Episode 3: Acknowledging Our Privilege—with guest Dr. Alex Cho
Before we complain too much about our childhoods, let's take a step back and acknowledge all the luck and privilege we have received and continue to receive as white women in the United States. Dr. Alex Cho, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara joins us. Dr. Cho is a media scholar, digital design researcher, critical theorist, and pop culture geek.
Guest
"I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am a digital media anthropologist and human-centered design researcher who studies how young people use social media with an emphasis on issues of race, gender, and sexuality. Previously, I was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Informatics at UC Irvine. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin’s Radio/TV/Film Media Studies program.
I am co-author of The Digital Edge: How Black and Latino Youth Navigate Digital Inequality (NYU Press, 2018) and co-editor of a tumblr book: platform and cultures (University of Michigan Press, 2020), which is readable online, open access. I am also an affiliate of NYU’s Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and lead author of UNICEF’s report on Digital Civic Engagement by Young People.
I have been interviewed regarding my research on digital cultures, social activism, and LGBTQ/of color young people for publications such as The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, CBC Radio, The Conversation, and Pitchfork.
I’ve taught classes on media and cultural studies, Asian American Studies, and information studies at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Asian American Studies and Department of Radio-TV-Film, as well as UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics.
Previously, I was the Editor of the Southern California LGBT newsmagazine Frontiers, where I oversaw a comprehensive relaunch as well as secured the worldwide exclusive coming out interview with Star Trek icon George Takei."
References/Resources
Books that Anne references:
- Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Brown
Books that Alison references:
- Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
Other references:
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
- Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun
Dr. Cho's references:
- The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective
- The Care Collective
Transcript
Anne Sherry 0:03
Welcome to the latchkey urchins and friends podcast.
Alison Cebulla 0:09
This episode is all about privilege. Because we're two white women, we have a lot of privilege. And as we complain about our childhoods, if we want to acknowledge all of the very lucky things that we've received, so my I'm Allison, and I'm one of your hosts,
Anne Sherry 0:27
and I'm an I'm the other host. CO hosts, and commentary.
Alison Cebulla 0:36
And, and so this episode is just all about privilege, white privilege, class privilege. And we, the both of us have been, you know, we have been very lucky in a lot of ways and, and we just think that this should be the foundation for our podcast. And we can kind of return to and point to this episode, as we move forward to say, you know, yes, I'm complaining about this, or I'm pulling apart this dissecting this, but we, we know that we have privilege, so, and we we think that should be the basis for every conversation really about almost anything.
Anne Sherry 1:16
Yeah, um, and my curiosity has been, like, how does this privilege keep us from acting being bolder? Like, what?
Alison Cebulla 1:32
That's a great question.
Anne Sherry 1:33
You know, like, it's, that's what I've noticed, like, how do as I work in anti racist work could read, you know, me and white supremacy, take courses? You know, I tend to this as much as I can. But I keep wondering, like, how that's that is my real curiosity of like, how do we help people not necessarily go into a trauma response about the privilege they have, but also acknowledge, yes, I had pain, but it is really hard to acknowledge others pain. Unless your pain as acknowledge so
Alison Cebulla 2:09
I'm so glad that you said that. Yeah, I was actually teaching like social, emotional, and social justice based social emotional skills to nursing students this past week at National University in Southern California. And I, that's exactly what I said. That's exactly what I said is like, they were like, well, what do we say to? Or what do we say to our patients, because these are nursing students, right? And they're just starting to learn how awkward it is to interact with patients, you know, someone said, I think I said the wrong thing, and like a really hurt her feelings. And it got really awkward and silent, you know. And so that's what I was encouraging people is that as we get to know our own pain and suffering, that we can more clearly see that and that's a very Buddhist concept, that we can more clearly see the suffering and others. And so I think that it's it's an interesting thing, because the the thing that awakened me to racism and the effects and suffering of racism in the United States, was having my own emotional meltdown, which was five years ago, I had a complete meltdown, I had to be hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. But my heart broke open, and I can see my own suffering. And all the sudden I was like, Oh, my God, people are suffering. It's, it's just, you know, it's like, that doesn't mean that I understand what it's like to be a black person or an Asian person in America, I have no idea. But when I can feel pain, and I allow pain to come in, I can see the pain of others. And that's just how it works.
Anne Sherry 3:42
Right? Well, and Rasma talks about that in the you know, my grandmother's hands, it's the clean pain, dirty pain. So my interests like can you say, Oh, my goodness, my body is sensing something. I'm uncomfortable. My heart hurts i Oh, I'm tightening up like it just that slowing down to be so curious, like, what is this? And I think when so I get that curiosity of like, depending on the amount of trauma, the amount you've been left alone, emotional neglect. It just, we go to that scarcity place. And there's not enough like you're asking me to give up the little, what you see is the little privileges I have, you know, there's just rather than this abundance or what what are we what society do we want to dream into? It's just I, we have so little, I think, when you grow up with trauma and emotional neglect, and you just if you don't have that access to the body, we're not going to get anywhere. So yeah. And you just grow up around places. It's like, well, I don't think I belong anywhere, or I don't. Nobody seems to care. But he's really interested in having a society they don't even want this family. It seems like that's not that fun. You know, so it's like, why would I haven't no path to community. Like, I don't know what that looks like. It's
Alison Cebulla 5:02
complicated. That's the American way. I know. That's the American way is like, no, no families, nurturing family structure. And you and this and this, you can look at our policies to see that our society is set up in a way that does not value families. We don't we don't offer although Biden's changing this preschool. I'm so excited that he's offering preschool. It's just like the best news of all time.
Anne Sherry 5:31
Well, people Yeah, everybody's sending their kid, you know, you can't wait till you're having a kid later in life. It's like I we probably sent him a year early. Yeah. Whereas he could have used another another year at home or another year in preschool. But it was like, Oh, this shits free. Yeah. Yeah, get that get that kid into kindergarten now. Yeah. So yeah,
Alison Cebulla 5:53
we don't offer we don't offer, you know, early childcare in our society. We don't offer any sort of required, and people will always come back and say, Yeah, but my office and I'm like, shut the EFF up. Your office is an anomaly. We don't offer required paid parental leave in our country, period. Yeah. Um, we're the only country of our income, you know, GDP level that that doesn't offer this, but it's I think we're actually even one of the only countries period regardless of GDP level in the whole world that doesn't offer this. We don't care about families. We do not care.
Anne Sherry 6:34
Now. I call it it's that me and mine, I call them the me and minors, you know, and you unpack Well, this is what I get, you know, when I do my try to interact I'm going to meet you where you're at, but the folks who are seeing this like quote unquote socialism doesn't matter what you're pointing out that like we have roads we have fire departments like we have on some level there is a socialist structure here like right you pay taxes you get school yeah, but I just hear this like it's I'm just I'm just here for me in mind that's all I'm worried about. I just want me in mind so I call on the me and miners Yeah, the main miners so and I don't know how to I like okay, most of my shits anecdotal but often these individuals also I check in to see Are you Christian? You know, and they are and I just don't get that ability like Jesus I think is pretty much verbatim almost that if you follow Christ, this is the society we want. Like right there's a different that might just start out not not that not the prosperity Christianity, not the bible thumpers not all of that, that are going to pick apart shit. So that it fits me in mind.
