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from ABC this is the ten percent happier podcast dan harris. Too often, I fear the process of looking at your biases can be presented as if it's like eating your red. it. In fact, in my fair one of the most fascinating and rewarding things, I've ever attempted to do is to take it. Good hard look at my own prejudices and conditioning, especially as a white man. I wanna pretend this kind of Duration is easy or that I'm especially evolved. I still screw up all the time. However, as I said, one thing that I think is often really underplayed. Is that doing this work can be deeply enjoyable and interesting and also can pay off in some profound ways, one of my I most important role. Models here has been a guy named John, be win who's. The host of a podcast called seen on radio. If he checked

the show has had four seasons, but the seasons that have had the most impact on me are seasons. Two and three season two was called seeing white, in which John explores white people and whiteness. In three is called men in which he looks at sexism. Big had tipp here to my friend seventy selassie, the meditation teacher. and frequent guest on the show who turned me onto John be wins. Work ethic It has had a big impact on me. I was not surprised to learn that john is a meditative himself in that this practice has helped him, as he has done. This often humbling work, one quick audio note before we dive in you may here look but a background noise on his end, occasionally is just an yard. Work shouldn't be too distracting and I wanna do one little item of business before we get into it with. John b, when you can join me, We can add, love resilience, the contemplative care summit, it's a free five day event from march twenty fifth, twenty ninth to being co, presented by

lions, roar magazine and the new york then centre for contemplative care the ladder. And centre is run by a pair of really good friends of mine ocean, paley ellison and Robert jodo Campbell. There are send monks who were taught my wife and I to be hospice volunteers, and then we came really good friends there so go check it out. In fact, the little segment I do for the summit features both me an bianca talkin about relationships stuff, so I go check it out. It's free and you can sign up by visiting lions, roar, dot, com, slash care here we go now with John be went down, they went for common on the show appreciate good to be with you thanks for having me, so I've listened to two of the big series you ve done seeing white and also men. There were hugely influential for me and I think credibly. Well done so really it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. It means a lot to hear that from here.

So let's start with seeing white, it seems to me that the I really related to the conceit as you are setting it up, as you know, both of us are journalists in you are describing your time as a journalist covering the issue of race. You always considered it to be turning the lens on are handing the mike two people of color, never thinking that only to have a race, and so the whole idea of I understand it correctly, and hopefully you will correct me here- was to take a look at white people. Do I have that right? yeah. As I say in the first episode that serious as journalists, I think we think white journalists and that's ok, most journalists right as way people with think that we're covering race when we're reporting on folks of color That's kind of the conceit usually is that reporting about races, pointing your microphone and your camera, and your gaze at community support

when in fact, right and racism were invented by people who look like you and me. And so why are we not pointing our cameras and our microphones and our gaze at white people when we're reporting on racism? And let us be clear, we're not just for me. its use, the word racism and white supremacy, which is over time so yeah. That is the kind of the fundamental move that I to make in framing that whole series was to say We gonna look at race through the frame of this idea. Even the idea, where did the idea come from that? There are some people that we're going to define as being quite and, of course, That goes hand in hand with the idea that there are black people and then than the other kinds of racial, groups kind of get filled in later by some odd notions, Racial science. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, perhaps not in a bad way.

yeah, the sad really love that idea. The foundational idea of the series in and so it leaves me right in what you ended with there, It seems like a foundational thing to know when talking about race, that it is not biologically true it something that was constructed by people who we would now white, that's right! You can you tell us what you learned on that front? Yes, and I think that probably for a lot of people. That just sounds odd to hear you say that when you mean it's not biological, what do you mean? It's not. I mean I'm not imagining that there are people, with lighter skin and people with darker scan, people who were descended from africa, Europe, that's what we mean by white and black rat. How? What are you trying to tell me? That's not a real thing. So the point is, though, that, first of all through most of human history,

the classifications didn't exist. Yes, there were people pay. Divided themselves be in all kinds of ways, much more pro for a long time by religion or by what we might. Now think of as a kind of nationality or ethnicity or language groups and all kinds of ways that people divided themselves. This idea that there were three or four or five or six no there's, never been any agreement actually on how many race as there are what I learned in high school, then my social studies book, was three races of humanity mongoloid, cockers oaten be criteria, and so there have been these classifications there. These large groups that coincide loosely with been caught central regions of the world. There's some meaning to these particular distinctions of three or four or five raises, that is a recent invention

or so hundred years ago. Four, five, six years, depending on where you want to mark the beginning of it, but it was really an idea that was developed. Over several hundred years, really up until the early twentieth century. that some of these ideas were still evil. Moving and being formed in being cut added, and so we actually trace that history really tell that story. Oversight episodes at seeing white series So that's a really important thing to know, as I said, before, sort of on fact, as you venture into this. talk about some of the other big learning for you, as you well on this quest, yeah, I mean really another huge point that we may is that that move that invention, to say, first of all that we're going to classify and really the first,

