people actually believe that?

Are we willing to put in the time?

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.

What 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.

Right.

And if all I get is chastised and yanked on and told them 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.

It's really easy to just give somebody a high five in passing or, you know,

an emoji on their posts or what have you like, I can love, love, love, love,

but if you're my neighbor and I'm sick and tired of your dog pooping on my,

I don't know, Japanese maple, then I'm going to actually write, I'm going to

actually need to have a conversation with you that is not just like high

fiving you on Facebook or what have you.

Right.

Um, so it's like we have to go for the harder, more vulnerable, more threat

threatening conversations, because we don't know what the outcome will be.

If you're having a conversation where you're certain what the outcome

is, it's probably not getting us to that imaginative next place.

Right.

I

can't even think about the next question.

I just want to sit in that for a moment that has so lovely.

Like

I only want to be having conversations that I have no idea where they're going.

That's the only kind of conversation I'm interested in having.

And if you're just here to tell me I'm doing it wrong, that's boring.

Okay.

Got it.

What's next.

Or if you want me here to tell me that I'm awesome.

That's equally boring, right?

I want to be engaged the truth of what it means to live in,

in this, in this complexity.

It's reminds me of a quote that if everyone in the

room has the same definition of justice, it's not a diverse room.

And that's what this reminds me of.

If that were all showing up with the same understanding of, of movement

building, we're not actually building a movement, we're building a tower

without any kind of broad structure and it will just tip over immediately.

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, 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, um, that negotiated space needs to be able

to tolerate a certain amount of discord and that discord needs to be facilitated.

Which is why I think a lot of leadership programs could, should, may include

facilitation skills because we're all kind of, I mean, I could go off on

like death by meeting now, like this, the number of horribly facilitated

meetings where the conflicts that need to happen, aren't happening.

And instead we're having like the wrong conflict over and over again.

Right.

And it's like, how can we get rid of those wrong conflicts and actually have

the conflict that the group needs to have

"conflict.

We need to have"

conflict.

Yeah.

My brain just exploded.

It sounds like, do we need to have, that's love

having a break conflict.

That's love.

That's what, that's what it means for me to say that anti-racism

is going to center love.

I just keep going back to what you said about, you know, you said, um, that

you call what we're calling love "suport".

And that who was such a huge opener, um, in my mind, love is support.

I mean, you were also saying that we need support and accountability,

but in my mind, you know, love, I think a lot of us are raised

with love is like a Hallmark card.

You know, that sort of love, um, very sentimental and, you know,

let's hug everyone and all those types of things, which it, which it

can be, but also that idea of, of supporting support being the love.

I just, I don't even know if I'm articulating how much my

world has just changed with just a simple shift of perspective.

When you,

when you think about like, what is the support this person needs, right?

Like going back to calling, that's why calling out is so easy.

That's why cancel culture is so easy because it doesn't require anything of it.

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, right.

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, right.

To like unpack what is it about a particular.

Political moment or a policy or the way an administrator's showing

up in their college campus or the way an LGBT center is being run.

Like whatever the, whatever the issue is, what does it mean to support

someone to consider a different reality or a different set of needs, a

different definition of justice, right.

And you can't have that conversation if you're giving someone the finger, like

it's just not going to go well, great.

I wonder, you know, it, within that support, what does forgiveness and

grace look like when we're supporting other White people in, in this work,

in this space, in these spaces?

Yeah.

I mean, I, I think that we have to start with ourselves.

I think there's a fairly.

Large swath of White people that I worked with, especially in the last couple of

years, it's been pretty rapid fire, lots of work, lots of White people suddenly

wanting to like, get, um, get real.

And I think that there's a lot of shame in that.

There's a lot of feeling of like, oh my God, I'm XYZ years old.

And I didn't know.

Um, I mean, Loran even opened with it right in telling, telling the story

of being 27 and never considering White people talking to White people.

Now, I don't sure Loran and like a shame spiral about it, but I think that we

have to forgive ourselves to some extent, like we're dropped down on the planet.

We are raised in the community that we're raised in and we have to forgive ourselves

for buying into, you know, the red pill or the blue pill, Neo which pill, right?

Like we have to forgive ourselves that this is this, this is where

we landed and how we landed.

