Should We Grow a Thicker Skin When It Comes To Racial Issues?

Thank you for tuning in to Healing Race. In this video, we talk more about political correctness and what some call cancel culture, where people who say or do something that's seen as politically incorrect are punished in some way. Should we just grow a thick skin that makes us resilient? At times, we might feel disrespected. Or should we also change the ways in which we treat each other to bring more respect and inclusiveness to our interactions? We connect the discussion to racial history as well as the word racist itself, exploring what is and is not racist and the role that word plays as a tool for social punishment. Let's get to that conversation now. Enjoy. And I don't think we want to, like, interact with each other in a way that we're just, like, walking on eggshells all the time. And I think that is kind of when people talk about being PC. I think that's a very real trepidation Yeah. Of is what it's gonna lead to. So now we're all gonna be people walking around on eggshells. I have a friend who was at an event local event, and this particular person is always, like, using not demeaning women, but using cuss words that that most people would do, you know, find offensive toward women. And this person made the joke at the event. Like, I mean, not this person is not a professional comedian. This person just being funny, and it's just their brand of human, you know, this brand of humor. But it was like, we are posting our social media. It was posted to social media, and he I mean, he's not famous, so he wasn't canceled per se, but it caused a sensation, and people were offended by the joke that he said. Right? And so and that's how I've that's one of the reasons I wanted to ask you the question because he said, well, then what's funny anymore? And, you know, are we moving toward walking around on eggshells? And I gave him the same spiel as I don't know if that's offensive for me to say it, but I did that I gave to you, hold and love blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. But in the day to dayness of our practical lives, trying to make sense of the human experience of which comedy is an essential tool to help us do that. Yeah. How practical is that? What do you say to the people that just say suck it up, grow a thick skin, you know, quit being sensitive? Yeah. Yeah. This was kind of one of the future kind of conversations with, like, trigger words the idea of trigger words, right, and being triggered. And, I mean, I used to I used to teach how to change your, like, emotional reactions to things. So, obviously, there's a there's a part of me that is sensitive to this idea that, hey. It's there's a degree to which you can't control what's out there. Right? You can't control someone else's actions. There's something empowering about being able to say, hey. I'm going to learn how to resolve this emotional reaction that I have. Like, there's something actually empowering to what, you know, some might see as, like, the victim of that of that verbalization of that, you know, of that trigger. So there's a sense that there is some sensitivity or some bias and support I have for that idea. But listen, we would have no social mores. We'd have no social norms if we didn't want to be sensitive to how we come off to other people. Mhmm. And should we just get rid of all of it? I mean, I don't know. Like, should I chew with my mouth open? Sure. No. No. No. No. No. We I think because I believe boundaries are healthy. And I think we're also having a side conversation about boundaries. Right? Yeah. And understanding what clearly, your personal boundaries when people, you know, say something that could be potentially hurtful with someone else, you want to enforce that boundary when you were in the room. Right? Yeah. What other people do when you're not in the room is their business. And I think we all have to, you know, understand how we wanna show up and what, you know, what boundary we want to, you know, put in place? And do we have a responsibility to show up for other people? Like I said, when and during our break, the movie I was watching, I was not a part of the race that was the butt of the joke. You know? What were you doing eating nachos or whatever? But is it my responsibility to show up for, in this case, let, you know, Latinx people and put a boundary around that and say, hey. That's not okay or find a different way to communicate, etcetera, like you've illuminated. Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah. Just you something you said made me think of so the idea of having thick skin. Mhmm. I do think there should be I do think we should empower people to be able to change the way they react to things. Mhmm. So I do think at the very least, we should empower peep empower people to do that. I think what's when some people say grow a grow a thick skin, one of the things I think gets lost a little bit in that is it there's an assumption that there's not a thick skin. Mhmm. Right? Like, for me to believe that black people in America have not developed some kind of thick skin, I mean, that just seems on its face preposterous. Mhmm. Right? Like, to endure triggers and discrimination and what you see in the pop culture environment, like, to think that that hasn't developed some kind of resiliency mechanism. Mhmm. So I think just even the premise of that question loses what the black community, at least on average at large, has had to experience and how they've had to cope. It doesn't mean that the behavior itself shouldn't be stopped, moderated as well. Right? You can still feel hurt. You can grow thick skin, but still in some way feel hurt. And you don't wanna get people to the point where the thick skin is, like, completely detaching. Like, that's not a way to live, where you feel you can't be in your emotions because this barrage of triggers that make you feel a certain