seemingly in this is, according to the historian, ebro max candy, who many people, I think will have heard of he's been really prominent in the last few years. and he's all over news, media and so on. Really the first move was that europeans in The idea of black people when and why well fourteen hundred fifteen hundreds and it was the time that the atlantic slave trade was really being pioneered and sickly uneconomic decision had been made that we are going to go to sub saharan africa to kidnap people and bring them in. Slavery to raise our sugar cane and our debate oh and so on crime, and that that was it was at that time. That it suddenly became advantageous in origin certified that trade to say well, all of them,

people of africa, we're gonna, sort of lump them together and we're gonna call them a distinct group. Is inferior, they're kind of bee lee was a word that was used. They are less us, and that that justifies while a particularly brutal kind of chattel slavery, that was not common and other people, often say that there was almost all cultures, in ancient history, enslaved people, but it wasn't until really until the west got into the stuff that it was this business of generation. Cogeneration you'd be born into slavery, you would die in slavery. Your children would be born in slavery and lee treating people as property in a very fundamental way that

Actually not there wasn't that much slavery. That was like that, but it was at the same time that they were inventing that, and I dont think its coincidental that some folks decided. Ok, we're gonna, classify humanity into these large groups and we're going to do that on the basis of a hierarchy and say that white p or at the top of that hierarchy. Black people are at the bottom and then for a time. It was not long after that that you are also having the scientific revolution you started having people classify linnaeus and people like that who worse classifying the natural world that You started getting this idea, which was invented by slave traders- a codified into notions of science, that there are three are four or five races of humanity and People are the superior one. Black people are the most inferior and so on. So this that it was not just a kind of innocent, obsolete asian, that lead

the invention of race. It was you know, as I say you need to follow. The money, too, your stand why the invention was made in the first place was created, was invented and that's it. Me those two facts. I understand that racism is a human invention. Number one and number two is human invention, motivated by the wish, to justify the brutal economic exploitation of another group for human beings. leave for me. It's altered my understanding of the way that race works today and ever since you are, if I understood the point that you and the experts on the show were making correctly. You can think of racism on at least two different levels. There's the level I think

it's us think about racism on which, as you know, whatever attitudes biases. I may harbour servant interpersonal racism, maybe, and then there is the races of baked into the structures of our society, If I hear you correctly, you seem to be coming down on the structure part as the more important thing to look at how Firstly, and that's a theme that we touch on throughout series. I'm gonna mentioned the name of my collaborator on that series ginger I come anita whose a These studies, professor, at brokers and upon castor at an artist dinner, somebody who is steeped in understanding, race, but also other forms of oppression and injustice and so on. But that a theme that we had on in particular that he emphasizes again

and again we tend to think. As you say, we tend to think of racism is being an issue of individual attitudes, bigotry prejudice. However, whatever word you want to use, but this is another point that Abraham candy. The historian makes we get the cause and effect backwards. I think what I grew up learning and I think what most of us assume and what we think is the case is to the extent that you have tangible effects of racism, discrimination housings irrigation employees. discrimination, different quality of schools that children go to based on their race, to a large extent that those so the result of individual prejudice, and doktor candy would argue, is actually the reverse is true. We started with policies and practices that advantaged white people and distant adage black people and then, by extension, some other people of color and racist

attitudes actually grew out of that So, as I said these stories, these fictions were problem it actually to justify these policies and practices but then also when you're enslaving, a group of people, and not allowing them to learn to read, for example, and keeping them in a state of as as eighteenth century white guy, put it a guy named John woman. You know keeping them in this kind of Andy nephites state as enslaved people, it's easier to tell yourself the story that their inferior, is there not exactly being given the opportunity to fully develop as human beings rider to thrive, but that the systemic, structures- and this is why you know just in the last couple years. I think a lot more of us in this country keep hearing this idea about systemic racism, systemic racism and I think, there's a

We still need to kind of get our minds around what that means, but think when you retrace the history and you'd. Look at things like well. Instead, eighteen ninety, after the? U s, constitution was signed and the first congress went to work the first two laws they passed were one that the census act under seconds if state thomas jefferson, which said we're going to count white people and other free people and slaves, those categories of peace, we're gonna go the second law they pass was the naturalisation act, which said you can come in he commented unnaturalized citizen of the united states of america. If you are a white person, the free white person, so that's not just attitude. At work. Those are laws and they were all kinds of laws that

in colonial america and in the united states, that created, for example, this idea about the one drop rule. And these were laws that were grounded in economics. was designed to keep more people sort of on the side of the line that would be considered black so that they could be exploited and treated as less than so that people on the white side of the line, especially those in the ownership class who own those folks, could make more money really right. Oh, that they're. Just all these ways, we just keep returning to this point that laws science, you know, systems economic, political, social systems. There actually treat people differently, in very tangible ways, that's what we mean by systemic racism and the attitudes and This is our really secondary they matter in their real and they have

