 All right, I'm gonna stand up for a minute and then I'm probably just gonna sit back down because it's a really comfortable chair. I am a Jomo Luo and I am a writer and speaker on issues of race and identity in the United States. I am hoping one day to write murder mysteries but we will need a better world for that to happen. So if you see a really horrible murder mystery come out with my name on it, celebrate. We are in a better world. Maybe not a better literary world, but at least a better world when it comes to race relations. I've been doing this work for a long time and I think I'm just gonna start a little bit with a bit of a story. I was invited a little over a year ago to participate in a economic-based program and it was a program that had identified leaders from around the country to talk about different ways forward economically in major cities around the country. I live in Seattle and I was the only person in this group who didn't represent an organization. I don't know how I got invited. I still am very confused where I went that this was a good idea and I'm used to talking about race and I show up prepared for this intensive week of discussion and I'm noticing that race is not being discussed. It's being discussed obliquely. It's in the data. It's in the case studies, but it wasn't considered, you can tell when these white papers were being drawn up. It wasn't considered as our leaders and these are prestigious professors and experts are talking about issues and possible solutions to economic issues and it also wasn't considered in the way in which the room was structured. I'm used, that's my whole job. Other people were there representing companies, different functions. My whole job is to look for race and things. So I sat there like this the whole time, for the whole week, just like dying and like whispering to other people like, hey, if you get called on first, can you please ask them about the racial implications of that last paragraph? I'm not gonna get called on because one of the things they did was they had a rule that you couldn't get called on again if and tell everyone else who had their hand up had been called on. Which is really annoying and I don't necessarily think it's the way you should run things for grown-ups. But especially when we're talking about issues of race and we're looking at racial dynamics. So when we start talking about something that touched on race and the people of color are minorities in the room, you would have two people of color raising their hands and they would say something but then if another point came up that had to do with race, they were kind of out of luck for the rest of the session because there were about 40 other white people who had various comments that they had to make. And so you would save up and say, okay, is this the most egregious thing I have to address right now? Or wait, and then you raise your hand and then the next paragraph, you'd be like, ah, damn it, that's what I needed to address right here. Now it's too late. And because that's all I do, I was just trying my best to get in wherever I could. And other people of color who were in the room started kind of whispering to me and saying, hey, what was it you were gonna say? And we started kind of trying to tag team to bring these issues up. It wasn't like that at first though. And what I noticed as I looked around the room, I haven't worked a straight job in a long time. I get paid to say the things that get a lot of people of color fired. And that freedom to be able to always interject and say, hey, hey, you know what this is, right? Or do you understand why this is a problem? It's something that I had forgotten how even in some of the most progressive institutions, people of color don't get to do freely. And even in this space where we were supposed to all have been given permission to speak openly, you could see people calculating. You could see people of color wincing when a stat that was very racially loaded was brought up. One was talking about improvements made to a majority black city by identifying the most common criminals and removing them from the population. And the winces of people of color knowing that that's mass incarceration. And that's something that even economically, that city will pay for in maybe not now, but in 10, 20, 30 years. And then looking around and figuring out do I start this discussion and have an email go back that says maybe I wasn't that pleasant. These are my peers. But eventually people kind of start opening up, if anything, I think just because compared to me, everyone looked really friendly and really easy to work with. And as we got towards the end, the leaders of the group, they said, in all the years we've been running this, race has never been a problem. I don't understand what's wrong with this year. And I was like, I doubt that because I'm looking at this, I have a feeling it's always been a problem. And I reached out to some of the past attendees that I'd known from previous years and I go, yeah, no, this was so problematic in so many ways. And you just kind of swallowed it down to get through and to try to move forward. And it reminded me that even in some of our most prestigious, most heavily resourced institutions, our inability to talk about race is making us unable to serve the populations that we set out to serve. It is preventing us from coming up with real solutions to problems in today's society. So I'm sure that not all of you need to tell you this, but if you're wondering, when does race have to do with what we're talking about? The answer is all the time, literally all the time. Race is in everything. This is a country that was founded on race. It was founded in the genocide of one population of color and the enslavement of another population of color. And I'd say as I'm sitting in a room talking with people who work in various economic fields, there is no part of your job, whether it's your public facing part or even your interactions within your office that don't have to do with race. A lot of people think that race and racism lives in hearts and minds. But most race theorists will tell you most African-American history professors will tell you that race was invented the way it is in the US first as an economic tool. We have general rules as a human society that you kind of find everywhere you go. And one of them is we don't chain people up. We don't breed them like cattle. We don't commit mass murder unless you have a good reason. And I'd say one of the worst things that the human brain has been able to come up with is plenty of reasons throughout history to do all of these things. Race is one of those, race in America is one of those inventions used to justify the economic exploitation of people of color and the genocide of indigenous people. It serves multiple purposes. First, like I said, to justify this really horrific system. Two, to get masses of middle and lower class whites to play their part in the exploitation of people of color. And three, to distract and deflect dissatisfied whites from real systems of power and real reasons for their economic hardship. It has been a brilliant system that has accomplished everything it set out to and more and has maintained itself for over 400 years. But it wasn't started because our founding fathers landed on Plymouth Rock and said, now we can finally get revenge on Africans. They had no personal feelings towards people of color, nor towards the lower class whites that they were setting out to exploit. This was an economic system that had really no emotional value outside of protecting their own, which were the wealthiest, the most privileged, the most powerful within their group. Now it's a system that exploits emotion, that is aided by our tendency to fear others, our tendency to scapegoat others, but it doesn't actually require any animus towards people of color in order to work. And yet when I say racism, and I say to everyone, say when I talk racism, what do you think of? What comes to mind? Donald Trump? Donald Trump, yes. Yeah, I know I was just talking about that. I was like, y'all, you're not gonna find racism in your bones, it doesn't live there. I mean, I'm not a doctor. I'm pretty sure though, if we were to crack those open, not gonna find racism. When they bring this up a lot of times people say, oh the Klan or Trump, that's been a recent one for the last couple years, Charlottesville. But when we look at what is actually harming and killing people of color, it's not Trump yet, to a great extent. It's not Charlottesville, it's not the Klan. I don't know if you've checked in on them lately, but they're not doing so hot. It's the socioeconomic institutions that have built a hierarchy of who wins and who loses and to what extent that are ruining the lives of people of color and disadvantaging a lot of the white American population as well. But because we are always talking about racism as you saw me and you hated me, you wanted to kill me because I look like this. That is where we put the realm of talking about race and talking about racism. Now I'm not saying that doesn't happen. Unfortunately to this day there is still plenty of racial violence, racist violence that is murdering people of color in this country. But if that's all we had to worry about, we would be doing pretty good. If that's all I had to worry about, I would avoid certain areas, I would avoid people with those signs that call Barack Obama a terrorist and I would try to avoid places where Fox News is blaring 24-7 and I'd be okay. But that's not what I worry about when I send my kids out to play. It's not what I worry about when I'm traveling and talking to youth of color all across the