Jamia Wilson on Allyship and Activism

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Jamie Wilson.

She's a feminist, activist, writer, and speaker. As director of the Feminist Press in the City University of New York and the former VP of Programs at the Women's Media Center, Jamia has been a leading voice on women's rights issues for over a decade. Her work has appeared in countless outlets including New York Times, That Today Show, CNN L and the list goes on and on. She's the author of many books, including Roadmap for Revolutionaries, Young Gifted and Black,

Step Into Power, and others. Hi, Jamia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you on. We are going to talk about some of your work books like Step into Your Power, twenty three, lessons on how to Live your Best Life and Roadmap for Revolutionaries here shortly, but let's start like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And then granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second. She looks up at her grandmother says, grandmother, which one wins, And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work

that you do. Yeah, I mean I think that I think about this question a lot in terms of figuring out my discomfort within balances that I see in the world. I've always been someone who has been a very justice

oriented person. Have been always oriented around fairness, since the playground, around a sense of inherent dignity, or being on the side of the underdog, or being on the side of supporting what's right for the greater good, and even right down to food portions, you know, when we were kids, I want to make sure everyone got the same thing, and have been someone who almost to a point of obsession sometimes I will translate to other people as self

righteousness or naivete or delusion. And so I think that the parable means to me that I believe a world is possible, and a way of being in humanity as possible where we can predominantly feed the wolf that is altruistic, that is fair, that is collaborative, that is compassionate, because I ultimately believe that that is the stronger wolf. But we are in a society that has been operating in a way that empowers the wolf, that is built on greed and fear and domination and power over versus power

shared with others. Which deludes all of us, and I include myself and that in our society through conditioning toward believing that it's not possible for everyone to be lifted up together, that somehow if everyone were to be equal, it would mean that someone would be oppressed, or someone

would be undermined or have less. And so for me, it's it's always the question of knowing deep in my marrow that I believe that the good wolf can be fed and that we can all actually as humans function in a way that's functional and healthy and compassion driven

and collaborative and unlearned. What is a model that hasn't been working for a really long time to go toward what I actually believe is our nature, which is not what we were taught as human nature, which is more an alignment with the good wolf, although I'm careful to call it the good wolf, because I know that all of us are complex and nuance in that way as well. It's always interesting because I go back and forth on

this point. I've been doing this podcast for a while now, and I read this parable every week, and so I say good wolf, bad wolf. But then there's a part of particularly from my Buddhism background, that says like, well, let's not get into good and bad. Let's call it

skillful and unskillful. Yes, right, But then there's other moments, like in a moment that I'm like, a moment that we're living in right now, where I go, well, you know what, maybe there is a good wolf and a bad wolf, Like if I look at this from a

moral perspective. For a long time, I think I was I really wanted to shy away from a moral perspective because I think in my own life and in people that I knew, there was this there was a sense of like, well, you know, moral is this narrow Christian idea that somehow is very limiting, and so let's move into the less judgmental Buddhist idea is skillful unskillful. And then you look out in the world though sometimes and you go, well, let's see there, it seems like there's

good and bad there. Reflect on that for me because I kind of go back and forth on it. So interesting because I rapple with that myself, and I see the limitations that I also have as someone who you know, is really driven by this sort of moral imperative or ethics. You know, I am that person. That's why I was saying that to some it translates as self righteous, right, because I am definitely someone who you know, has many times in any sort of arguments, debates, etcetera, said oh,

this is the moral thing to do. It's unconscionable to do that, right. Those are things that will roll off my tongue frequently, whether it's in a boardroom or in my home and my partner's conversation or whatever. While also saying that I believe that what is defined as moral is complicated in nuance in itself, um, and that's not talked about as much that it could be moral. And I've had this debate sometimes with people in spiritual communities.

I've been in not secular ones, but I'm more spiritual um interfaith communities as well. When the election happened, and there were people who were kind of like, oh, we have to have a sense of peace and compassion for the people who voted against what we want and against what we feel is peaceful and against what we feel is just, and I said, you know, actually that is not where I am right now. I am in a place of grave anger, protection and rage right now. That's clear.

It's a clarity rage like and not an ego driven one, that there are people who can't see that their actions are going to be harmful for a lot of people, that there will be an impact that will have detrimental effects on people. And so we had this discussion in our community around if it was okay for me to talk about saying, you know, I'm not actually in a position of forgiveness, and I think that that is moral because I am being true to the sincerity of my heart.

