What Stops Us from Having “Real” Conversations about Race?

Thank you for tuning in to Healing Race. In this video, we reflect on the personally profound conversation we had in episode 8. I shared what led me to resonate so emotionally with Todd's grandfather's story and how his grandfather's experience very much spoke to how the black community has had to navigate being black in America throughout our history here. Andre also asked me how I would approach conversations with people who simply deny someone's stories of prejudice, discrimination, or hate. And we discuss what it takes for us not to take things personally or get defensive when having difficult conversations about race. So, let's get to that conversation now. Enjoy. I'm crying for a few reasons. Number 1, the story is moving, and I've heard holocaust stories before, but I don't believe in our friendship. I never really heard as much of your grandfather's story as you just shared. But also, in the common humanity that I while I did not have your grandfather's experiences, our thinking I mean, I mean, his thinking and my thinking were not dissimilar. Yeah. When he didn’t, he did not trust people who weren't Jewish, and I've essentially told you I don't trust people who weren't white. No. Like, you're there are definitely some parallels into your, you know, from your grandfather's framework and my framework as well. You said there were 2 things that struck you emotionally. 1 was just the story itself, and one was the fact that you and my grandfather's your approach and my grandfather's approach were not dissimilar, right, with regard to Self-protection, emotions physical and self and emotional self-protection. Yeah. What about what about hearing the parallels between my grandfather and me? What about that made you emotional? Why did hearing a similar approach from him spark emotion in you? Well, number 1, the story, as you were recounting it, I was imagining it and visualizing it in my mind. So, the movie of his experience was playing as you were telling the story, and so that, started the emotion. But what propelled it was really the principle that I shared with you in the second episode. Right? There before the grace of God go I. And I'm a miss I looked that up, but I mistakenly said it was a bible verse. It's not a bible verse. It's a saying. But it's I believe that I can be every person. And not I'm I was not literally in a Jewish holocaust, and I'm not literally apart, you know, necessarily at a black American holocaust right now. But that same context of fear for safety and emotional harm and just not knowing what's going to happen next. That sort of tenuous feeling in your soul and having honestly to rely on some sort of aid, whether it's visualization, whether it's an outright belief in a god or the or God to get you through. I deeply, deeply connected because that's almost not almost. That is sort of the black experience. I mean, our time in this country has been so harrowing for so long that those kinds of coping mechanisms that your grandfather adopted have been the saving grace of our race being able to do anything. Right? So, you know, I saw I saw flashes of my own family in all of that with respect to survival, incidents that family member racial incidents that family members have been through with respect to survival. But my question for you is, since you're the white representative in this conversation or at least as close as what we all have for right now, is what do you have to offer the critics that say they're lying? Like, I mean, the critics said often that, right, obviously, your grandfather was lying. He made the whole thing up. Or Andre is lying. Situations in the in United States is not that bad with black people. He's clearly sitting in a comfortable home. What's so, you know, awful about his life, etcetera? And through everything that I've shared and the approach and so forth, how do you have do you have anything to offer those people? And if so, what? Well, there's 2, I think, I feel like there's 2 types of critiques that you just mentioned. 1 is just not believing the story. And obviously there's a lot of holocaust denial out there. Right? And then the second is the question of now. Right? Which is this question we've talked about previously of times are different than they were 50 years ago, a 100 years ago. But I say the motivation is the same. I know. The motivation is the same. And there are, you know, and there are incidents that reflect that, that there are motivations out there. Motivations are the same in terms of their existence. You know, again, our part of our kind of back and forth throughout the episode so far has been to what degree, right? With what intensity and what purpose. So, so yeah, so there are 2 different cases of critiques. For the people who deny, I mean, my gut instinct is always, I think, the same around that, which is to understand where their belief and the motivations behind their beliefs come from. Right? I mean, that's been our, what we've done with each other, right? We've had different What if that motivation is I just flat out don't like Jews, and I flat out don't like black people? Yeah. I mean, I think that what's the phrase. It's harder to hate close-up. I think is the phrase