Dr Evelyn Carter: Worth the Drive.

Can people overcome the beliefs they were raised with? In this powerful and deeply personal conversation, Michael sits down with Dr. Evelyn Carter, author of Was That Racist?, to explore racism, empathy, history, and the possibility of growth.

Dr. Carter shares her experiences as a Black woman, mother, educator, and researcher, while Michael opens up about being raised in a white supremacist family and the difficult process of unlearning hate. Together, they discuss everything from subtle microaggressions and generational trauma to the role history plays in shaping our understanding of race today.

Through honest storytelling and challenging conversations, this episode examines how racism is taught, how empathy can be learned, and why confronting uncomfortable truths is essential if we hope to create a better future.

This is a conversation about accountability, compassion, and the belief that who we become is not determined solely by where we come from.

Sometimes the hardest journeys are the ones most worth taking.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's in the climate where we start to see things come back that we thought we're dead. It's good to reflect on who we are as people, where we're from and how far we've gone. I was raised in a white house. Who I am now. That's what I was born into. Today's episode I'm sitting down with Dr. Evan Carr, the author of the book was that race. And I think we're gonna have an amazing conversation about race. Evolution, where we are today, and how we become better people. Not because of the way we're raised, but because of the compassion and empathy we have in others. There's an ability as humans to become better, to learn, and to unlearn. I hope you enjoy this conversation. And realize sometimes the struggle is worth the drive. Where? Where does Dr. Evelyn Carter, which sounds like a name from a movie, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I I appreciate that. I uh when I got married, or actually when I met my husband now, we were talking and I told him I was in grad school and I was like, I'm not changing my name. He was like, What? And it's like, yeah, no. And he's like, what if your husband has an issue with that? And I was like, any man that I marry will not have an issue with that. I was like, my degree is to Dr. Evelyn Carter, and that's it. And it's a good name.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

It is like I also I love my man's initial name. Dr. Evelyn Carter on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Dr. Evelyn R. Carter. It's just like this is good. Yeah, you can't, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

It hits hard. Yeah, it definitely hits hard. See, I had no choice in the name. Yeah, exactly. I'm I'm the sixth of my name. My son is the seventh. Oh. I wasn't gonna screw it up. You can screw it up if you want. So where are you from originally?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Uh I'm from, gosh, that's a like, it's a funny question just because I feel like I asked it all the time and I never know how to answer it because the answer is really all over. Um, so I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, lived there for seven years, and then basically like my family moved further and further west.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Um, so spent a couple years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then we like settled in Columbus, Ohio, and I was there from when I was nine up until college. And then I went to Northwestern for undergrad, and I fell in love with the city of Chicago, and I was convinced that that's what I was gonna spend the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I love Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Like, I do too. So when people ask me where I'm from, I feel like I want to say Chicago, but I'm not from Chicago, and somebody who is.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

What part of Chicago though?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Well, so that's the thing. I can't I I can't hear so. I lived in Evans, San Francisco, town.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I usually judge people like, okay, what's your baseball team?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Well, uh, okay, so I lived on I lived off of the Sheridan L stop. Okay. So the Cubs would have been my team, but mostly I found them annoying because I lived so close to the stadium that game days made parking a nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Wrigleville is not your friend. It was not my friend.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

But it's such a like I and I really wanted to live in Lakeview, but I could never afford it. Um, so that's where I like, you know, and then Lincoln Park was like, oh my gosh, when I'm an adult and I have money and like family, I'm gonna live there. And none of these things came to first. Um, but so I feel like I should I could say Chicago because that's where I grew up, like as an adult and really like found my place. Um I feel like I should say Columbus because that's where I spend my like adolescence. But whenever I talk to people who are actually from Ohio, they like really care about Ohio State in a way that I just like don't. Um and I also don't feel like I'm from Ohio. So anyway, yeah, yeah, I'm from all over. Um, I think the safest place to stay is just Hartford, Connecticut, because that's where I was born. That's where you're born. Like Yukon. So there you go.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So, what brought you to Long Beach?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Um, so my husband and I met when he was living in Ohio and I was living in Indiana, and we were long distance, and basically our goal was to always get somewhere that we like both wanted to be. And so my plan for us was Chicago, his plan for us was LA. Yeah, and I applied to a job at UCLA and I got it, and so that happened. Uh so I moved out to LA two years later. He finally moved out to LA as well. Okay, and then we were up there. I was I lived in LA for like eight years, yeah. Um, and then the pandemic happened, and we were we we would we'd just gotten married, we were thinking about starting a family at some point, and we were kind of looking around if we were living in LA, and realized like in order to live in a neighborhood that has good public schools, we would have to have a lot more money to afford a house there. And we were like, and even the kind of house that we could afford in one of those neighborhoods would not go as far, like our money would not go as far there as it would anywhere else. And so I was like, okay, so we clearly have to move out of LA proper. And so we looked north, and I was like, I don't want to live in the valley, it's hot, and also like it's the valley. Um, no shame to the valley, it's just it's hot, and I like water.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

There's shame to the valley.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Is that a bad meeting?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

You gotta be honest.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

And so I was like, okay, well, we like any of the kind of beach communities in between, we had the same issue, and also like, you know, for a variety of reasons, just wasn't the right fit. And so I actually had an aunt who had lived in Long Beach for 20 years, and she loved it here. And uh she lived in Bixby Knowles, and so we were like, all right, Long Beach, we found a house, um, we got it, and the rest is kind of history. Like, we love Long Beach.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, you landed in the right spot. Yeah, there's something special about this place. Yeah, um, there's something special about the people in this place. I'm sure I say it every show, but we're not Orange County and we're not and we're not LA.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

We're not I know. It's my favorite thing. Like I always tell people, like my daughters are going to say, like, oh, people are like, where are you from? I'm gonna be Long Beach and oh, LA? Like, no, Long Beach. Like, it's different, it's distinct, and it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Well, and the great thing is about, I mean, it's about the diversity, it's about the culture, it's about not having to worry about any of that stuff that you worry about in LA. And frankly, lately, all the stuff you worry about in the Orange County area. Yep. Like, I don't go beyond the orange curtain for uh political and uh emotional reasons.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, I um went to uh my friend, a friend of mine and I went to a like winter wrench at a restaurant in Seal Beach, like over there on 2nd Street. Oh yeah um for our birthdays, we were celebrating our Dwight birthdays. And this was a while ago because I well, not that long ago, but it was before the election. I was pregnant with my second daughter, and we were at this cute little boutique, and we were buying tutus and books and all kinds of stuff, and we did not realize that we had picked a place to have brunch that was right along a stretch of um street that turns into a like Trump parade.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