to justify and reinforce those systems and allow us to think that those systems are ok but they're, not the fundamental cause of often after doing all this work what impact it have on you, you did you notice your attitudes, changing and ten attitudes change. I think attitudes can change ass. I mean, I guess you know one of the thing it's hard to describe to quantify. I suppose one of them. things that I noticed was that Most of my life- and you know I'm in my late fifties- I had thought of myself- as I was raised by parents who were kind of progressive racism, his bad. I I thought I was not a racist and was raised to not be a racist. I was a journalist for many years like you and was interested in race and racism and injustice and thought that I was one the good guys. One of the good way people who cannot

stood racism, that it was a real thing and that it was a problem and I one of the innocent ones. You could say I was not part of the problem. And for a long time I thought that was enough that there's a subset in this actually kind of, I think, dovetails with the perception that racism is about prejudices and attitudes the racists, the one who are causing the problem of racism in the country there. The people with prejudice and bigotry and there are kind of subset right And we can sort of identify them they may be. Where hudson bring swastikas to the protest and right and they discriminate against people of color but we're not them so can kind of go about our lives and we're not contributing to the problem. So we, when we are actually rooting for people of color too,

when the struggle to stop racism, that's being done by those people over there right now. I see that that's. Not an adequate very problematic, as it actually makes us complicit if began. If you understand that we're dealing with systems that all of us are part of. and that I'm benefiting as a white person from schools. I got to go to from the way that I looked at by an employer, etc, cetera by cops. Certainly right. By the way, I'm seen by a police officer when I'm pulled over. If I am not actually helping. Put my shoulder to the wheel to dismantle those systems and changed them. Then I'm complicit in that what somebody like apron candy means when he says you're, either antiracist or your effectively racist, because if you're not part

a solution, you're part of the problem? Is people used to say you know decades ago, so it sounds like there's two levels of work that you're proposing here be interested in hearing about both of them. One is the work of examining and your own attitudes and seeing if you can work with them. The other is, as you said, pudding shoulder to the wheel in the effort to dismantling systematic structural racism, about each of these levels and how you think about doing the work, when we saw this, you know in twenty twenty after George Floyd's death and the murders of a model burying brand Taylor that that there was another kind of surge of interest and a whole bunch of white people who really hadn't thought too much, maybe about the deaths of racism in the country kind of having this awakening right and all of the books

the new york times best seller list for awhile, while books about racism, wait, supremacy and I think that's absolutely a good thing for people to do you have that moment of feeling like ok, I need to learn more, that's a good thing and you should go, do that? Listen to our biogas go read those books right, the ones that were on the best seller less and there's a little bit of a paradox in a way because that there's a and based on what I said a few minutes ago about the primary importance of systemic racism. You say: well they the solution. Then is not individual attitudes. The solution is to change systems, but at the in time. I think we need a critical mass of people who are able to see that the change that needs to be made, and particularly those people with this Kinds of power and influence the, We can change those systems right so that it is also true that we need

our people learning, we need more people, reading the books and watching the right documentary films and listening to the right path, yes, so that they can have these aha moments of o? Actually, I'm understanding better how this all works, and that helps me to understand how I might be. To get involved and what would mean, for us too in these institutions and system, so that we have a more just society, and by involved you talkin about voting. Certain way you talkin about hitting the streets. What does it look like in your mind? Yeah, I think it looks differently from people. It's certainly means I would argue voting in a certain way. So, for example- and we talk about this- In the last episode of seeing white, we talk about reparations I think we should be having a conversation. I think we should really be looking at a profound moral debt and actually a profound economic debt that

owed to the descendants of enslaved black people. So I put finally would argue for voting for people who want to have that conversation and want to move ahead with something like that, but that can take other forms to write that recognition of We got to the war, this that we have right. we're listeners will know what I mean by that, but the fact that the average white household in america, as roughly ten times the assets of the average black household, and that is explained by this four hundred years of history right reparation, This is one way to address that, but there are other ways in our should we consider things like Your job guarantee could that inform the way we look at something like whether to cancel a whole bunch of student debt

it actually is relevant. To that conversation, I think so. There are those kinds of policy things. Yes, that could affect the way that we might vote, but is there thing from that too, are their people. my community working on. changing the institutions in my community to make them whether it's the schools or a criminal justice system or any number of other things. Make them less systemically raises in there sits there somewhere can contribute to that work right. It's also things like at my workplace. Am I an accomplice to my car? of color, who are talking about comfort and maybe the outright racism that exists in my workplace or by the white person who kind of system back of the room during the diversity and equity meeting in resents being there. These are all they know when we could go on. I suppose, but those are some there isn't. one or two things that I say to white people