Alison Cebulla 7:58
But know that you you touched on that last episode as well, but I just started listening to a podcast called a little bit culty that that's so good. I'm binging it. Oh, you know about it. It's from what you told me about it. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, they left. They left the Nexium cult there. They're so good. These I've been binging these episodes, I went for like a six mile hike yesterday is just so I could listen to some episodes. And there's a difference between and they're one of their guests was saying this between religion and culture religion, there's a difference and he said there's there's always a cult sect of every religion. There's he's he was like, There's regular Baptists, you know, and then there's called the Baptist. You know, there's right. I think this was a guest that was talking about Scientology. And, um, which the whole thing in Scientology, the whole thing is a cult. But he said all the other religions, there's that, and there's a difference. Right. So those are all followers of Jesus. And oh, yeah. Christian cult members.
Anne Sherry 8:57
Yeah, yeah. Completely. And I, I think it comes down to belonging, like, Where do I belong? I think that's why we have we are there's such a deficit in in the US. I don't know if other countries like have that. At least I don't know, Canada. I don't know. They they seem to give a shit. Like if you lose your job. We don't want you to die from no health care. Right. I think that's pretty universal among a lot of countries. But I don't know if that's it. I don't know what it is about. So
Alison Cebulla 9:30
that brings us back to racism. That brings us back to racism because there's a big ol huge, long book about the history of healthcare and medicine in the United States that I read, while I was at school, you know, getting my master's in public health. And it's funny because I believe the book was just written by an old white guy, and they talk about the history of medicine and how it used to be real quacky and real snake oils, he and I like over time, they had to kind of like regulate it and put it behind Mind, you know, like they had to like, oh, you know what, let's actually like make some standards and like you have to get a degree. You know, it's not just like the barbershop like the barber saw a surgeon, you know, right, right. Right. Right. bloodletting. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and you get to in history, like they've got medical school. Now, they're chugging along. And then, and then all of a sudden, in the early 1900s, different countries start to have universal health care. Like, I think Norway, I think, like 1908 or something. And the US was like, oh, yeah, that sounds great. We're like plugging and chugging along. And then all of a sudden, and the author doesn't really explain it very well. It's like weight, all of a sudden, there's, um, you know, the medical board and all these different you know, groups of people are like, we don't way, way way. We don't want this. We don't want this. But but it's not explained in the book, which I believe is due to racism that, you know, this is probably like a white author. But why didn't we? Why didn't we adopt universal health care? Well, there's only one reason we didn't want to offer it to black Americans. We didn't want to offer health care to black people in America. So we said no one gets it. No one gets to have it. Wow. Yep.
Anne Sherry 11:12
There. I can't remember where I read it to. But truly, the the the AMA, the American Medical Association was really lobbying hard against it. And I don't know if there's that financial component as well. It would, it's the scarcity. What, what is that? Why do we suck in that way? You know, like,
Alison Cebulla 11:35
it's the energy is the energy of our, of the foundation of our country, which is to exploit people as much as you can to make as much money as you can extract all the resources, kill all the people? Who can we enslave? Who can we get away with enslaving? Who can we, you know, who can I know? You know, oppress in other ways. That's the energy of the foundation of our country.
Anne Sherry 12:05
I got it. I know. So. I mean, this is where I start to get to those places of and so on some level, this is interesting to feel this, like, just you and I talking, trying to be have a lighter, funnier podcast, it gets so heavy so quick, because it's like, what? How, how are we going to and just how that neglect, like, permeates families? Like no wonder everybody. So I mean, the model of our, the model of our culture, like how are we supposed to care about each other? Or it's done in these little things? Like it's happening? Like, I would see it as a kid, you know, it would feel like, not all the seven days were 100% neglect, I would I would be drawn to households where it seemed like, I don't know, parents gave a shed or had enough time, or, I mean, and as a therapist, I can sense that, you know, people will say that like, yeah, in my house, it was this, but I did have this protective factor over here. Yeah, I don't I don't know how that translates. And I guess we're doing it. We're translating and saying, hey, it's not okay. Not to care. But that is a really strong force of, it's too much. I can't do it. We have these privileges. This is so if we bring it back to privilege, yeah. Like how in the hell do you get people? Like, like, where do you start the weird. I mean, we're doing this kind of internal work, but it's like
Alison Cebulla 13:38
how, and I. So let's see. It's Saturday. Yeah. Yesterday, you know, with my work at at paces connection. This is my, my, you know, full time job. We did a discussion panel. Yesterday, like a group discussion, there were probably like 50 people on the call about police brutality in the United States. And I would say it was probably probably not half and half but in terms of the people were participating, like half black African American participants, half white. And you know, a woman made a comment about how she's a white woman how she felt. I think she used the word and she she said, I hate to use this word, but she's she's used the word pity. And she stopped, she almost started crying. And it really was that classic white fragility, like so classic, where I'm like, we have the privilege of anytime we want just saying I'm I'm too tired. I'm too tired. Right? And people don't have that privilege, black people in America. And our guest speaker is signing on and he's okay Asian American and right now with the Asian American brutality is So heavy is that if you're a person of color in the United States, you don't have the privilege of just saying I'm too tired for racism today. Because if you get pulled over by a police officer, your your life is in danger. More for Asian Americans right now, if you're just walking down the street, your life is in danger because of all of the Asian American violence happening right now. But as white people we can say, Oh, I'm feeling so emotional and so taxed by this. Yeah, I just don't think I can handle racism today.
Anne Sherry 15:34
I totally get it. Yep. And that is like on Peggy McIntosh. If anybody out there if you don't resonate or understand like the privileges that there's she's got 50 unpacking the Invisible Backpack, I think it's called by Peggy knapsack, NASA knapsack, I guess it was. Whenever it was written, she's got a good TED talk as well, but just it's just to go through it. It. It really highlights Oh, yeah.
Alison Cebulla 16:00
Do you have it pulled up? Do you can you have a reasonable i Okay, I can, I can start. I can sue. Go ahead. Okay. So, Peggy McIntosh, which my document says 1989 says, um, and she's the associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. And it's from an essay on white privilege and male privilege. And so there's a few items that talk about, you know, acknowledged privilege. So one is I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race, most of the time, these are just heartbreaking. These are heartbreaking. I got it.
Anne Sherry 16:41
Yeah. Yeah. You want to
Alison Cebulla 16:43
read them? Yeah,
Anne Sherry 16:45
I mean, I am. Wherever I can go shopping alone, most of the time, pretty well assured I'll not be followed or harassed. I can be sure that my children will be given current curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race. I mean, it just, it's on it's pretty,
Alison Cebulla 17:09
they're heartbreaking. It's, it's band aids, right? I can go.
Anne Sherry 17:15
And they're my they're my skin. Right?
Alison Cebulla 17:18
Or ballet shoes, or, yeah, I can go shopping alone, most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. Yep. And we'll put these in like the show notes. So yeah. Because if, and we had to read this list in grad school. And it was the first time that I'd seen it a couple years ago. Yeah, I feel like every single elementary school student should be reading this list. Because if I had had this knowledge growing up, compared to having it when I was well into my 30s. I mean, that's a completely different perspective on American life, right, is that I just take all this for granted. And so I had a touch of this just by chance, because my mom's sister married a black man. And they lived with us for a little bit in the early 2000s. And he would he, he would say, like, no one in your town looks like me. Like there's no he's like, I saw one other black person at the grocery store. You know, I've counted in total of three in this whole time.
Anne Sherry 18:20
I got it. I mean, yeah. So that constant assault on the like, when we talk about trauma and how it is on the nervous system. And yeah, so certainly, this is a first step for white people don't become aware of their privilege and just point seek it just and just stop for a moment. Every, you know, for me, like I'm getting high in the parking lot before yoga class. I just that. I don't live in a state where it's legal. I know you're supposed
Alison Cebulla 18:53
to. But yeah, on board. Get on board. Yeah. So I'd like to introduce our guest.