But then once we, once we're awake, once we are doing our work, um, I think

it's so easy to get caught up in shame or guilt and become paralyzed and think

you're never going to get it right.

Partly because people are telling you you're doing it wrong.

I mean, there's just so many things that would take somebody

in yank them off their path.

And so we have to forgive ourselves, um, But I also, I feel like there's a degree

of grace that I have to have with myself and with all of the people I'm working

with, because it's that premise of like, people are doing the best they can with

an incredibly complicated, hard situation.

And, uh, I feel like White supremacy is a billion trillion dollar industry.

Like it's, it's going heavy every day, all day long.

I like to say there's a check in my mailbox for shutting the fuck up.

And my job is to like, not go to my mailbox and not get the

check and not cash the check.

And it takes a lot of thoughtfulness to not cash that check.

It's really easy to just go on

Jenny, when you were talking, just bringing up the

words, grace and forgiveness.

It struck me how gendered that language is, unfortunately.

And how do we, how do we make sense of the intersection of race and gender?

In this conversation of racial justice.

Yes.

Yeah.

How, how do we, how do we hold forgiveness and grace with White

men who I think historically are not showing up to racial justice in the

same way that White women are or the way that White non binary folks are.

I

mean, it's a tough one.

I think there's not, um, there's not a lot of space for White men at cis,

straight White men, maybe in particular, but I think it's, um, it's hard.

It's the compounding impact of being a, being White and being male and being cis.

It's like, what's the, what's the message that White men are getting right now.

Like the message that they're getting is you fucked up, you ruin the world

and you should just take a seat.

Right?

Like, that's the message.

So if that's the, if that's, what's playing on the Intercom all day long

and I have any power whatsoever, um, I am gonna do everything I can to turn

the volume on the intercom down, focus on like cryptocurrency or whatever.

And I'm like, do my thing.

Right.

And if I don't have that much power, I may become addicted to opiates

or I may, um, you know, become infatuated with the Confederate flag.

And it's like, it's, I want to change that.

What's playing on that intercom.

Like, I don't want it to be White men.

You fucked up, you ruin the world, take a seat.

Like, I don't think that's helpful.

Um, and I actually think it makes for very contentious spaces.

White men are part of community,

right?

What do you want to have playing on the intercom?

Well for White men, I think it's like, it's not your job to fix this.

It's not your job to solve it all by yourself.

And, you know, get curious about who you could be working with

and get in touch with your heart.

That's what I would want playing on the Intercom.

Get in touch with your heart.

Find, make friends and build a team and build a team.

That's

you work a lot now with White women, uh, doing anti-racism work.

What is, what is this work to share it?

Share with us.

Share what this work is!

Sure.

So in 2017, my friend Kari Points, and I looked at each other and we

thought, oh my gosh, um, this is going to be what happens in this election.

It's going to be really painful and hard.

And what are we going to do?

There was also the, that was sort of the, for me, at least I will own that.

I had a totally defensive.

Reaction to all the Karen memes that started coming out on social media.

And I was like, oh my God, like, I know that White women

can do way better than this.

Like, this is just horrifying.

And I think queer people have been leading in racial justice work like across

the country for decades and decades.

And, um, it's exciting to me.

So Carrie and I are both queer and we started, um, a workshop

called Finding Freedom, White women taking on our own White supremacy.

And the purpose of the workshop was to examine is to examine receiving

sexism, receiving misogyny, receiving patriarchy homophobia.

And then turning around and perpetrating racism, like how White women do this.

um really backhanded.

Like I'm oppressed by around gender.

And now I'm going to turn around and I'm going to punch down.

I'm going to act out White supremacy.

And, um, we offered the workshop in person and we had a really great reception

Durham, North Carolina, um, 50 people in the room, 50 people on the waiting list.

Well, fast forward COVID happens.

We put the workshop online and now we've had over 700, um, White women

take the class and we've got 15 facilitators teaching the class online.

And we were starting to kind of build a community of accountability, build

that community I was describing of support and, and accountability.

Um, I'm really proud of the workshop it's evolved.

There's a part two that we're working on now.

Um, and, uh, I just completed a workshop for White Jewish women.

That was a trip, really incredible and thought provoking.

And I'm still kind of wrestling with what that was like.