And so we were in the um in the shop, and like people were coming out, there were like huge like MAGA flags and like Confederate flags sometimes too. And I was like, Do you guys know where you are? Um, and people were honking and flipping us off and stuff, and it was very aggressive, and I was like, well, that's and it wasn't even that far, it was Steel Beach.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

We'll see, and that brings us that that brings us directly, okay. So they're carrying Confederate flags, but when they talk about it, they talk about those Confederate flags as being history, not racist. I know. Yet they're flipping you guys off.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

It all But what was what was the c what was the difference between you and them that would cause them to flip you off?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Well, you know, I'm black, my friend is Latina, very obviously so. I think that's probably, you know, well I had a little bit of something to do with that.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, so this is okay. I know this is what drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Um, so your book, which I love by the way, um, was that racist? Is the title. Also, uh, if you have to ask that question to me, I think you know the answer to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I have a friend uh who is a local long big targetist who made me two stickers, and one of them that like a theme related to themes in my book, and one of them says, Was that racist? And then it has and there's a ellipse system that says, if you have to ask, that's one of my favorite uh things.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Okay, so here's where I'm gonna open up a little bit to you. Um, and this is embarrassing. Oh, great, I love it. And um, frankly, sad. Um, I was born into a white supremacist family. My father was a part of a very large motorcycle group. I was taught hate before I knew empathy.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Okay, wait, I have a I I want to hear more about this, but I have to say, there's a few things that always give me a like, ooh, get out of here feeling. One of them is when I see a group of motorcyclists, and then the other is Irish restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

So I'm sure Understandable. And like, you know, uh, so not all motorcycle motorcycle motorcycle groups, probably, but definitely your dad.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

A majority of motorcycle clubs, okay, I would have to say, just in my upbringing, yeah, are based on race. Okay. There was one that was definitely white supremacist, and then there was the answer to that club, which was not anti-white per se, but definitely not white supremacists.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Um, that being said, that I was raised that way and taught that, my family moved to uh the San Joaquin Valley, and I was confronted by race very early. Um I was confronted in the way that I shouldn't talk to our neighbors. I was confronted in a way um that was so bad, but before I knew empathy, I was rolling around on roller skates with double double lightning bolt stickers on the back. And so my perspective on race is so much different than a lot of people because I can see racism in plain sight constantly. Yeah. And it's because of the knowledge I had and the unteaching I had to do in my life. From your standpoint, you have a totally different view on racism because you have it firsthand against you in more ways than I will ever understand because I've never been in a minority class that was basically under the foot of another. But my perspective as a white-bearded guy that people go, hey, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I know what you fucking mean.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

It's like I know what you mean, and also I don't agree.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

I'm gonna punch you in the face, and that's part of the reason why I've learned to fight so well. Um but in that growing up, I was called a race trader.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I uh I predominantly only dated black girls.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And I don't know if it was rebellion or what, but it was something that I was in an area that was predominantly black and Hispanic people.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I vividly remember talking to a kid, my next door neighbor, uh, through a chain-link fence. Talking to him, because that's the only way I could play with this kid. Yeah. Because my father wouldn't allow it. In the world now, because I see it all the time, what are some of the racist things you see on the daily?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

So one of the things that I see all the time are actually kids being taught things. So just like what you were describing, like kids being taught things without them even necessarily knowing all of why it's a problem, right? So I actually remember um when I had first ish moved to Chicago or Chicago. When I first moved to LA, um, one of my cousins is a middle school teacher. She's a uh English teacher, and so she's exposed and it this is um in Manhattan Beach. Oh wow, yeah, and so she's always like using her position to make sure she's exposing her students to all kinds of literature and whatnot. And so they were reading to kill a mocking board, and I came in um just to like facilitate a conversation about racism, and you know, and this was in 2017, I think. Um, and so I remember like I was in one of her classes, and we were talking, and the I don't remember how it came up, but there was a young white boy raised his hand, and he was like, Well, I'm a member of the alt rank. Oh, and I was like, Oh, okay, tell me more. And and there were some other, and and you know, I put on my teacher hat and I was like, Does anybody else in the class know what that is? And nobody did. And I was like, okay, well, can you tell us? And he said, Yeah, we are the populist movement responsible for electing Donald Trump. And in my head, I was like, that's an interesting way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

In what grade?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Eighth grade.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

And afterward, I was talking with my cousin, you know, she was saying, like, that boy's parents would be shocked to hear that come out of his mouth.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

And, you know, this was, I think, at the like, not the beginning, but beginning to me of learning about just how much radicalization of like white boys in particular is happening on the internet, you know, all of that. Um, but what really stood out to me about that interaction is that there was no shame in his voice when he was saying that. And he also, like, the irony of looking directly into the eyes of a black woman who is there to talk to you about racism and be like, I remember the alt-right. Like, he didn't, he wasn't saying it in a way that was, I didn't perceive it as hostile. Like, it was just a very Do you think he grasps? And I don't think he did.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

And so when I think about racism, I certainly think about the very overt examples of people using slurs and things like that, but I also think about how there's this like trope that people repeat, like, oh, things will get better as like the older generation dies out. And it's like we don't grow out of racism, we actually are more likely to teach racism. And if we don't interrupt these kinds of things, like our young white boys who are saying, I remember if you all right, and like not connecting that to a history of Nazism and of anti-blackness and of anti-you know anything that's that's not white, then we've really messed up.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

And so, uh, yeah, so that's that's one thing that I see a lot.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah. That's scary because that's at such a young age. Yeah. And that's scary because racism used to be really in your face.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And then it went into hiding. But those tropes and those phrases and those uh, oh, that's ghetto, oh that he's a thug, all that stuff came out, but it was very subsub.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Very racially coded.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And now we're getting into another era where it's coming out.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

And that's scary.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Well, so I you know, I when I was in grad school, I was doing a lot of research on how people decide what counts as racism. And one of the things that, like, if you read any paper on any art research article on racism from like, I don't know, 2010 to 2015, or maybe even earlier than that, it feels like they all open up with like, you know, racism nowadays is more subtle than like, and I remember like I was writing an article and I was like, do I need to start off with that? And I was like, I don't even know if that's true. What I do think is true is that we had done a fairly good job of signaling through societal norms that being racist was bad. So there's actually this study that was done that had people rank order the different groups that it was okay to be prejudiced against. So basically, what groups is it okay to hate? And what the researchers found is that the number one group that it was okay to hate were rapists, and the number two group that it was okay to hate were racists.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