way just keep coming at you. And even though you're coping and developing resiliency, you can't stop it. Right? And so, yes, I believe people should empower themselves and I don't think that necessarily lets others off the hook. There's a, you know, conservative leaning personality who's very popular who was talking about the use of prone different pronouns. And, you know, he said, if someone says that I they are someone who's biologically male says they want me to use the pronouns she and her, I will use it. Like I will use it to be respectful, to be kind, to be considerate of that person, but then at the same time he finds it problematic at a cultural level to be pressed, to hold to that as a social norm, and I just don't understand that position. I think there's some sense in which people don't want to be forced to do something. Mhmm. You feel like they're being but even if they believe it's right. Even if they believe it's right. And so if you would do it in an individual conversation, why not work toward creating a different set of norms that that treat people in a way that's going to be respectful of them and treat them with empathy and compassion. I just don't understand why we can't work toward that because we have some sense of like, don't force me to talk in this way.' I understand the reservations about again, about not wanting to walk on eggshells, I under but it's just an education process you get feedback, right? Yeah, you do something that was out of bounds, but hopefully because you didn't know better, right? Someone tells you, hey, I'd like to have called she/her even though they're biologically male okay, well, that's their experience Okay. I get this. Like, let me learn. Let me learn how to be better so that I can be respectful in the public square with other people. I just don't understand why it's, you know, it's in some ways, it's like with thick skin on the other side. Right? So you bring up a good example with that with that, Jen. Thank you for sharing because that's something where I do put up a boundary. I self-identify as gay and being part of LGBTQ plus community. Yeah. And I know a lot of drag queens that are just awesome people. But I am very respectful to how people want to present. So whenever I'm I refer to a person as being assigned their gender at birth. I also sometimes that can be, you know, called, like, cis male, cis female is part of the pop culture parlance as well. But, you know, I reuse the pronouns or even for those who don't want to self-identify as any binary anything. I use what's in, you know, what they educate me to use out of sense of respect and out of a sense of wanting them to feel included. And that there is an honestly, it's a way of holding and love their life experience. Yeah. No. That's the least I can do is use the pronoun to which you with which you want to present. Yeah. And it's always empowering when I do that. Because I feel like maybe like you said, the malleability. I feel like I'm doing something to contribute in a positive way. Yeah. Because it especially because as black people, we're often we are all we are judged a lot on how we present and how we show up in a variety of ways. Yeah. And I just I just it's my way of maybe railing against that kind of discrimination and representation. For people who think there's a moral dimension to it, I get why it it's a harder movement. I think still think I would like to see that, obviously. But I at least can get but for those who just don't wanna pick up a new behavior, a new habit, like, what are we really holding on to? Why hold on to it when, again, it's hurtful to people? I just don't I just don't get that. And social norms change all the time. Not quickly, but they change, like, throughout history. There are all sorts of things that we look back on that were norms, both big and small, you know, deep and shallow, in terms of their impacts on people that we decided to change. And we changed because we wanted usually, because we wanted to be better to one another, and we wanted to be referring to black men as boy. So I don't know if you know this, but that's very that's all that's how anyone who's after 2 things were really critical for African Americans in the trajectory of our history in this country within that's white people feeling the liberty to refer to black females as girl or refer to black males as boy and also us having to use courtesy titles with people who are junior than us. And then and it's a very deliberate thing. So one part of the psychology the psychology of control that whites often oppress black people with is to make them use courtesy titles with white children. Meaning, you had to refer to a 5-year-old as miss Elizabeth or mister Steve, whatever. And this and you are a 55-year-old black person. Right? That is a thing. That is deliberate psychological control. Right? Whatever you even in the most in the smallest individual, you are not acknowledge our superiority. And going on the point of social norms and pivoting back to race, that changed in the 9 in the 19 sixties seventies, right, where now black people who were senior were given their courtesy titles. They were referred to as miss and mister or missus, things like that. Yeah. And it brings with it certain dignity. And there were a group of people who held on that norm like, no. You refer to that white child who is 50 years younger than you as niece and mister. And they were holding on to that. And when you say, you know, what are you holding on to? And then pivoting again back to race. Earlier in a conversation when I brought up, I said, there is a psychology that you're asking people, and they're always gonna be transparent about it. But I believe sometimes there is a psychology you're asking people to loosen. And it's like, wait a minute. That's the bedrock of my identity. Why I'll because maybe I'll do that in a particular case as I see fit and necessary. But if I