 Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us here at the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ for this live Streamed event. My name is the Reverend Ken Salati, and I serve here as the conference minister And I'm here today with a national faith leader and our anti racism advocate the Reverend Shonda Ronnie Jha welcome Reverend Jha. Thanks so much Reverend Jha is a Distinguished author and a trainer for anti racism and anti oppression work And she also serves as the director of interfaith programs at the East Bay housing Organizations, and I learned earlier today that she's also the director of the Oakland Peace Center And that's a really interesting place a collective of 40 different organizations working for peace in the Oakland, California area She has both her master of divinity and master of public policy from the University of Chicago Reverend Jha's most recent book is titled pre post racial America, and it pursues a Biblical perspective on the importance of understanding races other than our own and the stories that they weave I'm also really happy today to be joined by my colleague the Reverend Day McAllister and For her work in racial justice ministries We want to thank Reverend Jha for being here and to celebrate the work and the legacy on this Particular weekend that we're headed into the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior weekend this event would not have been possible without a partnership that we have with the United Congregational Church of Tallinn Reverend Jha will be in Tallinn on this coming Sunday Preaching at the 10 a.m. Service leading a second-hour conversation and then an afternoon training So doing lots of work here, and we're so glad you have literally just jetted in from Bradley Into Bradley Airport to join us for this live conversation again. Thank you for being here today So I'd like to start out with the first question Reverend Jha Could you tell us a little bit about what precipitated your? Interest and I'm sure your passion for anti-racism work. Yeah, so My father is from India my mother's from Scotland and so there's there's a little bit of I grew up in an interfaith house in an interracial house and We moved to the States when I was a toddler we moved to Akron, Ohio and to be Not necessarily white not necessarily black In an environment where that was the entire conversation. I think forced me to start thinking what does that what does that mean? The first time I ever heard any reference to an Indian In school was when we were studying Martin Luther King when I was in fourth grade And they talked about how Martin Luther King had been influenced by Mahatma Gandhi And when I was in first grade my father had made me go to see the movie Gandhi all three hours of it So there was this notion of okay the stories. I've been learning up to this point. They're not exactly my stories This story over here. It's connected to my story and what does that mean? So I guess very very early on I started realizing there was something about people of color solidarity in understanding the response to anti-blackness and Fostering up the dignity of black people that my story as As a very very light-skinned but person of color needed to wrestle with so I think that's actually where it all started So that passion that was developed that really started emerging at a young age Yeah, has certainly been with you throughout your life and in your thesis work entitled Public goods public bads and the common good and the common burden You talk about the connections the sort of intersectionality between environmental racism public policy and theological ethics and I wonder if you could talk with us a little bit about that intersectionality. Yeah, absolutely. So a Lot of the work I do these days is around faith-rooted organizing this notion that the Organizing work that we do as people of faith isn't just about the numbers we can contribute You know all of the church folks that can show up, but actually Starting at the roots of what is distinctly valuable about our faith traditions and how that can actually Contribute to good public policy. So I used to talk about kind of fostering up a grassroots Theology so that the voices of people on the margins could be heard more and more I realized there's a connection between the theological roots of our faith and Shaping public policy. So for me, that's kind of where that intersection is showing up more and more It's the way that we engage each other That shapes the way we create public policy. The fact of the matter is our faith traditions demand that we start from the margins and Similarly the best public policy solutions that we have witnessed regarding homelessness regarding Anti-racism regarding racial justice have started from the margins So I think that's a place of real intersectioner theology teaches us how to do policy. Well, so given that that need that Declaration requirement that we start from the margins. Yeah, what's the role of the church in this work? Especially here in New England where we often see ourselves as being at the center What right you grow can play when there's that juxtaposition between where we see ourselves and where the work should begin And I think that that's theological work as well I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you're willing to but for my vantage point This is a really important theological task. We have I think in some ways we lost our Direction as a faith when we Started positioning ourselves to be a faith of the center when in fact everything about Jesus teachings Everything about the Hebrew