And this was in this research was done in 2002, it was published in 2002. Um, but I remember, like, as I now think about that paper, I'm like, I don't think that racist would be number two on that list. And it's because I think people would spend so much time hand-ring and being like, well, what really is racist anyway? It's racist that you would say that I'm racist, right? And so the norms really shift and I do not like to give Donald Trump credit for a lot of things, but I will give him credit for shifting those norms and showing how fragile they really are.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Because I still think we have a minority of people who want to be overtly racist, but that is a very loud minority and they feel emboldened to be loud because he came into office by saying things that nobody thought were acceptable, no, that few people thought were acceptable to say out loud anymore. Um, and so part of what I loved about like when I, you know, 2016, everybody's like, we're punching Nazis, and then it was like, is it wrong to punch Nazis? I remember being like, we need to punch Nazis because people need to understand that it's bad to be a Nazi. And somehow we have really lost the plot that, like, is it like, yes, it's bad to be a Nazi. We'll stop.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

One of my least favorite things to hear is America's not racist. And the reason I hate to hear that is because I know it is. Absolutely. Because I look at our history books, yes, and our history books are so white supremacist based, it's all about what the white man has accomplished. It's all from the white man's perspective. There is no such thing as reverse racism. Because everything's been told from the perspective of a white man. If there was ever a history book that went into our public schools that really told the true story, slaves were not workers. Slaves were slaves. But that's not the way we tell the history. And until we, and I say we as white America starts to open its eyes and actually confronting the facts like this, these subtle things that we've put into play that will that have been in effect forever, we're not gonna get past it. Yeah. And so when people say racism's gone, or my least favorite thing, I don't see color.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

You are negating everything when you say that.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yep. Absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

We are predominantly racist because that's the way we were taught. And people will get on here, and I'm gonna get some hate for this because, like I said, in my family I've been called a race trainer. But you have to look at the whole picture of this country and the way we were. And everyone's like, well, the 60s, it was in the 60s. No, no, no, no, that's when an uprising happened, and you had to acknowledge.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Before that, there was no even no acknowledgement of it, or there was pride in it. And that's my fear now is we're getting to that pride point again.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah. So there's a book that um, so you mentioned there's so many things you mentioned. So one, you mentioned like history and your knowledge of history being really helpful. So there's a lot of research showing that people who are more aware of the kind of true history of the United States are more able to notice racism in modern day, right? Because they understand like everything that we are seeing now. One of my favorite party games, I'm really fun at parties, one of my favorite party games to do is to be like, give me anything, anything at all, and I will connect it back to racism and slavery. Yeah. Because like everything is, and it's sad and frustrating, but like it's true. And I think that the reason I call it fun is because I really like to pull at that thread of like you think that everything is okay, but it's not, right? But your knowledge of history is is really what is the kind of defining factor of people being able to notice that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

See, I think there's two type, there's two types of people. There are people that enjoy that. Like I freaking love it. Because I'm like, oh, oh, and then there's people like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Because they think of themselves as a pure non-racist blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Well, and also because it's threatening to be like, you're telling me that the place that I like am buying my house or the school that I send my kids to, or the grocery store that I go to, and the abil the availability of fresh produce, like all of those are linked back to slavery. It's like, yes, I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Especially when they think they're the altruistic white person.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yes, yes. Right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Is it weird? I love to be called out on my shit.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

It's well, so I I think I might describe you as somebody who has like an extreme growth mindset, but I think that, you know, so a growth mindset is this idea of like, I know that I can always improve, right? So um I my my traits, my personality, my skills in any area aren't anything that's like fixed. It's something that can always be improved with more time, with more effort, whatever. And research actually shows that people who have a growth mindset about bias are people who seek out feedback when they have done something that is, in fact, biased because they're like, I want to know so that I can change, that I can do it differently. And so um, I I don't think it's weird at all. I think it's I think it's wonderful, but I also think that it demonstrates, like you said at the beginning of when you were t telling your story about your upbringing, that you grew up without an understanding of empathy. And I think that one of the things that is a requirement for conversations about racism. Is having empathy and understanding like how is what I am doing or saying impacting somebody else and really paying attention to and sitting with that. And so if you are someone that enjoys being called out on your shit, which I am as well, it's because I don't want somebody ever walking away from an interaction with me and feeling like, well, that wasn't great.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Um, and not and me not knowing. They might walk away from an interaction with me and feel like that wasn't great, and I am aware of what I did, and I am like it's like I took pride in the pride of it. But if I am doing something that is harming someone, and especially I didn't intend to, I want to know so that I can apologize, so that I can atone for it if possible. And that's what a growth mindset is all about, right? It's not taking threat, you know, it's not being threatened by the realization that you've done or said something that is incompatible with who you see yourself as. It's knowing that the way to close that gap between who you are and who you want to be is getting feedback about when you messed up.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I see I see racing racism on a daily basis. What are some of the microaggressions or micro racism you see just on a day-to-day basis? Um I'll sell some of mine too, because yeah, I see it from an outside perspective.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah, so um one of the things I just was reading about this, uh, somebody was posting about this on threads.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Uh threads, I need to get on there. You can tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Listen, I love threads. I feel like so. I loved Twitter before it became X and he almost. Um and black Twitter, Twitter was one of my favorite places, and it like, contrary to popularly, it wasn't like a place that you could like search on the internet, it just was like a community.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, and it got into your algorithm because I ended up on black Twitter.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, yeah, and sometimes also black threads, and I am convinced that black threads is an entirely different part of the internet than any other part of threads. So I can't vouch for all threads, but I can certainly vouch for black threads. Um, but there was one who was like, I was at the grocery store and I had my headphones in and I was carrying a purse and all of this, right? And somebody tapped me on my shoulder and asked me where I could find a particular item. And she was like, there was no part of me other than the fact that I am a black person, um, that this person who was white should have expected that I was there to serve them, and yet, like, all of the signals were suggesting I am a patron just like you. And yet, uh, you know. And so that's one of them. And I I want to be very careful to note here that the issue is not that somebody presumes that they were a like the issue was not with being a worker at a grocery store.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

The issue is that there is an assumption that people make when they see folks of color that we are there to be in subservient positions, whether that is a uh worker at the grocery store or a lower status role within a hospital or whatever, right? And so the the issue is the white person saw this person who had no other indicator. There was no badge, there was no uniform, whatever, right? There was no indicator that suggested that they weren't there. And yet they said, ah, it must be you. And so that's one example of uh, I think, you know, the subtle ways that my that that racism shows up that is pretty consistent.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Well, my that what's funny about that is one of my daily racist reminders has to do the grocery store as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