do it full scale, now I feel like I'm giving up something. And when I give this thing up, who will I be? Yeah. Yeah. I wanna adds add a dimension to this conversation on the other side of this kind of black-white relationship. Because we're talking about words and the meaning of words and how words are experienced. And I think some of the eggshells are not just that that people feel they need to walk on, are not just the material ways in which they're going to lose something. Right? So we talked about the punishment might be is too great to, like, lose your career over a misstep that you made. There's another kind of threat, I think, that looms when people feel they need to walk on eggshells, and it's the threat of reputation. And it is, you know, it is definitely something to fear, be concerned with, worry about to be called racist. If you have a sense of shame. If people don't have a sense of shame, they don't care what you call them. Sure. Yeah. If you have a sense of shame. You never go after president. Fair enough. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely. So I agree with that. So for those people who have a sense of shame, I think some of the worry, some of the tiptoeing, some of the, you know, that cautious skepticism of engaging is the is the worry about saying something that is going to then be perceived as I am a racist. Right? And I'm wondering what you like, where you where you stand when it comes to, you know, the use of that label? You know, I well, I won't say where I stand on it, and or, you know, which views I tend to gravitate toward. But let me let me hear your views on the difference between racist people, racist ideas, racist policies, and how, you know, how that label might help or hinder the ability to have these kinds of conversations and learn from one another. My feeling Mhmm. Goes back to a person's motivation. Because people do things wittingly, and they do them unwittingly. Yeah. So you could support a policy or something that in its nature or as it's executed, gives preference to one race or another, or you could execute your job in such a way that gives preference to one race or another. And that could partly be wittingly, meaning your motivation is to aggrandize one race over another and make sure it has the support it needs to remain aggrandized, or it could be unwittingly because you're just living in a framework and living the framework that you know or afraid to challenge it. So I see it as nuance. I think that label is a real label. What I mean by real that it's warranted because there are people out there who make deliberate decisions in their lives to aggrandize one race over another. Yeah. And people use that word because people sometimes said I'm racist against white people, and I'm not. But because I think that it also implies a power dynamic. So their disliking people is very different than having the mechanism and the means and the power to keep people at an underclass. There's a that's a very, very different thing. Disliking people, maybe that's not so good, and maybe you think white people are better than black people, and that it would be a racist notion. Mhmm. But when you couple that with or, like, let's say the reverse, you're a black person who dislikes white people, but it doesn't become activated in my personal view without power. Mhmm. And when you have the annals of power, that's when you can take what was once a notion and turn it into a full-fledged motivation with velocity. Mhmm. So let me ask you a question. If I, I'm because I'm trying to understand your concept and where it applies and where it doesn't. Sure. In your positions in your career, in the trajectory of career your career, have you ever had staff that were No. I've never managed people. Well, let's say that you so let's say you're promoted tomorrow, and you have staff, which then creates some kind of supervisor subordinate relationship. Right? Understand. If your dislike of white people led you to be biased in who you gave positions on your team to, would those be racist actions? This is a big first of all, this is fictitious. I do I'm not racist to give advice. I'm not saying that you are. I'm just I'm trying to under I'm just trying to really understand, like, what are the cases in which you feel the label is warranted? When you're deliberately withhold so in your scenario, I'm gonna address your scenario. I come first of all, I come from a very deep corporate background. So and, I mean, I've I have been in very deep in very large organizations. It becomes a racist action when you're deliberately withholding support of, to a group of people whether and often occurs in nuanced ways. Whether it's support on a project, whether it's support in mentoring, whether it's support in training. And one of the ways in which it occurs is asymmetrical information, making sure people are in the know about certain things that they need to know. What you say? What did you say, Todd? You don't know what you don't know? Yeah. Well, there are some people who do know what you don't know, and they literally make sure you continue not knowing it. Mhmm. That happens a lot. Mhmm. So in this scenario, it would be like, I wanna so not even saying that you would be a racist person, but you would be engaging in a racist action if you withheld support, opportunity, information, in some kind of asymmetric way where some group of people did not have that support opportunity information. This is a real then this is not even fictitious. I know we're modeling the scenarios if I were the manager. This is a real, like, real, real thing that happens to black people in large organizations. I'm not saying it's happened to me expressly. But boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Yeah. My friends have stories. And, like, sometimes I have to physically, like, close my mouth and let that happen to you. And it is. It's asymmetrical information. Mhmm. You