I've heard. I found that to be true in life. Yeah, I just, I wouldn't be combative about it. I would seek to understand because the question really is where would a belief like that come from? And to me, it's something that's socialized. You can see it. Black people are lazy. They don't want to go to work. They they're always on welfare. Jews own all the banks. You see it. No one has to believe anything. You see it all around if you just look. So that's why all of these stories about holocaust and, you know, conditions around black people and how they've been treated, it's all made up. And we need to stop this guilt trip in the United States and start calling things for what they were instead of going back to history and thinking things were worse than what they really were. Yeah. And maybe that is the reality that's been presented to this person. Right? You know, you can find instances of most things somewhere. Right? The lazier welfare, the, you know, what is it for the Jews? Right? It's the Jews in the Hollywood. Mhmm. Liberal agenda. Right. It's, Jews with money, you know, finding Control of the planet. Right. And they can find those. They can find they can find instances of those. Right? Mhmm. But no one's gonna look at a different reality if they don't have any reason to. You know, I was talking to someone recently. And so, you know, I mean, this is a general this is a general phenomenon that I know you are well aware of, with regard to the LGBTQ. Yes. And what happens, right? And it's not always, I'm not saying that it's always, you know, a positive ending or positive process, but I know, you know, way more instances than I do of times when someone who, let's say, had negative feelings, negative thoughts, prejudices against the LGBTQ community until their kid, their sibling, somebody close to them came out. And for those everyone, I self-identify as gay, and I have for all of my life. Yeah. And then and then there's this moment of having to grapple, right, with a new reality, a new addition to their reality. And, and some people turn away from it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, there's, you know, plenty of bad instances, but there's also plenty of good instances. And you're right there, brother, because it blew my mind, the support that was reported recently for same sex marriage. Like, apparently, even Republicans still support marriage equality, like, overwhelmingly, like, over 70% with both, you know, people in this particular poll I saw, believe that this is a this is a right of people, and it needs to stay. Interesting. Yeah. You know, 30 years ago, you 50 you held 15 years ago, you would have never seen that. Yeah. I think my answer is almost your answer earlier in multiple sessions, which is, you know, when, again, when your family said, why did you have this kind of open conversation with Todd? And you said, you know, empathy, respect, curiosity, I think were some of the things you mentioned. And I, you know, I'm not suggesting that someone who's just like a Holocaust denier or someone who has deep, you know, racial prejudices, it's an easy Volunteer on a kibbutz. That it's an easy thing to have that converse, like to be respectful and curious of that person. Yeah. At the same time, they grew up in a certain reality where this was the narrative, right? Or maybe they didn't grow up, maybe it's a narrative they latched onto later in life, but for whatever reasons were predisposed to, had inclinations to kind of wanna find some answer to why the world is the way that it is, why their life is the way that it is. They're going through the same human processes and I'm not meaning to, to condone it in, in trying to understand it. But I do think that understanding it creates a little bit of space to inquire about it. And the thing is, is that when, when you inquire in a, in a curious, empathetic way, respectful even way to really understand where someone's coming from, even with denialism, prejudice, a connection is often, not always, but often made. And through that connection, you become a new reality in that person's life. May I add another ingredient to all of this? Because of something I noticed about you throughout and for those who are watching, this is something that Todd and I have done for hours and hours and hours. So these are days and days of conversation we've edited down to episodes for you guys, but you were never defensive about my version or my reality. Like, you like, my question to you is, how do you remain or be respectfully curious, but stay out of defensive feelings about your reality? When you feel that the reality that another person has is not your lived experience. And how could that be? Because it runs contrary to what you feel is true in the world, or when other people are curious about your reality, and you've like I said, you feel that these are basic things that they should know. Like, when I said, I don't understand what you don't understand about this. Mhmm. Well, let me know if I will totally answer that question. If I could just ask a question back to you that relates to it, which is what helped you distinguish between having a different point of view and being defensive. Because you allowed me to share what my thoughts were, right? Without