Hello and welcome to the connected Community podcast today my guest is Dr Alan Mueller and today we talk about owning our whiteness and my gosh what a bold statement that sounds like it is me being a cisgender female white female able-bodied Allan being a cisgender male able-bodied talk about privilege and so
It’s about using that privilege to disrupt privilege Allan’s whole mission is using his white privilege to create and develop empathy he has a tedex talk called doing the math how do we measure privilege his entire company adaptive challenge Consulting is about Equity diversity inclusion gender all of these
Things and let’s just take a minute to like put our privilege in check our social economic privilege the color of our skin our sexual orientation and then also are we Opening Our Eyes to other perspective are we reading books by authors of of different colors of different sexual orientations and
Different perspectives are we watching movies are we hanging out and gathering in places where there’s diversity and so it really just lets us take a look at where we are and how can we use our privilege to make this world a better place this is an awesome topic Allan is
A little bit of a comedian and so it’s just fun engaging I really really enjoy this conversation um I want to thank you so much for being here and please take a moment to give us a like like share and subscribe and let’s just dive on in for today’s Episode hello and welcome to the connected Community podcast a place to explore possibility through mindfulness movement and self-discovery Our intention is to deliver insight and inspiration while fostering conversations that are genuine unfiltered and deeply human we hope hope you will enjoy today’s Episode hello good morning Alan how are you actually it’s not morning there how are you today I’m great great a little bit of a time difference but I am very good yeah well thank you so much for joining me today on the connected Community podcast I’m so happy to be
Chatting with you I’m thrilled to be here this is going to be a great conversation yeah so one of the things that you’re passionate about is using Your Privilege leveraging your privilege to help develop more empathy and so i’ would love to know a little bit about
What that means to you yeah uh and so for your viewers listening that don’t see me I’m a white guy uh and for the viewers uh who do see me do not adjust your screen I am I am white um and so you know as a white man who’s also
Cisgender and if if your audience is is unfamiliar with that term it means that when I was born the doctor was like it’s a boy and they happen to guess right in my case so good for them uh but but that’s not the case for everybody um I
I’ve lived in the US my entire life I’m the child of an immigrant but I’ve lived here my whole life and you know everything in the US is is very much built around my comfort and my convenience and um you know um even though I think that I’m appreciative of
The progress we are making uh there’s still so many unfulfilled promises and so one of the questions is how do I be white and be the best white person I can how do I take things that are privileges I didn’t earn and put them on the line
For those who don’t have that unearned privilege how can I sort of use privilege to disrupt privilege if that makes sense yeah um but it’s a journey it’s it’s there’s no there’s no easy answer I it’s not I I don’t know that I could have a book about how to do this
It’s it’s everyday little decisions it’s um am I reading books by by black and latine authors am I um listening to to queer and trans voices when it’s you know um am I just you know listening to differently abled people and and in ways that can honor them and am I absorbing
That knowledge and that perspective and trying trying to develop better understandings um and you know uh each time you try you know I I’m never going to understand it but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep trying and the keep the the the ability and the willingness to
Keep trying even though I know always fail is part of sort of what they call the growth mindset right it’s it’s look it not everything is about succeeding at the goal I am never going to understand for example the life of a trans black woman I’m never going to really
Understand that life but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t spend mental energy reading work by people in that community and and watching media that they’ve developed and and just listening you know yeah what initially sparked this interest and passion for you was there something that happened did a light bulb
Go on one day for you you know I don’t know there there were a series of events I mentioned I’m the child of an immigrant and um uh my father is from Germany and lost uh a lot of family in World War II and one thing I remember as
A youth was he sort of tried to Shield me from a lot of of us movies because in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up us films Germans were always the villains and and of course Germany especially leading into the 70s had a horrendous uh history on on human rights
Uh but also my my dad remembered a Germany that was about you know Cuisine and culture and music and hospitality and things that weren’t uh the the horrible parts and said you know I want you to know a Germany before you know about all the ugliness or as you learn
About the ugliness I want you to learn about the other parts too and he was convinced that Us Media was just showing the ugliness and I get it I get it but that little itty bitty Inkling made me think about media differently and then when I went to college and was exposed
To ideas about well how is the black community portrayed in movies and TV yeah what words are used what words are used on the Evening News to describe uh a black person who committed a crime that are different from the words that are used to describe a white person who
Committed a crime yeah um and so I think that was part of it and then another part of it was um I was in a a English class my first year of college and um and I wish I could say that this was was a noble thing but there was there was a
Young woman in my class who I you know I may have had a little bit of a crush on who invited me to come watch her choir sing at this uh Tree Lighting Event it was near the holidays and uh it was the black Student Association gospel choir
And they stood in the cold in December as as the university did this tree lighting and they sang Acappella and it was amazing it was amazing and I approached the director and I said I said could could I be a part of this he goes sure yeah sign up it’s a class you
Know we can join in the spring ring and I did and I became kind of the white member of a 90 member Black Student Association gospel choir and um and that experience uh you know and and one other thing I’ll mention my University uh at the time we had uh 2.5% of our
Population were students of color about aund so we had 10,000 students 190 of them were black or African-American and I was in choir with 95 of those students so I sort of accidentally became the white guy that a lot of the black folks in the community
Knew yeah and how was that received by that AC capella group so I mean it was you know it was interesting because I I don’t know if my presence was disruptive again I was invited in but I was invited in by a person or two that doesn’t mean
Necessarily that I had an invitation from the whole community so it was a little bit of a risk on my part and it was a little bit of a risk on those who invited me um and you know I had to learn quickly the difference between appropriation and Intercultural exchange
