LIVE: Racism in America - a panel discussion of white perspectives

Alrighty, welcome to this discussion. We know we have had several people who've been waiting for this to get started. There were some technical difficulties, so we appreciate everybody's patience in igniting this conversation and having this conversation. I want to quickly get into it due to us being a little behind schedule. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you just a sentence about each of our guests today, our panelists today, and then the panelist is going to have 30 seconds to give you a little bit more information on them. We're going to move very quickly here so we get to the heart of the conversation. First, I'm going to start with Jess. Jess Pettit is with Good Enough Now, has stirred up challenging conversations for decades using humor, or all things to make diversity dividends work. She also washes her hands. Hey, Jess, thanks for joining us.

Thank you. I really appreciate being here. I apologize for my technical problems, but I am landbound right now. So thank you.

Absolutely. Next up, we are going to introduce Dr. John Tantillo. He's an internationally known marketing and branding expert who is a contributor for Newsmax TV, where he also writes his popular Marketing and Branding Lens column, which uses these 2 disciplines to analyze the events of the day. But on this show, he's going to go by John or JT, whatever he's comfortable with. So thank you, John.

Welcome everybody, and thank you for that warm introduction.

Absolutely. Next up, we have Ilsa Govan, co-founder of Cultures Connecting, and has been actively engaged in conversations to address racism, white privilege, and white supremacy for the better part of her life. Thanks, Ilsa.

Yes, thank you. Thanks for inviting me.

Absolutely.

And we have Chris Widener. Chris is a past candidate for the United States Senate, has been named one of the top 50 speakers in the world. Hello, Chris. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks, Mike, for having me. I appreciate it. I hope to confuse everybody today by making you realize I am not a typical conservative. I have a Black son-in-law. I have 2 Black grandchildren. I have— I've always fought for the rights of folks who are disadvantaged, including all sorts of folks who are demanding their rights. And I'm a big believer in it. And—

Thank you.

I'm thrilled to be able to be here and represent some, maybe some thoughts that people haven't heard that conservatives actually believe.

All right, well, thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. And that leads us to Dr. Christine West, a small business owner and business psychologist who has a mission to create healthier workplaces and more effective leaders. Hello, Christine.

Well, hello. Thank you, Mike, for inviting me to your show. And I'm not your typical psychologist. Often people say to me, that's not a psychological view. Well, psychology plays a whole lot into everything that we do in our decisions. So what I would like to offer on this show is that I've always been the fan of the underdog, and I have these views that are unique. So all I'm here to do is share a free will thinking, and you can decide for yourself what applies to you and what doesn't, and throw the rest out or take it in.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I want everybody watching to know what's happening. There's no organization of what you're watching. This is going to be an authentic conversation that's organic in nature. So because we have 6 people and we're going to be bringing a 7th in at times, potentially here, because of that, I'm going to just ask our panelists that when they want to add to the conversation, you literally do a physical raise of the hand. I'll be able to see that visually, and then we can go to those individuals. I'll do my best to see whose hand came up first. And for everybody watching, everybody knows to try to keep answers succinct so we can get as much information in, in 1 hour as possible. Now down to 53 minutes. The opening question I'm going to ask is one that I started a week ago with a different panel, and that question is, how do you define racism? If you're going to have a conversation around racism, how do you define it? Who would like to take this question first? I would like to take this question first. Don't all jump in at once.

Obviously, I don't have the dictionary definition, but I think it's anything that is done or believed that reduces one category of people or demographic of people to lesser than anyone else, particularly in the area of race. But I think the isms would be the same— sexism, any of those kinds of things— that it's anything that fights against this ideal that Americans believe, which is we are all created equal.

And Elsa?

Yeah, the definition that I use comes from work of the People's Institute Northwest, or excuse me, the People's Institute, which is a national anti-racist organizing group. And they talk about racism as being the combination of institutional power plus prejudice. And so when we think about racism, a lot of people think about it as just individual hateful actions that people intentionally make against one another. Because of the color of somebody's skin. And so if we think of racism in just that way, it's very easy for people to get into arguments about whether or not they're non-racist rather than thinking about we need to be anti-racist. And in order to be anti-racist, that means that we need to not only be addressing individual interactions that are intentional, but thinking about unintentional implicit bias that influences the way that we show up, as well as institutional change policies and structures that reinforce and back up some people's individual actions while they don't support and back up other people's actions. And so if we think about our— the institutional level of racism, that brings us— I feel like puts better context to what we're seeing going on in the nation right now.

Thank you, Ilsa. And Christine, you want to jump in?

Yes.

I appreciate both of your answers. From my view, it's more of my view, which is anybody who's discriminated against for their beliefs, discriminated against for their values, about thinking differently than somebody else. And it could be, you know, the same race, or it can be, you know, race groups, for example, or it can be, you know, man, woman, as, you know, an example. Because personally, I see it all the time from a perspective of, you know, If you don't agree with me, then there's something wrong with you. And that's what I find is racism, is jumping into the conversation. But I do agree with both of you what you just shared.

So let's further— okay, Jess, go ahead.

Oh, go ahead, Mike.

No, no, go, go, Jess, you're good.

Well, I really appreciate, Christine, what you added. And I think what might be important for the conversation, if we looked at last week's panel, Tony Chapman did a great job of really articulating where power shows up in that conversation. And so I think it's important to mention that being able to listen to someone is one thing, having different opinions, things like that, that works, and that's an engaging conversation. That's what we're trying to do here by having so many different, uh, experiences, lived experiences present, right? When you cross power dynamics, I believe that there are times where this goes from opinion to actually being part of a power dynamic. And so then sometimes that's why these conversations can get, uh, I'm going to use the word ratcheted up, right? So if prejudices are kind of the standard beliefs that we're either— I mean, you're the psychologist— either conscious or unconscious of.

Yeah.