trying to shut you down. I know black people who would have shut you down. Yeah. So, we both played that game, right? That game of curiosity and respect and listening and seeking to understand, we both played that game. And sometimes the sharing of a point of view, especially after of a different point of view, especially after someone has shared an important point of view of theirs, sometimes people can interpret that as defensiveness, which I don't think I think you're right in saying that I was not meaning to be that, and I did not feel that, in my heart when I was sharing, but it didn't stop me from still sharing if I if I saw something differently or where that came from. So, what do you think enabled you to share important truths? Yes, have me listen and inquire, and then hear me say something that was different. Then, you know, the, the I don't get what you don't get Todd moments, right? But still see that as a productive engagement in the conversation. Right? What do you think, what do you think, enabled that? What enabled it for me was trusting the process and believing in the outcome. So, as you were asking the question, I was trying to I was thinking of an analogy. The analogy of swimming came to me because, so I was not a person who grew up learning how to swim. I swim okay, but I learn as an adult. And when you do that, you learn that swimming is a huge trust exercise. And more than anything, you trust yourself. So, what I had enabled it was relaxing and say, Andre, don't get defensive and trust that you've made the decision, the right decision to do this, and the outcome will be for some good. And if Todd wanted to engage you just to tell you that you were wrong and you were lying, then what would be the point of doing all of this? Because you can do that in one conversation. Yeah. So, once I talk myself into a place of calm, just like in swimming, you have, like, relaxed. Okay. Then I was able to okay. I can go flow with this conversation and just open myself to where it leads. Yeah. I mean yeah. That makes sense. So, to answer your question around doing it without getting defensive, I just I guess I guess I just didn't doubt that this is your reality. Right? Well, why not? Why didn't? When so many white people do. I mean, I'm talking about all of these sorts of disadvantages and structural disadvantages around black people, but I'm sitting in a comfortable home. You and I met at university, like, because I've had I've had people tell me, and here we go with racial differences, but your life wasn't hard. You went to and then filled in the blank of one of my accomplishments. And I'm like, dude, you know, me and others who've accomplished, you know, way more than I have did those things in spite of being black, not to say and also you can't we're out of what, you know, the whatever percentage of black people are in this country. You know, we're still a small number of people who have accomplished those things. So, you can't look at an outlier and say, you're not an outlier. You're the meme. Well, when you look at the entire graph, that person is an outlier. And I think the entire graph is where no. How was it? People tend to zoom in and zoom out of the graph as it meets their argument. Listen. You have the beliefs and feelings that you do at this moment because of the collection of experiences that you've had and the collection of experiences that you've heard of, and that is just your reality. We are always and what I wanted to know was what is that information? Mhmm. And then what led you to develop the interpretations, beliefs, and feelings Mhmm. With that information? Mhmm. And what I have found with people is that when you understand those things, you can under that there's a certain it makes sense, you can, you can see the sense in it, at least I could see the sense in it. Even if I have a different view of, and the thing is we can have different realities, you know, I mean, that's the whole metaphor of, right, the, the elephant, right, is that someone's looking in terms of your zoom in and zoom in, right, someone's looking at the tail, that is their reality, right? Mhmm. And then someone's looking at the trunk and that is their reality. And I'm not saying I wanna be clear that I'm not saying that we can take this slippery slope down into the world of there are no absolute truths, forget any kind of data on anything, right? Yes. Yes. But even with that data, there's variation in people's experiences. There's variation in the way people respond to their experiences. I mean, even in the white lives matter conversation, if, if you remember one of the questions I asked you was, why do, how do you make sense of certain black people being at the place where they can support white lives even if you think black lives and white lives are very different? So why do why do they not see that difference as unsurmountable? Not that you say you see it as unsurmountable, but as being so different that that it's hard that there's so many challenges that come with it. And your answer was people have their own experience, they have their own interpretation of, of data, first of all. They have their own data is what you said, their own interpretation of data and what, what piece of the data they focus