There’s a big difference between cultural appropriation and Intercultural exchange and the difference is who has the power and who’s doing the inviting those are the two big things and in time we found that we had so much in common when it came to uh our love of this
Music um our our various Faith Traditions that came together because it was a gospel choir right um and then you know you go on the road and you’re on a bus and you’re traveling 6 hours with folks you start bonding and forming relationships and those relationships help stretch your mind and help stretch
You you know and I had a uh and at the time um sometimes I would Pat myself on the back like I would be like Oh I’m a white guy who twice a week is in a classroom with only only black people so
I get it I get what it’s like to be a minority no no no I do I did not right but every once in a while I would Pat myself on the back for thinking that I was doing something and uh and I learned from that and and Grew From that um and
Because it doesn’t matter if I’m in a room it doesn’t matter if I work at a historically black college if I’m in a room of of all Latino people or all about people the power structure in the US is still so so so white right Congress Fortune 500
CEOs University presidents like it’s the power structure is still so so white that um I don’t want to trick myself into thinking that I really kind of get it because I I don’t yeah and how did you notice the power struggle and that power playing in that a capella group I
I mean so again I was invited by a member to sort of come check them out and then I spoke to the director and the director invited me to come on in and sing and and so you know there was I think my perception is there was a
Little bit of uh because that director had invited me there was a little bit of wait and see yeah uh on on behalf of of that Community uh and then two you know one of the questions is can he sing is he going to mess things up like like in
Other words you know there were other reasons that the group was there but I also recognize now that at that University all black spaces were very rare and it’s interesting because knowing what I know now I might not have joined the choir I might have chosen not
To or um found another way to support the choir that wasn’t joining it you know um because maybe that that was there was a sacredness to and there I think there were two white women in the choir so so there were there were a few other white people but I was the first
White guy um and so you know I knowing what I know now I don’t know if it was more disruptive you know I I don’t know I don’t know but but of course knowing what I know now wouldn’t have happened without that experience too so there
It’s a conundrum sorry I cut you off but yeah yeah no that makes sense that makes sense because you want to honor the sanctity of that space that they have that they don’t really get to have spaces that are all inclusive yeah and so it changes the dynamic a little bit
Yeah definitely definitely yeah yeah and so let’s talk a little bit about your work and and what you’re doing with your work because you’re you know building emotional intelligence at other people’s lives and educating and working with um you know gender and equity and diversity and inclusion and and um honoring you
Know all the different um just navigating just a bunch of different paths for people so and and opening people’s eyes to that so how do you go about doing that yeah yeah well so uh my company we we we’re a Consulting Group and so we work with City governments and County
Governments and colleges and universities and K12 systems and companies corporations all kinds of groups um on emotional intelligence on on um and it’s interesting if you took a poll 20 years ago of everybody across the country what do you want in leaders there’s a c list of qualities they want
And and now very very suddenly and very very abruptly in the last 10 years empathy and Intercultural competence have jumped onto the top of that list yeah and part of this is thanks to the black lives matter movement part of this is thanks to the Arab Spring internationally part of this is thanks
To um other other movements that are about getting folks who’ve been historically and currently marginalized in front of the microphone for for our group though one of the things that we that’s a little different is um sometimes people will ask us can you come to an EDI workshop and so you know
Depending on who they are if it’s a room full of my fellow white people I’ll just gleefully go in there and run it for them but if it’s a more diverse group I pull in a few of my Affiliates who might be black women or a black man or have
Other intersecting identities to so that we have authenticity and we have credibility in the room together um and so but one of the things that’s interesting is sometimes we’re asked to do that but sometimes were just asked to do leadership training or communication training and we bring in conversations
About identity through that because it shouldn’t always be a separate unit that that’s that’s one of the worst things we do is decide that oh we’re going to do a five-day workshop and and day three we’re going to talk about diversity and then we’re just going to move on and
We’ve checked we’ve checked the box that we’ve talked about diversity well or what if when you’re talking about communication when you’re talking about professionalism you can deconstruct a little bit and say hey so who’s been in charge of what counts as professional spoiler alert it’s been
White men yeah right and and then can we deconstruct that can we interrogate that can we kind of poke some holes in it and go well what why are these Professional Standards this way communication Styles right um that certain people are uh I think I mentioned to you I do a lot of
Work with extroverts and introverts and I break them into extroverts and introverts and I I say to the extroverts look across the room if you if you know anybody across the room on the introvert side who’s a woman I want you to pay attention to my question my question is
Um uh who’s ever heard of resting Mitch face now now notice I’m saying Mitch face with an M yeah as as though there’s some Trope that introverted men deal with which introverted men don’t there’s nobody’s policing introverted men’s level of talkativeness that’s not happening but I’m doing this just
Oppositionally to remind them that extroversion and introversion is a thing but on top of that is gender on top of that is race and I’m like look across the room at women of color on the other side are you particularly if they’re introverts are you ascribing them as a
You know are you ascribing that they’re that they have an attitude like what do you think of when you think about that yeah and can we disrupt that some and so even though the the group hiring me may just want to talk about the Myers sprigs and personality type which is great and
It’s fun and it’s awesome we can’t do those things in a vacuum it we can’t do those things in a vacuum because is here gender is here gender identity is here sexuality is here abble ableism is here all the things are here and they’re here
With us wherever we go um and so the other thing is I speak from my experience I I it’s not my job to talk about the black community in any way that’s ascriptive or tell or as though I’m any kind of expert because I will never be or the Latina Community the