So me, six foot one, 250-pound white bearded gentleman, I'll always get in a line. You line up in cues, that's what you do. They will always open a new queue when there's too many people in the line. There will be people of color ahead of me, but I get waved over every time.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Oh my gosh. Every time that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And so I'll be like, you go ahead. And it's almost like I and this is what it comes to how racism could be so subtle. I don't think the clerk realizes. Yep. I just think they see a person that's in their brain, a person of authority.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

And they wave them over. I mean, we could go deep on the grocery stores because grocery stores change the type of per produce they provide per neighborhood. Yeah. They change everything because, of course, uh food eye insecurity in certain areas, what do they call? Uh food deserts.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Food deserts, yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And they're predominantly in people of color neighborhoods. Yep. They don't get provided the same amount of produce as a white neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And the same quality either.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

100% of the same quality. Yeah. So grocery stores, just like if you were to open your eyes and go to a grocery store and look, you can see the historic and systemic racism that is involved just in grocery stores.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yep. Yeah. That uh the anecdote you just gave about like being in line and people waving you over, like there's something that I definitely experience as a black woman, just the feeling of like being invisible. Like literally, like, hello, I am here. Um, and so one of the things that I am very adamant about um is when I am walking, I we have lots of parks nearby us, and we have sidewalks, and we I'm I'm very grateful to the city of Long Beach for just like the the lush landscape that is around us. Um and something that I refuse to do is to shrink myself on the sidewalk if a white person is walking toward me. And this happens so often that I'm not sure that people realize it, but this actually goes back to Jim Crow's laws in the South that said that if you are a black person and a white person walking on the sidewalk, the black person was supposed to cede to the white person, put their eyes down, not make eye contact, right? Be everything that was like, I'm so sorry, I'm in your way. And it was wrong then. It's wrong now, and I'm not doing that because I have as much right to this sidewalk as you do. And so, barring any like situation where I'm taking up the entire space or whatever, like I will, you know, do like the passing lane, whatever. But there are lots of times where I will pass by a white person. What I've learned is that sometimes I have to stop walking to force them to run into my shoulder and then oh it's like, yeah, dude, I'm here. But I but that I don't know that anyone who is doing that would be like, well, yes, of course. I believe that because we have Jim Crow laws, I deserve to be on the side. And yet, that is another example of how racism just embeds. Like you're you presume as a white person that I am going to be the one to, not you.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Here's here's from the other standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

I walk down the street to pick up my son from school, uh, young black lady walking towards me. I purposefully stand on the grass. Yeah. The reaction from this woman was made me so sad in the idea of, oh, oh, thank you, thank you so much. Uh have a nice day.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

So, as well as the dominance is there, the subservience is still there. Yes. And getting away from that is important. Like I wanted to stop her and say, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Because of the way I know my stature, my look made her feel in that moment. But I can't give someone the strength immediately.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah. Well, I think also what you're signaling, or what you're saying, what you're talking about, is that you are making intentional choices to combat racism in big and small ways, right? And not every white person is like that, not every person is like that. And so sometimes what happens when you are the black woman who sees the white guy who is like moving to the side for you is to realize, like, oh great! I don't have to be invisible today, and that can be shocking.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Just being seen.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Just being seen.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

That that I won't, that makes me sad. That really makes me sad. Because of all the hate that I had in my life at a young age, yeah, and how much trauma I had no idea I was inflicting on people.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

And I mean, just like as a kid with stickers on my roller skates, they were just stickers to me. But seeing what that could have done to people that knew what that was, and some of my best friends growing up. And seeing my dad chop on this motorcycle and me running up and hugging him because he was my father. But seeing how much hate he channeled towards people that I cared deeply about. I say I was raised by white supremacists. When you when you look at the true story of it, I was embraced by my community around me more so than I was my white parents. Um they were more vacant, but the older black lady down the street that had enough kids to deal with was dealing with me as well.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Um I vividly remember the first time I heard the N-word because we all got hit. Every one of us kids got hit. And I got hit because I heard it, and everyone else got hit because they said it. Uh-huh. Um, that's why it bothers me today to hear that word. Um it bothers me so much today when I see young black children say that to other black children. I understand the idea of owning that, but I don't think they see the full horror that's behind that word.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Um, and so I can't teach them. For example, I was on a field trip the other day with my kids' school. They're fourth graders, and there's this young man in that class, and he literally said, Man, why the fuck do I gotta learn about this slavery? Because it was at the it was at the um what do you think, rancho.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

And there were Asian slaves, people portray Asian slaves and talk about slavery. And I looked at him, I'm like, man, you really do need to understand that.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Like, you gotta learn it because, yeah. So, okay. So, also on threads. I swear I don't just spend all my comments.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

You just send all the comments.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

It's all right.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

I I am I am very online. Um there was a black woman who was young, like, let's say 20s, uh, who had posted a clip of Michelle Obama talking about the intentional way that she's wearing her hair and how, you know, uh, you know, she wore braids and you know, silk press, all these different kinds of things. And um, the comments under the video that she had reposted were black women like me being like, Thank you so much, Mrs. Obama, for what you did for all of us, black women, and showing the different ways that we can wear our hair. Yeah. And the 20-something who had reposted was like, Michelle Obama didn't change anything. Like, I'm out here wearing braids and it's fine, and whatever, and and there were other black women who were very quick to come in that person's comments and be like, the reason that you feel so able to wear your hair however you want is absolutely because of the work that Michelle Obama and so many others did and the battles that we fought to have our hair be seen as beautiful, the way that it comes out of our hair, and in the many ways that we might style it. And the fact that you don't know that is a privilege, right? It means that we worked really hard and we were successful, but it also means that you don't know the the history of racism that black women in particular face because of our hair, and that is a problem, my dear.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

That's a double-edged sword. It's really and so times are so nice that you don't understand about what previous generations so close to previous generation, 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yes! I mean, like literally, I am 36 years old, and I did not wear my hair in any natural style until November of 2020, and it was because the pandemic had happened and the shutdowns were going on, and I know how to do my own hair. I've been doing my own hair since literally like I was 13 years old, but it was too much to do on top of all the other stuff that was happening, and so my husband cut my hair, and I had this like short little afro, and I had to figure out how to fall in love with my hair as it threw out of my head, and I really confronted like all of these things around not feeling beautiful and really like wondering where that came from. And my daughter, on the other hand, she is three and a half, she is darker skinned than I am, my little chocolate drop, and she has beautiful, thick, coily hair. Yeah, and there was this day um where she was telling me that she she loves to say princesses. And she was telling me that she wanted to wear her hair like princesses, and she didn't want braids. And I realized that my god, my throat Norwegian water. I also have my water with my I just you know, my my body is just getting getting choked up to it.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