Anne Sherry 19:00
Right. I have not met this person yet.
Alison Cebulla 19:05
Yeah, this is Alex. He's just one of my favorite people. Thanks for being here, Alex. So I'm gonna read a little bit of your, your bio. Um, so Alex. He's a assistant professor in the Asian American Studies Department at UCSB. He has a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and Media Studies. He's specializes in Asian American media studies, digital and social media, human centered design, popular culture, gender and sexuality studies, learning and education, ethnography, critical race theory, and an effect I want to I'm like, Oh, what is that? Um, so he's a co editor of a book called a Tumblr book platforms and cultures which came out last year. Congratulations on that. The co author of the digital edge how black and Latino you To navigate digital inequality, and is currently completing a monograph examining the interdependence of queerness race and design with social media. And please feel free to to introduce yourself a little bit more Alex, welcome.
Alex Cho 20:18
Hi, can you hear me? Okay? Yeah. Sounds good. Wow, that wasn't expecting that lovely introduction. Thank you. No, I think yeah, I have no more to say.
Anne Sherry 20:32
That sounds like a lot. I need a break. Why am I doing so much?
Alison Cebulla 20:36
Seriously, you are doing a lot? You are doing a lot? Yes. Yes.
Alex Cho 20:40
So we're having me here.
Alison Cebulla 20:43
Yeah. Thanks for joining. Um, yeah, the reason I brought you on is because I just have always noticed, it's funny, and I, you're a social media expert. And I noticed on social media, that out of all of my friends, your commentary is always the most onpoint Oh, you always have your finger on the pulse of the conversation that needs to be had, you know, is that I just noticed that if I follow you, and what you're thinking and what you're reading, and you know that I'm going to have a better idea of what the issues related to equity, you know, what those issues are what we should be talking about.
Alex Cho 21:28
Wow, thank you. That's a really fantastic compliment. Your appreciate that. It also is probably because I spent like nine years in graduate school, like reading a lot of this. And that was that it's not some inherent sense or something.
Alison Cebulla 21:44
No. And so what brought you to the work? That's my first question.
Alex Cho 21:50
I was working in media in Los Angeles, I was working in gay media. And there was this thing happening that we didn't know what to call at the time, but we now call social media. And I remember, you know, because I kind of had to keep on top of these things. Because at the job, I remember seeing all of this amazing kind of self expression and discourse and just kind of like literalization, and self empowerment of queer youth happening on MySpace at the time. And it was a way of articulating one's identity and coming into the public that I had never seen anything like that before, right. And I was very inspired by all of these queer youth users of MySpace. And I was like, wow, this is something really interesting. And so that's why I decided to go back to school to research that.
Alison Cebulla 22:48
Did you find?
Anne Sherry 22:51
Well, what year was that, so
Alex Cho 22:53
that was like, way back in 2007. But I ended up writing the dissertation, completing it in 2015. And by that time, the landscape has changed. And I ended up located myself in a different social media platform that I thought was really fascinating was called Tumblr, which is still around, but kind of from 2010 to 2015, was what people may argue is the peak. And it it just became this hotspot and really interesting space for issues exactly like what you are talking about. Right now today, right? And I saw again, even even to a degree of sophistication that I didn't see previously, you know, on MySpace. The kids were like 16 discoursing about really fine grained understandings of white supremacy, and young hetero normativity. So they really
Anne Sherry 23:49
well, and I have, you know, we have a nine, almost nine year old and he's, you know, we were, we were driving through like Biltmore, I don't know some estate. Near Biltmore Estate. I think it used to be part of the 80,000 acres that the Vanderbilts had way back, but it was sectioned off and it's its own little town, and it's just massive houses on acres and acres and
Alison Cebulla 24:15
McDowell lives. Oh, right.
Anne Sherry 24:18
I still live here. I don't know she's still she's she's probably still lives there. Yeah, okay. Um, but I think he's probably four and weakest pretty liberally in the household and four or five and he was like, Wow, this fucking white supremacy shit right here. Oh my gosh, I love it Wow, of course I share that on Facebook and I you know, I know anyways, most people Yeah, but then there's there's the million miners I work for that. i Some I got into a discourse with somebody about it. And I was like, I gotta go. I gotta go because I don't know. I don't know how to bridge that that is a deep interest of mine, how to keep bridging that space, how to keep meeting people where they are, because this isn't gonna work if we just polarize. And yeah,
Alex Cho 25:11
I think so I have actually thought about this a lot. And first off, I love that story. And it reminds me of when my jaw dropped when our new president used the term white supremacy in his inauguration speech, like the President of the United States like, wow, that that that was a sea change moment. I think, for me, and I think it is reflective of a lot of what we were just talking about how discourses change how you have changed your nine year old, right is, is is a lot of white boy. Yeah. And that's, that's to have that that lens, I think is so important. In terms of how we talked about these kinds of things, and how we talk to others. I honestly, like one of the things that I think this is still so important is going back to actual terms and facts and history, and like concrete things, because the moment that it kind of sublimates in such as like opinion, and oh, I do this, like you can't really push back against that because everyone's experiences are valid to that right. And so
Alison Cebulla 26:32
can I can I just chime in? I talk a lot about pitchfork, economics, this amazing, amazing podcast by a rich white guy who's like, the pitchforks are coming for us. If we don't make things more equal in our society, we have to do something about this. And he recently recorded an interview with Andrew Yang, on his new podcast where Oh, no, I said about
Anne Sherry 26:58
the IQ, the IQ thing you were telling me about? Or what did
Alison Cebulla 27:01
what were you just saying Alex?
Alex Cho 27:03
Well, so the the idea that I have is, you know, you're talking about the Peggy McIntosh knapsack vertical, which is incredibly great and really important. And I agree that, that we need to have that tool, I think, really early. But that was written a while ago, and I don't I don't fault Peggy McIntosh in any way for this. I think that since then, there has been a lot of research that has gone so much deeper than just the kind of the day to day embodied performative, performative moments of privilege and, you know, how I how people react to me, like, that's so important. But to me, what is equally, if not more important, is what I tell my students is the deep structure that is underneath all of that. And most of the time, that has to do with resources, wealth, access to whatever you want schools, fair courts, you know, things like, places to live, that aren't polluted all of those kinds of things. And, and yeah, that is, that is what I wish that we tilted a lot of the discourse to when it was appropriate. I mean, I'm looking right now there's this big report from Brookings a while a couple of years ago, maybe it was maybe just last year. I told my students this and even the students who are you know, quote unquote, woke in this way don't understand this, but the median net worth of a black family in the United States $17,150 Do you know what the median net worth of a typical white family in the United States is?