Bible leading up to that we're always from the margins and Always about listening to the voices of the oppressed first and foremost I don't think we worship an unbiased God. I don't think we worship a God who loves Everyone equally God loves everyone But God Loves people on the margins more maybe because they need it more, but regardless I don't think we worship an unbiased God and so to have a faith that strives to be at the center is Counter to what we're called to What do you all think? Do you are you willing to respond as well? I? Think that's a very intriguing even that phrase that we don't serve an unbiased God I can imagine the ripples that that's creating in our in our audience because there's often this Confluence between the ideas of fairness and justice yeah, right that in order to be just it must be fair But those two things are not equal right and so this this idea that God is Concerned with those who are suffering and who are press is certainly present in our narratives and something that we Preach about and everyone's gonna hear tomorrow You know Sunday morning and Monday morning as we talk about King and we talk about the arc of justice Yes, you know which is bent towards a particular community, but to say it in that succinct way We don't worship an unbiased God. I'm gonna kick that over to you sir So I do think that Certainly the message of scripture and one can't read scripture without seeing some of that bias revealed So I think biblically there certainly is some Warrant for that the idea that if we were to remove the passages of God's preference for those on the margins We wouldn't have much left to our scriptures. So I think there's good theological and biblical warrant for that I think it's intriguing. I'm certainly sure that we'll get some reaction. Yeah from from folks I want to I want to take a step back if we could for a minute and and think about our current moment in time Because clearly within the culture of the United States There is lots of attention being paid to the issues of racial justice of anti-racism work And also the Black Lives Matter movement, which is a very important movement in our culture right now today We have a two-term by racial president Serving but we know what the current campaign culture is expressing and that there are Certainly strains and even loud proclamations that are xenophobic in nature So recognizing kind of where we are in the culture of the United States right now today What do you think is or is there a correlation between having a person of color Serving as our president and an increase in this kind of divisive language that we witness in the public sphere Yeah, so and that's an interesting way of framing it because I think We We sometimes talk about it that way But what I think is true is it has surfaced what was already there And and there's very often this notion in polite society that if we don't talk about it it doesn't exist and I think all of us know that that's not true and having having the president we've had has Forced us to wrestle with the fact that there was some ugliness Buried beneath the surface that a lot of people were not witness to You had mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement and I certainly hear on more than I have heard on more than one occasion I imagine both of you have as well If you keep talking about it That's part of what causes the problem talking about the racial divides talking about police brutality talking about those things is Contributing to the problem if we just didn't talk about it the problem wouldn't be there but I think For people of color who experience That on a daily basis the fact that it's being talked about is the only way it's going to be changed So there's the tension between the people who didn't realize that that was an ongoing struggle Who would rather it not exist and therefore think the solution is to not talk about it versus The people who always knew it was there who lived with the direct impacts of it. Although. I do think racism impacts everybody I suspect we'll talk about that later So I think it has unearthed some things that we wish weren't true About America it's part of the reason I called the book pre-post racial America is up until Michael Brown's death There was a lot of conversation in the mainstream media about how we live in a post racial America And I was very troubled by that and troubled by the fact that we would aspire to that actually because I think that When in the book of Genesis when God said we will make humankind in our own image God refers to God's self in the plural which to me implies the plurality of humanity is Representative of the beauty of God and homogenizing that into one thing isn't a victory and it isn't in line with Who God wants us to be as we? embody God in the world, so I Was concerned about that language about post racial America and wanted to highlight the fact that a we're not there and B it may not be what we want to aspire to so all of the divisive and ugly language I Think is just Finally unearthing something that was there and needed to be unearthed in order for us to resolve it Which makes this an exciting moment as terrifying as that language is to hear It's an exciting moment because we finally can confront Face-to-face what is most deeply broken in this country. Thank you For that I do want to push a little bit yeah a few places in your response one I think there is Sometimes this tendency to look at this language and to consider it in a binary that they're those who are not Directly experiencing racism who prefer silence and those who are yes Who