country. So if this system is 400 years old and we're still talking about it like it's the Klan on horseback, why is that? Any guesses? I'd say it's by design. How many of you learned in elementary school about systemic racism? What about middle school? One. I wanna know what middle school you went to, man. Nice. I need some from my kids. What about high school? Couple more. So we have about five people in the room who came out of the education system that most Americans get to with some understanding of systemic racism. This is kept from us for a reason. There's a reason why. Even television shows that address race, it's someone didn't know racism existed until their black friend was called the n-word when they were walking down the street, right? Or got fired from the job and you know it's about race because the person that fired them said the racist thing as they were firing them so there was no question as to what was happening. Or it's the sit down with the elders who talk about being hosed down and being arrested or surviving attacks. But it's not, you know, the job was hiring until I showed up and then the position was full. It's not for some reason I keep being told that I have an attitude problem. It's not for some reason my child is being placed in special education even though they have no diagnosed disability. These aren't the things we talk about when it comes to race. And in doing so, it keeps us from actually making real progress. When I say that race isn't everything and racism isn't everything, it can feel really daunting to people. It can feel insurmountable. But that to me actually, it's probably one of the most bizarrely hopeful things for me because it's not like the Wizard of Oz, like there's some guy behind a curtain that you have to get to and convince that this is a bad thing and then he'll lift it. It is something that we have access to every single day in the work we do and the relationships we have to make real change every single day. But it really does require conversation. Now my book is called So You Want to Talk About Race, which is a bit of a lie because nobody wants to talk about race. I don't want to talk about race. If someone comes up to me and I was like, I really want to talk about race. I'm like, no, not with you. You seem too eager. Why? Why do you want to do this? But I think So You've Been Dried, Kicking and Screaming to Talk About Race is a bit of a cumbersome title. So, you know, I figured we'd give everyone the benefit of a doubt, start with feeling a little more chipper about the entire thing, but we don't like talking about race. And in fact, I find contrary to popular belief, most people of color dislike talking about race more than anyone else. There's this weird thing where people are like, oh, you just love talking about race. No, I really don't. You know, I'm eating my lunch. I'm living my best life and then something happens and I'm like, oh, really? I have to have a conversation about this. This is awful. I would love to not have to talk about race, but I have to. And I know I'm not unique in saying that even though I have to, about 80% of these conversations go bad, really bad. Really bad. I lose friends. I lose work opportunities. People cry. People call me names. I live on the internet now, so I get called a lot of names. I get threatened, but I'm not alone. When I was writing my book, I asked people, what are your biggest fears when it comes to talking about race? And it was really telling the responses I got because a lot of white people were saying, I don't want to be called racist, which is a valid fear. I don't want to be yelled at. I don't want to say the wrong thing. And people of color were like, well, I tried to bring up race once and this lady tried to get me fired. Well, someone threatened me. Someone tried to hit me. One friend of mine said, oh, there's a whole website dedicated to me saying that I call white people racist for no reason. The lady went out of her way to make a whole website dedicated to this. And I thought that was extreme, but I'm pretty sure there are a couple of those about me somewhere. And the difference in what's at stake was drastic, and yet it probably felt the same to everyone being asked. Because when I ask white people, do you want to talk about race? The fear in their eyes looks similar, even though the consequences are really, I'm going to feel bad for a while. But what's interesting is what happens when it goes wrong because oftentimes I run into white people, they get emails from white people saying, you know, I tried talking about race once. And I got called racist and I said, never again. And that was the last conversation about race I had. And I'll talk to people of color and they'll be like, oh, you know, I tried talking about race the other day. Someone said I had a chip on my shoulder, I needed to get over it, you know, I lost a friend and you know, I'm gonna have to talk about it tomorrow too. And that sucks because some of us live it and have absolutely no choice but to continue these conversations. And so if you feel like you have the choice to not have it, recognize that all you're doing is just picking that burden up and placing it gently on the shoulders of people of color around you. And saying you do this while you're doing everything else because it doesn't go away. When we think we're not talking about race, what are we talking about? We're talking about whiteness. A lot of times people forget that white is a race. Like when we talk about race, people immediately go, oh yeah, people of color, let's look at those stats, let's see what they're doing, what about the black people, what about Latinx people, what about white people? Because we've been saying white this whole time, right? These papers we're reading are saying white this whole time but white isn't written. The amount of times I've gone through different surveys and studies talking about politics, the economy, to find information, I'll read all the way through it and it'll look like a snapshot of America. And then I'll look at the methodology and say, oh, oh, this is white people. We're talking about, you know, landline owners available at three p.m., we're talking older white people. But it's not written, it's not saying this is a survey of predominantly older white people. They're saying this is what Americans think. And time and time again, this is what we look at, right? The information that informs how we view everything is whiteness, but it's never called whiteness. But whiteness is the most actionable part in the system of race. People of color have been battling the constraints of racism for hundreds of years. But those constraints actually make it hard for us to make progress. Those most free to move within a racist society need to actually collectively remember that they are a collective part of this equation and an actionable part of this equation. And so when we talk about race, oftentimes people think this is the reserve for people of color we have. This is like, you know, the Black History Month of work, right, we're going to have this little set aside without forgetting if instead they said, oh, you know what, 90% of our work is whiteness and 10% is people of color, then you'd realize the discrepancy, you'd realize how absurd that is. But we don't do that because we don't actually talk about race as it functions in society and we don't actually engage whiteness and look at it as an actionable part of this equation. And it's incredibly crucial that we do this today, especially when it comes to looking at the economy. How many of you all heard or read a lot of the articles or probably engaged with a lot of data saying economic insecurity was the main factor behind this election? How many of y'all saw that, right? And then how many of y'all saw the pushback that said, no, it's racism, right? How many of y'all went, oh, no, those are incredibly linked. It's not one or the other. And in fact, the moment people feel a bit of economic insecurity, whether it's real or not, you can manufacture economic insecurity because race was founded to be an aid to our economic system, it immediately triggers racial fear and racial collectivism. The weird thing about white identity is if you don't name it, you don't actually design it. So a lot of people are part of a collective identity. That they're not aware of, cognizantly, day in and day out. And studies have shown that white racial identity only becomes something people are aware of when it comes under threat. And so if someone comes along and says, oh, you're worried about your job? Did you notice that people of color are doing better? Did you notice they're less worried? Suddenly, you're like, oh my God, I'm white. What about me? What about my people? What about white people? Do you have a black president? And suddenly, for the first time you're wondering, do all presidents care about all people? Do they care about my people? And my people wasn't the thing you were saying until after the election. But because that's the first time you've brought it up since the last time someone made you scared, you haven't decided, is this what I want for whiteness? Do I want whiteness to be this reactionary, fear-based identity that only exists to protect its place in hierarchy above people of color? And when it comes to the economy, and we're trying to think of economic solutions, especially to racial disparities, one of the things we have to battle is that fear, which is not logical. And can't be solved by saying, oh well, if everyone did better, that would go away. Because we were doing pretty good leading up to the election. And a lot of the people who voiced economic fears were