Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kenji 20240704

Welcome. Town hall. My name is Jessica Baloun and i am the community and outreach manager here at town hall. On behalf of our staff, well as our friends at third place books, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our tonights presentation with David Glasgow and jane park. As we get underway, i would like to acknowledge that our institution stands on the unceded traditional territory of the coast. Salish people, particularly the duwamish. We thank them for our continuing use of the natural of their ancestral homeland. Were very glad to have you join us tonight. The presentation will run for about 60 minutes, including q a. And when we get to the q a, you may ask your question, the mic over here and or you may use the qr code with your smartphone to submit your question digitally and youre joining us virtually at home. Then we will also post a link in the chat so you can add your question at any time. 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And finally, you can purchase your own copy of tonights book at our at the table hosted by place books and we, if youre interested, i had a book club that was very fun that we met before the show tonight and there is a flier about next book club that you can pick up at the third place table as well. If youre interested. Kenji yoshino is the chief justice earl warren, professor of constitutional at the nyu school of law and the director of the Meltzer Center for diversity, inclusion and belonging, a graduate of harvard, oxford and yale. He specializes in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law and law and literature. Yoshino has been published in major academic journals and has written the los angeles times, the New York Times and the washington post. He makes regular appearances on radio and Television Programs such as npr, cnn, pbss and msnbc. He is the author of three books covering the hidden assault on our civil rights a thousand times more fair. What shakespeares plays teach us about justice and speak now Marriage Equality on trial. David glasgow is the executive director of the meltzers center for diversity, inclusion and belonging and an adjunct professor of law at nyu school of law. He cotaught the courses the law school on leadership diversity and inclusion. He intended the university of melbourne and the nyu of law, where he received the david h. Moses memorial prize and the George Carlin award. Prior to joining the Meltzer Center, he practiced Employee Relations and antidiscrimination law in melbourne, australia, and then served as associate director of the Public Interest law center, nyu school of law. Jane park is the ceo of athena consumer and all women founded a special Purpose Acquisition Company as well as ceo and founder of toki, a social, unsustainable gift wrap company. Prior to founding toki, ms. Park was the ceo and founder of the online first beauty brand julep, as well as the founding director of the ceo forum for education and technology. Yoshino and glasgows latest book say the right is the subject of this talk tonight, so please join me in welcoming kenji yoshino, David Glasgow and jane park. Thanks for braving all the traffic. Apparently thats out there to be with us tonight. Were so excited to have conversation. I am so excited about this book because reading it, its amazing to find people who are so brilliant and thoughtful, write something that is so useful and helpful. Its like when a michelin star chef makes you a great burger. But i and please, were going through add own questions, especially if i think theres a qr code that you can submit questions to which will show up in my ipad right. All right. Well, without further ado. Can you tell me, david, why did you write this book . So we wrote this book because. Kenji and i work at a Research Center at nyu, and we consult with a lot of organizations and individuals how to build inclusive cultures. And we kept noticing problem recur over and over, which was that a lot of who want to get involved in diversity and inclusion efforts are terrified of saying wrong thing. And so what happens is they withdraw in fear out from participating in a lot of efforts as allies that we wish that they would participate in. And so we wanted to write a book, a shame free book, giving people some tools for how to navigate these tricky conversations about identity so that people could overcome their fear and show up as allies. How many times a day do you think you worry that you are saying the wrong thing . Oh, all the time. And you wrote a book. So, kenji, why do you think were finding it harder than ever to have conversations about our identity experiences. Yeah. So, first of all, jane, thank you so much for being our conversation partner tonight. Thank you to seattle town hall and thank you all for coming. Its so exciting to here with you. So i think theres actually a very hopeful reason why these conversations seem to be everywhere. These days and may seem even less avoidable than there were even a decade ago. So, you know, i think this as what kind of Political Writer matt iglesias, the great awakening, where he says different about the past few years is you see a lot of allies, people going to black lives matter rallies. Men going to the womens march on washington, you know, straight and people being allies so that Lgbtq Community and thats a really hopeful sign it means that you know to quote yale professor jennifer richardson, theres been a democratization of discomfort where it used to be that the more kind of minority group, subordinated group had to bear the entire discomfort of a conversation. So that if i said something inappropriate as a man to a woman, that the woman would have to sort of suck it up and, you know, deal with all the discomfort from the conversation. And i would be kind of blithely oblivious to the fact that, you know, anything had been in that conversation. So now with the rise of allyship and a more kind of culture of being more diverse and more inclusive as a society, i think its balanced out a little bit. But the upshot of that is that, know, we do experience some discomfort, right . When we enter into these conversations and they do seem to be everywhere and i think what david and i are trying to do in this book is to say, you know, i think were constantly told that you have to be uncomfortable in these if you want to get anywhere. We do believe that to some extent, but we dont want that discomfort to turn into such as david was talking about, that you opt out of having the conversation altogether. It seems like your book is really helpful with helping people expect discomfort to sort of anticipate it and, know what to do about it. So david, you write in the book that no one can afford to sit out on these conversations sort of related to what kenji was just saying. But why do you think that now . So just think about all the different of life that we enter into. And i think youll sort of see that these conversation patterns are becoming increasingly inescapable. So in workplaces, its much more likely now than at any other point in history that you get training on, implicit bias or privilege or opportunities, participate in Racial Equity forces or in gender equity efforts, or that the company will, in pride marches, or that therell be a chief diversity officer. Theres been a huge surge in hiring of actual professionals. So in workplaces, these conversations are happening certainly in universities and other educational contexts in high schools. I mean, even down to Elementary Schools and preschool schools now are having conversations increasing about issues of identity and diversity. So theres certainly all the way through the pipeline, youre going to encounter it. And then cant really remember a time when we looked at our morning news feed and didnt encounter least some conversations about identity. So it might be all of the movements that kenji was talking about, like black lives matter or the Metoo Movement or rights, the controversies around critical race theory, trans rights and so forth. So if a consumer of the media and you go to dinner or you talk to people at our family barbecues or around the thanksgiving table, even there, i think when youre not in the workplace or in school, youre increasingly likely to encounter these conversations and especially because younger people coming, a lot of these organizations are driving these conversations as well. So some of the we spoke to in writing the book told us when gen z has come into my organization, they want to talk about the White Supremacy in, my company. And thats extremely confronting for me as a manager and so i think a lot of that generational pressure is happening is also making this conversation inescapable. What are some of the kenji what are some of the most common mistakes that people make in conversations about identity . I love all the examples that you have in your book because i think we can all put ourselves into them. But maybe you could share some of the mistakes that youve made in your life. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, i borrowed this from my wonderful colleague at nyu, where she begins many of our classes by flashing up a slide, a professor. And she says, look at this terrible professor. This professor misgendered, a trans colleague. Confuse two people of the same ethnic group with each other and call them by each others names. This professor had a syllabus was like stock towards, you know, historically groups without any justification for that. Thats professor laughed at inappropriate and you see where this is headed the next is and that professor with me right so i can raise my hand and cop to four of those bad actions and say i too have engaged in those activities. Which is not to say im proud of that or i dont want to get better, but i think its a really useful point to say this is of us. Like none of us gets a set on the sidelines. And to say, im just here as an ally. If you think about it as like as the ally there, the affected person, and then theres the source of noninclusive behavior. Thats a game of musical chairs, right . Some days here, the ally, i thought some days or the affected person might get happened to. Me and then on other days youre the source of noninclusive behavior like you did it. And so because this is a game of musical chairs, were all going to fall into these errors at some point. I think it first thing that we can do is just to admit were all fallible in this domain, as in any other. I thought it was really interesting that, david, that in that trio you talk about how have to have empathy for the source and that is, you know, of all the different ideas in your book was one of the most startling to me that that you would call for that and. Can you talk a little bit more about why you know, if we have empathy, shouldnt we save it for the affected person . Why . I have empathy for the source. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons why we think that you should, you know, empathy and generosity toward the person who makes these mistakes is because someday that source will be you and me and everyone, right . Were all sources that are in inclusive behavior sometimes. And so we want to create a culture that helps people learn and grow from their mistakes rather than immediately, you know, canceling and condemning them for making mistakes. Now, of course, you know, there are going to be instances where, you know, condemning someone or canceling them is appropriate. I mean, kenji and i dont lie awake at night worrying about the plight of harvey weinstein. I think there are instances where a harsher approach is called for, but because all of us make these kinds of errors in our everyday lives. We think that that sort of generosity is an important point. Its also an important starting because people into these from different places right. Its much easier to know how to navigate all of these Difficult Conversations about identity if youve been steeped in that world for your entire or is not everyone is exposed to all of the diversity of the society growing up and might may not be able to navigate some of these issues until learn. And so we want to create that kind of a learning culture. And i think for all those reasons we think, you know, start from a place of generosity, show the person that youre learning to kenji did that you make mistakes as well and thats more likely to lead the other person to actually grow and improve past the mistakes that theyve made. When you are building on that a little bit, what do think of this book as like an ally ship one on one, or is it a201 or where do we enter . And if we want to be better allies, which is actually, you know, read the book, first of all, but in you know, if you could summarize sort of what what do you say to someone who says, i want to be a better ally . Yeah. So i mean, the book is sort of divided up into sort of seven principles and we think that all of those are relevant to go to ally shop. So the first one is just how to avoid the four most common conversational tropes and then the second and third chapters are about how to build their resilience and your curiosity, we think, are the two sort of cardinal virtues of ally, the fourth and the fifth chapters are about how to apologize when youve wronged somebody and how to respectfully when someone when you simply cant, you know, offer them the ally ship that theyre seeking. And then the sixth and the seventh chapters are, how to be a good ally to the affected person, obeying what we call the kind of platinum rule. And then the seventh principle is the one that you just discussed with david in a the importance of being an ally to the source. So the good things in there for whether you are someone who has thought about this issue a lot or are really new to the whole topic and thinking how to do it better. I love the chapter on apology is david so can you talk about what makes a good apology and how your are different than what is out in common public culture . Yeah, i mean, apology. This was a fun chapter for us to write. You know, apologies can seem quite amorphous sort of how earth do i put together this authentic apology but we actually think that they can be broken down into a relative easy to remember four step process, which we call the 4 hours of apology, which is recognition, responsibility, remorse and redress. And so is about recognizing the harm. So often people fail to recognize the harm by using we call an if apology. So they might say im sorry if youre offended or im sorry if youre upset or im if you take it that way and kind of suggesting that the harm is uncertain or you might not have actually caused harm. So recognition is about recognizing that responsibility is about taking personal responsibility for causing the harm. So this one, people often mess by issuing a apology. So theyll say, im sorry, but i was tired. Im sorry but i didnt mean it. Im but im not a racist, Something Like that. And so a classic example of this is roseanne barr, who famously wrote highly tweet. And then when she got in for it, she said, im sorry about, it was two in the morning. And i was ambien tweeting. And so that kind of, of course, didnt take responsibility. It just sort of blamed it on the ambien. Right. So thats the second step where you have to talk. The the other example, though, because my favorite person in the world next to you, kenji, but has tina fey and you talk about how a good apology works there, right . Yes, exactly. And so she sort of did do a bad apology by sort of saying, you know, im sorry, i didnt mean its right or im sorry, but my intentions were good. Right. And when she was called out for of her mistakes, but eventually what she achieve, she gave an apology that followed the for survivor recognition of responsibility of remorse and redress. This is when some episodes of her tv show came out that were that had actors in right and she ended up apologizing for that taking personal responsibility for it expressing remorse for the error and then asking nbc to remove that episode from circulation. And so thats the redress component, which is to actually take tangible steps to repair the harm so that an apology is not just all talk. And so we like tina feys apology there because she kind of completed the 4 hours without even realizing it. And i think thats what we really like about that. I think an interesting