So What Do I Do? Coffee With Chrystal #alittleQC

All right, so y'all can let me know if you can see me and hear me better. Let me know if that's better. Good morning, good morning. Hopefully that's better. So I will wait until you guys give me a thumbs up or say I can hear and see you, it's great, it's not great. I want to make sure because I don't want to talk and then you can't, you can't hear me. Okay, great, great. My boys stole my blue Ethernet cord that we drag all over the house because they were playing video games last night, and apparently they did not plug it back in, and I did not notice that they did not plug it back in, and internet makes all the difference in the world when you're streaming on 3 or 4 platforms. So, um, good morning, good morning, and I'm here for a slightly unplanned live. There's a few reasons why I'm here unplanned, just a few, just a few. Um, turn down the music a little bit. One is because I missed y'all. I woke up yesterday morning and my husband said, so you gonna stick to your guns and stay quiet? And I was like, I'm gonna do it. And he was like, yeah, right. So I did it for a week. And I just wanted to come back today, um, because it's the first of a month. Um, I missed y'all as number one. Number two, it's the first of the month and I wanted to give you a little bit of a mm, you know, cause I've been doing the mm every morning. And, um, it's the beginning of a new month where we ended last month a little cray cray. Um, it's still a little cray cray, truth be told. It's a little bit about what I want to talk about today. So number one, I missed you. Number two, I wanted to give you a little mm to your month. Um, the third reason is, um, I wanted to talk a little bit about the cray cray. And I know if you're like me, you're probably sick of talking about it. Um, maybe not, but we have spent so much time together talking about a lot of things, and I felt like this is something that we should talk about. At least you should, you should hear me talk about it, and I want to hear what you all want to talk about as it relates to this. I'm not a person that has all the answers, and I certainly can't speak for a large group of people, whether that be Christian women or Black women or mothers, Black moms. I can't speak for everybody, but I can certainly speak for me. And I know that everybody wants to know, so what do I do? You know, so what do I do? And I want you to know that everybody I know is asking that question. Some people are asking that question and they think that they know. I've been alive long enough to know that what people think they know when they're in their 20s is different than what they think they know when they're in their 40s and the other way around. So there are a lot of people who know or think they know, and then there are a lot of people who have no idea. But I think pretty much everybody is fed up. Everybody is exasperated, exhausted, hurting over it, emoting over it for sure. There is some pain to everybody at some level. And I see you, Z. You said, I'm hurt, angry, and sad, all the emotions. And that's, that's, that's the thing. There are a lot of emotions. And if we try to match our emotions to that of other people, we'll lose every time. Not possible. You know, not, not possible. We're all different with different experiences, different backgrounds. Different understandings, different paradigms, different grids. And that means how we interpret what's happening. Um, there are some facts for sure, and then there are our takeaways from those facts. There are facts, and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time today regurgitating those facts. The facts do matter. There are people who are dying. There are people who are using their power inappropriately. And it's not a one-off situation. I think we, I think we've got that. I think, I think everybody can agree that this is not a one-off scenario. These are not isolated incidences. These are experiences that we get to see because of social media and because of iPhones and Android phones and, and the internet and social media. And so we all get to see, we all have to see. And if you choose not to show your children because of the ages of your children, they're going to run into the information somewhere. You can't avoid it. It's like a, it's like a, a song that's on the, that's topping the Billboard charts. Even if you don't listen to that kind of music, you're going to run into it because it's just in the atmosphere. When you go to the grocery store, you hear it. When you go shopping at the mall, you hear it. When you're waiting in the line at the movies, you hear it. You're in the elevator, you hear it. And that's what is happening in our culture. Whether you want to hear it or not, it's not an option. You can see it, you can hear it. And it's the conversation everywhere. So it is what it is. George Floyd was killed. It is what it is. A Tatyana was killed. It is what it is. Ahmad was killed. It is what it is. And to say anything other than that doesn't do anything to take away from that bottom line. And those are just 3. So we know that because we can't run away from it. It's everywhere. Um, but what I wanted to say a little bit about today was to answer this question. So what do I do? What, what do I do? Now I want you to know that the answer to that question is as long as there are people in the universe to go round and round the circumference of the Earth, and we could do that more than a few times over before the number of people would run out. What can you do? The options are endless. They're endless. And I want to say that along this spectrum of endless options for you to do something. The most important thing is that you do just that, something, something. And I want you to know that when you choose to do something, it is highly likely that you will be criticized because somebody that is not in the same place you are who doesn't feel convicted