I'm not trying to lie. I'm not trying to deliver platitudes to say that I am in a place of forgiveness or understanding, because that is not where I am right now, and I think it's okay for me not to be there, while it is also okay for some other people to be there, I need space to not be there. And so that for me was a really good lesson about what moral means, right, because I know that I was feeling judge meant from folks who really

thought like, oh you know that. Someone said they were like, oh, I feel like you're approach right now, just you know, feel so violent, And I said, I've never brought up violence, but I'd like to unpack what that means about your discomfort with me saying that I feel really aligned in anger right now, and I'm okay with that because you feel that the moral way right now is to kind of be in a place of peace where I don't

feel that the world is peaceful. That I actually feel right now that maybe we are called to wake up and be angrier than we have been, and that maybe will come to something else out of that. But I think that there's an alchemy that can come from it. So I flore that a lot, and I think that that nuance should be allowed because I think humans, by our very nature are complex beings and not binary beings. There's a bunch of things, and what you said, they're a bunch of paths we could go down. I think

one would be from a starting point. We've got to realize where we are and we've got to allow ourselves to say it's okay that I feel what I feel, because if we can't do that, we just get screwed up in all different kinds of ways. We gotta be

able to feel what we feel. And it's interesting because I tend to be one of the people one of my big beliefs is that we can have people on different sides of the political divide who are good people on both sides of a political divide, and that a lot of the rhetoric that happens actually ends up driving people further apart, right, And that it's our inability to see, oh, look, here's another human who has beliefs and ideas and understandings like I do, and we have to find our way

back to dialogue because it doesn't seem screaming at each other really works very well, right. I just sort of observe that in all aspects. And also at the same time, though, Yeah, there are these times where you go, well, is this just a debate about political ideas? And I can't tell. And I know it's not like there's a line you cross, you know. I used to think about alcoholism like this.

I'm recovering alcoholic and addict. One day I wasn't. Then I crossed the line and I was, which I know now that's not the way that works, right, But I look at people and I sometimes in my mind I almost imagine there's like, well, on this side of the line, we're just having a debate about economic policy, and we might believe we might very well have different opinions about the best way to drive economic growth that benefits the most number of people, Like I think you can have

honest and earnest debates about that and be coming from a place of a good heart, and then it feels like, oh, you just crossed this line and all of a sudden, now you are a bad person, you know, quote unquote, or you know, morally, And I think that's what gets

so confusing. And I really am wrestling with as I look at our country, because I'm like, well, I believe in dialogue, I believe in hearing each other, and then I see people where it's like, I think we've crossed some line where it's gone from and earnest debate into a moral issue, and that's a confusing place for me.

I'm with you. It's funny the timing we have on this, because I've been working on a podcast that I collaborate with my former editor in chief at Rocky Magazine, Tavy Jevinson, and she and I were talking about would this episode be that I would write to contribute to a larger series that a bunch of former writers for the magazine would be writing about and I said, I wanted to write about how to disagree with people, how to get

comfortable with conflict, because it's something that I enjoy exploring, and I have many of those questions myself because I am someone who both is open to disagreeing with people who don't agree with me, because I think that is how when you grow, you're either your own sensibilities around what you truly believe, or you expand yourself to learn something new and maybe change your perspective or grow it

through disagreement, um and critical thought. And I've encouraged that in my children's books, including my newest one, Big Ideas for Young Thinkers. It starts with Big Ideas Guarantee in the beginning of the book that talks about how to disagree and to assume that you'll disagree with some of the things in this book, and here are some tools

for how to disagree. And it's something that in some countries, like in France, they teach this to kids at a really young age and it's all about debate, and that's not necessarily how we teach in the general US system, and I think girl children are often taught that conflict is dangerous and that we should somehow be adverse to it. And I think, you know, black children have this other kind of layer of feeling like, oh, you might be criminalized if you are seen as too aggressive or seen

as to assertive. I've been exploring that and so for me, what I say and it is it's okay to disagree, and you can have conversations with people who think differently than you do. Recognize that most humans share a lot of the same core values and just have conflicts over different approaches of how to get there. You know, if you think about protection day that these safety, all of those things. I also mentioned that it's okay to have non negotiable So, like what you were saying about, they're

just some people to whom I've had this experience. And I'm someone who always leads with a hopeful heart for just some people who I'm not going to find common ground with for many reasons. Are there some people for whom their words and their actions make it dangerous for me to engage in them, either psychically, physically, are mentally. And what do you do when you find yourself in