Alison Cebulla 28:50
These are always heartbreaking to me it's way more it's way way $100,000 I hate that I hate that so much so
Alex Cho 28:59
well, I only bring that up because when we hear this like oh, I worked so hard what that you do work everyone works hard right? It's what what platform what what have you been able to accrue in generations past that enable your that enables your hard work to reach a certain kind of level of payoff where other people's hard work? doesn't end like this? Yeah, structure this fundamental structure is what is so important. And you just everything builds off that
Alison Cebulla 29:35
well and so to me, that's like the basics. Like if you don't understand that, what are you even doing with your life? You know, if you're still saying I work hard, it's like Jesus H Christ. But okay, but so we, the point that I was making was that they said like, because if you can understand that you can't understand power dynamics, and you can't understand how the people in power are just any it's a full on war of them trying to keep power The people like the Koch brothers and people who have all the money and just aren't, you know, the people really can controlling things at the top. And I can't remember if it was Nick Hanauer or Andrew Yang who said, liberal people think that it's about facts versus not facts. Like, we all have to agree on the basic facts, because you were saying that Alex, like you have to understand the history of don't understand what the facts are. And so those of us who are liberal, or like, we just have to explain the facts, we just have to explain the facts. But for people the top, that's not the word they're fighting. They're like, they don't care. They, they're not trying to get the facts, right. And they're just trying to brainwash people as much as they can put out these, these studies that show that if you raise the minimum wage, that inflation will skyrocket, which are are not true, but they're, they create, they even created like a fake Nobel Prize of economics in the 70s. Like, it's just the war that they're fighting isn't the war that we're fighting. They don't care what the facts are. They don't they do not care. And that was mind blowing to me.
Anne Sherry 31:00
Like, this is this may seem, like, so simple, but I always wonder why, like, ah, like that the trap Enos of like, why, like, I got Jeff Bezos has what, like, how many billions getting on a trillion? It's like, what is whatever the studies of like, this is enough like it? So I keep going back to like, what is this? What what allows that structure like that human structure to say, Yeah, this is good. I'm in this, you know, like, and I guess it's just generations and generations, because as a just a therapist, when people start working on their deeper stuff, I just want to I want I want to connect with people more I want to I want my aliveness present, you know, and so I, and it's just not at those levels. And I, it's really hard for me to get my head around, just I know, the structures are incredibly important, but it is people right, at what point are we gonna, like, get hold of people and say, Hey, this really fucking sucks, you know, you don't like it. It's like, you can only take in so much in this lifetime. And so I don't, I'm just I am really interested in what it is that just, like, sweeps people up. And I know, it's generations, and I'm missing Big History or whatever. But like, such fear. Yeah. Which is why, you know, I love seeing like young people, like, we don't want that I had that when you know, I got to Boulder in the 80s or whatever. I was like, oh, you know, dropped acid for the first time. I was like, fight the power, you know? Like, like,
Alex Cho 32:44
I don't know. Well, I do think that the I should totally share that. Yeah. And this is where, you know, social media is such a bizarre thing. And it gives us so many horrible things like, you know, the insurrection. But I also think that this is also a terrain where, where those young people that we're talking about are learning these kinds of things, because they're not being taught them in school. That is where like, I don't know, where your nine year old, for example, learn this, I hope they're not on social media, actually. But this is where I see a lot of this, this kind of factfinding happening in a way on social media. And let me tell you, a lot of people are like, Oh, no, everything you see on social media, you know, is, you can't tell if it's true, and you know, all of that kind of stuff, which is, which is true. I have found, I've noticed that they're the kids, they are actually really good at doing practices of fact checking themselves and verifying and sourcing, when they see something, it's kind of the people who are a little bit older, who don't do that. But I've seen organic practices, you know, have a, for example, 1819 year old, they will kind of have that in their repertoire to be like, No, I need to post the source that you saw that a lot. It's just, it's just a folk practice that they that they learn, it's like source question mark, question mark, you know, and then people will actually source it out, right. I wish I saw this behavior within like, you know, folks our age on Facebook, right, like, Yeah, I do see that. And it gives me a little bit of hope it is it's such a bizarre machine. And I don't want to glorify it in any way because there's all these horrible corners and edges to it. But you know, I get I get I have, I have a little bit of hope. When I see practices like that when I see actual facts being circulated when I see you know, Black Lives Matter taking off like I have a little bit of hope about Yeah,
Anne Sherry 34:51
yeah. Well, I'm curious because we kind of the overarching structure, but I think Allison and I have been talking to interested in is just trauma neglect, like how this system is very traumatizing, is very neglectful, but they, the more that we can dig into that, and once you become like the a lot of the racial justice work has that body centered trauma informed, and I just have to believe that like, I don't know what these kids, do they feel like they belong to each other more like we didn't have that as kids or I don't know, what made it is,
Alison Cebulla 35:31
is a social media itself, like did social media itself bring people together?
Anne Sherry 35:35
Is it is it creating a sense of belonging and community and that? That is hopeful? Does that? I don't know if that question. Yeah.
Alex Cho 35:45
I mean, I think that that's a question that people are still trying to figure out. Like, there's, there is a lot of research that let me rephrase, people don't really know. But the idea is that youth actually do seem less, they seem a little bit more reticent to go out into the world in the same way that, you know, we may have done when we were kids, they don't go out, they don't go to clubs, they don't do it, you know, to do this kind of thing. They're much more content to be at home, like, you know, on their phones or on the social social networks. Is that bad? Is that good? A lot of people are trying to figure that out. There is a correlation. Last I checked between social media use and depression within okay, but people last I checked, I don't know if that is because the social media are causing depression, or because more depressed people are likely to be on social media more often. They don't know that wasn't. Yeah. And guess what, like, if we're talking to youth who are learning statistics like this, and realizing the actual, like nature of the unjust world, like, that's kind of not a happy thing. But it's a important thing. So I feel like a lot of that research really needs to be teased out and nuanced a little bit more, and people are doing that. It's a kind of an open question, Mark.
Anne Sherry 37:17
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's just I get this, the this, of this takes us off. But I as somebody who doesn't get engages in this work, it's like all that neglect that we grew up with just personally, that white supremacy, culture, just the structures say, don't connect. And so you're coming into this, and it seems like what needs to happen is more play more, more connection, more capacity to stay in hard conversations, but when you come to all this work, and it's like, I don't want to make a mistake. Tim Okun's thing, I don't want anybody to be mad at me. Just you learned to survive. Growing up and just Whitehall. What's cool about
Alison Cebulla 38:06
that list? Because that you sent that to me? Have you seen this? Alex, the white supremacy,
Anne Sherry 38:14
culture dress six of white supremacy culture,
Alison Cebulla 38:17
okay. Let's change my life. Because just like you said, and it's like, all these deeply ingrained things is that if you are trained to avoid conflict, you'll never question the status quo. So each and every one of these characteristics is meant to keep the people who have the power and wealth in their power and wealth. And it's meant for the rest of us, too. It's we've been trained, don't rock the boat, don't ask questions. Don't ever have a conflict, just keep working. We need to make sure that we always put work at the as our top value so that no one has time to take a breath and realize what an effed up society we live in. And I think about this list all the time, even just yesterday, I'm just like, when do I get to play? Like, when when's my play time? Right? When is it and it makes me want to cry? Because it's like, I don't know. I don't even know how to do that. Or what I I mean, it's I think it's especially bad with the, you know, shelter in place, but it's just like, right, it just feels like I'm just working all the time. Even doing this podcast is like, oh, like, let's, let's make another product. Let's hustle some more like, oh, well, we're not working enough during the week. let's hustle some more. It's so deeply ingrained in us like, we can't just have a conversation. Let's try and monetize our conversations. Like you already mean like,