But when those beliefs, like Tony said last week, move into action, and that action is across a power difference, that's to me when it moves from opinions to an actual discriminatory act that's about a system of keeping power dynamics in place. So then it's no longer an opinion conversation, but it's actually about these kind of unconscious systems that a lot of us are just kind of navigating, either positively and benefiting from or trying to survive in. And so racism would be around the perceived different color of skin is, is, has some kind of unconscious value mark. So that's, that, that's the only thing I'd add.

Yeah, that's a great—

that's a great idea. Go ahead, John.

Uh, yeah, what all I would like to say is that I'm not an expert on racism, and I think all the definitions that were given, uh, are okay by me. Uh, the only issue that I have is, uh, and it's— I guess, um, you're not, you're not the only psychologist. I'm an academically trained psychologist. I'm not a licensed psychologist, but my training was in research and in psychology. My only issue is whether or not when you— when we use the word indiscriminately, or maybe too carefree, we begin to tear down any communication. Or we, we, we bring some— we, for all intents and purposes, name-call, which we're not trying to do here. But that we— I think we should be— I think it should be said that to use racist, the term racism or racist, we should be very, very sure of or confident that what we're— who we're applying it to It really is a true description.

And so I'd like to go back a moment. Thank you, John. I'd like to go back, Christine, for a moment, because I think when we listen to these descriptions, there were a few things that stood out as just listening. And we had some of our definitions in there were judgment and discrimination, which can be different than racism. So as Jess, you were pointing out that power play, if you have different beliefs than me, Well, that's not a racist situation. If you, even if you discriminate against me, that's not racist depending on how you discriminate against me, right? Then it could be racist, but it's not necessarily because one thing that Jesse brought up, Tony, last week, one thing that the panel brought up is, is it even possible for a white person to be discriminated against? Yes. Is it possible for a white person to actually have race to— with the language reverse racism. Is that even possible in a system where white people have more power in government, more power in businesses? The system is built there. And so the word is misused. So I'm going to throw that out there with the concept of if you believe when somebody says that's reverse racism, right there you don't understand racism because you can't have a reverse.

It's an—

you could be describing another form of racism, But reverse racism would mean no racism. So they're usually completely misusing the language here with that. So I'm going to throw that to the group.

Yeah, I like to say that the world has changed. And Pasquale Tito, who was my grandfather, when he applied to work at Consolidated Edison or Con Ed, the local utilities company here in New York. He had to change his name from Pasquale Tita to Patsy Teddy. He became— suddenly became Irish because he was discriminated against. So, and he was white. So that this, this idea that— and by the way, I am not comparing the discrimination that he had to the Black experience at all. I'm just saying that a lot of people go through things and that we should be sensitive. And what makes me hopeful is seeing these demonstrations that people are engaging in and people are accepting of them. Where they're not accepting of them is the idea of the violence. But in terms of understanding what has gone on, I think we're in a good place.

I have a question, honest question. Why would you not compare that racism to what African Americans experience? Because I thought it was actually kind of interesting when you said UT changed his name to an Irish name, because when the Irish first they experienced a lot of racism or nationalism, whatever you would call it. The Italians have experienced it. The Irish have experienced it. The Japanese have experienced it. So why would we elevate the experience of one race as being worse than the experience of another race? I think racism is racism. So I'd be interested in that.

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

Ilse?

Yeah. Well, so here's— so I have a similar story in my family to what you were saying, John, which is that our family changed our last name My grandmother grew up in a Polish-speaking community, and that's no longer, you know, a language that's in my family. And we gave that up to get the benefits of whiteness. We gave that up to get the benefits of a system of power that was designed by and for white people, specifically wealthy white men, which is something that my working-class family didn't necessarily realize, you know, when we were giving up our language, our names. And so that's the difference that I see in this, is that we then got the benefits of a system designed for white people by giving up our ethnic identity. And so that's what I see as different, because people of color have never had that option in this country. Indigenous people whose land was taken did not have that option to then, you know, they were forced to change their names in, you know, in the schools in this country, but they didn't then somehow reap the benefits of whiteness and white privilege in this country.

That's a good point.

Appreciate that.

Jess.

So I, I also want to throw out a concept in this, which is a term that is often used around centering. So what is at the center, right? So John and Ilse, you were able to share common stories where, um, maybe pain or change or assimilation or other kind of experiences were very similar. And at the center, what Ilsa is adding is that the whiteness was at the center. So if you do this, then you get this. If you do this, then you get this. So oftentimes— and Chris and I have actually had some really good conversations about this— that when we think about what's happening right now versus protests and riots. So if the protests are happening in reference to violence and brutality, What often happens when, when we're talking about whiteness is that because this is also about racism, then as white people, as myself, it's much easier for me to stay comfortable and keep violence at the center. But I've now taken it away from a racial experience that I don't experience as a white person. So I'm going to keep violence at the center, but not the violence that actually started the protest. But the new wave of violence, so I feel like I'm on topic, but I'm actually centering the concept of what we're talking about around something that makes me more comfortable than something that I actually don't experience very often. Right now, I too can share times where I have been at the other hand of violence or brutality with police officers, and I can focus on my individual lived experience. or I can focus as a group on the violence that I'm more comfortable focusing on, which is like the crimes that is looting and things like this. So then what ends up happening is a conversation unravels. So we've decentered the violence that people are experiencing that I don't experience on a regular basis. I have a one-off, right? But I don't experience on a regular basis. So I keep it violent at the center, but a type of violence that I now can talk about, right? So, Mike, I thought you did a great job last week talking about, like, I have done petty crimes. I speed. I, I've accidentally shoplifted something. Probably my ghost has actually legitimately shoplifted something. But because I'm white and upper class and lived in the right neighborhoods, I was able to return it. I didn't get in trouble. The ramifications of those illegal activities were very different because of my whiteness. So what ends up happening is a conversation devolves into where we are most comfortable, even though we're using the same words, so it sounds like we're at the center. But, um, Chris actually does a really great job on your radio show. And of the folks, I'm the one— I stalk you, Chris, I'm a fan. So, um, but of a really good job of keeping the conversation point at the center, no matter where it's gonna go, you're like, uh-huh. back to the point, right? So if we're focusing on whiteness here, if we were to go into ethnicity, then what ends up happening is we talk about shared pain, but we've also moved away from talking about white privilege.