And then Carrie's about to do a genealogy workshop for White people to consider.

Um, ancestors and Whiteness.

So we it's, it's, it's growing, it's evolving.

Um, but the, the Finding Freedom workshop is really, um, a solid place, I think

for White women and gender queer people to do some reckoning with collusion

and, um, why we collude and some of the things that we can do to stop.

Okay.

Can you define collusion just for folks who don't know?

Sure.

I mean, collusion looks different for different people.

It could be, but basically it means, um, partaking in White supremacist

culture using it to our advantage.

Um, not resisting.

So just going the easy route and the easy route might look like being quiet

or the easy route might look like being absent, um, or just not thinking about it.

Um, so I talk about the four D's sometimes and doing racial justice work

there's defensiveness and deflection and denial, and then there's despair.

And those all come out when we're, sometimes they come out when we're

colluding, sometimes they come out when we're resisting, but collusion just

means going with the flow, cashing that check in the mailbox and saying, fuck it.

I, I worked hard for this and, um, I'm gonna take what's mine.

When you're working with White women in, in these workshops,

are there any inherent qualities or attributes that you see within

them that all sort of connect or does that sort of vary per person?

I guess.

I mean, there definitely

are some themes that come up in the workshops and in the work, I think

we've hit on a couple of them already.

And this conversation around shame perfectionism, um, for a lot of the

women that, that transition from calling out to calling in and recognizing

that we have a responsibility to like bring more White people into

the work and doing that through love is a big tenant of the workshop.

And I think that I'm, I'm more attuned to some of the differences that are showing

up in the room than the similarities.

It's interesting, but I definitely think that.

Those similarities have to do with where a person is in their journey.

So some of the women, this is their first time in an affinity space,

and they're just trying to figure out, like, what does this mean?

That we're talking about racism and there aren't any people of Color here.

Um, and then for other women, I think there's more experience with being an

activist and they're coming in wounded, they're coming in raw, they're coming

in, like, it's a shit show out there.

Do you have anything to help?

You know, I, I, I think of like old M*A*S*H* episodes with like, you know,

like the helicopters and it's just like chaotic and it's a crisis and people

come into the workshop and they're like, we need bandages the bandages.

Um, And then other women, I mean, what's one of the things that's

really beautiful is that we're seeing generations like a grandma and a

daughter and two granddaughters coming into the space together.

And that's really powerful.

Um, and seeing how those generational differences show up and get talked

about in addition to talking a lot about class and how we are socialized

into our Whiteness, through our, our socioeconomic class experience.

Um, I learned what I know about being White, I've learned

by being upper middle class.

And I think that that would be really different.

I know that that experience is really different than some of my

White working class, um, colleagues

within these, these themes that you're finding.

I guess there's like a two-part question that I'm thinking about, and it's

both interrupting and then expanding.

What are, what are themes that you want to see?

Um, more regularly, um, like positive themes.

And then what are some of the themes that you want to start interrupting a little

bit more regularly within White women?

Within the work?

Um, that's a great question.

So the part two to Finding Freedom is called the Yes Lab.

And when we were writing, like the description for the Yes Lab, I

wanted to call it "where perfection goes to die", but that, that

might be too intense for people.

I think we wrote it it's somewhere in the description.

Um, this idea that I can't interrupt a microaggression or speak up in a meeting

or do anything unless I have like the perfect plan, like here's my PowerPoint.

I've already got a strategic plan.

Like we can't interrupt because we don't know the perfect thing to say.

We don't know how it's going to go.

You don't like, there's so many reasons to collude.

There's so many reasons to not say something and then what I'm listening

for and what I'm looking for is a.

Bigger capacity for risk taking greater risk-taking among White people, but in

particular White women, um, in this, in this instance, um, I'd love it.

If White men took way more risks for racial justice, I

want to be clear about that.

Um, So, what do we need to, to be able to take bigger risks and, um,

letting go of needing to get it right.

Or know that it's going to be perfect or know that everyone is going to understand

what I say the first time I say it.

And like, what about being willing to like, fuck it up 57 times?

And that 58th time is like, awesome.

And it goes really well, but I can't, you can't get to that 58 time

unless you screw it up 57 times.