to do everything that you feel that you should do is going to say to you, but you just don't have to do all that. And then there's going to be somebody who is on the other side of where you are on the spectrum of all the things that we could do. And they're going to tell you, you're not doing enough. And if you allow the person on one side of you or on the other side of you to critique whatever it is that you're doing, and you're afraid of that critiquing, so you do nothing, that's the wrong answer. So what do I do? The answer is something. And you would think that people of color, whether they be African American or Indian, red and yellow, black and white, Asian, whether they're mixed of different races, Hispanic, whatever it is, you would think that everybody with a little extra melanin in their skin would feel the same way. And I can tell you, and many of you already know, that is not the case. So even amongst people of color, of all different races and cultures, the answer, what do I do? It's different. Here's what I wanna challenge you with. I wanna challenge you with the power that you have to choose. You have the power to do something. And so I do wanna give you some tangible ideas, but I just want you to know that if you do nothing because you're afraid to do something, afraid of criticism, afraid of getting it wrong, afraid of not knowing the right thing to do, you've already contributed to the loss of the battle that is being fought. Everybody can do something and something is always better than nothing. I was looking at, uh, you know, I mean, man, these marketers at Nike, I hope they get paid a ton of money. Because they're really good at what they do. And if you haven't seen it, I'll see if I can pull it up here in just a minute. But it just says, for once, don't do it. Of course, you know, Nike, they're always just do it. But this time it says, for once, don't do it. And I'm just going to read this to you. Don't pretend there's not a problem in America. Don't turn your back on racism. Don't accept innocent lives being taken from us. Just this once, don't do it. Don't make any more excuses. Don't think that this doesn't affect you. We're not saying just do it this time, y'all. It's don't do it. Don't sit back and be silent and don't think you can't be part of the change. Let's all be part of the change. So I want to be specific. And I'm going to be borrowing from a lot of really smart people because here's the deal, y'all, we're all learning. I'm learning and I have a different experience than you do. I know what it's like to be called some names. I know what it's like to have to have the talk with my boys about what you have to do when you get pulled over by a police officer. I know what it's like to talk to my husband and realize, that this has happened to him more than a couple of, on a couple of occasions that he was pulled out of a car because he was driving a nice car in a nice neighborhood. And why should he have been there? I've had to watch my son, my, my husband tell his sons about his experience and realize that that narrative could still play out again in their lives. So that's my experience. Many of you all, If you're on Instagram, you already saw Priscilla. I was videoing it. She was live streaming it. When my dad told his grandsons about the two times when he was pulled over and here we are 40-some-odd, some odd years later, and things are still the same. And in some cases they're much worse. So this is my experience. And these are things that I know that I wish I didn't. But that said, there are books I haven't read. There are experiences that are not mine. There are understandings that I am seeking. There are conversations that I'm having, some to the people on the spectrum who are doing more than me and some on the spectrum with people who apparently are doing less than me. But the important thing is we're having the conversations. Here's what you need to do. You need to seek and you will find. Now I am going to give you some specific things, but I need you to understand this principle. Okay. I need you to understand this. The last time I went and bought a car, it was a minivan. My minivan is 8 years old. I'm going to drive that thing into the ground. I bought it. I loved it. I still love it. But when I was shopping for minivans, I went looking at all the ones. I looked at the Honda Odysseys. I looked at the Toyota. I looked at the Chevy. I looked at the Kia. I looked at, All of the minivans, I looked at the ratings, I drove them all. And do you know what happened? Once I started seeking out which minivan I might want to purchase, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I started seeing minivans everywhere. There's actually a scientific name for it, and I can't think of the exact name of it right now. It's, it's something that starts with reticular and ends with system, but you actually scientifically, once you tell your brain, I'm looking for something, your brain starts doing the work of having to help you find it. And many of y'all have had that experience where all of a sudden when you're looking for a car, as soon as you start looking, you see them on the road everywhere. What happened? Were they not on the road before? No, no, they were, they were on the road before. You just weren't looking for them. Do you know how you start figuring out what you should do? You start looking. If you start having conversations, if you start reading books, if you start watching the movies, Thank you, Angela. It's the reticular activation system. There you go. If you start looking for injustices, if you start looking for the things that you never paid attention to, the way the lines are drawn, where kids have to go to these certain schools and these certain kids only get to go to these schools. If you start looking for the number of people that are incarcerated, that are of one skin color in comparison to another skin color and how those