Thank you, Justin. Christine, you had your hand up.

I thank you all for all your perspectives. I enjoyed listening to all of them. Um, I just You know, a couple of things, you know, from my own experience that— I grew up in Chicago. I'm in Alaska today. But just my own childhood, I experienced different things with different ethnic groups that as a child, I never used these words, these labels of racism, because I mean, I'll disclose, I came into this world not really able to see color. I just saw things that were happening. For example, and I'm just going to throw this out, I was raised by a father who was a diehard Cubs fan. So I am a diehard Cubs fan. And I have my heritage, my mom's side is Italian. So those Italians came from Italy and bought a gravestone across from Comiskey Park. And so as a young child, I would go to grandma's, and I love spending time with grandma and the Italians, but I'd wear my Cubs t-shirt and my Cubs hat and being in the park playing, uh, with kids who were White Sox fans in a different color. And I would be— they'd throw rocks at me and they would do mean things, you know, throw bottles at me. And my grandma would hear, you know, my yelling and screaming. She'd come out with a broom and she'd sweep these kids of different color and races away from me. But I, I guess for me why I'm bringing this up is, is a different perspective that as, as a little girl I experienced this, but I never thought about it as I was being discriminated or racism. I just viewed it as you're Sox fans, I'm a Cubs fan, and we're having a city fight. that I was told by Grandma, don't wear my Cubs stuff, you know, when I can't come to see her. Your views about, you know, different things about the violence and about how it was brought up about how different families gave up their ethnic to have white privilege. It's an interesting perspective that I need to chew on a little bit more because I don't have that necessarily, that experience. My Italian family may have, because from what I remember as a child, they set up their world as though they were still in Chicago— in Italy, in Chicago. They didn't give up their name. They continued the heritage. And but again, the neighborhoods were so separated where Italians lived here, Irish lived here, Polish lived here, Blacks lived here, Mexicans lived here. You know, type stuff. And it wasn't until maybe I was a teenager or a young adult that I started seeing this type of stuff in the workplace and then taking it into violence. But again, my memories— and I'm just disclosing, I'm not even speaking as a psychologist, I'm speaking as a human being right now— is that it seemed as though somebody told me these things. And then I had to open my eyes instead of feeling that it was true for me in my personal experience. So that's just what I want to add to the table of how many things are— we really experience, or somebody told us this is how we should look at it or perceive things. And that's just what I want to add.

Jess?

Just a real quick follow-up. I had a similar— the language I would use is kind of like a notice that my worldview is different than other folks'. And it involves the Cubs. So I don't know how many years ago, but the Cubs won the World Series, which for those of you like me who don't sportsball is a big deal. And I was living— I was in Phoenix at the time, and my favorite milkshake place gives away— has all these walls that if Cubs ever win the Super Bowl or whatever it was called, they give away free hamburgers. Hello, I'm in Phoenix at the right time. Boom, I'm going there. So I'm standing in line with all these Cubs fans who are talking about goats and green walls, and I have no idea what's happening. And now I want a Baby Ruth, whatever. I just want my milkshake and my hamburger. And it dawns on me in that moment, I don't do sports. I am here for the burger, right? And in that moment is when I realized this is how people feel when I talk about politics. So I am obsessed with politics. I know House bill numbers. I know what's going on. I know that I am courageous and brave, but not enough to run for political office.

Nope.

And when I judge other people for not being in the bucket that I choose as a hobby, it is exactly when they looked at me and asked me sports ball related questions, and I was like, free burgers, that's what I'm here for. Worldview is, um, to use your words, is what you grew up with. It's your own culture. But you can't make the assumption, and we often do because it's easy, to assume that everybody thinks the same thing, right? So, like, everybody likes the same pizza toppings, and that's not the case. So that's when you actually ask, or as Tony Alessandra would say, you would ask, what are your favorite toppings? Do you even like pizza? Then you start engaging in an actual authentic conversation. But you have to first realize that you've just been swimming in your own puddle for a long time. Chris, your hand was up. Sorry to facilitate.

I love the concept of worldview because it's so true. that we all come from our own worldview. In fact, I was saying to somebody the other day, the first civil war was fought between North and South, and now we're in a cold civil war between right and left, which is just worldview, right? And it's difficult because one person believes very, very strongly in a position and the other believes very— but it comes from deeply held rooted beliefs. And so when we talk, it's literally the French talking to the Swedish. They don't understand each other's language, right? And so we need to try to find ways to interpret and understand and hear. And to me, I think you're dead on right there, that it's about worldview. And until we can break down some worldviews and understand there are people that have different worldviews than us and that that's okay, we're never going to be able to bring some unity because it's everybody just staking out their position saying, you've got to come to my side. The other side says, no, you got to come to my side. And therein we, you know, and I want to separate it.

Thanks, Chris. I want to, I want to bring that to a conversation that happened this weekend. Trevor Noah put an Instagram video on about how language, worldview, all of that can play a role in this. And before I do that, I want to refer to one word that we want to think of. A lot of times when people are watching this and they bring their worldview into the conversation, I can't understand why they're doing that. That's how they talk. I don't understand why they're doing that. What we rarely see that person saying is, wow, what would it have taken for that person to do that? So when they see people acting out, protesting, instead of saying, how could they do that?

Why?

