What is our responsibility: A final Linguabee Conversation

Today we are wrapping the LinguaBee discussion and having a conversation in how not to be complicit in the harm. How do we support each other when we see harm happening?

Transcript

Welcome to If I'm Honest. On today's episode, we are wrapping up the LinguaBee conversation. Well, let's put an asterisk by wrapping up. We are wrapping up the LinguaBee conversation and we are talking about the team of interpreters. Now here's what We know there are three interpreters in the proverbial interpreting room, and one of the things that we've already talked about is the reality that they weren't actually operating as a team.

They were sharing a job without sharing a job, right? And there was a lack of support that was built into the team. So I'm not going to readdress that, but I do want to have an honorable mention of the other two interpreters, right? And also talk about. What is our responsibility when we are in a room and our team or we ourselves are drowning or are causing harm?

What is our responsibility to one another? How do we create a culture of calling people in and not calling people out? And so in order to have this conversation effectively, what I have to do is also talk about the current culture of our field. And we already know that's problematic. So that's what we're going to talk about today, so come on in the room, let's talk about it.

All right, welcome back to the podcast. Now, before I get into the episode, this is what I really want to say, is keisha is not some kind of investigative journalist. I like, I have no interest in looking into Linguabee any further, to seeing if whether or not they have changed their practices and policies, and how they staff jobs.

I'm not interested in seeing Any more of their dirty laundry or the mess. Like I have no interest in that. I'm not interested in doing that for any other agency. This is not a space where I want to call out interpreters. Like I want to be very clear that when I took the buzz corner invite, I expected it to be very reminiscent of my own podcast, right?

A space where we're just talking about things that are problematic in our field. Let's get the word out. Let's create change together. That's what I expected when I walked in that proverbial door. What happened though is they aired out their dirty laundry and they exemplified the very problems that I want to address in my field.

And so what that did is gave me great content for the podcast, but it also created a mountain of fucking labor. That I am like, Oh my God, having to unpack and repackage and make sure that we're having this conversation in a way that is productive and effective. And so I invite you into the room, the proverbial room of the podcast, right?

So we can talk about some of the problems and how that we create change, but I'm also simultaneously inviting you to the proverbial room of creating change, right? Like you have to become a change maker so that we can create an army of people who call in and call out when we see oppressive and problematic behaviors that are racist, that are Anything, any kind of oppression, right?

All of it. We call that shit out and put a stop to it and we change the culture and feel of our community. And so that means that you have to be active participants. Like, I can't do all of it. Like, I am superwoman, but like, I need off days. I need to chill too, right? And so you have to kind of do that work.

You don't have to kind of do the work. I was softening it. You have to go and do that work. So go and do the work, the investigation that needs to happen for the agencies that you work for, the things that you've seen, call it out. And I think that's one of the things that we're going to talk about today. So the first thing I want to do is talk about the harms that the other two interpreters caused.

I think it's really easy to get lost in the sauce and on the interpreter who voiced for me. One, because he wasn't culture matching. Two, because he struggled, right? But let's talk about the other two interpreters. I think the other thing that's happening is that people are getting lost in the sauce that The person who interpreted for Andrea and the person who interpreted for me, neither of them were cultural matches for the people that they were voicing for.

And so that automatically puts them in a space, in this particular setting, where they are going to make more mistakes, right? And so what's happening as a result of that is there was lots of conversations around these two interpreters where the other one kind of gets off scot free, right? He is in this space and he is a cultural match to the person he's voicing for.

And he's holding his own, right? He's making good decisions. And so we've already talked about how the reality that they weren't actively a team was a problem. And it was kind of. Lacking support for each other to not make poor decisions. And just to go back to the person who interpreted for Andrea, one of the things that she said is like, no one established sign names for us.

So keisha's sign name was being signed, and I wasn't sure we were talking about hair, if we were talking about what, right? And so she chose a term that she knew. She chose a term that was familiar to her and unfortunately that term is no longer being used and causes its own sense of harm, right? But likewise, the interpreter who interpreted for Bucky, well, he made really good choices.

He seemed to be in his element. He was very comfortable. He made less decisions. One of the biggest mistakes that he made is when, Bucky was talking about melanated skin. He said "colored skin." And I can hear now like keisha, there's no big deal. You understand that there are colors of the rainbow and there are people of various shades and hues and, and all this other stuff.

But let me tell you what happens to me when I hear the word colored. It transports me back into a time that I never lived in. Right? We're talking about Jim Crow South. We're talking about the Montgomery bus boycott. We are talking about sit ins, right? You can see the sign. I see it in my head. You can see colored water fountains, white water fountain, right?