Differently a community no no no I can tell you about my experience as a white man I can tell you about what I do and don’t have to do and I can just start there you know yeah yeah and so if we’re wanting to increase our emotional
Intelligence then where would be a good place to start oh my gosh um that’s such a broad topic so maybe we should break that down a little bit and say what is emotional intelligence yeah yeah so I mean to me some of the key elements of emotional intelligence are listening
Like deep listening I’m married to a counselor and if anybody has has you know has a a friend who’s a counselor or has been to Y which I highly recommend you may have had a counselor say to you things like you you say something and
They say if I hear you I think you’re saying this it’s called re rephrasing in the counseling world you even if you’re not a counselor you could do that if you’re listening to someone you could rephrase and be like so if I get you you’re kind of saying
This right right so so listening is part of it empathy is another part empathy is another part um you know every one of us is has a difficult life but you know one of my colleagues Dr Kelly Dixon says all of us have experienced trauma in some
Way yeah and and so when when you know that honor that by by extending empathy and Grace first right um and so if someone’s late to a meeting rather than why are you late like how about are you okay is everything okay um and so starting with those kinds of things
Starting with deep listening and starting with empathy are two key elements uh another one and I’m doing a free webinar coming up at the end of uh Fe February uh on emotional intelligence through type through talking type and so the Myers Briggs is a great way to talk
About type and to talk about and build emotional intelligence right even just if I say hey introverts and extroverts y’all are wired a little differently yeah and y’all need to give each other some Grace for example the first three years of my marriage I constantly ask my
Wife I’m an extrovert I constantly ask my wife are you okay are you mad is something wrong are you okay uhhuh why was I at I was projecting extroversion onto her her silence is normal and so I once I started understanding type better that builds emotional intelligence I
Realize that if an introvert is not talking as much as me it doesn’t mean something’s wrong yeah now if I have a friend who’s an extrovert who gets quiet that probably is a signal that something might be up right yeah U and so that’s talking about type and there’s more to
The Myers space than just the just extrovert and introvert but um it builds understanding about our different in the workplace in personal relationships um and and it’s all designed to make you realize not everyone is like you and processes the world like you yeah and once you start
Once you start living with that every day it the emotional intelligence starts building yeah when you go into these groups and you’re talking to people about cultural competency and um inclusion and diversity and things like that and your audience is mostly people of color yeah how what are they saying that’s different
What are they what is their feedback how are they receiving things what what would what is like a common theme of people of color that they like want us to hear and we’re not getting yeah so one of the things is sometimes it’s sort of jarring but I
Think generally in a positive way to hear a white man talk about his whiteness and his maleness in real terms and and yeah the ways that that my whiteness and my maleness um uh show up for me in my life and so first of all I think that’s a little bit jarring second
Of all um there’s a you know I was I was raised by white people and and it’s so interesting because my parents uh you know uh if they if we had a new neighbor in the neighborhood and they were like oh well you know that that family just
Moved in oh and they’re black and I would say why are you whispering right like like you know uh similarly they’d be like oh well you know the woman who moved in down the street I think she’s gy I’m like I know how to spell and it’s okay and so I think that
Um and part of this is from my my workshops but part of this is through other Intercultural experiences I’ve I’ve had the privilege to to be a part of is that um white people in my experience are acculturated for politeness first and realness second and um and especially when talking about
Race or sexuality or religion or politics politeness first and that’s a function of privilege that I can talk about race and and make it have to be polite um I’ve seen many white commentators especially around MLK day talk about how Martin Luther King Jr would never have been part of the black
Lives matter protest and I’m like clearly you have not read the letters from A Birmingham Jail clearly you watched you watched 60 seconds of I have a dream felt felt warm and felt felt warm and fuzzy about it you know children holding hands or whatever just stopped after that I’m like yeah King
Was calling for reparations King was calling for uh uh labor rights King was calling for a war on poverty and and so you know the the warm and fuzzy one that I see every MLK day I’m all way I’m constantly I’m like dear fellow white people here’s a copy of it’s eight pages
Letter from a Birmingham Jail it’ll take you 10 minutes you want to be a slightly better white person tomorrow than you were today don’t post a cute meme of MLK with I have a dream instead spend 10 minutes reading these six pages just just read the pages yeah um and so I
Think that um that there’s a there’s a realness that white people don’t do as much because we’re acculturated into politeness and because society’s built around us in other words uh there’s there’s not a reason to bring race up because white is the default when it comes to how Congress thinks and how
Corporations think and whatever it’s the default so why would we have to talk about it yeah and so the so the the key is my fellow white people have to get comfortable being uncomfortable have to it’s time it’s way past time to be comfortable with discomfort um yeah the
Other hard part though when I’m working with a group that’s that’s racially diverse where there are a lot of white people in the room and a lot of black people or Latina people or Asian people is do doing what I call dual centering and it’s it’s hard work and dual
Centering means there’s a level of basic 101 stuff that white people need to catch up on yeah and I don’t want to waste the time of of the people of color in the room they they they’ve been through 10 course 101 course 301 course you know they’re in in the grad school
Level of understanding how racism operates in the US and even though my fellow white people invented and uphold racism we always see a little bit confused on how it works right it’s like how does racism actually operate I’m like no we made we created it yeah and
We and we keep it going so we we know how it operates but it’s it’s the discomfort thing and so um as a a part-time improv comedian one of the things I have found is that in those those spaces if I can do a little bit of
The 101 for the right people that need to catch up yeah and simultaneously drop some coded language and breadcrumbs for uh people of color in the room to keep them a little entertained at least while I’m pulling up my fellow white people that helps bridge if I can that helps
Bridge the gap a little bit in other words there’s ve there’s almost nothing I Could Teach the black community about racism I can’t I that’s not my job I can’t yeah but but what I can do is maybe um uh show some solidarity as I’m trying to bring my fellow white people