The question is pausing and saying, what has happened? that has them making that choice and me making this choice, like, instead of just being judgmental there. So here's what Trevor Noah shared. Trevor Noah shared that the word criminal is now the new way to use prejudice against Blacks instead of saying Black. And in almost every case prior to George Floyd, they would say criminal. They would find something the person had done wrong in their past Some crime they had committed, and they would report this person as a criminal so that people could justify this person being treated horribly. Now, why I find that interesting is, Jess brought up, and a few others of you brought up, we have all committed crimes.

Mm-hmm.

The odds that none of us on this panel have sped, the odds that none of us have done other things even more grievous, but we don't get labeled criminal. necessarily for our lives based on that. But often Black individuals are labeled criminal if they have a criminal past. They're just labeled criminal, and it enables people to think of less value of their life in that moment. So I'm going to open that up. John, you were looking—

Yeah, I, I— look, I understand, uh, what the good Noah is talking about. I have not. And please, and please correct me if I'm wrong. This time it was different. I did not hear anyone say or bring up— and, uh, and if they did, I was, was willing to say, doesn't matter. The man was killed. Period. Cut it out. And I don't think I heard that this time, and that's why this time was different.

As the one who spends probably more time in the conservative world than most here, I can tell you that I don't think that conservatives view that as mutually exclusive. I mean, the fact is, is that George Floyd did hard time for breaking and entering, holding a woman hostage. He was a violent criminal. Now, and, and I think we can all agree on it, it's fact. I also hear conservatives saying it doesn't matter. In this instance, he was murdered.

He was murdered.

I don't know a single conservative that has any other position other than this is a travesty, he was murdered, the police ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And so I don't know necessarily that they're mutually exclusive, um, that you could say that a person has a past but doesn't deserve what happened to them.

Yeah, I, I, I—

Sorry, John, Ilse was waiting prior.

Okay, sure.

Oh, I'm sorry, I cut you off, Ilse.

No, you didn't, you didn't. Um, you know, I'm just— so I'm just thinking about like the word criminal or the word thug, you know, like these are words that have been used whether they're being used by people right now or not, to dehumanize Black people. And I think that this is, that this is one of the travesties that we have in this nation, is that in order to enslave individuals, in order to commit all of the atrocities that we, that, that we have committed in this country, in order for white people to go to a lynching in the morning, And church in the afternoon, you know, or maybe that we have disconnected from our own humanity. Like, what I want to know is, how are you all feeling right now? How are you feeling when you watched, if you could even bear to watch, that video of George Floyd being murdered? Because I know that, you know, my Black friends and community are in pain right now, and I am in pain right now. And so we can come up with all of these different labels that continue to distance us from one another, continue to allow us to create systems and laws that give power to some and disenfranchise others, that if we're not talking right now, about the brutality that is supported by structures and systems in this country, then I think that we're missing the point. And I'm, I'm actually feeling like kind of angry and upset right now because I feel like it's taken us half an hour. And I know that we have different definitions of racism. And so that shapes how we come into the conversation. But to even begin talking about what is going on in this moment, and this is I mean, talk about, you know, talk about not being able to breathe over and over again. The knee that has been on the neck of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color in this country for generations. I think that's where our conversation needs to be centered. And why is it that we as white people have witnessed that and haven't made the changes in our communities, in our own lives, and in the institutions in which we work. In other words, let's look at our circle of influence, white folks. Let's get together and see what we can do to make a change.

John, thank you. And I would like the conversation to go there. Where are we feeling? What are we thinking? Where are we at? And then I'm going to come back to some comments that our viewers are asking to address. So, John, you had your hand up. What are you feeling?

What do you think?

What do we need to do?

I think things have changed. I think that I would respectfully disagree with Ilsa in the sense that I think it's changed with this. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm naive, But I think as a white person, it didn't really hit me until this event. Sadly, sadly enough. And I think things are about to change. One thing is that the— that the— it didn't take weeks for these cops to be fired. fired. It took days, or even less than days. It took hours, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong. My point being is I think it's changed. Change takes time. And thank the good Lord that we are— we white folk now realize and are more sensitive to what our Black brothers and sisters are going through than we ever have before. So that, that would be my response.

And I'd like to discuss what Kelly's saying here because it's a really important discussion. Why did this change? Why, why when we've seen cases of video footage of Black individuals leaving the police, walking away from the police who have been killed, who have been attacked, but they committed a crime, what this plays a role, people will say, but there was a crime. But they were— the police was in— they were in no harm's way. They were not in danger in that moment. The person was unarmed. And people have been killed before this. And I know many people are sitting there going, why this? And that's part of the insult. Part of the insult is that it appears there was really no major crime here. And so now we're okay with the fact that we're outraged. Had he committed a more serious crime, a lot of people wonder if there'd be the same outrage right now, which is very concerning. Because whether you committed a crime or not, you have the rights of not being convicted and having the rights to be treated with civility, respect, value of life. So what about this video? Chris, Christy.

Oh, thanks, Alyssa. I want to share, I can really feel your vulnerability on and and your pain come through, and thank you for sharing that. And to answer your question, Mike, from my view— and again, this is my view— is I believe in 2020 there are so many things being highlighted that we were too busy, just too busy, you know, with our lives, or we ignored, that now because of the series of events That have occurred with coronavirus, us being on pause, people actually seeing things in a brand new light, that this particular situation was highlighted more and more because it was so exaggerated and awful and painful that people saw it and it grabbed their— it grabbed their hearts, it grabbed their minds. To say there is something wrong here, there is something wrong. And it, it had to like slap people to wake them up to say, hey, it's— we need to do something, we need to change, we need to do something. But yet from my view, I don't believe the something is to have looters destroy more things. From my view, it's somehow to have these healthy conversations that we all are having and to have those types of skills to learn how to express in healthy ways instead of destructive ways. That's all I'd like to add.

I'm going to go Chris and then Jess.