do this I think each have to kind of find our place and what we feel like. We can but I also do recommend you should feel ok about taking some time to learn, as opposed I'm just saying, oh today, I understand that racism is problem and I'm gonna run out barrel and joy the black lives matter, movement in for it do the first thing that I can think to do, because you may actually do some harm if you don't do alone, education, first, I know you're you're in invitation to what extent was, and is your meditation practice helpful in working on your own attitudes, hard to say, because I start it daily or almost daily meditation practice about eleven or twelve years ago. it's hard to say for sure that I wouldn't have been able to do the kind of journalism that I'm doing, if I hadn't done that, but by will

that it seems like there's a certain kind of parallel between meditation actors and this kind of journalists some are documentary, work in the sense that buddhistic I will talk about this a lot of talk about letting go, there's a lot of talk about willing to sit with discomfort with here Something were also with kind of being able, sit and examine our narratives about ourselves and our aspects of our identity that we may be really tied, close We too, that we haven't really examined races to theirs it all of that feels very parallel to me with idea, for example, being willing to say all right what is being white mean to me what of my identity and what are the ways I react in a kind of, active and negative way. If but he says whitenesses

problem in the world. Ginger. I my collaborator on the scene white series. We open one episode actually with him saying you know why when I'd even just refer to a person being white like the white person aid his cereal justino, completely benign AL way that some people just seem to kind of flinch. Some white people and Gets that we're not used to having even the fact that we belong to a racial group having that alluded to- and we get too we get to go- through life for the most part, seeing ourselves and being seen, but at least by other white people as individuals. and being part of a racial grew that may carry stereotypes with it and that sort of thing, that's something that people non white people have to live with, but we do and so that when there was a story, actually Stephen Colbert talked about this one point where I think, the country singer- I forget who it was, but he was in a fast food place,

and the young black worker was just giving his food. When I came out said of this is the way either this that's his in this country, singer got very upset and made accusations of racism. How dare you allude to the fact that I'm white? So, what's that that reflexive response that's an example right of the kind of thing: what's it work there in rather than lashing out and say how dare you call me? Why did you say? Oh, person call me why I guess certainly does that this food is for that black eye there right, if their multiple people and to just learn to say with it and not react and to be vulnerable, be willing to hear things that are uncomfortable, etc, etc. You ve now taken a deep diving to at least two of the most sent. Aspects of modern life and I'm just curious.

their been moments for you, where you ve been really uncomfortable, maybe even defence of her angry and in those moments did you find that, having a practice of looking at your own, mind, systematically and being able to watch thoughts come and go, and do you find that that practice was useful when the rubber hit the road Yes and yes, so I'm too much on twitter and that place where, for example, and I follow a whole bunch of black people? And people of color and I follow a whole bunch of them. Women and that's an area where you will see. For example, people will make these kind of provocative were sweeping statements about why people are bubba or manners. You know or even like why our men, that's an actual tweet. That you'll see Why our man question mark right where there? the big question is it

Kind of, like men are a mess, and why do we have to deal with them and so right? So I can certainly in those moments, in fact, that's it Hashtag, do not all men, which is the the standard response to that, which is what I am certainly capable of feeling like its don't love me and with all those you know those bad guys or the case of racist white people I have learned first of all, what you learn in black twitter, for example, is orange twitter, don't respond that way or as people say it's not about you personally that tweet if you feel like it's not about you, then it's not. You take a breath Move on right, that, yes, absolutely there's a conversation and seeing white where tender I come in. He asks me how important it is to you to be white or earthy. I can't member that's not exact phrasing, but something like that.

And actually we then we took out another whole episode to kind of address that question until but yes I said we have experienced discomfort and it's absolutely been helpful to me again, again and again fact, every day many many times its helpful to me to be both in this work and just in life to be people to just say that didn't hit me right or I'm reacting to that thing. Take a moment. I see myself reacting to it, but I don't to do anything about it? I can just take a breath and let that go absolutely all the time yeah, it's absolutely priceless that capacity and its certainly not the case that I did it. Does it for

all the time or that I'm successful quote unquote at that all the time. But it's absolutely helpful. Much more. My conversation with John, be when read after this. You I've heard about master class for years, but I've never actually care it out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid. The good news is the folks over at master class, are now sponsoring this show and they gave me a subscription and as I look at this as I realise that this is a great place to feel a lot less stupid. The lineup on this is incredible: the people there fruit to teach it just kind of blows my mind. They ve got Aaron sorkin on screen. Gordon ramsay, I'm cooking. Also, Thomas Keller, they ve got Anna lindh tore on creativity. John cabot zan on mindfulness and meditation, which is probably interesting and attractive to

We've listened to the show Noam chomsky on independent thinking, steph curry, on basketball. I could go on. I can't believe I've been sleeping on this app and, as I look at many of these videos, they're show well produced so informative and really really tight, so that you're not wait in a minute you're, just getting these warnings and a very attractive and interesting and entertaining way with master class. You can learn from the best to become your best anytime anywhere and at your own pace annual membership start at ten dollars a month and you get unlimited access to every structure. Thousands of online lessons exclusive content, insights and much more get unlimited access every class and right now, as a ten percent, happier listener. You can get fifty percent off when you get a master class, dotcom flush, ten percent, that's master class dot com, slash ten percent for fifteen percent, often annual membership master class dot com, slash ten percent.

