Chelsea Handler Confronts White Privilege

their house by my hair. Did you feel like you were the white girl that was going to come in and fix the family. I went up to her and I slapped her on the butt and yeah, And she said black women have been defined by their hair and their asses for ages. You have no right to touch my body. This is just such classic white privilege right here. Yes, can we get the gating? Very excited to be on the Red Table today. This is serious, can you say on Red Table? I hope so. If not, I'm at

the wrong show. Things like that pop out of my mouth so easily. The last time I saw Chelsea was at her show. Okay, I've met Jenna Bigott spens out. Great thing about Chelsea is as she's a stray shooter. It's hard to find people, specifically white people that want to talk about I want to talk about it. You know, Mommy is always tell us when you're born white, you're born with your foot in the door. And that's real talk. That's the truth, right. A lot of white people don't

feel like that. Okay, Well, yeah, moving on, ladies, ladies, ladies, chel Oh, nice to meet you, know you Gamble. Everybody calls me Gary, Welcome to the table, tolsee. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really really excited to have you here because white privilege. This is the topic that we we talked about a lot. And I know you're a straight shooter, all right, I hope, but I'm screw it up too bad for you. You want not screw it up at all. I'm telling you it's gonna

be good. So my understanding is that you kind of had a a space in your life where you really had to kind of deal with some of your anger and really look at some internal issues that brought you to explore white privilege. Well, I had a big shift in therapy. I came from a lot of anger. Like I was very tough, very like I could take care of myself. I don't need a man on a new

babies back off, you know. I just had this huge kind of shield up around me which didn't allow vulnerability until I went to therapy and learned that I was mourning the loss of my brother from nine and I was still pissed about that I didn't anger is your cover for being in deep pain. I'm sorry that I'm forty four and just learning about this now, but better late to the party than never to show up at all.

One day, my psychiatrists walked in and handed me an orange, and I remember my seeing my body like I was revolted that a man handed me something. And then I was like, oh, you hate men doing anything nice for you, And when he handed it to me, I just became undone. I said, I need to tell you about the day my brother died and what happened to my family, because

him handing me something, just doing something. He picked an orange off of his tree in his backyard and gave it to me, and it was the nicest thing any man has done for me. So I'm peeling the orange, you know, foaming at the mouth, I'm like slobbering. It was the first time I was able to release my pain, release my anger. I didn't know that I was mad at my brother for dying. I thought I was upset or heard and that I was okay and I put

it away. Are you comfortable sharing what happened to your brother? Oh? Yeah? So I was the youngest of six. He was the oldest. His name was Chat. We did everything together and he went on a trip to go hiking in the Grand Tetons and he felt so The night before he left, he said he was coming back and said to me, I'll never leave you with this family, like talking about my parents because they were a little bit and uh, that was the last conversation I had. So yeah, you know,

we get stuck in victimhood. Also we want to blame somebody else for bad things. Guess how many other people's brothers died millions? You know. When I had a professional explained that to me that I had spent my last thirty some years being angry at men for disappointing me, I was like, well, that makes perfect sense. Why I can't be with somebody and why I need to do everything on my own and you know, no dependence. I

don't want to depend on anyone. People can depend on me and I'll show up, show up, shop shop, but no one. I can never depend on another person. Did you find that your rage affected your relationships with men? Yeah, I mean I would, you know, if they didn't do

something wrong, I'd make sure they did. You know, all FRAMEO, like, I know what's going to happen here, So let me just set this up so I can dump you, you know, in that deep impulsiveness, really bad impulsiveness and very Yeah, just fly off the handle, you know, break up with somebody, get back together with them the next day. I never really had a healthy I've had some too long term relationships, but I wouldn't describe either one of them as healthy.

I couldn't forgive anyone if they crossed the line with me, if they weren't a loyal friend, if they didn't stick up for me. It's like out out And then eventually you're like, well, who's here? Who love exactly? Like it's nice to be an adult for the first time in my life. Yeah, I feel like that. I'm just now entering an adult relationship with Will after we finally are learning to have an adult relationship. I feel so different than I've ever felt before. Now I'm on stage, I

don't drink before I go on stage anymore. Like I used to just be like whatever, the second show would be gone, and I'd be like, that's vaguely memorable, you know. I just didn't have any respect for my own art. Yeah. Are there people in your life that you feel like you need to make amends too? I've made amends with some people in my life, you know, like that's not comfortable for me, you know, I definitely it's probably not