prefer to be some sort of vocal response? But I've heard more often than not in the movement that your silence will not keep you safe Right individuals of color who say look talking about this is making it more dangerous for us Yeah, our children and that there is this sort of Larger discourse that silence is the best way to go right that these Voices that few years ago We would have called extreme that have now moved into the mainstream because there is an appetite for that discourse There are a lot of people who see themselves as progressive who say you know we shouldn't talk about this We shouldn't engage it that giving it more airtime is only amplifying it was just ignore this But the polls show us this is an opportunity for conversation and I think that's what I hear you say yeah I think that's right and I We probably shouldn't go down the road of the conversation unpacking respectability politics It's a really big issue of conversation where I live in Oakland in the activist community and I Think there's a lot of I often hear people saying if only You wouldn't be so antagonistic in the way that you address these things you would achieve more But the fact of the matter is For many of us and the UCC is a great example of this for decades have been politely and consistently raising these issues with no traction Right and so this notion of by being antagonistic by being loud by being in your face by being In the streets that's problematic because the way to get things done is by being polite by being respectful by Speaking in a way that we can be heard by powerful people in society It's clearly not true It's completely inconsistent. I mean how wonderful is it for all of us to be having this conversation During Martin Luther King junior week. Yeah, we look back now at those marches and see them as these peaceful Non-confrontational We we cut to the parts where people are locked arms and arms and they're singing and we say see this is the way to do it But everything about those marches was disruptive everything about using young bodies to fill jails You know the point of overflow so that it Absolutely halted everything else that happened in the society everything about having a boycott that literally bought the economic structure of a You know at the time a major hub in the United States to a halt was Disrupted and so the disruption looks different now when people are walking into the middle of a street or when people are Halting traffic and we haven't gone through the the steps of getting a permit in order to be able to march and we haven't told Folks in advance. This is how many people. Yep, but in many ways we Systematized the disruption and now people are agitated that we remove that and gone back to the true nature Advocacy which is disruptive and you're spot-on because the exact same accusations that are being leveled against our brothers and sisters in the Black Lives Matter movement are word for word what people were saying about dr. King in the day And I think we have so whitewashed his legacy that we forget how Threatening he he was Experienced as by people who were trying to do things in the polite respectable way then. Yeah. Yeah, thank you Well, there's a lot more that we could we could certainly say about that And I know we don't want to get too deep into respectability politics because that opens a whole another can of worms But I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about the struggle as you've seen it for churches to reclaim that Theological heritage that is rooted in our engagement in these issues I don't know about How this plays where you are, but sometimes we hear a kind of bifurcation of our role like the role of the church's worship and Reggie and engagement and then on this other side is social justice and you kind of got to choose But there's not an intersectionality between the two. They're not inherently married one to the other It was a sort of a social justice church, right and the real church, right? So I wonder how in your conversations with folks What are you hearing on the ground about how people are walking that line or refusing to engage in that binary at all? Yeah, and it's interesting that you mentioned that because at the at the Oakland Peace Center and If you'll give me just 30 seconds, please I was the pastor of first Christian Church of Oakland for seven years Tiny little congregation in a 40,000 square foot building But most of those folks had grown up in Oakland and knew the impact of violence And so we figured out what we could do with that building was to transform it into a space in an incredibly expensive place To incubate nonprofits that were dedicated to ending violence ending economic violence ending spiritual violence ending violence in the streets ending state-sanctioned violence all of that and the reason I mentioned that is The Oakland Peace Center was set up as an educational 501c3. It wasn't set up as a religious institution But all of the activists who are a part of it Are there because they need their spiritual selves filled Now I mentioned that because I've spent a lot of my time talking about why the church needs to pay attention to Social justice as part of its obligation to God But I'm finally beginning to realize I just turned 40 Which means I'm now older than Martin Luther King was when he died and so finally at this point in my life I'm beginning to realize It goes both directions the people in the streets need the spiritual Nurture and nourishment and encouragement that the church can offer and the church needs the courage and The the boldness That the activists in