The Demands of Fighting Racism are Solvable

another virus of sorts, racism. I would say to black people that I don't expect anyone else to free us. That we freed ourselves during the Civil War, and we're gonna have to free ourselves, you know, from racism too. But on the other hand, I do not think it is all on us. With the killing of George Floyd, the killing of a mod Arbory, and the killing of Brianna Taylor, the phrase Black Lives Matter suddenly became mainstream.

The stark nature of inequity and injustice became apparent for many who had tried to ignore it for so long, even for people accustomed to doing the work of anti racism, and especially for black folks doing that work. The mainstreaming of the movement has been both energizing and emotionally exhausting.

We may easy to take breaks, and that's okay. People should listen to their bodies and to their feelings, and you know, knowing that three months from then, or a year from then, or in a different type of way, that that baton, you know, is going to be picked up. Doctor IBRAMX Kendy as a professor, scholar, writer, and most recently the host of the Pushkin podcast Be Anti Racist.

When it comes to teaching anti racism to all, he has had to become a kind of endurance athlete, and we do all need to be a part of the solution. The demands of fighting racism are solvable. How are you settling into your new role as a Pushkin podcast host? Is this your first podcast, by the way, that you've hosted, Yes, okay,

So how are you settling into your new role? I feel like I'm settling, and I mean podcasting obviously it's something quite different than anything you know, I've ever done, and so it's it's a learning curve and hopefully everyone's bearing with me. Hey, I think you're doing a great job be Anti Racist as the name of your show. I know that you didn't always imagine yourself doing the work that you do today. Tell us a little bit about what you would have wanted to do if not

working in anti racistool. I grew up a huge New York Knicks fan and played basketball, and so I mean, I would have loved to be the next John Starks and you know, or Alan Houston. I of course that didn't work out, and I actually even even initially was thinking about being an actually intern to be a sports reporter. Nice, but I think the more I wrote about sports, the more I became interested in writing about race and race in sport, and ultimately I dropped the sport. But I

do sometimes, of course, write about sports understandable. I deal with race every day. Being black, I deal with it all the time, but I'm not necessarily an expert. After the killing of George Floyd, there was a lot of opportunities for me to talk to white folks about race, whether they were showing up in my inbox actually questions or apologizing for white privilege and all those I started an anti racist book club, going through the books that we're reading. Of course, one of them was Yours How

to Be Anti Racist? Going through those conversations for me, I did it for a while. We did it for about six months or so, and then I got tired of doing it. I couldn't do it anymore. I'm like, this is this is too much. I'm like, I don't want to talk about racing people. I don't want to have to explain this to white folks, especially. I just

didn't want to do it anymore. So I'm wondering, for somebody like you who does this twenty four to seven all the time, did you find that, maybe in the last year that this particular work has been more demanding and more taxing than usual, especially with everyone asking so many questions. So I think it has certainly been more demanding on my time. So it's just been harder to

navigate it, you than before. The combination of that with trying to be responsive to the growing number of people who are becoming aware that there's a racism problem and who are trying to sort of understand it, and then even recently trying to be responsive to the all out effort to close those eyes that had been sort of

opened a year ago. At the same time, I also recognize that, you know, I'm a scholar of race and racism, and so this is in a way sort of you know what I do, and I try to find soulless, and I try to ensure that I'm physically and emotionally capable to do this work, just like there are other professionals who who have to sort of think about that too.

Whether you know a cancer doctor who day in and day out they deal with cancer, and I, you know, as somebody who has battled cancer, you know, I know how hard it is for our caretakers to really fight this just brutal disease, and just like it's hard for

people who are fighting the disease of racism. In the months after George Floyd was killed, I noticed that there was a trend amongst especially amongst white folks in corporations to not only support Black Lives Matter, but we saw some forms of racial reckonings and racial reconciliations across some organizations, and the fervor has kind of died down a little bit.

I imagine you had a feeling as you saw it rise, what's it like to also see it fall, what it's like as it's been just a bitter and brutal, really backlash.

And so I don't think we should just imagine it sort of happened by happenstance, and so within for instance, days of George Floyd's murder and people demonstrating against that murder, you had the President of the United States, you know, calling them thugs, or you had him saying that, you know, when the looting starts, to shooting starts, and by the summer, efforts to hold people accountable suddenly became cancel culture, which

was horrible. And then those there were simultaneous and growing attacks on the sixteen nineteen Project, attacks on the teaching of the history of slavery, or even about racism in schools, and of course that's the attacks that we're facing today, and it's it's just been it's been brutal to see because in most of these cases, those who were attacking, whether it was Black Lives Matter demonstrators or sixteen nineteen Project or anti racism or even now critical race theory,

we're defining in a way or describing in a way that was not truthful, and then attacking their own definitions and defining in a way that would anger people and cause resentment, when that's actually in many cases not what people were doing or saying. Do you feel like this makes your job harder or does this feel like kind of just another day at the office. I'd say it's both. On the one hand, it certainly makes my job harder when other people have framed me in a particular way,

that's false. They they're coming with a particular perspective, they're coming to hear the research or the evidence or the logic. When approaching people who who have not read my work, that just makes it harder to have those conversations. But on the other way, and it's another day at the office, because this is what happened prior to George Floyd's murder. This is what's happening over the course you know of history. I mean, Marks the King was consistently during his lifetime

called an extremist, call an outside agitator, abolitionist. It was imagined where being divisive, I mean, this is what happens to people who are trying to create justice and equity. In terms of your headspace, if you could talk a little bit more about how you manage the actual fight in your head when it comes through having to talk about what racism is explaining to folks and how that is taxing on you as a fellow black person. How that's taxing on you to actually have to give those

answers and do that work. My work isn't necessarily directed specifically towards towards white people. I've encouraged even people of color to be anti racist, And it is a different type of conversation with different communities, which I think if I was just having the same conversation with the same community, I think it would be much more taxing. I would also add that I tried to separate statements about me or about black people that are offensive from feeling offended.