Up you know yeah and then and then oh and sorry and then engage those those communities of color on other uh uh privileged identities we might share you know uh we might all be able-bodied we might be all cisgendered and I can say if you share CIS genderedness with me
Whether you’re black you’re latine you’re Asian you’re white if you share that with me I can I can push I can be like hey my fellow cisgender people let’s talk about working on transphobia and so that’s one of the things where I’m not necessarily wasting the time of
The people of color in the room because there are other ways that they may have privilege as well right that makes sense what what are some of the 101 things oh my gosh um just just uh you know the real history of the US um you know
History was written by You Know What’s the phrase history is written by The Victors um that for example you know people are like 911 was the was the worst um single loss of life event on us soil if if one thinks that I would recommend that you read about the Tulsa
The Oklahoma bombings where the United States government bombed Black Wall Street and if and if your listenership doesn’t know what Black Wall Street is there were two pretty prominent Black Wall Streets one of them was in Tulsa Oklahoma where black folks had had brought a lot of wealth together and the
Other was in Durham North Carolina which is not too far from where I am and in the in the case of Tulsa uh the Black Wall Street was violently firebombed by by the United States read up on it go Google it yeah um in the case of Durham
It was a much more polite version of racism where white legislature right white legislators uh zoned out Black Wall Street by adding a highway here and changing a neighborhoods per zoning purposes there and that kind of thing to sort of sort of politely enact racism
Which doesn’t make it any I mean it it didn’t cost lives but it cost livelihoods right right and so reading up on on Black Wall Street for example um reading the work of James Baldwin James Baldwin uh who was a black man there’s actually gonna be there’s gonna
Be a movie soon or maybe it’s already out uh featuring oh my gosh um he he’s like he’s like a a award-winning actor who I think is on uh like one of the uh one of the shows that features drag culture uh and his name is escaping me
Right now but um uh and just goes to these and so he’s GNA be playing James Baldwin and if you’re audience doesn’t know James Baldwin he he lived in the US and then moved to France and just and came back and talked about his experience as a black person in the US
And then a black person in France and how radically different they were how radic and one of his famous quotes and I’m gonna I’m gonna say I’m gonna paraphrase it because I’m not going to get it exactly right but um he said something like we can disagree and still
Love each other unless our disagreement is rooted in your belief that I shouldn’t IST yeah and and and it’s like it’s like wow wow you know I so many groups I work with you know when we do shared expectations we’re like well what do we expect of each other while we’re
Doing the two-hour Workshop oh we should respect each other we should appreciate difference we should we We establish like what do we expect of each other and sometimes they’ll say respect and I’ll say that’s great and sometimes they’ll say honesty and I’m like yes honesty but you could say something that’s honest
And is anti-Semitic or racist or homophobic or transphobic and that’s honest but I’m going to put a little Aster and say honesty within the context of everyone in this room deserves human dignity period yeah and that’s sort of what James Baldwin is saying he’s saying we can disagree on school funding and
Where to build roads and other issues of government yeah as long as that disagreement is not rooted in your belief that my people whoever my people are shouldn’t exist that’s the that’s that’s the line right yeah and so facilitator I want people to be honest
But then I also have to say within the context of I believe every person in this room and for that matter every person is deserving of basic human dignity so it’s honest up until that point and if you if you cross that threshold we have to have a conversation
About a bigger value than honesty yeah yeah yeah do you find when you’re doing these workshops that people like these big light bulb moments come up like they’ve never even considered or their mind has never never even gone in that direction and all of a sudden it’s kind
Of blown because they didn’t they didn’t see it they were just oblivious that’s what I’m after every day every day every group I I visit I want them to um one of the things I do and I just did this yesterday um FedEx y’all know like FedEx
Federal Express um I put their logo on the screen and I say I’m gonna blow about a third of your brains right now between 1/4 and one third of every audience I’m in front of I’m going to say look at the the negative space between the E and the X the negative
Space and your your audience can Google this there’s in the negative space there’s an arrow there’s a white Arrow which is moving moving forward a third to a fourth of every audience has never known that Arrow was there and it’s very clever but then once I show them they’re
Never going to unse it now when they get a package they’re goingon to see it when they’re on the highway and see a FedEx truck they’re going to see it and so my goal is how can you uh share with someone who’s cisgender yeah what it’s
Like for a trans person to to go to a public school where all the bathrooms aren’t for them yeah or to go on a road trip where they have to go through West Virginia where the bathroom laws are XYZ um or you know the the you know if
I’m in a room giving a speech I sometimes ask the question how might you have gotten in here if you needed Hardware to get into the room I.E a wheelchair how might you have entered this room and you know and so even just asking that question just asking and
Just saying I didn’t need Hardware to get in this room I’m very than F I did not need Hardware to get in this room and some people might and and that I I there were there was a minute I did not have to spend entering this room today
Looking for a route that had a ramp there was I I and so if I think about every room I’ve ever walked in how many minutes do I have friend how many minutes do I have to think about the disabled and differently abled communities yeah you know and so my goal
Is to help everyone uh uh perceive something they’ve never perceived before because once you once you’ve seen the the little arrow in the FedEx logo there’s no unseeing it there’s no unseeing it and once you’ve been invited to think oh as I walked into this convention hall or
This business office was there a an all-gender restroom was is there a ramp uh you know what are the symbols here that celebrate white supremacy like like is this is this room named after someone who you know owned enslaved people right like so but just asking those questions
And drawing some attention and then the key is once you start doing it practice it practice it yeah yeah so let’s talk about your fraternity experience because oh my gosh it’s so awesome and so unusual and uh so cool yeah so I I was um you know I saw images of fraternities
In in movies and such and when I was in college I had no interest in that in that kind of thing um and then later in life um I was a grown grown up in my 30s and I had uh you know had had was a professional and whatnot I was