In business, there are plenty of white knuckle situations like data sent. Migrations, office expansions and cyber attacks, just to name a few knocking on would crossing fingers and saying all the well wishes won't help in these situations, because next level moments need the next level network. A t and t business has the security, reliability and expertise to take your business further. Don't realize love to get you thrill get the network. More businesses choose eighty anti business one of the things that I like the least about myself is how defensive I can get at it. I've been nuno meditating but as long as you have in ready books about it and still get caught up a guess wrapped around on this stuff comes up and just some desire. I have like to be, as he uses phrase you know, be one of the good guys and desperately trying to tell me.

of a story that I am and then, when its shows up. That I'm not it's like. I can't handle it one of the things that really helps get him deflate. My defensiveness is to see that my thoughts are just part of nature that we evolved for bias. We have or to serve quickly, categorize things and people, and that can be helpful. As you know, cognitive shortcut it's navigate the worlds or in after you haven't a figure everything out afresh all the time, but it could also be deeply damaging to yourself and to others. If you're, you know and dehumanizing, if you're just telling suffer really quick and inaccurate story about people than treating them a certain way as a consequence of that just to see that we don't have to take our thoughts. So personally we can view As you know, I didn't order up these racist thoughts,

and so I not only don't need to act on them, but I also don't need to tell myself a whole story about how I m irretrievably rotten said: does any of that makes sense to Totally and in fact, to use the exact phrase that I like to use in this case text which is don't take it. So personally, I think this So often what people are reacting to it if I say, for example, whiteness has been a force of injustice and really nothing else. Often, where people here when you say that is you're, saying that I'm bad, because I'm quote unquote because I'm a european american and actually that's not what I'm saying is that what I say is not you. Actually I'm saying that whiteness as a concept really. as we said before, was invented for the purpose of creating hierarchy among human beings

I didn't do that I do benefit from it. but I didn't do it. So there's no reason for me to feel bad personally guilty for having been born into that system, but it also doesn't hurt me to acknowledge the truth of that statement. It's not about me and said I think that is yes, exact what you said so to not only where we wired to make sort since those shorthand distinctions. Ok, these are the people in my group, those of the people in the other group, but then the way that that wiring got applied to these ideas about people. in these quota. Unquote, races, we, and create that either, but that, We grew up swimming in that water right, so that yeah, I think, We should be willing to go easy on ourselves personally, when we

It is ourselves with these in thinking in these kinds of patterns, but At the same time, doing all we can to learn to see ourselves doing it so that we can let it go and not act on it One of the things I really like about the buddhas approach is that he very much aims his message at the pleasure centres of the brain. You know it sir, yes meditations hard, but it will make your life better, because your suffering, whether you are aware of it or not, so, what's the self interest in doing this work looking at your biases, but either be. You know we're race based, biases or, as again, will discuss in a minute your biases when it comes to sex engender. Why do at given how hard it is, well it for me, I guess the young, the motor patients have to do is wanting to be about

A person in the world and In fact, I interviewed a white woman who's, a philosopher at the university of north. a lot of charlotte and she's written a couple, bucks on whiteness I can't remember how, in our conversation, we came around to this kind of question and she said something like oh, what I'm raising children and I dont want them to be monsters that actually choked me up now to remember- and I just such an impact on me right because that's, I don't want to be a monster, and I don't want my children to be monsters and when you recognize depth of the injustice In our society. That flows out of white supremacy. I don't want to be part of that, it's kind of like say You know I'd rather not be a nazi

I'm living in nazi germany, so and people may react like wow you're. Calling me no. I mean it's an analogy right and another This related is just that to me. I just feel more content when I feel like I am living with the truth when I'm, telling the truth. When I'm hearing the truth- and there is so much lying- And gas lighting and misinformation and disinformation in historical moment now, but actually throughout human, story and throughout history. our country, we dont, tell the truth all that often about who we are, who we were, who we are what's really at work, but our society is really like and there's a comfort from a certain sort for me