numbers don't jive with the percentages of people in the population. If you start looking for it, you'll find it. And that truth applies to all of us. Are we looking? Some of us aren't looking because we are privileged and there is white privilege and white fragility and whiteness, but there's privilege of all other kinds. In one race of color because of socioeconomic advantages, opportunities, situations, and yes, shades of skin color. There's a lot of different kinds of privilege. And if we forget that whatever leg up we've had, is just that, a leg up. And if we forget that we ought to always be looking for those who are not experiencing justice, then any of us can walk in privilege. Now there is, there is systemic racism and there are systems that you would not know about if you're not looking for them, that you just won't see. Yeah, because you're not looking for them, but also maybe because you don't wanna see them. You don't wanna admit that those kinds of things could exist. And so the things that it would require, the task that you would have to engage in that require work, you don't do because you don't see it, but maybe you don't see it because you haven't been looking for it. So my challenge to you today is to look for it. And I want to give you some specific examples. And if I was, if this was my thing, you know, like if this was my calling to focus on, um, you know, racial reconciliation, which that's the calling for all of us to a certain degree, but there of course are people where this is all they do. And if this was all I did, I'd be ready for you. I'm going to give them to you. And then what I'm going to do is have one of my interns listen back to this and try to put as many links as we can in the comments of YouTube, or maybe in a blog post that this goes to later, or you can just get a pen and write it down. If you're looking for this. I want to encourage you to not let this be another video, another commentary, another conversation that you listened in on and then you didn't take the hint. Ali Worthington said in a recent, um, event— well, she was on a video, you know, that we did earlier in the, in the little QCs. And she made this statement. And I think this statement rings true even for this discussion. She said, with God and Google, we can do anything. And she was talking about building a business. She was talking about starting your life over. She was talking about rejuvenating your life from the ashes, starting over, resetting. But listen, that same statement is true no matter what you need to know. So I'm going to give you a list, but listen, y'all, with God and Google, you can do anything. If you really want to know, Google it. If you hear something on the news that somebody says in passing and you don't know what they're talking about, Google it if you want. If you hear a phrase used, like I said, white fragility or privilege or systemic racism, and you're like, I don't know what that is, Google it. If you're like, what can I do? You want to know why I know that with God and Google you can do anything? Because I Googled it and I found a list, and I will put this link in the comments. I found a list of things. It literally is a list. It says, it says, what white people can do for racial justice. You want to know what I Googled? What can I do about systemic racism? And it came up and it's a list of 75 things. So what am I trying to tell you? You don't have to say that you don't know. There, there's no reason for me to say I don't know. There's no reason for the person that's ahead of you or on one side of you as far as the spectrum of, of action is concerned and the other side of you on the spectrum of action. There's no reason why anybody has to say I don't know. I would venture to say even those of us who still live in fairly segregated places, because maybe the socioeconomic lines mean we live in a predominantly Black neighborhood or predominantly white neighborhood. For most of us, because the work of the '60s, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, They did work and we are beneficiaries of that work today, even though there is still work to do. It means we do go to segregated schools or desegregated schools. It means we do go to restaurants where we are together. It means we do experience opportunities where we're going to college or we're working in the same place or we live next door. So for most of us, the large majority of us, if you don't wanna read a book, if you don't wanna watch the movie, If you don't want to use God and Google, you know somebody you could ask, and that street goes both ways. You are not without options, and if you just look, you'd be surprised at what you might find. For all of my life, I've known what it is to assimilate. That is a term that I use to say, I know how to speak white and I know how to speak Black. But all of my life, when I was with my Black people, especially in high school, I didn't talk Black enough. And then when I was with my white people, wasn't quite white enough either, but I'm pretty good at knowing how to hold the line. And every now and again, you'll hear me slip to the left or slip to the right, but you wanna know why I know how to do that is because as a Black girl, assimilation is what you learn. Or you can, if you go to a predominantly white school, if you wanna make sure that nobody judges you by how you say certain words or the vernacular and the way that you twist your tongue when you say certain things, these are lessons that white girls don't have to learn. But what am I telling you that for? To feel sorry for me? Nope. Not at all. Cuz I see some of the comments of my, vanilla-hued friends talking to me. Absolutely not. Don't feel sorry for me because you want to know what I know that this teaches me about you. If you are Black or white, in either way, you're just like, I don't even know how I'm going to learn. Yeah, that's what it's called, Vanessa, code switching. You