thing about that is, it makes it easier to accept the apology, too, because theres an action you know, and ive really thought about that, how hard. It is sometimes just to say thats okay when you dont really feel like thats okay. But if you have to say something, someone says im sorry and so if there is an action, then its really great. After an apology, if you can say thank you. So really that the goal is to do an apology that you can say thank you too. Like thank you for doing that. Absolutely. When you think about the pop culture today and we sort of theres this whole idea that like, were not allowed to disagree with anyone. And, you know, can you even sort of call people or, you know, to have a real conversation asian anymore . How what do you think about that and how does your book help with with that . Yeah. So we sort of die on the hill of saying that you have to be allowed to disagree. Right . So you know, our heart broke one day when after one of the events at our center one of our favorite students came up to us and said, like, you know, oh, like, you know, i made a comment, you know, during this presentation. And one of my colleagues thought, you know, that i was being sexist, you know, but i disagreed with her. Was i allowed to do that . Like, for goodness sakes, its like an institution of higher learning. Youre training to be a lawyer you have to be able to disagree. But we got where he was coming from. Sometimes these conversations so sensitive and disagree that may feel like youre hurting someone, you really care about or youre risking getting yourself so both on other regarding and selfregarding grounds, you might hesitate before disagree. So our thinking disagreement really hinges on the notion that not all disagreements are created equal, and even people who are having that disagreement may be a very different place. And how they experience a disagreement. So we have the thing called the controversy scale. So if you can imagine like a scale moving from left to right, right where and this is not a political psychopathic drama. Anything like that is just, you know intensity, scale. So the least intense kind of disagreement is one about sort of tastes, right . So if you and i disagree about what our favorite netflix show is or did or how great my shoes are, well, no one could disagree about that. Right. So or david and i disagreed about, you know, what, you know, flavor of ice cream you like better, right, than those kinds of disagreements are like razzing each other. All right. Well get closer rather than further apart by having this as they move, step over to fox and. I really mean my journalistic who, when, where or why. Facts rather than kind of fights over values by proxy. So were not talking about like alternative facts or anything like that, really just talking about like one happened. Thats sad. We have to define facts, but in those instances we made it maybe a little bit hotter and like we may have like a vigorous disagreement about what really just happen there, but still not going to be as intense. We find that as they move over and policies and then values, things get hotter and hotter and then at the furthest extreme right, we have equal humanity. If one person feels like youre disagreeing with their right to exist on the planet or, your right to belong in society, then theyre to take that, you know, really personally sometimes both sides think about it and now in a weird way, when both parties feel like their equal humanity is in question, like at least theyre in the same point. And the controversy scale. So like they understand the intensity of that disagreeing it where we find that people dont often understand intensity. The disagreement is when one side is operating over here and the other person is operating over there. So, you know, one person is saying, oh, im just going to bring an argument to you about how, you know, quotas for women on boards is a terrible thing or affirmative is a terrible thing or Something Like that. And im just going to argue in good faith, as a matter policy that thats a terrible thing. The person on the other side of that debate who might be the beneficiary of that quote or, that affirmative Action Program might feel that thats a hit at their equal and their right to belong, right. And the community of like somehow your standing, this community, maybe even right, is called into question by that. So were actually not saying that when you have that doubt that the person who is to the left of the person who is getting hurt needs to move right. Just the person who is on the kind of more or less and and kind of incendiary point on the scale has to acknowledge right that the other person might hear and based on their Life Experience and other aspects of their identity, that conversation differently. So in those instances, the hope to say to the other person like, i understand that these, you know, come from me as a matter of policy or facts or what have, but for you, they may land as a matter of your equal humanity. And ill try to be respectful that in this conversation. And please, you know, call me and write if. Im saying something that hits you in the wrong way. Right. And thats such powerful form of interpersonal in the conversation that i think it does an enormous amount. Just to take a personal example to again, you know, show im learning to i was on the other side of this prior to 2015 when i was sort of going around the country arguing for same sex marriage as somebody who is currently same sex marriage. Right. And i was arguing as a constitutional law professor and my debate partners would often say to me, you know, we know that, you in a same sex relationship. So this is really personal you. But we want you to leave that aside when we get on the stage, like just put your our constitutional law professor hat on and argue this is a matter of equal protection clause of the due process clause and leave your personal priors aside. And i remember thinking like green room after green room after i escorted not to bring my personal priors into it, thinking like, of course im capable of doing that and i will do that. I think that its fair for everyone for me to make this as an intellectual argument, and i think i can win that intellectual argument. Right. But i kept thinking like, you could have done yourself so much good, you know, party opposite. And that grammar i feel just said to me, im making this argument as a matter of policy. Right . But i understand that for you it may implicate or equal humanity and your feeling that you are equal in a society that we have. And so as we have the conversation, were going to have it as a question of facts and values. But i just want to acknowledge is that this may have different a different valence for you. I dont think that they would have to have surrendered any of their substantive arguments in order to make that statement. But curiously, not a single one of that. Right. So i think its really, really important to think about like that how that kind of spirit of generosity actually costs you nothing in the end in terms of the substantive arguments that you can make except for forcing you to see the other human being as a human being. Right. And i dont think anything is lost on that. I think a lot of times people do. They just dont have the words to say it in that. And i think what is helpful about, your book is there are so many examples of situation weve all been in and having, you know, an example of the words and how to arrange them just the way you did about the green room is so inspiring. Its so helpful to think like i could do that are, you know, crazy words. Those can come out of my mouth. Theres a lot of in your book, david, that is about, you know, talking how to setting up some of these situations and giving people ideas for heres a way you could approach it. Another thing you talk about, though, is when to know how to get involved. When we see something happening and you can just you know, keep on going down the hallway or, you know, you think, well, im going to stop, but then what am i going to do . What am i going to say . How do you decide on, you know, when to intervene . What should we do . Yeah, this is a really important question because