When somebody says something that feels true or when I say some, certainly when I say something that feels true so the Thing I would say: is that another layer to it is there that I re actually really do think that we all have something to gain. If we could build a society, that's more fair and just. Yes, why? People and I've said this over and over again that way people benefit and gain advantage from white supremacist systems, and so there is the sense in which we have to give up. We have to give up power. We have two maybe give up some advantages, but I think At the same time, most of us would gain efforts. If we lived in a society that treated people better and better, That didn't have all this injustice and pain and suffering that comes from those hierarchies and those systems

yeah to me there's layers of reasons that feel like self interest to me, yes to all that- and I think I would add, on top of it, like I dunno, if I'm gonna be able to articulate this, will here, I'm talking about bias not only as it relates to race, but also all bias. Do you know, can be sexism, it can be ages and it can be the way bodies. Look for me. I can one of the more humiliating things I've learned about myself, as I can kind of place, much more importance on but were in power as opposed to people or juniors and lots of kinds of sore. Mechanisms at the mine. Does that are hard to look at, but I think worth looking at one, because there is it, kind of pleasure, although maybe at times perverse pleasure. Like seeing what your mind is actually doing, because then, when you see it, you're not held hostage by it. So I think there's that actually, in my experience is measurable and then the august. Everything I'd add is that

when you are not so yanked around your biased and by the way I would add in inlet, tribal biases too. You know pain associated with dogmatism and when you're not walking around I'm just trying to defend every random thought. That's come up into your head, like you get along better with people and when you get along better with people, your happier and then you're in an upward spiral of the year. beer, and then you get along even better with people and then you're, even happier, et cetera, et cetera, I'll stop again, because I just want to check this with you to see if it lands absolutely and, yes, I think, you're a happier personally. Most of us are happier if we aren't you gripping arm. But leaves about what's true or are as you say, are tribal identity or I belong to this. Political party or

political ideology and I'm gonna feel terrible. If there's a fact that I hear that just that the other side may be right in this case, gets. You live a happier life if you just willing to kind a kind of softness around those things and say: well, maybe this time Maybe the other side's right about this thing. You know yeah yeah absolutely that rigidity, those kinds of that there's a lot of pain in that and its A source of I think, a lot of our divisions is that people are Holding really tight what they think is true and what they want to be true. So the thing be right and the other guys wrong all automata. Well, I want to ask just about that. Actually, an iron apologize in advance gazelle, long question, but go for it, so I ve been

last couple of years, really trying to systematic They examined my own biases, which is in part why your pakistan has been so meaningful to me. Because you ve done way more work. I've done so I've. I guess get kind of steel from you, one of the areas of- of my own bias at I've really tried to take a hard look at his is the aforementioned tribal bias, journalists, just like you and I've, spent my whole career really working on the capacity to be fair. You live viewed, murderers and call theatres and terrorists and and I've certain don't agree with them, but I believe that I have the capacity to be fair, or at least I believe that, but I'm also, you know a human being who is raised by parents who have views, and in my case they were he no sort of arch liberals and I can't not bring. There is no such thing as a perfect objectivity. That's a fiction, perpetuated by some in our profession, and I've really tried to do

The work of the last couple of years of. listening to pass in red, and following and twitter people from all different parts of the ideological spectrum, You know the far far left, which I couldn't you know sometimes have a little trouble relating to non us so much the far right, but centre right folks, thoughtful centre for right folks, and I found that it makes more complicated my efforts to look at stuff around racism and sexism, because there's some heads knox views that you run across some not very politically correct view. Some aggressively politically incorrect views, because these folks are pushing back against what they view as a sort of cancelled culture or a religion or dogmatism of the left, and it comes from interesting people I've been following this cadre of black intellectuals. Glenn lowry, thomas and williams, jamak warder. And you are they really kind of taking action

with a lot of this after you ve been talking about here. You know that no, of white supremacy and that somehow the country is even post civil rights acts. Totally. You know incurably, racist, etc, etc, and so I wonder what kind of criticism do you hear of your work and you know which of them? Do you take seriously? Well, you know, as you know, podcast, sir, almost purely have self selecting audiences. So I think that I probably get less quit can push back. Then I would get. Even if you know I worked in public radio for a long time- and I think, was probably a broader audience for my work in it and pr public radio system than there is now there. People who choose to listen to this

I don't get a lot of push back, but to the extent that I do more and it has been actually from white people, for example, the reaction to the seeing white series Unseen on radio, it's ten to be people who came across it even just say from a facebook, add that we did about the series or actually I did a ted talk and that's just like an eighteen minutes, taste and so that people just listen to that, maybe or listen to some of it and they just and they re the comments of this is another one of those woke white people aunt I wait haven't received very much criticism, That's very substance! To be honest, I do thank you there are certainly black people, and People color who reject the kind of story, and telling or the and take what I consider to be a more kind of stuff. Men or conservative view of the?