want to know what I learned? Anybody can assimilate. You can learn to speak the language. So what does that mean if you're white? You can learn the language. You can learn the terminology. You can learn the history. You can learn what to say and what not to say, what offends and what doesn't offend. We learned it. So can you. Why? So that things can be fair? Sure. Why? So that you can make me feel better? Okay. But really, why? Because it's the work of love. When you want to love somebody well, when you want to make sure that because you love them that there is justice, that because you love them that things are right in the world, that because you love them you understand their perspective, you learn how to love them. You learn what they need. And you, it may take you a few misses, but eventually if you keep showing up, you'll assimilate, you'll learn the language. And there's a language that we gotta learn. You gotta, you gotta understand these terms. You, you gotta understand all these things. If we're gonna actually do healing work, you, you gotta, you gotta use some God and Google. You gotta have some water cooler conversations. You have to do like some of my friends have done for me for years. They text me, box me, call me, and they say, girl, I wanna post this on my social media. Can you read this? Let me know if there's anything that I've said that's offensive or that is not communicating what I'm trying to communicate, cuz you know my heart. And then I have to say, listen, this is what I, what I'm gonna say, but don't let your one Black friend speak for all the Black friends that you have. You may need to run that past 2 or 3 other people. So, and these are conversations I can have. I'm being challenged as a woman of color to have conversations with other women of color whose opinion is totally different than mine because their study is different than mine. Their experience is different than mine. Their perspective is different than mine. And often I learn and often I disagree. You wanna know what the most important thing is that we're having the conversation, because for me as a woman of color, to speak to my sister, who is also a woman of color, and to say, I'm so sorry because you're grieving about some things in a way I'm not. And then I'm grieving about some things in a way You're not. We have to give each other the grace. Yes, Norma, Black people are not monolithic. We have to give each other the grace to say, you know what? I want to have the conversation, but we also have to stop using the conversation as an excuse not to do the homework ourselves. So I haven't let my boys watch the George Floyd video. Because that's not a conversation I wanna have with them, but I have to because I have a driving son who in one year will not be with me anymore. There are a lot of conversations, y'all, we may not wanna have. That's not the question. The question is, are these conversations that we should have? Are these movies, as hard as they are to watch, that we should watch? Are these books, as hard as they are to read, that we should read? Are these comfortable— uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable spaces that we should be in? Because ultimately, we cannot love Jesus and not love justice. We just can't. But here's what I know to be true. If you seek the answer, you'll find it. You're just gonna have to do some hard work that when you start uncovering some answers you don't like, that when I uncover answers I don't like, that you don't shun away from the conversation because it's a hard conversation. Listen, it's been a hard life. And my life pales in comparison to hardness than it was for my parents, and their lives pale in comparison to it was for their parents. But where— but that is my scenario. There are some people where it's just been one hard thing after another hard thing, and in their family and in their community, in their neighborhood, they've never been able to catch the chain. Let me tell you what I mean about catching the chain. I went riding bikes with my son the other day, and my bike switches gears. Got 3 major gears, and in each one of those 3 major gears— 1, 2, and 3— there are 6 minor gears. I'm sure there's an official bike term for that, but when I'm in major 2, I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 inside of 2. And so Sometimes if I jump my gears, if I jump from major 2 minor 4 to major 3 minor 6, my chain doesn't catch. And so I end up with my legs spinning wildly trying to figure out how I can make that chain get back on that concoction that holds it and keeps the bike going. And my legs are spinning loosely and the bike is slowing down and I don't like how that feels. And then I have to figure out how to upshift or downshift until that chain catches again.. But if I want to be on the ride, I got to keep working with the gears until I find where it catches. If I get off the bike and say, doggone it, the chain got loose and this is not easy for me to push right now, and just got off, I'm missing the ride. And some of y'all, because you don't want to have the conversation, You're just missing the ride. I love the fact that I have a multi-dimensional, multi-color, wide variety of socioeconomic spectrums. I love that. In fact, one of the reasons, one of the things I was the most proud about with the Sister Circle online event that we just did was when I put up all of my friends, it looked right. It looked like I wanted it to look because it represented my actual life. It's not wrong if it's all Black people. It's not wrong if it's all white people. I'm just saying, when I put it up, I thought, this actually represents my life, and I'm grateful that my personal life, my professional life, my spiritual community, it looks the same. It, it looks the same. But I want to tell you that those relationships don't come without hard conversations. And I mean that for my relationships with my white girls, and I mean that with my black girls. 