those situations? And so I talk about that about how to set boundaries and how to kind of tune into yourself to know if you're in a disagreement situation where you might not be able to change each other's hearts and minds, but you can maybe move them and grow and come to a point of common ground or a point of at least seeing why the other person has

their perspective and understanding their motivations learning something. And then there are situations where if someone is speaking to you in an abusive way, or someone is threatening violence or undermining your humanity, that you can choose to approach that in a different way. And I always go to sort of my favorite song The Gambler as an sort of assessment tool for that. You know, you've got to no one to hold him, you want to fold him, no

one to walk away. I'm a big believer of that, And so I also want to encourage people to say that you don't have to put yourself in the line of fire and abuse. Ever, that it's not your job to shrink to make other people feel tall. Ever, and yet we should also be strong enough to accept righteous critique when it comes from a place of goodwill, and

except that we need to grow. So I think a lot about this, and I think about people have been on the journey with around trying to understand how we see things really differently, and some of those relationships I've had to cut off, and then some of those that I've been able to be in relationship with, and how we've been able to say how we really see this differently, and that's unlikely to change, but these are the ways we've grown because we've still done the work to be

in conversation at least attempt to be in humanity with each other on the path. But it's really tricky, and I think some of the hardest times I've had actually come from people that I like in terms of just you know, liking to hang out on a human level, who hold beliefs that I find dangerous and that I find um inflammatory to the point where I can't be

in relationship with them. And so what I try to do is have that conversation with them about that, and if they're unwilling to see that that harm I'm feeling is not something that they should explore with me, or at least here as a person in relationship with me, it's often the move I make to step away, and that can be really painful. Yeah, I wish I knew who tweeted it over the last week because I don't recall, but it was a black activist, but I don't remember

who it was. But she said, now is not the time to argue with your racist uncle. Yes, that really resonated with me, and I wrestle within myself about this off and because I know I have I have a couple of qualities inside myself. One is I don't like conflict, and another is I think a real sense of like not investing myself in things that aren't going to make any difference, like the serenity prayer, right, like what can I change? What can I And if I can't change it,

I'm not putting any energy there. And so that is often I found myself in situations with I don't have a racist uncle, but could be a racist anybody, a really old person and you know somebody who's like eighty five in my life, and they'll say something and it will go through my mind. I'm like, there's no point, there's no point, they're not going to change. And I

wrestle with within myself. Am I giving into my fear of conflict or am I just sort of going like I'm not investing energy and a lost cause I'm never quite sure where I where I land on that. And that's just my reflection back to kind of what we're talking about, like another another dilemma I found myself in, which is, you know, how to approach some of those situations you're talking about where you have a pretty good sense the other person just isn't going to come around

to what you see or think. It's really hard because sometimes you really really and my therapist always talks about this, you know, even outside of any sort of polemic around how you know, humans were really good at reliving the same story and expecting a different ending over and over and over again, and that is why you're in therapy. Um And and I think about it a lot a lot,

because I definitely have that in my life. But I think this about some people who I've really tried to, especially be in conversation with to say, hey, we're polarized right now, we are on different sides of the plane

and what's happening. And you know, there's a person who was in a relationship with my partner and I and my partner's wait who sort of started to reveal that he had some pretty incendiary beliefs, was reading some publications that I had seen aligned with some hate groups and had had sort of a radical shift into doubling down

into this language. And then one day I heard that he was correcting something that I said and said, oh, there's a difference between a whites nationalist and a white supremacist, And that was just a real non negotiable for me.

Um And to say, Wow, you're like in relationship with this mixed couple, who are your friends, You've eaten in our home, You've done all these things, and I've seen you in relationships with women of color and like intimate relationships, and yet you're trying to justify any sort of racial hatred around keeping a predominance of white superiority somehow more moral than another, and that is just unacceptable to me.

And uh, I think that what's been really interesting is that this is a person who genuinely doesn't believe that that makes them have any racial issues. That they just believe in a lot of conspiracy theories. They are so bought into the idea that everything's broken, and so they are feeling whereas they become increasingly alienated from those of us.