we distinguish in the book between two different kinds of allyship or being an ally. So a lot of the principles that weve been talking about, disagreeing respectfully and apologizing, i mean, those are really just being a good human being, essentially kind of form of allyship, but of there are other instances where its more of an active intervention spot, Something Else going on right. Im sitting on a bus and i see that someone is being targeted because of their race and i to decide, well, do i speak up in this moment, right . Or im in a meeting and theres a woman being constantly interrupted and having her points appropriated by other men in the meeting. Do i kind of step in know in her defense in that meeting and thats a much more active form of allyship. So we have a whole chapter devoted to that where talk about what we call the platinum rule or we didnt coined the term platinum rule, but were using it for this purpose is that, you know, i think everyones familiar with basic premise of the golden rule of, you know, treating other people as you would want to be treated. When we get over into the allyship context, we want people to that people are often very different from who we are. And so the way that they want to be treated is not necessarily frilly the way that i would want to be treated in that situation. And so its really important to actually use the informed empathy of trying to get into that other persons skin and think about from their perspective, how would they want to be helped . Not how would i want to be helped in that situation. And so we invite the reader to really consider questions into our few questions. But the two of the most important ones are, first of all, just think about whether or not this person actually wants their help in the first place. Right . Because there some instances where it could be patronizing to help know. There are some studies, social science showing, for example, that when, you know, black students are taking a word puzzle and why help is come into unsolicited help for them on the word puzzle that actually makes them worse about their own selfworth and their own competence, because they didnt ask the help. And its sort of suggesting that they cant it on their own. So i think taking that first step to think would this person want my help in this situation is important. And then secondly, you know, is the kind of help that i am going to offer this person the right kind of help. And so, again, people can sometimes barrel in and think, well, any help is good enough help. And so we talk in the book about a range of ways that allies to the black lives Matter Movement tried to intervene, and often it was very sort of fringy, clumsy interventions, right . So we give the example of a celebrity. Lili reinhart, who took a photo on instagram and it said it was kind of a topless photo. And it said now that my side has got your attention demand, justice Breonna Taylors murderers have not been arrested right. And you know, in case you think just a Lili Reinhart problem, we talk about in social media, influencer iapetus who similarly took a photo of his head of his abs and said rest in peace floyd right as the caption for Instagram Photo of his abs and so again i just think i mean these are obviously extreme examples. Most people dont do that, but we use it as an illustration for some times when we were barreling in as allies, kind of do it clumsily stopping to consider, is this really a form of intervention that from the perspective of the people that im trying help actually helping them, at least considering those two questions will get you part of the way, deciding how to intervene in these situations. You have to tell the snl, do you want to do it . Can jay, or do you want to do it . David the the white savior, yeah. Okay. So this is actually my you guys know the white savior sketch from snl itself and you have to go look it up so much. Its sort of late night with seth meyers, but my all Time Favorite thing of his is trailer that he does called white savior. Its a spoof trailer of a movie that doesnt exist. It would be hilarious if it did and it him playing this character, jack and black man, played by amber ruffin and the black woman is introduced as like, you know, really sort of Award Winning scientist, civil rights leader and. Charles right. And he is introduced, jack, the man who is white, while she did it. So throughout the entire trailer, its like the cringe worthy but also like incredibly familiar sort of series of interventions that he makes where shes giving a huge civil rights speech. And then he goes in and completely unnecessarily like lowered the mic towards her mouth and he says, like, you know, she could make the speech because i was here. I did that right. And then, you know, on martin on word right that way and you know another individual like is is sort of being kind of hostile her he like steps in and completely their savior and then unsolicited just punches a guy in the face. And then shes standing there saying. I could never have done that, but i also didnt you to do that. And then finally that was like a whites only sign outside a restroom. And then he says, oh, thats. And he gets up there and then you hear a sharpie squeaking. And then when he gets down, it says, you know, whites only and amber. So he solves that for her, right. But for nobody else. And so its just like unbelievable because it is sort of simultaneously so and so familiar. All right. So thats dont be like jack in this trailer. I is the thing. And on a more serious note, although its still comedic, right. It says at one point as trailers do. Right by the creators of and then all these like movies pop up and its like all these movies like the help or the blind or the green mile, what have you that do have all these white saviors and right. And youre just like, oh, like a lot of the culture ive been consuming is this trope, right . But it wasnt produced as parody it was produced as like oscar winning blockbuster kind of movie, right . So it just shows you that, you know we can only parody things that are very familiar to us and unfortunately the white savior narrative, the ally savior narrative in general is very familiar to. And i guess if i could rip off of that, i say just a couple of things. I mean, david has talked, i think, really wonderfully about these first two premises of the platinum rule, which is make sure the ally, make sure the affected person actually wants and make sure that youre giving them the help that they ask for. Right. But our third premise there is make sure that youre not hurting the affected person in name of helping them. And thats often kind of an eyebrow raiser because people think like, well, im to help, so how could i possibly be burdening the affected person . And we asked readers to watch out for two, you know, unintentional burdens because we say, of course, you can help and hurt somebody at the same time. And these are kind of cognitive burdens and emotional burdens. So oftentimes when we go into savior mode, we can sort of burden the other person by saying, for example, cognitively like educate me, you know, about your career. So in the wake of the murder of george floyd, you know, one of our colleagues came to us and said, like, im exhausted because its black man. Like, this is like having 40 of my best friends wake up after a 400 year coma asking to be briefed on what happened in the last 400 years. Im exhausted as it is. Im a little traumatized and. So the last thing i need to do is to, like, run these seminars, educating all my incredibly wellmeaning, you know, friends, you know, how to be a better ally to me, right . So. And damon young, the writer in brooklyn, put this ive been even more punch up lately where said, you know, after the murder of george floyd, a lot of people are coming up to him as a black man. And he had never spoken to them before in his life, but they were saying, oh, we know youre a writer like. And so id really like to advocate me about whats going on with Race Relations in this country and what can i do and give me a syllabus, this and that. And he starts off, never forget this. Jane yeah, i doubt that the road runner, a day of outrunning and out screaming