Yeah, I, I am— I always try and see things in the most positive light. Um, and so I would say rather than saying, why did it take you so long? I would say, thank God they're finally here.

Finally.

They get it now. Now we can work back. And you know why? Because it was so patently obvious. First time I ever watched it, I said, that guy needs to go to jail. And I am such a hardcore conservative. I'm like right of Attila the Hun. And so, but it's so patently obvious. But once you get that stake in the ground, now you can begin to back up into the things that really are the nuances of it. Um, you know, I think that, uh, for the first time ever, all conservatives are on board with it, at least all the ones I know, and I'm pretty deep into that, that movement. Everybody's saying this is a tragedy, it needs to be punished, you know, etc., etc. I think now we're finally starting to— and I know Jess knows all the numbers and everything of the, of the bills and such, but I hope that eventually we get to talk about the 1994 Crime Bill, which has been one of the most devastating things for African Americans. on so many different levels. But now I think people are starting to go, okay, wait a minute, let's go deal with this systemic racism that is there to whatever degree people might agree on that. But I think everybody agrees that there is some form of it.

Jess?

First off, this is the point in a conversation where we can go this way or this way, and I don't mean it left or right in a political way. I'm going to encourage that we stay on track, Right? So what I mean by this is, is that I could come in historically with people who did nothing and were lynched, shot in the back because they were driving, sleeping, you know, I could do all of that. And it did not— that did not garner long-term change and attention. Like, let us just put an ellipse there, okay? The other piece, and this goes back to what Ilsa was saying, is that in order to dismantle— the language I am going to use is white supremacy. So in order to dismantle white supremacy, which, Chris, if you're saying like the conservatives— and John, even you alluded this too— you don't know any conservatives who are like, that was the right move. So if we have this moment, it is this time that white people need to be having this conversation to make sure that the next time someone is sleeping or eating a snow cone doesn't have to outrage people to this level. Christine, to your piece, what I think is important is I can also historically go back To all the civil discourse or to taking a knee, which is a silent protest. I could go back to these things that then got decentered, so it wasn't effective and it didn't lead to white people hanging in there with this very uncomfortable conversation. Because most of the, the biggest benefit, in my opinion, as a white person, is that the benefit of white privilege is that I don't have to think about it. I already won. And the discomfort is that, oh right, I forgot to think about it again. Oh look, I forgot to think about that again. When my husband told me about, uh, George Floyd, he used the words, I can't breathe, and I thought he was just like reading an old article about Eric Garner, who was, by the way, illegally selling cigarettes. I have done far worse things than illegally selling cigarettes. I'm still alive, right? That's what I mean by we can go exact. So then I thought he was just— I couldn't believe it was the same words in a time, to Christine's point, in a global pandemic where we are struggling to breathe from COVID-19, or we are struggling to breathe because we are wearing masks. There are people who do not look like me that are struggling for their breath to be valued the same. So that's the, that's the piece that needs to happen. It doesn't matter about I mean, I would love to have a conversation about politics, but this isn't political. This is humanity. And what I believe is the retelling that right now, maybe this time is different, is we're going to mentally or emotionally change the channel because we can't stand to be discomforted for a long period of time. But we're alive and breathing while discomforted. If we can stay discomfort— to stay in discomfort, then maybe it'll change. But if I was a little boy walking down the street who was murdered because it was rumored that he flirted with a white woman, as a white woman, I need to be able to pay attention. That happened decades before I was born, and it is still happening, which is why it is a systemic problem. So I just want to make sure that we keep that at the center.

Let's, let's stay there. John, staying in that route, you want to—

Okay. You know, there's an expression in marketing, which is this: it's not about you, it's about the customer. And what does that basically mean? What this event has done is brought home everything that You have said, Jess, and you have said, Ilsa, and you have said, Christine and Chris, which is this was abhorrent. This was awful. This was terrible. But we didn't get it. We white guys and gals, because we didn't see it. We didn't experience it. And that's what marketing is about. And if we take this situation from a marketing point of view, the marketing wins, not the politics wins. The marketing wins because when you talk about the politics, we go to each other's respective corners. Marketing is about satisfying needs. This satisfied the need in our humanity All right, so I want—

thanks, John. I want to ask a question based on that. Why would anybody believe right now, that is an individual who is Black, that we are going to stay in the discomfort 2 weeks from now, a month from now, 6 weeks from now, 2 months from now watching this? What is there to believe that that is true? So I'm asking us as a panel, what are we going to do to make sure that we are not just to do as individuals who are white, who are expressing white perspectives, to stay in the discomfort? What are people on this panel going to do to stay in this discomfort 2 months from now, 6 months from now? I see a lot of hands up. So I'm going to go Jess, Christine, John. Those are the hands I saw go up. So, John.

Sure.

So my ongoing commitment since I realized that uniform connection around not being able to breathe with a mask is that in this moment of emotional rawness and dealing with the pandemic and dealing with my consulting business being frozen and going back to school, every single time I am discomforted by my mask, that is my— that's my little totem, is a reminder that it is a piece of cloth that eventually I will not have to wear, that I only have to wear when I leave the comfort of my home. And that my breath weighs more and matters more in this society. And this is a good reminder. And I'm practicing that loop right now so that when I don't have to wear a mask in public, I might possibly have embedded that as a habit of consciousness, of recognizing that my breath in our society weighs more, it's valued more, and that I need to work to at least be conscious of that, if not Christine.