make sure the people who you want to support based on their race have the information that they need to know. And you make sure that the people who you don't want to advance based on their race continue not knowing what they don't know. Well, I'm telling you. It's real. This is real. Mhmm. It's real. K. So you I'm telling you. Whatever power that one has in society so strip away race for a second, not strip away race, but strip away the idea this could only happen on one side or another. If you have a certain kind of power broadly even in your small little context if you are using that power in some way that is biased based on your views of differences between groups of people that is you're engaging in racism of some kind. In my in my personal opinion, yes. It could be something as let's say let's say I'm a parking attendant, and I know that parking will be free as of a certain time, so you don't need to pay for that extra time. Right? Yeah. And I tell this to a black family, but I don't tell it to a white family. Or let's say I'm a white man, and I tell this bit of information to a white family, but I let the black family pay for time that they know they don't need increasing the profit of the organization to which I either own or I work. Right? That is racist. You've just exploited a group of people placed based upon their race Mhmm. By didn't by not giving them information that would have dramatically changed the outcome of an event. So I hear I heard you kind of delineate between 3 types of people. I heard you delineate someone who's proactive in their in in how their stereotypical attitudes they're proactive in in discriminating. Right? The witting people. Yeah. The witting people. Right? Yes. Then there's people who might be witting, who might have knowledge, but they they're simply not engaging in changing something. Right? But they themselves are not perpetuating it. Right? So there's the people who have some awareness I said mhmm. But are just not acting as allies, advocates, whatever, you know, words one might wanna use. Right? They're not trying to change the system, proactively. And then there's people who are just unwitting. Right? They just don't know. They don't know what they don't know. And, you know, I've heard you earlier express some level of understanding for the latter two categories in terms of, like, we live busy you know, one of your kind of mantras last conversation was, like, we live busy lives. Like, what can we expect people to do? Like, we have hopes. Right? We have hopes of the way that people are gonna engage in the world. Seek to know one another. Seek to change, you know, make rights wrong wrongs right. Seek to change policies and structures. -That was my desire to try to understand all sides of the of the possible argument. -Yeah. And when it comes to racism itself that is in that class of categories of winning people who use their power. So when you when you have some level of power you then have a certain responsibility in the way that you, you know, implement that power, execute that power, such that you if you disadvantage groups in certain ways, information, resources, support, opportunities, you are then engaging in racist behavior. In my personal opinion, yes. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race and stay with us for a scene from our next video. If you wanna see more conversations like the one you just watched, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. If you'd like to be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open real conversation about race, email us at guests at healingracehow.com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So please email your ideas to topics at healingracehow.com. -As always, thanks for your support. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Now, here's a scene from our next Healing Race. -Yeah. And I would love to know what the African American community, what do they think is the fair way to put the past behind, you know, and focus exclusively on a not exclusively. That's not gonna happen. That's not necessary, but to focus more on the future of us, I would like to know what they feel about that. My questions would be, again, if something happens 20 hours away, what does that have anything to do with me? Why is it that the black community will outcast you for being a police officer? Why is it that you don't want to see someone in uniform that looks like you? And I say that because I've lost friends or acquaintances. I guess my real friends are my friends. But why is it that I lost friendships simply because of the job that I chose to do? Wait a minute. People stop being friends with you because you're a cop? Oh, absolutely. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Absolutely. Oh, my God. You know, I always hear people saying we need to talk about this, you know, and from both sides saying we need to talk about this more and get it out in the open and just be more honest with each other and in these discussions the way y'all are doing here. But then at the same time, if you do speak up sometimes, then you get, you know, you might get jumped on or I holler at. Yes. And so that's not so the way y'all are doing the way you're approaching it here seems like ideal, but why my question in a larger way is why can't more people approach this conversation the way you're doing it here? I do tend to ask other groups like not just, oh, did you talk about diversity? Did you talk about race in your household? I literally now ask people, what did you learn about black people? Thank you. Thank you. Like, what did you learn about black people growing up? In your school, in your community, in your household, in whatever. To watch the rest of that episode, go ahead and click the video below me. To see a different compelling healing race episode, you can click the video below me. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.