our community can lead us into and I think there's a mutual benefit To that intersection and it doesn't need just doesn't just need to be the church needs to do both things It's about communities coming together and feeding each other It's not everybody's gonna be an activist not everyone's gonna be a mystic But when the activists and the mystic are supporting each other They both benefit and so does the world around them And if I can give a shout out to a UCC church that's doing that really well I'm just about to become a member at First Congregational Church of Oakland Yeah, and they are just they're a lady led congregation there Yeah, they are they're a layman congregation. They So they they take seriously their role in the priesthood of all believers. They have deeply Spiritual borderline Pentecostal worship on a Sunday morning and they're shutting down the the streets because they're advocating for A number of them got arrested in solidarity with the Black Friday 14 who had been Arrested for shutting down the public transit system on Friday after Thanksgiving They're living all of that and they know that they need Jesus In order to have the energy and the courage to do that work for God's justice in the streets and if we had more time we would love to talk about the Use of buildings Continuing the work particularly social justice work that's going on in your community So we have a question that's coming from our live audience and we're gonna turn to our colleague behind the camera Eric Anderson who's gonna ask that question Eric actually, I'm passing along a comment it is a Thank you from from this person. You may have heard of this name is John Dorhauer. We have heard of him For those of you who are now familiar that is the general minister and president of the United Church of Christ And I'm passing along his thank you for the call for the mystic and the activist to be in mutual support of one another Nice. I wondered When you made that comment if that was a good segue into our vision and mission here in the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, which is Interdependence and this this idea that it is because we've taken the role of the church of the center that we sometimes Think of engagement as what we can provide for them What others provide for us and the mutuality in those relationships so to our general minister and president's point Could you speak about the the ways in which an Interdependent relationship between mystic and advocate can benefit the larger public sphere. Yeah, absolutely and I love the fact that you connected that to mission because one of my favorite quotes from Alan Rocksburg is a missional ministry guru and And he talks about missional ministry as not so much What is the community's need that we can provide for but where is God already at work in our neighborhood? So that we can join in and participate and what I love about that is I'm a huge fan of this notion of our Churches need to support each other. We need to be in covenant with each other We need to deepen our relationships with each other, but I don't think it stops at churches with churches I mean, I think it's churches and synagogues and mosques Particularly right now If we want to be counter-cultural to the prevailing Ugliness and hatred that we're hearing in political arenas, but more than that. I think there is something powerful about Paying attention to what's going on in the neighborhood around us non-church related and figure out how to be in Relationship with the people in our neighborhood who are doing they might not call it God's work But who are doing that work of justice and healing and creating wholeness in a fragmented world, right? So as I've traveled about churches, that's one of the conversations with leaders That we're having is being able to go out into the community not wait for people to come to us Which is kind of what we have as a traditional practice. We're nice to people when they find us But going out into the community and asking, you know, what's happening here? Where is God present and then finding new partners partners? We may never have thought of before not that we have the answers But we want to find the answers together with people working for what as you said not maybe not religious Practices are put it in that terminology, but we're making an impact Because we believe that the connection between Interdependence and impact you keep we're asking the question about how are we connected? But then what do we do? Yes when we wake up to the reality that we are all connected What is the impact we can make in the communities where we find ourselves and what I think is exciting about this particular moment is I grew up in an era where In order to be a good progress Well, we didn't even say progressive to be a good liberal Christian you didn't talk about your faith because that would be disrespectful and dishonoring What I love about this moment is we get to bring our whole selves and for me That's a Christian self a person whose best friend is Jesus and Who was shaped by? Hinduism as well from her father But the fact that when we're doing that work We don't have to check our faith at the door in order to partner with Non-religious partners that we get to all of us bring our whole selves Which I think is liberating to a lot of folks who have only been allowed to be their secular selves To be given permission to also bring their spiritual selves into the work. It's a whole different way of being It's a much more interconnected way of being within ourselves as well as in partnership with each other Absolutely It