'Cause I've had my Black friends call me out on a few things while I'm calling my white friends on out for a few things. What am I saying? You gotta do something. So what do I do? Here's the answer. Something. Okay. I saw my friend Jennifer Fulwiler share something on Instagram the other day. She's been talking about how she is a middle-class white woman, feels the need, she feels the pain. She's been talking about it. And as she talks about it, she's been getting two things. Number one, in her DM, she's been getting criticism. You don't know what you're talking about. You know, just, if you don't know, if you don't even know what you're talking about, be quiet. Then she's been hearing in her DMs from women who look like her, who have life experiences similar to her, and they're saying, I'm so glad you say something because I'm afraid, I'm afraid to say something because I don't know what to say. I'm afraid I'm gonna get it wrong. And then she came on her feed and she said, yeah, white girls, you're gonna get it wrong. But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you talk about it. And then she proceeded in her feed to show comments where she's trying to do the right thing. People like, you know, like criticizing her. And she's like, here I am doing the only thing that I know how to do and it's still still not right. Be okay with getting it wrong. Don't let getting it wrong distract you. Let me know if I fixed it. Okay. I think I fixed it. Can you, can you hear it now? Okay. That may have been me. That may have been me, y'all. Y'all talking about the Department of Justice hacked us. I'm sorry. So let me just, let me just not do that. I was trying to show y'all, but I won't show you. I'm just going to put it in the comments so y'all can grab it and keep sharing. All right, there we go. It's called What White People Can Do for Racial Justice, and it literally is a list of 75 things It says work on ensuring that Black educators are hired where Black children are being taught. If you are in HR, work with your HR department to recruit Americans who are descendants of enslaved Africans. Um, you can donate to anti-white supremacy groups like Black Lives Matter, the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, the NAACP, the United Negro College Fund, United Negro College Fund, Dream Defenders, The Sentencing Project. Y'all, I'm just reading the stuff that's here. Here's a major one. When you are around people, around your friends, whether they're white or black, and you know that the conversation that's being had is a racist conversation, you be the one to stop the conversation. Read up about mandatory minimum sentences and watch videos about this on Families Against Mandatory Minimums. I'm just scanning the list. Call or write your state legislators, federal legislators, and your governor to decriminalize the things that are, um, putting Black people in prison at a ridiculous rate in comparison to other people. Um, show up for your local racial, racial justice group. Research your local prosecutors. Prosecutors have a lot of power to give fair sentences or draconian ones that influence a judge's decision to set bail or not. Watch the movie 13th. Better yet, host a group of friends to watch the movie 13th. Another movie, watch The House I Live In, or get a group of friends together to do the same. Let me get on Instagram. Sorry, y'all about that. And thank y'all for telling me. I'm getting on Instagram and I'm going to post that same link in here. Tasha Morrison, check out her ministry. Thank you on Instagram. Be the Bridge. Okay. Um, read the book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. Read the book by Marie Gottschalk called Caught. Read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Read "The Color of Law." Buy books, choose TV shows and movies that will help you to decolonize yourself or understand what decolonization even is. Silence is support. Think about it and find out how slavery, the Civil War, and the Jim Crow era are being taught in your local school, because it is a part of history. But how is that history being taught? Ask your kids questions about the perspective that they're getting. Look for a diverse group of friends. Practice real friendship and intimacy by listening when people of color— whenever you see POC, that's what it means— when they talk about their experiences and their perspectives. If you have Black children or teens in your life, contribute to their college savings plans. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. There is another thing, and I wish I could show you, but I don't think I'm going to be able to because, but I'll try to put the link in here. I'll put the link in here and I'll have to go back and do it on YouTube. Oh no, I can do it on YouTube. So y'all bear with me because I'm trying to do it and y'all can grab it and keep sharing it. Okay. So I'm putting the link for— all right, here's the comment. This is the link for that article I was just telling y'all about. Okay. So just recently on social media, Jackie Hill Perry shared a list of media that you could watch. A couple of the movies that I've already mentioned are in there. Okay. But here's what I want you to do. I'm giving you these. And here's one of the things I hear over and over and over again from my Black brothers and sisters. Why do they keep asking us? Like, it's like they don't even want to, they don't even want to look. So I'm not saying you can't ask, but what I'm also saying is look, remember God and Google. So I'm putting a link to Jackie Hill Perry's post from her Instagram, the movie from Ava DuVernay, 13th, Fruitvale Station, When They See Us. Those are 3 movies that'll get you started. And if you're watching any of these movies, you know how Netflix and Apple TV and all, They'll say, if you've watched this, you would probably like— watch more of those. And it is going to be shocking, and