tree of racism, and particularly of the more recent history of racism. I happen to think that their is this wrong, but yeah I guess I don't know really what else to say about it unless you want to till they get into the sum of the substance of that, but I've had debates, and I had actually a pretty strenuous debate with an old dear friend of mine, a guy went to college with it darted over lunch one day and carried for a year or two through long emails. I think some of those analyses don't do justice to really how pervasive the systemic Injustice in the systemic hierarchies and so on are at work, and they often to my mind, Blame the victim. By saying there are some familiar troops like well

beneath the americans. They were hated and they were discriminated here was prejudice against them, but You ve done so much better. Why can't black people do that and I just think that just doesn't do justice to the profoundly different experience than it friend, history between japanese american, seven black people were enslaved for two hundred and forty years and then least from slavery with nothing and and out into a hostile world, etc, etc. With ray I'm still very much at play for many many decades after the sofa. Those are the cancer reaction reactions yeah the model minority argument is: is tough, one last along these lines that I want to dive into the men series. You

I use the term white supremacy a lot. I I think it's an interesting. This is something I've talked about. Quite a bit with a friend of mine, who's been on the show, a bunch, seven, a selassie we've I'll have to check with her before. I include this in the podcast, because these are been offline conversations, but you know I can see kind of two sides to this argument about that term. I think it's technically accurate hard to argue with the accuracy of it. On the other hand, as a previous guest on the show redder ross has remarked it be tricky when you take terms from academia and try to inject them into the mainstream conversation because in mainstream conversation, white supremacy means something pretty specific, which is the people from charlottesville, and so I'm just wondering like how useful is it to use that term? Given that very people you most want to reach our most likely to be triggered by this affair, question think for somebody who listens to the fourteen

part series are podcast, seeing why no we're sort of taking folks, a journey to the? point where that term I think means something differ. you're right, I noticed now. If I listen to the first episode of seeing white, that I use white supremacy. In the way that I have usually understood it for most of my life, which is that you're talking about people in hoods and swastikas that are open, overt racists and that's where that term, that term gets applied. But I think yeah. If you understand more of some of the kinds of things tat, we ve been talking about that really it. comes to mean something both more benign or more. Let's see more ordinary, but also more pervasive with is that we have entire systems that advantage white people and disadvantage

black people and other people of color and that's what we mean by white supremacy to me it there is a process. I think of me defining it and bringing people along to a different understanding of what the word means. But then it feels like the right word to use once you understand that so you're right. I'm doing that. I can imagine that there are some people and people do Have that reaction. I think, with some justification which is that when they hear somebody like me or like a black, democrats activist, say that the unit estates is a white supremacist country that, taking this understanding, which is the clan and yours that that defines this country? people react against that. Understandably, but it's more complex an understanding of what the phrase means. Let's talk about, does you say you did after seeing white called simply men.

He went from the frying pan into the fire. Why? Why did you go into men after seeing why A part of it was the timing. I didn't know what I was gonna do after seeing white and I had some head. You ideas of what might happen, but it was actually- and there were a couple of people- always women- at the time that seeing white came out would send me an email or tweet at me or something and say why don't you do something like this about sexism, patriarchy and I'm gonna, just put that thought one side, I didn't feel necessarily immediately move to do it, but then it was the fall of twenty seventeen. An harvey wines, dean happened and me to movement, blew up, and at tat moment I just decided. Ok, an end to this, I did that it would be constructive,

an interesting and and that I would learn a lot in the process of doing something modeled very loosely on why but just taken, this approach. That says, rather than, for example, looking at a more contemporary journalistic look at how the sexes, culture, work in the modern workplace or something like that to look at how long have we had this idea of human human beings? with sort of had this structure in which men are usually kind of in charge of everything, or when did that start out? start. How did that and to really tackle? that story in the way that we try to do with seeing why and it turns out that sexism is much older than racism goes back. Ten twelve thousand years, apparently, but that it was at least in many ways. What we think of ass, this kind of hierarchical idea, that men are gonna, be in charge of sort of them.

predominating, gender, both sort of at home and what we, give us the public sphere politics, and so on that that can about ten or twelve thousand years ago, and it coincided with People, settling down from small together groups into more complex societies and doing agriculture and specialization of a larger community and stuff like that. So we meet weak. Tell that story based on what the law Scholarships says about it, so the leading scholarship- if I have this right, it says that when we were in short hunter gatherer more nomadic, there was more equality, because everybody needed to pitch in women had of there were some specialization men might have been doing hunting women might have been doing more gathering, but the women had apparently from what we can tell a lot more,

point and then, when we settled down into agrarian culture, that was the moment. Men cease to systematize supremacy. Yes, that's a that's the short version and that's right when you had for most of human history, it's funny to say that now, because most, what again there all these shifts, that out to take place in your mentality, because for most of us, if I use a phrase like most of human history, I'm not going back. Very far. I might be thinking about recorded human history, but If you really talk about human history, you're talking two or three hundred thousand years is what the scientists believe now that homo sapiens have been around and for most of that that time people lived in small, groups of what we now call hunter gatherer forgers and they were usually twenty or twenty five people at the most kind of roaming around together and most