doing pretty good. But you can talk about the possibility of it, and you can talk about maybe you think you're doing good, you thought you were doing good until you realized you weren't doing as much more than the people of color around you. So then how good are you? If you were making 30% more than the people of color in the room and now you're making 20, are you really doing as good as you thought you were? What if one day they make the same as you? Is there any amount then that will make you feel like you're doing as good as you were when you were making twice as much? And these are questions that when we look at how the economy and race intersect, and we look at why even when we try to come up with structures that are class based, they will tend to always favor white people over people of color. It is because in order to get massive buy-in, we have to give that promise that you're going to feel successful at the end of the day. You're going to feel secure at the end of the day. And that's different than actually being successful and being secure. And most people who look at the economy know that everyone does better when populations of color are doing better, just like everyone does better when women are doing better, right? No society has been helped by the disenfranchisement of minority populations, but it all depends on what you need before you go to bed at night to feel better. And I think what we've learned, especially these last few years, is that people need that psychological feeling of better more than they actually need that financial feeling of better. And if we want to make real change, we have to recognize that tendency, that not only informs the way in which the public responds to what we try to do, but also informs the way in which we were taught that economics works, the way in which we discuss who's poor, who's not, what our economic goals are for particular communities, and what our measures of success will be. It has all been informed by these same biases and fears in ways that many people haven't been aware of. I think it is, when I talk to people about race and the economy, people always want me to choose. And I think as we get closer to the election, this happens more and more and more and more and more. People are like, look, if we just focused on class instead of race, we'd be fine. And the question I always ask is, why do you think people of color are poor? What's the reason? Do you think it's the same reason that white people are poor? It feels the same at the end of the day. And I say this as a black woman raised by a poor white woman. I know that for her, poor feels poor, right? Worrying about bills, you worry about bills. It takes that toll on you, but the reason why is different. And so saying we're gonna focus on class and our race, how do you get to a solution that works when you won't look for the different reasons why we're in this space? It's like saying that all cancer is cancer. And if we just say we're gonna solve cancer and focus on the biggest cancer, we're going to solve cancer. No, you're not going to. What you're going to do is you're going to solve that one cancer and everyone else will be basically where they were. And when it comes to how we look at solving basically any societal problem, if we act as if we can leave race out of it, we forget that race has always been an adjusting and compounding factor for any societal issues we have outside of the fact that it's its own societal issue. And if we can't adjust that, we just leave it there. And even if we think that we've moved everyone up a bit, oftentimes what we've done is we've increased the disparity between races. A lot of times I find this happens when people like to talk about wage gaps, right? People like to talk about wage gaps and they forget that the conversations that are had as far as the lack of progress on wage gaps are done on the backs of women of color because the truth is actually white women have improved markedly in their standing versus white men. What haven't improved is black women and Hispanic women. But if you as a white woman want to really make the case for more equality, what you say is women make this much on the dollar and you push forward what will help you. But even when you get to parity, what you end up then is white women making a dollar 10 for every white man's dollar. And black women and Hispanic women still struggling behind but completely invisible and you can celebrate and say victory. What's also erased in that discussion are black men and Hispanic men who make less than white women. But when we have that discussion and we leave it out and we suddenly it just becomes a conversation that serves whiteness. And we can say that we've got to parity, completely ignore disparities for men of color, completely ignore disparities for women of color. And in no way discuss things like for transgender people and people who don't identify as male or female and the vast economic disadvantage they find themselves in. And so if we don't pause every step of the way and say where do these numbers come from? What are the assumptions? What are we missing? We don't have these conversations with the people who are living the reality and actually can tell you right away. We're not gonna actually move forward. So I would say that's interesting about this is the only time I can find where people really talked about this stuff publicly was in the debates around slavery. And that was if you go back and read some of the debates that were had in the Senate floor and the House representatives, they were very blatant about the economic repercussions of ending slavery. And they were literally saying things like the only thing a poor white Southerner has is his power over black people. If you take that away, there will be riots. If you take that away, what will they have? You were going to have to find a way to give them something else. And what we did was we replaced it with an economic system that kind of has a facsimile of feeling where you can still go to bed at night and go, huh, at least I'm not black. And that will keep you going. But that fear was something that was acknowledged from the early time. So much of our history, so much of our foundations and things that we take for granted are based in race. Seattle's one of the widest major cities in the country. I grew up there. My particular neighborhood in three blocks, there's only one other black family. And when they moved in, my son came home and he goes, mom, the most beautiful family moved in down the street. Oh, did we get a black family in the neighborhood? And it's always been frustrating and people will ask, why is your neighborhood so white? And they think, oh, people of color just don't like Seattle. Well, I mean, they don't now. It's a lot to take on that many white people. But when I was researching for my current book, I was looking at the housing covenants for the area. And I realized my actual neighborhood, the three blocks that I was talking about had a very strict no blacks, no Jews and no Mongolians. And I know people were very confused about race back in the day. But everywhere, all around the Pacific, one of my people was saying Mongolians. And I was like, what have they taught? Are we really worried about an influx of, I was like, do I need to go back and look at census data? We're Mongolians, just making their way. But I'm pretty sure they met Asian-Americans. And the interesting thing is, I sat there, I was looking at my partner and he's like, oh my gosh, are we illegally occupying your house right now? Because those covenants still exist. They're illegal, but they're still on your deed. And what they do when you ask for copy of your deed is they just black that sentence out so you can't see it, but it's still there. Just last year, Seattle passed a law saying you could have it removed. They didn't think until 2018 that we might want the no blacks, no Jews, no Mongolians removed from our house. And people still act surprised when I say Seattle's one of the whitest major cities. They're like, oh, not really, no it is. And part of the reason why is because my house that was built in 1955 couldn't be bought by someone like me. And when we look at concentrations of poverty, the few neighborhoods where people of color were allowed to live and people say, well, they could just move to a better neighborhood. Really? This is the only place they've been allowed to be. And it's the only place where their family grew up, where their parents grew up, where they have any sense of history in this massive white enclave. And that's the story of much of the North, the Midwest. We talk about the South a lot. We talk about the foundations of racism in the South, but we forget that first of all, not in the Great Migration, not only did white people leave, but whites left too. There was no reason to stay once the labor force left. And that same desire to own and to have power over people of color traveled with. And it existed even before that. Suddenly, people who had two black people maybe in their town and they were fine with that had 100 black people in their town and they were less fine with that. Before you know it, there were racial covenants everywhere. Over 85% of Chicago at one time was blocked to black people. And this is, you know, within this last century. And when we look at why certain neighborhoods look the way they are, why people don't have the same amassed wealth when we look at numbers that have the average black American household with one 13th in that financial worth of the average white American household. And we say why? Well, that's why. You can't buy a home. You can't save any money. The only places you're