They used to know that the community they're getting out of this sort of provocateur group they're engaged with, and all of that is feeding them, it's feeding the other right, right. So I finally, for a while, you know it, just said to my partner, like, you know, I don't want him in my home, and I want to tell him

to his face that I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe with this person here given what it is I do, but also that I don't feel safe knowing that you hold this ideologology and others, because he had defended the statement about some countries being shiphole countries and

all of that kind of stuff. But I knew that there was sort of this process that my partner was going to have to go through as a why ally to figure out that question of you know, how do I now that I realized that this person who's been in my life for many years has these thoughts and I have this relationship with them, how do I move away from that? And so we had a lot of conversations, and for a long time, I was kind of like, I'm going to let him be on this journey around

making his own decisions. And I saw a pull away that happened which was important for me. But now when the George Floyd thing happened and this person started posting incendiary things about George Floyd and um defending it and doubling down after we've all seen that eight minutes and forty five second killing on video, and people in their communities started sort of outing this person's views as a dangerous person. That's when my husband was like, oh, you know,

this isn't gonna work. It's time. And so I think that what's been interesting for me is feeling a little bit like a Cassandra and many spaces that I'm in in terms of that myth of Cassandra being given the gift of prophecy and then the curse of not being believed, and having seen like multiple years ago in the beginnings of that rhetoric, because I've experienced racism bodily that I knew that this person could get to that point and

would get to this point. But other people who are anti racist and well meaning white allies in my life, people who love me and others, it took them longer to see that that's where it was going. And so UM, I think that both of those trajectories are painful for all involved but important to talk about, and there's been so much discomfort right about talking about it, So I'm exploring a lot of that. Now, what does it mean?

What does it mean to kind of see people who you casually knew and in these sort of really political times, what does it mean to really see everything everyone brings to the table, and how do we act accordingly? Yeah, but there's a whole lot in there. But the thing you said there near the end is what I want to touch on, which is, there's two areas I'd like to go from here. One is I want to talk about ally ship and the others I want to talk

about listening. And listening is actually an important part of ally ship, right, But what you said there was really really important, which was you've lived some of this stuff at a deeper level than I, as a white person have, and so you can see it coming. It's like me and alcoholism and addiction, like I've been around it so much in my life, so many people like I can sniff it out, like we gotta think we got a

problem bruin over there, Bob. So I think that this is an idea that I'm just getting the people of color in my life and in my communities might see something that I can't see yet because they've got a lot more experience with it. And my way of operating in the world is to give everybody the benefit of

the doubt. That's my general principle for operating with people, and I found it has served me pretty well, and in my own life, I've been very comfortable going, you know what, I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt, and then if I turn out to be wrong, okay, then maybe I get a little bit hurt or something bad happens, but I'm willing to allow that to happen so that I can can sort of maintain what I think is a better place to be. So I take

that same thing out into the world. But I'm starting to realize that giving everybody else the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this issue racism, it may not be my benefit of the doubt to give because I'm not the one being hurt. I'm starting to just see that in a way that I don't think I did before, which is that when other people are saying I see racism over there, and I go, I don't know. I mean, they're probably a good person there, I you know that maybe I need to be listening to the

people who have experienced it more. When you mentioned that sort of what's the dynamic between you and your partner, that really brought that home for me. I appreciate you going on the journey of exploring that, right. I think it's really painful, and I think that was what was

coming up in the conversation. I was mentioning earlier about, you know, being in a little bit of friction with some spiritual friends I had because I was kind of like, oh, I know what's coming, right, you know what I mean, Like if this is where we are right now, I know that actually where we're going isn't going to be pretty, and that like these next four years, a lot is going to be bared A lot of the truth is going to be bared forth. And part of that is history, right,

like just knowing how history works. But also, like you said that a lived experience that you know, indoctrination that you get as a young child, um as a result of being other young I mean, I was joking the other day with one of my friends about how it's it's really interesting to say that people will often say, oh, you know, like I don't see race, I don't you know, I don't know race, etcetera. And I'll say, oh, I

have seen it. The first time I was called the inn word on the playground when I was six years old. You can't unsee that. And my life has been forever changed since that. And I think for people who haven't experienced something like that, it's hard to understand. But you know, I I learned that I had to have an awareness for survival and to thrive at other children would not have to learn ever, maybe or for many more years due to other kinds of ways of of being marginalized.