The decisions were made on a kind of consensus basis, there's no indication that those little groups had a male chief, usually or something like that. It was an end. There are hunter gatherer groups to this day in some to the world. That is that's one of the ways that people can look at this question, He has to see that it tends to be people sitting around the fire at night and deciding what? Where are we going to go next and who's going to do? What and alright? as you say, there might be some division of labor along gender lines. but also a lot of things are sort of people did things together, cannot You know I've learned more about this more recently, a lot of nato American tribes, for example, were if not matriarchal. Certainly the cherokee people, for example, they ran on, connects us very democratic kind of consensus. Based

Clan system is in their traditional form of self governance. The typical coming de or village would have seven clans and clan had an older woman who was the head of the clan and to the extent that anybody really was running the show it was those seven women low. Actually, most of it, decisions were made with everyone. hey there, including the children and a kind of consensus based. So that it just was not the case that man ran everything until about ten thousand years ago, and then it became quite widespread in part. Can you know colonialism in society is that were ran that way, dominating others and imposing that structure onto other societies in that kind of spread around the world. That's what people think me so

interesting history? So many twists and turns out, I want to encourage people to go list. the series I ask you something that sort of beyond I'm in a way which is you know that I'm curious again to hear what impact doing this work, on you, as a man has changed the way You view the world has changed the way you navigate the world Yes, I am probably gonna give a similar answer in that struggle with the question a little, but I find it hard to really just go I were to quantify and in both these cases too, I in I was raised by parents who were the overtly. I guess you, say, anti racist, although that term really wasn't use back then, and then also my mother was a feminist too, and I was one

Five kids and there were three boys- and she was overtly talking to us about. You dont be one of these male chauvinist pigs to use the language of the nineteen seventy, sir. So right and I probably thought of myself to some degree as a feminist, since I was in college or so, but so that change or the lesson I have felt relatively son. I also don't claim to be a really good feminist. don't claim at all to be free of gender I sort of patterns thinking about what men and women are like or of a sense of entitlement as a man or I dont- claimed to be free of those things at all, but I think Similarly, too, I guess what my experience has been like with raise its just a process of making it of part podcast series about patriarchy, called man, you know it

It was another step of just getting paid this in a way that Of learning to see here's how that functions. In society in a way that I may be and thought about before, here's maybe how I see myself stating in that or I see it functioning in me. I see the my mind going having that certain you know. kind of expectation or assumption about what's gonna, maybe something that is gonna happen for me, because I'm mail or right or Finding myself surprised that a woman can do this or that that sexism at work in my in my mind, No it's at yeah. It feels again it brings back to this other parallel conversation, we ve been having about a mindfulness in meditation practice and just having moments again and again, where you see what's going on in your mind, and

can choose? Ok, I'm gonna! Let that go! I'm not going to act on that. I'm gonna recognised that that is actually. And untrue thought, and I'm gonna just let it go. If we were to hand the mike your wife yeah no, I think it is partly with my wife in mind that I said what I said a couple minutes ago that I'm not there. I guess you know I have always tried to be the husband and father who purchased. Bates fully in all the stuff now's cleaning in the frame, I've always been more of a dishwasher than a cook who has been a really good dishwasher, not as good as a cook in agenda. But I can also feed myself and I make some meals in, but I think that she would say that, yes,

There are some ways in which I exhibit some of those sexist patterns. There's an academic by the name of dolly chug, dolly fear. Listening respect she has a concept that I love, which is so useful right on point in terms of everything you just said, I think, which is good issue. Now we really want to believe that were good people, but if we can shift that too good issue, she says that allows for to grow so yeah, you're being open about what sexism may still have. purchased in your mind and your when work too through meditation through your journalism through your relationships to be better and those two things can coexist quite nicely. Think under the framework of good english. I, like that

yes and going back to the racism thing. We have that the fact that the very philosopher I was talking about before who said She didn't want to raise her children to be monsters. She would. She wrote a book about good white people and she's actually kind of challenging the idea that a lot Carry around that we're good, but goodish might be trying to be good. and of what, in a way, what it sounds like you're describing and genuinely trying to be good or to be better, I dunno know what more we can do that a beautiful place to leave. It is there something that I should have asked but fail to. I don't think so. People should listen to the show Then I wanna be careful not to spoil it. there's just so much in both these areas and, of course, I've. I don't even know what the first season

The show was an anna and you have a new season. The fourth season on democracy, which I also having listened to so through the lot to explore on the show thank you well, I am a fan of what you do, and it is really truly means a lot to me that you ve listened and you found it valuable. Thank you and keep up the good work. Thank you you as well. Thanks again to John one final of business. Before we go in response to the cascade in crises of the past year. We have done our best on the show from covert to the racial justice protests to the insurrection at the capital? We ve done our best here to make this a place they'll be figure out how to navigate the world and, as you know, the practice of meditation under goods. Nearly all of the practical take ways you'll hear us discuss as you may or may not know many of our podcast cast yes, have also contributed to our committee.

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