on, right? A part, what part of the love their life. And they also have different processes to get to the point of trust, right? And that is all that makes sense to me, right? And so, I mean, you can even, my grandfather and my experience together are another example that taught me about the importance. Listen, I was frustrated with my grandfather in my early years because I saw the way that his increasing religiosity had an effect on the family. My grandfather was in his earlier days in the United States. I don't know how he was during, I mean, during the Holocaust it was, you know, a lot of traumas, and still a lot of trauma afterwards. But, you know, this kind of fun-loving guy. Right? And with his increasing religiosity, he didn't lose that completely. And especially through our conversations, I just got to see so much of that. But he's pretty became pretty damn serious, right? So, for a family that grew up with this kind of fun-loving father and whatnot, and then all of a sudden, he becomes so serious and regimented about his religion, it created some friction. I mean, at some point my grandfather wanted us to walk to do Shabbat dinner, to walk to his house to do Shabbat dinner, right? We're not supposed to use the car on the Sabbath. Mhmm. I've seen Jews do that. But we did. But we did. We used the car because we didn't practice like that. Lord, I don't like all that. So, I've been a part of a Shabbat. Actually, I was a part of a really wonderful Shabbat in Madrid. And this and, I really didn't understand what it was at the time. This was back in my twenties, back in uni, actually. And there was no electricity. And this, young lady who's did you this actually, this it was young lady and her friends in Madrid. And there was no electricity, and they were cooking everything with fire. There was no paper. There were all these rules that from coming from a Christian background, I didn't quite understand, but I respect it. And I do I'm saying all this to say, I understand where you how you would have been frustrated because I've been in a similar experience during the Shabbat. And if you are accustomed to doing the opposite even on your holy day, then it's like, wait. This is a big change. Yeah. Yeah. It's not even I mean, just I mean, you know, not many people walk. I mean, listen, my grandfather in the latter part of his life, he could barely walk. Like, he something. He struggled to walk. He Mhmm. Struggled, but he still walked to temple for as long as he possibly could in his life. He loved it a lot. He died. He loved it a lot. And so I you know, now looking back, I could I have a lot more or even, you know, as I talked to him more in the early days, I had more understanding, but that didn't mean, I mean, that didn't mean we were gonna walk there, right, as a whole family. Yes. And so, imagine what that means. Right? We can't come to a Shabbat dinner unless we walk. Mhmm. Imagine the division that creates, but we but we have so much bonding at Sabbath dinners, at Shabbat dinners. Right? Mhmm. And so, you can imagine that creative friction in the family. In fact, my grandmother stepped in and said that they can come however they wanna come because she didn't wanna see us not showing up for Shabbat dinners, you know? For Shabbat dinners. But anyways, that's just an example. That was pretty early in my life. Right? And even though I had frustrations, not for me personally, but for the way that it affected the family, I knew that those were not gonna do me any good. Like, was I gonna debate my grandfather on his faith? And so, the 1st conversation I ever had with my grandfather was like this, I asked him, I said, how did you become religious? I just wanted to know, right? How was it that led you to become increasingly religious throughout your life? And he told me oh, there's kind of 3 stories woven in together. I'll tell you 2 of them because they're the ones that he said that he told me more, and that he actually told me. The other one is I heard through a family member. But the one he told me on that day was one day, he saw his parents looking down on him and an immense wave of guilt went over him. Mhmm. Right? His parents who raised him in Jewish ways Mhmm. Got taken by the holocaust Mhmm. We’re looking down on him. Mhmm. And he didn't carry on their ways. And he said, I was focusing on making a life here. I was focusing on doing right by my family of setting us up. And I neglected my Jewishness, and then I saw my parents looking down on me. And he said that that was the first time I saw him cry. It was the first conversation we had. And later on, he told me about a story, and I think the 2 are connected, where he was driving along a freeway and went through the divider, the middle Barriers. A line barrier into oncoming traffic crashed and got thrown into the passenger side seat, and the steering wheel went through the driver's seat. And he felt like he was saved. He felt like he was given a chance in life. The Lord. So, he had to think about that. Oh, I have power. He's his parents who got taken by the Holocaust because of being a Jew, looking down on him, and he had neglected these ways. He gets saved, right, in his mind. And he said, I just felt so much guilt, and I still do. And so, can you