allowed to live are places that are going to overcharge you rent and keep you moving from place to place any time you get your footing. You're going to pass nothing but debt onto your children. And when you add to that, that you're probably making half of what white people are making. That's a legacy that dooms entire populations to poverty. Now, talking about all this, the reason why I want to talk about this and I talk about it as much as I do is because I think I always have to remind people how it is in everything. And this means that we have to be willing to talk about it. But also that when we talk about it, we are referencing all of this. A lot of times people think we can have really simple conversations about race and it's just this issue. Like so many times people say, we're just talking about this. Why do you have to be so upset? Why? No, we're not. Because we're talking about entire lifetimes, multiple generations of trauma and oppression that are brought up when we talk about race, even when we're talking about it in the office. And it is an added component that I feel like often is not respected enough in these conversations. And when we get into an office environment, we think that our conversations about race are supposed to be free of emotion. They're supposed to be logical. We're supposed to be able to write all of the facts down on a sheet of paper and address them one by one. And if we hit every point, then it's a successful conversation. But there is so much to this that we have to be aware of. There are so many assumptions we bring into these conversations that are tainted by a society steeped in racism that we really do have to engage these conversations with care. So what I have in this tip sheet here are some basics for a lot of people that I feel like many of you are gonna be like, yes, I know these things. Part of why I write them down is because I find that when we're talking about race, if we haven't given some time in practice and actually stated a lot of these things often as a group, especially if we're trying to have more formal discussions, these things get forgotten really fast, especially because things get heated. I'm going to skip down to where it says before talking about race. So before we talk about race, it's important to fully articulate your goals for the conversation. And this is something that I find almost everyone skips. Even people of color. Because we're heated, there's an issue, we know that race is a problem, and we're just like, hey, you know what, we need to talk about the race part of this. Without pausing and thinking, what do I want to get out of this conversation? And it's really, really important for everyone to do that and to be able to vocalize that, because a lot of times we don't know what we want to get out of this conversation. And I found that most conversations, especially when we have white people and people of color in conversation about race, are two separate conversations. One is a person of color saying, I need you to recognize the racial aspect of this, or I need you to stop this behavior, or I need you to get on board with this program, and then a white person saying, I need you to tell me I'm not racist. And those are two very different conversations. And if you don't know that's why you've entered in the conversation. If you don't pause and say, I need to have this conversation because this is an issue that is impacting race. Do you agree that this needs to be discussed? Do you agree to discuss this with me with the aim of finding the solution? It's very easy for people to kind of go off on these separate ways. Now it's not to say that stating that means that everyone in the conversation stays on track and goes perfectly well. But it does mean that when it goes off track you have a stated agreement that you can pull a conversation back to. And that's something I've had to use all the time is when I'm teaching workshops, even when I'm giving speeches. I've had to cut off people who've been shouting at the audience and saying, why are you here? Because you read the event and this is what the event is and it's not that whatever it is you're yelling at me. So if you want that event, you gotta Google it because it's not this. But it is something that you can pull back to and it's a good measurement for when you've completely lost track of the conversation. Two, goals must be rooted in the health and safety of people of color. And I find that oftentimes the more academic we get in our discussions of race, the more this gets lost. A lot of times discussions on race can turn into these thought exercises for people who don't have anything at stake in the conversation. And it can become this kind of diving mission. Oh, let me see how traumatic is that? What if I poked here and I found, would it make me cry? Would I feel something about this? You know, what if we tried this? What if I played devil's advocate for a while? And the conversation then has no longer been rooted in health and safety of people of color. And this is something that I would say even if there aren't people of color in the room must be maintained. I got an email last night from someone working in a government agency who got an email that went out agency-wide saying they were going to have a white discussion group on my book and it was whites only. And the person of color wrote me very concerned. And I was like, I hear you in that concern. Now I am constantly telling white people that they need to be able to talk in whiteness about race. That the burden need not always be on people of color. But I am incredibly wary to what a room full of white people without any added help outside of a book will come up with. And without any sort of extra advising, without any sort of extra facilitating, the humanity of people of color gets lost very quickly. And people can say, oh, we talked about amongst ourselves and we decided that we wouldn't be that upset about this, so we're fine with it. And no one in that room has ever lived that reality. And no one has thought, how would it feel to have someone discussing your entire life without you and then determining that they would have lived it differently? Be aware of the racial dynamic in the room and the power dynamic it can create. I've seen this also with my book. I had a woman of color raise her hand to ask a question after I did a reading. And she didn't even really get the question out. She just stood up and she said, I work at a majority white company. I'm the only person of color on my team. And we started a book club reading your book and tomorrow was our first discussion and then she just started crying. And I felt that immediately because she was walking into a space where she was gonna be fundamentally disempowered, where she was going to be forced to handle everyone else's emotions as they were processing what they were reading, where she was going to be asked to represent all people of color for all time. She was going to have to carry any grudges and hard feelings that white people had if she dared to speak honestly. And she was terrified. And no one had thought, maybe this dynamic of 12 white people and one person of color isn't the safest space to have an open conversation about race. And the sad part is that she talked about it. She was sad. One of her coworkers happened to be in the room and came over offended that she was worried about the conversation and wouldn't have thought it would go great. And she had to have that conversation at my reading with someone she worked with. So be aware of the room. Be aware of what you would need to do to make it a space where you're not placing a huge burden on people of color where they don't feel unsafe and disempowered. And I would say this has less to do with the actual position work-wise of the people in the room. I've watched senior managers of color be dismissed and ridiculed in conversations of race by their subordinates, simply because the numbers don't work in their favor. I've watched many men of color know that if it's a white woman speaking to them, they absolutely cannot push back without being called violent. I've seen many women of color know that they can't push back without being called angry. And you see these calculations and it has nothing to do with their position. It has nothing to do with how much they make. It has nothing to do with how respected they are in their fields. When it comes to race, this coding pops up. And you need to be aware of that and look at the dynamic and say, is this a space where this is more likely? Support and respect the right of people of color to enforce personal boundaries in the conversation. And this part really is important. And I hear this time and time again. There are times where I don't have it in me to talk about something further. And I'll say, you know what? I'm done. I can't do this right now. Oh, well, I guess it doesn't really matter to you. I was trying to learn, but people of color don't get to choose when racism hits them. They don't get to choose when they engage with these realities. And if you respect them and they have an opportunity to say, you know what? I'm done. Give that opportunity. Because they can walk out the street five minutes later and encounter someone saying something to them. And you have to respect that if you want people to feel safe. Because part of having these conversations is acknowledging this disparate burden. Figure out what to do with white fragility. And this is something I tell people to have a plan for. How many of y'all, anyone here not familiar with white fragility? No, okay. So white fragility is a term coined by Robin D'Angelo, but it's definitely something I'd say