it is going to be hard to watch, and it is going to be challenging. It is totally going to be challenging. But do you want to grow or not? Do you want to have the conversation or not? I mean, it kind of comes down to that. You know, kind of comes down to that. So let me find my saved posts because this one from Eric Mason, um, who he has a lot of books that you could read, but I have to find it to share it with you. Hold on a minute. Saved activity. Here we go. Eric Mason. Here we go. I gotta grab the link and y'all can keep sharing these. When people say, what is she talking about? What did she share? Keep sharing them for me. All right. Facebook, here comes a link. It's books to read. All right. And then, um, YouTube, here comes the link. There we go. There we go. And then Instagram, cause I gotta log out of my account and go back to this other account so that I can share it with you on the live. It's all kind of madness. But I'm doing it. All right, there we go. So that's another list of books that you can read. All right. And I'll read off some of them to you right now. Um, and these are books that are historical, but also bring into play the Christian viewpoint, Slave Patrols, Free at Last, Color Compromise, Doctrine and Race, a book by my dad. Oneness Embraced, Christian Slavery, The Problem of Slavery in Christian America, Slave Religion, Stamped from the Beginning, I'm Still Here, Austin Channing Brown. It'll be hard for you to read, but it's good. The Color of Law, Defending the Black Faith, Let Justice Roll Down. Now, I know I went through those really fast, but the links, y'all, are down there. Y'all can keep sharing them. But again, y'all, with God and Google, with God and Google, there's nothing you can't do. Okay. So I gave you some movies to watch, some books to read, and at least one webpage that gives you 75 ideas. And while that article was written to what can white people do, I just want to challenge you that y'all, half of the people of color ain't read all these books and watched all the movies. And read all the articles. There's an education that needs to happen for everybody, for everybody. But the main thing is that you choose to do something, something. Now, if you don't know where to start, remember what I said at the beginning of this, seek and you will find. If the only thing you have access to right now in your life is your one Black friend, then right now you need to ask your one Black friend, I'm really at a loss of what to do. Chrystal Hurst gave me a list of books and a list of movies, and I'm gonna start making my way through those as I can. But I want you, if there's anything that you know of whether it's a protest, a march, a town hall, a book you've read, would you please tell me, I wanna grow. I wanna grow. I'm sorry. I know this is painful and I wanna grow. When you seek, you find. So now that your one Black friend knows you actually wanna know something more than what you're seeing on the news, they might just tell you, hey, I'm going down to my church. We're having a thing this Friday night. They may be looking at you like this, cuz then they're thinking there's gonna be all Black people there. You actually gonna be okay? But when you seek, you find. You may have no idea, but I can promise you, if you Google, you'll come up with a lot of them. And then you just pick something and you start somewhere. I was watching last night, a friend of mine talk about um, a lot of things that were hard for me to hear. And she actually had at the bottom of her Instagram Live a women's clinic in the area. And she said, if you don't know what to do, donate. They, they like, they are in a hard part of town dealing with, um, women who have mortality rates that are astronomically high based on their skin color and based on their socioeconomic status. If you wanna do something, Give. And you want to know what I found? I looked up that center because I just wanted to know who I'm giving to. And when I cruised the front page of that website, I saw that one of the women who works there, I know. Do you want to know what you'll find when you seek? That there's only 6 degrees of separation. None of us are really that far from what we can do impacting someone we actually know, or it coming back to us in ways we could never anticipate or expect. So yeah, talk to your one Black friend. Sure. Read a book and be totally blown away by what you see in the movie. Absolutely. Get uncomfortable in hard conversations. 100%. Have those conversations with your friends, your family, your coworkers, your church, your neighbors. But if you just start with you and do something, and if you just decide to seek so that you will find, some of y'all need to start with your kids because you know good and well that what they've heard from you and your spouse or you and your extended family has propagated a racist mindset that you just figure, well, they're not going to be as bad as Uncle So-and-so, but you don't know that. And it's up to you to start with your house and say, in this house, We don't speak in a demeaning way about any other race. And in this house, we subscribe to what God says, which is that we are all uniquely created in his image. And we will lift up and celebrate everybody of different colors and different races and even different socioeconomic statuses. And as we see where there are things that we can change, we'll, we'll step in. Will step in because it might just take the book you read or the movie you watch for your mind to be blown about the things that exist that you can get involved with. You may never have realized that as a person who is in law, who literally works at a law firm, that there were some things because of your bar exam, that there are things you can actually do because of your status, that there are things you can actually affect because of where you live and who you have access to. You may never have even, even even thought about it. But