imagine the mental emotional switch in my mind? Yes. When I heard that? Frustration to wow, he's got some emotional energy behind this. He's got a story behind this that I can understand, even if I still can feel differently. Even if I could still, I can never be in his shoes, but maybe I would respond differently. It's something that can make sense to me, right? And so that's early in my life, and it's not till the end of my life, of his life, sorry, that he has this other transformation. Then again, you know, as I said in the clip, happened in trickles, you know, little steps, but really a big momentous transformational step at the end of his life. So I had the experience of years of kind of patience, but it didn't require patience because I enjoyed the process. Right? Like I enjoyed the connection that occurred by getting to know him and knowing his story, the background between behind his religiosity among all the other things we talked about over time. So, when you ask the question about not getting defensive, I guess maybe there's just been, you know, we could kind of trained over time in a certain way on in in certain situations. And I think through my grandfather, I was just like, trained over time to just inquire and to reap the benefits of in of inquiring. So, and not taking it personally. Right? Just not I don't know question and line of inquiry. Right? K. Before you ask that question, can I just say something about that taking not taking it personally? Sure. You talk about what molded your beliefs, approach, experiences, feelings? Even though I, you know, was present as white, I wasn't part of that experience. Right? And so, I can make the choice to be different. Right? Now if I was part of that experience, I would listen to you, and I would have to take responsibility. And, of course, I would make the choice about whether to be defensive about that or not. But I wasn't implicated in your story of how you got to where you were, even if I do present in the same way as the population who, you know, did x, y, and z to the black community, right, in America and in other places. So, there are some people who will make the jump to I'm white, I should take this personally, right? Whereas for me, you know, anything that's personal is like a story between you and me. If it's not a story between you and I, it's not it's not personal. I bring my own baggage to the conversation. Right? I bring my own ignorances and set of experiences, and unless they really do have to do with you, they don't have to do with you. Right? It's me bringing my narrative, right, into the conversation. So, I think that's another thing I just have, like, in the back of my head somewhere when I listen to people are, like, this is this is their narrative. It's not about me even if I'm connected to it, and I need to reflect on it. So, anyways, I don't know. No. No. That was perfect. So, anyway, you were point. What's that? No. You were gonna say something about Oh, yes. And it's incredibly apropos to something being personal versus not being personal. Right? So, it's you know, you connect with a person's personal ex with a person's narrative, with their truth. However, you're not implicated in the truth. And what happens to that person who's not implicated when all of a sudden, the one sharing their narrative, their truth, wants a tangible outcome? So, Jews want reparations for holocaust suffering and for family members lost. Black people want reparations for US slavery. And a white person in today's world is saying, well, I didn't own slaves. They're not slaves now. Why should I give these people any of my was presuming it would come from federal or state governments, any of my tax dollars. So, what they went through was not good, that's awful, but why should I make the leap to now all of a sudden everyone gets some sort of payment? Yeah. Or some kind of action. Right? Whether it's yeah. Some sort of action. Well, I can give you my answer on why I think so. I mean, each person's gonna, in their own heart and mind, gonna have to come up with their own answers, obviously. I still have the reality that I have now. Right? So, let's just take, forget societal issues, let's even just make it super down in the weeds and or specific and personal with my grandfather. My grandfather brings whatever he brings to the conversation. I am now in reality with this grandfather as I experience him, right? As he chooses to show up. That is a reality, right? Now I can choose to turn my back and close my eyes and not look at the, you know, as you would say, the pink elephant, right? But if I wanna have an experience with my grandfather, I have to take him as he is, as he's as he's choosing to bring himself into the relationship. And while I might not be implicated in his history, I have the here and now of the real world that I live in. And so, what I would say is I'm not implicated in what brought you to where you are, but I'm implicated in being someone who has a relationship with you. And in society, we can expand that. We have a country together. We have a world together. What did I tell you, Todd? That's exactly what I said. That's why we're all vested in the outcome. Yeah. In doing something about it. Mhmm. And the truth is that when you come to