MLK & Racism (pt.1): S2 Ep2

A deep conversation on racism between a white mother and daughter

This episode my be sensitive for some listeners as we talk about racism, systemic racism and the upcoming Inauguration through the eyes of a child. Part 1 of 3 in honor of Black History Month in February.

Cyla reads excerpts from A Kids Book About Racism by Jelani Memory and Systemic Racism by Jordan Thierry, and explains the definition as read from those books on both. 

We talk about what Racism sounds like, feels like and as white people, try to consider the struggle and oppression Black and Brown people must feel on a daily basis. We take the time to consider what we could do differently to contribute positively every day in our own lives and to speak out against racism whenever we see it. 

As a bonus to listeners, you can score discount for all of the amazing books from A Kids Book About, use this link to score 25% off your first 3 books! All affiliate funds raised through this link are used to donate books from A Kid’s Book About series to fellow listeners and school libraries in neighboring communities.

For more information and resources on how to discuss big topics with your littles, check out www.tolerance.org.

Transcription:

Aren't these dogs awesome or what?
They love to cuddle you everywhere. Yes, we've been cuddled beyond cuddled today.
Yes, two staffys, lots of cuddles, tons of love.
And we need it this week. Yeah, lots going on. Lots of heavy stuff. Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day. Inauguration Day on Wednesday. Um, big week.
Yeah, and we'll be lot lots to work on and lots to think about. Definitely.
And so that's one reason we wanted to jump on today.
I think that our intention is always to be very conscious and aware of people of color of equal rights, of equality and fairness and love for all respect for all.

[2:38] And appreciation for the struggles that human kind has been through, but more specifically, that black and Brown people have had to face throughout history and and still face today.
And so today we read a kids book about systemic racism and a kids book about racism.
Systemic racism by Jordan theory and racism by Jelani Memory, who is the founder of a kids book about and a friend of ours.
You're actually going to interview Jordan theory about his book, the author about his book, Systemic Racism, next week?
Live for a kids book about on their Facebook and Instagram pages live.
And that will be the first of a few interviews that you have the,
honor of doing for a kids book about a company and a brand that we really respect from the way that they're able to present big ideas in a way small people.

[3:40] And grown ups can understand and help us foster and facilitate some of these conversations.
Because I think that it's with talking about some of this hard stuff that we can start to make change right?
It's kind of the basis of why we started the show and So we're in great alignment with the kids book about or super grateful for the opportunity.
We're super grateful for the opportunity. Yeah, especially the opportunity to share their amazing work.
So today you had racism written by Jelani Memory and systemic Racism by Jordan theory, and this is just in part of the work that we hope to do on Martin Luther King Jr Day,
a day that we believe is just.

[4:30] Another opportunity to continue to teach awareness, respect, unity and love for all,
just like MLK would have done had done and would continue to be doing if it wouldn't have been for his tragic death.
Now, being in Atlanta, we have the great privilege of living. And we used to live right by Martin Luther King Junior's house.
Actually, the neighbor next door that, like the neighborhood next door to us when we were living up there like a few neighbors over, had actually had that street in it,
that had Martin Luther King house in it. Yeah, absolutely.

[5:12] And so what? An honor to be walking around literally the footsteps of history right in our own backyard.
And Ebenezer Baptist Church is down there as well. Where the great Raphael Warnock, is a pastor?

[5:27] Uh huh. I'm sorry, Senator Raphael Warnock! That's right.

[5:33] He's so senator now, right? So I'm sorry we missed Geo.
Oh, well, he's done great things, uh, throughout his life and his career and and really and as an activist like Martin Luther King, Jr was an activist to use his voice for greater good,
similar to what we aim to dio right.
And so tell me, sigh In reading the first book, we'll start with racism.
What about that book and some of the information that you read stuck out to you?

[6:09] Um, that it can actually be really, really, really good to be a person of color, like there was two whole pages with Re Elise.

[6:21] Two whole pages with released on them and then won.
The last page was good.
And what makes it good to be a person of color you have more to give than a white person would.

[6:35] Why is that? Because you have different ideas, different perspectives, different cultures, different beliefs, different abilities, different,
different, ending everything like white people can do some things that black people can't and black people can do more things than white people can.
Wow, that's an interesting perspective.
Maybe it's because of the hardships and the life's challenges that they face.
Yeah, so that's a really interesting perspective from a child. Silent things for sharing that.

[7:14] What else did you find hard to read about?
Kids book about racism? I found it hard to read that black people are being treated as well even now, and they aren't treated very fairly at all.
Makes me sad. Yeah.

[7:34] Could you imagine? Like the story that we know about Ruby Bridges, right?
Ruby Bridges was about your age as a young African American girl that went to an all wait school when segregation was so prominent,
and the hardships that they faced and the fear and the bullying,
and the hate that was on a little girl because of her skin color.

[8:03] You know, really?
Really, um, kind of sickening to hear that. But But what's unfortunate is that happens every single day, and it happens today.
So, um, systemic racism. What did you find out?
And by the way, do you know the the actual definition of racism while we're speaking of it, I dio because I just read it.
Well, you knew it before you knew that It what racism sound like or feel like to you before.
Okay, Like you wrap said to go, I was like, this sounded like to me waas.

[8:45] They shall this racism. Like when I was when I had just heard of it, it sounded to me like it was like a type of racing.
And then I realized that it was more like black privileges are less and it's on balanced and the scale, and it's hard ships for black people.
And it's all it's confusing it very confusing ball of fire and flame and things.
So the actual definition of racism racism means to hate someone, exclude them or treat them badly because of their race or the color of their skin.
Yeah, in towns, huh? Definitely. Can you imagine? You know, I can't.