wiley coyote wants to go and explain coyote supremacy to the liberal coyotes who live in his neighborhood. Yeah, and i thought thats pretty good. And then the other kind of burden we can place on peoples emotional one. And this is the kind of allied tears phenomenon Robin Dangelo talks about this as white tears, but i think it applies to anyone in a dominant group who is listening to effective person as an ally, where it can get really real. We can feel and from the best parts of ourselves very, very emotional. So i myself of teared up or gotten emotional when ive heard somebody give testimony about, you know, what has happened to them as an effective person that could be sexual assault, that could be black lives matter, that could be any number of things. Right. But have to remember that if im really there as an ally, i have to be really careful what happens when i up or have a visible emotional response, which is that a lot of the attention in the room particularly if im a senior, a respected of the community can drift away from the affected person and towards me. So in those cases im not as hard core as Robin Dangelo because my understanding is that her advice is that when the person cant control themselves, she forcibly escorts them from the room. So, you know, whether or not i wish i could be that way, i dont know. Im just not that guy. So im not advocating that. But i can of making a case for self regulation which she also makes in her book white fragility, which is to say when you as an ally find yourself having that strong reaction to think, you know, is it really proper for me as an ally to be siphoning Emotional Energy away from this person so people turn you and youre not the effective person because youre harvard, but youre having an emotional response. You can say, im just reacting to the powerful testimony. Right, that the effective person just gave can read. But i can i handle it . Can we just redirect our attention . It belongs or if im really unable to keep it together, you know, just exit the room, gather myself and then come back. And im really ready to be there as an ally. So both cognitive and emotionally, i think we have to be really careful. Were in that favor mode not to like unintentionally and with the best intentions actually, because these is actually i want to learn, you know, i feel for you those are actually really emotions but they can actually backfire on these interactions if we dont watch out for them. Yeah. How do we think that in terms of, you know, i your book a while ago and then read it again a couple of weeks ago and even today im thinking i forgot that good stuff that i should be remembering. What is your thought and how people can, you know, would your dream be about how people can go out and actually use the the things that you have talked about in your book and and what if we forget and what we screw up . How whats what are your words of encouragement for like keep going, keep trying . Well, we like to think of this as a little bit like learning a language where you are probably as an adult, learning a new language, never going to achieve full native level fluency. And youre still going to make mistakes as you go, but you will certainly get better with practice. And so our kind of primary directive is, you know, practice, practice, practice. So a lot of the conversations right now that you might be, you know, running from hiding under your desk to avoid try actually engaging those conversations, you know, with real with real people. Yes. And, you know, part of the reason, again, why we believe so important to be generous toward those make mistakes is so that people keep practicing. Because one of the reasons why people stop practicing these conversations is that they mess it up once they get a response from somebody, they feel so ashamed of how badly they did in the conversation that they run away and i dont want to have any more of these conversations, whereas our hope is that if we create a culture where people are actually sort of generous toward each other, the mistakes that theyre making, that that will create the kind of environment in which people are willing to practice and try again. They stumble. So i think thats sort of one point. The other point is that we hope, at least with our book as a resource and there are other books of written, written these subjects as well, of course, that we certainly dont think ours is like the only one to refer to, but we hope that our book is going to be the kind of toolkit that people can pick up when they need it. So we really written it to try to be a kind of multitool where people can apply a strategy if they forget about it, pull it off their shelf, look at it again, try it again and really engage with it, you know. And so i hope that that at least our contribution to this literature is to give people a toolkit that they can kind of keep returning to over and over again. I really love that. I think i it reminds me of breee browns. You know, the thing she says that shame cannot survive the light of connection and that you know maybe another thing that we can do as allies is find a shame body that you can call and say. I said that its really stupid thing today. And who will listen to you without judgment . And i actually think your book can be that if you dont have somebody to call immediately or its in the middle of the night and you just woke up that it is a way to not feel alone, that look at all of these other of things and and you can feel like, okay, this is what i can do differently next time, which is to have a plan. I think thats sort of what is helpful to me about the book is ive done a lot of the things in there that, oh, i, i hadnt said that or why did i do that and that is a hard place to sit. But if you know, number one, that other people have done it too. And number two, that you have some, you know, plan for what you can do differently next time. That is, to me, a big source of hope. Absolutely. And we talk in book about this theory called reading theory from the psychologist susan, where she asks you to imagine that person going through a crisis, has a series of circles around that person, concentric circles. Right. And so imagine if you have a, you know, medical diagnosis or something and im offering support. I have to imagine that youre in the middle circle. Im in the circle. One step removed, and then i my own family and friends in the circles, our even further. Right. So you can keep drawing concentric circles to get all the relationships, you know, going out from you and. The rule that susan silk offers is to comfort in and dump out meaning i shouldnt be dumping all of my negative emotions and my shame on you when im trying to support you as the person going through a crisis. And we apply that model to area as well of allyship which is, you know, if im trying to support someone whos experiencing bias or discrimination, a lot of of exclusion now i have my own emotional issues to be dealing with. Right. I might feel guilt. I made a mistake or i might be feeling angry or fearful or any number of things. But what i shouldnt do burden you as the affected person with all of those emotions. What i can do is go back to my shame body as were talking about it, or someone in my own outer circle, right . So my husband or my friends and i can talk about all my painful to them, right . And thats okay. You think you should be getting that kind of support an ally. You just need to know who to get it from. Absolutely. I think that, you know, i have a friend who was just recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked her immediate friends not to tell other people, i wont tell you her name. So im not violating that tonight, but, you know, a friend told i said, hey, was having lunch with, you know, this other mutual friend. And it was really hard on me that. I couldnt tell her why i was so sad. And, you know, its like, wow, her answer there was, wow, you should really talk to therapist about that. But, you know, in that sense, locating yourself on the geography of harm is so helpful because otherwise, you know its hard to do things where youre going be received properly, even if whats in your heart is helpful. And then when you get negative