So like some resiliency, some willingness to get it wrong and learn, learn from

getting it wrong and then get back up, get back in there and get it right.

So I think that's answering your question more resiliency, less

attachment to getting to having the perfect solution or the right answer.

I always say you can't do Howard Zinn in 30 seconds.

Like you just can't.

So, um, one of the biggest revelations, I think for some people

is it's okay to just say "ouch".

Like someone says something and it doesn't work for you just go "ouch".

Like pretty sure the meeting will stop and people will look at you and

somebody might ask you, what do you mean?

Why did you just say ouch?

And then you might say, I'm really uncomfortable.

I don't like that word, or I'm not sure why that picture isn't working for me.

I'm like that, that, that is in of itself an interruption, right.

That we don't have to wait if we're in a multi-racial space.

For example, we don't have to rely on that person of Color that we work

with to be the person who raises their hand and says, I'm sorry, but

that image on that slide is not okay.

Or that word is not okay.

And we've just gotten so, um, I maybe we haven't gotten, we've always

been so over reliant on folks of Color to like, do that labor for us.

And at the same time, I think we have to like be careful, right?

So it's complicated.

I don't want to be raising my hand every minute of every meeting,

right.

For the first three ish months of The Spillway, I was very intentional on

not quoting folks of Color in the work because I wanted White people to try to

build a relationship with other White people, without the permission that

so many White people desire from folks of Color to do racial justice work.

Uh, they needed it to be perfect in order to show up before they

could even enter the space.

So is it okay if I come in here, I can come in.

And then they would finally, once, once I started to share videos of Sonya

Renee Taylor, James Baldwin, Resmaa Menakem "you need to do this work.

You need to do this work."

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Let me show up.

I'm here now.

I am.

Yes.

They told me to be, I'm going to be here, but that kind of that permission

seeking that we have as White people, because we don't trust ourselves and

we don't trust other White people is a huge thing that I'm finding.

Yes.

I don't think I have the credibility, right?

People only person.

And it's complicated because racism impacts all of us and obviously Black and

Brown bodies way more than White bodies.

And I would never equate the impact.

And one of the impacts of White supremacy on White people is that we

are fed a story that we don't have the credibility to speak to racism that only

people of Color can speak to racism.

And it takes my moral compass away from me.

I need that compass.

I need that moral compass.

I deserve that moral compass.

I want it.

I get to speak about how racism is messed up and it, the same way that

I get to speak about like the earth is on fire or homophobia is messed

up or transphobia is messed up.

Um, So I, I agree with you that that permission to seeking is insidious.

And I also want to build relationship with folks of Color and do this work in the

community and not be like charging ahead.

And then 10 years later it'd be like, Hey, was it okay that I started a podcast?

So it's like, how do we find that, that balance?

But I far more, I mean, far more White, people are not doing enough and waiting

for someone to give them permission.

Then there are White people like running, you know, running ahead and going for

it in isolation in problematic ways.

At least in my opinion,

success is going from failure to failure without losing momentum.

And that is hashtag The Spillway fail with us.

Yeah.

Oh man.

Going back to my first, what we first talked about, which was, um,

how we invite people or how would you recommend inviting other White people

into relationship to, to be able to unpack microaggressions and grief and

frustration surrounding race and racism, um, in a safe way, what would, what

would be your, your setup for that?

Or what is your setup for that?

Because you actually do that with White women.

So,

yeah.

Uh, it's a great question.

I wasn't thinking about it for myself though.

That's a funny, um, so there's education, like come learn.

Let's, let's learn together, right?

It's an age old consciousness, raising political consciousness.

Um, you know, the book group, right?

So there's the education model.

Um, I'm a big fan of the action model.

Like let's take some action today.

Right.

Like maybe the statute needs to go away or maybe the school board

needs a little reminder that critical race theory is awesome.

Like whatever the action is, I'm at my core, I'm an organizer.

I want people to organize.

Um, lately I've been doing it with money because, um, Really into

moving money out of White people's houses and into BIPOC houses.

So, um, I think one way to invite White people into this work is

through taking action together and whatever that action is, I mean, for,

for you, it might be a fundraiser or it might be a postcard event.

Um, and I'm okay with a book group I'm in a book group right now for this Whopper.

"They Were Her Property" about White women slave owners.