we've been talking about long before her. I have full respect for Robin and the work she does, but she did not invent white fragility. And it's basically a term to talk about what happens when white people are confronted with issues of race and the defense mechanisms that pop up that are oftentimes overblown and can even be violent when they're brought to this. And a quick analogy I like to use for this. I am constantly running into things on my shoes. I'm getting kicked. I have children. I'm constantly knocking things over. My shins are covered in scars. Like the bone is like pitted. It looks really gross. Here, this part right here is really sensitive. Right here, like my little fat roll back here. Because I cover it all the time, right? Doesn't see sun. I have tattoos that back there I forget exist until I like bend over to get something and people are like, oh, tattoo and I'm like, where? When I like get a tag that's like itchy, it starts to hurt and I can get a rash and break out because I'm very sensitive there. Now, if I go to the doctor because once again, I hit my shin on something and this time it's a stress fracture because it's the 10th time this week, then I say, I have some damage here. They're gonna say, yeah, you do. And you need to protect that. You need to lay off. Maybe watch where you're going. Now, if I go to my doctor here and I say, oh, I have some real damage here. This hurts and they're like, what happened? Oh, this tag, you know, it was just really irritating. She said, yeah, there's nothing, nothing wrong. Cut the tag out. I don't know, toughen up. When we're talking about issues of race, we have racial pain, which is the pain caused from repeated trauma that is never allowed to fully heal. And we have irritation that can be mistaken for pain due to a spot that we consistently coddle and cover up and never exposed to light. One is real pain, one isn't. But when you're in the midst of it, you want whatever is causing it to stop. You have to have a plan to deal with white fragility. And whether that means, when I lead workshops, I say, okay, if you start to feel indicted, if you start to feel like you wanna assert to me who you are and you're not this person, if you feel like you need this defense, I need you to figure out what you're gonna do when that happens. Whether that's you're going to step outside for a minute, come back, whether you're gonna write down your goals for this discussion and reread them, do you have a mantra you need to say? Do you have a buddy who can tap you on the shoulder when you start to get out of pocket? But you need to have a plan. And if you're going to have group discussions on race, you need to have a plan for that, for whoever's going to have it. I'm gonna do one more and then we're gonna go on, grab some lunch and then we'll continue. Because this one ties to it. For group discussions, state your priorities and behavioral expectations and think, what is the worst that can happen and prepare for that? So often when it comes to race, people like to assume that everyone is gonna come on their best behavior and we think it's generous to say, you know what, if something happens, we'll deal with it then. But issues of race can bring up really deep emotions that we didn't even know we had. And it's really important before you have these conversations if you're having them in an organizational way to think, okay, what's the worst thing? Like if Jerry gets really threatened, what does he do when he's really threatened? Okay, what are we gonna do if this happens? If someone really feels attacked and they start standing up and shouting, what's gonna happen? What are we gonna do if we hear racial slurs? What if someone in power tries to shut the conversation down altogether? What happens if people start crying? Know that this can happen, know that I've seen it happen and it's more likely to happen when you assume it won't and therefore you don't make any precautions for it. Every time I lead a workshop and I said before I sent anyone into like group discussion, I lay down these kind of general rules and people snicker. But when I've attended workshops and they don't lay down, everything I warn about happens. But I've never had to enforce one of my rules because I get people thinking about it ahead of time. And this is important also when you're thinking about if you have any positions of power in any organizations for HR rules. A lot of times when we look at how we deal with issues of race in workplaces, there are no rules for race. We have some rules for sexual harassment, not as many as we should. You know, we have rules for violence and we say what happens if someone hits you? But we don't have what happens if someone makes a racist slur. What happens if we find that this department is not promoting people of color at the same rate that they're promoting white people? What happens if we find that time and time again, people of color reporting that they feel unheard, unappreciated, none of that is written for? And then we're shocked that people don't feel like they have real prospects, they don't feel like there's change, they stop speaking out, they stop contributing because they know that it's not gonna make a difference. And that's because we like to assume that our better natures are always in control. But race has never run on our better nature. It has always subverted our better nature. And it will in your workplaces, in your discussions, in how you look at your data, and you have to assume that right for it, and the more you prepare for it, the less you'll actually have to deal with it. All right, we're gonna grab some lunch, I guess, who's gonna break? Just Melissa Boteach, National Women's Law Center. One question that struck me was when you were giving the example of the company that wanted to have the, or the agency that wanted to have the all white discussion, but then also sort of the discussion that is not super helpful when it's majority white people and then talking about race in a person of color. And I was wondering how, if at all, you recommend structuring spaces about whiteness so that people can be having these accountable conversations without placing burdens on colleagues and friends of color? That's a great question. I would say it's really important if you're going to have discussions about whiteness that A, you frame it as a discussion about whiteness, right? So I think one of the problems about this discussion group was it wasn't framed that way, right? It was white people getting together to discuss my book and discuss race, which is a much broader conversation that really does need more than just white people in the room. And in fact, when I get in groups of all black people, we don't get together to talk about race. We talk about blackness or we talk things to our community and it's not a whole discussion otherwise. So I would say keeping that discussion of whiteness and I think it's really important too because white people need to learn whiteness better and talk with each other, make alliances and use that kind of pure structure, but it has to be informed by people of color. And the reason why is because whiteness has been made invisible in our society. The people who actually know whiteness best are people of color because we have to navigate it. When it's the air that you breathe and everything's kind of been made for you, you don't actually see it, right? It's just normal. And I hear this all the time, people will call things normal. Someone was saying to me that no rapper should be called a genius because that's not genius music, right? And I said, I need you to question who told you what genius is because that's racially coded and he was like, no, it's not, that's just genius. But he didn't pause to think that this is whiteness that framed what is and isn't acceptable, what is and isn't real music and serious music in our society. But any person of color in the music industry knows right away. And that's where it has to be informed by people of color. I would say it's really important to make sure that the work of people of color and the concerns of people of color drives whatever white groups you're trying to put together, right? So lots of people are like, we're gonna explore whiteness and it's this kind of weird eat, pray, love thing, right? I'm gonna come out of it, you know, a more whole and beautiful white person, but it has to actually be rooted in the ways in which whiteness is impacting people of color. And if at the end of the day, people of color can't feel the transformation your group has gone through, you didn't go through a transformation. And it has to be rooted in that. And then I would say, you have to find ways to have checks that are outside of your group to make sure that you're staying true to that and you're on the right path. It doesn't always mean the person of color has to be in the room, but you at least have to have advisors of color. And it's also really important that that work is compensated. You know, when we talk about race as an economic structure, we're talking about economic exploitation of people of color. And oftentimes when it comes to anti-racism, people still expect free labor from people of color. And that's just not okay, we're never gonna get anywhere with that. And so that's really how I would say to structure it. So I would say, everyone know like, who's gonna check me? You know, who's gonna let me know if everyone in the room agrees with me, who's gonna tell me and everyone else that we're on the path? And I would say also, treat that as a big warning sign. If everyone, if you're in this all white group talking about whiteness and everyone's comfortable and everyone