You can see colored entrances. That is what happens to me when I hear the word colored. And while it doesn't have the same impact or implication, there is historical trauma in the word, right? Which is why we no longer use it anymore. And so he was trying to define or explain this concept of melanated or darker complected skin.

And he chose a term that makes him feel unsafe, whether that's true or not. I don't know this man. Sorry to this man. I don't know this man, but it made me feel unsafe. Like I don't trust you at all. Right. And here's the thing. There is redemption. There is grace, right? He gets to kind of prove himself, right?

I'm just talking about what happens to me when I hear that terminology. And so these are the mistakes that, that, that they made, and I think that is fair to address, that now we have three interpreters who aren't in group members, that it's not exactly clear if they're having these conversations, and all of them are in this space having a conversation that they may not be as well versed in.

Right, and so I want to talk about that and I want us to think about that I don't want to let either anybody off scott free and I don't want to front load or heavily address and assess the work that the two Cultural mismatches did and leave him out. I think that would be irresponsible But does that mean these are bad interpreters absolutely not One job does not define who you are as a professional I think this decision that you make after that right?

And so that's so so what I want to do now is talk about What is our responsibility when we notice that other people are drowning, when we, we notice that they are causing harm? What is our responsibility? How do we begin to do this thing that I mentioned in the beginning? How do we create a culture of calling people in?

Right? Or calling people out, perpetrators and perpetuators of harm and oppression. How do we call them out? And that's not just with, on the individual interpreter level, that's agencies. In fact, this reminds me of a conversation that I was having with an interpreter the other day. And basically what she said was there was an agency that reached out to her that said, Hey, we have this concert coming up.

We're wondering if you will interpret it. And she said, absolutely not. This artist? No, I'm not willing to do that, but here's what I'll do for you. I'll send you the name of three black interpreters and you fill the job with them. So the agency, for whatever reason, picks one of them. And the other two interpreters were white.

And, you know, spoiler alert. The shit blows up. It goes real left real fast and that was really unfortunate. But her question to me is how do we call out these agencies who I think if I contacted someone who was above the people that I spoke to and even above that person, I still would have got the answer that.

We're just trying to fill this job, right? There's nothing I can do. And here's what I think. And I said this at the beginning is that we need to be about creating a culture of calling in and calling out and collectively creating change. And basically what happened was she said no, but the other two white interpreters said yes.

Right? And so like, she's not just combating a system, she's also combating the individuals that are upholding that system. And this, I'm not even sure if this is a great example, but it is certainly one example. What would have been more beneficial is that every person she talked to that weren't, that were in the position to help make the decisions, agreed with the decision that she made and supported the decision that she made.

So that would mean that those two white interpreters also said no, that would mean the agency coordinators also said she's right. So if we've already booked these two interpreters, we're going to pull them. Right. We're going to restaff this. Right. And that means that at every layer that people we are collectively addressing problematic narratives and oppressive systems within our field.

We have to do this together. So that means that we have to be an active participant. Alright, so let's back up to the interpreters. So here's what we know is we had one interpreter during the entire Episode who was really struggling at points and he was causing a lot of harm and his teams. The interpreter for Andrea and the interpreter for Bucky were just kind of like that's the kind of thing you watch from a distance Right, right.

They didn't step in he himself stopped up and say timeout We need to revamp this. And this is something that Paris pointed out in the debrief. But neither did those two interpreters say timeout, right? They just saw the train wreck happening and watched it. And so what I am asking us is how do we not be any of these people in the, in the situation?

How do we actively say timeout? This isn't working. Can we try something different? I know that this is disruptive. I know it disrupts access and it doesn't feel good, but watching the train wreck. Feels worse. Watching the harm feels worse. Being a participant in the harm feels worse. And I think there are several things that we have to address first, right?

And one is there's a whole group of people who are non-confrontational, right? And saying something feels confrontational. So let me ask you, how many interpreters who are watching. Didn't say anything. And the questions are the comments about the train wreck. How many of y'all? Well, well, let me just say this.

If keisha was watching as a visual participant, like if that's what I was doing, just watching, I wasn't actually a host. I wouldn't have said nothing. Right? Because confrontation feels gross to me. And... Saying something about the interpretation feels like critique and criticism and I don't want to make him feel bad, right, right?

So when we leave it in place because of our own discomfort, we're complicit. Yep, I said it, we're complicit. All right, so we have that camp, but then we also have the group of people who were like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, trying to get through to say, this isn't going well. There, there are errors being made.

People called out the errors. I think that is effective and that is good. But how do we all get to a place where we collectively are able to call out harm that when we see it or to call in people when it's necessary? And that's what we're talking about today. The first thing I think is important to say before we talk about how to effectively do that, we have to define what our field actually looks like.