And it's a hard read.

And if I wasn't in a book group, it would be really hard to finish this book.

So I don't want to degrade.

Learning together.

I think it's a great thing.

Um, a film series let's watch, you know, let's line up one movie a month for 12

months and, and hang out together and watch movies that have race in them.

So I think there's a ton of ways to invite people to be

together and to be thoughtful.

Um, and I also run a, I run a free monthly White caucus, and I'm going to

invite the two of you to come drop in if you ever want to come be in the space.

But it's, um, it's usually the third, Friday from 12 to 1:30.

And that's just a space for, it's a really casual, like people don't

have to tell us they're coming or they're not coming to show up.

If you can, you don't show up if you can.

But I think there's so many different levels of commitment you could

ask people to make from the like.

Hey, come to this free monthly caucus to commit to this 12 month film series.

And I think it's like, If it wasn't COVID, I would say feed 'em, you

know, feed 'em, feed 'em, feed 'em, and build relationships and know people's

stories and, um, engage with people in a, in a radically welcoming way.

And then be clear that the purpose of being together is to be White together, to

be White and thinking about race together.

So those are just some ideas off the top of my head.

I have a coaching group, so I sent, I send out a call and I say, you

know, do you want to participate in a 12 week coaching group?

I do one for White women and I do one for White men and gender queer

people are welcome to either one.

Um, and, and then classes, teaching online classes and inviting people

to come explore, um, these, this content, um, through online class.

But I, I really think it's important to know.

Create a space that's based on, based in love and support where we ask hard

questions, but we do that, not to find people wrong, but to help people deepen

their understanding of their own power and their own recklessness and their

own journey and the potential they have to, to impact their world differently.

Um, so that's kind of just off the top of my head, like

just a few ideas.

Um, and we will, uh, put some information about those workshops in

the show notes for folks to check out.

Thank you.

Um, I was just thinking though, aren't we supposed to be

decentering Whiteness though, right now?

Isn't it.

Isn't that the whole point aren't we supposed to be like removing ourselves

from Whiteness, stopping this altogether?

Well, you can't de-center if you don't know you are, um, like

it's hard to get out of the way.

If you don't know you're in a way, so you sort of need someone to be

like, excuse me, coming through.

Excuse me.

Coming through.

Um, I, I think that.

It's a, it's one of the contradictions, one of the, the, um, paradoxes of the

work, if you're in a multi-racial space and you want a de-central Whiteness,

which I think is a lofty and important goal, for sure, the White people in

that space need to know what that means.

And the people of Color in that space need to know what that means.

And they actually need to agree on what de-centering Whiteness means.

Um, if you're living in a White world and you're going to a White church and

you're shopping at a White grocery store, and you're raising a White family, um,

I'm not sure how you decenter Whiteness, other than letting it become more explicit

and recognizing that it has impact.

But so many people, so many White people live very White lives.

So.

I think it's important to figure out what does that mean?

What does that mean for you?

What does that mean for your children or your, your people?

Um, but yeah, I would like us to de-center Whiteness, but I don't think we've arrived

at a place where we could start saying I'm Irish American or I'm Ashkenazi.

Um, that, that would change the data of police violence against Black and

Brown people or the school to prison pipeline or health disparities.

So it's kind of a conundrum.

We still have to collect that data and we still have to name race because those

disparities are still real and shocking.

And yet White people still take up an enormous amount of room and energy.

With that room.

And with that energy, that brings us to our very last question.

You very literally have this microphone right in front of you, to White

people listening to this podcast.

What do you want to say to them?

To us?

Who are folding their laundry right now, who are sitting in

traffic, who are commuting?

What do you need to tell White people right now?

I would say that if you aren't in an intentional relationship with

another White person for talking about this content, you will forget about it.

And 20 minutes from now, you won't even remember that you

listened to this podcast.

And two weeks from now, you won't even remember that

you're White or why it matters.

And that the only way to stay awake, the only way to stay committed and stay

clear about what you want to do with the privilege that you have as a White, person

is to engage in an intentional committed.

Infrastructure of some kind building a community of some kind,

because the White amnesia is real.