Hey, one of the things I want to reply to what John said about the marketing, I want to bring— since we're talking about emotions, we're talking about consciousness, my favorite topics as far as with psychology here— the pattern in the pain has, to me, from a psychological view, has become so exaggerated, so exaggerated that we can't ignore it. So that pain, that emotional pain, that mental anguish, that emotional anguish that so many Americans, no matter what race, no matter what political stance that you have, from the marketing perspective— and I like that because of being a business psychologist— is that it comes from that it's in your face. It smacks you in your face. And just like Jess has said about coronavirus, being that it's a respiratory disease that chokes us all. And then we have this exaggeration in consciousness that unfortunately that George Floyd was the human, the human being, that for the rest of us human beings to say, I can't breathe, and then the emotion and the mental anguish takes over. So as far as to me, Because this is something that I preach about a whole lot and teach a whole lot about, is about empathy and assertive empathy. Because as he was asserting himself on that ground and he was asking for empathy, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, and he's asserting under the breath and the pain, and we can all feel it through, through that video. So, to me, my view from a psychological view, is within consciousness to really look at things from an empathetic view. Meaning, let me define empathy. It's not sympathy that I've experienced it myself. It's empathy meaning that I may not have ever experienced it, but I take the time to understand where you're coming from, what you experience, so that I can look at it and adopt something of how you made a decision or how you're experiencing your worldview And why you're feeling a certain way instead of coming across as that's wrong or that's incorrect, or hey, I'm cheering you on because I get it. I want to know. I encourage people to ask more and more questions so that we can understand from each other. And that's all I want to contribute for this morning.

I want to jump in as we move. I'm going to keep going into you, but I do want us to stay on point because we have limited time now in the, in the final 14 minutes. What exactly does that look like? Like, what actions are we taking? Because to say— and Christine, I agree with you, we want to be more empathetic, but what does that look like? So will you put a sign up in your house when you walk in the door that says, I can't breathe? So every day you think, wow, oh, that's right, I need to remember right now. Or will it be in the mirror of my bathroom? Are we, as individuals who are white, reading books that help us understand what we don't understand, what we don't know? Because one thing I— if you watch last week's panel, one thing that I made sure of was that it was not a panel about asking Black people how to solve the problem, because there's massive problems with that approach, turning to and expecting, hey, my Black friends, tell me what I need to do to solve the problem when they're the ones facing the problem, right? And it's being caused by others. So I want us to be really deliberate in what we're going to do. Like, I'll name an example. After last week's panel, I downloaded the book White Fragility. So I could— because it was the most common book I saw being recommended by individuals, so I could dive in and start to get a perspective, because we don't know what we don't know. And I'm going to— I want to stop acting like I know what I don't know, right? There's a huge difference in that concept. So I'm asking the group to really go as specific as possible. What are we going to do? And I said the order before, so John's still to go, then Ilsa, then Chris.

Okay.

When they say it's not about the marketing, it's about the marketing. And, uh, what does that mean? It means that you have to get into the heads of people, uh, that are going to interact with, uh, Black folk, uh, every day. And, uh, what that's that's going to mean is not flowery, um, aversive, uh, remembrances that are going to magically make them change. It's going to have to be messages that resonate with this— with the crowd that we're going to target. And what that basically means is, number one, an advertising campaign that starts with Focus groups. What is the messaging and what is the ad campaign going to look like that not the— we 6 people on this panel think it should be, but what's going to make sense to the people who are interacting? Now, in the '60s, what they did is a lot of research and what they— on racism. And one of the things they found was that racism decreased when people interacted more with different groups of people. So, Black people are blank didn't resonate if you had a friend who was Black or Indian or whatever it was, so that the more interaction you had with people that were the target of the racism, the less free— the less likelihood that you would be racist.

So, John, in that remark, John, I hate to interrupt, but due to time, I need to interrupt.

Okay.

Sorry.

Are you—

but I want to ask you, So you're a marketing person. Are you someone that's saying, hey, Mike, I'm going to bring on more of the Black voice so the marketing can be heard, so the reach can be heard, uh, through your show and through your publications and through your distribution?

Oh, well, I, I'm doing it already. Um, I, I, I can say that when I was 5 years old, 10 years old, 18, uh, maybe 15, I maybe had one Black friend. Today I have— I can't even count how many Black friends I have. And the thing, the point I'm trying to make is it's just natural. It's just a natural development. And I'm—

And John, I want to thank you because I didn't ask that meant aimed at you, by the way. I meant that for everybody also listening to think, what am I doing with my channels? What am I doing with my broadcast? What am I doing? And so I should have phrased it that way too. Okay, Ilsa, you were up next.

Yeah, you know, I love the question because I do think that, you know, Black people have no reason to trust that we're really going to change given the history. And so, and for me, I get so much out of the system as it is in opportunity that I need constant reminders. I love, you know, John, you talking about what you can do within your sphere of influence. Just the mask as the reminder, I think is such a powerful thing. I'm going to do that too. One of the things that I know that we as white people need to get better at, and I myself need to get better at, is listening. So, you know, I'm listening to Kendrick Lamar singing, sit down, be humble, every day, right? Like, we just need to, like, check our, you know, check our hubris in this moment and say, what do I not understand? How can I be a better listener?

listener.

Lots of ways, but if we try to do it alone or just within, you know, just within like our typical, you know, circles, we're not going to get there. We need support in this. We need to support one another. Like, I'd love to stay connected with all of you, you know, like accountability buddies, you know, 6 months from now, what have you done today, right? What have you done 2 years from now so that we can continue to check in, and there's a couple of outlets for that, um, for white folks. So I want to name this specifically for other white people wanting to take action and stay connected and be in community of people that are following the lead of people of color. Contact SURJ, surj.org. It stands for Showing Up for Racial Justice, and it's a national organization of white people across the country that are showing up in the ways that people of color are asking us to. We need to continue to educate ourselves. I want to just call out Ijeoma Oluo's book, So You Want to Talk About Race. Heard it's sold out. All the anti-racism books are sold out right now across the country. That gives me hope. And listen to Scene on Radio's podcast, Seeing White, if you really want to understand about the history and context. Like, we need to get ourselves educated as white people. And so that's something that I'm continuing to do and continuing to educate myself. And so just to reemphasize that, like, pause and listen, but don't use that as an excuse to not speak up.