Approached um by a fellow administrator a guy named Jamar and um at the time I should tell you that I was the adviser for the largest group of black students on campus um we it was called the council for cultural awareness and we did all our our job was to provide
Entertainment for students of color on campus that was our job and so the students LED it I was the advisor I was there to help them with contracts and help them with learning how to promote events and learning how to run events and facilitate things so it was step
Shows and it was concerts it was Spades tournaments and it was fashion shows and all of these different things um most mostly geared towards black students and and it would take me a solid year or two with the students involved to build trust and rightfully so I mean I I you
Know when I think about the history of my fellow white men we haven’t done a lot to earn trust and so it would take me a while to earn trust so this this guy Jamar who was a fellow administrator of mine approached me and said I want to
Start a graduate chapter of of this historic black fraternity and I said uh well first he just said I want to start a chapter and I said oh so you want to meet my students he goes no no no I want to start a graduate chapter and I want
You to pledge it and I said I said um well first of all and I’m pointing at my face I’m like did you catch that I I’m gonna be white the rest of my life like this spoilers like it’s I’m terminally Caucasian like it’s it’s forever more
Right I said first of all I’m white and I said second of all I’ve got two graduate degrees and a mortgage and and some children I I don’t know that I’m going to pledge something at this point in my life and the two things he said
Really got my attention one was he said well I’m doing a program for uh boys of color at the local elementary school to help them get excited about college and I want you to help me with that program whether or not you pledge this fraternity I want you to help me with
That I said okay now youve got my attention because that’s like real legit good work and then he said and I want to sit down with you and your wife because this is a family decision and I’m like oh you just made my inner feminist and my inner womanist very happy that that
Like that you because as much misogyny and toxic masculinity as there is in the fraternity world you said I want to sit down with you and I’m like okay yeah so I took I took a leap of faith and I thought to myself as I was considering
It I thought what might this help me build trust with my students might if I stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit might this help build some trust yeah and and sure enough it did it did and um now at the time I was in this
Tiny little Mountain Community where the whole chapter was me and and Jamar that was it um little did I know I was going to move uh to a a much larger metro area of about 1.8 million people where the divine nine as it’s known the divine nine are the nine largest historically
Black sororities and fraternities Kamala Harris for example is a member of the first historically black sorority alphaa Alpha sorority Incorporated um and so but the divine nine are the nine largest of these these historic groups and so in my new community the divine nine is everywhere I mean I just marched in two
Ml K parades uh one on Saturday and one on uh Monday with members of the divine nine and you know out and force in the cold um marching to celebrate MLK and again celebrate when I’m marching with the members of the divine nine which again I’m the only white person there in
Those instances I have great confidence that when they are Marching to honor King’s Legacy that it’s the whole Legacy not just the warm fuzzy one that my fellow white people tend to celebrate once a year with a meme right um and so uh it’s really it’s really encouraging
And empowering and and you know it my my graduate chapter you know we have guys who went to segregated high schools some of the guys are old enough that that that their high schools were segregated and some of them are so young that um that they have to be reminded that the
Old guys were in segregated high schools right um and and were committed to just doing work in the community you know yeah and did you feel like they all embraced you or was there a little bit of resistance there or because you were there from the beginning it’s different
It it’s it’s interesting I I don’t it’s hard to tell it’s hard to know but the bottom line is I have to own my whiteness every time I have to recognize that that my whiteness can be supportive and can be disruptive and sometimes it’s both yeah um and I have to be honest
With myself and I have to be humble about it I have to recognize that even though the the member of the fraternity who originally approached me kind of like the Gospel Choir even though I was invited in does that mean that every single person would invite me in and so
My goal is to to show up in a way that’s worthy of inviting I hope that makes sense yeah um and so I want to show up in a way that’s worthy of being invited and and then two you know but then there’s another Dynamic too which is you
Know the internalized racism right the the the idea that um you know white people often don’t show up in the black community because we don’t have to and that on some some level there might be some appreciation too like this white guy doesn’t have to do any of this like
There’s there’s no no work we’re doing is going to help quote unquote help his people so to speak um and so I think on some level sometimes there’s an appreciation that I I don’t always sense in the moment or feel and it doesn’t really matter yeah um and then other
Times maybe some skepticism and and and that’s that’s I have to realize that that skepticism is appropriate and fair yeah that again the track record of my people is deserving of skepticism from from all communities of color right yeah I mean my people have colonized three
Quarters of the half of the globe or more right and so um I have to I I have to keep that knowledge everywhere I go and be ready to to work hard to build trust and and it it might not always happen and I have to be okay with that
Too you yeah yeah yeah I shared this with you a little bit before that um when I was in in Arizona I worked on the hila River Indian reservation and yeah um I was a social worker and I really intentionally chose to go on the Indian Reservation because I thought it would
Be like a really cool unique experience um and so it was a 30 mile trk every day to work I went into the reservation and um it took the I think it took the patients six months before they would speak to me and the staff it
Took them a year they had a Native American social worker in there before me all of the staff were Native American all the patients were Native American and there was a few Hispanic and when I came in literally um I would sit down in front of somebody’s dialysis chair and
They they’re stuck in the chair they can’t get out of their chair and they would turn their whole body away from me and they just didn’t want to have anything to do with me um in on the flip side was I was really interested in Native American culture I became friends
With one of the guys um there and then his brother and his brother was the Sundance Chief and I really was like really really interested he’s invited me to come into the sweat lodges and that was uh same thing I was kind of one of the first white people um it wasn’t
Super well received because again it was that Sacred Space and I was coming in but I really came in with this intention of wanting to learn and understand I thought everything was so cool there was so much I didn’t understand um but it did flip it did flip where embraced me
And they brought me in and they loved me and it was like tears when I left after three years um but it it took a while for me to like wiggle my way in and it was it was just that persistence and that wanting to understand their culture
That I think shifted things for me but it it took some time and I get it it it does yeah and I appreciate that story because it takes it takes wanting to understand their culture and then it also takes I think checking our own
Culture right I mean you know um I I uh at one of the fraternity events you know um our president you know we were supposed to be there at 11:00 a for the parade and I’m texting him at 10:45 I might be five minutes late and later
When I got to the event we had an hour of buffer time before the parade started and I said I said I said look man you know as the white guy in the chapter you know that I’m obsessed with being on time that that’s a distinctly white
Thing right that like and so so like I I appreciate what you’re saying because it’s like a a wanting to understand another culture and then part of it is realizing some of how I just live my life is its own culture and how can I
Try to zoom out from that how can I try to decolonize my thought and go what are the things I do that are the whitest things I do right yeah um so I posted recently on social media I said I’m I’m white but I’m not let my dog lick my
Mouth white right yeah gross yes right right and so you know um I’m not like my dog has a sweater and I drink soy lattes white right so there’s there’s there was this great thing on Twitter about 10 years nine years ago called black people ask white people anything and white
People ask black people anything and it was the coolest thing ever and I’m not even really big on Twitter uh but I saw some of these things and like one of them was like a black person saying dear white people why did you colonize half the planet searching for spices and you
Don’t use spices on your food yeah and I’m like I’m like yeah and so I think what you’re saying is you know the as as a white person or as a person with any kind of privilege if you’re seeking to understand another culture part of the
Other part of that bargain that I think is important is how do you understand your end of that culture your your sort of op the the flip side of that that is your culture and how do you try to suspend it a little bit or how do you
Try to interrogate it or challenge it in your mind like oh am I doing this because I’m a because I’m white is this is this a distinctly white thing right and and because whiteness is sort of because of the way the US is built is just the norm and then everything else
Any minoritized group is the exception yeah but but what if I did go why why are my people so obsessed with being on time where did that come from right train trains I think it came from trains yeah and and white people developing train technology or whatever and so
We’re like well we better get stopwatches and like my dad’s German so the Germans are extra yeah y we need to be on time yah you know and so so like you know there’s there’s under cultural humility is what we call it but it’s going it’s going my whole
Life is soaked in culture and until I realize that my life is part of cultures and can try and probably fail for a while to zoom out from that that’s part of what it takes to to more more fully enter Intercultural space owning my my maess owning my whiteness owning like
When I’m in a dark parking lot at night and I see a woman in the parking lot and we’re the only two people I walk away I walk away because I understand on some level that she probably all of her life has been told keep your keys in your
Hands because you know and and I’m like I’m like I’m gonna walk the opposite direction I’m gonna wait two minutes for her to get to her car then I will walk to my car is that going to take me two extra minutes sure has she spent a
Minute in every dark parking lot she’s ever been in her whole life digging out her keys yes so do I owe that time back yes I do yeah and so me owning my maleness is is part of it me owning my whiteness me owning my cisgendered is
Part of it yeah and so I think that’s that’s the key and and clearly that Community I think probably recognized that you were owning your own stuff right maybe maybe not in in the same words I’m talking about but but in a way that was like oh yeah yeah okay well now
Now there’s tears right and so that’s a yeah an important part for anybody who has privilege is to recognize that you have cultures that are part yeah I mean I think the thing that I learned with the Native American um at least that tribe that I was working with was um
There was such incidents of diabetes um it was so it was so bad and then and then initially I was like oh my gosh their diet is so bad and then I look at it I’m like we took all their land they don’t have any land the land they have
Is crap they can’t grow stuff on it their the closest store really is like 30 minutes away it’s kind of outside of their price budget not only that the Trek and then I would say so many of them sat on their couch at night and they were worried like that bullets were
Going to come through the window and sometimes they would watch TV on the floor and all of those I would say 95% of my patients had lost children and when I say lost children it was something violent like it was like that got run over by a tractor or they got
Hit in a in a car like it was all of these pretty violent things and um nothing was simple about about their existence and not only that they were always having to fight for every little piece of land or every little piece of service that they they needed yeah um
And so yeah of course they did trust me as a white girl coming in I was pretty young and and you know and um and I didn’t understand the level of hardship that they deal with every single day just resources just all resources and then um the oppression and being stuck
On that horrible land it’s it’s huge and I mean you know a few things you said that that resonate with me one of them is about about socioeconomic privilege right um the community where I live I can get to I’m GNA say six different grocery stores within 10 minutes six
Different grocery stores within 10 minutes if I drive across the red line and for your listeners um who remember I said the thing about reading James Baldwin another thing is look at the history of redlining there’s a great video um Adam ruins everything he’s a
Comedian yeah and it was a series on TBS in the web Adam ruins everything red liing Edition look it up it also features Nicole Hannah Jones who’s a a pullit priz winning writer talking about redlining but redlining was when formal segregation ended yeah B Banks still had
Maps and they had a red line and on one side of the red line were good mortgage uh uh bets and on the other side of the I were bad mortgage bets uh and coincidentally the the risky mortgage bets were on in the black neighborhoods and the the good mortgage bets were in
The white neighborhood when I go across what was the historic Red Line in my city uh suddenly on the other side of the red line I think the whole city over there I think there’s three grocery stores and on my side of the red line I’m going to guess probably 35 grocery
Stores yeah and it’s it’s shocking and so so being poor is expensive and so because the the opportunity cost the again think of every time I go to the grocery store I don’t have to think about a one hour round trip I don’t have to think about it yeah and there are
Communities for every time they want to go to a grocery store they’ve got to think they’ve got to factor in an hour round trip what could you how could you otherwise use an hour to earn money how could you otherwise use an hour to build your community up how could you
Otherwise use that hour yeah and so um then two with the native Community you know this is something that that I had to learn over time um is that is that the the native Community even though in the US they have been racialized in other words you’ll see checklists where
It’s like oh what’s your race are you black are you Latino are you Native American Native Americans there there is a lot of of members of the Native American Community are like we are not a race we are sovereign Nations yeah and you’re calling us a race because that’s what
White people have decided to do because y’all like to label things but we are a Sovereign Nation with national sovereignty that you’re violating treaties on right now and so there’s a recasting to me um some groups I go to do what’s called a land acknowledgement where and I would encourage your
Listeners to get on Google and particularly if you’re not native um uh to Google who’s land are you on yeah whose land are you on I I live on the ancestral home of the Kataba um and east of me is the ancestral and and current home of the Cherokee um the
In North Carolina we also have the suan we have the lumbi as well and the lumbi are a fascinating Nation because uh uh freed Africans and Native folks uh joined to get be there there were there was a part of the black diaspora ended up within this nation as well um and so
Um understanding whose land whose land am I on and but more important than that land acknowledgement sometimes I’m at a conference and somebody will say well now that we’re in Toronto I want to acknowledge that this is the ancestral home of this nation or this tribe but
The other piece of the puzzle is besides just putting in a slide on your slideshow and saying I acknowledge this yeah how can you live as an Uninvited Guest how can we live as uninvited guests right um and and I realized that Kataba never invited me here they didn’t
I was not invited yeah um and so how can I live as an Uninvited Guest who who’s pres came with violence you know yeah yeah so what like on an individual level if we work with say we’re um a white male or female we work with people of color yeah we want
To evolve those relationships um but there’s a little there’s a few barriers that we need to cross in order to do that how like what advice do you have like how do we go about doing that what’s the best way to do that what are some things that we
Don’t want to do that are like really offensive um you know that we want to avoid where we we really go in with the best of intentions and we want to break down those barriers but we don’t know where to start we don’t know what to do
Yeah yeah it’s interesting because um I want to challenge your question a little bit in a good way I think but sometimes I have clients that that I’ve literally had a client try to hire me uh to do a two-hour session on what to not say yeah
And I’m like I’m like well well hold on in of what to not say what if we talked about how to understand our own stuff right and and and so so half of your question I think is amazing and the other half I think can come from the
First but when it’s asked by itself it’s more like I don’t want to offend anybody and it goes back to this white politeness thing right yeah and so one of the things is well two two two ideas I’ll share with you one is own your own whiteness right explore the get ready to
Laugh at yourself think about the things that you do that are the most white ever as a matter of fact that video I mentioned the red lining Edition one it opens one of the guys is a comedian and it opens and he’s talking to this guy and he’s in his
House and he goes this is a very white neighborhood and the owner of the house is like this isn’t a white neighborhood and he opens the blinds and looks out and there’s literally a woman with a a latte yeah with with a dog with a sweater with a a canvas NPR tote bag
Full of kale and I’m like yeah that is all the white tropes on top of each other right yeah and so for one get get comfortable laughing at whiteness get comfortable and then get comfortable with the idea that that as a white person you’re not owed trust you’re not
Owed trust yeah start there I am not owed trust by anybody as anybody who’s not white I’m not owed any trust by them so that takes some humility and then the humor side be ready to laugh at why white people do XYZ yes start with those two internal processes and practicing
Those on a daily basis is is part one I think which is is understanding that because most of us sort of act like we’re owed stuff right I mean the Trope of the Karen right is quintessentially the person who feels like they’re owed something and wants to speak to the
Manager right now right yes and so so first of all understanding that you’re not owed anything particularly to people who have less power in society than you um and then two laugh at yourself laugh at your fellow white people and and PS do it to their face like like
In other words um and this is something that again huge privilege on my part and huge that that being a member of a historically black fraternity there are moments few and far between but I treasure these moments where for half a second it’s as though they’ve forgotten
A white person’s in the room yeah and I I get to hear their white person Impressions which is the best thing I love it I love it right because we’re because we’re all nerds we’re all pretty uptight right and so so I get to hear about whiteness from outside of
Whiteness and and that’s again A distinct distinct privilege that I I’m very very thankful for but to to think about your whiteness from outside to try to think about it from outside if you study if you go abroad um that that can be helpful as well and I know you you’ve
Been around the world some and going around the world can remind you when people get back to the United States and then get a soda at a restaurant they’re like oh my gosh how this is this is 50 ounces of soda and they call this a small right the
Portion sizes when you go from from abroad to domestic um but get ready to laugh and then also remind yourself that that you’re not you’re not owed you know you’re not owed anything yeah I think that’s that’s a great place to start and there was a second thought that that
Just escaped my mind but what were you talking about you were talking about what to say what things we to bridge the gap what things we should avoid saying oh one thing is if there are phrases that you think might be racist Google them Google them spend what I call white
People time and Google them um there’s a phrase I used to love uh called C it was Cakewalk and if something was easy I’m like oh that’s a cakewalk yeah and then I learned the history of the Cakewalk and now I don’t use that phrase in and
Um you know uh but then at some point somebody said well picnic is that is that word racist so I looked it up it’s actually not yeah and so but I took some time to go check on these things right um Eenie Meenie Mighty
Mo racist I did not know that for 35 40 years of my life and then I knew and then I moved on and so I think that oh that was my second thought is as a white person some people talk about white fragility right white fragility is if I