And we have the doggiest doggiest eaten world. There is right. We eat our young. We are out to demolish and destroy each other. Like this field is crazy. And I think people come in and they could be good and effective and they're like, I'm out of here, right? Because I don't want to be in a field that I feel trashed and beat up and criticized, right?

Because the culture right now is there is not call out. There's not call in. There is just dragging. And I remember I mentioned the reality of interpreting. That Facebook group that has since been shut down, but back then they just drug people, right? And I think you can all think of situations and scenarios where interpreters names have been published in the news for making some decision or have been recorded on TV and there have been blogs and posts and just dragging on social media

for days. We have seen it happen. We've all seen it happen. So how do we shift that culture, because it's trash and it's ineffective and it's why I have been so careful to make sure that I do address the harm and I address the problems, but I also try and do it in a way that has care and compassion and empathy.

Been there, done that, right. But part of the reason I have to do work so hard to do that is because the expectation is that I am the field. I am someone who drags you. I am someone who puts you on blast. I am someone that's the, that's, that's what the field is. Why would keisha be any different? Right?

That's the norm. So how do we make it the abnorm? Like, how do we make that gross? How do we make that so repulsive? that it doesn't stay in our field and the people who are actively perpetuating those types of harm that are completely unproductive get out of the field. How do we do that? I think that's a great question.

Somebody answer that for me. Right? How do we change the culture of our field that it is supportive, that it is comfortable, that I know if you call me in, you genuinely care about me. You care about my product. You care about the work. You care about the people that we serve. You respect me. How do we create a culture where calling in and calling out, isn't this kind of destructive mechanism?

I don't have an answer, but what I can say is the status quo, the norms of our field, that culture is the life force of the interpreter archetype and all the problematic nature that she is. That is where the pick me energy lives and breathes. And it's so toxic and problematic. And so what I want us to do here is to be the kind of people who call people in and call people out with empathy and compassion and gives people their own full access to their humanity.

I allow the full spectrum of your humanity in conversation with you, in talking to you about your work, in talking to you about the mistakes you might have made, right? I don't dehumanize you in any way. I allow you to be you. You allow me to be me. And I think that is a really important thing that we are trying to create here.

And we have to create here if we are going to go up against norms. All right. So before we get back to the interpreters, I want to make sure that we define some terms I've been talking about a little bit, but then I realized I hadn't yet defined it. So let me define it now. A calling someone in is an invitation to a one on one or a small group setting where it is intimate and you can have a conversation about the harm someone calls.

So in this case, a calling in for the team of interpreters could happen through DM. It could happen to text message. It could happen to, Hey, you're not doing this effectively. This doesn't seem to be going well for you. How can I support you? That's a call in. It's very gentle. Now a call out is public, right?

So you're calling. You're calling someone out publicly it might be a person, it might be a group, it might be an agency, it might be an organization, it might be a system, right? You're calling this group out publicly to confront the ways that they continually perpetuate harm. All right. So these are terms that I want to make sure provide the context for what we're talking about.

All right. So let's move back to the interpreters and talk about what does calling in actually mean and look like in this situation. And the first thing I'll say is that we have to be able to call in ourselves or call out ourselves when we are causing harm, when we are being ineffective, when we are not the right fit.

We do that by self analyzing and evaluating our positions, our power, and how we are impacting the situation. So the first thing that I could recommend in terms of calling in is the interpreter who voiced for me could have said, this isn't working. Either I need a team that can better support me and that means that we need to shift how this is structured or I need to recuse myself, come out of the job altogether, or I need to take on a supportive role.

There are several things that he could have done to call himself. Right. And again, I don't think that we have this culture. We don't have this built in already. I don't think this is practice. I don't think anybody else is talking about doing this and they are, please send them my way. I want to talk to them.

Right. I think we're talking about shifting things. So how do we call ourselves in? I think the second thing is, His team, right, having a team. They can say, Oh, hey, hey, listen you're not doing this effectively. Right? Because there's three people alternating. Hey, you're not doing this effectively. And it's causing harm.

How can I support you? Do you want me to switch you out? There are ways that you can have these conversations. And again, because our field is such a dog eat dog field, that the way in which that we give and offer voluntary feedback is less than what it should be because people aren't receptive. People don't respond well.

To just this feedback that no one asked for people don't respond well to it And so therefore we have to create a culture where people are just responding felt to basic feedback about skill about attire about fundamental things so that when we get to the harder things like Hey babe, You're causing harm just on the basis of you being white and you should not be in this space like we discussed with Keith Wann or you're causing harm because you don't understand this content and this really should be represented by whatever or calling link would be out and saying, "Hey your staffing practices the way that you send out jobs the information that you provide that gives us to select Whether or not we're a good fit is inadequate. And you have to improve that so that we can give the people that we serve a fighting chance for effective communication in a way that is comfortable and easy and as it should be", right?