Thank you, Ilse. Great resources. I did put SURJ out on the— to the comments too, so people could see it there. So thank you. Chris, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I guess I don't disagree, but I think there's more to it in regard to marketing. When, when, John, you talk about marketing, that certainly has to happen. You have to change hearts. You have to change hearts, but you also have to change laws.

Yes.

And that's where I think everything is politics. I think everything can be traced back to politics and the decisions that are made by our lawmakers. That's how it becomes systemic. Systemic racism. When I look at the 1994 crime bill, minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, disparity in crack cocaine versus cocaine powder, civil asset forfeiture, eliminated education funding from incarcerated students, and $9.7 billion federal prison construction bill, those are the kinds of things that create systemic, that last for a long time, And it doesn't matter how many blackout square pictures we put in our Instagram or any of those kinds of things until those laws are changed. Now, as a conservative, I want to say this. We are often given a bad rap. And, and if you said, hey, who are the, who are the racists, conservatives or liberals? People would say, oh, it's the conservatives. That was the 1994 crime bill. And Joe Biden called it the Biden crime bill, and he was— that was his pinnacle of his legislation career. And I'm not— I'll just let people deal with it as they want. I am telling you, from the conservative movement, from everybody that I've ever interacted with, we want equality. We may disagree on how to get there, but I believe this opens us up to discussion about how to get there. And I would hate for this to be lost, this opportunity for us to be able to come together and for conservatives to be able to be brought to the table rather than ostracized as sort of the default, well, the conservatives are the racists. I probably have all sorts of things that I do that would stipulate racism. I certainly hope that I don't. I don't want to. This issue is extremely important to me. I have a 7-year-old half-Black grandson and a 3-year-old, 4-year-old half-Black granddaughter. I may not have your experience, But that doesn't mean this isn't extremely important to me.

And we— thank you, Chris. And we are missing representation today. In many ways, we're missing representation. But there's a major one that is missing. And that is there are people who do not— everybody on here has expressed empathy today. There are still a significant number of people in this country who they are not expressing empathy right now. They are not feeling empathy. They have— you talked about hearts, Chris. Their hearts don't care about this. I'm not saying it doesn't care about other human beings, their own children. People say, but they're great parents. But they don't care about an entire group of individuals based on programming they received at whatever point in their life that occurred. And that's a whole nother element that, that subtly can show up. Right. So there's the extreme, which people use the word white supremacy as only extreme, but there's subtleties of it that show up every day. Right. And so the question is, how do we all call that out now as we move forward? Because if we're not calling that out, those people's voices get equally strong and they get into more hearts. So we have to call that out so that there's less hearts being impacted by that. That's the last question I want to leave the group on to as we go around here, and then we'll wrap up.

Yeah, I like to, I like to respond to what you just said. People are self-interested. It's not that we don't care; we're just interested in our own lives. And it's only after we have been exposed to this kind of hate, all right, vis-à-vis the video, that we want to do something.

So John, I got hate interrupt because I said I would interrupt.

Sure.

The time I've got interrupt. I'm referring to the person who has seen the video. And is not in a place of empathy. They are still pushing back. They are still expressing strong racist beliefs, and I'm referring to that person. But that person gets there with with what people would call subtleties in the early process, and they get more extreme as they go. So I want to be fair, John. I agree with you that this extreme has awoken many people, but I'm referring to the person here. who this did not awake, and what are the rest of us going to do as white individuals when we hear these individuals? Yes, Christy.

Okay, I'd like— Chris, I love what you brought up about laws and policies. One of the things, because empathy, again reiterating, this is something I teach over and over and over about using the emotional intelligence model. Part of, from my view, is I like that I believe that I see so many times that whatever reasons certain policies, laws were created, they served a purpose at a moment in time, but they do not match human behavior or human consciousness about where we've evolved to. So those things need to be revisited. And to your point, Mike, how do you get people to be more empathetic? It's a great question because it's something that I've been looking to solve myself because it's, it's very something I'm very active in. Part of it is, is that what I personally do in my world is constantly inviting people, constantly inviting people to groups, webinars that I'm doing when I'm talking about these topics. And I give people, just like you're doing right now, Mike, free will to share after I share a story. And give people listening to different views so they experience it. They get to try it on. It's not forced at them. It's not a mental exercise. It's more of a kinesthetic exercise of feeling, you know, how it feels to be empathetic and to be understood for being different or coming to the table in a way that, hey, I never thought of that view. So that's just one area. that I'm personally doing. But I think on a global, national level, we need to revisit things.

And I don't—

I'm not the person who knows all these policies and laws like some of you folks do, is look at how are these laws, policies matching human behavior, matching the consciousness of where we're moving to. And that's all I'd like to say to give somebody else time.

Jess? I would just add That my learning curve takes time, and in my learning curve, that time people are hurting, people are dying, people are suffering while I'm learning. That's what privilege means, right, is that I can read books and watch podcasts, and Ilsa has a great book, Chris has a great book, I have a great book. We can do this. We can think about it however we want to. But while we're learning, people are dying. For no reason at all other than they are perceived to be not white. And I, I hear that like we should hang in there and like create a book club, but I just want to notice that like, yes, do that, and notice while you're doing that, that is seen as a condescending little comfortable effort that we are doing out of our privileged place. while people are dying. The contrast of a book club and death needs to be centered. And so empathy should not be a heavy lift. That's, that's the key piece. Keep learning and do it as quickly and as deeply as we can so that, to Chris's point, all of us are benefiting from whiteness in a system that is made for whiteness. Both Republicans, liberals, libertarians, People who don't care about the Cubs or politics, if you are perceived as white, you are benefiting from the system. Get your learning curve on because other people who aren't are dying.

Thank you, Jess. Ilsa, you had your hand up.