then you start reading and asking questions and having conversations and looking at hard movies, and then your mind is blown and you're like, I didn't even know. If you'll just do the work and look, have the conversation, read the books, watch the movies, you know, show up. Get a different perspective. You might just be surprised that if you seek, you'll find that if you look for the car, that all of a sudden the cars that have always been on the road, all of a sudden you see them. And you might be surprised that if you look for where racism lives and also look for what you can do about it, that while you think you don't know, and while you think that you're totally clueless, But if you look, you might just see that there is something you can do. So what do you do? Yeah, Priscilla, you do the work and it's not going to be pretty and it's not going to be fixed in 5 minutes and it's not going to be fixed because you have one black friend on the other side of town. Once a year y'all talk. It'll be fixed because you have hard conversations. It'll be fixed because you offend and because you're offended. It'll be fixed because you keep pressing in when you'd rather just stay quiet because it's safer to not say anything than to say something. Do something. Do something. And then once you've done something, we have to believe that, yes, I agree with a friend of mine who said we gotta pray, but then y'all, we gotta act. What does the Bible say? Faith without works is dead. I'm glad you're praying. And I'm glad you're talking, but at the end of the day, I can promise you, if you, if you'll look, there's a million things to do. A million. So you just look and then you start somewhere and you trust that God can fill in the blanks when he sees that you're in motion. One of the things my dad always says is that God loves to hit a bullseye with a crooked stick. You actually don't have to know all the things. You don't have to get it right. You don't have to, uh, you don't have to worry about unknowingly offending. Just start. The biggest issue that the church has is being quiet. 'Cause the people that I keep running into that go to church feel horribly, and they say, we don't know what to do. And I'm looking at them like, if we would talk about it and do something, there'd be plenty to do. But because we're so anxious to keep quiet and be safe, nothing happens. And I mean tomb, not tomb, but pulpit to the pew. When my kids are little, I don't want them to run into the street, but you know, when they're little, sometimes they do that. And do you want to know what I do when I see a kid running into the street, especially if I see a car coming? I run after the street and I yank them. I yank them out of the street. You want to know why? Because their lives are at stake. And they normally— jars them awake and they're like, Mommy, why'd you do that? And I'm like, because the car is coming and your safety and your life is more important than this little here yank right here. I gotta yank you and bring you back into the safe zone because if you keep going the way you're gonna go, you'll lose your life. Y'all, we are way out of the safe zone. And if saying what has to be said, if reading what has to be read, if watching what has to be watched means you feel a yank, so be it. Because life, your life, my life, all the lives that have been lost thus far to violence, murder, by people who have power, those lives, They're worthy of a yank, a strong one, I might add. Listen, y'all, Valerie Burton. I printed it out because it was really good. I want to close with this and I want to share some practical steps that she shared. And I love her. She's a coach and she shares things that are very practical. Um, Valerie Burton is a Black woman married to a white man, and I always love hearing her perspective on things because it's always laced with grace. But she's a Black woman married to a white man, and both realities hit her right between the eyes. The first thing is, this is for whoever you are, Black or white, she says, if you feel emotionally drained, Acknowledge that. Don't pretend that you're not. Don't, don't feel the need to put your big girl panties on and let— you don't want anybody to know that it's killing you. Okay, let yourself feel, but respond rather than react. So yes, feel angry, sad, tired, or some combination of all of the above. And if you need a break, take it, 'cause this is devastating for many of us who wear the weight of what we've seen. And then we wear the weight of our worry for our husbands and our sons. Give yourself time to process. Two, find a safe place to express your emotions. You need to gather some like-minded friends, a safe space, 'cause not everybody is safe. And arguing on social media and expressing yourselves to others who can't give you the support you need will make matters worse. So yes, cross the bridge. Yes, build a bridge, like Latasha Morrison would say. But if you just need to get it out and you need to do that in a safe space while you're working through it, do that, do that. Decide what you can do to make a positive difference. And that difference can be small. Having honest conversations is a big deal, but yes, you can give to the legal funds of victims' family. And yes, You can support organizations that are fighting for justice and yes, you can contact lawmakers, but honestly, if you just have the uncomfortable conversation, that's a great start. That was what she said to people of color. Then she said, if you're white and want to be an ally who demands that enough is enough, won't— one, commit to learning more. Number two, practice racial empathy. Number three, Speak up and show up. And I love these questions. And I want to leave you with these questions. She said, looking back years from now, how will you wish you'd shown up during this time in history? Will you look back at the time when your kids or your nieces or nephews or your grandchildren