Anne Sherry 39:35
huh, I I get it. And I don't know I this. I just really I get the structure piece, but I'm still stuck on goddang How do we create little bouquets? You know, because there's this idea we have to do our affinity work right? The white people need to heal with white people. And brown people have to heal with brown and that is there's a piece of that so that we're not blue laying out our trauma on others and re harming re harming. But at some point I really am interested in like, God, this being disruptors, what does it look like for my age and my 50s? You know, because you get more and more like, you gotta look good. You got it, you can't, like end the meeting with, you know, it's like hierarchical, or it's, it's like, we're encased in this, like white whiteness, I guess is like an encasement. And that's structured says that, like, you're if you if you say something, I don't know, it's just I find it more. And maybe that's why I'm in private practice. I can't be in organizations almost. I don't fit like that, you know? Yeah. But But I, we got to we got to start breaking stuff up, or this is the realization I told you, Allison was like, how to fight. I just knew how to fight, I think where lots of people are angry, like, so much rage inside, once you start to realize this, but both bottling up the conflict. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, go ahead. Yeah,
Alex Cho 41:08
I had not seen this this particular list before, but I think it is really powerful. Now that I'm looking at it, because I think it contains a roadmap for something that I think we all live within. And, you know, Aaron, to your point about this kind of frustration, and how do we place ourselves? And how do we understand ourselves in this system? And how do we kind of get out of it, if we, if we can, I'm looking at this list, and I'm, you know, white supremacy, is this. And it's also in a container that I also read about and study, which is when I see this list, this is the operationalizing of white supremacy, but it's inside the container of settler colonialism. And that is the motivating, like, urge for doing all of these things. You know, I'm looking at perfection as a sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality worship of the written word, only one right way, paternalism. All of these things are hallmarks of the subtler endeavor, which is an incredibly at its core, like historic rupture that is incredibly violent and has been working into violence on macro levels and also micro personal levels, like we're talking about here like that. That is what is being reproduced visa vie the white supremacist logics here and it's really hard to try to decolonize like, people tried to do that like literally and did. But to pretty if he ends if we're talking about the whole world kind of global order, and the settler colonies states and we're colonized safe still still win, right? Or, you know, we're still
Alison Cebulla 42:58
trying to like colonize outer space. I love the memes that are like, we just want health care. Like we just want health care. Can you stop with the rocket ship? Yeah, we have health care. Yeah, we really need to colonize our space. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 43:12
Well, I do I do. I wonder like this. Biden's plans and infusing money and people are gonna feel better, like feel better. Like this feels better right to like, have checks come in, or I'm not like you had set out I mean, like, if you're in or survival mode, you're just fucking pissed all the time. Right? You're just like I've, it's hard to, to want to even work out whatever Maslow's hierarchy of needs are. You can't even get to those levels, which I just had to learn do we want to live in? How do I
Alison Cebulla 43:48
want to speaking of whiteness, I just learned that Maslow's hierarchy was based on Blackfoot indigenous teachings that he did not credit them for. Big surprise. Yeah. And so this whole time we're like, oh, Maslow, let's put this white guy on a pedestal. And it's like, he basically ripped off ideas, and didn't credit and now we only learn the white version of history. Yeah, yeah.
Anne Sherry 44:13
Well, and yeah, go ahead.
Alex Cho 44:15
Oh, I mean, I saw you know, an explainer on that, that that was basically like, and also he misinterpreted it, right? Yes. Yes. I am not sure. With all of the kind of what we're talking about facts. I don't actually know what is
Anne Sherry 44:29
actually there. Like, I've
Alex Cho 44:30
read that too. I'm looking at even here. This is what I'm talking about, again, these deep ideas that that generate this angst and strife and, you know, everything from a macro to a personal level. And I'm looking at this idea of individualism here. There's actually really great work in history in decolonial studies, all of this in the academy that indict This idea of the kind of self contained private rights based, I am going to kind of just protect me and mine. I every man for himself all of this kind of thing, explicitly railing against the idea of the communal and the communal good, all of that kind of stuff. This is incredibly colonial like this is there is historical work that traces the genesis of this idea in Western European thought, as a moment. At the, to a moment in the colonial endeavor, because this is when White Europeans were trying to make sense of how they could justify dominating others, they recreated the way they thought of themselves in this way to justify mentally really to themselves how society should be structured. Look at these brown others look at these black others, they live in these communal environments, they have practices of, you know, sharing all of this kind of stuff. We consider that uncivilized. And that's why we can go steamroll over them. And
Anne Sherry 46:16
yeah, like this is like evolutionarily, yeah, that's lower like and then here, this emerging thing is saying we need to be in community like that's what I refer to Tom and I, my husband, we grew up very avoidant person out of attachment that we have independent personality disorder should be a DSM diagnosis.
Alison Cebulla 46:36
Oh, my gosh, popped up our whole culture. Aha, the United States needs that diagnosis. They we do have it everybody has
Anne Sherry 46:43
independent personality disorder. It is a sickness, you know, and like, we realized that being we don't really, you know, family, I don't know having a kid so late. He's an only child. We don't have a community, you know, like we have were like, We need to have a community. So we found a very liberal church. It is excruciating to work through belonging, like to this church, you know, that like we're going on a hike today. I'm like, Ah, hanging out with people. Like I didn't realize how socially awkward I think I might be, or just like, Ah, how dare you ask of my time, like, it's almost like structurally for I don't know how many well, as long as what you said, Alex, generations of IQ, but then then you have this other thing that's so interesting. I think why we're so fascinated with people that get caught up in cults, like, they go for the belonging, we're like, Oh, what a loser. How'd you get caught up in that? Well, I wonder if it's this like trauma thing of like, I just need to belong, you know, and I think the capital rioters, they belong to each other, Q Anon, they belong to each other K, K. K, I have a group, you know, and so we I think we spin off all these, like, extreme isms, because we're so fucked up around belonging, like it's an and that may be just how I grew up in that, but I'm like it, I can't stand it. And I want it and I know we need it. And we're not going to make it if we don't learn like what what do I need to what capacity do i that whiteness has not given me to to belong? And that's what I do every day is how do I stay in hard conversations? Because if I've, like made a mistake, I'm like, Okay, I just have to, I have to kill you or I have to die. You know, like, I can't be. I can't be in conflict, because what I found, you know, and I'm like, I got that as my work every day. How hilarious.
Alison Cebulla 48:35
Yeah, for that,
Alex Cho 48:37
I call it in, I think this is similar to what you're talking about. But from you know, my, my vantage point, from a settler colonial lens, I call it the homesteader mentality. Like, I am gonna go with my family, my nuclear family right with my gun. I'm going to claim my land Get off my land this is mine. I'm going to be defending it you know, against the people I stole it from it like creates this like this individualist me and mine, kind of like inner battle mentality, all which
Alison Cebulla 49:12
ironically, was a socialist program, calm setting that government is giving you
Alex Cho 49:18
was affirmative action for white people. That's 25% of white Americans can generate their wealth so that they gave away 10% of the country, but they did it through this kind of hyper individualist, like settler colonial manifest the
Alison Cebulla 49:32
disconnect of that of not understanding that the origins of white wealth is through a government handout. It makes me so angry. I didn't come up with that idea that was from Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Ludens book that I just finished tightrope. They were the ones that explained to me that homesteading was the original government handout.
Anne Sherry 49:57
We're so dumb and you gonna be late.