Yeah, um, love you, Jess. And I, um, you know, I think that, um, we don't have to wait for those people that you're talking about, Mike, to change their minds in order to change the laws and policies in this country. So, yes, as white people, we have a unique opportunity because we're the ones that can have conversations with the white supremacists in our family about why they need to change their mind, with our teenage sons who could be radicalized by watching YouTube videos about what this means, right? Like, so we have a unique opportunity Because those folks aren't talking to people of color, right? So yes, great. So let's start with, you know, in those conversations, take every, you know, get uncomfortable ourselves. Stop worrying about whether or not I might lose a friend or you might not like me, right? And just have that hard conversation, but start it with listening. Start it with finding out where is this person coming from, what has shaped their worldview, and then ask questions that get them to interrogate that worldview themselves. But let's not wait, as Jess is saying, for those folks to change their mind before we start making the change that the Movement for Black Lives is asking for. And we can easily go to the Movement for Black Lives website right now to find out what the demands are, and then each of us can think about what we can do to help to realize that new reality that we want to live into, to live up Thank you, Ilse.

I appreciate it. Another resource that's fantastic for everybody to consider and to go look at. What I want to do is give everybody 30 seconds to wrap today's panel on. I'm going to go reverse of what we just did since we just heard voices. I'm going to go reverse. So the order, just so everybody's aware, and ironically this is going down— ironically it's going down political sides, but it's just where the voices came from. That's not intentional here.

So because for those of you who are on the phone, I'm We going to start with never—

you, Ilse.

by the way, I love that we never really identified. I think Chris is the only one who identified, but who was leaning more political way, I think people can watch by expressions of views. I think we expressed our point of views in ways that people figure that out. But so we're going to start with John, then Chris, then Christine, then Jess, then Ilsa. That's the reverse of how the voices were last heard. So John, we'll come back to you for 30 seconds.

Okay. Well, all I would like to say is that is key here is marketing, despite what you may think, because even though you— we want people to be motivated by the best of motivations, it doesn't work that way. As a psychologist, I know it doesn't work that way, and what we have to do is, uh, basically, uh, get people to think about racism a little bit more. And you don't do that by making people feel guilty. You do that by giving it a benefit. You will feel better about that. That's what I think.

Chris?

I'd like to say, uh, I'd like to challenge people to give conservatives a chance to have the voices heard in the middle of this. Malcolm X said that liberals, white liberals, are like foxes. They will pretend to be your friend and then they'll eat you. He also said that white conservatives are like wolves, they'll just eat you. But I think that there have been some changes. I think that there's been some changes, and I'm as deep into this. I ran for the United States Senate, I ran the biggest conservative website on Facebook. I know this, and I do believe that there's been enlightenment. I believe more than ever conservatives and those who are seeking racial justice and equality are closer than ever. Maybe not close, but closer than ever. So don't reject people out of hand just because of a traditional bias. Hear all voices. I hope that I've been a good representation today of the conservative voice that is both politically conservative but also compassionate and empathetic. I'll just close with my favorite little song from Sunday school, Red and yellow, black and white, they are all precious in his sight. I believe that and I think we all need to get back to that.

Christine?

What I'd like to leave with is, from my view, is I love the saying, be open to what you don't know and own it. Also, I hear people say, I'm very self-aware. The moment I hear somebody say that, You run into me and I will, I will show you empirically how you're not. And I'm not looking to make anybody wrong, okay? But I'm a psychologist and I work with this all the time. And I'm a business psychologist, so I work with people to help them see what they can't see for themselves. So take the opportunity to see for yourself what you can't see and be open to it because it will expand your consciousness. It'll expand your views, it'll expand your empathy, and have some humor with it because we've all been there about doing silly dumb things. And be human and take away the labels. Even though I will disclose on here, I, I slant more towards the right, but I'm a small business, so I'm far more like a right libertarian type. So it's something for me that open your hearts, open your minds, Stop doing things such as, you don't agree with me, I unfriend you on Facebook. Learn to have a conversation that makes you uncomfortable and take yourself to a new level of growth, because you may find that the person who communicates differently than you wants the same thing as you, and you can come up with solutions together. Jess?

My parting words would very simply be Black Lives Matter. Black trans lives matter. Black men matter. Black women matter. Black gender nonconforming people matter. These lives matter. Nobody deserves to die for any kind of pain or suffering. No one deserves to die. Black lives matter.

Ilsa?

Again, like white folks, one, just Just get in touch with how, how you're feeling. Like, think about what is happening. Stop going so quickly to your head and like intellectualizing everything. And then find out what Black people, what Indigenous people, what Asian people who are being targeted by hate crimes because of the coronavirus are asking of us right now. And do Something. Take action within your sphere of influence by following the lead of people of color. And to echo Jess, Black Lives Matter. Check out the Movement for Black Lives and start there.

I want to thank all of you. Jess, Christine, John, Chris, Ilsa, thank you. This, you know, when I was putting this together, there was backlash coming in just putting this together. I'm sure you can all wear from all sides because people do not want to engage in a cross-sectional conversation right now, and we're struggling with that. And there were some struggles today. You're going to see comments for the panels who couldn't see all the comments. There was some upset. There was some hurt in today. And so I invite everybody to not only if you haven't seen the whole video, watch it, but go watch the comments. Read the comments. I could only put up what I was able to find. And I didn't want to interrupt certain trains of thoughts at the same time, uh, so I was trying to do my best there. But I invite everybody to read through the comments, and you will see diversity of thought there too, uh, and some brilliant points. And that's what we need— more, more voices, more voices being heard and valued and treated with love. I ask everybody watching, please lead with love. Love does not have room for hate. Lead with love. And if, if you're going, well, this, this form, this is love, tough love. No, no, love, not tough love, love. That's my invitation to everybody out there. Please lead with love and respect for every human being. Thank you all.

Thanks, Mike.

All right, thank you.

It's good meeting you all.