Go in somewhere and I’m in a room and it’s a lot of black people and I I’ve never heard that eenie Mei minim Mo has racist roots and I’m trying to pick who’s going to go who’s going to get the soda for the party office party and I go
Eeny Meeny Mighty Mo and my black colleagues go right and then somebody gracefully says you you know that has a racist history and then I get in the middle of the room and go I didn’t know oh my gosh and I start crying in the middle of the
Room and like you know making it all about me and my mistakes yeah right instead of being like oh dang it I’m sorry I’m not gonna use that phrase anymore thank you for letting me know appre I appreciate that time that you just gave me the unpaid for labor that
You just gave me to tell me that this phrase is racist and and I’m I’m going to repay that labor by not using that phrase in the future so thank you thank you and not take the root not make it all about me all of a sudden right not
Make it about the white the white tears and that takes strength it takes humility it takes um because none of us like to feel embarrassed right none of us like to feel embarrassed and guess what y’all it’s time to get comfortable feeling embarrassed it’s time it is time
Yeah I think the thing that helped me the most was I did I took two years I mean talk about privilege I took two years I traveled the world I went with a backpack on a really low budget um but one of the things that I did was I I
Went to uh what what are labeled third W countries sure sure um and I went to a lot of different countries and I made sure that I wasn’t kind of hanging out with a bunch of white people I really wanted to get in meshed into the culture
But I read the culture shock series which is uh these books that kind of tell you the dos and don’ts of the different cultures so that you don’t offend people and that you’re not you know like in Asia you don’t want to point your feet at people you don’t want
To touch people on the head you don’t want to walk around with your shoulders um showing and and just like little like in India you know you you want to take things with your right hand and like there’s just little things that are really really important in those culture
Um and so I think like if people do travel it is worth kind of looking of at the taboo things like what are the things that might be everyday things for us that can be incredibly offensive to other people and just kind of understanding that culture we’re going
Into another culture we’re like same thing I’m going onto the Indian Reservation that’s not my culture it’s my job to learn what I can so that I don’t offend and if I do write own it and take accountability there right uh so so I’m a big Disney
World Fan and one wouldn’t think that Disney World would have anything to weigh in on on what you just said but if you ever visit Disney World yeah and if you ever ask a Disney cast M for Directions They Point like this with two fingers because in many cultures
Particularly in the Middle East pointing with one finger is like giving the middle finger is here in in India and if you spent some time in India you probably know that that in the US if you disagree with something you go like this same same in India for disagreement but
For agree for for agreement in much of the Western Hemisphere agreement is this yes but agreement in India is this yes it’s side to side right um and so understanding it it it takes it because it’s so instinctive right so you but understanding you know that the hand on
The heart uh in some more traditional Arab uh spaces and and the different things and and but but like you said pick up a book read about it some if someone from another culture has given you time to share something about that culture thank them for that because they
Didn’t have to do that right yeah um one of the reasons I do what I do is because uh growing up I was exhausted by seeing my black classmates asked to teach everyone about racism I was just gonna ask you about that yeah or my gay classmates being asked to teach
Everybody about homophobia or whatever and I’m like I’m like my people invented homophobia and racism and misogyny and and and so we need to be active in the uninvented right and so we need I need to be teaching my fellow white people about these things so that so that black
People aren’t wasting their time and Latin people aren’t wasting their time and the trans Community is not wasting their time because they got to navigate a lot of stuff and so for for so I got to work on on people that share privilege with me now again it’s layers
Because when I say the black community it’s not as though the black community is not full of cisgender people and trans people able-bodied people and non- able boded people so I I meet people in the black community with sness often that we Shar s genderedness together and we can have a conversation about
Breaking down transphobia and you know um trans oppression and things like that and I might share so so there’s different things that we share and most people I can meet with some form of privilege like there’s some privilege we share and I can meet them there yeah and
We and we can work together on addressing whatever those isms are that we that we don’t have to deal with right yeah so even though I start with race because I think race is fundamental there’s so much more that makes us us um where where we can find common ground you know yeah
Yeah ah this has been so good I feel like I can talk to you forever thanks thanks so how do what tell people what you’re up to how people can reach out to you how businesses can hire you and um connect with you yeah adaptive challeng consulting.com uh is our website we’re
Also very active on LinkedIn and Facebook and again adaptive challenge Consulting in both of those spaces uh my name is Alan Mueller Alan and I’m sure it’ll be linked Mueller like the spaghetti in the grocery store um and so feel free to connect with me on on L Dan
Or Facebook um and then also you know one thing I’ll mention is you know if I’m going to ever be a white person that that has a company that does EDI work if I’m not bringing along with me and compensating people of color for the
Work that they do that I’m fail that I’m failing at what I’m doing that I’m just capitalizing on work that’s not mine and I’ve had amazing amazing in particular for me black elders and black queer Elders who have taken much more time with me than I deserve to teach me up
And I owe it to them to pay it forward to um to the Next Generation uh of folks of color and so my my Consulting team I think on my Consulting team I I think I only have one other white person at the moment um and so you know my team is
Amazing as well so so if you’re thinking about oh I’d like to hire this Allen guy you know what I’ve got uh four also five other amazing people as well um who who have a lot to offer um and so so uh you know for me um any any time any space
I’m in I want to make space for them as well but adaptive challeng consulting.com is where you can find us yeah well thank you Alan I really appreciate you and your time and your work and um and it was so lovely chatting with you today thanks for the
Conversation it was great I appreciate you thank you for listening to the connected Community podcast if you enjoyed today’s episode please like share and subscribe I can be found at www. niky yoga.com NY y yo g.com until I see you again next week I hope you have a beautiful day
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