So it's it's it's it's rare that just because somebody sort of calls me an idiot or calls me the end word, or threatens me in a particular way, or describes black people in a particular way, that I personally would feel bad because of that, And so I tried

to make that separation. I think that's helped me. How do you make that separation because you just you might have said a key there that I don't I don't even know I could do that, because if somebody calls me an idiot or system about black people are automatically offended. What it is is I try to see what they're saying as a reflection first and foremost of what is wrong with them, And then I try to think about

why are they doing that? So, why is it that someone is tweeting at me a personal attack as opposed to engaging with my specific ideas? And I know that you know it's it's a way to discredit me because they don't want to engage with my ideas, right, Or why is someone you know calling me the N word? They're calling me the N word because they want me to feel bad, and I'm not going to give them

that opportunity. And so I try to think about the why, which then allows me to separate the offensive comment from feeling offended. Can you tell me a day that you felt like the work that you're doing is paying off. I think there's a lot of teachers that have store is like this, where they just feel like they've been working with their students and all of a sudden, you see them get it. You know, you see something happen.

You're just like, this is what teaching's all about. Do you have a moment like that, especially in a work where sometimes it could be a little amorphous or nebulous to actually see like the clear fruits of your labor. I remember last June, and I don't remember the day when I came across a poll that showed that I think it was seventy six percent of Americans had told the posters that systemic racism exists and it's a huge problem. It was the highest recorded percentage of Americans, you know,

ever recorded. I just remember almost being simultaneously in disbelief and hopeful that this clear governing majority could could take this nation to a place of justice, that we can sort of transform that awareness into action. What do you do when you're done for the day, when you don't have any more interviews, when you don't have any any anything to write in the moment, what do you do to recharge and to renew yourself in order to get

ready and energize for the fight for tomorrow. So I tried to wind down with a sangria, but I like the night. I also, before I go to bed, I tried to to read quite a bit, because I think reading and focusing on a book, particularly a good book, just settles me, you know, settles my mind. So I think, between a sangria and hanging with my family, of course you know I'm reading. I think that's what sort of

settles me each night. Has there ever been a moment for you where you just you, You've thought, you know what, I've had enough of this. I'm again managing the book club. That was the moment for me that I was like, you know it. On the individual level, I'll do this like I'll talk to folks if they want to talk. But I don't know if I can. I don't know

if I'm just not equipped for this. I'll do like normal, average, everyday black folks who want to get involved in the work of anti racism, how do we solve for those feelings of exhaustion. We may need to take breaks, and that's okay. People should listen to their to their bodies and to their feelings. And you know, knowing that three months from then or a year from then, or in a different type of way, that that baton, you know it's going to be picked up. It can be burdensome

when we feel it is it is on us. I would say to black people that I don't expect anyone else to free us, that we freed ourselves during the Civil War and we're gonna have to free ourselves, you know, from racism too. But on the other hand, I do not think it is all on us, you know. I think it's important for Asian Americans who are facing anti Asian racism to ally with with black folks facing anti

black racism. It's it's important for white Americans who who are facing the collateral damage from racism to be like, you know what, this country is, democracy itself, even for people like me, is being threatened. So we need to sort of ally and come together to fight for you know, our democracy. I expect and hope that other groups will do this in other groups are doing this. I know there's a lot of listeners that are listening right now

that probably want to be involved in the work. You know, we could point them in the direction of the podcast be anti Racists. We could point them in the direction of the books of course, how to be an anti Racist. And there's a bunch of other especially I like to call them race one on one books that listeners can read, and we can, you know, we can link to those. But what do you think, like, what's an everyday action that a listener can take in order to get involved

with either work of anti racism work? Or even trying to recharge themselves to be ready for more anti racism work. I think we should all think about our own backyard, our own organizations, and identify the people or even the organizations that are fighting for racial justice or fighting for racial equity, and then to think about, you know, in what's small or large way, can I support these people, Can I support this organization to give ourselves, you know,

in that way? And I think if we're all doing that, then we're going to have people in every backyard, in every institution who are trying to create, you know, an equitable injust world. Thank you so much for being with us, Doctor Kendy, Oh, you're welcome. Thank if you have me. Doctor Abramxic Kendy is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor and the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the buth Center for Anti Racist Research. He's a contributor

writer at the Atlantic and a CBS News correspondent. He is the author of many books, including Stamp from the Beginning, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for non Fiction, and he's written four Number one New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Anti Racist. Be sure to check out our show notes to find a great list of resources where you could continue to learn about anti racism and help

others to become anti racist too. And his podcast be Anti Racist has a terrific collection of listener guides which include discussion questions for listeners who are ready to get into the work with friends and family. This stuff is not easy, y'all. Even with doctor Kendy's great advice, sometimes we might need a little more direct support to get

through the hard spots and curveballs the world throws. Next week, I'm talking with doctor Joy Harden Bradford about therapy stegma for black folks and how to transcend it in order to get the help you need. I hope you'll join us. Solvell Senior Producer is Jocelyn Frank, Research by David John, Booking by Lisa Dunn. Our Managing Producer is Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is mio Leabelle. Special thanks to Tammy Wynn, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor,

and Nicole Morano. Solvable is the production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review. It helps us find our way to the ears of new listeners. You can find Pushkin Podcasts wherever you listen, including on the iHeartRadio app and Apple Podcasts. I'm Ronald Young Jr. Thanks for listening.