Alex Cho 50:01
But no, you know, it's yours you fought for it, like you plant the seeds. Like, don't take it away from me like how can there's no such thing as structural advantage? Right? Like this is actually something I teach my students as well the homestead. Yeah. Do you? Yeah, it's just,
Alison Cebulla 50:17
we there's that
Anne Sherry 50:20
it's called Rei, racial equity Institute who does training so they have like a two or three day training and they just they like it is a fire hose of information with starting you know, just reworks the history I was like, down for the count for months after that I was like, there's an There's no fucking hope I have no clue how we're gonna. But that's also you know, this thing you were talking about? Allison, just this I can step out of the fight or whatever. But I do want to encourage people like you gotta you do have to take care of yourself, all of us have to and so that you will stay in it because it is a it's an overwhelming amount of information. And when your structure is so two dimensional, like, No, I'm doing well. I'm the good white person piece. I just am really after this idea of how do we learn to also play like pleasure activism by Adrian, I think it's Adrian Marie Brown, that she says that if we don't find the joy and pleasure in all of this, and just that shedding those bonds of like, Tim Okun's list, like No, you'd behave, I mean, like, and I say within the lines and
Alison Cebulla 51:35
read some of the lists just for our listeners who are like, what are you referring to this is a list characteristics of white supremacy culture by Thomas Kuhn, which and turn me on to and Alex read a few of them. I'll just, I'll just, I'll just highlight them again. So perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality. Worship of the written word, only one right way. These are just devastating paternalism, either or Thinking, Power hoarding. Don't even get me started. Okay, fear of open conflict, which we've dedicated a lot of time to today, individualism and individualism, which Alex touched on, I'm going to read some of the bullet points on this one because this is what this is what we're talking about little experience or comfort working as part of a team. People in organization believe they are responsible for solving problems alone. Accountability, if any goes up and down not sideways to peers, or those the organization is set up to serve. That's, that is huge. I just finished a book all about how philanthropy is is is that you have corporations that are extracting resources and labor and just absolutely devastating local economies and then they want to pat themselves on the back for that giving back the money that they extracted and saying oh, we're so philanthropic it's the system is so disgusting. And it puts those in power who have extracted all the resources and and Personal Capital and then they're saying oh, we're also the Savior's desire you know, and not and then saying and then saying we're gonna decide what the solution is without having the people that we're helping at the table. And I should say with a the name of that a winner take all is the name of the book. Have you is that one on your radar? It's this book he said everything that I have been thinking so perfectly winners take all the elite charade of changing the world by unarmed jury. Horror, right us an Indian American man. Um, so Okay, back to individualism leads to
Anne Sherry 54:02
be a speed reader. How do you read this by it's an audio,
Alison Cebulla 54:06
it's an audio book, and I just go I go for a long run and I just put it on. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 54:12
Okay. 70 sorry. This is like do remember that speed reading program? Did you guys ever feel like you've learned it and the people would be like, you too, can like, like, I want that. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 54:26
So it's not real. I think that's just a way to grab people's money and it doesn't I don't know that that works. Every time. Desire for individual recognition and credit leads to isolation. Competition is more highly valued than cooperation where cooperation is valued little time or resources are devoted to developing skills and how to cooperate creates a lack of accountability. The only one the only the I'm the only one ism has taken me years of therapy, years of therapy, connected to endeavor. julienne ism is the belief that if something is going to get done right, I have to do it. And little yes to delegate work to others does.
Anne Sherry 55:10
This is just Yeah. I mean, all of that, like when I hear that list too, I'm like, Yeah, that's what people struggle with in couples therapy. That's what they're struggling with, you know, just, yeah, that big. I was like, Oh, I think I needed a hug and it came out is why is the kitchen a fucking mess? You know, we don't know. I don't know how to ask for a goddamn hug. You know, it's just like, oh, like, it's almost reactive attachment disorder, not to, you know, I know, that's a real real thing. But literally, I just that feels like the individual work, like, how do you get more bowls or break? I mean, you really, it's feelings, its emotions. And this, like, the structure just fucking sucks. It really does.
Alex Cho 55:56
This is really interesting for me to hear, because I, you know, study these things and read about them from a very macro level, and these, you know, historical studies or whatever. But I have very little, you know, experience looking at how these things manifest personally interpersonally. And you as, you know, a therapist, like, you must have such powerful, I would even assume overwhelming at times, you know, window into how this stuff just coheres into people, you see it right play out, and you see people struggling with exactly what we're talking about. I'm just so fascinated if you have anything to say about that.
Anne Sherry 56:38
And what was what, what helped once I started understanding the structural piece, you know, because it would do this, you know, I've been involved in body centered therapy, I learned about it in the 80s and Boulder. And that's really, we're going to actually that is going to be huge, like, the fact that we're now not just having expensive conversations in therapy, but we're actually involving the body and the trauma and the neuroscience and we know how to heal it. I think it I think what I feel and another episode we're gonna have on psychedelic assisted therapy, which is changing attachment styles, like that structure creates these weird ass attachment styles of like, no one's there for me, it just exacerbates all that, but I started to bring in the structural piece. Like, it's not just you. You should be raging, you should be fucking depressed. Like, this is fucked up what's out there? And how how do we hold that? I think it unburdened some of those legacies like I don't have, oh, it actually feels a lot better to say, you're right. I do. Depression would make sense. And we can work on individual pieces. But I think it's imperative for people for therapist is to bring in the structure because if people come in there, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Not a fucking thing. And once you waste
Alison Cebulla 57:59
the meme, like as the goal of therapy should never be to help people adjust to oppression. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 58:06
how it goes? Yeah, something like yeah, totally not yet you because like prizefighting like, Okay, let's get you enough little, like, anxiety skills and get back in there and like, just fight one. I don't know what you're fighting, you know, but I think it it's this thing on tempo. We don't control this timeframe, either. I mean, I I follow a method of therapy called internal family systems, but it works. It's a systems based therapy. So it is saying yes, we have to, there is a self that it feels like there's a self emerging, I hope before the planet shakes us off and said time's up. Just yeah, I hope that we're building we're putting up with all this trauma informed therapy better help I more therapy is out there. So people are questioning, it's accessible to more people. I could have a like, oh, well, that's not as good as you coming into the office. But like, if you're there going, like I don't feel good, you know? And, and it's out there it's just out there more that it's not just you this is this is a toxic environment and we talk we just we pretty much it feels like most people that are coming into the office get that now. So I don't know if that no, that's great. Sort of that merging you know of like, yeah, the structure into the individual. How do I and that is my curiosity here. How did my neglectful childhood it has its you know, we're resilient whatever, but also it's driven me to be just so fat like what is this belonging thing? What is it you know, I never felt and maybe it's that hit acid I dropped it. That set me off. I didn't know like it at that was we went to a frat party. It was the weirdest thing ever. I wasn't in frat or sorority is fine. It, it took me in a different direction, I had no idea that I was entering the world with, like, I'm gonna get married, and I'm gonna have this life and you get that kind of job and it just broke that open. So the psychedelic piece is ending in Boulder, I think it helped a lot. Because I was the hero, I was the captain of everything. I was a hero of my high school, you know, so I, it all looked right. And I was like, ah, not right. Yeah, well, one thing that I know, I'm done.
Alex Cho 1:00:34
One thing that I really think is so powerful with what we're talking about is this, you know, idea of embodied therapies, right? And I'm even thinking about, you know, the idea of talk can only get you so far, like words. And that kind of talking through things can only get you so far right. Even that, like, rings, to me, with some of the settler colonial is like we just had one of the things on this list is right, the primacy of at least the written word, right, like, but just the primacy of like, trying to kind of articulate these things on a very cerebral level, like, you know, no, that's that's not where it hits. Right. And I'm loving that. therapies are finally acknowledging that to you to your point. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 1:01:23
Well, I want to thank you so much, Alex, for your time, and just you're sharing your wisdom and your perspective with us. It means so much to me. And do you have any final thoughts as we? Yeah.