are reading about this, and you're going to remember that you just stayed quiet and stayed comfortable. You didn't know what to do. So you didn't do anything at all. And you realize that the change happened despite you, not because of you. Whatever stories you want to tell those people, this is the time where you write those stories out loud right now. And then who or where is your emotionally safe place to talk about feelings and experience of race in America? Because you do want to have a safe place, but that safe place needs to be comprised of people who like you are interested in being the solution and not just complaining about the problem. And I say that for Blacks and whites alike. She recommended a couple of things. One is that same article that I found, 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice. That's by Corinne Shattuck. And then there's Edward Baptist. It's a book called The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery And the Making of American Capitalism. And then Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. There's another book that I read with my son, uh, my daughters, sorry, when, when we were homeschooling. I love this book. It came from Sunlight Curriculum, but they had this book. It's called Lies My Teacher Told Me. And while we were reading the sanctioned American history book, we read this other book called Lies My Teacher Told Me. And everything we read, not everything, but so many things that we read, this is by James Loewen, L-O-E-W-E-N. So many things that we read in the history book, we debunked with the other book to prove the point that not everything that you read or have read is true. It's just not. And it's not until you read a dissenting opinion by someone who did not have to go through 60 rounds of, uh, of, of edits at an editing company to make sure that it was palatable to the large majority of people who would read those books. And so when their parents looked at their books, that you wouldn't have a white parent that was upset about what they were reading in the Black book. So they took a lot of it out. There are ways to reeducate yourself about the way you were taught history and the way history actually was. To read more than just one source so that you have resourced with your opinion. Cuz y'all, a lot of it is lies. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And that's okay. You just need to know where the fault lines are. So y'all, that's what I wanted to say. What can you do? I've given you a list, but if you don't know, start where you are. Open the door, keep the lines of communication open. And in this day and age right here, you don't have to look hard to find something for you to do. I want to tell you too, because so many of y'all have asked me about it, you've emailed me, especially when I have been quiet. Y'all have sent me DMs and messages on social media. Y'all remember when I was doing these Q&As before that I kept saying you can't get into the Inner Circle until June 1st. Well, it's June 1st. So if you needed a reminder, there you go. You just go to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle and you will be able to get teaching from the Sister Circle Retreat, featured teaching from from the Sister Circle online event. You'll be able to participate in the 90-day experience because that's starting up soon. So for those of you who ask, there you go. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, there you go. Just check it out. But I saw some of y'all in the comments asking me that, and I wanted to make sure you saw it. Okay. I want you to know that we're going to start having conversations today, y'all, and it's not going to be fixed tomorrow. It's a commitment that you're making with your life, white or black. It's a commitment that you're making with your kids, white or black. It's a commitment that you're making with your tongue and who you talk to and what you talk about. With your tongue. It's a commitment that you talk, that you make with your neighbors, that you're not going to segregate yourselves even on a Sunday morning because you're saying, Black and white, I want to be approachable. I want to be understood. And I want to have the conversation and say the hard things. And you know what? Some of the people that I meet with, they're going to just have to stomach the hard conversation because maybe what they ask me is not really the answer that they, that I'm giving them. That's not the answer that they wanted. But you have to be willing to seek out the people who are willing and then let it go and then move on to the next thing you can do. These walls did not get built in one night and they're not gonna be torn down in one night either. But here's the thing, and y'all know I always say this because this is the thing: you get to choose. Life is not a dress rehearsal. We only come around this way one time. And if you want to make it better for the person who's coming around after you, if you actually want to change the world, start with yourself. Start with your family. Start with your neighborhood, your community, your church, then beyond. If you're not in a church home, get in one. If you're in a church home that doesn't talk about racial reconciliation, you can leave that church or you can find another church that on Wednesday nights or on Zoom is having the conversation you want to have while you stay at your other church. I mean, like, figure it out. That's what I'm doing. And if I'm doing it and I'm a Black girl, if you're a Black girl, You can too. If I'm doing it and you're a black girl, well, and you're a white girl, you can figure it out. Seek and your reticular activation system will start working on your behalves and you won't even know how things started changing, but you know what you did? Like the Nike posts normally say, you thought to yourself, alright, today's the day. I'm gonna just do it. Alright, y'all have a great week. Bye-bye.