response, its so disorienting. But if you can keep that map in your head and sort of say, know what ring on my end in this situation, in some situations you can be in the center as you pointed out, depending on whats happening. And at the same time, you can also be on the outer ring of somebody elses circle. So there are concentric circles that are not theres not just one. Absolutely. So its really its its a framework for life, general. In addition to sort of wanting to be good allies, which is a good segue way to your both parents. So when you think about kids and how you to help them to be a good allies you know what is like the most important thing that you think about im just grinning because i literally feel like im committing human rights violations. But children because i make them off of our policies. Chapter. I have their stuffed animals and i apologize to each other and then ill ask my children what was wrong with each apology right . So i might not be the best person to ask about how i come by my scholarship with my parenting. So, david, im ready. Use kids are much younger. Yeah. So would say im not so good on the apology front because i have a five year old and a three year old, so when they need to apologize, its usually say sorry, say sorry and the like. And then they just say the buzzwords. Sorry and im okay. Good. That was, you know, so i dont make go through the four elements of an apology. Maybe when theyre a little bit older. Yeah. Do you worry about sort of whether they will find good allies in the world and and how to equip to be good allies . I absolute really i mean, theres still, you know, so young, so its hard to think forward in that way. But i do hope that were entering a world where, you know, as i mentioned, theres so much more awareness of these issues now and education on issues of diversity and inclusion is happening younger and younger and so there are programs, right. Even in my youngest my son, the five year olds in his elementary school, theres a diversity in Equity Inclusion committee. That school, they have programs for to teach kids, you know, lessons around behavior. And so my is that this generation thats growing up now are going to be so much more steeped the language of ally ship and so much more able to offer the kinds of support that were talking about. Now that i hope that theyre going to have, you know options as they go through their lives and. Yeah, hopefully we can be as parents allies to them too. And i also think on a more kind of you serious note, like i that, what i had led with earlier, i do think that appear so young that are just internal issues for us as human beings. And one of them was so without betraying her confidence side, you know, my tried to intervene in an hush up situation and then i was the outer ring, right. Because she was beating herself up for something she had done at school that, ended up blowing up in our face. And so she came back. And so we talked it right and it really struck me that the stuff that david was talking earlier, so eloquently is true. You know, when youre, you know, 11, which is where she now and its true when youre anywhere else in life, right. Where the two things that she needed were first of all, like not get shamed by other people, right . So this notion of like, oh, i can have as much selfcompassion as i want, but if other people are going to be punitive and cancel me, then thats not going to work, right . Like, i cant do this on my own. So thats the please be an ally to the force that someday are going to be you. Like be gentle, be generous, be empathetic, except for an extreme cases or where the person doesnt want to learn. Right . But the other thing that david said that i thought was so great that oftentimes our own harshest critics and you were sort of eliciting this from him as well of like oftentimes its not like some external body thats censoring us. Were just like and bad staring at the at night, like beating ourselves up into the wee hours or something we did or sat. And so i think it takes a really long time for us to realize that our shame is not a gift to anyone. Its not a gift to the affected person. Its not a gift to ourselves right. And brene brown, you quoted earlier and we quote in the book like the sharp distinction, shame and guilt, where she says, shame is about who you are. And its generally not productive guilt. Its about what you did. Right. And its generally kind of a good kick in the pants to get you to do better. Right. So i think we need both sides of that. I think that we need to have that kind of self compassion and that grace and gentleness with ourselves. But i think that we also need it from our communities, right . Because we cant do it all in hour. So its something that, you know, we have to be on our side, but other people have to be on our side, too, when were trying to be good people of goodwill for trying to grow to a better place as allies. I love that that. Allies to the allies. Okay. I want to go to some of the questions that i see coming in. Unfortunate natalie, i am too vain to bring my glasses, so well see how this goes. Okay. In my workplace, the Diversity Committee is volunteer and i notice that its powerless people who are the ones most passionate and interested in supporting diversity from within and also outwardly towards our client slash Community Learning how to apologize appropriately as good. How do we get the higher ups and aware that they have a part . The solution to yeah thats a great question and we you one of the points that i dont think weve hit in this conversation is that we really wrote this book, especially to people who are entering these conversations from a higher power position. And so we define higher power to include people are higher power in an organized nation. Some might be a manager or some a senior organizational leader or a teacher or what have you. But it could also include people entering from a higher power position of their social identity. So an ally, male ally, entering conversations about gender, for example, or a white ally entering conversation about race. So i think part of, you know, our approach this is we think that its really important to. Lean into this concept of allyship because that truly is the framework that everyone regardless their position, can get involved in, i think its regrettable that so much of the conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion are there is that burden placed on the people are most affected and most marginalized to always be the ones, you know, speaking up and championing issues. And i think, you know, one of my hopes for this book is that it will empower more people who are in those, you know, higher up positions to care about these issues and to feel like they have a voice in these. And so even people who are wellmeaning in retreat, in fear from these conversations and i do hope that sort of turning down the fear factor and giving people these these tangible skills might also help them show up to some of these conversations. I would also buy a copy of this book and just leave it on their desk. It seems that identity has become a lot more important to consider in the last few years. Well, i think its critical. We respect what people need is there. A reason why identity has become front and center in our culture. Yeah, i think its that we have really seen the fruits of many, many social movements coming together and that the United States has just become more aware of diversity. Its always existed within its ranks and objectively has gotten more diverse right with regard to, say, patterns of immigration our longevity, making us more generational diverse. Right. So i think that there is a demographic change and i think theres also like a normative change of like its no longer acceptable when were barreling towards becoming a majority nation on the basis of race for example, to say no, only one story that matters right. Or theres only one perspective that matters. And should also mention, as someone standing, oh, gosh, okay, well, that is a good time. Go to you. So i couldnt see you. Thats like i couldnt synthesize my text while listening. It was i think this is more of a personal question to david could you speak into the maya . Yeah. How is this societal this is somewhat of a and also the aussie question thats been ruminating in my mind for a while. Ive lived in the states for the last five years, so ive been a little bit to things back home. But ive been home once last year and i wanted to ask you a little bit more about the learning curve that you talked about. Im really i want to go back home and raise my kids back home, but im really scared to go back home because seems to be at least what i observe from family and friends versus the conversations i have here, a really big divide in that that learning curve that you talk about. Australia seems to be really far behind like ten years, like were at the infant stage of these having these conversations versus here in the u. S. Like what were talking about tonight. Right now i also a similar question to Robin Diangelo when she was here a couple of weeks and her response was, you know, sharing from your experience, talking from yourself first, which which i definitely bought. But the part i dont buy is the inherently australian cultural ism in it of everyone has a fair go, you know, where, where the tall poppy syndrome is. So deep and if you share your own experience how that comes off in culture can come across as really abundant and condescending or patronizing. I want to know from from your perspective, like im still not really buying some of these strategy years of thinking about how that would translate. Id be speaking a completely different language and i dont know how to bring them in and how to when you know, the default attitude is never talk about sex, politics or religion at the table, you know, yeah, its a great and i do think that this book, you know, has some limitations in the sense, you know, its written within a particular cultural and national context. And we do hope it will travel abroad and that people will find useful insights in it. But its always going to be, i think, a question as anyone reads it, of thinking about how to adapt to different cultural settings. You know, i feel like one of the reasons why the United States is sort of more advanced, quote unquote, in having these conversations is just simply because of the kind of demographic change that kenji was referring to that i feel like australia is on same trajectory. So you know, if you go to australia now its much wider than that. You know what you would see in the United States Walking Around this, but its changing so i feel like its sort of if you round the clock back in the United States and i so i think the conversation similarly on equity and inclusion when i left australia about ten years ago it basically didnt exist as a discourse like people didnt i didnt even know what diversity, equity, inclusion was. Now its a very important conversation in australia like there are a lot of people who have jobs. Its being talked about much more in the media. Again, i agree with you that its further behind, but i think theres a more of an openness in the conversations i have people out there to at least start the conversation. And so i think its all about kind of navigating your way through of those other kind of cultural dimensions that youre talking about, you know, and happy to talk offline more about you know, tall poppy syndrome and other very australias specific kind of ideas because do have some thoughts. But yeah, i think i dont im not as hopeless, you know, in terms of communicating this to australia. I think its just that were probably, as you say, about a, you know, a decade also behind the United States in thinking and talking about these issues through. But i would say that, you know, i have parents who were born korea and i immigrated when i was four and some of these things conversations that like how do you have these conversations with your parents . Right. Its not so that its not so much halfway around the world as just across your dinner table sometimes and i think some of the the advice around resilience and curiosity and especially the you know, the empathy for the source with my dad it really you have to have a lot of empathy for the sorts. That theres a lot of you know, just day to day practical thinking. I think, you know, its helpful to i think to put in practice. Oh, yeah. Do one more from here. Sometimes its unclear that whether the other party is capable of giving respect to your experience, but sometimes a gently delivered pathos argument is the thing that gives them a new perspective. How do we hold the potti repercussions of being vulnerable, especially in a professional context but also way . Its potential effectiveness. Yeah, i love that. So i assume that this is a question that is coming from a would be ally and confronting a source and obviously you know that ill say the kind of most selfevident things first which is that youre allowed engage in selfcare and not you know make yourself more vulnerable youre comfortable being so id go back that we want people to be resilience resilient in the face of discomfort. We dont think it should teeter over into distress. So i make that point first, but walk right up to the point of distress. Yeah, go through vulnerable to the point of distress and, then take a half step back. Yeah. And i think that oftentimes thats like when youre talking to the source, you know, its, its really important to gauge what they can bring to it. I think oftentimes they feel i think vulnerability is just another word for imbalance of like how we feel when we are exposing a lot of ourselves and the other person is not right. And so if both sides are being vulnerable, actually ceases to feel that dangerous. And so the vulnerability goes away on its own. So i think a lot of is in how you address the source and what you view the source as capabilities to be. So when we say we want you to be an ally, the source, for example, were not talking about. Davids earlier comments about not losing sleep over harvey weinstein. Right . Not to single him out necessarily, but but like we say, doesnt have a set of of, you know, if the person has engaged in truly egregious behavior, if the person has seems to have no interest, you know, and even if they havent engaged in egregious behavior and Getting Better that you dont really have an obligation to be their ally if they are the source of noninclusive behavior. So we want to put some really strict guardrails around that to say like this is like the 20 1620 rule where 20 are die hard advocates of dni, 20 are ideologically opposed and 60 are in the middle. So if you know that somebody is in the stuck 20, then you dont actually need to engage with them as an ally, including making yourself vulnerable to them. If the person seems like theyre in the 80 though, do you think that we have an obligation to be an ally . Is there a moral obligation . And by the way, i dont if you all have read the ethicist in the New York Times that kenji used to be one of the the the people you would ask ethical dilemmas so yeah do we have a moral obligation in to be an ally i think we we do as long as those conditions are are met so long as a person is not engaged in egregious behavior and so long as that persons a, you know, a person of goodwill who is trying to get better than i do think have a moral obligation, both because of the reciprocity point that david was earlier, which is someday are going to be that person ourselves, going to be the source. So like what kind of system we going to build sort of behind the veil, so to speak, if we dont know where were going to land. And i think ethically we would want other people to reach out to us like, do i want to be sitting in my office doing over having this gendered attitude right all alone, like worrying about, getting canceled, then, you know, going into the next class like, you know, not, not sure where i stand in the community or do i want someone to knock on my door and say, hey, that wasnt great, you know . But, you know, i survived. You know, i did something very similar and im still here like, you know, tomorrow ill do something very similar. And i hope then youre knocking on my door offering to my ally. You know, i think its like if you ask which world do you want to live in . I think most people would rather live in a second world