I think that it's also one of the reasons why there's been a movement to talk about Hey, like you said, deep listening and also trust for the people who were most close to an issue and most close to being impacted negatively from a social problem to be a part of helping to prescribe what the solution is because they intricately know the many layers, they intricately know the complexities,

and they intricately know what's not working. But I think that part of what's interesting about the moment is because of how white supremacy operates, it makes people who are newly awakened to it, who are of a dominant community often think, oh, well, now that I know this exists, I can take action and just fix it um, because that's sort of supremacy does teach them almost a competition mindset, right, as well as feeling empowered or entitled to be in charge. Right.

And so when I talk about ally ship a lot and talking about the deep listening like you're saying, I also invite people to do their homework to see what work has been done before and how they can be a follower that they don't necessarily need to be the

one to lead in anybody else's space. They should be leading in their community with other white folks who need to be brought on and who are interested in making the change, but not necessarily directing the people closest to the problem on what they should do next or critiquing

their methods. And that's something that I think is often a hard conversation because a lot of people are well meaning and then want to, as I like to say, take their toys and go home when they're kind of approached about that not being a good or productive way to do things. And I often say if you really want to lead in the space, you will model gracious

acceptance of making mistakes. You will model making righteous sincere apologies when you mess up and actually know that you're going to mess up, and instead of taking your toys and go home, you'll brush off your knee and say, oh my gosh, I'm sorry that hurt. But I'm or I'm staying in this to fix it because I know you are in it to fix it because you have no choice every day, and I can take my power

and privilege to do so. And so those are the people that I'm really looking to right now as allies and co conspirators, as I like to say, the people who are staying in it even when it hurts. There's about fifteen things in there I could take a part. One is guilty is charged of looking at a problem suddenly there's a problem over there, and then thinking I know how to fix it better. And some of that

comes from being a lifelong entrepreneur. That's my nature. I look at something and I'm like, I'm going to fix that. But I've really had to realize, like in this case, like you said, no, learn what's happened before, And I'm really grateful to my son, who has taught me a lot of this. The second thing that you said there, I think is take my toys and go home. And this has been a criticism that I've occasionally had as

I look at the left as a whole. You know, I'm a left leaning kind of guy, right, but I sometimes feel like there's a tendency if I don't say something quite right, or somebody else doesn't say something quite right or doesn't have quite the right words, that the community sort of look. It seems like the community sort of turns on that person, and it is this sense of you didn't say it right. And so my original thought was, like, we gotta ease up on all that.

And and while I agree I think that the way that we educate people is really important, I also am coming to see what you're saying, which is that if I'm sincere about this, then you know what, if I wait in and I make a mistake, I say something wrong and somebody you know, gives me the business for it. Right that if I'm sincere about the cause and not sincere about my ego, then I'll just go, oh, I was wrong, Okay, I'll learn, I'll do better. Next time

and I'll stay in it. And I think some of that's probably the white fragility that we talk about, I know, for me and for I think a lot of white

people who want to be better allies. That's a place we've really got to start doing deeper work, which is that like there's got to be a sense of, you know, how do we become less fragile in that sense, and how are we able to stay in these really difficult conversations discussions and and a very difficult place that is not nearly as difficult as the place that the people were trying to be advocates and allies for have been living in. And again that's further ed ucation that that

I'm sort of learning as I go. Well, I think it's great that you're there, because I think it's so hard. It's so hard for some people to even admit it, right. They can't admit they have privileged they can't admit that fragility is a thing, right, And I think that admitting the problem, I mean, it's it's almost like what we're talking about addiction, right, Like first people have to acknowledge it.

I mean, I think in a way some of how I regard like the pathology of racism, right, has to do with people really being addicted to an imbalance of power that serves them and being really afraid of losing it. Even if they psychically like understand that skin color is irrelevant, right, that there's still this feeling of I'm going to lose something if if you're equal, then I'm somehow oppressed, right, And that causes the stissonance that that people experience and fear.

And so I think it's really important, um to have those conversations openly and to be able to talk about how much of that is unlearned. And you know, I think about the timing to in a lifetime people think, oh, now that I've done this work, I've read this book, I have no problem. I'm not going to show up

this way. And I've often kind of said, oh, you're going to have to do this work forever, like condition for however many years you've been on this planet, and to be in a process of unlearning it would be like people thinking, oh, you read one book about like how to have a healthy interpersonal intimate relationship, and that suddenly you weren't like bringing all of your neuroses and baggage into that relationship, right like, we all have to

interrogate our relationships to systems of power and depth balances like racism or sexism or other types of dehumanizing of other human beings. And I think it's important to kind of admit that and grow and also to kind of take accountability for our mistakes. I'm a part of a Facebook group that organizes a bunch of people in my profession, and one thing they don't allow as a dirty delete,

as they call it. Whereas sometimes people get upset if they get called out for taking their toys and going home and want to delete all of their threads so that no one can see that they messed up or that they were fragile or they did something. And they'll say, no, here are the screenshots. We leave these up to show that we have been accountable. It doesn't make you bad. You're making this about you when you're trying to do

is fix the system, and we can. What if you came back and said, hey, this is what I did. I learned from it, which is why there was one of the pieces I wrote for Rookie that later was adapted and put into Roadmap for Revolutionaries, which is a book I co authored with two of my friends, Melissa Chmia heart Page and Carolyn Jurenne, and in it we talked about ally ship and UH talked about how to

kind of address that, to be okay with apologizing. And I allude to the fact that once I was called out because I saw a plus size fashion label make some beautiful clothes and one of my friends as a model, and I posted on it and said, oh, I wish that they made that in my size. I I want to be a part of it. And they all and their people who I was in good relationship and love, We're just like, Okay, look, we're gonna have to call you in. Although we respect your positions and a great

many things, you have size privilege. It's really insulting that someone who can go into any store across the country or around the world and find clothing that fits your body would say that you want something that we had to make in um specifically for ourselves, in a landscape that makes larger people pay for their clothes more have

to go to specialty stores, etcetera. And I really identified with because I thought, oh, now I kind of understand a little bit more about what white women feel like when they say things on Twitter that I get upset about, and now I'm kind of everyone's you know, piling on. And so I said, oh, you know what, I'm going to leave this up. Yeah, like I really messed up, Like this was not cool. I made it about me. It was like a narcissistic statement about wanting to be

included in something that wasn't for me. And I already have all the privileges and benefits of being closer to what like the US standard sizes and what the dominant culture makes available for me, and I don't have to think about my clothes. I can just go in and

pick something up and find what I need. You know, that was ignorant, That was selfish, and it was unethical, And so I left it up to say, I hope other people learn from this and know that even if you are marginalized in these other ways, you can still carry sizes and fat phobic beliefs. And I really had

to interrogate that in myself. But then afterward I really asked some people in my life to say, hey, I don't want you to do emotional labor for me, but I do want you to feel comfortable if you feel safe enough to call me in if I say something like that again, because I really need to realize that I do have somebody stuff that I don't think I was thinking about that was harmful to other people, and I'm really sorry about that. Yeah, there's a few things

you said in there I think is important. Um, we just re released this last week, a couple of conversations we had with Austin, Shannon Brown and Ruth King, and we thought, now, with everything that's happening, let's re release them. And my initial instinct was like, well, wait, I want to listen to those first, because I think I fumbled through those right, And I went, you know what, that's

not the point if I fumbled through them. I fumbled through them, like their voice is what's important here, not mine, Like put it out there, be willing to see where I might have been wrong at those times or not done that. And so the other thing you said there I think is really important and I've heard you say this before and I really like it, which is that even though you are a black woman, there are other

areas of life in which you have privilege. So you could say, oh, I'm a black woman and it's all terrible, But you then go through and say, but there's these other areas that I have privilege, whether it was coming from a certain type of background or size or lack of physical disability. I really like that because I think it's sort of showed the different layers and the different level levels the wrong word, the different layers, and the different ways that we can have privilege in some areas

and not another. I really appreciate that because I've I've found that when I first wrote the first version of that piece, there were even people who tend to disagree with what I write who wrote back saying, oh, this is a piece I actually connect with or can learn something from because I saw that you wrote that, and it helped me understand that what you all are calling on is not aren't necessarily around saying that you know there aren't privileges that one can hold from being in

a marginalized community, but to say that you know, these marginalis identities do impact your life um in a number of ways, and I talk about it all the time. There's this big publishing action that happens this week around people of color and publishing in advances and just the disparities of pay um as it relates to gender, race,

et cetera, and background. And one of the things people talked about was how there's this uncomfortable conversation that people kind of know about but don't talk about and publishing around how some people's attractiveness could come up in certain spaces around whether or not they are someone that should be acquired because of how people think that that in

their brand will sell books, right. And so I was following these threads about people wanting to talk about how they had heard this in editorial meetings and some corporate presses, and I think that there was a lot of shame. I was also kind of hearing and picking up from some folks, But I thought, now, this is good. It's talking about the layers of identity uh and talking about how we are in a culture that sort of rewards people whose physical attractiveness based on specific standards that are

set by culture also benefits them. And there's been a lot of conversation about that in some l g t Q and other marginalized community spaces like black spaces and Latin X spaces around who gets booked for TV shows, who gets booked for these other things that yes, they're smart people who are getting these positions and slots, but do a lot of these smart people tend to have the same sort of look or the same sort of background or skin tone. Can we talk about what that means?