[9:40] Yeah, you can't. Because you're white, right? Were white.
Right. But what we can do is work to understand the history and the foundational structure.
That is, that the country is unfortunately founded on,
and and learn truths about that about slavery, about how people are were treated and how they're still treated today, and then choose to treat people,
with respect and love equally, regardless of their skin tone.

[10:17] So when it came to the book about racism and the difference between systemic racism, what do you do? You feel like The difference is as a as you kind of learned from those books.
I feel like the difference between systemic racism racism is racism is sometimes is most of the time, easier to see, but systemic racism is almost invisible.

[10:45] Wow. Yeah, that's right. That was something that the author, Jordan Thierry points out, is that systemic racism is when systems of our country right, whether it's,
schools or the police,
the real meaning of systemic racism is when race ideas are built in to laws, schools, stores and other institutions,
in a way that collectively makes life much harder for people of color. Right?
So, for instance, ah, black or brown friend, that is trying Justus, hard as you are to get into,
a great school or a great dance class or maybe a part in a in a show in a theater show or something like that,
doesn't get the same part or doesn't have the same opportunity because of the color of their skin.
Because somewhere in that system there's judgment.

[11:49] Okay, so when I was reading the story, now know why people of color are treated badly.

Why?

The reason is, when America was being founded by Europeans, they were all white and African American, black people of color or living there.
They got, they got kicked out, they got kicked out.
And some people were saying people that were white that were already living there were saying, Oh, these black people are so mean. They want tear you apart.
You shouldn't trust them. They're very mean.
And sadly, many, many people believe that that was true.
So it kind of started in the beginning, right when Europeans,
came over and colonized the United States. But there were already people living here or more people moving here from other parts of the world.
There it's Africa, or what have you South South America or indigenous people that evolved here in this land.

[13:06] And so the European white male or a white person that came over basically started, Um, saying that there there was that these people were not were less than right.
And it started this like a snowball effect of hate. We don't need to buy into that.
No, we don't. We need to push that away.
Yeah, go back to that ball theory with different meanings.
Your lover balls. Yeah, yes, I agree.
I don't know why I am so obsessed with that thing.
The lover ball Well, and it's a good place to be, you know, Dr Martin Luther King said some incredible words over his time as an activist.
He was an amazing public speaker and had the ability of bringing people together during very painful times where we were separated and there was so much segregation in the world.

[14:05] But 11 of his. My favorite quotes is that love is the greatest force in this universe.
Yes, go love er balls.
It is the heartbeat of the moral compass, which means, essentially, you can either come from a place of love or you can come from a place of hate.
You can. You can either choose to have the ball take over you or guide the lover balls of love and share in in that an equal and fair and balanced ways. And so that's how we continue to operate.
So I'm really looking forward. Thio.
Your interview with Jordan Theory next week with kids Book about.
We also like to consider this day a day of service, which,
is similar to how we like to have our mitzvahs, our monthly mitzvah,
our mega mitzvahs, always considering ways to give back to our community to be an agent of change, agent for good and positivity.
And today we are doing small things because covert times it's very hard.
Thio engage in really big ways, but that also goes hand in hand with another amazing quote,
from Dr Martin Luther King when he says, If we cannot do great things, we can do small things in a great way.

[15:32] And you do those things all the time today, being conscientious and,
um considered of our community by picking up some trash on a nature walk,
grabbing some of our goods that could be better used for someone else and donating them like our donation that we have going for the foster care Children of Atlanta, I hope.

[15:56] And random acts of kindness, like smiling at people even though you've got a mask on.
If you are out in public but smiling with your eyes, opening up a door for someone letting someone go first, letting someone in who's trying to get over in traffic just constantly looking for small ways to make,
little ripples of change is how we we are being aware today. But every day.
So the other big topic at hand is the inauguration on Wednesday. Yeah, make things coming, big things coming.
We are excited for positive change, and I think that, uh, that's what we're ushering in this new administration. But not everyone thinks like that, right?
Some people think it's not their that their country is being taken over.
Yes, and maybe those air ideas that we don't identify with but regardless, were we all need to move on. And we need to move from a place of love and move into positive change that we can all engage.
And I hope, together with this new administration, they invoke unity amongst the American people.
Elect true leadership can.
And so we're excited to see those festivities this weekend. Do you know that there's an actual time of day that the president's change hands Really?
Yeah. What time is it? 12 noon.

[17:26] Yeah, So I think I believe first, and I know things are much different this year, but we'll be watching on television as they broadcast the inauguration of not just the president but the first,
woman of color, vice President.

[17:45] Kamala Harris, who were very excited to see.
I believe her inauguration happens first, maybe around the 11 o'clock hour.
I know times they're shifting because of safety concerns and things like that.
And this year is quite unlike any other.
And how the inauguration in Washington, D. C.
Is was working. You know, we have family there, and, um, it's been very interesting to see on the news how the inauguration is being handled so much differently.
It's a lot of barricade, Ah, lot of military personnel and just really to make sure that everyone is safe.
So we'll watch this on television and then right before noon, I believe Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, and we will be watching.
We will be watching you all and celebrating.
Yes, So if you're listening out there and you are doing some of the same or you've experienced some racism in your own lives.

[18:44] Um, and what you have done about it, we would like to hear from you salad.
I would always like to continue this conversation with you about equality and about injustice and figuring out a way to work from a place of love and justice for all.
And then as things come up now that you are more aware of what systemic racism is, I want to continue to keep these convert stations going and talk about how they how they can change.
And when you see that happening, what will you do?
I will call it out. Good for you.

[19:18] It's important. I'm proud of you. E love you till next time. Friends.
No, wait. One more question. Okay.
Does it count? If you're a dog in your red? Does that count? Is a dog of color?

[19:33] No. Okay. Till next time.