And if anti-racism is something that you are committed to, then you need a,

a community of people to hold you in that commitment and, you know, asking

yourself, do you have people around you who will tell you when you show your butt?

also, is there a difference between cancellation

and building a strong boundary?

I was just thinking about that because in starting The Spillway, I

was thinking a lot about my parents and trying to build boundaries around gender.

Um, and the kind of gender harm that I was experiencing with them.

Yeah.

And I, so distinctly remember I was back home and we went up to

this like little mining town.

It's now this like gambling town,

because that's the natural progression.

Sorry.

Yeah, actually there's like two or three cities in Colorado

that were like little mining towns.

And now I've turned into these like gambling resorts.

Um, you know, it's very bizarre.

And so we were driving back from one of them and my mom was trying to ask

me questions about being non-binary and what that meant, uh, and the

kind of questions that she was asking where these kinds of like educational

or these informational pieces and.

It felt less, like she was trying to get to know my non-binary identity or

like my experience within my gender.

And rather it was like trying to just do some Gender 101.

And I remember I turned to her, I still see this image in my head of her driving

in the car and I'm sitting in the passenger seat and I said, mom, that's

something you could totally just Google.

You don't have to ask you that question.

And so I set up this like immediate boundary and from

that,

she never felt the ability to ask me about gender again.

Gotcha.

Cause she thought she was, she was probably feeling like she was

asking you to learn and connect with you, but you felt like.

She wasn't asking you about your personal experience.

She was like, oh, can you be the spokesperson for all nine

bot non-binary folks, please now

child.

Oh,

and so I do, I hold that as like, there were, there were these two different

distinct experiences that happened.

I experienced it as a boundary and she experienced it as a cancellation.

I'm like, oh no, no, no.

I can never engage this again with my kid.

Um,

oh,

perspective context.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

And so even, uh, and so then, like years later, my parents gave me this

wonderful gift of going to therapy.

and doing family therapy, the three of us.

And it was within that, that she was able to really articulate that

to me of like, this felt like a sever rather than like an invitation

to have different conversations.

And so then I also had to share up, like, I want to be in your

life in this, in this way.

And I also need you to like, do your own work outside of that.

Um, because it's exhausting and you don't want to bring that

exhaustion, uh, into our relationship.

Right?

Like our relationship will suffer under the weight of this, me being

the spokesperson, which is exactly what people of Color are saying.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, and so I think there's going back to what you're saying

about narrative and context and how those are so important.

All of that goes out the window and cancellation all of it.

It doesn't matter.

You did one thing.

We will paint you with the single story narrative for the rest of your life.

And you do not have a chance for a shot at redemption.

And so that's my building.

The Spillway is also so important to me because I have this personal connection

to this like blurred boundary of boundaries and cancellation, and that

I really just needed another cis person to have a conversation with my mom.

But cis people didn't feel like they could talk with other cis folks or

that cis folks weren't allowed to do the work because we keep saying

center queer and trans voices and the conversations, which yes we need to do.

And cis folks are going to listen to cis folks in a completely different way.

It's like that idea of solidarity too.

It's just like, just like, oh, I messed up with my child.

I said X, Y, and Z.

And the other cis person is like me too.

And they talk about it and they cry or whatever, and they're, then they're

able to like, have more compassion for themselves and the situation I move

forward.

I love that.

That's the thing that Bernie brown says that that's the immediate way to

build solidarity and vulnerability.

It's just those two simple words.

"Me too."

I have been hurt.

This thing does not feel good.

I can't make sense.

I can't wrap my head around it.

And for someone else to say, oh my God.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

I needed another cis person for my mom.

And so I want to be another White person for a White person.

Who was having that moment of like, I don't get this, I don't understand

this, this isn't making sense.

I don't want to say something because I'm afraid I'm going to be canceled.

Um, or I'm trying

so hard and I just keep falling flat on my face.

Yeah.

All right.

You don't even want to have these conversations.

These conversations just frustrate the fuck out of me.

Well, I hate myself so much because I can't, cause I just, I look

at my family history and I look at all these things in the world and all

I see is my face and how awful it is

yeah, me too.

I mean, I'm just here because you're here,

I'm here because

you're here, but also no stop, but also because

it's, you know, important.

But I didn't, I didn't know all of that about you and your mom.

I mean, I knew something went down but I didn't know that.