And so I think that's really important to talk about is that right now, all of this is feedback. So what his team could have said is one of the team who was in the off seat. Per se could have said, Hey it seems like you're having a hard time. How can I support you? Or don't say colored, right? That's harmful.

It has a lot of historical trauma, or I think they're using locs now. And if no one has that content or that context, who's coming to them afterwards and saying, Hey. There is language that has been updated that I would recommend that you adapt. Remove these things from your lexicon because coming from you in the context of who you are and your identity, it causes harm, right?

So that's what a call in looks out, looks like. A call out looks like, "hey, LinguaBee.

Y'all ain't improved from the last time. You staffed the link would be debacle, key shit I'm posted on the damn episode, and you still doing the same shit. And I see it, because it came to me, and now I'm sending it to"... Right? That's what a call out looks like. And I am not interested in... Creating a group of people who can't call people in, right?

Like I think a call out is like a last resort. It is public, it is loud, it is in your face. And it has a specific impact, right? All right. So I just talked about in this last section, what calling in and calling out looks like, and I said, one of the reasons that our field struggles is because. People aren't open to feedback.

Well, let's talk about the historical thing. And I think this is clear, but I want to name it. And it's the reality that historically the feedback that we have seen been given and may have received ourself has been T-rash, absolute filth. Get it out of here. Right? Like, it's been so grotesque, it makes people leave the field.

If that's how you talk to me, and that's what you say to me, I don't want your feedback. Right? If you come to me without relationship, and you tell me I'm not qualified, and I don't belong here, I'm not going to stay here. You know what I'm saying? And so, part of the reason that people aren't receptive to feedback because historically it hasn't been safe.

And so, what I'm talking about is creating and being a safe person to have conversations with about hard things. Right? So, when I come to you and I call you in, you know it's not because of some other shit. You know, it's actually what I'm presenting you because I've built up relationship. I've talked to you enough.

You've seen me on the podcast enough to know that I'm coming from a place of empathy and compassion, and I'm talking to you about you, but I also have likely done the same damn thing. Right? And so I think that's part of the problem too, is, is there in, in addition to the lack of good, constructive feedback.

Cause I'm not saying it doesn't exist. So like don't operate in absolutes. It exists. Sure. And what also exists in triplicate.

What this means is that the ways in which that we respond to feedback and being called in and being called out is a trauma response. We have seen people make mistakes publicly and get shredded publicly. And sometimes we have been a participant, an active participant in calling this person out. And I will say this, I don't think social media is a good platform for it.

I don't. I get that I have a whole entire podcast, but I don't think social media is an effective way. Of calling someone in and creating an active change that is, Hey, come here. Let me talk to you for a second. I just don't think it's going to work there. Right. I think that is the place that people go to die.

I mean, I get that that's dramatic, but it's like what happens and we've seen it happen, right? So of course I've seen people get called out publicly and get shredded and demolished for a mistake or decision that they made what's going to happen to be. No, I don't want feedback. Nope. I don't want you calling me in.

Nope. I don't want you calling me out and I don't even know if you're safe. Right. And so we have to be safe. We have to be safe to have these conversations. And I get that this episode is like super ethereal, right? Like it is so meta because I am talking to us about what our responsibility is, what I can say definitively is doing nothing, nothing.

Watching the train wreck is complicit. Don't be complicit. Alright, so let's say you are on the receiving end of being called in or called out. I have said it before, I will say it again, the hook to this song, the refrain to this hymn, the melody to the music. It's to sit in the discomfort and recover well.

Now let's say you are on the giving end and that means that you have to call out a system, a person, an agency, or you're calling them in or whatever the approach is that is necessary for effective communication. And one of the things that I think that you should know it's to read a book by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg that is called Nonviolent Communication. And this allows for you to think and consider what people are thinking and feeling, what needs aren't being met and how you meet them and you talk to them in a compassionate way. And you tell them, Hey, you're causing harm and you do it in a way that they can be receptive and feel safe.

Even if it's uncomfortable, I don't feel like I provided no active options or solutions in this episode. I identify the problem that we have a responsibility when we see harm happening. We absolutely do. And calling in and calling out is the responsibility. And what does that look like? And how does it look?

And how does it feel? And how do we do it, right? And one, we have to be safe. Two, we have to have effective communication. And three, if it's us, we have to recover well. Thanks for joining. You know what? Next week, I am having my BFF Jill back and we are going to talk about fighting for your racism. Come on in the room.

We're going to keep talking about it.