Alex Cho 1:01:39
Yeah. So the work that I'm interested in right now, which I think really, really encapsulates a lot of what we've been talking about. There is there's work that is being done around radical care, and also mutual aid. And I think these are concrete practices that push back against everything that we've been just talking about, right? This idea of the kind of, yeah, towels or individual Oh, yeah. This just came out the carrot manifesto, the politics of interdependence, my list. These are colleagues, I was on a panel with one of the authors of the care collective. And I'm, I haven't read it yet. But I'm, it's like a little, it's like a little manifesto, right? Like, I'm, I'm eager to dive into it with radical care. But it's really interesting. There's a body connection here, too. And where I see kind of, from an academic standpoint, a lot of this really good work happening is in the realm of disability studies. People who do Disability Studies know this, they have known this, they have been talking about it for decades, we have not had the circumstances where we felt that we were so pressed to listen, but now we do write and if there's anything that COVID has taught us, it is the like the fundamental interdependence of all of us. And when people in disability studies write about things, like interdependence, instead of glorifying the individual independence, they know, they know from their perspective that we are all interdependent we rely on others, right? They can they don't have the luxury of, you know, vanishing into this myth of like, the settler colonial a person who is, you know, with their gun riding onto the range by themselves into homestead, you know, all that kind of thing. They know that that's fiction. Right, precisely to your point, Allison, because it was fictitiously set up anyway, right. It's like the sleight of hand. So I can I can send you some links to some things in disability studies. In particularly,
Alison Cebulla 1:03:58
thank you for bringing that in.
Alex Cho 1:04:01
dependence. Instead of glorifying the independent is like super, super important, I think, for us to keep
Alison Cebulla 1:04:08
Wow, wow. Yeah, I just be goosebumps, thank you. Oh,
Anne Sherry 1:04:12
well, then I was just thinking about the term you know, like, codependence is like such a key term and, and you're weak for that. I mean, if we just turn some of these things, what is codependence you know, it's like, I had so little care that I need to connect to this person, but we're like, You're weird. That's awful. You gotta learn how I really shouldn't be. I mean, there is a way of locating in yourself so that you can actually connect from a week I don't think we can be in the communities and I don't know there's something here about like, the sovereignty of the self but it's only because I can be safe in communities that we can like we can meet each other there and I won't lose myself or or we get better together. Do you know but
Alison Cebulla 1:05:00
and individualism is, is a myth down to its very core because I always say there was never a time on earth when there was only one human. Totally never. And when you think about that, and you just really think about that, like we've always been in community from our very origins of evolution always, always, always been in my head when did
Anne Sherry 1:05:21
that because of that, but I mean, at some point, I guess you said it, Alex, at some point. I know we're kind of going back. But like, at some point, somebody was like, I can't make any money off of that, you know, like, I gotta, I gotta split these motherfuckers up and take it all. Yeah,
Alex Cho 1:05:36
it's literally a product of a Western European imperial adventure about 500 years ago. Like, that's when this idea happens. Yeah, to explode. There's precursors to this, you know, in places, but that is what the research historical research shows. So,
Anne Sherry 1:05:54
damn. To do some time travel and go back. Yeah, good. Alex,
Alison Cebulla 1:05:59
how can how can people find your work? Oh, I connect with you further. Sure. I'm
Alex Cho 1:06:05
on. I'm on Twitter. It's Alex Cho. 47. A lax CH OH, four. Seven. can follow me there.
Alison Cebulla 1:06:11
Great. Um, well, thank you so so much, Alex, for your time today. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Yeah. Yeah, this was really super fun and enlightening. And thank you for bringing in the disabilities piece that just really was not on my radar. So thank you. And,
Unknown Speaker 1:06:28
yeah, you're welcome. Okay.
Alison Cebulla 1:06:34
So, wow, that was so great. So I wanted to, I know,
Anne Sherry 1:06:42
you and Alex, I'm like, oh, in that book. And
Alison Cebulla 1:06:47
I'm telling you, it's all about the audiobooks, and the and then the going on the long walks and runs. That's yeah, that's what I do. But I wanted to kind of like finish the episode a little bit and wrap up a little bit, just by I just want to spend some time unpacking our privilege as hosts of this show. Because for one thing, even inviting someone like Alex, on who's Asian American is like, I never want it to be the responsibility of a person of color to educate me. That's my job. That is my job. So, you know, Google is your best friend, you know, if I want to understand, you know, oh, gosh, I want to understand racism a little bit more, or like, oh, gosh, well, why do African Americans get really pissed at White people for bla bla bla, bla, bla, you know, Google it. It's not, it's never the responsibility. It's not fair for me to go to Alex and say, Alex, can you unpack this for me? Can you explain this to me? And, and instead, what we want to do, and what I hope that we did on this episode is that, you know, we elevate other voices, non white voices, but also we take responsibility as white people that racism is a white person's problem. This is we are racists, we are the ones this is our problem, and we have to address it, we have to deal with it.
Anne Sherry 1:08:11
Yeah, that is that inherited piece and, and my, my passion here, just being on my own journey of like, is how to make this. There's just so much projected on the moment that you start to have body sensations around this, get my grandmother's hands, there's plenty of practices in there. To understand your body is talking to you, when you get in the zone, you cannot stop when there's an uncomfortable conversation or you have quote unquote, made a mistake or you know, the pieces, get less concerned about your intent, you are trying to be good, but just it's sort of to say I'm sorry, just those these wonderful ways of how to repair and just making that connection to this. This thing we inherited about like being so individualistic, you know, and how do we come? It's not that great. I mean, I didn't really realize it till I started, you know, I don't know you get a little bit older you have a need or, you know, like so anyway, it's yes, we're not saving, not saving. We're, if you need a reason. It's like it's really, racism is really fucking bad for you. Right? It's bad for the planet. It's bad for white people. It's bad for everybody.
Alison Cebulla 1:09:33
You don't get to have health care as white people. You don't get health care because of racism. Right? You know, and I haven't read the some of us yet, but I can't wait saw my list on my list. Oh, is that how racism impacts you know, all of us.
Anne Sherry 1:09:46
Oh, okay. I thought that was Dick short. Dick Schwartz has a book. Okay. Something about part whenever?
Alison Cebulla 1:09:54
Yeah. So I think you know, I just want to unpack my own privilege, which is to say I'm white. You know, and I'm ditto, I have I have college educated parents. That's, that's a huge privilege in our society. Both my parents went to college, I have grandparents who went to college. That's a huge privilege.
Anne Sherry 1:10:18
I do not have the grandparents who went to college, but I do have the parents that went to my dad benefited from the GI bill or whatever. Not that he got money from the military to go to school, you know, which allowed them to buy a house and the neighborhood they wanted to, like I and I, like inheriting when my mother passes. You know,
Alison Cebulla 1:10:40
I hate that. I mean, we've taught I hate that the and your, you know, your dad grew up and not little, this is why they call Tennessee, the Volunteer State, because a lot of people volunteer for the military, but you're in that little volunteer belt because your dad's from South Carolina or Alabama is
Anne Sherry 1:10:55
from Alabama. Okay. Yeah. But we grew up in South Carolina. Yeah. Of
Alison Cebulla 1:10:59
like, oh, I have to sacrifice my life for the country in order to maybe get ahead. Mm hmm. You know, like I have my ex boyfriend, the one I was I was dating when I lived in Asheville, his dad died in the military serving during Vietnam. His dad died. And he was he was born a couple months later. And his mom used that money to go get a graduate degree and basically elevated the social standing of their entire family, but only because of the death. She didn't. She wasn't gonna get that many if he hadn't died. That's so sick. That's so sick.