leaves having a great time, you're probably not on the right path. And continuously know like who's going to do that because it's a trap that people fall into all the time even with the absolute best of intentions. Thank you. So I appreciate the talking points that you gave. I think for probably many of us in the room we're in situations where it's less controlled, maybe an interview or we're giving a presentation. And I'm responding basically to what I've been hearing in the news and what's been causing me to turn off the news of late where people are having discussions with people defending Trump. And it's clear that they're not interested in, they're interested in sabotaging and a real engagement. So I'm just wondering for that specific, but more generally they're often different people in an audience. You have some people who are really trying to engage, some people who are sort of have some awareness and some people who are not with you but not don't wanna go where you wanna take. So just how do you deal with those various types of different audiences? That's a great question. And I think that comes up a lot and a lot of people are asking me what about that person who just really doesn't wanna hear you and they're in the room and you can't necessarily tell them to leave the room or tell them to get right. I always try to make very clear what my focus is and who my focus is and what my goal is. And I've definitely had people who stood up and really tried to disrupt when I'm trying to have conversations and done their best. Or you have that person who refuses to make eye contact and engage with anything you're saying and they're just kinda glossed over and you know someone forced them to be in that room and they don't want to be there. And for me what I first try to remember is what is the best outcome I can get from this discussion for the people most impacted by this discussion? Whether that's me, whether that's other people of color in the room and I keep that as my main focus. And that oftentimes enables me to cut my losses with people and to guide when I'm being pulled away from this. What I always like to repeat when people are trying to deflect or trying to play devil's advocate or trying to push as I keep saying you know I am talking about this that impacts people of color in this way. What are you talking about? And even if they're trying to move the conversation you say okay, but I am talking about this that impacts people of color in this way. You're not talking about that. If you wanna have that discussion, have that elsewhere. That's not the discussion we're having but I always try to say I walk into a room knowing that any one conversation has such limited ability. Such limited impact. And I know that for me even with the privilege I have of being a speaker that's brought into spaces, when I look at a room and say what's the best I can get the most I know I can usually get is a couple of people of color who've heard these things who've been saying these things are going to have a little backup the next time they go into a meeting to say look you just heard it again, listen to me. A couple of white people in the room who were questioning some things are going to have a little more clarity. And some people who are really feeling unheard and maybe if I'm very lucky people will plan a follow up meeting. People will do these things to kind of pull it a little further. But everywhere I go that's where I'm at. What I always try to do in any space is usually when you have a extreme you have your Trump supporter who's saying this is blah blah blah reverse racism this and blah blah blah. What you then have is a very enabling middle that allow this person to feel comfortable acting like that. And that's where I shift my focus. I did a presentation on my book in this suburb of Seattle and there was a white man in the front of the audience who just started talking about how my work was ruining everything and divisive and stood up and was yelling and all of this and it's harder on white men than anyone else in this country and going on and on and on. And what I did was this was a group, right? This wasn't an open session. And I looked at all the everyone else in the room and said, you know this man. You know what he's like. And in no way did you let him know this wasn't gonna be appropriate before I showed up here. Like, this is on you. He can't help himself, you can tell. But you, those who act concerned and were concerned enough to pay me to bring me here and are nodding along and are seeming shocked and appalled didn't think how are we gonna stop Jonathan from screaming his head off at this meeting? How are we gonna let him know that we are here to learn and this isn't appropriate? And that's really where I like to shift the focus because where we are as a society, enough people say they care about racism, they care about equality that we shouldn't be in the boat we're in. But what we do instead is that one loud mouth gets all of the attention. And in the middle people who act appalled, who share the Facebook statuses, who nod their heads but don't do anything else to get out scot-free. Well, they're completely enabling that behavior right there. And usually they're the ones who are closer and more able to enact it, right? If someone's coming up and shouting at you about Trump, they don't care what you have to say in response. But they do care about what their white peers have to say in response. And that's where I like turn and like, did you have anything to say about this here? Can you get this? Because he's not listening to me on this. I have no interest in a smackdown. I have no interest. I feel like we have to look at our sphere of influence and focus there. And oftentimes what happens is we expect people of color who are already disenfranchised, who are already looked at as less than to have this broad sphere of influence that covers rampant unapologetic races. We don't have it. And so that's really where I'd like to focus. And then I just quickly get back to where I'm at. And that's usually, it usually does the trick and kind of keeps it there. Anything else? Thank you for coming and presenting to today. This is really great. So I'm trying to find the exact way to articulate this question. So I'm going to like fumble through for a little bit. So I think, so in workplace relations, I often find myself in projects where I'm the only person of color. And I'm working with people who are very well-meaning, very generous, very informed. And recently I was working on a project where to kind of paraphrase something you said earlier, the racism kind of just snuck up on me. And I was put in a position where I had to make a decision to essentially extract myself from the project. And so I guess I'm wondering, how do you manage those kind of relations where you go into it with the best of attention, you think this is going to work out and then you're way steep in this thing and something happens and you're like, okay, we have to figure out how to work through this because this project has to keep moving. But, you know, so how do you, I mean, I know it's probably situation-dependent, but what kind of language or strategies can you recommend to think about engaging coworkers productively to kind of work through this tension? I would say first, let me just take a second to acknowledge that this is something that happens all the time. And the real pain that causes is real and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that and so many people have to. That kind of shock where you got comfortable and you thought this was going to be a good thing and then you get hit out of nowhere with, oh, it's just like it always was. And then you have to go back to work the next day and you spend more time than anywhere else with people that have really betrayed you, honestly. That's a real pain and I wish we acknowledged it more because we don't and we just carry that from space to space and we're supposed to then try to find a way to have friendly relations, productive relations with people who've harmed us. And I just want to take a moment because I literally just last week had lunch with a peer who does the same work I do but in businesses full-time who just had the exact same experience and he's just like, I don't even want to go to work tomorrow but I have to because this work has to get done. That's real and that toll is huge. I would say that the most advice I have around these is if you can try to take these hits as early as possible and I say that by the moment you start to realize this might be a problem and hopefully in future projects even before I kind of come out fairly soon with my boundaries and I started doing this a few years before I left the corporate world to start writing full-time just because I was so sick and tired of realizing there was no promotion, there was no good job I was gonna do that was ever gonna exempt me from that hitting me right in the midst of where I needed to get something done. I would say that part of people with really good intentions is that there's a responsibility to being able to claim that you care about these issues and to being able to claim that you have good intentions. Intention is nothing if it doesn't inform action. So a lot of times I think we are kind of treated as if we don't have the right to call up allyship ahead of time and to say as someone who says you care about this I actually need an ally here. I need you to recognize the demographics of this team. I am feeling this way. I am feeling like I haven't been heard. This is a real issue. And you have voiced to me that you care about this, that equity matters to you, that racial issues matter to you. Well, this is your responsibility now to hear me and figure out what you're going to do to help me restructure this, what support you're going to give me. And I think a lot of times we are expected to battle this all on our own and to be that one person who takes on this group. And then everyone else, once they're dragged kicking and screaming through the process gets credit for getting there. But the whole time people have been claiming that they're with you, they care about you. And you hear all of that. Well, that's an action. And sitting down and sometimes when I'm asked to mediate I'll say, you know, because people say we really care about race here. I'm like, okay, well let me show you what caring about race actually means. It means that you're going to think about how do I listen to people of color? What do I do when I feel uncomfortable with this? Am I going to have that basic fundamental respect for people of color? One thing I always try to work on and it's actually a list in these rules is a rule I try to enforce in spaces I'm in is the idea you're not going to try to walk a mile in my shoes. You're going to respect my basic humanity and my ability to translate what's happening as a person of color. Because we consistently frame these things as a gap of empathy, but really a lot of it too is gap of experience. And that gap is so wide that imagination can't bridge it. And a lot of times where people think they're doing their best, it's because they're doing their best within their lived experience, but in no way touches yours. And so what you have to do then is say, you know what? You're not going to understand it. You're not going to come through, there's no imaginary scenario that's going to give you my viewpoint. You're just going to have to say, I trust you, I respect you. And I know that you have the ability to say what's happening and what needs to happen when it comes to race in this topic. And kind of reiterating that and having that verbalized and having people agree to that. And a lot of times I have to get teachers, especially to agree to this all the time, because even with their students, they think they know kids. They know kids, they know kids, and they don't understand that their childhood was nothing like their students of color. That they have no idea what they're talking about. But this is the same thing that happens all the time. And even when we look at the numbers and the lived experience people color, it is night and day. There's a great myth when it comes to race in America that if we have enough discussions, we'll all find out we have everything in common. That's not true. If we have these discussions, what we're gonna find are shocking amounts of difference. And what we should come out of it is respect for that difference. And respect for people and what they have to offer to be able to voice that difference. And so a lot of that really just comes in finding who your allies are and actually pressing them, getting them to verbalize and say it. This is what it looks like to me for you to be a peer who actually cares about this issue and then work with them and say, I'm gonna move forward in this way. I need your support in this way and kind of go from there and that can really help. And part of it too is thinking of contingencies like if you see me being talked down, if you see people ganging up on me, if you see me being dismissed, what are you going to do to help balance this room? And those sorts of things like we constantly think we have to battle alone, we shouldn't have to if we have anyone in the room who says they care about these issues. But a lot of times people don't even realize that's what's happening. I've pointed out in meetings, like, hey, did you notice how many times I was talked over here? People are like, oh, no, no idea. And say, okay, well next time you see this, keep track and step in. And kind of unfortunately we have to do this. But getting that and verbalizing it is better than just living it and then wondering why people aren't seeing it. Because unfortunately people will not pay attention unless it's pointed out to them, even with the best of intentions. One more question, we'll take the question here. And then we'll move on with the group exercise. So I had a question about sort of the role of performance and also the question of power and giving up power, I guess. So I think a lot of us work for like nonprofit organizations, organizations where people feel like, they have all this down. And they are good at performing it. Like they say all the right things. They like, even if you, when you're having what's supposed to be like the difficult conversation, they say all the right lines. But in terms of power, like no power is ever seeded. It doesn't translate into, okay, now we're gonna, you know, whatever that looks like, like look at changing the makeup of our board or leadership or whatever it is, whatever the issue is. So thinking about like how to call that out in a way that doesn't, that can't be met with just the sort of cans, lines that like make it sound like you've addressed the issue when you have it. That's a really good one. One thing my brother likes to say though is cracks me up because he says, that won't raise my credit score. And time and time again we see these efforts, right? And he's like, that won't raise my credit score. You know, I was watching Mary Ann Williamson, this video of her doing this exercise where she was having white people lay their hands on the nearest person of color and apologize for racism. And I was like, that's not raising my credit score. All those unwashed hands. Yeah, you know, just one of the skivious things I've seen in a long time. And when it comes a lot of times to these efforts people really want this, they want to get the praise of saying they did something without actually having to give anything up. And what I always like to tell any org, nonprofit, professional org, business, treat it like your money. If you're not treating it like it's your money, like it's your bottom line, anything that's tied in your money, you treat well, right? You create whole departments. You promote people who are really good at this, we're getting you more of it. Treat equity like your money. You're like, oh crap, we're running low on equity. We don't have a reserve of equity. Ooh, you know, we need to give this person brought us this much more equity. Like treat it like your money. And that means it becomes more than just one of those points, bullet points on your list of what you stand for. It becomes more than just a little thing that you toss at the end of the speech. The things that we treat like our money have accountability. They have benchmarks, right? They have follow up. They have all these other things. And we, I've seen the difference. I've been pulled into rooms where people will throw these huge diversity day, right? It's hundreds of thousands of dollars on this one day. But they get one bug in their software and they're spending six months working on that, dedicating whole teams to that. And yeah, they won't have a whole day for it. But you can bet the people that can work on that bug are set in their careers. And you bet that they're gonna look for more of the skills for their company. And that they're gonna ensure that that, you know, what went wrong doesn't happen again. Equity is never treated that way. And if it's not treated like your money, and if it's not tied to your money, if it's not tied to your fundraising, and that means where you get your money from, how you're selling in, you know, nonprofit sell, right? They have to sell to their donors who's giving your money, what expectations they have, what value add you're putting out there, how you're reaching out to your community. If you're not cheating equity that way, and especially racial equity that way, it's not gonna go anywhere. And so that's the thing I always try to get people to imagine. Like if this was our money on the line instead of just the lives of people of color, how would we treat it and treat it that way? And that's kind of the rule I go to. And a lot of times if I try to get orgs to understand that, I'll start bringing up examples. Like I'll say, okay, you know, you had this example, I saw you launch this. How many people did you put behind this project? How long did you work on this project? What would have happened if this had failed, had met goals? How do you have measurements for that? Okay, great. Now, how many people have you put behind racial equity? How are you paying them? What are their qualifications? How are you measuring success? What are your goals? You know, and if they can't match that up to their new payment system that they just put in, if they can't match it up to that one minor launch that they just put out, if they can't match it to any of that, they're not taking it seriously. And a lot of times it's about raising that comparison and really getting people to understand if this is what you're dedicated to. Even orgs that I found that are even based in equity, give the actual equity is their last thought. It's how do we get money from this person? How do we get to this space? And then at the end of the day, they'll think, oh, you know what, when we're done with this, we'll look at our room. We'll look at why our board is all white. We'll look at why our funders are only funding these certain parts of our org. We'll look at why we're getting all these complaints from communities of color that we serve. We'll look at all of that once we have our money set, once we have this set, once we move to our new building, once we blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, and that's kind