But it is. I mean, when when it comes to our children, I think it's even harder.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

And she um I realized that for her, what she meant is that she just wanted to wear her hat in an afro. And so I picked up that shoe, and I like and I just like styled her, and she was like, Mama, my hair is so beautiful, and she like and just seeing her be three and a half and like looking at her hair in an afro and feeling beautiful, like, and she intentionally she did not want her hair in braid, she did not want her hair, she wanted it out, and that will be but I was like, she's gonna be okay. Um, and I loved that for her because when I was her age, I remember begging my mom to buy Pantene Pro V shampoo because in the commercials he'd washing her Pantine Pro V and it came out nice and straight. Why? Because it was always white with it.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smooth and straight.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

And so my mom washed my hair with it. It did not turn out that way, and I cried. And so I just like part of being a parent, I feel like, is you get healing for things you didn't even know you needed healing for.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

But the hair conversation is one that really is being healed for me through my daughter, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, that's incredible. I've learned a lot from my sons in that very aspect because my sons are protectors inherently. Like that's something I feel I'd like to be proud of that they got from me. My son's the first to shout out inequity within his class, so much so that it's I've had teachers call me, well, this happened today. I'm like, well, good. You punished the other kid, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

And uh, and just that makes me proud that our next generations are gonna be a little bit better at that. But then again, I think of the kid that you were talking to in Manhattan Beach at that school that was so proud to boast for something that I'm sure he clearly didn't understand.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

And I think you said something that really stood out to me around how your parents weren't as like they didn't embrace you, create that sense of community in the same way that your neighbors of color did, and that really was like one of the things that just helped you connect with folks of color.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Um, and I think a lot about what is described as like the male loneliness epidemic, right? But um, and I see this like being married to a man, he actually has great friends, um, but he is very unique in that regard. So there's a lot of research showing that men, particularly heterosexual men, tend to look at their partner, their spouse, their girlfriend, whatever, as their everything. You're my friend, you're my cheerleader, you're my you know, sounding board, whatever, and don't have that community, that network of friends in the same way. Um, and it can be very easy when you are lonely to find that connection in places where you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yeah, and look past negative things.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Right, because you're like this, these are people that understand.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Oh my god, I got a friend. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

And so um I am not out here saying that we should all like befriend to white supremacists, because like I don't have the energy for that. But I do think that there is the the psychological experience of feeling alone and being made to feel less than, or being made to feel isolated, or like you're wrong, and then finding people who are like, yes. Yeah, and you know who's responsible for that? The people over there.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Common enemy. We go back to tribalism.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Absolutely, and it's very powerful, and so that's why I think it's really, you know, a lot of the um research that I have done looks at how exposure to people who are different from you is actually very important for breaking down any kind of racist or homophobic or whatever it is beliefs, because if you don't have that exposure, it's easy to believe the stories that people are telling you about those groups. But once you have those interactions for yourself, you can realize, oh, that's they're wrong. Yeah. Okay, and that is really important for breaking down any of the barriers around identity that we might have.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah, and that's 100% true because I mean all my best friends were people of color growing up. Um, I could say I had groups with token white kids, and where I was the token white kid, and um that was important in my evolution. So fate puts me put me in a certain place in my life because they knew I needed it to separate from my parents in that aspect of it. It's really hard as an as you get older to clear yourself of those things. So I think if people didn't have the ability to see diversity as a child, they carry it with them and it almost solidifies itself in them, which makes it harder. Hence, some of my family that during the first Trump run when I was anti-Trump the whole time called me a race traitor and all this stuff, right? Now they've gone silent. Wonder what happened. Um, probably all of their benefits being taken away finally affected them. Um so the ability to break free from it was a lot harder for my father. Because as he got older, I think his eyes started to open.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Really?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

And his eyes started to open in weird ways. He went to prison for the umpteenth time, and he couldn't walk. And the warden put a black man on his wheelchair. My dad relied 100% on a black man for five years in prison. And I never met the man, I never saw the man, I just heard stories about this man and how they developed a relationship and they developed talking and trust. And I'm sure that's where my dad kind of broke down those barriers later in his life to finally realize, but it's being exposed to it. Yep. It's that exposure is everything. Yep. And that's why another reason why I enjoy raising my kids here in Long Beach.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Because guess what? White people are not the majority in the city of Long Beach.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

I will tell you what though, so you're reminding me that one of the other reasons that my husband and I wanted to move to Long Beach instead of the valley is because um, oh, the TV's fellow blackish.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yes, right here. We drove past the house just a minute ago.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious that they were portraying the valley, shooting the Long Beach. Yeah. Um, and so in that show, like it's a black family, but they are raised in a very white community, right, of Sherman Oaks. And I grew up as the token black kid in like every setting except for church, because my dad was a pastor of the uh like the oldest black church in the city of Columbus for for some time. And so it was very interesting because like during the week I was surrounded by white people, and then on the weekends, and on Wednesday evenings, because you know, and Thursday evenings were choir craft, whenever I was surrounded by black folks. Um, but I remember thinking, like, I don't want my kids to be raised in a place where they are the token black. And so that was another reason that the valley wasn't gonna work for us. And so when we were looking at Long Beach, I remember looking at the demographics and being like, oh my god, it's so diverse, like this is great. Um and this is where racism comes in because the neighborhood that we live in is very white.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Relative to the rest of the city of Long Beach. Yeah, you're on the east side. I'm on the east side. And I remember telling a friend of mine who was black who grew up in Long Beach, and he uh I was I was like, oh yeah, we're we're moving and we're over here, and he was like, Oh, y'all live in the part of Long Beach that I wasn't allowed to go to when I Well yeah, redlining is still a huge thing. I wasn't, he was like, I did not play over there.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

No.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

And I didn't realize that until we moved there and were walking around, and there was a neighbor two streets over that had a Trump flag waving in their front yard, right? And the thing that is frustrating for me as a black person and trying to find a place to raise my family is that the reason we picked our location is because of proximity to good public schools. Yeah. We have a K-8 school that is a California distinguished distinguished school. It has great ratings. There is a high school, and all of this, by the way, is like a three minute bike ride, 10 minute walk max away. And so I was like, this is fantastic because I was optimizing for a place where we weren't gonna have to spend money to send our kids to private school and we were gonna be able to walk and not have to worry about them crossing major streets, right? Like that's what I was optimizing for.

SPEAKER_03 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

What I did not realize is that optimizing for those things because of racism meant that I was going to end up in a neighborhood that was predominantly white.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Because we think about the history of redlining, we think about the um white flight that happens from urban areas. White people went to neighborhoods where they could create their communities of goodness, all the good stuff, the best, the best uh grocery stores, the best schools, the best hospitals, and built communities around it. And while I and my husband are fortunate enough to be able to afford a house in that neighborhood, it didn't occur to me that by optimizing for things that were going to give us and our children a great quality of life, we were also optimizing out of the racial diversity of Long Beach. And that is frustrating because it means that my daughter, daughter is now still the token for black kids. Yeah. The difference, I guess, is that they exist in a neighborhood because we have been very intentional about finding folks of color and just people from a variety of different backgrounds, like we've been able to cultivate a very racially diverse group, but it's not very black. And that is something that um that that hurts. And also knowing that neither my husband nor I are really like we I always say we're like culturally Baptist. We grew up very much in the Baptist church, but have not really found that community out here in the same way. And so my kids don't have that black weekend experience that I did, and that's also something that um quite frankly is I don't know how to I don't know what to do about that.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Um well, speaking of redlining, yeah, this right here is supposed to be affordable housing put into Cal Heights.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Oh, great. Okay. It's a nice parking lot right now.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Well, now it's going under review and all that stuff, but this is the historic district of Long Beach, right? So all these houses are over a hundred years old.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

When Long Beach is taking care of affordable housing, they're saying it's affordable housing. Here's our lie. Affordable housing in the city of Long Beach is not affordable.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

It's not affordable at all. So you have some of our people in politics, our current councilwoman basically called this entire neighborhood racist because they don't want affordable housing. I don't like it when it's used as a weapon. Yeah. You're you're not being truthful because those apartments are gonna be $3,000 a month.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

Yeah, it's not gonna, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

That's not affordable housing. So what you're doing is you're basically redlining in the fact of price because you are pricing out those people.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

And even downtown, they took away that, oh, well, it doesn't have to be affordable housing now because they're not filling the units, because they're charging too much for people.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Well, because it's not affordable. We have to really understand what affordable actually means. So here's what I will tell you. So we were actually we were driving um by a street and they gave me uh, I like had a flashback moment. So when my husband and I first moved to Long Beach, we really wanted to have a Long Beach uh zip code and you know whatnot. And we could barely afford a house here. So we lived in what I called Bixby Knolls adjacent, uh at the off of the 710 in Del Amo.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, hey, that's North Long Beach.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Um yeah, and then we and so it was actually a very different environment over there, which is you know to relevant to our conversation. Yeah. Um and in fact, when we realized that I was pregnant and we were looking for um a house, and and the market was turning, and so we knew that whatever house we were in was the house that probably we were gonna be stuck in. And the neighborhood that we were in did not have great school zoned to it, and I didn't want to send my capable private school because I realized that the private schools in the area are almost all affiliated with churches.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Um Catholic Church, and I was just like, we're not doing that. So we moved and we were looking for houses, and I love kind of like how I love the neighborhood of Lakeview in Chicago, which um I believe also has a history of redlining. So just love all these unattainable to me. Uh, maybe there's a part of my ancestry that's like we wanted to do it. We're going to get it. So we're gonna get in here, right? Um, and so we looked at a house on California, um, and it was right across from the elementary school, and so I was like, Oh, this is great. Like, literally, we'll just be able to like set our kids out the door. I'll be in my jammies with my coffee, watching my kid walk into school, it'll be great. Um, and the house was a million fifty. No, a million five hundred. And um, it was old. It it, I mean.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Yeah, but another couple hundred inches.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, there was a retaining wall that was like falling down, but it was a beautiful house that had character, which is what I wanted to like what I was going for. And all of the houses in this area, I think, have character. So it was not an affordable house by any means, but it was attainable for us, were it not for the fact that there was an like investment company that paid in all cash, yeah, was able to waive all the contingencies, could close in two weeks, that got the house.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

And I remember feeling so deflated because this was the second what I thought was our dream house that we had lost out on to a cash-only buyer that was going to, and I remember I looked at that house, I drive by it all the time. Um, because the people that bought that house, the company that bought the house flipped it and sold it for even more.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

That would have made it unattainable for us. And we would have lived in the house with a bathroom that was like a tub that was like pink tile that I would have kept because character, right? Like they and they they erased all of the character from it in the name of making $150,000 and made it impossible for families like me to move into there. But anyway, when I think about affordable housing, what I also think about is how when we were looking for houses, not just our first time, but our second time in particular, we were not losing out to other families who were buying single-family homes. We were losing out to corporations that were trying to make a quick buck by buying up all of the houses in the area and flipping it. And so that so I have an interesting relationship with the conversation around affordable housing because as a homeowner that didn't have a nest egg that was, you know, handed down from our parents or what have you, like we scraped and saved, I consulted, like we did all the things to get the money for our down payment. And we were not protected because there was no regulation to stop the greedy corporations from buying up the houses that we could have afforded in the area, and I'm so grateful that we ultimately were able to find a place.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Um, it's also the politicians in that aspect. Well, right now in the city of Lakewood, right here, they're allowing investors to buy up single family home lots that single families could have afforded. Yes. But they're putting four units on it in the name of we need more housing. But what they're really doing is they're hurting housing, they're turning people into permanent renters because they cannot afford a home. And these rental rates, quite frankly, are mortgage rates. Yes, yes, and so our redlining has shifted from blatant redlining to financial redlining.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

I remember when I was looking for an apartment when I was in LA, and I was living with my sister and my niece, and so we were looking for a three-bedroom house or three-bedroom like apartment, and we found one that was fantastic and we ended up renting it. It was $3,500 a month.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

And I remember I was talking to my boss at the time, and he was like, if you're paying $3,500 a month, you need to get a mortgage. And I was like, the thing is, mortgages require down payments, and I don't have thousands of dollars to put, so like, I can't afford a down payment. I can only afford the rent, and that is one of the most frustrating things.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Well, you're affording the the deposit on the house, first or last month's rent. Well, you're you're it's all of that that goes into it.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

So the earnest money deposit, which by the way, like I almost lost out on our first house because I didn't know that we had to put it. Yeah, put that personality. Oh my god, like just so many things, right? So what I like, this is why I'm very fun at parties because my like there are a few things that have radicalized me into being even more liberal and leftist um than I started off as. And one of those things was the process of buying a home. Yeah, and the other one is having it having being pregnant and having kids, right? And in both of those situations, I'm like, I already thought that everybody deserves to have access to homes in neighborhoods that have access to parks and good schools and you know all that, but now I'm like, oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Okay, but this goes that you have a PhD.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Well, that's also true.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Okay. My wife has two master's degrees.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Okay, wife.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Filling out that paperwork to buy a house made her cry.

unknown 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Right? That's another thing, is we're not only socioeconomically redlining, we're education redlining. We're keeping people who weren't allowed to go to the best schools to not get the best education. If they even crawled out of that and were able to better themselves, we're gonna get them with the paperwork. We're gonna get them with that down payment. Yes. We're gonna get them some way. So no matter what, Democrat, Republican, centrist, independent, leftist, we're all a part of this racism inherently in our society because we're allowing it. And even when we think we're doing good, when we're like, look, we're putting in affordable housing that's not affordable. Yep, you're part of the problem.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

So let me tell you, there is a really cool study that was done by um one of my friends and colleagues, Dr. Stephanie Reeves, um, on the bureaucratic, the way that kind of like bureaucratic hassles impact people from underrepresented groups. And in her study, she was looking at first-generation college students filling out paperwork for school. And what she did, it was a brilliant study because what she did is for half of the participants, they were filling out, uh, like I think it was financially informed, but let's just say it was like some kind of form.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

And as they got to the end, there was some kind of glitch that was that was that was programmed into the computer and all of their answers would disappear. For the other half, they filled it out and then it went through, right? And what she was looking at is like, how do students who are first gen versus those who do not experience that kind of challenge? And what she found is that the first generation students who experience a bureaucratic hassle took it as a sign that they didn't know how to do college. It made them feel like they didn't belong. It made them wonder like that.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

If I can fulfill the paperwork. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

And so what I thought was so brilliant about that study is that it was doing exactly what you were just saying, right? Where it's like, if I have to have a PhD, two masters, a like a a a coach who's telling me how to do every single thing in order to complete or to buy this house. How does like what does that mean for what I'm gonna do? You know, I remember when we, our first house, we had something happened. We were like connecting our hose, and basically our like yard started filling up with water, started like flooding with water. And our neighbor across the street saw what was happening. It was like something out of a cartoon, and he came over and reached his hand into the like thing of water and flipped a switch and turned off our main water line. And I didn't even know how to do that, right? But he did. So again, like this what felt like insider knowledge that he just happened to have because he was an older guy who had lived in the neighborhood for a while. And so, anyway, all this is to say when we are telling people, like, yes, you too can go to college, whatever, but we're not saying to them everybody is going to find this to be challenging in some way, shape, or form. And so when you encounter those hassles, it's not because you don't belong, it's because the system is rigged. We are making it impossible for them to feel like they could belong. And so that's what that research showed.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

And you know, and it goes down to this one my favorite argument. People's like, well, I had a hard girl upbringing. Oh I had this. I had, well, let's say me, for example. I was homeless at 13. I was raised by racists, but one thing that it never was against me was the color of my skin.

unknown 56:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

There was a wonderful article. Um, Brian, I'm just like full of studies.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

I love it. Yeah. I love it. I love knowledge, so it's it's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Well, so there was one um that said that when it comes to privilege, it's not about giving you a boost all the time. It's about shielding you from the harshest possibilities of what could be. And so I think about that, right? Like your homelessness at 13 didn't turn into a drug addiction and homelessness. Yeah and people's business owner, right? Like that is what your white skin did. It shielded you from what homelessness could have been.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

I interrupted you that's just excited if my face is. Because what it does is it it I did a lot of bad things growing up. The cops didn't look at me.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

They would go right past me. Yeah. Even though I was doing far worse than the black kids in my neighborhood. So it kept me out of situations. Yep. So it protected me in that aspect of it. And I was more likely to get a slap on the wrist.

SPEAKER_03 57:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

To this day, I'm more likely to get a slap on the wrist. And so that inequity, and I I think we need to people need to understand the difference between equality and equity. There's a big difference. Like we could be equal on an equal playing field, but if my skin color shields me from consequences, that's not equality. Right. And I don't think people understand that. I mean, there's so many more things we can get into, especially with the subtleties of racism. And I get in arguments all the time with fellow white people. Um, there was an incident, I think, right after, during the Black Lives Matter movement, there were protesters in the street in the city of Bakersfield, and a black man was run down in the street, run over.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Okay. All the white people jumped to that white man's. Uh they were trying to say no, it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't all that. His mugshot is literally there. And they're saying it was an accident, the man should have been in the street. I looked at the man immediately as a son of a white supremacist, and I looked at his tattoos. And he had 1888. And so I wrote, judging by those tattoos, this wasn't an accident. And of course, all the white people, well, maybe he loves NASCAR. And gave me the drivers of 18 and 88.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

When in reality, which 90% of the population will know that first letter of the alphabet is A. And the eighth later, a letter of the alphabet is E is five.

SPEAKER_01 58:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Adolf Hitler, Heil Hitler. If you see 1888 on anything, Jesus. That is Adolf Hitler, Heil Hitler. I told everyone in that message group that.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

How do you know that? I was raised in it.

SPEAKER_03 59:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

I know it. I see it on people all the time. The other part of that is things that were stolen from culture. Believe it or not, white people, you have a culture. And it's not white.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

And you also have a race, by the way, which is chapter four of my book.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Chapter four. Read chapter four. I don't think people realize it. They take their color as their culture and their race. That is not your culture or your race. I find that at the elementary schools, my sons have a cultural day. You see kids show up dressed up as leprechauns. My son's teacher said, Oh, you could go as a Viking. That's that's not that's not it.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

That's not our culture.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

That's not it. When it comes to forms, even now, when it's like, oh, white, black, uh, Hispanic, other. I always go in other and I put in Nordic. Because it skews the numbers for whites. Because I am not white.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

I'm opaque, maybe, but I'm Nordic. And so I respond more to my culture than I do to my color. And I think the moment we do that, we can see different cultures within the white race, and we can start to compartmentalize, like, oh, you're right, you're not the same as me. We're different, but we still give each other respect. And when we do that, we can open up to different color. Oh, your culture has that? My culture has that. I think if people looked at the Nordic culture and they looked at the African um culture and even the sub-uh Saharan cultures, you'll see a lot of things that are exactly the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

So you're bringing up something that I think is really interesting, which is just the way that whiteness as a race, like people always say like race is a social construct, which does not mean that race is made up and does not matter, but it does mean that society decides what white people, what whiteness is, and confers that on certain people. So the reason that I think it's so fascinating, right, is that what you're what I'm hearing you say is like you have a choice as white people to decide whether you're going to engage within the norms that are being offered to you as a white person because of your race, right? Um and part of the privilege that you have is being able to say, like, I know how people see me, and therefore I can subvert their expectations by behaving in ways that don't align with how white people are supposed to act.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