And can we talk about light skin cartone privilege among

people of color. So all of that is to say that these things are really important, and I you know, one of the things I'm really getting excited about is I'm about to do uh an Omega conversation with Omega Institute with Sister Joan Chittister, who's a nun who's a radical, and I love her so much, And one of the things I'm going to talk with her about is, you know, what is the onus for Christians like herself and myself who feel that there are other people who claim to

walk in the path of Christ who were doing things that are harming people, and that I believe I hold privilege as a result of being a part of a religion that is upheld in our society, in our institutions

when it shouldn't be actually according to the constitutions. So I want to talk with her about that because I think there's a level of responsibility for people who are also related to dominant religions whose religions are informing politics and culture to speak out as well about that, and something I've been thinking about in terms of privilege a lot.

I hadn't thought about Christian privilege until I had some Muslim and Jewish friends really talk about what it means to have their religions associated with stereotypes and abuse that

they've experienced and harassment. There's a thousand things I want to cover here about what you've been saying, but I want to circle back to somewhere I wanted to go early in the conversation and make sure we go there before we run out of time, which is, can you give us the beginner's guide for white people who want to be an ally? Because I know that I've got listeners of all colors, and I'm glad to have them all. And I also know that most people that are listening

to this show are white. And I also know that most people listening to the show are of a good heart. Although we send out an email uh recently about our support of Black Lives Matter, and I'm realizing not everybody who listens might be of the same. But let's have the beginner's guide you know, if you're a white person to being a good ally, where should white people who go? Okay, you know what I've said on the sidelines long enough,

I want to get started. You know, I'm not going to be able to turn my whole life upside down and not go to work. I want to contribute in a way that's useful. Where do we start? So, I think you know a big thing to do is look at existing work that's happening in your local community or in other communities, and if you have financial resources, donate. So donate. If you feel like maybe protesting isn't something that you're able to do, Donate to bail funds like

the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Donate to Unicorn Riot. Help those people who are out there putting their bodies on the line, help them be able to get support. UM donate to the nub A CP Legal Defense Fund. Donate to the A C. L U, which I'm always a fan of, me to they're in the recurring donation category exactly right. Increasingly, I'm just oh, yeah, we need you for all the things right now, that's right, you know. Donate to a

sail U. UM Donate to the smaller organizations too. That are ones who are less likely to be in the portfolios of the big funders and foundations. So if they're local groups, who are you know, volunteer lead that are doing great work, donate to them too. And if you can't donate money, donate time. So can you say I want to volunteer? I can support you in other ways if there's some work I can take on for you. Can I send pizzas to you, um to help feed

the people who need them? Can I send masks and sanitizer? You know, there's there's a lot of ways that we can actually be an active part of community and giving back that may seem small, but they're big if you are in an office, you know, I've actually had people say with these corporate responses saying well, I can't you know, allocate a line item in the budget to support specific political efforts because I'm junior in a team and I would.

I gave an example of how think about what your role in your office, if you're an entrepreneur or you're working in a bigger office environment, to think about what it is that you do have the power over. UM, what companies are you ordering supplies from? So one of our junior staffers at my office said, oh, I realized that the people who make our bubble wrap that goes out with the books are donating to some people who

are against our values. And so immediately we said, oh, we're going to get our bubble wrap from somewhere else, and so reallocating those resources to send them to people who are making the right investments. If you have stocks, do shareholder advocacy. There are things you can request if you have a specific number of stocks from different companies around their board representation, around their standards, around diversity benchmarks

and things, and you can weigh in on that. There's just so many ways you can also, uh do phone banking. You can also help do fundraising if you're someone who's good at development um if you can do a friend raiser with people and you can unity and do a zoom house party and raise money for an organization that you care about. And then I also think if you're someone who's a content creator like us, you know, make art. I think this is a perfect time to make art

right now. There's so much inspiration, there's a lot of time in our homes, and we have an opportunity now to create art. That's going to document this moment um and also inform the future. So I think that's a really important thing. I have this video on my Twitter that I penned for a while that has Nina Simone during a similar cultural site guys saying that it's your duty to create your art, and I feel that right now just the various different artistic projects I'm working on.