of where I always try to get people to do is just draw that line. And I think if you're in an org, especially if people of color, we see that disparity. And we can actually just ask about the numbers and say, do we think this is more important if it is worth the numbers? Because there's no other way in which it shows up. We are not talking about hearts and minds. And I keep reminding people that, and even in orgs that do work around the economy, it's amazing how much I have to keep reminding people. We're at the end of the day still talking about numbers. If you cannot find it in numbers, if you can't find it in your retention, if you can't find it in the increases of health and wealth from the population you serve, if you can't find it in the promotions you're giving, if you can't find it in the numbers, if you can't draw me a picture of it, it doesn't exist. Because race at the end of the day, that's where it shows up. There are numbers and statistics for everything we feel that hits us. There's a number for it. And we need to be looking at that and addressing it. Thank you. So with that, we will move into the final portion of our workshop today. And I'll turn it back over to Ijeoma to tell us about our group exercise. So I'm gonna leave you guys to read the rest of the tips on your own, but before we do group exercise, this top box on the top of the page is the, if you forget everything else, remember this, it's important to go over this before we do group exercise because even in these group exercises, things can get touchy. So remember, what are my goals for this? I'm gonna give you goals for the group exercise, but also remember your goals that brought you here today. Is this helpful for people of color? We're in a group exercise. It is incredibly tempting to spend a lot of time talking about the thing that this thing reminded you of that has no value for people of color or the discussion in general. Bring yourself back to this. We have limited time, limited energy. Is it helpful for people of color? But always just remember this in any of these discussions. Is it helpful for people of color? And a lot of times that performative aspect we're talking about disappears when you say, is this actually helpful? Is it, does it help people of color to see this Facebook status I shared? Or is it helpful if I actually, you know, do some work? This one, could I have Googled this? Is important. So if you find that you're spending a lot of time going, you know what, but what is cultural appropriation? Can we pause for a minute and you can explain it to me? No, Google it, please. Google it. If it becomes very specific and you've run out of options, then you can respectfully ask if someone wants to help you out. But this system's been around a long time. We've been writing about it for a long time. While living it, you can Google it. What can my privilege be preventing me from seeing right now? This is really, really, really, really important to understand that you will be shocked by the ways in which privilege will inform every action you have. One example I'd like to use, I'm a writer. I'm sure you guys figure that out. And there's this weird thing, and I still don't know why, but when I would say I'm hungry, because I live on the internet, so I'll say things like, oh, I'm hungry, and I'm that type of writer who I get set up and then I don't move. So if I'm hungry and there's no food within arms reach, I just complain on the internet like it's gonna make food manifest. And so I was like, oh, I'm so hungry. And for some reason, every time I would say that, white people would go get some cheese. Cheese will help. Get some cheese. The weirdest. And I was like, okay, look, now you're just creating a whole nother problem for me because I like the majority of people of color and lactose intolerance. And I got to be composed, like, can we please stop recommending that I eat cheese? Like, it's weird and not helpful. And the amount of people who are like, what do you mean people of color or lactose intolerant? I'm like, what do you mean what do I mean? Like, the majority of black people and Asian Americans wear lactose intolerant. It causes a lot of problems. And you know, I'm not planning on going anywhere today, but I would like to sit comfortably. And the amount of people who were stunned and were like, what else do I not know about food? I'm like, oh, well, a lot. And it's the thing that people don't talk about, but the ramifications are actually more than just annoying me. My son had, last year, did a petition at school because being lactose intolerant, he was really upset day in and day out to go through the lunch line and find that you could have chocolate milk, strawberry milk, regular milk, or you could have plain soy milk. And for kids who are lactose intolerant, he's sitting there drinking bean water next to kids with their delicious nest quick. And he's like, why am I being punished? Just because I, like many other kids of color, can't drink milk. And he wrote a petition and said, you know, many kids of color can't drink milk. This is a racial issue. Can we please have some chocolate soy milk? But those are little things that make kids feel left out and singled out. And you know, he'd get comments, oh, that smells gross. It's weird. By the way, I've heard that soy milk actually from Asia is a totally different thing that tastes a lot better. Yeah, someone came up to me and was like, can you please, can you please add that caveat? Because it's a lot better if you go to an issue book. I'm like, OK. But what they serve at schools? Not that. But you know, it's another thing that kids are constantly having to deal with. And so those are, like, those little tiny things, even. People don't realize it's an issue. And you're like, oh, oh, I missed that. Is it actually raining, or is someone? Oh, my goodness, sir. I was just like, what is happening out there? And then the final one is, am I feeling actual pain, or is it fragility? Constantly remember that as it's popping up. This is also important for people of color to recognize that you have the right to delineate when you see other people trying to treat their fragility-like pain, that we don't actually have to pause and coddle white fragility through the whole process. Like, I can tell you, this is not group therapy. And most people of color were made brutally aware of systems of race, if not in the womb, at least by preschool. And no one stopped and said, well, can we make this a little gentler on these kids? Can someone sit and hold their hand and make sure they're prepared? So if we did that at four, and you suddenly get to 40, and 50, and you're figuring out that this awful system exists, and you feel some sort of way about it, you're gonna have to find another place to process it. Because that's a burden that people of color shouldn't have to take you through. But it also means that people of color, we have every right to say, I don't wanna do this. I've had more white people walk up to me crying after I give a talk and expecting me to do anything about it than I can count. Whereas I see people of color constantly trying to find a space to deal with everything that's brought up in that discussion, that's their actual life. But it's always white people that come up to me, bawling and trying to hug me. It's weird. People walk up to my brother. My brother actually has an algorithm for who, because his wife is, do you guys know Lindy West? His wife is Lindy West. And so he tries to tell on approach who this crying white lady is coming to him to talk about. And he's figured out that if they're wearing colorful makeup, it's probably about me. If they're wearing a quirky t-shirt, it's probably Lindy. And it's a total tossup of it's an MPR bag that they're carrying. But even my brother has not escaped. And he actually wrote that all out and posted on my Facebook page. And the amount of apologies he got from people I didn't even know would come up to him. We're like, oh, I did that to you last week. I'm so sorry. He was like, yeah, okay. So what we're gonna do for this exercise is first we're going to kind of sit on our own. And I want you to think about, I want everyone to think about some issues in their everyday work that they've done that they thought didn't have to do with race. That do. And if you're a person of color, I want you to think about how it might have to do with race outside of your race for other people of color. Cause I find oftentimes too, when this burden is placed on us as people of color to kind of translate and live this reality, it takes up so much time and energy that we don't stop to think that even our experience, like my experience as a black woman is not a universal experience. And so often in my work, I have to keep being reminded like, oh, what about indigenous people? What about Latinx people? What about Asian people, right? And go back to that and think how, in what weird surprising ways do I find that that's missing? So I want first before we get in groups to sit amongst yourself and think, where are some areas in this conversation that it had to do with race that I didn't consider or it could have to, right? Cause if you don't know, you're not gonna probably be able to sit down and write out the exact ways it might. But think of something that maybe you've been doing day in and day out that you thought didn't have to do with race or you thought you had the racial angle figured out and something could be missing either because you didn't have that knowledge or the people who could speak to it aren't in the room. So take like five minutes just on your own and write that out and we'll come back and then we'll get into a group.