in many ways it sort of models the dialogue we're having here about Interdependence that we are not these bifurcated cells where this one part of me can be fed without the other part I'm meeting nourishment or being aware that nourishment is not happening And so how do we look at not only ourselves as an integrated persons But also our communities as integrated where the strength and weakness of one another is a part of the larger Public sphere and our search to your point for the common good Exactly There's a wonderful biblical passage that talks about the gifts of God being given to us for the common good But what I loved in your thesis was this idea of the common burden, right? That it's easy for us to speak about the good Here's the benefit right of us all being in it together I wonder if you could say a little bit about the common So my master's thesis was kind of a joint public policy MDiv thesis and I wanted to tap into those intersections. So within the policy arena They talk about public goods and public bads and sometimes negative externalities so if a if a factory shows up and starts polluting the river well That's a public bad that impacts the entire community. It's And I think there's a theological parallel that can help us figure out how to navigate public goods and public bads and Those are and that's this notion of the common good the common burden I think is that recognition that There are there are burdens that are sometimes born more significantly by one part of the population than another That if we were practicing our faith with consistency would be shared more broadly And I think what's important about that particularly in this country is We've been shaped very much if you'll forgive me by What I call the myth of independence the notion of individualism is almost absent from the Bible and the way we in the United States have been trained to read the Bible we see Individualism even when it's not in the text the perfect example of that is the Lord's prayer our father who art in heaven Everyone I know in every church. I've worked in thinks of that as a prayer between me and God even though it says our father and That's an illustration of the fact that the the context in which the Bible was written was Communitarian the assumption was we were always going to be focused on the communal good and the well-being of each individual within the community Mattered but it mattered in so far as we were talking about the community And how we shared the challenges that we faced as a community I think that matters a lot in a country that perpetuates this notion of Individualism and then within our congregations and I can say this as a disciples pastor I don't want to speak about the UCC we will write this notion of congregational autonomy translating to Pastor can't tell me what to do instead of this notion of We as a community are discerning together what God is calling to be calling us to be in this particular place in time In connection with one another So I wonder I'd like to talk a little bit about the context of Connecticut The state in which you currently are in And like to talk about our realities here because that's one of the things that Seems to me both the blessing and challenge of living in a state such as ours that Just to read a couple of statistics. I don't want to throw statistics at you But I want to share a couple of those where it's been confirmed by the economic analysis and research network That Connecticut has the largest gap in economic Inequalities between the one percenters of which we've heard a lot of and the bottom 99% Connecticut's top 1% wage earners average 2.7 million dollars a year compared to the average of 52,000 for the rest of the taxpayers The ratio is 51 to 1 So the Connecticut conference our conference has someone who works in the Connecticut Legislature Michelle Newdrick is her name. She's our legislative advocate who does work Lobbying for the common good and I think addressing the common burdens of which you speak So hearing a little bit about our particular context are there policy reforms or initiatives that You're aware of that could increase our impact on the marginalized communities That are trying to make it in our time There certainly are but what I find If you feel forgive me and this is clearly another way that you can see I've aged I used to have all of the specific policies. I've transitioned into thinking much more about the process Yeah, and I'm really struck by the fact that Policies that involve the voices of impacted communities Tend to have different results and tends to have more sustainable results over time there's You all are not super far from Massachusetts. You may have heard about the Dudley Street neighborhood initiative in Boston about I think it's about 35 years ago now a Very some very wealthy foundations came together and Gathered together all the nonprofits in the Dudley Street neighborhood, which was a very economically struggling community mostly immigrants Central American Caribbean Islanders African-American and They were having this big conference to figure out how to solve the problems of the Dudley Street neighborhood And these were folks with who had access to great wealth Working with the service providers for that community now a couple of folks from the neighborhood heard about this conference and showed up for it and One of them raised her hand an African immigrant Muslim woman raised her hand and said It's funny the way all of you keep talking about our neighborhood without talking to the neighborhood and The Dudley Street neighborhood initiative fast-forward 35 years is considered kind of a benchmark for how community development can be done, right because We assume that by talking to and I assume often that by talking to the nonprofits I'm talking to the community and that's not always the case So they actually developed a community strategy that was driven completely by the people who lived in that neighborhood They came up with completely different solutions for how to create that neighborhood in a way that would help economic thriving and It's this model for how community development can be done, right and for some reason We keep relying on the experts in community development initiatives all over the country instead of just using that old-fashioned wisdom of Even though it's slower at first working with the people who actually live there and responding to their articulated needs And dreams. Thank you. Eric. I think we've got another question from our audience we do this one is a question from another member of our staff Debbie Kirk and it's in reference to a program on your website that's about Urban peace work trips and she's interested in learning more about that program I thought it might be related to what you were just talking about and she's particularly wondering if this is something available to young people Groups or the intergenerational groups or it absolutely is yeah, in fact So the Oakland Peace Center hosts these urban peace work trips where youth groups adult service groups can come into the community It's got a slightly different focus than your average work trip it is intentionally designed for people to get to work alongside our partners so that they can learn the ways that We within the community are actually responding to situations of violence and economic challenges So that people can bring that wisdom back home with them So the idea is you come you do some great work for a week We really appreciate that service, but the purpose of that week is to actually learn Skills and ways of understanding the world that are transferable back home. There was a group that came from a Very wealthy town in Colorado and when we came when we started out the week I said describe the ideal community and they said our community And by the end of the week when we talked about the ideal community It had a little bit of a mixture of what was going on in Oakland And also they had started to recognize that just because issues of economic inequality were buried in Their small and relatively wealthy town didn't mean they weren't there so they could go back home With an eye to recognizing those things. I like to think of it as a little bit of a matrix trip Once once you enter it. You can't unsee it. You can't go back And you see the world a different way as a result Yeah We have some similar language that we use in our racial justice Ministry which is if you can't see racism if you can't feel it if you can't hear it Then you have no opportunity to stop it right the first goal in our training is to unmask racism Unmasking the economic realities that exist not just somewhere else in some other town but in our own communities and We see that here again to your point in Connecticut where we have these Communities that are incredibly affluent and there is a sensibility that no one next to us is going hungry And no one that we go to school with is Experiencing food insecurity that these are issues that we've got to get on a bus Or we have to get on a plane and attend to in some other place and that Sort of awareness that that eye-opening How how would you nurture that in a local context like sometimes we hear about these desires for partnerships? Church in this community and we're a bus ourselves down to this community Yeah, like what are good ways for folks to kind of have that unmasking experience if they're not able to go to Oakland right right and and I think a big part of the the idea behind the urban peace work trip is helping shift that notion of Benefact or beneficiary to equal partners, and I suspect there are there are ways of doing that everywhere. I mean Connecticut has So many immigrants and refugees there are lots of programs Responding to the needs of refugees and immigrants. There are lots of organizations doing that work There are always opportunities in our midst to To see where there are communities that we aren't always in immediate relationship with I Was really lucky when I was in seminary I got to do an internship with Greg Turk who was the pastor at all People's Christian Church in South Central, Los Angeles and Greg was a Middle-aged relatively privileged white guy in South Central Los Angeles In a neighborhood that was predominantly Central American and I said how is it that you do this? Work particularly gang intervention work How is it that you have the right to do it? I think is actually kind of how I asked the question and Greg taught me one of the most important lessons. I've ever gotten in ministry He said I showed up to places that were doing the kind of work I cared about and I asked how I could volunteer I kept my mouth shut I did what I was asked to do and I learned by witnessing and and Greg always had an understanding of has an understanding that any Authority he has even as a pastor is always earned and It's earned through the respect he extends to others And so the way that Greg functions as a pastor has taught me a lot about The ways I can do the same thing when I walk into a into a place with a certain amount of privilege If I make the intentional choice To seek out people who are different than me who have different experiences and approach them with a sense of humility I find I learn a lot and I Begin to see the world in a way. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise that may be too vague, but Wow, this has been such a rich conversation And there are a few other things that we are really excited to talk to you about I'm really glad that we're also going to do a vantage point which is In a video stream that we provide on an ongoing basis here in our conference So we'll take that and people will get a chance to see it as well but in this time I wonder as you were you know kind of Talking about this humility and our need to engage in this different way if if you could Say a little bit about the transition you make in your book from post racial to post Racist right and I say this in in light of the the increase in conversation We're having around white fragility and and the kind of Humility that's essential as we do this work in collaboration And if I can take a moment I want to shout out somebody as well A member of our staff drew page who just wrote an article for one of our publications here online Talking about this issue where one of our pastors who's been a leader in We now have a moral Monday here in Connecticut But it's been a part of the Black Lives Matter and is a native of the St. Louis area, but pastors here Was working with a church is a person of color Working with a church and church had a desire to engage in the work But came to the work with this sort of understanding that it was the job of These individuals on the margins to inform trade Communicate, you know, yes soul and when this pastor's wife said that's not my work But you know then that community became very defensive, right? So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how we nurture in our churches that sense of Humility that allows all of us not just Those who may see themselves as the center but also those of us who are on the margins How do we share those stories in a way? Yeah, no, that's really helpful and it was part of why I wrote the book I So I wrote pre-post racial America partly I Jokingly say, you know for for people who don't have friends who are from different racial backgrounds then Yeah, exactly exactly So I said, you know, you can borrow my friends for a few hours So that was the idea and and it was driven partly because I work with with a lot of White folks who aren't sure how to navigate that respectfully. I also wrote it because I think at this Moment in history it is so important for our different communities of color to know each other's stories and to be building up empathy for each other Because I think so much of the way Systemic racism functions in America. It means it's Asian white Latino white black white indigenous white when in fact we and The only time we interact with each other as communities of color is when we're pitted against each other And so that was the other reason I wrote the book but to that question I think all of us bringing humility Into the way we deepen our relationships with each other is really important. I think I've been struggling with that personally because I have some white friends who I love Having these kinds of conversations with because they approach it with curiosity They approach it with humility and it took me a long time to figure out what made them different than other folks that I'm like It's not my job to fix this for you was They didn't have a sense of entitlement. They didn't think it was their right and Honestly for me and I can't speak for all people of color for me That was all it took for me to want to have that conversation was people not thinking They had the right to my knowledge and perspective on this stuff so much as they wanted to Be in deeper relationship I'm not sure how to teach that distinction to anybody But it's an important one and I'm not sure how to unpack that Did drew unpack more clearly. I think you did a really good job of naming what happened Yeah, yeah, and and that even though the work was about learning a different lesson about shared stories That here was another lesson that was being learned about the necessity of that humility Yeah, and the sense that if you ask a question of any individual They have the inherent right to say yes or no. Yes, and our sensibilities that because I've asked Then you've got it you've got to agree and you have to consent and that's part of the privilege question Is the assumption that I am owed it is actually diminishing the other person even when the intent is But I want to deepen my relationship. Yeah, I think that's so important. Yeah, thank you So we are grateful Reverend Jaffa for your time with us in this live broadcast On behalf of my colleague day. We are so happy that we've had this conversation For those who have listened in and looked in on this conversation We're grateful to you for being here in the leadership studio of the Connecticut conference of the United Church of Christ We are also I want to name again the partnership that we have with the United Congressional Church in Tallinn Which we are co-sponsoring your visit here to the Connecticut conference and their events on Sunday for if you're able to Be part of those. Just look at their website on United Congressional Church in Tallinn So I will also want to thank the people behind the scenes Eric Anderson and Drew Page and Kaylee McEvoy who has helped prepare Our time together and the work that they do that didn't make it to the screen But still is essential to putting out a production like this So thank you again, and we look forward to further conversations with you. Blessings to you. Thanks so much