My husband, Travis Sullivan, is a jazz musician and he's going to drop an album on June teenth, and that's the day that band camp is going to uh donate all the proceeds to Black Lives Matter. So I think there's just many different ways that we can find where our drinks lie or our resources lie and be able to give them back. And and then I think to just on the level of having those hard conversations. So maybe it's not the racist uncle that's too far gone,

you know, to move forward. But if you have a person who you know is like in the past, kind of apathetic, you know, they may or may not show up at elections. They're just kind of trying and do what they need to do. They feel like it's too much, everything is too big, you know, they can't do it

to say we're going to go vote together. We're gonna you know, either zoom together filling out those apps and tee ballots, or if it's open, we're going to go together and stand six ft apart and make sure we're doing it. You're gonna be my voting buddy and accountability partner. We're going to text until it happens and you can show me that it's done. Something like that. In this moment,

I think it's huge. You've got a book called you mentioned it earlier, Roadmap for Revolutionaries, which has tons of these and you don't have to even consider yourself a revolutionary, even if you just want to consider yourself an advocate or an ally. Right, there's a lot there. And you know, the thing that I always say, and it's just one of the mantras of this show, is like do something, you know, start small if you need to write, but

there's always a path forward. And the thing that I will say, which I've been sort of sharing with people because it's a really small, tangible, easy thing to do that I actually think matters. There's an organization called Campaign Zero and they've got something called eight Can't Wait. It is eight policies that can be implemented at police departments around the country that we know from research reduce police brutality. And you can go to eight Can't Wait dot com.

You can find your city, you can find out which things have been implemented are not implemented, and you can call your mayor and you can call your city council. It will take you ten minutes, and it it makes a difference. Again, even if we want to get into a debate about do we need to go beyond police reform, Yeah, probably, but we need police reform in the interim and these things. And again it's a ten fifteen minute conversation with your mayor and your city council that you can do right now.

So eight can't Wait dot Com there's your very small, very fast you know, if you're not sure what else to do, It's a place to start. I love that one too. I love it. And I also love the resist box, yes, because you can just text letters to your congress folks. And I also say for people who feel that, oh I live in a quote safe state,

it still matters, you know. I have been really active in New York about sending letters and petitions around artistic funding because of all the cuts for COVID nineteen and funding for the arts, and so I think, you know, sometimes we can fall into this feeling of like, oh, I live in New York or I live in California, and like, I know that it doesn't matter how I vote, when in fact, you know, it really does. And we have an opportunity now to even push further than we've

gone before about doing some really progressive things. So I also just like to encourage folks to really think about that now, and to think about if you feel called to run for office. You know, I know that one's a big one, but I like to just say to folks that we need people who are really really committed to doing things differently. Obviously what has gotten us here did not serve us well, and I think that we are better served by diversifying the voices that represent the people. Right.

We these people work for us, We elect them to represent us. So I am also a big believer in if you feel called to run, it doesn't mean you need to run for president. Right. A lot of times people think oh, that's what you should run for. You could run for school board, you could run for city council. Um, you could run for assembly person position in your community. But I'm really calling on people who feel called now to bring new ideas and new energy and leadership into

the conversation. That's why I did a whole children's book on Alexandria Acascio Cortez, a congresswoman, because I was just so inspired that she came in did something like you said, and that she was saying, oh, yeah, I'm young, I'm Latin X. And her incumbent opponent didn't even think she had a chance of winning. He didn't even show up

to her debate, and she won. So I just I tell everyone that if if you even have a fire for thinking, if you were elected, really be a strong representative for the community and you want to serve the people, really consider running. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's a great idea. All right, Well, thank you so much for coming on. I have really loved talking with you. I feel like I could do this for three hours, and I have

so much I could learn from you. UM, you and I are going to continue in the post show conversation, and what we're going to talk about there is really two things I really wanted to talk about in this conversation that we didn't get to, which is how to balance activism and spirituality and this idea of the moral arc bending towards justice and keeping hope while also confronting how difficult things are. I think those are really important

topics we didn't get to listeners. If you want to hear the post show conversation and get access to add free episodes many episodes, you can go to one you feed dot net slash join. So again, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's such a pleasure to have you on, and thanks for all the work you're doing and for being willing to spend some time

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