Anne Sherry 1:11:37
Yep. I still don't know what we're afraid of. If we actually take care of people, I really don't I really. I was watching a video this morning around the health care piece. They were showing to people in all different countries, they were putting them through the paces of what it's like to try to get health care in America. Like, which plan are you going to pick out? I mean, most people were ending in tears on that, because they're like seeing what a bottle of insulin costs or have a kid that died because he couldn't get his insulin. My brother was type one diabetic. I mean, he's passed away now. But I don't know what would have happened around. I mean, my dad worked for the state. So anyways, it's just we're just so in it. Yeah. Let's that's another episode. Maybe? Yeah,
Alison Cebulla 1:12:33
there's another episode. Yeah. I want to just keep unpacking some of our own privilege that we bring to the podcast. Yeah. So I grew up low, low income, and grew up in a in a small town. That was was pretty poor. For my for my area. It's called Oceania. A lot of actually, migrant farmworkers live in the neighborhood I grew up in and my parents divorced. My mom started her own business that took a long time to make an income. Like, there were years like, my parents didn't have an income. Like, that's how poor we were. But, you know, I asked my mom, I said, how, like, Wait, if, if you were making like, 20,000 a year or 30,000 a year trying to support a household, I was like, how did we do that? Like how literally how and she was like credit cards. She was like credit cards, and that's a fucking privilege. Being able to access credit in the United States. Yeah, is a privilege being able to get a mortgage? Yeah, is a privilege.
Anne Sherry 1:13:46
I mean, like, yeah. Oh,
Alison Cebulla 1:13:49
well think about that. Yeah,
Anne Sherry 1:13:51
well, and awesome, not the payday loan type stuff. Are those where the predatory lending is that you can get the credit cards perhaps that have a reasonable payback, you know, where you could or but now that you start hearing stories about you know, 300% and interest that you're at some point I mean, it's just it's just yeah, it's not only Yeah, that that's
Alison Cebulla 1:14:15
the difference between growing up as a poor white person and a poor person of color is the access to the financial system. Yes, we need to understand is that I could say and and poor white people in the United States say this, but you know, I'm also a prized I'm also one I'm also poor, but how can I give a shit about you know, they're cutting in line. You know, I'm also just trying to get, you know, you know, whatever to the promised land, but it's like, no, if you are white in America, I don't care how poor you are. You have access, and historically have had access to a financial system, that people of color and it's still going on today. My dad is a mortgage loan officer for a bank. He, implicit bias has created systems in place that he has started to notice. And he doesn't keep quiet. I'm very proud of my dad, he says something that if your last name is white, or shares, or your loans, they overlook some of the gray areas and go, we approve it. But if your last name is Ramirez or Rodriguez or Gonzalez, oh, I'm sorry, I don't we just can't make your loan application work. Right. And it's that it's not over. It's not over. No one's going, oh, you know, like, we can't offer a loan to this person, because they're Latinx. It's covert. It's that implicit racism of like, let me figure out how to make the white, the, you know, Gil White's application work? Yes, yep. It still happens today. Today, I mean,
Anne Sherry 1:15:52
you see articles of houses and being undervalued, too, you know, and then, like, there was a story of, I don't know, a black couple that had their white friend come and be in the presence of the appraiser. And just regularly, like, persons of colors, houses are going to be undervalued by appraisers over. If and rather than it being like, a white person saying here appraise my house. So it's, it's, I mean, it's Yeah, so I do know, I come with a shit ton of privilege.
Alison Cebulla 1:16:30
whereby if I,
Anne Sherry 1:16:33
I can't tell you how many mistakes I made, how many get it? It wasn't huge financial stuff, but getting into a bit of a scrape, you know, or something, or I need, I don't know, 300 here, or 500? Or my car or,
Alison Cebulla 1:16:47
and your parents could always Yeah, it could always it was. Yep, same. What? Yeah.
Anne Sherry 1:16:52
And so numerous times of doing that, whereas, like, for one part, you know, one, miss one, slip up a $200 could derail your life when the financial system has you in such a tight level. So I'm under no illusion that I, I, I did this all on my own, I got it. And what I'm here to do, fucking disrupt this shit is just not cool. It's just not cool. The number of people's actual human lives that are being lost to this stuff, all the potential that's being lost, and I just gonna, you know, I'm here to do my part to say, I think a lot of this comes from us not having a sense of belonging, and it's generations of not having senses of belonging to say, hey, that's, that is not cool. We're not going to stand for this. We're not going to let our fucking schools be funded by local taxes around them. No. And then the wealthy schools ever it's just there's got to be enough. It's just there is a more than enough. And I don't I just, I'm here to disrupt it. I really am. I'm here to shout about it,
Alison Cebulla 1:18:14
play any other privileges that we? I'm sure there's more.
Anne Sherry 1:18:20
Sure. I mean, the way I know to get my, my tags renewed is what I get pulled over by a cop and he's like, your fucking tags are out for like seven months. What's up with you? You know, that's how I know to go to the DMV and pay my taxes.
Alison Cebulla 1:18:34
That's ghetto, Ian.
Anne Sherry 1:18:37
Just I'm worried. I can't find you gotta go get the admissions and I mean, it's like, yeah, it's but that's my, I know, that's a privilege, you know, and so many if you're in a different skin color than mine, you would generally not risk that so I get to have this way this kind of way that I move in the world, which is very, very free and very, you know, breaking rules here a lot. Right? Right. You know, speeding not that I speed that much or whatever, but I just, I don't think about it, but just don't
Alison Cebulla 1:19:19
perpetuate poverty. For example, I can remember one time I got a I think it was a speeding ticket and I went to I went to court to contest it. And the woman who went before me at court had gotten pulled over and she didn't have a driver's license because she was an immigrant from I think probably Mexico and the fine was like $500 You know, she already doesn't have the money or the or the opportunity to get a license to live. You know, legally she did have insurance she didn't you can get insurance without But license. And so that's how like the the judge who was like, you know, Oh, I'm such a benevolent old white man or whatever, you know, he was like, well, since you had insurance, I can see that you're really trying. So I'm only going to give you a $500 penalty, but just broke my frickin heart It broke my heart is that you're already down and the system just keeps kicking you further and further out so that you can't get on your feet. You cannot possibly figure it out.
Anne Sherry 1:20:26
Right. Yes, that's true. That is so true. And until municipalities are we're not funded by that kind of crap. You know, where they depend on tickets and yeah, are speeding fine. I mean, I just I But that again, that's like an individual thing, right. Like we're in our own city, and we'll fund our I don't know, I don't know. Yeah. All right. I call it revenue. Yes,
Alison Cebulla 1:20:52
I think we I think we did a good job of acknowledging our privilege, you know, and we want to keep acknowledging it as we move forward, that we're, you know, we're privileged to be here. And we're going to keep keep working on you know, tussling with these issues.
Anne Sherry 1:21:09
Yes. And I and I am open to hearing how I am much more now, having done a lot of therapy around this to build capacity to year when I fuck shit up like I really am open to hearing Hey, you ever thought about these things in this way or so as we go forward and our podcast goes forward and we're more than happy to hear from people like you're missing this entirely like to stay in those dialogues I long for that. Being able to fight to be in relationship with each other and not just dismiss people or you're an idiot or you don't know anything. This is about trying to be brave enough to be in community with each other.
Alison Cebulla 1:21:53
All right, okay, for listening to latchkey urchins and friends.
Thanks for listening to latchkey urchins and friends. This podcast is by Alison Cebulla. And And Sherry. The music is by Proxima parada. You can find Show Notes such as books and things that we've referenced on our website which is latchkey urchins.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai