Moving Beyond Us Vs. Them w/ Brené Brown

We are talking everything from dating while trans dating while a black woman, dating while forty, a lot of dating, but also trauma, resilience, beauty standards and social capital, Beyonce, you name it. Now, I want this podcast to amplify certain subjects, topics and folks who are doing work that makes me think, challenges or inspires me. Being involved in engaged dialogue with another thinking human being has raised my consciousness,

lifted my spirits, and shifted my molecules. Years ago, a therapist of mine said to me in our very first therapy session that the only thing that we can control as individuals is our own perception and our own behavior. That's it. That's all we can control, our perception and our behavior. It is my hope that the Laverne Cock Show is a place, a space that foster's perspective that might inspire new behavior in each of us that gets us closer to becoming the very best version of ourselves.

Dehumanization is the birthplace of every genocide recorded through history. If you take a group of people that are different than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities from them, it gives humans a capacity for violence towards them, which actually we're not neurobiologically wired two maim, rape, hurt, and kill other humans. So in order to do that, we have to go through a system of de humanization. And then once you strip people of your humanity, you're

able to do all kinds of things to folks. On this episode, we are talking about how we can move away from us versus them, the pervasive division that plagues our country right now. It has been so painful for me watching not only how divided we are, but how we demonize and dehumanize folks who might disagree with us around some political issue. And so my guest today talks about rehumanization. She's someone whose work has shaped so much of my thinking and giving me so many tools to

live a more wholehearted life. Of course, I'm talking about the incomparable Dr Burne Brown. Burnde A. Brown has described herself as a researcher, storyteller. She studies courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She's authored five number one New York Times bestsellers. She has a Netflix special. She is a shame research here with a Netflix special. Honey, Yes, she is so badass. And she is also the host of two different podcast

Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. When I thought about having a conversation about how divided we are as a nation and moving beyond that division, I knew I wanted to have that conversation with Renee. By the way, just for context, we recorded this after the election in November. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Bryne Brown. Hello, Dr Brine Brown, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. How are you doing today? I am you know, I got to see you twice this week, so it is just

the best week of my life. I'm doing great. Uh. I'm excited to be with you and interested to see where our conversation goes. I am as well. I have a ton of notes and you know me, I do we have this We have this mutual friend her talk and he's like, I've never seen you anxious about a podcast you do. And I'm like, she knows my work better than I do. This is this is interesting. So I wanted to start with where you start in your book, dare to lead with the Marcus Aurelius quote, which what

stands in the way becomes the way. And the reason I want to start there is because um, in my in the ways in which I armor up the things that keep me in the way of vulnerability, which is a key component of your work. You define vulnerability as risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure. And oh my god, the deep levels of which I use perfectionism as armor. It's so deep. So I'm trying to actually let go of perfectionism as I have this conversation. I'm trying to take the armor away.

But I want to start by asking you what is getting in the way right now for you around vulnerability and courage that needs to become the way. So note to self. She is not going to throw any softball questions. Okay, we're just starting. We're we're just starting right there. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, Yes, it's us, it's us. Right. So, Um, what I noticed is that you're in the the arena like hardcore right now, you have two podcast unlocking us

dare to Lead. You are in the arena in a way where you're having really uncomfortable conversations around race as a white person, which I think is so crucially important. And I just imagine that that has to be so thorny and so constantly vulnerable and constantly like getting your ass handed to you right that, Like, you're in the arena in a way that I don't even feel like I can even muster being in right now. I look and I'm just like, oh my god, how she doing this?

So I guess there's the question of how you in the arena the way you are right now? And then like how are you doing with all of this, Like with all the challenges everything that you have going on. You've taken on so much in the work and the research and building your business and this leadership place. What girl, what's going on? I think something feels weird for me right now. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.

I I talk so much about taking the armor off and saying what you believe, even when your voice shakes. I love that quote, and I'm doing it and there are consequences. There's for sure, I have experienced consequences for doing it. But and I always get flagged when I start thinking things like, well, I don't give a ship when anyone thinks because you know we're neurobiologically, why or

to care what people think? Right? I guess I feel like I'm at a point in my life where if you need to leave or unfollowed or do your thing, because we're at a fork in the road and I'm taking one path and you're taking another, and you need something else from me, go with God, like I wish you a lot of luck. I mean, I think you know, there are a lot of white women who follow me who have unfollowed me. We've had a lot of that,

you know. When I interviewed Biden for the podcast, when I put my support behind the Biden Harris ticket, when I talked about the pervasive dehumanization from the Trump administration and how regardless of politics, I can't abide by it. The fact that I have kind of walked into very hard conversations about race and and also really specific conversations about the ongoing betrayal of Black women by white women.

I think it's if I can't have an opinion because you want me to just shut up and keep writing books that help you, then you don't have a deep understanding of my work. Like and I've never been here before, Laverne, I've never been here. I've been tentative. But I think there's a hundred possibility that we can both have been shaped and moved by my research and have very different political opinions. There is zero percent possibility that you could understand my work and think I'm going to shut up

because I'm making you uncomfortable. Absolutely, I just floored by hearing you say that you've had so many white women on follow you and feel betrayed on a certain level. And I'm just thinking it has to be that has to be hard. I mean, it has to be insanely difficult. But there's a few things that you said. I mean, I think the ongoing betrayal that black women feel from white women, can I just can we just can we

go there right a little bit? Because I think that piece we saw that you know, so many white women again voted for you know, forty five and a lot of black women have had a lot to say about that Black folks in general. We've talked to a lot of black women publicly. It's been really beautiful. Where are you with all that? Right now? So I think both questions are they're related. I really I don't know how I got here. I really don't. I don't. I need

to probably understand it better. I can't betray me first anymore. I have to rank order belonging to myself before making you pleased with me. And they're not. You know, they're not all white women. Of course I'm a white woman, like they're not all white women. But but that's the majority of folks who have not followed me. That's the majority of folks who have sent me pictures burning my books, you know. And yeah, and it's I think it pisces me off because I think the language I hear a

lot is you disappointed me. You're such a disappointment. You really let me down. Why do they say, is it clear why they're disappointed? Because you know, because you change my life, or you got me through my divorce, or you help my my kid in rehab. And now you have to go blab in your mouth about politics. And so I think that idea that you've disappointed me and what that had the potential to do to me in

my life for decades. You know, my response to it maybe a year ago was fuck you, And my response to it now is I don't care m that I disappointed you, because I'm not here to please you. And so the fact that you think I'm here to please you is exactly the white woman problem. Oh speak speak. There's a very deep complexity to the way many of us as white women, are raised, which is you will never ever, you will never sees real power over your body,

over your future, over your mind. You'll never seize it. So the best thing that you can do is catch the drippings of the men who have it and learn how to be the right kind of woman to access the power from them. And your first call to duty is to protect them at all costs, because if that power is not dripping off them, where do you think you're going to catch it? And we're really raised that way, I mean, and it's not sometimes it's subtle, but sometimes

it's really not subtle. It's you know, stay than be smart, but not smarter than you know. I remember, just if you'll indulge me a story from growing up. I remember, you know, I grew up in a tough family, tough Texas family. I grew up hunting and fishing and throwing a football. And I remember this awkward year where I kind of started developing and I could throw the football far and I could spit far, and I was and I still am, an amazing shot, and I can fish

like your life depended on it. And I remember all of a sudden this disease where I could do that better than some of the boys my age. And then all of a sudden, I was sent in the house to get supper ready because you know, in the words of my father and his father and his father, now sis, don't get sideways here, you know, let these boys throw

that ball. And so I remember saying, oh, now the focus is how to set the table and make sure your chicken salad has all white meat in it, and you chopped the carrots a certain way or the salary

a certain way. And that's our upbringing. And so I think what you see at the polls is is you know how they say, like racist white people in the United States will sign their own death certificates, They will vote for policies that crush them no safety nets, no health care before they organize and fight for things that they deserve because they feel too much like entitlements. And those are folks of color, right, women have that same upbringing I think around protect the men with the power.

It's your only access to it. And and let me let me tell you this part. And you've mastered the art of getting that power from men. M The interesting thing about it that women can use the capital of beauty, right, that these things have a shelf life. That's so often the things that we as women are told to rely upon to hook a man into. You know, we get

older and gain weight or we just get older. And and what's so that is if that is what we've based our existence on as women of all races, that when the rug is sort of pulled out from under us, it's not always, but it often is. Right, we found out our husband is cheating, We find out like we don't have that same capital anymore because we've capitulated to patriarchy basically and white supremacy, and they're very much connected.

But so brilliant about what you said is that relationship between white supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism isn't there too. Oh yeah, I mean I don't think you can extract I mean, let's as you would say, go bell hooks on this. I don't think you can extract capitalism because I think part of the contract is, you know, and I'm talking about very traditional relationships. I'm talking about traditional patriarchal, sexist there's a financial contract. I stay young and fit,

and you make the money. And what ends up happening is that contract. Man, It's a Faustian bargain. It is a deal with the devil himself, you know. But I think that's what you see with white female support. Um. And I want to separate people of color from conversations about being black in America because I think there is so much anti blackness within communities of color outside speak speak And so I do think that white women are I want to I wanna be really careful with my

words here. If if white men are the banking system for white supremacy, white women are the culture police of white supremacy, Explain, Explain, it's the performative cry and quiver when confronted with a black man. It's the mammification of black women. Oh can you can I crawl in your lap? And you can, you know, stroke my hair and braid it and save me. They're real cultural police around maintaining

a system. It's killing them, killing us. Oh yeah, So what I would love to do, because the empathetic piece right around these white women, what would be our generous take on what is going on there? First of all, what is what is so beautiful about what the uncertain place that you seem to feel like you're in now is that it feels like the embodiment of being the wilderness.

For those who know Braving the Wilderness and give examples in that book, and you talk about having the courage of your values, it feels like you're right in the middle of what it means to be the wilderness, to be in that place where you have rejected. If you're not with us, you're against us, and you are really in the space of belonging to yourself and the price is high that the reward is great. You know, my angelaric moment that that you quote in Raving the Wilderness.

I guess I just want to sort of affirm that from my perspective, that that's what it feels like. And I guess shivers about it because this is the difficult work that we must do. But then going to that generous place, to that empathetic place for white women. Let's just keep talking about white women for now, I guess.

But is it the thing of trying to fit in this sort of poe belonging, because you know, we can talk about the theoretical aligning with power, and you know black folks do it too, right, Black folks will align with white supremacies, will align with certain power structures. It's sort of a way to armor up into self protect

what what's at the core? Because I think that if we were not going to be able to move past us versus them, how divide it we are if we can't sort of begin to parse out the psychology of what is going on at the core of all this. And I've thought it's maybe it's fear, But what do you think is at the heart of this? So first let me just say that I I don't know what's going on with me right now, and so you're analysis

of it. I've always told you, how what have I told you that it would be the best role you could ever play in a million years? What would you be playing? Do you remember what I told you? I don't remember. What did you say? What did you say? You should play a therapist? Very good. Let you get that in the universe. Now. I remember. So I felt therapized by you a little bit, because I do think there's some truth and I've been trying to figure out

where I am right now. I think what's happened Lavern is. I think I've made peace with the wilderness. And I think that there have been times in my life that I would brave the wilderness and then I'd come back to my bunk or belonging. And now I've just set up camp here. This is actually going to be my life. And you know what, it's great. It's like Coachella out here.

All all the weirdos are out here. When we talk about the white women who support Trump, or we talked about that, and Trump is not the problem to me at all. Trump is the manifestation of a problem, right, Yeah. And I have to tell you, to be honest with you, if people knew my politics, really knew them, I'm much more moderate than most people think, and the far left take me on as much as the far right, to be honest, So what I would say is, when we

talk about those white women. It is ultimately, to me about two things. It is about belonging, the veracity at which the like I don't even know how to use the words like, the force at which people will come at you in this cohort if you do not tow the line. It's not just that they will come after you and push you out. They will come after your husband, your wife, your kids. They will come for you because you are tipping something sacred. And so it is about

belonging versus fitting in. And it is about a d socialization that on purpose does not involve the interrogation of power, because you have to foster some sort of critique of the status quo, and some people just aren't built for that. Let's take a short break. When we come back, let's talk about expectations and how they keep us from living authentically. Welcome back. Burnet Brown says that stories are data with the soul. So here's a little bit of data from

my personal life with a lot of soul. I'm spending a conversation with a man that I've known for twelve years now, and we dated like twelve years ago, and we were sitting here in my apartment like a month or so ago and talking about some very difficult stuff actually, and he's been dating trans women since like twenty seven years of dating trans women. If some people in his life, no,

but most people don't know. And we were talking about like how his dad was a cop, and you know, he's like, I can't let people know that I like trans women because I was the firstborn son and there were all these expectations around masculinity, were all these things where I was just like, but you have known trans women for twenty seven years. So many of us for decades have had the courage to be ourselves. We've lost

our families, lost friends, and he's seen this. But then he's so afraid of losing the approval of his father, having people judge him. I just didn't even get it. But then I was thinking, he just has never questioned the status quo. He's never been in a space I think because he is white and male. But the deep sad part of it is that at this point in his life, there were all these expectations around who he was supposed to be and it has not worked out.

He doesn't have the money that he wanted to have, and he's you know, saying, hasn't a kids, and so what was so sad to me is that he kind of his toe this line and not really fully belonged to himself. And I think, and sometimes those people who are willing to question the system and question the expectations, I guess about who they're supposed to be. Maybe those people are more able to brave the wilderness. Thinking about like where you are right now, and I'm just thinking

about people burning your books. I can't even imagine how that must feel. And then I think about how I've been in the wilderness, like my whole life in a way, because I've made choices, right, I've made choices that have I've always been an outsider and that's just been my life. But a lot of people aren't willing to do that. It's scary to be in the wilderness, and it's it's

scary to go alone. It's scary to question authority. Yes, because look, here's the thing, Like, is it sad when someone sends me a picture of you know, the gifts of imperfection and flames? It did take my breath away a little bit, But after I thought about it, I'm like, now, I can you know, join the list of great band booked writers. You know, that's great, But think about the privilege of choosing the wilderness versus being shoved in it because of your gender identity, or your race or a

million other reasons. So why interrogate power if what's at risk is your privilege? Absolutely right. So if I'm going to interrogate power to better understand my experience on the margins, that's one thing. But you're going to ask me to walk into the wilderness and interrogate power, and I got nothing but shipped to lose unless I believe existentially in a better world, our justice. I think you have to believe in those things. I mean, why else would someone

do it? Right? Absolutely? You know. I have a group of girlfriends called the COTS, the Council of Trans Sistors, And we were hanging out and one of my girlfriends, she's a white trans woman and was raised very privileged. She was assigned mail at birth and was told that she could conquer the world and rule the world. And she was talking about sort of feeling a loss of that sort of care free, you know, assumed male sort

of privilege that she had. And it was me and two other black trans women, three of us black trans women I hadn't. We were like, do you do you have a sense of We had no. There was absolutely no point of reference because I never felt and this is the thing, every every trans experience isn't the same, but like how race can change these things. I was like, I never felt I never felt male, I never felt perceived as mail, and I certainly didn't feel privileged right

like that. No one was like saying the world is your oyster because you're like this gender non conforming, like poor kid from Alabama like that. That was not like, that was not a part of my upbringing, and so I didn't feel like I had anything to lose when I transitioned. And I think about the men who date trans women as well, and like, I've just been so aware over the years how so many of them don't stand by our sides, particularly ones who do have privileges,

because it's hard, you know. I think there's a lot of assumptions that people make about men who date trans women, and most of them, I found, are not willing to face those those assumptions that people make about them. Right because people disavow the womanhood of trans women, they assume the men that we date must be gay because they don't acknowledge our womanhood. And a lot of the men that I've I've dated met over the years are not comfortable.

They're straight identified men. They are straight. There are men who are tried to women. They're not comfortable with people thinking they're gay. Um, but the thing of giving up privilege is is a huge part of it. But the divided nature of of where we are right now and the ways in which you alluded to, how dehumanizing our current president, for I don't like to say his name, how do humanizing his rhetoric has been in in policies?

I would also like to say, And in Braving the Wilderness you talk about rehumanization and I had never seen anyone sort of talk about that and allude to that, And I thought that was so beautiful and so crucial for us getting back to each other, getting moving past us versus them, and becoming less divided. How do we really fully live in a space that we don't demonize into humanize people who disagree with us across the political spectrum? And that is like really really hard work, and I

and I certainly do it imperfectly. What are your thoughts? I think the word that we're not saying right now is walking into the wilderness interrogating power and the structures and the systems that are working just how they were designed. Shame, Oh, shame, speak right. I think there's a very short line between acknowledging privilege, interrogating power, and feeling shame and and being shamed by other people for interrogating it because you're messing

with the system that they're propping up. And so maybe what I'm experiencing in the wilderness with all my weirdo friends have decided to set up camp out here with me,

is that there's a lot of shame resilience in the wilderness. Um. But I think in terms of dehumanizing, I will tell you this and this is this has been tough for me as the election results came in over those you know, the days and days I banned as many people on the left is on the right from my social media accounts, because when this administration calls immigrants, we uses the investation. Let's just back up a little bit and do like

some like some thinking and teaching about this. So dehumanization is the birthplace of every gin side recorded through history. If you take a group of people that are different than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities from them, it gives humans the capacity for violence towards them, which actually we're not neurobiologically wired to maim, rape, hurt, and kill other humans. So in order to do that, we have to go through a system of de humanization.

So the most classic understanding of that, or or evidence of that, would be a very very powerful marketing campaign by the Nazis and Nazi Germany late thirties around Jewish people, you know, using the words infestation, using you know, animals, rodents to describe. And then once you strip people of your humanity, you're able to do all kinds of things to folks. And so we thought with slavery in the United States as well. Yeah, of course, and we still

see that, we still see the de humanization. Right. But if you call forty five, as you'll say, a pig, I'm banning you. And here's why. I'll tell you a story that a lot of people don't know about me, because you know, I'm a cusser. I'm a great cusser. I got I got every permeation of the F word that you it's something you've never even heard of. But I haven't said the word b I T c H since nineteen four. So, however many years at six twenty

six years, and I'll tell you why. I had a professor, Karen Stout when I was in getting my graduate degree in social work, who studied femicide, the killing of women by intimate partners. And part of the project we did with her was analyzing court transcripts of not only mostly men who were of them were men who killed female partners, but also sexual assault, and in over these cases, the last word the woman heard was b I T H,

which is a dehumanizing term, right It means dog. Yeah, And so I am an equal opportunity blocker for dehumanizing. So one way I think we come back to each other is that is not okay if the left becomes the dehumanizing their own version of the maga hat people, I'm not interested in that world. We see it already. I mean there's I mean, I don't think there's an equivalent to maga on the left, but I think there's a lot of folks who I see it constantly, people

who identify as politically progressive or leftist. When they say they're disgusting, they're horrible, They're awful like these are. This is language that I see constantly from people on the left. Now it feels to humanizing to me. It's dehumanizing now personally in terms of empathy and embracing the other side for me. Too soon, I'll be honest with you now, I'm just gonna be asked with you, why is it

too soon? Let's say you and I. Let's say you're one of my relatives, but you are a conservative, conservative Republican. I am a I'm a moderate. Actually, I'm probably a moderate independent, to be honest with you. And if you and I want to go at it around social security, lack boxing, medical policy, immigration policy, that's great. But when you're politics by definition stripped me of my humanity, it's too soon for an empathic embrace. It's probably not safe.

It's not safe, right, It's not safe. And so that's hard. And there was a real underbelly of white supremacy, white nationalism, violence that came along with this administration. Has nothing to do with conservative politics. It has nothing to do with constitutional conservatism. It has to do with a lack of respect for democracy and people. And I can't embrace that right now. I don't trust you. Yeah, I feel that

I understand that. What I wonder what's interesting to me right now is thinking about sort of the history of the conservative politics so much of both Democratic and Republican politics. Race is just a huge, huge part of it. What Nixon, specifically in the Republican Party did at the time was used race as a way to galvanize white men at the time, and white men who sort of avoid majority and we know a lot of white women came along

for the ride. And so we can say that conservative politics around, you know, fiscal conservatism and all, that's not really about race, but it is that party since sixty eight has always used race as a way to get folks to vote against their own economic interest, as a way to scapegoat and fearmonger, and that is something that the Republican Party has consistently done. Now, I would say I would say I'm an independent. I wouldn't say I'm

I'm moderate in any way, but I'm definitely independent. But I think the Democratic Party, at least more recently has sort of given lip service to being anti racist. And because our politicians are sort of bought and paid for by special interests, they're not really doing anything for poor and working people, right, so that like the most marginalized people are still not really being helped by either party. And trying not to be cynical, but this year I've

been very cynical thinking about where we are. The will of the people isn't really being done by the folks in power, and and so much of what the US versus Them is about is about people in power using the divide and conquer strategy, and folks are just buying into it. It feels like there's a couple of things, right. There's the interpersonal piece of what can we do to not dehumanize, to rehumanize, to have empathy and compassion and

generocity towards each other on an interpersonal level. But then if we start thinking about its structurally, there's all this power and all of this money involved in keeping us divided it. You know, I think to me it comes down to the use of power by leadership. The Republican Party is the power over party, and the Democratic Party is the power with empower to empower within party. I

don't know that that's the case. You know, power over works from this belief that power is finite, where power with empower to work from a position that collaboration is important because power is infinite when shared power over uses fear and blame. Just keep people afraid and tell them who's fault it is that you're afraid. So there's two things that I think are key to real power, and no one's going to like them, which are representation and reparations.

So I believe in those two things absolutely. I believe in representation until we have a government that looks like the people it serves in terms of not just race, ethnicity, and gender, but class amen And then what are those reparations looks like? Are we talking racial reparations? Are we talking? Oh? I think we start with racial reparations, and I think the reparations should come in the form of funded healing of trauma and the dismantling of systems that perpetuate the trauma.

I think we have to have some trauma work. Yeah. Absolutely, it's time for a quick break. When we come back, Brian and I talked more about what our society needs to heal. Welcome back to my conversation with Dr Burne Brown. Let's just pick up where we left off. I've been doing a lot of trauma work on my own and when I was doing a deep dive back into your work and looking at the ways in which we armor up around vulnerability. Um, victim of viking lens, right, My

understanding of it is the victim biking lens. It's about not allowing ourselves to be victims. So the victim biking lens is a binary kind of way of looking at things. And it really is like, I have to be a fighter at all cost, so it has incredible judgment towards vulnerability, and so I must be armored up or I'm gonna die. It keeps us in a constant fight flighter freeze. It's a lens that keeps us always in this high zone, that keeps us always away from anything that might seem vulnerable.

You're saying your work, it's really often a lens that trauma survivors use, and that that way of arming ourselves is a trauma response, but then also sort of keeps us in in the US versus them. It keeps us in that like fight flight of freeze. It keeps us in this place of not real resilience, and it it's almost a re traumatizing ourselves. What what Yeah, I think, I think everything you said, is true. I mean, do you know what it does to our body? You do?

But does everyone know what it does to our body to stay in survival mode? Like that's a gear in our neurobiology that's meant to be used a couple of times in our lives. It's not a gear you're supposed

to live in. Yeah, what was deep for me with all thinking about all the trauma work that I've been doing that I'm deeply aware of the ways in which I've used stress hormones like my whole life, because I've constantly been in this victim Viking lens because of my historic trauma, that trauma piece, that survival, fight flight or freeze kind of response that feels like it's also tied to belonging. You say in your work love and belonging or immutable needs of human beings, and that in the

absence of that there's always suffering. But then also there's shame.

Shame is the intensely painful belief we have a boy ourselves that were unworthy of connection and belonging, and so the shame response when we've been shunned and we don't have a sense of belonging our bodies responded to being shamed in the same way they response to trauma, so that we still have that same release of cortisol, of of stress hormones and we come out fighting right, And so then the way in which we're like at each other's throats is really like, are we all just in

a perpetual fight flight or freeze? I mean the psychological piece. Obviously, I think it's important to understand that power wants us to be doing this to each other. But it's not sustainable to be constantly a fight flight or freeze. It's not sustainable to constantly beat each other's throats, and it's not wholehearted living. It's not like we can't be happy. I mean, the research shows that we're more sorted now

than we've ever been before. We're also more lonely. Yeah, isn't that incredible finding that as we sort ourselves into these ideological bunkers where I'm just around people like me. I go to church, I worship, I go to the grocery store. I don't talk to anyone that doesn't agree with me. And you think that would few connection. But the only thing that tracks in terms of social psychosocial characteristics,

what tracks exactly with sorting is loneliness. Yeah, and so I don't think that we're collectively in a place of joy or love or empathy right now. I don't think how we are is sustainable. I have to say that the biggest casualty of the last four years is how divisiveness was used to maintain and create power, and that we fell in line like we didn't transcend it. And some of the worst, most violent perpetrators of the divisiveness were not only given cover, but they were armed by

this administration literally and figuratively. Yeah. And so if you think about what we're up against as a culture systems or systems, right, and so if you think about it as a family system, the very first thing that we know that I know is a social worker that would have to happen in a family system where there are deep fault lines and betrayals and rage and fear is the creation of physical and emotional safety. Mm. So that's the very first thing that has to happen. In physical

and emotional safety. That means you have to address all kinds of violence, racial, economic violence, gender violence. Yeah. So the very first thing I would do is there would be definitely a Pandemic Task Force in place, and we've already seen Biden do that. Biden Harris has done that, because we have to be physically safe. The second thing I would do is if you incided terror in a single person with a goal of scaring everyone that belonged to that group, you would be classified as a domestic

terrorist and you would be held accountable accordingly. So if you burn across at a black church, that's an act of terrorism. If you taught hurt go after a trans woman on the street, that's an act of terrorism. And it's never if you think about terrorism as an international term, and I looked this up a lot when I was doing this research and talk to experts on terrorism, and you know, terrorism is never about the single act of violence.

It's about the fear that instills in people. And normally successful acts of terrorism are simple acts of violence that over time create divisions and communities in terms of how to respond to that terrorism. And so the terrorists work is very simple, just to do enough that's random against a citizen so that people then get at each other's throats around how to solve for it. And that's what

we're seeing today. And I think what's useful about that is understanding that we can begin to think about domestic terrorism and a relationship to black folks in the police right, that like, black people have been experiencing terrorism from the police since the police have existed in the United States. And I think for people who don't know your work really well and they're like, oh, this magasan extreme, But I think what you're talking about is what does accountability

begin to look like? We have completely there's no accountability, and so we can't brave, we can't really be in our full integrity without accountability, there's just new have been no consequences. And so it sounds like what you're talking about with this classifying people's terrorists is what does accountability begin to look like in the United States of America? And then how do we own that history? How do we own the story? I think it was one of

the most powerful things I've heard this year. You're a famous quote. When we deny our stories, those stories define us. And when we own our stories, we can write a brave new end. And we have not owned the story the legacy of racism and white supremacy in the United States, and that owning that story requires some accountability that we haven't done. And so that's what i'm that's what I'm hearing from what you said. Yeah, I am, And so

I think, you know, simple acts of accountability. Help me understand, Somebody walk me through why there is no national database of police officers who have used excessive force. And I think if you dig deep enough, it's police unions protection of bad you know. But does that serve good cops? No? No, no, it doesn't serve anybody. Everything. When you look at the history of policing, which I think a lot of us have been doing, they have been commissions and ultimately the

police protect themselves. Historically, that's what every commission comes down to, police protecting themselves and sort of assuaging or mitigating accountability around their behavior. That is the history of policing in the United States. But I would like to remind you of I think you was your second Ted talk when you talked about people sort of attacking your appearance and how that like started this crazy shame storm for you. It feels like you have really done a lot of

work to build a lot of shame resilience. We know from your research that appearance, embody image is a number one shame trigger for women still And do you feel that or have you come to a new place with that? Oh, I'm at a new place with it. I think it's you know, there's this line in the Big Book that says one of the promises of recovery is the gift of neutrality, where you're neither running away from something as fast as you can, nor are you running toward it.

And the condition for neutrality is to be in fit spiritual condition. And so I think my goal is I can't do this work without being in fit spiritual condition. You know, I'll have twenty five years so next year. Um, And for me, the neutrality is the booze was easy, this ust was harder. And the bread basket is a mother trucker. You know, I've been in the bread basket. I've been in the you know sugar or the little

Debbie snack cakes. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, as long as I stay in fit spiritual condition, I have developed a neutrality where I'm not running toward investigating who said that and what can I find out about them? And what's my great comeback. I'm not shutting down social that I need to be on for work. I just feel a neutrality, but maintaining fit spiritual condition in this world is har hard for me. It's sleep, it's eating well,

it's praying, it's resting well. It's being connected with the people I love and valuing them over the strangers um whose opinions I can take too seriously sometimes. So I'm a work in progress leaver and as you know, as m I can, I tell you I made a gratitude list for the first time in a really long time today, and it's something I used to do everything single morning when I wait, be the first thing I do, like at least list five things I'm grateful for or five

things I'm manifesting, and I haven't been doing it. And I notice a difference the way I've armored up this year around perfectionism, chronic numbing, all the all the ways we armor up. It's been deep and like, just leaning into gratitude this morning shifted so much and acknowledging that I'm still struggling with vulnerability and that that is really

at the heart of so much of this. And everyone who does a deep diving your work, your leadership work, every single aspect of your work, it always comes back to vulnerability. Always, and it's and it's does it just does. So on the podcast for every episode, I wanted to have this question what else is true? What else is true? Comes out of both and it's really about what we focus on. If I'm in pain and I focus on

that pain, that's all I'm going to feel. But if I focus on something that is light and joyful and hopeful, that can become a resource. And it's not that the pain goes away, it's that this other thing can help mitigate that pain. What else is true? It's all about the resilient part of us. So that is what this question and this segment is about. It is about cultivating resilience within ourselves and remembering that what we focus on becomes the thing. So we can change what we focus

on and change our energy, change how we feel. We have the power to change. So burne bround for you today, what else is True? I make a lot of mistakes. I'm often afraid. But one thing that I do believe is true is I am proud of my willingness to always try to do the next right thing. I think that's true of me. I think I am trying to do the next right thing. Yeah, And that is a resilient place. That's a that's a beautiful place. Thank you so much, Burnee. You can find Burnee Brown in so

many places. She's a New York Times bestselling author. There's many books you can read. She has the podcast Unlocking Us, the podcast Dare to Lead. I Love. One of my favorite moments of yours is the Power of Vulnerability audio book. I literally, I think for about a year I listened to it every day. This is why I know your work. So for about a year I listened to it every day, and I was touring and I needed it. The Power Vulnerability is something I've shared with a lot of my

friends and they've just it's changed their lives. Yeah, Power Vulnerability. Check out Bernie Brown. Thank you so much. This has been Thank you, Laverne. This has been everything. Wow, Bernie give us so much to think about, as always, what it means to rehumanize each other feels key. Berne has this great acronym that I find so helpful. It's big B I G. And it basically stands for what boundaries be need to be in place for me to maintain my integrity. I and make the most generous G assumption

about you and braving the Wilderness. Berne not only invites us to brave the wilderness, but to become the wilderness. The price is high, the reward is great. Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review, rate, subscribe, and share it with your friends. Next week, we'll be talking to Demona Hoffman about dating over forty yes and forty eight years old and proud. We'll see an next week.

You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show is the production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.