for most of them. It's not so I resisted. Yeah, for me, just in my process to recognizing places where I might have hurt people and looking at where I've been a mean girl, looking at where I've been a mean wife, for mean mom, just mean you know. So it's so funny because you know, I never really looked at myself as being mean. I know, like that, don't be like that. No, you don't know that's that. No, but that's the thing in our family. We're considered the

mean ones in the family. Absolutely, And I've really been working on that. I have been working on that for years. It's really really hard to shape and I had to dismantle that a long time ago because I don't want to behave like that. I want to be a girl's girl. That's why I grew up with sisters, so I wanted to be a sister to everybody, not just the women I like. Right, you know, you don't have to be

best friends with everybody. As my best friend Mary McCormick says, we're probably telling me to get the hell away, friend. You don't have to be best friends with everybody, but you have to be a sister everybody. Listen. I'm sitting here with a whole different Chelsea right now, which is great. I just really like, I'm like, look at miss Chelsea. Miss Chelsea has been doing a work, honey. So as part of our evolution, Chelsea made a controversial documentary, Hello Privilege.

It's me Chelsea, about a difficult topic. I'm clearly the beneficiary of white privilege. I want to know how to be a better white person to people of color. We need to talk to people who are white and stop asking black people to solve our problems. Do you think it exists? I wouldn't say it's totally non existent, but not something about a savory but would you see it if you're white. Yeah, I had to get therapy before I shot this, but I had to learn how to

sit instead of talk and listen. So when you looked back at it, did you feel any guilt in regards to white privilege? Yes? Do you know when you look at your life and you looked at being rewarded, even in Hollywood for my bad behavior which was considered bad, but I was being rewarded like a black girl would never have gotten her own show to tell celebrities how

stupid they were. Never Like I would go to Mixed Nuts, which was a black comedy club, and I had this black best friend, Chandrella, and I always go to her club, but she could never come to my club. She could, but she wouldn't get spots. I mean, just the examples. When I go back and reflect, I'm like, oh, you idiot, this the like you are a beneficiary of white privilege to such a degree, like you are the American white dream. Got it? Yeah? I can't. I didn't go to college

and think I needed to. Couldn't bother you know, right. I just thought I was like, oh, I've got something to say. I'm sure people will be interested in that So I want to know that moment where your heart cracked open and there was a level of compassion that made you just go Chelsea, we have to understand how we're participating in this white privilege idea. Okay, Tayshawn my ex boyfriend from high school. I did him for two years. I got pregnant a couple of times. I lived with

his family. His mother was a crackhead at the time, she was on and off drugs. She was sober, and so I was always helping out at the house. I mean, I don't know what the hell I thought I was doing there. I was sixteen years old. You know, did you feel like, like, did you have that kind of white savior thing happening going on with you when you moved into his house? Did you feel like you were the white girl that was going to come in and

fix the family. No? I think I came in. You know, in my family, I was the problem child, and I think in their family I wasn't. I was a good kid, and I like that. I liked being the responsible one. His mom would go out all night and leave me with her two little to see, that's a little bit little white savior in there. Well, yeah, but at that age it was right now it would be. But I wanted to be helpful, like I was finally helpful in a household. I was congratulating myself at that age, like

I don't care about color. I love these people. I loved his family. That was what I was focused on. I wasn't thinking about him because I was at my own ass for a very long time, and so I was like, oh, instead of my sister saying these words to me, you know how easy it was for you to go into his world and leave. Think about what would be like to bring him into your world and how long he would last there. And that was, you know, after my father dragged me out of their house by

my hair. At that point. You got in trouble a lot when we were together, and I was always not able to skirt out of the trouble. Like I remember getting pulled over like four or five times on my way home to the house when I had been drinking. I had like five people in the car, and every single time I got through it. No, but she had the COMPLEXI want to connection. Wow. I was in some pretty hairy situations that I never ever paid the price for.