know someone more, you care about them more. Right? And so, you become more emotionally invested in their thriving in life. What about white people who don't wanna know black people? I don't wanna know black people in their stories. I hear it on the news and all sorts of things. Yeah. I mean, you can't. Yourselves together. How am I making black women have children by multiple fathers? How am I making black men some of the highest incarcerated population in the country. I'm not personally doing that. So why should I even, you know, why should I even have anything to say about any of this? Yeah. I mean I mean; you can't force someone to have a conversation. But if you're asking me what a motive might be to do so I'm playing the antagonist role. Yeah. I mean, it's I think there's still a reality of sharing a country. Now if you think you can move on without developing that we can move on as a country without developing some set of understanding and ability to work together, I mean, that's your prerogative to think that that's the case, that we can live in separate reality, separate worlds within the same country and just duke it out on a consistent basis. I mean, there's nothing wrong with debating. There's nothing wrong with having different points of view and trying to come to some way forward, hopefully. Competition, debate, all of those things are fine. But at the end of the day, without some sprinkling of understanding and with, you know, to the degree that we are a split country in many ways who will have a very hard time over time moving forward, getting anything done without working together, then, you know, my thought is it becomes a prerogative to develop that understanding so that you can work together. But listen, at the end of the day, there are isolationists. There just are. They're just people who have their narrative of the world, and they have their motivations. And if that leads them to just simply not want to engage. I don't know how I don't know how I; you know, I don't know how you can force someone to then have a conversation. The only thing that I'll add to it is I have experienced the world as being ingenious in its ways of making you deal with your shit. I'm not saying it happens all the time in every life, but I'm saying it happens quite a lot for many lives and you can ignore something. I mean, even again, my grandfather's experience, he probably in his mind, that first conversation I had with him when I asked him how he became religious, you know what he said to me? He said, “I feel guilt and I will feel it for the rest of my life. And I said, well, grandpa, you've changed your ways and, like, don't you think you deserve to let it go? And, and he said, no, I deserve this. And, yet I don't, I can't claim that he resolved his guilt at the end of his life. But I can claim as, as I shared that he had a whole lot of emotions that he had not dealt with. And when he was too weak to hold it back anymore, they came like Noah’s Ark flood out of his system and into his present awareness. Now, again, can I No? I wasn't there ready for the maker's hand. Yeah. And so, can I claim that that's gonna happen for every individual? No. But, again, that's a mechanism, another mechanism of us having to face stuff. And so, I don't know. That person, that white person that you're talking about, maybe there is one day that some black individual comes across his world, and he has to deal with that person. And then, you know, life will be presenting him with an opportunity. And so again I don't know that that'll happen all the time but I just have faith that over time enough people are gonna have those experiences that people will have to face their ignorance, their naivetes, their, the parts of that elephant, the parts of the world, the parts of our kind of collective experience, they just do not, they just don't know. 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 the 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. I also wanna make a very deliberate point and maybe this is controversial but I'm gonna say it anyway to say that's a distinctly white problem. What I mean by that what I what I mean by that is that the revelation of dealing with your prejudice, and I'm speaking well, prejudice in general, but I'm speaking as a black person, prejudice with black people. It's not it's not for how can I say this? It's not for the black person to get over their stuff because our stuff is in response to yours with respect to the power dynamics in this country, institutional power dynamics in this country. That's what I would say. But I believe when that revelation does happen en masse, then that's when you'll see a huge emotional shift and maybe even a true, like, change in zeitgeist with respect to race in the country, but that it the leadership of that is a white responsibility. It's not like once I heard someone say, you know, it's not it's not enough that we have I mean, we bear the brunt of racism, then we have to turn around and help white people work through their emotions to cure it. That's that sort of like, you abuse me, though. Let me help my abuser work through why he's abusing me in the first place. That is not our responsibility. 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.