And that's why you get called a race trader, right? Um, but that's also why I think it's so powerful to understand your racial identity and the way that race doesn't exist in the world, because once you see it, then you can realize, like, oh, this is how I am reinforcing it in my actions, this is how I'm combating it with my actions, and you can make those intentional choices every single day, and that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Yes, I think it's 100% that. I think it's the idea that I can get people to ask questions about themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Whoa, he thinks that way. What do I think? Oh, wait. And then they can start unraveling it themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

And why am I so mad at him that he thinks that way? Like what what does that say about me or my my assumptions?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Oh, he's attacking my race. No, because I am your race.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Right? I'm attacking uh the constructs that have formed you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

And sometimes that's the hardest thing. I love my mom and dad, is what people. Yes, you can still love that person because they gave you life. But you don't have to love the choices they've made and the lessons they've taught you. Goes back to my dad when I had my sons. My dad saw them, and his first instinct was to say, blonde hair, blue eyes. Right? And this is when he was older. Yeah. And this is after certain lessons he's learned. And I thought he and I was like, Yeah, dad, Jewish. My sons are Jewish. My son's mother is Jewish.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

And I asked him, Do you still love him?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Did his head explode?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

He looked at me with tears in his eyes, knowing that he still had that hate coming out of his words. Even though he was embracing my sons, he said yes more than anything. So his love for my children pushed through that. Even though his words were still hateful, I think he said them out of repetition and out of this brainwashing that he had. Because he used to say that about me all the time. Like I was a little Aryan to him, you know? And so when he saw that I unraveled all that stuff he put in me, and I was still questioning him, I think he realized that was the point. And he did soften up. And he passed away, and I think he passed away with a new understanding on race from being the most white supremacist man I've ever seen in history with double lightning bolts and schwasticas and all this stuff to having Jewish grandchildren.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

Granted, still white. So it wasn't such a huge jump. But I think for him that was huge, right? It's very hard for someone like me. I feel like I'm making up for lost time. And I feel like I'm making up for my ancestors, right? If I don't, if I stop the growth, I feel I'm really letting down future generations. Yeah. Because I view myself as their ancestor, right? And so my goal with my kids is to get them to see race. One, we're not colorblind. I don't see race, it's bullshit. We need to see it and we need to embrace it. We need to embrace our differences because if not, what is it all for? Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

You're amazing to talk to. Oh, that's amazing. And I could do this forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:02

I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Um I want you to plug your book.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Okay. So my book, uh, which is called Was That Racist: How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life. Uh, it actually came out on January 6th, 2026. Um, and it is available in hard copy, in ebook, in author-narrated audiobook. I did narrate it. I'm very proud of that. Um, wherever books are sold, it's also in the library. And somebody told me they were like, you got like a 26-week wait on Libby. So it's hard. So I'm like, okay, I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

I'm glad I was at the signing because I got a book.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

And I have to read on hard copies. I have this dyslexia thing that I have to have a hard copy.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Yeah. I like I have I um I found that I like to put like a bookmark or some kind of like underneath each line to help focus me, because I'm somebody that I read a lot and I was in grad school, and the way that you read in grad school is just to like skim to kind of get the gist and include the points in a little bit in a lot. And so I found that in order to force myself to really pay attention. Okay, I have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

So I have a lot of uh empathy for but your text is very dyslexic friendly.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

The the size shout out to my publisher on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

The size and the text. Oh, that's great. Because I've noticed sometimes if it's too small or if it's uh if it's out of slant at all. Yeah. Yeah, I yeah. So it does help. And so I was able to do that. Yeah, well, I mean it's one of those things that that the little things that I noticed.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

Um, there is a specific font now that kind of helped as well. Okay. So I hope people keep bridging that gap and moving that way. But um, very helpful, thank you very much. And thank you for being on. And I hope people learn a little bit about diversity from this old white man sitting in a car with a beautiful young black woman.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

Well, I hope so too. And uh I'm really fortunate to know you. And uh every time I see you, we have a good conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

We do, we do. Last thing I always like to do in this is give me shout-outs of local businesses you think are worth the drive.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

Okay, um Granny's donuts. Yes. I had them this morning. Um, I love them. The red velvet donut is what I had, uh, the red velvet cake donut, but like just the variety of donuts of Granny's donuts is fantastic. Um, so that's one that is worth the drive. And then um another is Casita Books. Yeah. That uh they just relocated to um Beyond Redondo. And um it's a wonderful bookstore. Book bookstore. Bookstore? It's a wonderful bookstore that has stuff for kids and adults anywhere of all ages. Um it's got lots of texts in various languages too. So if you want to expose your kids to um stories in Spanish, for example, which I do if it's there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Can we pick up your book there?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

You can pick up there. Yeah, so it's fantastic. Um and the odor is fantastic uh as well. So yeah, those are my so get some granny's donuts and then go pick up a book from Casita.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:50

Yeah. Okay, what drives you every day?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

Oh, my kids. My kids. Um, they literally drive me to get out of bed, uh, as is the case this morning. My daughter came in and like literally grabbed.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

Why do they get up at six?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

I why well, so thankfully mine get up at 7.30.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

Mine are six, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

But I would rather get up at nine, and so 7.30 is still. Um, but yeah, they drive me uh and also because the thing that's really cool about kids, especially like toddlers, like I have a three-year-old and one-year-old is getting to see the world through their eyes. And so, like, everything that they do inspires me to want to create the best version of the world because I know that they are like I want everything that my daughter experiences my daughter's experience to be wonderful and good. And so I know it's not gonna be the case. Yeah, but um But they're still in the pure as much as I as much as I can curate an environment for them that just nourishes them and nurtures them, that's what I want. So that's what drives me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Yes, seeing kids just being purely kids and being able to see situations and places through their eyes, and even with me, it's holidays and stuff like that. Rec seeing that it's cool. I mean, we could talk forever because we could get on racism and religion and how most religions are predominantly racist.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

Oh my god. Book of Mormon as a as a musical, by the way, was transformative in helping me like really put into words the feelings that I had around racism and religion and how religion is also constructed as a way to how I mean great.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Okay, to be you're gonna be on again, and we're gonna talk about that whole aspect because your your religious base in what your religion and my pagan base is really interesting and how there's a lot of intersections, and we could completely talk about that, and I love it. So thanks for being on. I'll see you guys next time on Worth the Drive. Amazing. You rock my socks.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

So, yeah, you need to do this, you need to do a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:52

I so it's so funny that you were at the beginning, you were like, you know, the world doesn't need more white guys with podcasts.