where somebody is knocking on their door. And that suggests that we do have an right extend. That hand took the source of knowledge thats a behavior a right because thats how we want to be treated ourselves. I love the authoritarian part of me like gloves. The more direct i like you should do this. Always. Another question. Yeah. Okay. You so in decisions courses and one of the principles that ive learned like any disagreement is its counterproductive to approach it from rights because if talking about youre right, im talking about right in their pose, its not position you correctly so im curious like do you agree with kind of philosophy and what strategies or techniques do you have for downgrading the temperature from a conversation around rights to a conversation around values . Yeah. So in the sort of context of negotiation, i think thats, you know, is really helpful advice in the book getting to yes, they talk about moving from positions and focusing more on interests. So rather than im like stuck, you know, on my corner actually offering, you know, where im coming from underneath the position that im holding. And so i think thats good advice in negotiation. Unfortunately, in these disagreements, i think this really is about human rights and really feels it is about rights to people. So as kenji saying before, with this controversy, sometimes for good reason, people feel that their equal humanity is implicated in these conversations. And i certainly dont want to tell those people. Oh, well, you need to sort of dial that down a bit and not treat it as implicating your rights and treat it as as about some thing. And i think for that reason, these kinds of disagreements can be really heated and very difficult to do respectfully. And sometimes the best that we can do is to extend that kind of empathy that kenji was talking about before. Try to find we have other tools in the disagreement about doing things like trying to find commonalities that you might have with the person. So not only focusing on the disagreeing that you have with them, but also trying to find some areas we have common ground. So youre able to talk productively and also managing your expectations for the disagreements, not thinking that when youre having a disagreement about, things that are so fundamental that going to walk away from that with some negotiated, sometimes youre going to walk away from that having to kind of agree to disagree and maybe the relationship will be intact and, maybe it wont be intact. But yeah, i think that the negotiation context is a little bit different from this context, but there are a few strategies you can employ to make it a little bit better and. Then i appreciate that really. Specialization im curious, what are some of the other social science, psychological ethical frameworks that work is rooted in and any other Additional Reading that, you know, foundational for your work that you recommend . You know, obviously your book. Yeah. So we benefited a lot i mean we are not, you know, training social scientists ourselves. We find we work with social scientists and we, you know, a lot of wisdom, the social sciences. So in fact, a lot of examples that we gave earlier are, you know, rooted in studies that we sort of left out to keep things a little bit more lively or interesting. Just to go back to one, when we were talking, making sure that you engage in favoritism and substitute your own preferences for that actual preference of affected person, not just right. Right. You late night with seth meyers skit. Its also study by katie wang where. She has this wonderful thing where she has a hypothetical woman marry who is blind, who is seeking to the bus station and she has to for those directions. The first pedestrian says no thats way too difficult for you. You should just go home. Im not going to help you. The second pedestrian says, oh, thats going to be challenging for you, but im headed in that direction myself. Ill take you and begins to escort her to the bus station. This goes back to the platinum rule because if you ask individuals who are sighted, who help better, theyll say the second pedestrian by landslide in. Thats where i was right when i first read the hypothetical. But if you ask individuals who are themselves impaired like mary, who help better, theyll say both forms of help are almost equally inappropriate because both forms help did not give mary the help she was asking for, which was directions to the bus station. Instead, both of them sort of substituted their own judgment for her judgment and, that was where the affront. So that was actually kind of an aha for me and sort of saying theres actual social science receipts to back up this intuition that we should not, you know, substitute our own judgments, other peoples judgments, just another im, you know, helping people when theyre the source of noninclusive behavior and approaching them as if youre on a journey to my favorite study here is done by ben on now where he talks about gooder derogation so says you know if you approach somebody lets you know make this real study in my office about you know, just having learned that i called on man whether i called on women over an entire sort of series of courses in constitutional. And im sort of beating myself up about it and lets say jane comes into my office and says, kenji, you that was terrible. Youre misogynistic or a horrible human being. But im really good at that stuff. And i deign to take you under my way and help you grow passes instead. Right . So we actually dont probably need social science to tell me im not going to react well to that. But, you know, we do have social science that tells me that im not going to react well to that when i talks about what he calls do gooder derogation, if im approached by somebody even as an ally and i know im the i know their conduct is better than mine and that they can help me if they approached me with the attitude of, im better than you that, my instinct is going to want to take them down a peg rather than trying to rise to their level. Myself so the way in which you studied that was to look at vegetarian and eaters and his know if youre an idiot and i myself am a meat eater if you ask me what do you think of vegetarians ill say i vegetarians are amazing. I think theyre ethical, humane. And i, i could be a vegetarian myself. I wish i had the discipline right. But know the landscape changes entirely. If you ask me one question before you ask for my assessment. So if you asked me the question, kenji as a meat eater, what do you think vegetarians think of you . That my assessment of vegetarians drops precipitously because my mind goes is, oh, my gosh, vegetarians are judging as unworthy theyre talking down to me. And so i say, oh, theyre kind of sanctimonious, not as good as they think they are. There are so many other ways in which we can save our planet or ecosystem or what have you right . So what he says is we really careful about how you approach people when you want to change their behavior because, going to them and saying, as jane would do, you know, a country that wasnt great, you can still call out the behavior and should right. But listen, i did something very similar, the past and i survived to tell the tale. And in future, i make sure that, you know, in the near future, ill probably do something very similar to what you did today. And then i hope youre knocking my door. So we sort of skated over it in the interests of kind of keeping a conversational. But we really did sort of you werent saying i wasnt im probably unnecessarily defensive here, but like, you know, we went quiet deep right into the research, make sure that we had social Science Research so that you could trust, you know, the advice that we were giving. Well, i think we could have this conversation all night. But given the time, i would just want to say we do trust. I trust the advice that you were giving. Im really grateful to have it out in world and one of the highest compliments i can give is when acknowledging when somebody does something to you to make other people feel not as and ally shep is such a tricky place to be and. A lot of us can feel alone in the situation and so thank you for helping us not feel so