Never Tyshawn was wasn't dealing drugs initially at the end, he was, but getting caught, you know, three times with weed. He got arrested all three times, and I was let go at the time. White privilege but didn't occur to me at the time. I thought I have a great personality, like and I'm cute, like that must be it. It didn't occur to me until I had to go back and actually look at that. I grew up thinking the police were there to protect me. That's not how people

of color grow up. They don't think of that. Getting pulled over is a life or death experience. Life or death. I've been pulled over and yelled at the officers, yelled like what do you think you're doing? You know, before I was famous, just out of my entitlement, just been like, you can't arrest me my father will my father? I mean, my father was a used car dealer. I don't know what I was gonna about, but I was just like

and you know, and I were it worked. I was just like, had this mouth on me and I could and I thought, oh yeah, like police are safe. I had a lot of revelation in watching your documentary, seeing how white people could actually be confused by the idea of white privilege and why there would be some white people that believe that white privilege is non existent. So what we're filming is a documentary on white privilege to see if it exists or if it's a fantasy that

people are just making up in their heads. What do you think. I think it's something they're making up in their heads. You don't think it exists. I had the same privileges that the other guys had, and what other guys, other guys, black, white, Hispanic, right, I think everybody makes their all twists. You were surprised about that. I was surprised because because privilege to a lot of people is related to money. That's how I thought of it, right, And I read a line in a book that said,

too many people equality feels like a loss. Right, And that's the moment that was the line. I'm very big on one line taking equality feels like a loss. And then I thought, what would I be willing to give up in the name of equality? Right? If I really were, if you were to say to me, hey, give me your house and everything's gonna be fair and equal, right, sure, right? But what would individuals who who have nothing to give, right, be okay with giving. So I feel like if you're

born white, you're born with your foot in the door. Absolutely, I've set down and broken bread with underprivileged white people, right, So I could see how there would be white people in America that would say, I don't know how I'm paying my bills, I don't know how I'm going to get my kid into college. Privilege. Oh you're struggling. What are you talking about? And I think that's a defining word,

thou struggle. I've had hard times in my life, but I've never struggled to eat, to have food on the table, worried about my next job in a real way. Right. But there are a lot of white people in this country that do absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying white people struggle. Absolutely, But that's a good words to use, and it is intimidating because people don't want to get out of their comfort zones that people who say I don't I don't see racism. It's because you don't know

any black people, So when would you witness it? So have you come up with a definition that you feel really describes white privilege? And I always use the example that you know, going into a grocery store as a white person is totally different than going into the grocery store as a black person. No one's looking at you to screw up, no one's looking at you to take something,

No one suspects anything. Do you every times I've walked out of grocery stores because the line was too long and I didn't feel like waiting, I was like, this is annoying, I'm just gonna take it and shoplifted. I mean, talk about entitlement and privilege. I just knew I wouldn't get caught. But when when you were talking to that group of Republican women in the documentary, to me, that was I can't get it out. I felt like, are you living under a rock? There was not only an unawareness,

but um a righteousness about it, righteousness and just unconcerned. Yeah. I didn't get anywhere by being white and having a privilege. I got there because I worked my ass off, right, So okay, I can respect that. What's your what's your situation? My take on the white privileged thing is, I mean, if we're gonna say there's white privilege, then you would have to say that there's some form of privilege for any race or any gender, any religion. If you're an

attractive woman, you have a privilege. I think there's all different kinds of privileges. I mean, I don't know if privilege is the right word. Do you think black people have privilege and every every race, Like I said, every privilege? Do people of color get the college admission? Now? Yeah, okay, I mean that's kind of a big one. That's a certain percentage have to be hired. Do you think that's wrong?

Not that that's wrong, but to really feel like you need to hire someone based on their skin color, it seems wrong. Isn't it kind of the right thing to do, to say, Hey, let's give people who we were oppressing for so long a little bit of a head start, a little bit of an opportunity, since we've all benefited from those opportunities. I know you don't think that you have. I definitely think I've benefited from the color of my skin. I don't think I would have gotten away with my

career if I were a black girl. Part of me thinks it's time to move on and not get off. And we're talking about it this country. We're in a really really bad space right now. And um, you know, I think a lot of us just are like just throw up our hands and don't know what to do. If any of those women had any black friends, somebody in their life that's black that they actually love, right, I mean they do not what they have the same

right ideas. But if you if you have no close relationship with anybody black, then you're gonna be like, I don't, I don't. I don't think you'll know, right, And I think a lot of this whole attitude, but oh it racism, it's minimal, and they just need to get over it. What yeah, that is I mean that's in sensing obviously, and it's also you know, yeah, they don't want to be blamed for you know, their ancestors. It's like if you can't admit, you know, you're resisting the idea that's happening.

So there's no shame in saying, yes, this is an epidemic, this is terrible, this is a result of you know, of our history, and we have to fix it. Like until everybody can come to the table and say, hey, yeah this is going on, now, teach me learn, let's learn, because that's how I feel. I want to learn more and more more and do the right thing. I had a white friend the other day who said something that was offensive that she didn't know was offensive about another

black person's features. And I had to pull my girlfriend over and I was like, you can't do that, and she said, tell me what I did. Yeah, I said, you're Jewish. If I had said, I could tell that you're Jewish because of your nose, yeah right, yeah. And I know you're not gonna like this, but I'm gonna tell you because it was a learning point. But I

have done things like that in my life. This black woman was standing up singing a song and I went up to her and I said, oh my god, that was beautiful and I hugged her and I slapped her on the butt and yeah, I'm shocked a full right, Yeah, yeah you are, and so is she. And she said black women have been defined by their hair and their asses for ages. You have no right to touch my body. And she said it's not about your intention, it's about the reception. And that was, Oh, it doesn't matter. I

smack everybody on the ass. I smacked my sisters. I shouldn't be I shouldn't be smacking anybody on their body because it's disrespectful because I'm not taking into account other people's experiences. So that was another lightbulb moment. So now when I'm like, when people are like, well, I didn't mean anything by it, it's like, it doesn't matter if you didn't mean anything by it. It It was received that way. You can't deny that not somebody's feeling badly because of

your action. Yeah, this is just such classic white privilege right here, is because it's how you move about in the world. It's just a total unawareness totally. Yeah, that for me and and probably my generation that we just are very very impatient with now. So while you're asking me to be compassion and I'm like, girl by with that, Yeah, it's okay again, we can we can blue. Um, well, I've heard it curse like seventeen times. But it is so up to white people to fix this problem. It's

not right exactly. That is by the pressure. I understand that you're fed up. I would be fed up too. I totally get it. I don't have any answers. I don't know what the solution is, and I don't know what I want you to do, right, I know what I want done. I just want some compassion because at the end of the day, I think the biggest issue is that part of the privilege is that you don't have to give up until it's time to give up,

and that comes at different points. That's what happened today for sure, that I didn't have to That's exactly right, because I think the biggest issue for me as a white person is that everybody is so scared to ask questions. They're so scared to have uncomfortable conversations. It is hard to say to two black women, Hey, what can I say? Like? I want to be you know, I don't I want to be respectful and I want to be inclusive. Tell me how I want to ask those questions because I

want to be educated. I want to ask, you know, any sort of marginalized group, what is the most respectful way to refer to you? To include you, you gotta go head first into deep things and get in trouble and say stupid things to learn how to say smarter things.

But I also think them for people to say stupid stuff sometimes because at the end of the day, what we can't deny as black people is that white privilege has been going on for so long that there is an unconsciousness and not every slip of the mouth, not every you know, not every action is racist. It's just not knowing and habits. It's bad habits. I did this thing. I remember seeing a black man outside of my house in bel Air, at my neighbor's yard, and I was

so over the top ridiculous about accepting. I'm like, hey, Chelsea's like, what are you doing? Like what are you doing? Like too like overly solicitous. And of course I met with this female director, a black woman, who's like, you know, when you do that, black people, we know what you're doing. And it's annoying. And that's me over compensating. It's about

starting the conversation. And white people are so defensive about white privilege because if they admit that they are benefiting from it, then they have to do something about it. White people are They're fragile about this right. They're so filled with anger and so filled with rage. And when you're so filled with anger and you're so filled with rage, you want to put that on something. And I know that there's so many of us that you you know, it is like white people the problem, but for me.

I just feel like everybody is coming from a different vantage point as well too, So sometimes it just takes really continuing the conversation for maybe a point of view to really penetrate. Yeah, you know, for the idea to actually land. So nice when a doorway like opens up in your brain and then it means to all these other doorways. But that's why I feel like we can't close the door on communication. Chelsea Shada, great, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for having me and

talking about this. Thank you for welcoming to your beautiful home. Thank you, and thank you too, Gammy, thank you, thank you for coming. On the next Red Table Talk, the respected evangelical pastor who finally decided to live her truth, Pastor Paul is now Paula as Paul. You were married, and I'm assuming that you loved your wife good to start, and what her family thinks, now, okay, my dad's gone like this is that there will always be that pain all on the next Red Table Talk. It's nice to

see you happy. Thank you, yeah and just beaming. Now. I just gotta get my man and I'll be off and running. We got Chelse you with us today. He talked about our family that there's a big part to join the red table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.